OAI IIDSF LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 914 .5 C63d The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN SEP 3 ]980 L161— 01096 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/journaloftouriniOOcobb_0 I I JOURNAL A TOUR IN ITALY, AND ALSO IN PART OF df'vance arils ^Ujttjrrlantr ; THE ROUTE DELNG From Paris, throu'^h Lyons, to Marseilles, aiul thence to Nice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Mount Vesuvius ; and by Rome, Terni, Perugia, Arezzo, Floren4;e, Boloi;na, Fenara, Padua, Venice, Verona, Milan, over the Alps by Mount St. Bernard, Geneva, and the Jura, back into France. , THE SPACE OfF TIME BEING FROM OCTOBER, 1828, TO SEPTEMBER, 182a. CONTAIxNING A Description of the Country, of the principal Cities and their most striking Curiosities; of the Climate, Soil, Agriculture, Horticulture, and Prodncts; of the Prices of Provisions and of Labour; and of the Dresses and Condi- tions of the People. And also some Account of tht Laws and Customs, Civil and Relij^ious, and of the Morals and Demeanour of the Inhabitants, in tlie several States. BY JAMES P. C(DBBETT. LONDON: > PUBLISHED AT 11, BOLT-COURT, FLEET-STREET* MDCCCXXX. LONDON : PRINTED BY MILLS, JOWETT, AND MIIL! BOLT-COURT, FI EET-STREET. LIST OF MR. COBBETT'S BOOKS. ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Price 3s. \ FRENCH GRAMMAR. Price 5s. COTTAGE ECONOMY. Price 2s. 6d, j MR. COBBETT'S RURAL RIDES. One thick vol. 8vo. fPrice OS. THE WOODLANDS. Price 14s. THE ENGLISH GARDENER. Price 6s. YEAR'S RESIDENCE IN AMERICA. Price 5s. MR. COBBETT'S SERMONS. Price 3s. 6d, THE POOR MAN'S FRIEND. Price Qd. PAPER AGAINST GOLD. Price 5s. HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. Two vols. Royal 8vo. fine paper. Price 10s. « ROMAN HISTORY, in French and English. Price 13s. AMERICAN SLAVE TRADE. Price 2s. TULL'S HUSBANDRY. One vol. 8vo. Price 15s. EMIGRANT'S GUIDE. One vol. 12mo. Price 2s. 6d. A TREATISE ON COBBETT'S CORN. One vol. 12nio. * Price 5s. 6d, ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN. One vol, 12mo. 7s, 6d. List of Mr, Cobbetfs Books, MARTENS'S LAW OF NATIONS. One vol. 8vo. Price 175. THE LAW OF TURNPIKES. By W. Cobbett, Jun. One voL 12mo. Price 3s. 6d, LETTERS FROM FRANCE. By John M. Cobbett. One voL 12mo. Price 4s. A RIDE IN FRANCE. By James P. Cobbett. One voL 12mo. Price 2s, 6d, AN ITALIAN GRAMMAR. By James P. Cobbett. 12mo. Price 6s. A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF GENERAL LAFAYETTE. Price Is. JOURNAL. October, 1828. ' 21rsf- FoNTAiNBLEAU. — Start this morning from Paris for Lyons, coming through Villejuif^ Fromenteau, Essonney Ponthierry, and Chailly; and sleep here to- night. Go in the evening, as soon as we arrive, to see the royal chdteau at this place. It is a magnificent old building, one really fit for the residence of a prince. The garden is in that formal style of laying-out which so much prevails on the Continent : long, straight gravel walks, bordered by rows of trees which, from a long suc- cession of careful trimmings, have been made to look like so many live walls ; fountains; and miniature lakes, with weeping willows leaning over their green margins, and swans floating on their waters. These lakes, or ponds rather, and their appertenances, would be ad- mired any where; and the tout ensemble of the scene is indeed beautiful and grand ; but the close clipping of the rows of trees, trees which would be so much more ornamental in a more natural shape ; not to condemn such a violence as this is, would be tacit injustice to- wards the superior taste of our English gardeners. — The grapes of Fontainbleau are justly celebrated. They are 2 AVALLON. remarkably thin-skinned and sweet ; and, though some people say that we have as good grapes from our hot- houses, I certainly never saw any fruit of this kind so fine in England. The best grapes at this place are now selling at fourpence sterling the pound, 22nd, JoiGNY. — Come to this place through Fossard, Villeneuve-la-Guyard, Pont-sur-Yonne, Sens, Ville^ neuve-le-Roy, ^iudVille- Vallier, The king is now stay- ing at Fontainbleau^ on a hunting excursion ; so that we have to pay one additional post both on entering and on quitting that town ; and this, it seems, is always the custom in a country town where the king may happen to be. It is not merely for the honour of the thing, as one might suppose, that his Majesty's neighbourhood thus increases the traveller's expenses : there is, they tell us, a partial scarcity of fodder and other things, occasioned, for the time, by the demands of the royal retinue. — Too much cannot be said in praise of the noble forest of Fontainbleau. Great as is the distance which you have to travel through it, it is a piece of scenery that an admirer of forests may view a hundred times •with equal pleasure. — Hay-making going on (second crop of meadow-hay) between Sens and Joigny. They are now making lucerne-hay also ; and this they truss in the fields before it is carted. 23rd. AvALLON. — Come to-day through Basson^ Auxerre, Saint-Bris, Vermanton, and Lucy-le-Bois. A country of vines, and the greater part of it very hilly. Fine views, and apparently capital land. The wine of LYONS. the country hereabouts is more than commonly good : you may have a litre of it, about three English pints, for less than threepence of our money. 24^A. AuTUN.— Come through Rouvray, La Roche en Breny, Saulieu, Pierre-Ecrite, and Chissy, Not so many -vines^ and country less hilly. Much scenery here to put us in mind of England ; the fields being well fenced with live hedgeSy the lack of which the eye of an Englishman may naturally regard as a defect in any country. — I believe I must have to retract an observation which I made, a few years ago^ in a Ride in France/^ with regard to the use oi potatoes by the French. They do, as I am told here, eat a great deal of this root ; and they boil it, as with us. Cakes made of buckwheat, after the American fashion, is also a food of the country peo- ple in this part of France. 25th. Macon.— To-day through SL Emilan, St. Leger^ Bourgneuf, Chalons- sur-Saone , Turnus, and St, Albin, Hilly^ all the way. Much corn-land. Indian corn grown here, in apparently large quantities; and a good many fields of turnips, of a sort of red tap. Culti- vation good. Fine water-meadows in the valleys. 26th, Lyons. — Through Maison Blanche, St. George de Rognains, Anse, and Limonest, This city is, all circumstances considered, a very fine one. Its popula- tion is about 100,000. The central part of the city is almost immediately on a point of land, where the riverfe Rhone and Saone join together in one stream, which renders the situation peculiarly advantageous. Yon B 2 .4 LYONS. approach Lyons on a descent of considerable distance^ which gives you a good view of the city and its environs. It is more English-like, on a distant view, than any place I have seen in this country. It is not a mere com- pact mass of buildings ; but the place has an agreeable irregularity about it, and the beautiful hilly country around is sprinkled with nice-looking houses. Lyons seems to be increasing in size ; great numbers of houses in the neighbourhood have the appearance of being newly built.— The Hotel de V Europe is a fine hotel, and as dirty a one as need be. The furniture in the mile a manger decorated with tapestry, and that not of an inferior kind ; four looking-glasses, each of which contains not less than forty feet square of glass; the sides of the room of finely-carved wood ; rich window-curtains; side-tables with marble slabs. To consist with all this, the dining-table is dirty, never, to all appearance, having been either washed or scrubbed ; and down one of the splendid looking-glasses may be too easily traced the streams of the major part of a bottle of beer, which, ^s the waiter says, spouted up to the top of it il y a quelques jours (a/ew days2i%o)\ 21th. — There are two theatres in Lyons ; and the larger of them is by no means a mean house ; to this one we go in the evening, and see the Femmes Sa^ :vantes'' pretty well played. But what a different style of play-going is this from that of an English town, and how inconsistent with the propensity to show of the JFrench people ! The ladies, in that part of the house LYONS. 5 which we call the dress circle/* seem to have stu- diously left their best dresses at home. If they have done this for the sake of economy, the motive is indeed justified in reason ; for the finery must be of a stubborn hue which should come off none the worse for being worn in a place of assemblage so dirty. This, however, is not the motive : there is no fashion for dress in the French theatre. Most of the ladies wear large bonnets ; and when they feel it agreeable to disencumber their heads of these, the bonnet is flapped over in front of the boxes, and dangles towards the pit from one of its ribbons. 2Sth. — We take our places in a bateau, to go down the Rhone to Avignon, For this passage, the mere car- riage of us, v/e pay 12 shillings sterling each person. It is at the traveller's option to go hence to Avignon by land or by water. Many prefer the river, on account of the badness of the road, which, I understand, is very rough. The going by water, down the Rhone, may be very quick, as the current is so rapid. But the objection to the river is, that it is, in parts^ so shallow that nothing but a flat-bottomed vessel is fit to navigate it. Our bateau is of this description : it is a flat-bottomed, open boat, or barge rather, of about sixty-five or seventy feet in length, constructed in a style so rude, and having so- little appearance of accommodation or comfort in it, that nothing but the hope of a short passage, and fine weather to make it in, would induce genteel folks to embark in such a vessel, at all. Our party, with some other English- travellers, have a separate part of the boat to themselves. 9 ST. ESPRIT. The fore half of the room is occupied by the commander and his crew, with about thirty people of the country who are going to Avignon ; and immediately in the stern is an Englishman's travelling carriage. The vessel is worked with long oars, which are required more to keep her in due course than to add to her speed. 29th. Tain (on the bank of the Rhone). — We start from Lyons early this morning, bringing to, for a short time, at Chamon to breakfast ; and sleep at Tain to- night. — A cold; cutting, north wind, which is gene- rally felt here at this season of the year : they call it la bise. — It is curious to observe the mingling of the two streams, the Rhone and the Saone; the former being so very clear, and the latter comparatively so muddy. The scenery down the river is mountainous ; the mountains increase in height as we descend, and are irregular in shape, and very rocky. Cultivation, prin^ cipally that of vines. The wine here is excellent. 30th, St. Esprit (on the bank of the Rhone). — We get on board again before dayhght this morning ; break- fast at Valefice ; and sleep here to-night, — The banks of the Rhone are exceedingly interesting and romantic : chains of mountains, wild and sharp-pointed, a large part of them bearing nothing, and consisting of nothing but rock. Some convents, and ruins of old chateaux, whicjj have a fine effect as seen from the river. The villages, too, are most singular; they are so many dirty little crowded old-fashioned towns : how little resembling our idea of a village ! The stream of the Rhone is strikingly ST. ESPRIT. 7 beautiful, though it requires constant care to navigate it without running aground ; it is varying in course at every instant, winding about with great rapidity, and with a brisk succession of deep and shallow water, splashing eddies, and rippling shoals. The impetuous current pours along in defiance of incessant obstacles, and dashes over or around whatever stands in the way of its career. It does seem, in a manner, to be devour iny the land it runs through. The Rhdne is said to be so called from the Latin rodere, to eat, or gnaw ; and hence this river has been apostrophized by Petrarch, Rapido flume, che d'alpestra vena Rodendo intorno, onde '1 tuo nome prendi, &c. The wind to-day so severely keen, that one must feel it to know what it is like. My thermometer (which is of Fahrenheit) stands at 50. We have a slight cover- ing to our bark, consisting of tarpawling spread on some hoops bent across the vessel; and we have some charcoal burning in a large pan. This is a style of travelling that one might expect to meet with on the Ohio or on the Swan River ; but we did not look for this with Frenchmen, on the Rhone, They have endeavoured to establish a steam-boat between Lyons and Avignon ; but it was found either that the river was in some parts too shal- low, or that the rapidity of the current was too great. There appears to be nothing like a regular packet-boat for the public here. The boat which contains us is more frequently laden with logs of wood than with travellers. ST. ESPRIT. Our apartment in the boat is divided from that of the; French passengers by a partition of thick canvass, which, luckily, is not sufficiently impervious to prevent our par- ticipating in the mirth of our neighbours^ who have^fj all this day long, been kept in a roar of laughter at ■. the jokes of one of their party. This wag, or farceur j as his countrymen would call him, poured forth his sallies, in the genuine dialect of this part of France, the patois Lyonyiais or Provencal ; and if his wit was sometimes- too vulgar not to betray a lack of learning, its extrava- gancies showed that nature had amply furnished him with imagination. It was too much to expect, being so nearly in the presence of this gentleman as we were, that we should come off without one jest at our expence. It happened, to-day, that some of our party were playing- at cards, and that an unexpected turn-up in the game^ gave lise to a loud laugh : AhaT' exclaimed the far*- ceur, cutting short the thread of a story he had just then in hand, and pausing as if to wonder at any thing like gaiety in such sedate people as the English, ^' Aha il par ait que les Goddems s^amusent (it seems the " Goddems'* are having some fun); then, putting his eye to a small aperture in the hanging, and turning back to his companions, he explained to them the cause in a tone of moderated surprise: lis jouent aux cartes" (they are playing at cards). How much less of the bear there is in a Frenchman's ridicule than in that of an Englishman ; and how much more numerous are such sprightly fellows in this country than with us I AVIGNON. 9. dlrst, Avignon. — The wind to-day blowing almost- a hurricane ; so violent that there is danger of the covering being blown away from the boat. We get> off about ten o'clock, and have a severely cold jaunt of : it. — There are several fine bridges across the Rhone 3 one of them is a swing bridge, much like that lately made over the Thames by Hammersmith, We are hardly more than well off this morning, when the hat of one of our crew is blown into the water. They stop to pick > up, in spite of the well-known danger of sticking fast ; and we have to wait during three quarters of an hour^ vainly endeavouring to get the boat away from the strand : again, such is the force of the current. Succeed, how- ever, at last; but not, of course, before we have repeat- edly wished all shill-I-shall-I, chattering Frenchmen,, and all their flat-bottomed boats (except one), at the bottom of the Rhone ! — A good many boats coming up the river. Most of them are laden with large cargoes of chesnuts, the famous marrons de Lyon, For these boats to ascend the Rhone, it requires many days to go a hundred miles. They are drawn along by horses: we see as many as thirty horses or more to every two or three boats. — The country more and more picturesque^ as we approach Avignon, where we land in the evening. November. \rst, to lO^/i.— We are detained here all this while in consequence of illness. — The country imme- diately round Avignon is agreeable. There are a 10 ST. CANAL. good many olives, though but of a small size. The Hotel de V Europe here, kept by Pierron, is a deserv- edly celebrated house; the charges are very reason- able, considering the superior entertainment afforded. It is said to be one of the best hotels in Europe. — Avig- non is situated immediately on the Rhone. The town is not large, nor is it elegant in the inside. It is encir- cled by a handsome old wall, however, round which, on the outside, there is a road to drive, and a promenade shaded with rows of trees. The ancient palace, formerly the habitation of the Popes, stands on an elevated situ- ation, just within the town, and overlooking the river. ' Orgon.— Fine weather (69)*. We set off to- day, with a carriage and pair of horses, for Marseilles. Road horribly bad : we are seven hours and a half going about twenty miles. Orgon a small place. — A flat coun- try, and seemingly good land. Corn ; much vine- yard ; grass laad ; and some lucerne. 12M, St. Canal. — Fine weather (65). This is ano- ther small town or village. A short day's journey again, coming, literally, a slow walk all the way. The road, it appears, is never good here ; and it is now unusually bad^ * I have, tbroughout my Journal, kept as correct an account as I possibly could of the sort of weather and of the temperature of the air. It is Fahrenheit's thermometer that I carried with me. The figures in a parenthesis, which I put at the beginning- of my notes of each day, are intended to mark the highest degree at which the thermoms'ter stood during the day-time of tUe twenty-four hours. AIX. 11 (Jawing to heavy falls of rain. Much of the land very- barren ; a good deal of mountain of mere rock. Some vines and olives ; many mulberry-trees (for the silk- worms) ; and walnuts. An uninteresting and somewhat wretched-looking country. ISth, Aix. — A little rain, but mild (63). Come to- day only about ten miles. Country much the same as yesterday. Some olives along here, and a great many almonds. No chateaux, no gentlemen's houses seen from the road : not the least appearance of riches, in the ordinary acceptation of the word. One cannot help wondering at the small number of dwellings, of any description, that meet the eye here. The labouring people throughout this part of France look healthy, and, judging from their faces, seem to be well fed. — They have an odd way in this country of clipping the coats of their horses, mules, and asses. All the upper half of the animal's body, including half the neck, and the upper part of the head, with the ears, has the hair clipped off close; and the shortened hair is left so smooth, so com- pletely free from the traces of the shears, that, at first sight, one might suppose the thing to be a freak of nature. It is for ease in cleaning, and quick drying, that this operation is performed. lAth, — Some showers of rain, but very mild (63), — This place is the capital of the part of France called Provence. It is situated in a plain, and is an agreeable place enough, particularly in its main street, the houses of which are large and well-built, Aix con» 12 MARSEILLES. tains upwards of 20,000 inhabitants. There is a ca-», thedral ; and just outside of the town stands a large college, which has been abdicated by the Jesuits, wha lately occupied it, but who have been obliged to yield ta the av^fful hue-and-cry of the liberals J* 15th, Marseilles. — Fine day (67). — Ashortday's journey to this place from Aix. — Much rocky barren country, "Vines, olives, and corn 5 but a great part of the land very shingly and shallow. The sun seems tO; do the work here. — The immediate approach to Mar- seilles exhibits a fine view. We are for some time, descending towards the city, having the Mediterranean in full sight. Very fine vines and olives around the city,, the entrance to which presents an animating scene of business and bustle. The houses in the principal streets are high and well-built; streets straight, well paved, with flagged walks (trottoirs) for foot-passengers ; a thing not met with in many French towns. — The weather is so fine that we dine with our windows open. \Qth to 2lrst, — Fine warm weather, with a few showers of rain. (From 56 to 67.) — We are at the Hotel Beauvau, a good house. The windows of our rooms are immediately overlooking the quai, a theatre of wares and traffick, which has more life, and less, of the disgusting about it, than any other like object that I have ever looked on. The prospect is quite spirit-, stirring. But, then, the sky under which all is going, forward is delightfully clear ; the sun is shining its brightest and serenest upon every thing in view ; and thc^ CUJES^ 13 atmosphere is entirely free from that smoke in which the cities of England are everlastingly smothered. For a place of such trade, this city is surprisingly clean. The people, too, are good-looking. One would hardly be- lieve, from merely English experience, that a large sea- port could be so agreeable. The French have not much taste for towns ; at leasts their taste is not like ours : our French friends here marvel at our admiration of Mar- seilles, and seem to count the cleanliness of it as no weighty consideration in its favour. — Melons grow here in the open ground, and fig-trees in the fields. There is a sort of green-fleshed melon ripe at this time, called melon (Thiver. We buy melons for 4c?. a-piece, figs for l^d. the dozen, medlars for 2d, the lb. Great quantities of roses, pinks, carnations, and tuberoses, in the market. 22nd. CujES. — Beautiful weather (66). Start this morning from Marseilles for Nice. We have a fresh carriage, hired at Marseilles. There are six persons in our party ; we are to be seven days on the road to Nice ; and w^e are to pay 91. J 2s. for the carriage. There are three principal ways of travelling here : with your own carriage and post-horses; by the diligence, or stage- coach ; and by what is called voiturin. Our way is the last of these three. The voiturin^ or man who con- ducts you, is very often the proprietor of the carriage and cattle himself; and he is, generally speaking, a respect- able and trust-worthy person. Our carriage is drawn by a pair of those tall strong mules in Avhich the southern parts of France so much abound. The form of a voU 14 CUJES. ^term-carriage is nearly the same as that of our barouche ; only that, in the front, and quite separate from the maia interior, there is an additional seat for two or three per- sons, which has a head to it, and a leather apron, pre- cisely like those of an English gig; and this compartment of the vehicle is called the cabriolet. Great care is taken to have room and convenience for the packing of luggage. The part which we call the foot-board, situ- ated between the hind-wheels, is purposely made very spacious ; and upon this are placed three or four good- sized trunks, or the most cumbrous of the luggage, what- ever it may be ; and as this does not ride on the springs, a strong chain is employed to bind all fast, and prevent injury by jolting, the chain being drawn to any degree of tightness required by the use of a small crank on a cog-wheel, a bit of machinery most commodious, and characteristic of the general strength of the whole equi- page. The lighter effects, such as bags, baskets, and so forth, go on the roof of the carriage, styled, on account of its local elevation, the irnperiale ; and the roof is fenced round by a shallow piece of iron wire or wood- work, to which is strapped or tied down a covering of some sort to keep out the weather. The harness of the team corresponds with the carriage : convenience and durability are, as far as possible, combined ; and the traces and reins are more commonly made of hemp than of leather, seeing that ropes will last pretty nearly as long as straps, and that the former are infinitely cheaper than the latter. CUJES. 15 Our road here is better. Some of the rocks on the mountains very high. Mountains covered with pines, the trees which they call sapins. Land very good. Vines, in the plain-land, in rows, two or three rows together, with a widish interval of wheat, horse-beans, peas, or fruit-trees. They say this mode of cultivation is better than devoting a whole field to one kind of crop : the vines push their roots through the interval in which the crops grow, and have the benefit of the cultivation and manure that they there meet with. The wheat looks exceedingly fine. Horse-beans and peas now about three or four inches high. Not much grass, but, what there is, very verdant; and some lucerne in full growth. This is the sort of cultivation on the land through which our road lies towards Cujes. The country, for mile«, is a rich and widely-extending plain, surrounded, and singularly contrasted, with rocky pine-covered mountains. Out of this plain we pass through a sort of strait, or narrow cut, through the mountains, called the Vallon de CujeSy which brings us to the little Bourg of Cujes. Cujes is situated in a rich little plain, nearly oblong in shape, with mountains of pines around it. The land very clean, and carefully cultivated. Vines, wheat, and horse-beans. Capers are grown here : they are now being cut down, and covered over with earth to keep off the frost. The corn in this country is thrashed in the open air ; a sure indication of a fine climate. The thrashing is generally done by the feet of horses or mules, upon a small square floor, of brick or stone, with a low wall round it. 16 TOULO^f. 23rd. Toulon. — Beautiful day (67). Come to this place through Ollioules, a small Bourg, just on the other side of which there is a pass called the Vallon d' OU Uoules, which, I understand, is compared by travellers with the pass of Thermopylae, in Greece. The Vallon, a Darrow deep cleft through a chain of lofty rocky moun- tains, is about a mile and a half in length. The road through it is winding, and much on the descent hither- wards. A rapid stream runs along on the left of the, road. The scenery is very bold and picturesque. — Ap- proaching Ollioules, we see delightful gardens of oranges and other fruit-trees. An orange-tree, in a really thriving condition, and that, too, in the open ground, is a sight that beats all I have ever seen of mere vegetation. It is, at once, the most flourishing, most productive, and most ornamental thing, for a fruit-tree, that can be ima-^ gined. The beautiful leaves exhibit all their different- sizes and shades at one and the same time ; yet not a single leaf appears to have survived perfection. The fruit hangs in clusters; and there are, on the same branch, oranges from the size of a hazel-nut to that of the full growth, and from the colour of fruit hardly more than well set, to that of fruit fit to put on the table. But this is not all ; for the summer-shoots of the branches are now* tender and budding ; and the delicately white and fra- grant flower they bear is still bursting into blossom oa every tree. — Fine olives ; some of them as much as four feet in circumference. A severe frost, which occurred in this country about eight years ago, killed great numbers PUJET. 17' of the olives; which accounts for so many of them being cut down nearly to the ground. The land here, wherever it lies on the sides of mountains, and is worth cultivating, is made into terraces, or shelves, by the spade; and the land thus situated is the best for vines. — Toulon is a place of no great size, though a compact and closely-for- tified town. Narrow streets, and somew'hat dirty. The place this evening sw^arming with French sailors, who, if they be not so coarse as our tars, are as clamorous at the very least. 2Ath. — Intervals of sunshine and show^ers (65). This climate is remarkably mild. The Vv^eather now resem- bles that of a very fine Enghsh May, The nights, as well as the days, are yet quite warm. At eight o'clock to-night (60). There is a pretty spot near Toulon, called Hyei^es, nearly opposite to some little islands bearing the same name. Hyeres is celebrated for the softness of its air. The orange, the lemon, and the pomegranate, grow there in something approaching per- fection. — The French do not seem to be neglecting their fleet, judging by what is doing in the arsenal at Toulon. There are several large ships on the stocks; and these ships are under fine roofs, which were built, I believe, by Bonaparte. — We are at the Hotel de la Croix d'Or, a very nice house. Madame Durbec, the landlady, is as complaisant as her daughter is fair, i : 25th. PujET. — Fine weather (65). This is a small I village. Great scarcity of butter hereabouts, and not much milk. Rocky, high land ; with vines, olives, fig- 1 18 FREJUS. trees, corn, and flax, in the plain. Country less beautiful. Very good red wine, three years old, for from 4d. to 5d. the bottle. 26^A. Vidauba;n'. — Fine weather (65). Country much the same. Come through Luc, a bourg of consi- derable size. A comfortable inn at this place, which is a small town. Wine here very good and cheap. Ex- cellent bread through all this part of France. Much lucerne ; and chicory, for the sheep. Sheep poor, and full one half of them as black as a coal. — Ploughs are sure criterions of climates. The plough of this country is highly flattering to the climate it is used in ; for it is such a shallow, feeble, little implement as would do literally nothing for us in England. Yet, there are fair crops of corn reaped here, off land which has hardly more than an English harrowing before the seed is put in. The deepest stirring that the land gets in the South of France, besides that of the spade, is what is done with two instruments of the hoe kind ; one of which somewhat resembles our carpenter's adz, or the wider part of our pick-axe : the other is a long two-grained hoe which our gentlemen-farmers call, I believe, a hident. These are used, principally, between the vines and about the roots of the olives. — The people at the inns where we stop, are very civil : we really have nothing to complain of in this respect. It is well, however, when you put up at night, to marchander , to bargain a little, for what your lodging and your fare are to cost you. . 27th, Frejus.— Steady beautiful weather (65). Fine CANNES. 19 olives ; not many vines ; wheat, lucerne, and vetches. Country less interesting to-day, and land less good. No butter to be had. Frejus, though small, has a cathedral and a college. It is said to have been an important place during the time of the Romans, who called it Forum Julii. There are the remains of a Roman aqueduct, besides other ruins of antiquity. The sea comes to within two miles of Frejus; and the people here point you out the spot on the shore where Bonaparte embarked when he went to Elba, and where he landed when he came from Egypt. There is an old convent of the Jesuits here^ which is now turned into a carpenter's shop and a place to stow wood in. The country around very pleasant : distant mountains covered with fine wood. 2%th, Cannes. — Same weather (65). — This is an ancient little place, delightfully situated immediately on the shore of the Mediterranean. — Here it w^as that Bona- parte landed, and slept on the shore, when he returned from Elba. They say that the Bourbons have conferred favours on this place, in consequence of the reception which the Emperor met with at the hands of the inha- bitants on his arrival, they having, one and all, refused to admit him within their doors ; so that the great conqueror was obliged, for a time, to lodge by the sea- side, and in the open air. — On leaving Frejus we as- cended pine-CQvered mountains; the road winding about up hill for the greater part of the way. On approaching Cannes we descended again to more level land. Most of the country barren. So much pure rock, that 20 NICE. there are only some small spots having a sufficient depth of soil to get in the plough. A little wheat and lucerne, both looking good. The arbutus grows wild on the sides of the mountains. But the pine flourishes here to the exclusion of pretty nearly every thing else ; so much so, that it is a vulgar jeu de mots with the country-people, Les pins et les coquins se trou- vent PARTOUT." — Cannes must be a delightful place for a summer residence. The market is well supplied; and there is an abundance of fine sea-fish. Our inn^ the Hotel de la Poste, is good in every respect: one of the best houses, if not the very best, that we have been in at all. 29th, Nice (in Italian Nizza). — Beautiful weather (65). — Our expenses at the inn at Cannes were as follows. For Dinner last night : Excellent bread, Two sorts of fish, A roasted leg of mutton, A stewed duck, with olives, A roasted woodcock. Boiled and fried potatoes, Cheese, Butter, Sallad, Apples^ raw and preserved, Figs, Grapes, Almonds, 21 Cakes, Capital wine, thr^e years old. Sugar and milk for our Tea. For Breakfast this morning: Coflfee and milk, Two sorts of fish, Bread, Eggs, Butter, Honey. On coming away we take with us the remnant of the leg of mutton. And we pay for all this (lodging in- cluded) 5s. 10c?. each person. At some places we have paid a smaller sum than this ; but the bill at Cannes may, as relates to this part of France, be reckoned a just specimen of the charging as proportionate with the fare. — The greater part of our road to-day lies along- side of the sea ; sometimes close to the shore, sometimes winding away from it, through a fine rich country, where, in the open fields, there is the seemingly incon- gruous, but, at the same time, most charming medley in cultivation, oi wheat, vetches ^ horse-beans^ pease, cauli^ flowers, turnips, oranges, vines, olives, walnuts, mul- berries, cherries, flgs, apricots, and peaches I I do not mean, that these things all thrive here equally well, or that they are all of the best. Yet, they are all growing in the same soil, no one of them, apparently, requiring any very nice management. I have heard «ome of those who have travelled in Italy pretend to ?2 NICE. despise the scenery and natural products of France. We do, of course, expect to see great things of this kind in Italy. But, it must be something fine indeed that shall make us entirely forget our seven days' journey from Marseilles to Nice. The truth is, that this part of France is a delightful country ; and, travelling along here, you cannot help fancying that you are already in Italy long before you arrive at her confines. — At about thirteen miles before reaching Nice, we pass close by the little maritime town Antibes^ a strongly-fortified place, and the frontier town of Provence, We have to stop here to show our passports to the authorities. At this part of the coast there is a small gulf, Antibes stands at the one extremity of this gulf, and Nice just within the point at the other. Between Antibes and Nice runs the river Var^ which was formerly considered as the proper boundary-line between France and Italy, between the Galls and the Ligurians. On entering Nice you quickly perceive some things that mark it as Italian, The houses, in particular, are strikingly novel to us, being gaily painted on the outside with a greater variety of colour than what is fashionable northward. The women, many of whom are more than commonly handsome, wear their dark hair dressed in the Grecian style, with a long white scarf thrown over their heads. But this is a place to which throng, at once, the idle, the sick, the frugal, and the wealthy, of all nations ; so that we are not surprised to see scores of English faces in the streets, and to read, against the houses, advertisements, notifications, and NICE. 23 the names of all kinds of commodities, in our own language. Beautiful weather (65). — We go to-day to look at a small sailing vessel, a sloop, which they call here ^feluca. This is the sort of thing that many tra- vellers go in to Genoa, in preference to going by land. Our route will be by Genoa ; therefore, it was worth •while to take a look at the feluca before deciding not to go by sea. But, the look, if but for an instant, was more than enough to make us keep to terra firma. There are plenty of these felucas constantly plying between Nice and Genoa. They are only partly decked, and most of them have no cabin. They are not particularly intended for passengers, but carry all kinds of burden, whether live or dead. The passage from Genoa is generally quick, on account of the prevalence of the wind hither- wards. But, I am astonished to hear that English ladies sometimes go by these packets, in one of which I would not advise any body to be (outside of the port) upon any account. The master and his crew want very much to have us as a part of their cargo ; and offer to take us, with their merchandise and some other pas- sengers, for about 5s. 6d. per head. With such fellows as these I would hardly trust myself on a fish-pond- One cannot look at their faces, and think, at the same time, of sailing with them, without apprehending the worst that can occur at sea : their dark habitually- insi- dious countenances, struggling to conciliate, are fit to make you imagine nothing but the terrors and trea- 24 NICE. cheries of their adopted element— blasts of wind unex- pected, consequent billows, and final breakers. We 'Cannot help recalling to mind, as we behold them, that upon the evidence of such men as these (the captain of a feluca and his crew), wTetches that I should be afraid to trust my life in the hands of, did English Lords prepare to judge the character of a high-born lady, the Queen of England! — Nice is well known to be a cheap place, as a permanent residence. At the inns you are both w^ell entertained and reasonably charged. At our inn, the Hotel des Etrangers, the dinner at the table d'hote costs only 25. 6d. sterling ; and yet it is such a dinner as could not be had for less than five or six shillings in England. They give you, at this time of the year, French-beans and green pease, which cost, in the market, perhaps not so much as one- half of what the same vegetables do with us in the month of July. The inhabitants boast, too, not a little, and not without good reason, of the amenity of their town in general. They quote to you the French trans- lation of an epigram, made by some Turkish prince, who, after living at Nice for some time notwith- standing his love of variety, is .said to have ex- claimed, All ! quelle ville admirable que Nice : " On y demeure en depit du caprice / '* All ! what an admirable town is Nice : For there we stay in spite of our caprice I NICE. 25 Nice is situated just at the foot of the Maritime Alps. It is a town of considerable size ; the population being not far short of 20,000. The promenades and drives alongside the sea are very pleasant. An old castle stands on a rock, called MonfAlbano, immediately overhanging the town. As to the climate, there is a difference of opinion about this. Certain it is, that, though the society of this place is agreeable, the air is considered to be not so good for consumptive persons as that of many other spots in Italy, on account of its being more uncertain. They have here, in the winter-time, a good deal of that severe wind called the bise, of which we had a taste on the Rhone. But there is, at Nice, something which most people would complain of more than of any wind : here are mosckitos. These tantalizing little insects give great pain, and make great havoc with delicate complexions. Damask cheeks and lily-white hands are not a little indignant at the effects produced upon them by a North wind ; but how much more galling to the same beauties to be, as I have seen the cheeks and hands of some of our fair countrywomen abroad, spotted all over with red moschito-bites. The moschito does not, it is true, commence its annoying operations till after the very warmest weather of the summer; but, having once taken wing, nothing will stop its flight but a real frost ; so that it is almost fairly winter before this malignant little enemy of animal repose can be said to be hors de combat. Moschito-curtains, made of a very fine sort of gauze, are yet hanging on c 26 NICE. .the beds at this place ; and they have not, as yet, ceased to be necessary, December. Irst, — Same weather : very warm in the middle of the day^ like fine June weather in England (66). — In the immediate neighbourhood of this place the land is highly cultivated; it consists, indeed, almost entirely, of gardens belonging to country houses or villas^ planted with olives, vines, oranges, lemons, fruit-trees of all sorts, and vegetables for market. Oranges and lemons are grown here in great quantities. Some of the growers of these are said to make large sums of money by the pro- duce of each year. The wine and oil made here are very good. The flowers are by no means gone by : the roses are now making a prodigious show. — There are some fine churches in Nice. None of them are, of course, any the better for the Revolution, One of the finest, Saint Dominique, was, to use the words of the faithful part of the citizens, horriblement 'profanee, horribly profaned. This edifice was, I understand, during the reign of confusion at Nice, employed for a purpose much more conducive to the interests of the body than to those of the soul : it suddenly became a boulan- gerie militaire, or military baker's-shop ! — The lan- guage here spoken, the Ni^-ard, as it is called, is a singular mixture of bad French and bad Italian. It would puzzle a linguist to say which of the two corrupt ingredients contributes most to this compound of cor- MENTONE. ruptions. When you hear the people talk, there is nothing harsh in the sounds they utter ; but for the sense y I can hardly make it out at all. The much talked of Troubadours^ who inhabited this country hundreds of years ago, must have had a language much superior to anything of the kind now existing. In their language we clearly see a mixture of French, Italian, and Spanish; as in these verses of Boyer, written in the fourteenth century. Drecli e rason es ch' jeu canti d'amor, Vezent ch' jeu ai ja consumat mon age A li complaire et servir nuech et jor Sens' aver d'el profiecli ni avantage 7 Encar el si fas creg-aer, Doulent et non sai fegner. Mi pougne la courada De sa fleccia dorada Embe son arc qu'a gran pena el pos tendre Per se qu'el es un enfant jouve et tendre. ^nd. Mentone. — Fine day (60). We leave Nice for Genoa, in another ?;oz7wrm- carriage, drawn by two strong horses. From Nice to Genoa the distance is about a hundred and sixty miles, a trifle more than that from Marseilles to Nice. We are to be another whole week going to Genoa. This is a great while to be on the road. But there is too much steep mountain to admit of your travelling this road at a very fast rate. We, too, do not start early in the morning, and we arrive early in the evening. Were w^e to make the most of our c 2 28 MENTONE. time, the voifurin might take us, very well, in four days and a half. — Our road lies, all the way to Genoa, close on the shore of the Mediterranean. There is another way, besides this, .of penetrating Italy from ■=» Nice ; that is, by Sospello, the Col de Tende, and Cuneo ; from the latter of which places you may go through Savigliano and Carignano to Turin, or, wind- ing round to the right by Gherasco, Asti, Alessandria^ and Novi, come down to Genoa. But this is, if Genoa be your object, a very roundabout road, and full twice as long as the one we are going. — On leaving Nice we have a long steep ascent to make before we get well in among the mountains. Very slow work; but not tedi" ous : one would willingly have it uphill all the way, were the road always commanding such a view as is here enjoyed. Nice in the retrospect, with a large expanse of the sea on the further side, and the hundreds of acres of garden-ground sloping up from the town to the feet of the mountains ; the groves of oranges arid lemons, the vineyards and orchards, the fine lofty olives : one can hardly look over the shoulder here, without feeling inclined to turn back again. — The Custom-house officers condescend to receive a trifling bribe from us, to let us leave Nice without their examining our luggage. We were allowed to pass, also, by the same means, when we entered Nice. — The greater part of this day's journey has been up' hill. We descend as we approach Mentone, a small town, situated close on the shore, and surrounded by extensive plantations of lemons. To-day SAN REMO. 29 we see the snow on the tops of distant mountains of the Alps. A little on this side of Nice is Villa Franca^ a fortress on the sea ; and then we pass a small place called Monaco, Monaco is the capital of a petty prin- cipality bearing that name, to which, also, Mentone belongs. As we entered the principality of Monaco^ we had a fresh gang of Custom-house officers to deal with. — In this country they burn olive oil in their lamps. The wood of the olive-tree is excellent fuel : excepting only the American Jdckory, I have never seen any wood burn so well and make so bright a fire. 3rc/. San Remo. — Fine (55). This place is a dirty, little sea-port ; a port for the boats of fishermen more than any thing else. — We come through two small places, Ventimiglia and Bordighera, both near the sea. Our road is over rocky mountains, when we do not come im- mediately on the shore. Vines here, trained in the espa- lier fashion; they are attached to a sort of trellis-work, made with upright, wooden stakes, to which strong reeds, or canes, which they grow here, are tied cross ways. A good many palm-trees, growing in the open ground. The Catholics use the branches of these in religious pro- cessions. — We have to pass several beds of rivers, all now quite dry; at some seasons of the year, they are overflowing with torrents, that pour down from the mountains. — The air to-day was somewhat chilly, with an easterly wind blowing off the sea. But it seems that this wind is never very severe here : as a proof that it cannot be so, we remark that all the fruit-trees and crops 30 FINALE. flourish as much close on the shore, as they do at two or three miles inland. — Here they speak Italian. Ath, Oneglia. — Fine (60). This is a little sea-port town. Come through Porto Maurizio, another small place at the sea-side. — Fine views of the sea and coast, and of the little towns and villages on the shore and on the surrounding mountains. A great deal of rock ; but in the cultivated part of the country the land is good. Fine olives grow here. 5th, Abenga. — Fine (63). The air is chilly in the morning and evening ; but the weather is what we should call very fair for an English September. — Abenga, a small town on the sea-side. Come through Alassio, a village. 6th, Finale. — Fine (62). This morning was quite cold : at eight o'clock (42). There were some snowy tops of mountains in sight at no great distance off, which, I dare say, were the cause of the sharpness of the air. — To this place you have to drop down, as it w^ere, from a steep mountain ; at least, you could get here only by a drop or a roll, if it were not for the long winding, or zig-zag, which has been made here, as in some other parts of the road, to facilitate the descent. These zig- zags they call galleries; each slant in the road is called a gallery. Notwithstanding the pains that have been had, and the many slantings that the road is made to take, it is as much as our horses can do, here, to hold the carriage back, and we are full a quarter of an hour in getting to the bottom of a descent of not more than one* GENOA. third of a mile in a straight line.— Finale is a sea-port of some size. — The land here is rich. Vines, olives, and other fruit-trees. This neighbourhood is famous for a kind of apple, called porno carlo, which, though a hand- some fruit to look at, has nothing so very good in its flavour : it is hardly more than a superior bitter-sweet, 7tL Savona.— -Cloudy and chilly (60). This is another town on the sea. It is a larger place, and has a more commodious harbour, than any between this and Nice. We pass by Noli, also close by the sea-side. Sth, Genoa. — Cloudy, and rain towards evening (57). — Our road to-day less mountainous and rocky. Much pine timber, and some oak, on the high land. Come through Voltri, and some smaller places, at the sea- side. — When I take a review of our journey from Nice to this place, I cannot help advising any one who intends visiting Italy to pass, either in going or in return-^ ing, by this road. "Whatever there may be to be seen in going up the Rhine and across Switzerland, in the route through Geneva and over the Simplon, or in that by Mont-Cenis, the track that we have just got to the end of, though, as a road, nothing more than a long string of rocky, and sometimes rugged, ups and downs, and of everlasting turnings and twistings about, has so much of what strikes the eye with admiration of nature, that we think ourselves very lucky in having chosen this for our way. The coast, all the way from Nice round the Gulf of Genoa, is called the Riviera/' or waterside. We have been just on the edge of the coast for almost the 32 GENOA. whole distance ; seldom out of sight of the sea for more than a few minutes together, A very large part, the main and most difficult part of the road, is that which was made by Bonaparte. The road may, indeed, be said to be his; for he not only began it, but it was he who first made the whole distance passable for wheels as well as for feet. Much, to be sure, has been done since Bonaparte's time ; but before he commenced the grand undertaking, there was only a rough foot-path for men and mules to scramble across the country by. This road, for many leagues, is nothing else than a great notchy cut out of solid rock, on the side of a nearly perpen- dicular mountain immediately overhanging the sea. We often had to look straight down on the beach, at a hun- dred and fifty or two hundred yards beneath us, w^hile the headlong steep of rock, in the side of which our road was cut out, ran up for a still greater distance above our heads. The great masses of rock which had to be re- moved to make the road, v/ere tumbled down towards the beach. The breaking of the rock to pieces has been done as it is in stone-quarries, by the use of gunpowder ; and, in some places, where it was difficult to make way round a sharp point, the road passes right through the rock, which has had a great hole blown in it, in the shape of an arch. Here and there are deep natural clefts in the rocks, where the torrents from the mountains pour down to the sea ; and over these are thrown strong little bridges. The side of the road next to the sea is made safe by the mason ; there is a low wall, or parapet, GENOA. 33 from two to three feet high. But this security against a long tumble is not afforded throughout ; and there are many miles of the way which would now appear terrific to the nervous traveller. It would, indeed, be imprudent to travel this road, either in a chaise or on horse-back, excepting with very steady cattle. The horses that drew us were two of the quietest and most handy animals that I ever saw in harness. — The extensive views of the sea and coast, particularly from Abenga to Finale y and from Finale to Savona, are quite magnificent; and all the charms that the imagination can anticipate of the Mediterranean and its tranquil shores, are realized here. The trip by w^ater between Nice and Genoa must be a delightful excursion, if you could be sure of always being within a certain distance of the land. But, such certainty can never exist. Besides, we, who have come by land, have had quite as distant prospects of the country as could be had from off the sea. We have, during the greater part of every day, been able to see all that lay before us, for many miles. The coast, as we looked along it, was a series of scenery of the most wild and grand ; and the towns, far onward, standing at the sides or on the summits of the mountains, or studding the shore, were more picturesque than I am able to describe. I am sorry, however, to say, that these Italian towns are objects which are seen to a much greater advantage in distant view than on a close ap- proach to them. A poetical contemplation, that might be lulled with romantic wanderings only a few minutes c 5 S4 GENOA. before, must wake up in a fright on finding itself all at once confined to the mirmtice of one of these filthy places. But these towns are in Piedmont, and the Piedmontese are known to be not the cleanest of Christians. The streets are even much more narrow than in French towns ; and how dirty these streets are permitted to be may be imagined from the fact, that you can turn hardly a corner without seeing people in the act of lousing themselves, or lousing one another. It is a com- mon thing to see a woman sitting outside of her door, spinning or knitting, and one of her little children standing at the back of her chair parting the parent's dishevelled locks, so as to form a clear path, and pounc- ing upon the things as they run to and fro ! Some of the inns in France are dirty enough ; but the inns here are out and out more dirty, in all respects ; and if the testimony of my nose be admissible, I may truly say that it remembers no smells in France that were not like those of roses and carnations when compared with some which it has had to inhale on this side of Nice. With all this, the people are not ill-looking: many of them are much the contrary. Some of the women are very handsome. They dress their hair in a becoming manner (for there are some, I believe, whose heads are clean), and they wear, when they go out dressed^ and especially about Genoa, scarfs that hang gracefully from the head over the shoulders. The scarf is sometimes pure white, sometimes coloured ; and, when coloured; it is of a printed cotton stuff, various in GENOA. 35 pattern, but generally exhibiting very large, showy figures ; just such a material as would be employed in England to make an extraordinarily fine bed -curtain. — • I daresay that the inns along the Riviera are getting, every day, more and more fit for the entertaining of English travellers, as it is now becoming fashionable to go by this road. They have not, however, generally speaking, much to boast of as yet. There was a great variety in the sort of accommodation we met with. The inn at Abenga, for instance, was an inconvenient, crowded, and most nasty place. That at Finale was comparatively a little fairy-palace ; it had the walls of its dining-room and best bed-room beautifully painted; and the furniture of these was both costly and elegant. The inn-keepers were as civil as we could wish. They never appeared to us to be grasping, and though, in some places, there evidently were not the means of furnishing all that was required, I do think we had whatever could be afforded towards making us contented with our quarters. — For the agriculture of the Riviera, as a feature in its scenery, the traveller here needs no fore- warning ; he cannot pass along without its catching his eye. How very beautiful it is, and yet how totally different from any thing that we have in England, with all our famed excellence in the practice of this most genuine and most pleasing of pursuits. Here there are no farms with sets of regularly shaped fields; no spa- cious roundly laid-up fallov/s; no sweeping crops of corn as level as a die ; no live hedges ; no water-meadows 36 GENOA. and green uplands ; no grassy orchards ; no plantations or shrubberies ; no coppices ; no artificial forests ; no sheep-downs : nothing, in short, that is ours, in this way, can be brought to describe the Riviera by com- parison. There must, in such an immense range of rocky mountains, necessarily be many thousands of acres altogether uncultivated ; but this is hardly to be called harrenness, in the usual sense of the word. The bare rocks, though capable of producing not even a natural blade of grass or a weed, do not give you that disagree- able idea of inanity which arises in looking over some tracts of arable land, where the plough might go, but where the trouble of sticking it in would be useless. Then, where there is any thing like soil, it is made the most of ; and the total absence of vegetation upon the rocks, which rather contributes to their own effect than otherwise, very much heightens, by contrast, the appear- ances of fertility in every spot that is productive. The cultivation of olives, vines, and various crops, on the terraces or shelves of soil, is a great embellishment to the country. If one's eyes could be bhndfolded in a flat field of Norfolk turnips, and suddenly brought to the sight of this for the first time, they would look upon it as a sort of farming in romance. Great labour, and that, too, during ages of time, must have been endured, to give hundreds of acres of the land its present shape. The declivity of some of the cultivated mountains is so great, that the terraces are not above four or five yards in width, though their length may be six or seven hun- GENOA. 37 dred yards, or more. You frequently see fifty or sixty of these terraces, one upon another, all on the side of the same mountain, and having the appearance of a gigantic flight of steps. The outward edge of every terrace is supported by a low wall, made of large, rough stones, which prevents the soil from being washed away by the rains. The land lying in this form is seldom accessible to the plough. That implement, indeed, would not be sufficiently exact in its work where there is so little space to move in, and where soil is so precious. They use, in place of the plough, those hoes which I have already noted as tools of husbandry in the south of France (see page 18). 9th. — Cloudy and damp (58). — Genoa is a fine, large, old city. Its population now amounts to 76,000, which is, no doubt, almost trifling in comparison with what it was formerly. The city stands on the side of a moun- tain of the Apennines, and slopes down to the brink of the sea. The Duchy of Genoa, with all Piedmont, in- cluding the county of Nice, have, since the year 1814^ been incorporated in the dominions of the king of Sar- dinia. Turin, the capital of Piedmont, has had reason to feel jealous of this place. The two are struggling for which shall be considered as the main place of residence of their sovereign ; and the interests of the people of Turin have received a heavy blow in the opening of the road along the Riviera, which oifers a straight passage into the heart of Italy without its being neces- sary to approach their city. They have, I understand. S8 GENOA. endeavoured to get that road closed, to a certain extent, against carriages. lOfh. — Fine (64). — This is by no means a city that would strike an Englishman as being agreeable to dwell in. We cannot help acknowledging the grandeur for which it has been so reputed ; but, at the same time, there are, mingled in the display of magnificence by which we are surrounded, some circumstances which render the general effect of the city far more dismal than delightful. There are two or three of the streets that are said to be of the finest in all Europe. But then the houses in every street are immensely high, and the streets are, excepting only a few of them, so very narrow that there is not sufficient room for a carriage to pass. They are not what we should call streets at all, but rather long alleys. In these alleys you may sometimes fancy yourself shut out from day-light in the day-time; so lofty are the houses around, and so far back have you to throw your head to get a peep at the sky. The influence of habit, prejudice out of the question, is such, that it is impossible for an Englishman not to prefer his London to such a place as Genoa. This preference is, indeed, not merely to be expected from habit, but it is reasonable. Our biggest cities are both dark and dirty ; but our rainy sky, our mists, our smoke, and our mud, are things unavoid- able : our houses are of a tolerable height, and our streets are generally wide enough to let us breathe whatever air we have to boast of. Labouring, as we do, under great disadvantages, there is, in England, the appearance of ®ENOA. 39 constant endeavour to abate the nuisances of the town ; and this is not the case with the Genoese, any more than with the inhabitants of other Italian towns through which we have had to pass. — The removing of goods from place to place is almost all done by porters, on account of the narrov/ness of the streets. All heavy things, such as casks and large cases, are carried sus- pended by ropes fastened to poles, the ends of the poles resting on the shoulders of the porters. You sometimes see as many as eight or ten of these men bearing one weighty package. They trudge along with a brisk half- trot, regularly keeping step with one another in such a way as to make their burden swing steadily. llth. Fine (64). — Genoa has a great show of gorgeous palaces. The Ducal palace is of great size ; and there are several others, belonging to different noble families, that are exceedingly sumptuous. The neighbourhood of Genoa furnishes the marble of which, in great part, these palaces are built. The palaces of DurazzOy Serra^ Spinola, and Pallavicini are particu- larly magnificent. It is said that the splendour of the buildings she boasts have given this city her surname oi La Superb a'* (the proud). There are many fine large churches here. Beautiful marbles, of various co- lours, have been unsparingly used, both to strengthen and to adorn these edifices. The palaces, as well as the churches, are always to be easily had access to. I understand that the nobility seldom inhabit their palaces; but that they keep up the finery of their best 4(y GENOA, apartments just for show, and dwell in the inferior ones. The Serra palace has a saloon, of Corinthian order, which is said to be the finest thing of the kind in Europe. The whole space of the walls of this saloon is covered with gold and looking-glass ; and the ceiling, according to the fashion of the country, is beautifully painted. The floor is made of inastich, a sort of cement, very highly polished, and seemingly very hard. Window- curtains of satin, gilded chairs and sofas, rose-wood tables, and so forth : these are the furniture. A mere gaudy saloon, like this, is, after all, not worth taking much trouble to see. One cannot, to be sure, help saying, I wonder how much it cost''; but, there ends its interest, as far as wonder is concerned. Very inferior is such a sight as this, indeed, compared with some productions of the fine arts which are to be seen at Genoa. Several of the palaces and churches are deco- rated with beautiful paintings. The most surprising object is a piece of sculpture of Michael Angelo, which is to be seen in the chapel of a fine large hospital, or workhouse, called UAlbergo dePoveri^ or the habita- tion of the poor. It is an alto relievo^ and represents the Virgin Mary in the act of bending over the dead body of our Saviour. The work is in a small compass, and includes only the busts of the two figures, and they are less than the natural size. There is a softness, and an expression so truly heavenly, about this thing, particularly in the hand of the Virgin, and in the closed eyes and half-open mouth of the Christ, that no tech- GEXOA. 41 nical tutoring, no previously acquired ^* taste for the arts," is necessary to fill you with admiration on beholding it. The composure in the features of death is so expressive, that one can hardly believe, to look at them,, that the marble in which they are cut was never animated. The object of the immortal artist appears to have been, to make the beholders of a piece of stone marvel at finding it not to be human flesh ; and in this he has pretty nearly succeeded ; for, there is an involuntary inclina- tion to consult the sense of touch on viewing this bit of sculpture^ which shows that the evidence of sight alone is hardly satisfactory, — Genoa was formerly one of the most important sea-ports in the world. She is now of but little consequence in this way. There is a good deal of manufacture here ; particularly of velvet, silk, and lace. These they export, besides great quan- tities of marble, and some fruit. The country is not productive in grain ; and, therefore, there are large importations of this to Genoa and her neighbouring towns, from Sicily and the Levant. Genoa is still a magnificent object to look at from the sea, and in this view the palace of her great Andrea Doria is now as conspicuous as ever. But, on a closer inspection, the Admiral's palace becomes but a solemn picture of great*- ness in ruin ; and such, I dare say, is Genoa herself, ia comparison with what she once was. — The church of San Lorenzo has a circumstance of peculiar interest belonging to it, as it is said to contain the bones of St, John Baptist, The place of their deposit is a little 42 GENOA. cliapel on one side of the church. I do not know if these rehcs are ever exposed to view, as is the case with some of the remains of saints among the Catholics. The ladies, however, are never suffered to go within a certain distance of the spot where the bones lie. Those who have the place in their custody, are deter- mined that the saint shall be avenged, as far as possible, on the whole sex, as it was a woman who was the insti- gator to his death. Fair (63). — The palaces of Genoa are not all included within her walls. There are many beautiful and very large houses within from one to three miles of the city. The proprietors of these do not always, nor, I believe, generally speaking, make any use of them. We see several, to-day, which are both unoccupied and unfurnished. It seems as if these places were made in accordance with the taste, or perhaps the means^ of a different age. It would certainly require large fortunes to sustain establishments in them equal to the style in which they are laid out. We are told that a part of the nobility of Genoa spend their money at R.ome, and other places, where they meet with a state of society such as used to exist at Genoa at the time her superb palaces and villas were built. But there are, at the same time, some people of large estate here, who, while they live with economy and in retirement from high life, devote a large part of their incomes to pious uses^ to the poor and to the church, after the manner of their forefathers, many of whom have been distinguished for this exem-^ GENOA. 43 plary mode of employing their money. There are several churches in this city, each of which has been erected, and expensively adorned, at the cost of a single noble family. The hospitals, too, attest the piety of the opu- lent and high-born of ages not very distant, whatever may be the character of the present generation. The magnificent villas, or country palaces, some of which we have seen to-day, are by no means allowed to fall into decay, though to all appearance they are deserted by their owners. The walls and ceilings of the halls, chambers, and saloons, are painted in fresco, as the Italians call it, a sort of decoration very common in this country, and one the effect of which is more elegant than can be described in few words. The subjects of the main pictures have been furnished from history, real or fabulous, ancient or modern, sacred or profane. Some of the groups are exceedingly fine, and some of the figures are as large as life. The exercise of the painter's art and imagination have not been confined, entirely, to the inside of these dwellings. There are paintings, even of figures, on some of the exterior walls. Mr. Forsyth says of these, in speaking of the palaces of Ge^^oa : This fashion of painting figures on house- fronts was introduced at Venice by Georgioni ; but " though admired even by severe critics, to me it appears " too gay for any building that affects grandeur, No- " thing can be grand in architecture that bears a " perishable look/' Mr. Forsyth was so much of an architect, that he regarded as an eye-sore, what I, know- 44 GENOA, ing nothing of architecture, cannot help looking upon as agreeable to the sight. His criticism is, no doubt, very just. To those who would be absorbed by nothing less than the grand, gaiety may seem a despicable intruder. Yet, this out-o*-door painting must, one would think, always have a charm for the eye of an Englishman, even though he be as rigid a connoisseur as Mr. Forsyth. It is gay ; and gaiety is a thing which, in a strange country, the traveller is not apt to find over- abundant. It is one of the striking characteristics of a serene climate, and, as such, is as pleasing to us in the reflections it leads to as it is novel in itself; just as is the thrashing of corn in the field where it was grown, and the dancing upon the green-sward under no shelter but the trees. The gardens of some of these palaces are large and handsome* There is much formality about them ; but they have many things to make them admired by people of every taste. The grottos, with fountains and statues of the fabled inhabitants of water, are very curious. There are green-houses full of the rarest plants. The Italian gar- deners profess to be indebted to us for their shrubberies : these are called giardini Inglesi, or English gardens. The evergreen oak flourishes here,':and is now producing great quantities of acorns. The oleander grows to a great size, always in the open ground. The oranges and lemons are now bearing great loads of fruit. To-day I counted the oranges of a single bunch, every one of which was touching some one other orange: there were thirteen fine, full-grown oranges, and all nearly ripe. RUA. 45 Some of the most attractive of Flora s charms are here now in perfection : there are lots of carnations of the largest blossom^ and these, too, in the open air. — The Genoese are said to bear a bad character ; but four days' residence is hardly sufficient to enable us to judge for ourselves on this point. One thing I m.ay venture to say against them ; v^hich is, that their language is abominable. There are, in fact, two languages at Genoa. Those who have been to school speak the real Italian, or something like it ; while the common people have all a gibberish of their own. The Genoese lan- guage is one of the distinct corruptions, or dialects as they are called, of Italy.— The hotels in this city are fine. The least agreeable circumstance attending them is, your being obliged to have to do with a set of porters, called faccliini. The traveller is hardly within the town, before some of these fellows are ap- prized of it, and they quickly prepare to seize upon his luggage. The inn-keeper does not pretend to take charge of you until you are extricated from the hands of these hawk-like gentry, who are 'privileged in their office, none of them being connected with any hotel in particular, and who make you pay enormously for their assistance. If you object to their unreasonable demands, they refer you, at once, to the tar if a ; " for there is an established law by which they are permitted to come at your pocket. 13/A. RuA. — Fine (62). We start this morning on our road to Pisa, having engaged another French 46 SESTRI-DI-LEVANTE. voitiirin with his carriage and three horses. We have been delighted with the conduct of the two men who brought us from Marseilles to Nice and from Nice to Genoa. Their manner of attention had something more than bare civility in it, it was really 'politeness ; that, too, evidently honest, and independent of views towards gain. — It is but a short ride to this place. We have heavy hills to climb, and stop here early in the evening, in preference to being benighted in the attempt to arrive at some more distant and, perhaps, less agree- able sleeping-place. Rua is but a little village; the village is nearly out of sight from the house in which we are lodged, a small inn standing at the road-side. From this spot there is an extensive view^ of the gulf. This evening's sun-set was uncommonly beautiful. The light clouds had all sorts of tints but such as denote a storm ; and the surface of the sea, in a complete calm, seemed as smooth as a piece of glass. \Ath, Sestri-di-Levante. — Fine (63). This is a small town, just on the sea-shore. We put up at a good inn, which stands at a few hundred yards outside of the town. — Our route is the continuation of the Riviera. The mountains still very high, as on the other side of Genoa. A large part of the country quite unproductive; but some fine views of land, cultivated in the terrace or step fashion. Olives; vines; mulberry-trees. — The mul- berry-tree is necessarily grown in great quantities in this part of Italy. Silk, in the raw state, is one of the main products of the land in Piedmont. The silk of this EORGIIETTO. 47 country is, I believe, considered to be of the best quality that is used in our English manufactures. — We perceive, as we go on, that the vines increase in the height to which they are trained. They are generally trained as espaliers, or to high trellis-work; but here the vines are often less restricted, and are suffered to climb up among the branches of the trees. — The wheat is grown, as in some parts of France, in drills from one to two feet asunder. They say that, by this mode of sowing, the ground may bear a repetition of the same crop the following year ; but it seems to be considered by the farmers that a broad-cast yields more than a drilling. i I5th, BoRGiiETTO. — Fine day, but cold at night (60) . — There was a something in the sound of the name Borghetto which would have prevented me from being much astonished on entering this place, even if we had not seen other like places during our day's ride. The Italian borgo, like our borough, to which it answers, is a really ugly name ; and the indication of pettiness in the " etto " hides none of the ugliness of the radical term. I do not know whether there be any civil corrup- tion among the inhabitants of Borghetto 3 but, certain it is, that while our " borough " conveys figuratively the idea of a great sink-hole, this little borgo is a sink- hole in reality. There is but one street, and that very small; and it is, in proportion to its extent, as full of muck and mire as any English farm-yard in the worst of seasons. The houses are few in number, and all huddled close together, after the fashion of the country. A large 48 BORGHETTO. stream of water runs close by the place ; so that filth here can find no excuse in a want of water, at any rate. We were almost in despair at the first glimpse of the two wretched inns, one or the other of which we were obliged to choose. The alternative w^as somewhat awful: both looked so exactly alike, and both so unlikely to suit our taste. But we had the benefit of our voiturin^s experience ; and he conducted us to the one which he had found to be the best, or, rather, the least bad of the two. This is^ after all, not so very bad a house of enter- tainment. We have been in places less comfortable since we left home. And it is but right, here, to acknow- ledge the soundness of the lesson, that one ought not alw^ays to judge by outward appearances. We have a civil and obliging landlord ; though his house is, to be sure, as dirty as it can well be. We were a little sur- prised to hear our host, as soon as he saw us, begin to talk pretty good English. He seems to have travelled over almost all Europe, and has been in North Ameri(?a. He talks in glowing terms of the green hills of Devon- shire. That he should have seen so much is less asto- nishing than he would have his guests believe. The wonder is, that he should be able quietly to settle down in such a place as this, while recalling, as he does, the images of some other places that he has been in. Here, indeed, is a proof of that pure love of country, that attachment to the soil, to the one little spot even, which some frigid philosophers affect not to feel, or, not being able to feel it themselves, endeavour to persuade us that BORGIIETTO. 49 the sentiment contributes nothing to our superiority in the scale of creation. The man seems to have been born for a rover; and such he has been. But he was born at Borcjhetto ; and here he is back again. I have seen no beautiful country that has not been seen by him in his rovings. Yet, he is now content to remain in the least agreeable and very nastiest of all spots that I have ever met with. If this is not real patriofisniy what are we to call it? — The chesnut-tree grows here on the mountains in a natural state, and in vast quantity. The nuts are a principal part of the food of the common people. This fruit, which has been called the manna of the Apennines^ is here a substitute for bread, and is eaten, cooked, in a variety of shapes. — We pass, to-day, through several little villages of the same description as Bou- gh etto. To attempt to say what these places are like would be useless. All I can say of them must be in the negative, and, merely, that they are like nothing that I have ever either seen, heard, or dreamed of. The pencil, perhaps, might convey some idea. But the work is really too much for the pen ; or, at least, for that of a plain proser. The describer would, however, here need but little fancy, if he were only bold enough to come upon us with the terrific truth : so little is left for imagination to supply, and so staggering the reality. In a word, these hor- ghettos are such, that an English traveller would wish the road to wind round their outskirts, so as to keep clear of them altogether. If you did idot actually see living people in passing through them, you would not believe D 60 SARZANA. that these holes were now inhabited by human beings. You would look upon them as ruins of places built a thousand years ago, from which the inhabitants had been driven away by a pestilence engendered in their own filth. — The appearances of the country to-day, as well as that of the people and their dwellings, any thing .but agreeable. We came out of sight of the sea on leaving Sestri-di-Levante. Some of the mountains wear the ornament of the chesnut-tree ; but, generally speaking, the mountains here are heavy-looking and barren, having nothing of the picturesque but their im- mense size. A large part of the people are beggars. The families of the poor people here are unusually large. The children swarm like bees ; in a country, too, of the least flowery kind. The little creatures are always on the alert for a fresh passenger, like bees for a bursting bud. They run out of their hovels with all the buzz and hum of the hive, and pitch on upon a carriage full of people with the same avidity that the industrious insect does upon a sweet and transient blossom. 16/A. Sarzana. — Fine day, but cold towards even- ing (62). — When we left Borghetto this morning, the ground was covered with a very white frost, and the night had been cold enough to produce thin ice^ the first signs of winter that have occurred to us as yet. — This day's ride far more pleasant than that of yesterday. We come through Spezia, which is a place of some size, having a population of about 4,000 inhabitants, and is said to be one of the best ports in the Mediterranean. PIETRA-SANTA. 61 This town is admirably situated. It is right on the sea, and at the innermost part of a recess in the coast, called the Gulf of Spezia. The town stands on nearly a level, and is sheltered all around, inland, by steep Apennine mountains, one of which we descended to approach it. The immediate neighbourhood of Spezia is delightful. The land is rich. Fine olives and vines. The latter are nicely trained to trees standing in rows^ the shoots being led from tree to tree, or brought to meet each other half way, and so tied together at their ends. We stop some time in Spezia, putting up at a very comfortable inn. I do not wonder to find so good a house of entertainment at this town. The place is altogether so agreeable that it must, I should think, have plenty of visitors, and induce many a traveller to loiter by the way. — Just before w^e arrive at Sarzana, we have to cross the river Magra, We are carried across, carriage and horses and all, in a large clumsy ferry-boat. Sarzana is a small episcopal town, in which we are comfortably lodged. I7th. Pietra-Santa. — Fine: coldish morning, after a slight frost (61). — To this place we come through Lavenza, and Massa or Massa-Carrara. Our ride to-day was through a most pleasant country of good land, well cultivated. Less of the sublime here ; for here we quit the mountains. Lavenza is a strong little town, on the sea, and belonging to the Duchy of Modena. Massa (on the river Frigido), another sea-port, is a place of considerable size; its population is about 10^000. D 2 62 PISA. It is agreeably situated, in a smiling plain, Massa is a Duchy, and is connected with Carrara in a Princi- pality. — Pietra-Santa, where we sleep to-night, is a middling-sized borgo, or market-town. The principal inn here, which stands just without the town, is a very comfortable one. At Pietra-Samta we are within the Tuscan territory. ISth, Pisa. — A rainy day, but not cold (57). Ap- proaching Pisa, we come through a country the cast of which is very different from that of the rocky Riviera. Here we are on a vast level. Land good ; crops of wheat, vetches, and horse-beans, and vines trained to poplar- trees. I9th. — Cloudy day (58). — We are at the inn called the Ussero, which is a good house. This, the Pelicano^ and the Tre Donzelle, are the three principal inns in Pisa. The Tre Donz^lle is, however; the best of the three, particularly as respects situation. 20th. — Fine (61). — To-day we take a private lodging, intending to remain for some time at Pisa. 2l7'5^. — Somewhat cloudy (59). Pisa is the largest city, with the exception of Florence only, in all Tuscany. It is said to be one of the most ancient places in the world. At this time there are about 17,000 inhabitants in Pi'SA : four hundred years ago there v\^ere as many as 150,000. The city, surrounded by a high and ancient wall, stands in a vast plain, which is bordered on one side by the Apennines and on the other by the Mediter- ranean. The river Ar7io runs through the city, in PISA. 53 such a way as to divide it into two nearly equal parts. There are three good bridges over the river, one of which i^ of marble. The Arno flows into the sea at a very few miles hence. Leghorn, the principal seaport of Tuscany, is only about fourteen miles from this place. 22d. — Fair (58). — We are by no means disappointed in Pisa. It is a place much talked of, to be sure; yet, with all we had heard of this place before we came to it, we acknowledged, immediately on entering the city, that Pisa had not been undeservedly praised. The principal streets are of a good width, and they are extremely well paved. But the main part of what renders Pisa an agreeable place of residence, may be said to consist of the Lung* Arno, as it is called ; that is, all that part of the city which is immediately alongside of the Arno. This they call the Lung* Arno, meaning, along the Arnv. On each side of the river there is a fine wide and well- paved quay, or, rather, way to walk and drive upon, extending, close on the river's side, all through the city. This Lung* Arno is a scene of so much life, that every other part of Pis a is comparatively a desert. The sunny side of the river is the fashion in winter, and the shady side in summer. 23rd. — Cloudy day, and rain at night (56). 24th. — Cloudy : the weather very damp, but not cold (55). 25th. — We went last night (Christmas Eve) to the church called Chiesa de* Cavalieriy to witness the 64 LEGHORN. Catholic midnight mass, the Vigil of the Nativity, a ceremony observed in all Catholic churches. This church has been called de* Cavcdieri, after the Knights of St. Stephen, the bones of which saint are said to be here deposited. There were a great many people at the mass. A great deal of good music ; and the organ, they say, is the finest in Europe. Some of this music, however, the music we hear in the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic church, is very surprising to Protestant ears. It is any thing but consistent with our notion of sacred music. The gayest airs seem to be adopted in the church service ; and the Catholic often worships God of a Sunday morn- ing with the same tune that he has been dancing a quad- rille to perhaps only the night before. How different this from our English psalm-singing ! It requires some time for us to reconcile, at all, the solemn ac- cents of devotion with such a lively kind of accompa- niment. We Protestants are apt to think, with Pope, that Light quirks of music, broken and uneven, Make the soul dance upon ^jig to heaven. 25th» — Cloudy, and rather cold (56). — At about four miles out of Pisa there are some baths, which we go to see to-day. These baths have been very much famed for the cure of some complaints. The water is warm, and pOurs down from a spring which rises amongst the mountains at no great distance o£ 26^^.— Rainy day (57). PISA. 55 21th, — Same weather (56). 28 ^/i.-— Same weather (54). 29th. — Fine clear day (60). — Go to Leghorn (in -^O'^^' Italian Livorno), and return to Pisa to-night. Leg- Jn.*-^^ HORN is a place of no great antiquity. Three hundred "*^^'t^^!^ years asro it was a mere nothincr at all. This port owes ^ J ^ O 1 ^^^^ ail its importance to the family of the Medici. Its popu- lation, at this time, is upwards of 50,000, of which, IJ^^^ j/e understand, no less than 20.000 ^xq Jews, The harbour ^, is very safe and capacious, and the main street of the ^ ''"'^^J city, which is full of shops, has a constant life and stir in it. Among the objects of curiosity here are the Laza- rettos, the burying-ground of the English, and the Jews' synagogue. In the burying-ground lie the remains of Smollet. The Jews glory in their synagogue at Leg- horn, it being one of the grandest temples in the world belonging to this stiff-necked race." — The Jews are highly favoured in Tuscany. I understand that they are even admitted to the holding of public offices, as much as Christians are. 30^/i — Very clear day, but with a coldish wind (59). d\rst. — Clear, cold day, with a pretty smart frost at night : ice, in our court-yard, a quarter of an inch thick (50). January, 1829. \rst, — A real wintry new year's day, with a frost at night (42). The thermometer is very useful, inasmuch as it enables you to judge of extreme heats and frosts, 56. PISA. and of general steadiness or unsteadiness in the air. But the state of the thermometer, to-day, can give no idea of this day's cold. The north-east wind is severe beyond any thing that we could have expected to feel at Pisa. If there were much such weather here every winter, this would certainly not be the climate, above all others, to nurse weak lungs in. They tell us, however, that the weather we now have is very rarely known in this part of Italy, and that the season is a most extraor- dinary one. 2d, — Fine, clear cold day, and frost at night (47). 3rd, — Same weather (47). Go to Leghorn, and return in the evening. 4th, — This morning we have a light sprinkling of snow, and the day turns out rainy (45). The tops of the distant Apennines may now be seen covered with snow. — Rain all day (44). The grandeur that now remains to Pisa, though it lies in a smallish compass, is still enough to make her highly interesting. Here is a duomo or cathedral, a baptestry, a campanile or bellVy, and a burying-place called the Campo- Santo, or holy- ground. These stand just within the wall of the city ; they are all four very near each other ; and you see them to great advantage, for there are no other buildings in the way on any side. They are all built of one mate- rial, one sort of marble ; and one would suppose, on a general view, that they were all of the same age, and made, as it were, to go together. They were not, how- PISA. 57 ever, all planned by the same architect, nor erected at one time. The building of these edifices occurred at different dates^ during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The cathedral, and the baptestry which stands close by it, are two of the finest buildings 1 have ever seen. There are many fine pictures, and pieces of statuary, in the inside. But the bronze doors are the objects most worthy of admiration, and these it is impossible not to admire exceedingly. We cannot help wondering, too, to see how little injury has been suffered by such old buildings, either from time or ill-will. The belfry has the name of Leaning Tower, from its having a consider- able inchnation to one side. It is in the form of a round tower, is nearly 200 feet high; and its leaning, or depar- ture from the perpendicular line, is full as much as four English yards. Some people, particularly the Pisans, attribute the producing of this curiosity to design in the artist, and would have you believe that it is a miracu- lously successful prank in architecture ; but soberer judges are of opinion that a sinking at the foundation has been the cause. The Campo-Santo is a most beautiful and most curious thing. It is a large rectangular building. The interior space is, like any other burying-ground, open to the air. All that of it, indeed, Avhich is under roof, consists in a wide and elegant arcade, which goes, on the inside of the Campo, all the way round the wall. The inner side of the roof is supported by columns, and the outer side rests on the w^all. All the inside of the wall is covered with paintings, in fresco^ the greater d5 PISA. part of which are relating to subjects from Scriptural history. Dante's Inferno is one of the things here handled by the painter; and truly inf^imalhe has made it. Beside the paintings, there are statues in marble, monuments, and tombs. The tomb of Algarotti is here. It is said that the earth contained in the area of the Campo-Santo was actually brought all the way from the Holy Land, This circumstance it is which renders the place so curious. We are told that the earth was brought here by Archbishop Lanfranchi, when he returned from the wars in the Holy Land, which was before the building now called Campo-Santo was com- menced. This occurred upwards of six hundred years ago. And hence it was that the spot obtained the name of Holy Ground. Some of the fresco paintings here were made more than four hundred years ago. Some parts of them are, it is true, considerably damaged ; and restorations have been made of late years. But, what a sign of the clunate is this, that most of these paintings, paintings against a plaster wall and exposed to the air, are still so nearly perfect. It is a wonder, indeed, that they have not all been entirely effaced for ages past. 6th, — Same weather (43). 1th, — Fine day, and rain at night (44). 8^^. — Rain (44). To those who can do without mountain scenery, and who can be contented with a plain, the neighbourhood of Pisa is pleasant. The land lies in a perfect flat ; but it is well cultivated. There i^ PISA. 59 a larger extent of level land here than we have seen any where in Italy as yet. For miles around this city, in all directions, the land is generally both good and well farmed. Towards the sea, however, there is a large tract of country which they call maremma (marsh). The marshes are by no means unproductive. 1 hey feei great numbers of cattle. The marshy land runs for a great distance along the coast of Tuscany towards the domi- nions of the Pope. The air of these maremme becomes more or less pestilential towards the autumn of every year, particularly in some spots, the inhabitants of which are obliged either to flee or to run the risk of being seized with a dreadful tertian fever. It is not, however, till you get a long way south of Leghorn, that the people are found subject to the fever. The infectious air is called maV aria (bad air.) The neighbourhood of Pisa itself, even, was formerly not free from this maV aria. But I am assured that there is nothing of the kind here now, and that the air of Pisa has been very much bet- tered by the draining and tilling of the land. The winter air of Pisa is generally allowed to be mild. As for the summer and autumn, we must not be guided by descrip- tions of the country as it was sixty or eighty years back, nor by modern book-makers, who pass their judgment by a republication of accounts which they find in old books. — Fair (52). — The principal crops of the plain of Pisa are, wheat, Indian corn, rije, barley, horse-beans, vetches, hemp,Jiax, and Iwpines, They have some white 60 PISA. turnips also. Their crops of these latter are but very poor, although the soil appears to suit them. The turnips are a winter food for their horned cattle. Speaking of this sort of cattle, by-the-bye, the name of John Bull,'^ and the fame of his roast beef of old England," natu- rally flatter us into the notion that we have the finest horned cattle in the world. I will not say that we are mistaken in this notion ; but, I must allow that the Tus- cans have a right, here, to boast a good deal. The far greater part of their farming-work is done with oxen ; and these animals are, certainly, some of the most beau- tiful of their kind that I have ever seen. The cows, as well as the oxen, are often brought under the yoke. The Tuscan horned cattle are rarely spotted. They seem to be very distinct in their kinds; indeed, there seems to be but one kind of them. Their colour varies but little, and is always most delicate : dove colour, cream colour, or a very light brown, with dark horns, muzzles, legs, and tails. They are deep in carcase, elegant in shape, and have small heads, with middling-sized horns, which turn up pretty much like those of the Scotch kiloe. I have seen no horned cattle in Italy that were not handsome. The oxen we saw in Piedmont were very handsome, though not so large as those of Tuscany. The yoke to which these docile animals submit is of the simplest kind ; it consists of nothing more than pieces of wood tied to- gether with cord. This is all the harness they wear. The carriage they draw is a long cart with a pole; and the oxen draw in pairs^ the pole of the cart being fastened PISA. 61 to the beam of their yoke. They do not, in fact, draw the weight, but 'push it rather. They do not draw from the shoulder with the bows of their yoke, like a horse wilh his collar : the beam rests on the front of their withers ; and with that part the beasts lean against their burden and send it along. The ox is bridled, and in a manner the most effectual. I can compare the bridle, or morsa as they call it, to nothing but a pair of sugar-' nippers, which it resembles both in form and material, though not in severity. It is a light iron instrument, about a foot long. The curved points of the nippers, which are made to lay hold of the ox by his nostrils, are not sharp, and do not quite meet together. The thing has two long handles to it, at the extremities of which are eyes, through which is passed a cord. The cord, drawn pretty tight, and fastened round one of the ani- mal's horns, keeps the two handles iiat against his face, the nippers safe in liis nose, and the ox, consequently, on his good behaviour. lO^/i. — Fair (52). — The farms here are not divided into fields ; at least, they are not regularly intersected with hedges or decided fences. There are deep ditches cut to carry off the water, a great part of the land being wet in winter time. A mere ditch is, with us_, hardl}' to be called a fence at all. We are accustomed to find both utility and ornament in fencing : the ditch secures the former of these to the Pisan farmers, and the latter they need not look for in a mere fence, Alas ! (for I cannot speak of it without some of the regret that envy inspires) 62 PISA. the borders of their fields are beautified by what we can never hope see equalled in our fields ; nay, not even in our gardens. I have seen much in this country which would, in my opinion, make England any thing but suffer by a comparison. But I cannot help envying the Italians one charm that their country possesses: I mean her vines. Here the fields have rows of trees planted round them ; and the trunks and branches of these trees are supporters of the vine, the greatest embellishment that a country can possibly have. Tlie vine is not at all the same thing here that it is in France. In France it is comparatively a humble thing. The French cut it down nearly as we cut our currants, check its vigorous and a^spiring shoots, and confine them to the height of a were stake. It is not only to the palate, and to the sight on a general view of the country, that the vine here affords gratification. Each individual tree, or row of trees, with the vines clambering up and hanging from the branches, is an object of admi- ration in itself. It is enough, without any thing else, to characterise a whole country, and tells the stranger from the north that he has here got into quite a new region. The poplar, that which we call black Italian, and the common maple, are the trees most commonly used to train the vine to. The reason given by the farmers, for using these, in preference to other trees, is the same which we read in Pliny and Varro: these trees give less offence to the vine, do not so much overshadow it as most other trees would. The trees are not allowed to grow their full height ; they are lopped so far as to make PISA. 63 them nearly pollards; and this lopping is done every year at the time when the vines are pruned. The work of pruning and training takes place in winter. It is now going on. The yearling shoots are of great length; some of them as much as from twenty to twenty- five feet long. The wood^ old and new_, is cut away with- out much mercy ; for they here know the vine too well to treat it with an over-sparing hand. In training, a main object seems to be that of directing the shoots downwai^ds ; and this in order to make them bear more fruit. The yearling shoots, that are to bear fruit in the following summer, are brought together in twos 3 each two are twisted round and round one another, cut off at a certain distance, and tied together with a twig of osier. The shoots, thus managed, hang over the branches of the tree with their ends towards the ground. Some of them are bent outwards in the form of a bow, the ends being tied in to the tree or to the main stem of the vine. Others are led away from the tree, and have their ends tied to the tops of high stakes at four or five yards off. Great taste is shown by these people in this matter. They give it all the variety that such a thing can admit of. One of the forms is particularly elegant ; that in which two couples of twined shoots are brought to meet each other half way between two trees, there tied toge- ther, and their extremities bent right and left and tied again, in such a way as to make a festoon. How beau- tiful all this must be in the summer or autumn, with the broad leaves, tendrils, and clusters of grapes, we 64 PISA. may easily imagine. This sketch will serve to give some idea of a row of trees and vines, at this season, as they are just after being pruned and trained. (See page 65.) Fair (53). 12^A.— Hard rain (55). 13if/i._Very fineday (61). I4th. — Same weather (65). 15//t.— Clear, but cold (57). \6th, — Fine day, with rain at night (55). This city has aa ancient and celebrated university. To this uni- versity the students come, many of them, from distant parts of the world. The Pisans admit that they them- selves are very idle, and that they do but little honour to this their seat of learning, very few of the youth of Pisa being at all given to study. Here are professorships of lav/, medicine, mathematics, and other sciences. The lectures are open to the public, and the students have the benefit of them gratis. There is a separate hall for the delivering of lectures on each branch of study. The halls are by no means elegant. There is a sort of pulpit, in which the lecturer sits v.^hile he is lecturing, with benches for the students. An advocate, a professor of criminal law, whom I listened to this morning, wore his gown and cap ; and these must have contributed not less to his comfort than to his dignity, for the air was by no means warm, and the hall had no fire in it. The stu- dents, who Vv'ere busy in taking notes, kept their hats on their heads, and all wore cloaks or great coats. They 66 PISA. were dressed in a variety of clothes, mostly of an ordinary quality and cut ; some had round jackets and trousers, looking more like handicraftsmen than men of law. There was one circumstance that said much for the habits of the University : the lecture was begun at half past eight in the morning; it was a lecture before breakfast. As to the law of this country, it would be difficult, I sup- pose, to find out what it is exactly. It is, as far as I can get any information about the matter, a mixture of all the laws, from the earliest to the latest times, that have existed in Italy. It would be impossible to judge fairly of the political state of this people by a comparison of their law with ours. The two grand subjects of our boast they know nothing of: they have no juries and no House of Commons, The judges administer justice without the assistance of the people ; and the Grand Duke, Vvdth his four counsellors (Minister of the Interior^ Minister of Foreign Affairs^ Minister of Finarice, and Minister of War), takes the welfare of the state under his own exclusive protection. In 1786 Leopold I., the then Grand Duke of Tuscany, published an edict for the reform of the criminal law in his dominions ; and when Bonaparte came he established that new light in law called the Code Napoleon. At the subsequent restora- tion, when the Austrians came back, it was left to the Tuscans to choose what they would retain, and what reject, of the diflferent specimens of codification" that they had experienced. The edict of Leopold I., who is said to have been a singularly mild prince, was so PISA. 67 much talked of for the wisdom and humanity of its pro- visions, that it was translated into our language some years ago, and published in England. — The punishments for crimes are not over severe. Many of such criminals as would forfeit their lives in England are here impri- soned for life. Long imprisonments are more common, and hangings very much less common, than with us. Those who are convicted of serious offences are brought out of the jail every day to sweep and clean the streets. They are chained together, and draw after them a light cart, into which goes whatever there is to clear away. They are attended by two or three masters of such cere- monies, each of whom carries a long blunderbuss slung over his shoulder. The convicts are dressed in yellow or red clothes, and with or without shoes and stockings, according to the degree of their offences and the time for which they are to be in prison. There is another degrading punishment, resembling our pillory. The offender is made to stand up against the outside of the prison wall, so that the people may come and gaze at him. His arms are tied back, and on his breast is a placard declaring the nature of his offence. 11 th. — Fine day, and rain at night (50). 18^A. — Showery (53). — The people here are uncom- monly sensible of cold. The men seem to be more so than the women. The women, that is, of the working and middling class, go about the streets without any thing, or with nothing more than a cap, on their heads, as the women do in France. But the men wrap them- 68 PISA. selves up at the least feeling of chill in the air, not only enveloping the whole body, from the shoulders down- wards, in a cloak or a great-coat worn with their arms out of the sleeves : they even muffle up the face, leaving just enough open to see their way by. Here the people sel- dom have fires for the express purpose of v/arming them- selves. The winters are not, in general, sufficiently cold to establish the habit of keeping up a fire in the sitting- room ; and it is not every room that has any fire-place in it. They do, however, make use of a little portable warming- machine, a little earthenware pot, with a bow handle, in which they put some hot ashes and embers. This machine (called scaldino) is used, chiefly, to warm the hands ; though the ladies frequently set it on the floor, and hide it under their petticoats, as the French do with their chauffepie. In offices of different kinds there are not generally fires, as with us ; but you see the scaldino on the desk or table. 19^A._Fair (59). %)th. — Fine warm day, and hard rain at night (59). — There is a good-sized theatre at Pisa. The playing, however, seems to be managed with very niggardly eco- nomy. A single piece is made to run for half the season. They go to the play more for the purpose of killing time and gossiping with those they meet, than for any enter- tainment that the stage affords. ^\rst. — Fine day, with rain at night (52). — Pisa is all the fashion just now ; not merely on account of the number of foreigners who make it a winter residence, PISA. 69 but because the Grand Duke and his family always come, at this season, to pass a few weeks here. They com.e to Pisa about Christmas, and go back to Florence for the carnival. During their stay there are always a certain number of grand balls given by the nobility, and the Duke gives two or three balls at his own palace. The present Grand Duke, Leopold II., is remarkable for his graciousness and freedom from ostentation. He is very popular with his subjects, who speak of him with pride. I happened to omit an essential part of the royal title a few days ago, in speaking to the porter at the Campo- Santo : he told me, as a matter of important news, that the sovrano had paid him a visit that morning. Come, I asked, il Duca? II Gran Diica, said the man, with a look of gentle reproof. The English are treated with much condescension by the Royal family. The being presented at Court is an honour which almost all those of us who seek may easily obtain. These people, the Tuscans, are as affable and courteous as one could possibly wish. The only disagreeable objects that have struck us, en societe, are some importations from our own dear country : a few bluff, self-sufficient English- men, and half a dozen or so of falandering dames, who embarked, most likely, at Wapping stairs^ when they set out for modern Etruria. This place is not sufficiently far from England to be very select in its English society ; and as the Pisans cannot always discriminate between our gentry properly so called and our vulgar rich, they are apt to form some general notions about the higher 70 PISA. orders " of England that are not very flattering. The English have always a pertain sort of respect paid them, however little our manners may accord with those of this people. They think, here, that we are all rich; and money, it must be confessed, has great influence with the Italians in our favour. They say, however, that we are orgogliosi e disprezzafori, proud and contemptuous. I do not at all wonder at our having such a character : most Englishmen deserve it, judging from their conduct as travellers out of their own country. 22nd, — Rainy, and cold (52), — There is no want of field-sports in this country. The birds commonly found are partridges (of two sorts), pheasants (like the English), quails, woodcocks, snipes, and wild-ducks. The Italians, like the French, are very fond of small birds ; of which there is a very small kind here called heccajichi, a bird which is eaten, als(5, in the south of France, and much esteemed for its flavour. There are foxes and wolves among the w^oody mountains ; and in the marshes there is a sort of wild horn^cattle. But the cignale, or wild hoar, is the great object of the chace ; and it is found in abundance among all the woods near Pisa. Horses, dogs, spears, and guns, are used in the pursuit of this animal. The Grand Duke is a hunter of the porco sal- vatico. His Imperial Royal Highness is said to be a great shot in this way. But it must be a highly privi- leged sportsman that would be pardonable in missing a pig. — The game-law of this country appears to be much the same as that of France : any one may obtain liberty PISA. 71 to shoot here, by paying, annually, about 5s. 6d. of our money, for leave to carry a gun. The certificate of that liberty, which is what you have to pay the money for, is called porto dJ armi, 23rd, — Same weather (49). — They say that this win- ter is extraordinarily cold for Pisa. I dare say it is so ; for we have accounts of unusual severity in the weather in other countries, both north and south of this. We are lodged in, perhaps, the very warmest spot in the whole city. Our house is on the north side of the Lung ^Arno, where the sun has great effect, shining on the fronts of the houses for many hours in the day. We are almost in summer, compared with those on the opposite side of the river. My thermometer may sometimes be a little too high to judge fairly; yet I alw^ays keep it in the shade, and as far as I can from any place immediately influenced by the sun. The following account of the temperature of the air in Pisa has been given me by an English gentleman, who has lived here for some years past. His thermometer is that of Fahrenheit, which has always been placed, he says, in a passage on the first floor of his house. He tells me that, in that situation, and at noo7i, it has not generally exceeded 80 degrees, and was never below 76 degrees, in the month of Jult/y which is the warmest month of the year in this climate. 72 Account kept of the temperature of the air in Pisay for the year 1828. The observation was made every day at 7ioo7i, from the Irst of January y to the o\r St of December, — A. ^Ae average heat of each month, H. ^Ae highest degree, and L, the LOWEST degree at which the thcrmo7neter ever stood during the month. A. H. L. 501 60 40 511 62 44 March , , 58J- 66 50 66^ 76 61 74 78 68 79 82 75 Julv 804 86 76 78-J- 80 74 7G 84 68 66|-. 72 54 59i 64 52 56 34 PISA. 73 I have also an account of observations made at the Pisa Observatory, of the thermometer and barometer, during three successive years. The instruments they use here are those of the French. But, calculating according to Fahrenheit' s thermometer, and the English barometer, the result will be as follows : — THERMOMETER. In 1815 the average height of the thermo- meter, for the whole year, was 60 66 In 1816 58 93 In 1817 61 22 Average of the three years. . 60 26 BAROMETER. In 1815 the average height of the baro- meter, for the whole year, was 29 In 1816 29 In 1817 29 Average of the three years. . 29 I'he instruments lare placed at thirteen yards above the pavement of the city. It will be seen that the observa- lions have been made with great nicety. The foregoing E 74 PISA. figures relate, as respects the thermometer, to degrees arad hundredths of a degree^ and, as respects the baro- meter, to inches and thousandths of an inch, — There has been much dispute about the climate of Pisa ; but I believe almost all those who pretend to judge of it allow that this climate is a wet or damp one ; that is to say, in the winter and spring months. Its general mild^ ness is admitted by all. The average account of the rain that fell for the three years, 1815, 1816, and 1817, as kept at the Observatory, is 48 -^-^^q : that is, during each year, 48 inches and 777 thousandths of an inch (English measure). This proves, at all events, that the quantity of rain is large ; though we cannot judge, by this fact alone, of the general degree of humidity in the air. — I understand that the wind, during the warm weather of the summer, almost invariably blows olf the sea, which is distant from Pisa, in a direct line, not above four miles. 24^A.— Fine day (54). 25^/i. — Very beautiful warm day (61). — The money in this country is all hard^ of gold, silver, and copper; but it is of infinitely greater variety than the money of England. The principal coin, of any considerable value and in general circulation, is the scudo, which nearly resembles, in si^e, our croiun. There are other silver coins smaller than the scudo ; and these are, for the most part, what they call paoli (pauls), and hdiU paoli. Ten paoli make one scudo ; and the scudo is equal to 4s. 7rf. English money. So that the smallest silver PISA. 75 coins here, the paolo and the^half paolo, are worth, in our money, the former 5^d. and the latter 2|c/. This is being minute enough for the silver part of the cur- rency ; but, when it comes to their less precious metal, the subdividing of the paul is almost without end. There are little pieces of money with the different names of crazia, soldo, and quattrino. The crazia is of cop- per, with a little bit of silver mixed in it. The soldo is all copper ; and the quattrino is, I believe, composed of some material of still less value. One paul is equal to eight crazie, equal to thirteen soldi and a thirds and equal to forty quattrini: so that, a quattrino, a coin in actual circulation, is worth only the fortieth part of our fvepence halfpenny. The quattrino is, as far as relates to tangible money, the extreme nicety. But there is, in the keeping of accounts, a money still smaller than even this; an imaginary money, called denaro ; and it takes one hundred and sixty denari to make one paul. I reckon the paolo, or paul, to be equal in value to S^cZ. of our money. This is very near about, if not exactly, what it is worth according to the average of exchange between England and Leghorn. The Tuscan libhra, or lb. weight, is just the same as the ^u%\\B\\\h. troy-weight ; and it is divided into 12 once^ or ounces, like our lb. troy. The Tuscan sacco, sack or bag (the corn-measure of this country), is just equal to two bushels of English imperial measure. e2 76 PISA. The Tuscan braccio, or arm (answering to our yard), is 23 English inches. The Tuscan measure for land is what they call a saccata ; and the saccata is just one-fourth more than our English acre. The Tuscan wine-barrel contains 12 gallons of the English old wine-measure. The Tuscan barrel of olive-oil weighs 88 Tuscan pounds. 26th, — Very fine day, with rain at night (54). — The system of farming in Tuscany is this : the landlord finds all the capital } and he pays for half of what it may be necessary to bui/y such as food for the farmer's cattle, and manure for his land. For rent, and for the interest of his capital, the landlord receives one-half of the profits of the farm. The farmer cultivates the land, and attends to the stock, at his own expense. The day- labourer is paid as follows ; I speak of English money, and suppose the labourer to have lodging found him :— - In winter time, with board .... 5^d, without board lid. In summer time, with board .... S^d, without board l6^d, The following are the taxes of this country : — A tax on inheritances and legacies (not heavy). A tax of two per cent, on all sales of freehold pro- perty, as a register-tax. PISA, 77 A tax on stamps, which stamps must be used for all contracts, and every thing that goes before the tri- bunals, for petitions, and valuations, and for promis- sory notes. But no tax on receipts, A tax on families, or householder-tax. For a labourer, 25. 3^d. sterling per annum ; for a proprietor of a house with not more than two or three acres of land, 35. 5^d. ; for farmers, 5s. 6d. (the highest) ; for landlords, merchants, traders, and professional men, from 5s, 6d, to 16s. 6d. — This tax is fixed by the mayors and corporations, and the magistrates. A tax for the lighting, paving, &c. of cities and towns. To give an idea of the weight of the two last-mentioned of these taxes, a gentleman who lives in Pisa, and the part building and altering of whose house and garden cost him 3208/. 6s, Sd: tells me that he pays 15s. l^d, in family-tax, and IZ. 18s. 3d, towards the lighting, paving, &c. of the city. Besides these taxes there are the following duties. Leghorn is a free port ; but nothing could be brought from that city to Pisa, except by smuggling, without being subject to inspection, and to the payment of duty if required by the tariff. The consumer, in short, or the country trader, pays the duty on the goods, instead of the merchant who imports them. A duty on cotton, linen, and woollen manufactured goods, of about 18 per cent^ nominal value. ?8 PISA. A duty on all sorts of hardware, which is classed, and pays from 5 to 10 per cent, ad valorem, — Bar and cast-iron are prohibited, there being a plenty of iron in the country. A duty on tea, sugar, and coffee. A duty on tobacco and snuif. This duty is farmed, I believe, by a few wealthy individuals of the nobility. No tobacco is permitted to be grown, excepting under the immediate superintend ance of the govern- ment. The duty is not sufficiently high to prevent this article from being very cheap. It is taxed, I believe, all over Italy. A duty on salt. This, like the tobacco, is, originally, sold only by the government. They sell it at 13 quattriniy that is, of our 5\d, the lb., and it costs them not more than one quattrino, — To those who employ salt in manufacture of any kind, the duty is remitted altogether. A duty on some of the wines from foreign countries, and on foreign spirits. This duty is trifling. A duty on meat, Id, per lb. : on wine, 5^cZ. per barrel: on olive oil, \s,i and a duty on bread, poultry, eggs, butter, cheese : on every thing, in short, that is eatable, there is a duty ; that is to say, if it be brought to be consumed within a city. — So that, every thing we eat at Pisa has a duty paid on it by those who bring it to market. •PISA. 27 tL — Very disagreeable, wet day (49). 28 jf^.— Fine day (59). 29th, — Fine morning, and rain towards the afternoon (58). — Land is sold here by a measure called stiora. The stiora is just one-ninth part of a saccata. The naked lands of the plains, at a few miles from Pisa, quite bare of trees and vines, are worth from 10 scudi (2Z. 5s, 10c/.) to 14 scudi {3L 4s. 2d.) the stiora. Light, loamy lands, near the city, and well planted with their due portion of trees and vines, are worth from 40 scudi (91, 3s. Ad,) to 60 scudi (141, Os, Od.) the stiora. If the land lie low, and be subject to wet and floods in winter, it will not, though good in quality and well situated, fetch more than from 20 scudi (4/. 1 Os. Od,) to 25 scudi {51, 12s. Qd.) the stiora. In speaking of the value of land in this country, at this time, we are not to be guided by the present prices of corn. Wheat is now at an un- usually high price, on account of the great demand in the foreign market. In the last account published here of the prices of grain, the finest quality of Tuscany wheat is marked as being at about 72 shillings the quarter, which is more than double what it was two or three years ago. In the year 1825 the price of the common run of Pisan wheat was 3s. 5\d. the bushel (English money and measure). - At that time it was considered that a fair average of price and produce for years, to buy or sell land upon in this neighbourhood, was about as follows. I speak of English money, and English imperial mea- sure 80 PISA. Price per Bushel. Wheat 35. llcZ. Indian corn 25. 4|(i. Rye 25. 9d. Beans 25. 9^-ie<^C trust not. Independently of all the weight that conscience ought /f^/r-/^*./: -sto have with him in the case, pray let this gentleman consider /t}t4^*<.^^ the alarm which his re- appearance in England must create A/iT^^'^ amongst all those who take interest in his personal safety. /rx-//uy% ^jr»^or, has he not, in order to hecome a ** citizen" of the Re- ^f^.J^it f/nd^^"^^^ of the United States, withdrawn his allegiance to j^^'^^^^ /^^^ the king of England that is to say, has he not renounced and ft^^ abandoned his native country and her government upon his solemn //luJt ^/ of^lh^ England has ceased to have the right of inflicting punish- ^^^^^^^/^ rtmisX. on crime in the States now called United ; and, therefore, /(t/^ the operation of our lav/ could not go the salutary length of /h^/^ ^^causing Mr. H. to be hanged in that country. Yet, for an ^ /// Englishman to disown the land of his birth ; for him to declare ll/'fu ^ffc iv*«nd swear that he will have nothing more to do with her ; for him ^^c< means of purchasing privileges in a foreign state, a/ i^c4 power ; this is regarded by us, and ought to be, as something very ^ cin/ctM y^"^^ lil^e high treason. And, though Mr. Hulme may trust to an yS.Aei.*'^^^ inclination to be lenient in our rulers of the present day, it is to //j ^^yct(^^ hoped that he has too much prudence to approach, and that he t^jtin^^c\ needs no amicable remonstrance to keep him out of, that neigh* » A ,bourhood of honest fellows in the North which he left when he (II i/ThlKAitM. ati} e.*^ic^/t. "'^^^^ ^° ^"^^ Yankee. Mr. Hulme's judgment, as a manufac- ^0/tajt£*-^ turer, may be very sound ; but he has some queer notions of the j,^^ ^^^^jocial and political kind. In his published ** Journal,'* written ^^uring a tour in the western part of the United States, he laments /^*^ 7^ the cultivation of music and flowers, among the settlers at Har- ^^'^^ niony, signs of ignorance ?lvl^ badges of slavery !! As much as to say, that the rattling of a power- loom is the sound most pleasing to patriotic ears, and that a flower can be of no profit but when it is dabbed in efligy upon a piece of steam- wrought cotton. PISA. 95 17^A.— Fine day ; rain at night (53). ' ISth, Leghorn. — Fine weather (58). 19ifA.— Very fine (62). 20th, Pisa. — We went last night, at Leghorn, to a splendid house-warming. It was a ball given by a gentleman who has just finished building a new man- sion, in which the entertainment took place. There were five or six rooms, on one floor, all full of people. The company could not have been less than six or seven hundred in number. It was altogether a most brilliant affair of its kind, A great part of the guests were from Florence, and some had come all the way from Rome. But the mere grand display of this ball is a sort of thing in which countries do not much dilfer from one another. The thing to be noted by the traveller, on such occa- sions, is the manners of the people whom he is invited to meet ; and these, at the party of last night, were such as to give a most pleasing impression. The people of this part of Italy, both high and low, are universally talked of for their affability, gentleness of disposition, and willingness to oblige. And I think, as far as expe- rience has enabled me to judge, that they highly merit such a reputation. I have never seen any people that I should think it so difficult to find cause of quarrel with as these. — The French will, I suppose, for ever bear off the palm in the art of dancing. The Italians do certainly not come up to them in this. There was a new kind of dance exhibited last night, which we saw for the first time. They call it la galoppa. This, I am sure, was 96 never introduced by a Frenchmayi, unless it were out of pure burlesque. It may possibly have been brought into Europe from among the savages, by the dancing-master whom M. DE Chateaubriand humorously describes as teaching the North American Indians to dance quad- rilles. Such a dance could have been invented only by " ces Messieurs sauvages et ces Dames sauvagesses^'' or some such people. Its name is appropriate enough, for the pace is as much like a full gallop as any thing that could be performed by ladies and gentlemen in a ball- room. The partners join as in waltzing, and, dancing sideways, go one couple after another in a single line, round and round the room. It is a violent and un- graceful scamper. The by-standers seem to get out of the w^ay as if it were a race, and for fear of being run over. 2lrst. — Very fine (66). The weather is very mild ; the sun has much power; it is like a fine May in England. The strangers who come to stay at Pisa live pretty much in the same way that the Italians themselves do. A family occupies one story of a house. The cost of house-rent, in such a place as Pisa, must, of course, be subject to great variety, on account of the influx of foreigners in winter, and the comparative emptiness of the city in summer. During the winter, a middling- sized piano of seven or eiglit rooms, well furnished, and a kitchen ; that is, a lodging sufficiently large for four or five persons and two servants, will cost about ten pounds English money a month, I speak of the Lun^' Arno, BAGNl DI LUCCA. 97 where all endeavour to be if they can. In more retired parts of the town, the house-rent is much less high. The lodgings here are generally very well furnished. Linen and plate are things that the landlord does not find. Almost all those who are only visitors to the place have their dinners sent from a trattoria, or cookVshop, by which means they are saved the trouble of having to cook much at home, and avoid a great deal of what may be called the botheration of servants. Many of the Italians themselves, residents in the town, have their dinners in the same way. The practice is a good deal the fashion with this people. I do not like it, I confess ; but they say it saves trouble, and that, no doubt, it does. The trattoria man sends you a very good dinner, with good bread and wine included, for from \s, 6d, to 2s. Sd, of our money. There is a most convenient board- ing-house, on a large scale, just about to be opened here by an Englishman, Mr. Deakin. I should recommend any of my friends going to Pisa, if they were in want of private lodgings here, to apply to Messrs. Patriarch! and Vannini, who are at No. 988, on the Lung' Arno. 22nd. — Cloudy day, and rain at night (59). — We are packing up to go to Florence. 23rd. — Bagni di Lucca. — Very fine day; a little frost at night (61). — We quit Pisa this morning. And we leave, at that place, some Italian friends that we are really sorry to part with. They, also, profess to regret our departure. If their professions be not sincere, I am 6ure they are very inconsistent with their acts; for, it r 9S BAGNI DI LUCCA. would be impossible to be treated with more exceedingly kind attention than that which we have experienced at the hands of some of the inhabitants of Pisa. Conduct more obhging and disinterested I have seen no where before* I should be much wanting in gratitude and jus- tice if I were not to say so. This place is about twenty-seven miles from Pisa. We left the Tuscan territory at ten miles from Pisa, and entered that of Lucca. To come hither we had to pass close by the walls of the city of Lucca, where our road turned off towards this place, the Bagni di Lucca, or Lucca Baths, as it is called. From Pisa to Florence there are two roads; the one we are now going, and another up the Vale of Arm, through Fornacette and La Scala. The baths do not lie in our road ; on leaving Lucca, we made a digression of ten miles on purpose to visit this spot. The land is exceedingly well cultivated here. I have never seen any thing to equal it before. You are struck with it the moment you enter the stat^. The baths are a place of great resort for the Italians, and for those foreigners who pass the summer in Tuscany. Many, indeed, come here from more distant parts during the warm months. At this time of the year hardly any one lives here ; nobody that can afford to live elsewhere ; for the place is uncommonly cold in winter. We, therefore, only come here to see the country, which is most beautiful and romantic. The city of Lucca is situated on a perfect level, in a large plain ; and, to ap- proach the baths, you have to go almost all the way on BAGNI DI LUCCA. 99 ground gradually rising, towards the snow-covered Apen- nines, which are at about fifteen or sixteen miles from Lucca. After arriving at the end of a long straight avenue of poplar-trees and vines, which leads from the city, you come to a winding rapid river, of considerable size, called Serchio, alongside of which runs the road all the way up to this spot. On both sides of the river are very high mountains, covered with vines and ches- nut-trees. Coming up this gently-rising road, con- stantly facing the stream, the scenery was very fine, and we had a mild and sunny afternoon. Sometimes the views were short, there being a sudden turn to make round a rocky hill; sometimes we could see for many miles, the view terminating with distant points of the Apennines, which ^vere covered with snow, and looked a sort of bright half-silver and golden colour in the reflec- tion of the sun. Here and there on the banks of the river, or on the sides or tops of the mountains, were vil- lages, which, thus situated, and at a tolerable distance, contributed much to the beauty of the landscape, what- ever they might be on closer inspection. There are two or three old bridges over the river, which are the most curious and picturesque things of the kind that can be imagined. One of them is much celebrated. It crosses the river with one long and immensely high arch. This bridge is so ancient, and looks altogether so different from any modern bridge, that the country people suppose it to have been built by the devil himself. It puts one in mind of the bridge described byARiosTo: the bridge on F 2 100 BAGNI DI LUCCA. which Rodomonte and Orlando, happening to meet half- way over, were fiercely and furiously contending for the advantage, when all of a sudden they both had their courage cooled by a souse into the water. Its length, and extremely disproportionate narrowness, agree with the words of the poet: " Lungo il ponte, ma largo era si poco Che dava appena a duo cavalli loco, &;c." It is more than possible that the " divine " fabulist may have had this very structure in his eye, though, in his fancy, he makes Rodomonte himself the architect. With this particular object the surrounding scenery admirably corresponds ; the whole of it is well calcu- lated to inspire a flight in those who deal in heroic fiction. The water that supplies the baths, and which is said to produce wonderful cures (for the baths are of a medical quality), comes out on the side of a mountain which stands somewhat apart from the main range of moun- tains ; and, just as you get to this mountain, the road takes a sudden twist, and it appears as if you had got to a place where you can go no further. Nor can you do so, with the eye, in any direction, unless you get up on the high ground, from which you may see back down the river, and, in the opposite direction, you get a view of distant snows on the Apennines over the tops of the mountains more adjacent. Immediately around, on all sides, are high mountains, on which there are some olives, but more vines, and extensive woods of chesnut- LUCCA. 101 trees. The chesnut is the great natural produce of the soil here; the labouring people live upon it, in great part, during the winter- time. In some spots on these mountains the farmer's whole occupation consists in gathering the nuts and felling chesnut-timber. The people shell the nuts, and dry them, and then grind them. The flour is both fine and white ; it is eaten in the shape of thick porridge, or pollenta, as it is called, or in a sort of pancake, which the people here call neccia. We have some of these cakes at supper this evening ; as a novelty, their taste is sweet and rather agreeable ; but one must, I should think, either have ceased to remember the taste of wheat and r3^e bread, or have a very vigorous appetite, in order to be satisfied with chesnut pancakes alone for many meals together. I have been told that this is not a wholesome food. Mr. Arthur Young assures us, that chesnuts are inferior to acorns as a food to fatten pigs on. Lucca. — Very beautiful spring weather (66). —This morning, before setting out on our road back to Lucca, we make the giro, or circuit, of the mountain on the side of which are the baths. There is a little town at the top of this mountain, besides a village or two, and a good many straggling villas, round the base of it. Another river, the Lima, which flows down from the neighbourhood of Pistoja, passes immediately by this place, and falls into the Serchio at a short distance down the valley. The Lima is a fine trout-stream, very rapid, winding, running over an irregular bed of rocks. At the LUCCA. side of the river are summer residences, some of which are almost palaces in size, belonging to noblemen, minis- ters of state, and other people of importance. The Duke of Lucca (who is a prince of the Bourbon race) has a palace here. These houses are, at this time^ alto- gether uninhabited ; there is a grand hotel, kept, during the summer, for visitors, which is now deserted even by the keepers of it. There is even a play-house here. It is a most singular place : so crowded with fashion at one season of the year, and so completely abandoned at ano- ther, and at all times having so much of natural wildness about it in spite of the refinements mingled in the scene. The baths, the place in which the actual dipping takes place, consist of a large and exceedingly clean and well- ordered house. The house may be called a hospital, for hither the poor sick from various parts of the country come, and here they are lodged and attended to free of expense ; that is to say, those who come here to be cured by bathing. — On our way back to Lucca we turn off to see the Duke's palace, at a place called Marlia. It is a fine place, most delightfully situated, amongst nume- rous other country houses, at about three or four miles from the city, under the side of mountains that lie on the left of our road to Florence. In the inside of the house are rooms and saloons decorated with the most costly finery. The plantations and pleasure-grounds are more after the English fashion than any I have seen abroad. On being conducted through a shaded walk to one side of the garden, we came to a spot the appear- LUCCA. 103 ances of which would puzzle an Enghshman to guess what it could be devoted to. It was a bit of raised ground, against a high wall, somewhat inclining towards the front, like the stage of a large theatre, and of about the same size. We mounted, by a short flight of steps, to take a closer view. The place was nearly semicircular in form ; and round the edge were marble statues, and a continuous bower of trained trees. The open space con- sisted of a smooth piece of fine closely-mowed grass. It was evident that such a thing must have been made on purpose for something. We asked what it was, and our guide told us it was for dancing. In one of the Duke's enclosures we w^ere much pleased by the sight of a pair of those deer of the antelope species which are called gazelles. No descriptioa could do justice to these pretty little creatures. They are^ by nature, inhabitants of much hotter countries than this. They are of a restless and timid disposition, and remarkably agile ; their boundings are so light and elastic as to strike one with astonishment. These two were anxious to become acquainted with us, but appeared to be distressed with doubts as to whether we ought to be trusted. When we offered to coax them, as they came sniffing towards us, they ran and dashed their fine heads and limbs against an iron gate. This animal is said to be more swift than the greyhound and the roe- buck, though its body is hardly larger than that of a hare. In hunting it, the people of India and Persia call in the aid of the falcon, which, being trained for i04 PISTOJA. the purpose, holds the nimble miniature of a deer in custody till the dogs can come up. There is a meekness of aspect in the gazelle that is singularly fascinating. The eye is more beautiful than that of any other animal : the eastern poets bring it into comparison when describ- ing the eyes of their favourite beauties. This city is strongly fortified, surrounded with walls and moats. There is a spacious walk all round the ramparts, whence you have a fine view of the country and the villas with which it is decked. The population of the towns-people is about 18,000. The whole of this state comprises but a very little bit of Italy ; it is only a speck, as it were, on her map. The state is 312 geo- graphical miles in extent; its whole population is about 143,000; and there is a standing army of 800 men. — The city of Lucca is a scene of any thing but idleness. Every body seems to have something to do. Here are manufactures of woollen cloth, linen, cotton, and iilk. Raw silk is one of the products of the country; and the people have a large trade in oil. Fine Lucca oil" is known all over the world. — There are some large churches here, an ancient cathedral among the rest. The royal palace is a very large building. — Our inn at Lucca is the Croix de Malth; a good house, and civil people. 25th. — PisTOJA. — Beautiful mild weather (65). — At this place we are out of the state of Lucca, and in that of Tuscany again. Pistoja has been a fine city^ though it can hardly be said to be so at this time. It PISTOJA, 105 has an ancient and high wall round it, the streets are broad and straight ; and there are some fine churches and other buildings ; but the place has much declined in its importance : there is a dulness about it which quickly informs you of the fact. Yet, this place is so situated^ the neighbourhood is such, that I should think it an agreeable place to live in. Pistoja stands in a plain, at the foot of the Apennines, and the river Ombrone runs hard by. The population of this city is now not above 10,0Q0. It is easy to perceive that the inhabitants must, at one time, have been much more numerous. The women of Pistoja are famous for their beauty. The best inn at Pistoja is one just without the gates, in which we are lodged. It is but a middling house, though the keeper of it is obliging to his customers. — The whole of our ride this day has been most delightful. We passed, in coming from Lucca, through a little place called Borgo Buggiano, and Pescia, a small episcopal town. The country part of the little state of Lucca, its agriculture, is quite a treat to see. This is not farming, according to our custom ; it is literally market' gardening all the way. Not an inch of ground seems to be neglected. The fields, in most cases, are extremely small. The vast plain, extending from all around Lucca towards Pistoja, has not so much the appearance of a tract of country divided into farms, and farms subdivided into fields, as of one immense field divided into gardens, and gardens laid out in beds. The various kinds of corn, and other crops, are sowed on f5 106 PISTOJA. ridges, or beds, of from two to four feet wide. And really the ground is ploughed or dug, and the crops are put in, with such an economy of room, and with such care and neatness, as are equalled only by what we see among the gardens about London. Some of our kitchen gardens may surpass, in this respect, the farms of the people of Lucca ; but we have nothing properly called farming that is at all to be compared with the field-culture here displayed. The effect of this excellent cultivation is, that there is scarcely an instance of failure or any thing like patchiness in a crop ; and every crop that is above ground shows that it has wanted nothing that the art of raising it, and industry in the artist, could bestow. Every field, or plot of ground, is hemmed with a row of vines, the vines being supported by trees, or_, as most of them here are, in the espalier form. Though this is called a plain, as compared with the neighbouring mountains, the land is not all flat : in some spots it is sufficiently hilly to be thrown into the form of shelves or terraces, which, as I before noticed, is done to preserve and make the most of the soil. The side of every hill is cultivated in this way. The shelves are mostly very narrow, about six feet wide ; and a row of vines stands along the out- w^ard edge of each shelf. The vines are pruned and trained with a nicety not to be rivalled. The planting of every stake, the cutting, the bending, the tying, of every branch, every particular the most minute, shows that it has had its full share of scrupulous attention. Many of the fields do not measure more than four or five square PISTOJA. 107 rods ; and you will sometimes see thirty or forty of them all adjoining one another, each being separately fenced in with vines trained to stakes or reeds. It would be hard to say whether it be the offerings of the god or those of the goddess,, of Bacchus or of Ceres, that are here the most studiously solicited. What the quality of the wine is, I do not know; but I dare say that some of the most luxuriant crops of corn in the world are those which are grown here. The soil, however, must be an ungrateful one, if it yield not the best of both ; and if the enjoyment of nature's two choicest fruits in equal abundance be any where the right of human industry, the laborious and ingenious cultivators of these campitelli^ the pretty little fields of Lucca, may surely look upon it as due to them. The people are all hard workers. The women work in the fields as much as the men. They assist in the preparing of the land, and in the sowing of the seed, as well as in the harvesting of the crops. The wheat, rye, and barley, are sowed in the most care- ful manner, and covered in by hand. Much Indian corn is grown here. I understand that they often get a crop of this, and another of wheat, off the same ground, in one season ; the wheat being cut in June, and the Indian corn sowed as soon as the other is carried. Kidney-beans, dwarfs and runners, are one of the things grown in the fields. These, I take it, are grown all over Italy, as they are in the south of France. The people eat them in their soup. The kidney bean, which they c2\\fagiuolOy is always mentioned in the price currents with the other 103 FLORENCE. sorts of grain, as are, also, some pease which are eaten in this country, called cece and pisello. — In the state of Lucca there is said to be a surplus population. The farms are very small. The labouring classes, I am told, are not well paid. The Lucchesi are given to wander away from their own country. A large part of the Ita- lians whom we see strolling about the streets and roads in England, with images, organs, and monkeys, are froni this part of Italy, which, fertile and beautiful as it is, has something sufficiently intolerable in it to send many of its natives into voluntary exile. — The revenue of the government is nearly 74,000Z. English money. 26tk. Florence. — Delightful weather (66). — Much the same sort of country as what we saw yesterday, only that the land is not cultivated so closely and with such extraordinary care. The Apennines raise their heads on our left throughout the whole journey from Lucca in this direction. It is on the sides of these mountains, and on the land that slopes up to them from the plain, that the people of Lucca and of this part of Tuscany have their best vineyards and plantations of olives. The best sheep, also, are said to be those which are fed on the mountains near Pistoja. As you approach this city^ the system of farming is not a bit less creditable to the cultivators of the soil than is that of Lucca. The one is on a larger scale than the other, but there is a regu- larity and a richness that equally characterize both: the Florentine fields have the same pleasing appearances of fertility, though not the prettiness that distinguishes FLORENCE. 109 those of the Lucchesi. A vineyard here, when not in the espalier form, resembles an English orchard. But, this comparison is unfair ; our orchards are unworthy of it, for they are objects of far inferior beauty. The high vines are here trained to maples, which are planted in rows, at wide intervals. The branches of the tree are pretty closely cut ; they are not suffered to grow more than seven or eight feet from the main stem. The vine- shoots are twisted in twos (as represented in page 65) ; they are tied to the branches of the tree, all cut off at one length, four or five feet, and hang thus all round the tree, with their points straight downwards. We pass, to-day, through Prato and Cam pi. The former is a town of considerable size, with a population of 10,000 inhabitants, and is on the river Bisenzio. Cam PI, which is within about four miles of Florence, is a pretty little place, really what may be called pretty when compared with any other Italian town that I have seen. I could almost believe that it were an English country town. It is infinitely more clean than any place I have seen between this and the county of Kent. Almost the whole of the inhabitants of Campi are em- ployed in the manufacturing of straw hats, that kind which, in England, go by the name of Leg horn.'' Tuscany is not the only part of Italy in which this manu- facture is carried on. The same sort of hats is made, I hear, about Bologna. Bat the Tuscany hats are allowed to be by far the best. It is said that the annual profit derived by this state from its straw manufactory m FLORENCE. has been about 100,000 crowns. That is what the pro- fit used formerly to be ; for the trade is now compa- ratively very small. The Tuscany straw hat is, take it altogether, its material and its texture, one of the most beautiful of manufactures. The invention of it belongs to SiGNA, a place about seven miles from Florence, " Tu, SiGNA industre, onor del Tosco Regno! ** Tu la prima il mostrasti: io de' miei carmi Ora drizzando a' tuoi bei colli il volo, Del nobile arteficio addito i pregj." So says Signor Lastri, who has invoked the muse in a poem called " II Cappello di Paglia,'' or. The Straw-Hat, This poet is more solidly useful than ge- niuses of his class are apt to be; for he gives practical instructions about raising and preparing the material, and plaiting the straw and sewing the plaits together. The straw used is that of wheat. It is not, however, as has been supposed, ojie sort of wheat only that the hat-makers get the straw from. The sort commonly used is what we call spring z^Aea^, which the botanists call triticum cesti- vum, and which is here called marzuolo. Though the Italian name of this wheat agrees with the English and the botanical, it is, I understand, generally sowed here]in the month of December, and not in the spring. There are two other sorts, both winter wheat, sowed for straw, a red and a white wheat, the one called calbigia rossa, and the other cascola biaiica. The maruzolo, however, has been so much cultivated here for its straw, that the vulgar name for it is seine di paglia, straw-seed. To FLORENCE. Ill bleach the straw, the Italians do nothing but expose it to the dew during the night, and then let it lie in the sun ; after which, a fumigating with sulphur gives it the requi- site brightness of colour. We arrived here this afternoon at a very interesting moment. We are at the hotel called the Nuova- York (New York); and, just as we got there, the carriages of the Royal Family were coming by, with the Grand Duke and his Duchess in full state, followed by a long train of carriages, through a crowd of what, I should think, exhibited the carnival in sufficient perfection. The street in which our hotel stands forms a part of what is called the corso,'' or course ; and it seems that it is the custom in Italian cities to have an estab- lished corso ; that is, some particular line of streets, through which to drive during the fashionable hours of the day, or on state occasions. Perhaps there never was any thing more inconsistent than the simultaneous appearances, upon this occasion, made by the sovereign and liis subjects; the one having so much majestic dig- nity, and the other so much of the farcical. The equi- page of the Grand Duke^ the carriages, horses, liveries, were all really grand and princely ; every thing about it was of a piece. The foot-passengers, of all degrees, were standing, w^alking, running, huddling about, in the greatest confusion, and a large part of them wearing masks and dresses of the most outrageously ridiculous kinds. It seemed as if the assemblage at some mas- querade, to which men and w^omen of all degrees might 112 FLORENCE. receive admittance, were all at once turned nto the street, while the Grand Duke paraded along more like a man going to be crowned, than like a participator in such a fantastical exhibition. Among those who are strangers to such a scene as this, there are some people so sedate that they would regard the sight as a mere novel ab- surdity ; and it does not, to be sure, exactly correspond with any kind of jollity known in our country. Yet, if there were nothing else to make one sympathise with these people in their carnival, there is one thing that ought to make us do so : there is such a display of thorough good humour in the thing, and to the preserv- ation of this, every soul seems to conspire with the ut- most possible heartiness. The joy and exultation of some of the people manifests itself in a manner perfectly boisterous : it is mirth worked up almost to a frenzy. All those of the common people that can afford it, get some sort of carriage to ride in, a cart, or wagon, or something or other on wheels. They stick up a parcel of large green branches of trees around the carriage; and, dressed themselves in ludicrous masquerade, all standing an end in the thing crammed full, brandishing boughs in the faces of other passengers whom they meet, they go roaring along like so many madmen. These people think so much of a ride during the time of the carnival, as I have been told, that a poor man and his family will half starve themselves for weeks beforehand, in order to have the means of gratifying their ambition when the time for it comes. Towards the last days of FLORENCE. 113 the carnival, the thing naturally becomes more and more what an Irishman would call intense. There are two or three certain days on which the Grand Duke takes a public part in it, and this is one of them. The custom-houses in this country are a considerable annoyance to the traveller. You must either bribe, or submit your efifects to pretty frequent overhalings. We were politely accosted by the officers of the custom-house as we entered the state of Lucca, and here, again, at the gate of Florence, the guardians of public revenue awaited our approach. They never insist on searching^ the luggage of English travellers, when we are prepared to give them something ; and the propriety of doing this they suggest to you in an insinuative but not offensive manner. It does not seem to be forbidden to them to receive an acknowledgment for their forbearance. The transaction takes place in the open street or on the high road. The man at the Florence gate remonstrated with me at the smallness of our offering, and civilly remarked^ E piccola cosa, SignoreJ' But when I added just as much again, he looked on the sum total in his hand and graciously expressed his satisfaction: Ah, cosi va bene." 27th, — Cloudy day, with rain at night (61). — I do not like to say that I am disappointed on seeing Florence. Yet, after all we have read and heard about Florence, it would be impossible to come to the sight of this place without great expectations. As we were getting within the environs of the city, the view was 114 FLORENCE. certainly very gratifying. The extensive and fertile plain along which our road lay ; the size of the city, the gran- deur of it as promised to the eye from a distance, its churches, and particularly the magnificent dome of its cathedral; the Apennine mountains, with their steep sides dressed in vineyards and olive-plantations, and by their immense height making every thing look little beneath them : one must be very fastidious^ to be sure, to find any thing wanting in such a landscape as this is. Nevertheless, the suburbs of Florence, the outward parts of the city, are deficient in one beauty with which I expected to see them distinguished. I had heard that this place was not so compact, that the houses were not so far all thrown in a heap, as in other cities. I ex- pected to see grand or gay buildings, in great numbers, standing at distances apart all round the outside of the city ; to see the paradise of a city extending, in all di- rections, towards the scenes of country life, and gradually losing itself amongst gardens, and vineyards, and groves of olives, and fields of corn. My itinerary is so glowing in its description of Florence, that it has recourse to the words of Ariosto, who says, that if the scattered palaces of this place were brought together within one wall, two Romes would not equal it : Se dentro a un mur, sotto un medesmo nome, Fusser raccolti i tuoi palagi sparsi, Non ti sarian da pareggiardue Rome. This description would induce one to look out for some- thing to be surprised at indeed. Florence, however, TLOREKCE. 115 is closely encompassed with a high wall ; and though here palagi spar si may be numerous, we certainly did not see a marvellous number of them on our road hither. 2S th. — Very cold clear wind (45). — We suffer much from the cold to-day, it is really severe. The moun- tains, at a short distance off, are now covered with snow, which is seen from Florence. The winters at Flo- rence have generally a good deal of this cold wind in them. We go this morning to see the Gallery of Fine Arts. There was so much to see, that we could only take a mere glimpse of the whole. On our way, we passed through a large open place called Piazza del Gran JDuca, which is close by the Gallery, and in which stands the old palace called Palazzo-Vecchio, built in 1698, and formerly the dwelling-place of the sovereigns of this state. The Piazza has some gigantic statues in it, by Michel Angelo and other artists. Among the rest is a celebrated colossal group by Giovanni di Bolog- na, representing a Roman striding over the body of the Sabine father whose daughter he is carrying off. This is a surprisingly beautiful thing. The Gallery contains one of the finest collections of paintings in the world ; and there are enough of them to give one entertainment without end. Here, also, among a vast quantity of sculpture both ancient and modern, is the far-famed Venus de Medici, The Venus stoops a little ; but sup- i posing her to be standing erect, she is, I believe, a trifle i I 116 FLORENCE. more than five English feet in height. We were struck, on first entering the Gallery, with some antique busts, supposed to be those of some of the Roman emperors and their wives. These busts are most admirable. One of them represents a chub by- cheeked little boy : it is so like life, that you might stand all day long wondering at and admiring it. The Venus de' Medici was discovered, they say, somewhere near Rome. Her distinguishing name de' Medici^' of the Medici, was given to this statue on account of its having belonged to the family of that name, who conferred it on the public. The statue was broken in many pieces when found; some parts of it were entirely lost, and have been supplied, as well as they could be, by the hands of modern art. The attitude of this figure is graceful beyond any thing ; its symmetry, and the singular combination of beauty and simplicity that there is in it, account to you, on the first glance, for all that has been said of the " Venus de^ Medici" There is no such thing as justly describing the fine things that we have seen to-day. The mind that would know what they are like, must be present with the eye to see them. Art has here brought fiction so near upon the verge of reality, that the line between them is too nice to be drawn by words. You must either fall far short of the truth, or go far beyond its limits : what you say must be too feeble to give any idea of what is, or it must be so strong as to represent what is impos* sible : you must be contented to fail in attempting to make people imagine how nearly pieces of stone may TLORENCE. 117 resemble living things ; or, you must be a traveller" in good earnest, and tell tbem that you have seen marble that was alive, March. 1 rs^.— Very cold wind (46).— The Arno runs through Florence just as it does through Pisa. The river divides ^oout one-third part of the city from the rest of it. Here, as at Pisa, they have a " Lung' Arno,'' a fine broad drive or promenade, extending throughout the city on both sides of the river. This day is really what we call bitter cold. But it is not cold enough to keep the enjoyers of the carnival at home. The whole length of the north side of the Lung' Arno has been crowded for several hours during the day. Great numbers of country people in the throng. The people from the country are all nicely dressed, very much like those that we saw at Pisa. Most of the w^omen wear round straw hats with bows of ribbons, or broad-brimmed beaver hats with black feathers in them. The beaver hat is not at all becoming, and has a mascu- line appearance ; it puts one in mind of the Welsh women. The country women almost all wear 'pearl neck- laces, and enormous ear-rings studded with pearls. These ornaments are a great matter of pride with the Tuscan peasantry. It is customary with the country men, when they get married, to make their brides a pre- sent of a necklace and ear-rings of pearl. The pearls are generally of inferior quality ; but the quantity of them 118 FLORENCE. worn by one woman is so great, that the whole set often costs from twelve to fifteen English pounds. — The people here do not appear to us so good-looking as those we saw about Genoa. Some of the country girls, however, are very handsome, and we noticed more pretty faces in pass- ing through Campi than we have seen any where else at one time. The women of this country have seldom that delicacy of form for which so many of our country women are admired. The little hand, with taper fingers, and knuckles hardly to be seen ; the small round wrist, from which the arm imperceptibly swells in soft conti- nuation to the elbow; this kind of charm, which is found even among those who do hard work in England, does not belong to the women of Tuscany. Their figures are much more sturdy than elegant. But, they are beautiful nevertheless. They have fine brown complexions, glossy black hair parted over clear foreheads, and large eyes which are as mild in their expression as they are dark in their colour. I have never been among a people so orderly as the Itahans. They are now in the full enjoyment of the carnival ; but you hear no brawling, see no drunkenness in the streets, and it would seem that nothing of this kind is to be witnessed here. ^nd, — Cold and rain (50). 3rd. — Still disagreeable cold weather (50). — This is the last day of the carnival. This evening there is a masquerade ball. at the pergola, the principal theatre in Florence, to which people of all classes go. TLORENCE. 119 4M.— Very fine day, but chilly (60). — Go to see FiESOLE. This is a very ancient place, a place of great consequence during the times of the Romans ; now hardly more than a mere village. It is one of the objects of curiosity in the neighbourhood of Flo- rence, and is situated on an immense mountain of the Apennines, at about three miles without the walls of this city. Our carriage could go only two-thirds of the road, the rest of the way being so steep that we had to walk it. From Fie sole you have a splendid view of Florence and the surrounding mountains, and the plain beneath them. At the place where the carriage has to stop, there is a church, and, just by, an old con- vent, formerly inhabited by monks of the order of St. Dominick. A little further up is a place called La Doccia^ also formerly a monastery, and built by Michel Angelo. At a few hundred yards higher you come to FiESOLE, where there is an old cathedral, built about eight hundred years ago. Fie sole is not quite on the most elevated part of the mountain; but the winding road still leads you on ; and you come to another habita- tion of austere life, a convent now occupied by some Franciscan Friars. The mountain of Fiesole affords a beautiful prospect in every way. When you are upon it, its gardens and vineyards, its olive-trees, its country houses, are delightful objects on near approach ; and the height of the mountain gives you such a view over Florence, and of all the charming scenery that sur- rounds it, as is, I ghould think, hardly to be equalled any 120 FLORENCE. where else in the world. To look at it from a distance, too, FiEsoLE is the finest object in the neighbourhood. The whole of the mountain's side, consisting of steep fields or gardens, or land in the terrace shape, is richly cultivated. The old church, San Romolo, stands in a most conspicuous situation, and the lofty tower, which seems, at a distance, to raise its head among the regions of the blue sky, surmounts all, and gives a finish to this rare landscape. Beautiful as the neighbourhood of Florence now is, we do not, of course, at this time, see it in any thing like its brightest array. But, what must it not be in two months hence? To witness the present, and not to anticipate something, at leasts of the future, is to be more unmoved to imagine than the sight of such fine scenery will allow. 5th, — Cold cloudy day, with intervals of sunshine (51). — The weather is now such as we had no idea of the Florentines having to bear. It is a searching, snowy cold. Florence, I hear, is both cold in winter and hot in summer. I should suppose that the sun must have great effect herC; on account of the situation of the city ; for it is, in great part, encircled by the mountains, and there is so much high land around it, that, if we may use so ugly an expression in speaking of a place with so little ugliness about it, Florence may be said to stand in a hole. 6tk. — Fair ; but a cold wind (55), 1th, — Fine day ; warmer (61). 8 ^A,— Cloudy day ; rain at night (5*2). FLORENCE. 121 gth. — Warm and fair (57). — The Grand Duke has a cascina at about a mile and a half out of the city. There is a fine country house, with green fields and tim- ber and shrubberies about it. The evergreen oak (quer- cus ilex) grows here in perfection ; it seems to abound in Italy : there are a few oaks of this kind standing in a meadow at the cascina, the finest I have ever seen. Plenty of pheasants running about at this place ; and to kill one of these, within the royal preserve, is a crime, and punished with sending to the galleys. The practice of begging in the street is almost entirely prohibited here. Excepting only in the case of the blind, whose misfortune is regarded with peculiar respect, no one is allowed to beg. Vagrants from foreign states, and those who cannot give good account of their way of life, are obliged to quit this place as soon as they are discovered by the police. For the relief of native paupers there is a large poor-house, which was formerly a convent, and was converted by Buonaparte to its present use. In this house, which will contain several thousands, the poor are lodged, fed, and clothed, put to work and taught trades, and made to manufacture cloth^ shoes, carpets, and other things. . lO^A. — Fine morning, with rain at night (56). A liorse-race takes place to-day in the large field at the Duke's cascina. Most of the horses are belonging to English gentlemen staying at Florence. N. B. Dragoons drawn up as sentries, one about every hundred yards, alongside of the race-ground, and a captain or lieutenant G FLORENCE. of the troop gallopping over it as if a battle were about to begin. These gentry are h^re to keep order ! The dragoons and the horses somewhat resembk those which our own dear country is blessed with the having to maintain ; only that they are nothing like so big and so fat as ours. 1 1 th, — Very fine (60). — To-day we have a specimen of the true Italian sky. An Englishman said to his friend at Florence, that when he approached England on leaving Italy, the sky appeared to him to come nearet to the earth. It was a very just observation ; it really does seem as if the sky were further off from this part of the world than it is from the part we belong to. It is not merely the absence of the clouds and the smoke, which intercept earth and sky for many days in an English year ; there is a clearness, a rarity in this atmo- sphere, which we seldom know in our fairest seasons. 12^^.— Beautiful day (61). 13/^. — Cloudy, but mild (57). The houses in this place are high ; the streets, excepting only a few, are disproportionably narrow, and most of them are winding. This, I take it, may be said of all Italian towns, com- paring them with the towns in England. Here, also, are those strong iron bars to the windows of the ground-floors w^hich we disliked in Pisa. The upper windows have Venetian blinds to them. A stopped-up window is most times the gayest feature in a dwelling ; you may often be deceived by the appearance of a window half open, the figure of a man or woman looking through the glass^ FLORENCE. 123 a cat or a monkey sitting on the sill, a bird hung out in a cage, or something or other intended to relieve the eye, and created by the brush of an ingenious house-painter. The paving of the streets is good and remarkable. There are no side-walks for foot-passengers; but the whole street is paved with one stratum of flag-stones, which makes the carriages run very smoothly and with little noise. There is none of the confusion and helter-skelter of Paris, much less of the distracting racket and rumble of London. — The market of Florence is well supplied, but it is a dirty place. 14^A.--Mild spring weather, clouds and sunshine by turns (60). 1 5th, — Beautiful day, warm and sunny (65), Flowers are now abundant, of all the following kinds : anemone^ polyanthus, lily of the valley, mignonette, double violet, hyacinth, clove, ranunculus, carnation, iris, jonquil, narcissus, tulip. The Florentines have a great fondness for flowers. Florence, Firenge, as they call it, was formerly called Fiorenza, and that name is sup- posed to have been derived from jiore, flower for the soil of the neighbourhood, it seems, has ever been cele- brated as rich in flowers. The people here show some taste in their way in making a nosegay ; an ordinary compliment to strangers is to present them with a little handful of flowers, the stalks being tied to a bit of wood or a reed ; and a large nosegay is the central ornament of a dining 'table. This country is divided into districts (distretti), over g2 124 FLORENCE. each of which presides a civil magistrate called the gon- faloniere, a sort of mayor. In cities and towns there is a governor and a police. The police does not consist of jensdarmeSj as in France ; those who belong to it are dressed like gentlemen or common people, being of all ranks in society. There is nothing about them by which they may be recognised in public. The genteel part of the thing is said to be kept up merely for the purpose of spying. One would hardly imagine what spies can be wanted for among such people as these. — The standing army of Tuscany consists of about 5000 men ; one great use, the main one perhaps, of these soldiers, is to defend the coast from the approach of smugglers. I6th. — Very wet day (58). — The Italians are early risers. They throw all their windows open as soon as they get up, even when the weather is chilly, and gene- rally leave them up throughout the day. The women do not go out of doors so much as with us ; but they have a habit of taking the air at the windows^ out of which they are everlastingly showing their faces. The manner of the Tuscans in addressing one another, particularly that of superiors to inferiors, is very praise- worthy. You may do any thing with them by means of fair words. There are some appearances of servility. But these people resent a want of consideration for their feelings on the part of those that are above them, and they do not scruple to express indignation at it. Ser- vants are obsequious to their masters, but masters are extremely gentle in their way of giving commands. The FLORENCE. 125 uneasy austerity of an English aristocrat's bow is a sort of thing that these people would not choose to have to study upon all occasions. They have a particular disgust for those whom they call the superbiy the haughty, whatever may be the rank or riches of such persons. 17th, — Fine morning: rainy afternoon (60). — The most palpable fault in morals here is one of great im- portance. The women cannot be said to be^oocZ mothers. It may be a question which, the wife or the husband, is originally the most to blame. But no : there can be no such question in the case ; nothing, surely, ought to be offered in excuse for a mother who abandons her own child. This, I am sorry to see, is what the ladies here do ; the ladies ; that is to say, women of any class who are rich enough to be able to put their children out to nurse. A gentleman in Florence assures me that few women take the trouble to rear their own children among those who can afford to pay for its being done by others. A lady's nursing her own child makes her an exception among mothers, and to procure mercenary aid is the general rule of maternal conduct. The new-born infant is some- times sent away to a peasant's cottage, sometimes the hireling is brought to live under the same roof with the mother. The wet-nurse (as it is called) is known by an uniform in dress, which distinguishes the office she holds ; she wears an uncommonly fine sash round her waist, and a lot of ribbons, of various showy colours, is fastened on with bows to her shoulders, whence they hang down behind to a great length, like so many 126 FIORENCE. streamers from a mast-head, making the dame look as gaudy as a ship on a gala-day when every flag is flying. This puts me in mind of a scene which I heard an English traveller say he witnessed in the hovel of a French country labourer. The Frenchman's wife, who had a very young child herself, was suckling the babe of a person of higher order, while her own child was being suckled by a goat ! When the young peasant cried, its mother sent the elder children out, saying, Allez, allez done, chercher la biche'^ (Go, go along and fetch the nanny-goat); and then the children came back lugging and pushing the goat into the nursery. One would think that Rousseau's appeal to the hearts of mothers ought to have produced more effect than it has. What an incomparable writer he is ! but never so original and so eloquent, in all his philoso- phical disquisitions, as when he is the advocate of help- less babies. See Tansillo, an Italian poet of the sixteenth century, wh© wrote a little tract in rhyme called La Balia, which was translated into English some years ago by Mr. RoscoE, under the title of The Nurse, It is a little work of great merit. The author pleads with his countrywomen for the sake of their children, and lemonstrates against those things called pets,' such as parrots, puppies, kittens, monkeys, and mice, which, monstrous as it may seem, the ladies used to entertain in their bosoms to the exclusion of their own offspring. 1 8 Beautiful day (65). — The buds of the pear- trees are now bursting, and the white thorn is coming out in leaf. —Walk to Bellosguardo. It is about a mile and a half FLORENCE. 127 out of Florence, to the south, on the side of the city nearly opposite to Fiesole. Bellosguardo means beau- tiful view 'j and the place deserves its name. Under this name is included the whole neighbourhood of one hill, up which are several steep and winding roads lead- ing from the gates of the city. The extent and variety of the views from this height gradually increase as you ascend the hill ;: at last, when you get to the top, and look about you from a terrace, you see why it was called Bellosguardo y You see all Florence, all the pa- laces and country houses for miles around it, the snowy Apennines at from fifteen to thirty miles off, and all down the plain through which runs the Arno, the Val d' Arno, which, for miles and miles towards Pisa, is a tract of land covered with vines and corn and besprin- kled all over with white houses, here and there a clump of them making a village, as an English grass-plot is with daisies. Bellosguardo almost rivals Fiesole. The for- mer is but a high hill, and the latter is a high mountain. But Fiesole is included in the view from Bellosguardo ; ancj I should hardly know which of them to choose if I were going to build a house on one of them. The olive is not grown much on the level 3 but all over the high land this tree makes a great show round Florence. Evergreens in abundance, particularly the ilex, the bay- tree, and the cypress. To admire the city of Florence as it deserves to be admired, you must look down upon it from some of the high ground in its vicinity. The Lung* Arm is open and airy, and there is a bit of the country to 128 FLORENCE. be seen both down and up the river ; but you might live in and walk through the finest streets in Florence for a. whole year^ aud never feel your high notion of the place justified by experience. You must consider its situation — the mountains, far and near, that overtop its buildings, the river that divides the city, and the rich vale it flowg into beneath ; the olives and vines, the gardens and orchards that dress every elevated spot: look over the city at some distance from it, as we did this morning, have the whole of it, and all that encompasses it, in your eye at one time, and you will confess that the capital of the Florentines is what they call it — la belhy the beau- tiful. An Englishman with whom I w^ent to Bellas'- guardo to-day told me that an acquaintance of his from London, in whose company he had once taken the same walk, did not like the scenery of this country comparing^ it with that of England. The cockney discovered a lack of woods, live hedges and hedge-rows, and green fields; Such lack there certainly is here ; and our common idea of the rural in England is, indeed, very different from any thing to be seen here. Our country is a green one ; it is not for nothing that w^e have so many showers of rain and that the sun with us is so shy ; verdure is the charac- teristic in our rural picturesque. A meadow, a thatched cottage, and a coppice : here are the components of an in- teresting landscape in England, though the greater part of it consists of mere grass and leaves. Our landscapes are full of softness : here, on the contrary, a sort of hardness appears. Rough stone walls, instead of hedges, cause FLORENCE. 129 much of the diflference. There is not so much foliage, in general, as with us ; and the leaves of the evergreens, to which class a large part of the trees in Italy belongs, are never so delicate as that of the deciduous. The olive- tree, which inhabitants of southern climates admire so much, is an evergreen ; but its leaf has always a great deal of the grey (the glaucus) in it. Then there are the vineyards: and who would not admire these? But some of us say that they are too artificial, that every vine is forced to grow in a particular way, and that the vine- yards, unlike our woods, are monotonous both in shape and in hue. Can we, however, venture to bring any thing we have in contrast with the olive and the vine, without apprehending the pity of those who possess these two? Can we see these flourish, and not congratulate the Italians on their glorious sun, every ray of which seems to assure them that both ease and plenty are their birthrights ? There are beauties on the face of England which we cannot help marking the absence of here, and nature has given her land the advantage of producing things which are solid objects of envy to other nations; but, what greater triumph could an Italian desirej from the comparison, than that of being told that ours is a country on which nature has not bestowed the olive and the vine T 19^A. — Delightful warm day (68) : at eleven o'clock at night (60). Perfectly clear sky, and the air like that of summer.— This is a holyday, the feast of St. Joseph. All the shops are shut, and the citizens at church, or G 5 130 I'LORENCE. walking about the streets. — I see a large congregation this morning in the church called Santa Croce, listening to a sermon. The style of address of the preachers here is such as must excite attention. They have frequently *an odd sing-song sort of cadence. They are constantly going from high to low in the pitching of the voice, and vary their emphasis very much. The discourse is deli- vered with great earnestness. It is equally loud and animated ; and there is a repercussion of the voice from 'the walls of these large open churches, which gives it a clamorous effect, and would make an auditor at a little distance off fancy that the sermon were a quarrel. The action is decidedly sti^ong ; to us somewhat extravagant for a preacher. But it is always well corresponding with the meaning of the words; and it is by no means uneasy, rather the contrary. This sort of preaching is more eloquent than wiiat we hear in our churches. The priests here utter all extempore, or, at least, they have nothing in the way of note to speak from. 20th — Same weather (67). The nights, as well as the days, are now warm : nothing chilly in the air towards evening. — The royal palace, where the Grand Duke resides, in Florence, is called Palazzo Pitti. Its exterior is so unadorned, the building is so dull and strong, and its windows are so barricaded with iron, that you would take it for a prison. The inside is of a very different character. Its saloons are magnificent: beau- tifully-painted ceilings; floors of highly-polished mastich; tables of marble, with little bits of marble of different FLORENCE. 131 colours so ingeniously worked together as to produce the effect of a painting; gilt wainscots, and door-cases of porphyry and marble ; furniture and hangings of damask and satin. In a suit of apartments thus decorated, there is a celebrated collection of paintings, among which are the two best of Raphael's Madonnas, Ma Donna (my lady) is the name given to all the pictures of the Virgin Mary with the infant Christ. There are so many famous paintings of this one subject, that they have been distinguished from each other by some surname. Thus, the Madonna della Seggiola of Raphael, so called from the chair in which the Virgin is sitting ; and the Madonna of another artist, which has the surname of del Sacco, supposed to have been given to the picture because the painter sold it for a sack of corn. 2\rst. — Same weather (68). 22nd. — Cloudy (65). — The tulip-tree, which flourishes here, is now^ coming into leaf. The grass is green 5 and the rye and wheat and clover are growing up fast. 23rcZ.— Rain (60). 2Ath. — Fair and warm (64). — Many fine churches in Florence. The principal ones are, Santa Maria del Fiore (the cathedral), Santa Croce, San Lorenzo, Santo Spirito, San Marco, Santa Maria Maddalena, One of them, Santa Maria Novella, is that which Boccac- cio has celebrated in his account of the plague at Florence. Santa Croce contains both the monuments and ashes of many famous men ; the remains of Michel Angelo, Galilei, Macchiavelli, and Alfieui, 132 FLORENCE. are deposited here. The persecution of Galilei by the Church is generally supposed to have been as severe as his scientific discoveries were important. But from the account which he himself gives of the treatment he met with^ we may wonder how it should have been so much talked of. The church of AS'a?i Lorenzo is very an- cient ; and adjoining it is a large chapel, octangular in form, and surmounted by a cupola. This is called Cap^ pella de Medici, the chapel of the Medici ; and in the chapel are most splendid tombs of some of the members of that family. It is more than two hundred years since the Cappella de' Medici was begun. The place is in a great litter now, as there are workmen employed in it ; and there is a scaffold now standing for the painter who is embellishing the ceiling by means of his art. This chapel will, when finished, be truly magnificent; it is so, indeed, already. The sums of money expended on such a thing must be immense. The most costly marbles are the least costly of the materials employed. Here are incrustations of calcedonius, jasper, agate, and other precious stones, wrought in the finest manner possible. — The Cathedral stands nearly in the centre of the city. Just by it stand a tower and a baptistery. These are ail marble ; that is to say, on the outside. The size of the cathedral is very great. It is, in proportion to its size, the least decorated, on the inside, of any church we have seen in Italy. The dome of this building is much larger than that of our St. Paul's. It is said to be equal in its diameter to the dome of St. Peter s at Rome, only that FLORENCE. 133 this is an octagon, and St. Peter's is circular. The tower, or belfry, is square ; it is nearly a hundred yards in height, and is the most elegant and light-looking thing that can be conceived. There is a mixture of white, red, and black marble in these buildings, which gives them a peculiar effect. At the baptistery there are some bronze doors, on the exterior of wJiich are figures in relief, representing various incidents of history from the Scriptures. These doors are objects of great interest, as it was said of them by Michel Angelo that their beauty made them w^orthy to be the gates of Paradise, 25th. — Showers and sunshine at intervals : hard rain at night (63). — This a great holyday. Lady-day. High mass was performed with great pomp, this morning, at the church of Santa Annunziata. The royal family all ■went there and returned in full procession. While they were in church, the royal family sat under a canopy, or tent rather, open on the side facing the altar. The four corners of the tent were guarded by four officers in regi- mentals, with broad-swords drawn and plumed cocked- hats on their heads. There were a good many soldiers in the church, who kept their heads covered all the while. The ceremony was a mixture of the sacred and the mili- tary. It was what is called a military mass. There were the priests chanting at the altar ; and the soldiers, who bore their arms, grounded them when they knelt, the butts of their muskets making a great rattle against the stone floor of the church. It did not look well to see the soldiers all keeping their heads covered. They could not. 134 .FLORENCE. in such a place, be said to be on duty ; unless, indeed, the church had been besieged. Among the musicians there were several red-coated performers, and these blew trumpets and beat drums, which took the loudest parts in the concert. The blasts of war prevailed over the se- raphic sounds of peace ; it seemed as if the musical sons of Mars were putting the choir of St. Cecilia to a com- plete rout. Peach-trees and plum-trees are now in blossom. The fig-trees are budding. Broad-beans and horse-beans in blossom. Plenty of lettuces^, radishes, onions, cauli- flowers,, and some other vegetables, now in the market. 26^A. — Rain and shine by turns (64). — Very mild spring-like weather. There is a fair now going on in Florence, which last^ three days. It consists of almost every thing excepting live-stock. It is a much more sober and quiet affair than such a thing with us is ; rather a market than a fair, 27th, — Very fine day (65). — One very useful produc- tion of the soil of this country is a sort of reed, or cane, which they have here, and which grows also in the warmer parts of France. It is used in vine-training, in which it does so much that the people would hardly know how to manage without it. The Italians make a lattice- work fence of it, which is exceedingly neat and well adapted for gardens ; and the saving that it causes, both of timber and labour^ must be very great. This plant is the arundo donax, and the vulgar name for it here is canna. I hear that it is seldom known to bear FLORENCE. 135 ripe seed in this country, not above once in ten or fifteen years. The farmers grow it, however, from offsets (which they call occhi or uovoli)y and by this mode of propagating' it a plantation is easily obtained. The canna must have been used in just the same way that it is at this day ever since the earliest times; Pliny speaks of the arundo as being applied to the vine-train- ing in his time. This was, no doubt, the material with which the shepherds made their musical instrument, the calamus agrestis, or Pandean -pipe, so frequently men- tioned by the ancient poets ; but I do not see that the shepherds of this day have any such instrument; and with the same tube through which their forefathers are said to have breathed their rustic notes, the refined mo- derns inhale the fumes of tobacco. A bit of the canna, stuck into an earthenware bowl, makes the common tobacco-pipe of the country. Very fine (65). — Some say that this spring is rather backward for this part of Italy. The Florentines boast some fine libraries, and some scientific institutions. The most curious thing that they have in the literary way is what is called V Accademia della Crusca. There can be no more than a certain number of persons admitted as members of this institu- tion. There are, I think, about twenty-five in all. It is a little junto composed of such learned men as are supposed to be the most eminently qualified to preserve, by their decisions, the purity of the Italian language. The society has existed for a great many years ; and 136 FLORENCE. a dictionary which is remarkable for its bulk, and called Delia Crusca, has emanated from this source. The words della crusca mean of bran, crusca being the Italian for bran ; and these academicians have conferred on their own society the title of Della Cruscay meaning thereby, in a figurative sense, that they separate the bran from the flour, and so refine the language. No- thing is considered as pure Italian that is not to be found in their long list of well-bolted parts of speech, called " Vocabolario della Crusca" which is supposed to contain every farinaceous particle of the language. I will not pretend to judge how far the influence of such a notion is beneficial or pernicious. But there can be no doubt, that over-scrupulously criticising and refining grammarians have done not a little mischief wherever they have had their way. Witness the French, They, too, have their Academic and they excel all the world in the study of phraseology. Their language, consequently, has got to be formal beyond every other, comparatively poor, and replete with bombast. And how inferior is the language of Italy at this day, to what it was four hundred, or even three or two hundred years ago I The chamber in which the Academy hold their meetings, and which we saw to-day, is a sight really amusing. In the centre of a long table clothed in green there is a little urn, with some black and some white beans, which are used to ballot the pros and cons of the cruscan doctors, when a word is proposed to be admitted in their vocabulary. All the furniture of the TLORENCE. 137 apartment is made typical, as far as possible, of the business of bolting. Around the walls are hung little frames containing quaint allegorical pictures, the insignia of those who are, or who have been, members of the Academy. Over the mantle-piece is the miniature of a dressing-machine. The chairs are made in imitation of a Florentine baker's basket turned bottom-side uppermost ; and the back of the chair is precisely a wooden corn- scoop, the handle of this being stuck into the seat, and the shovelling end to lean against. 29th,— Very wet day (60). 30th. — Wet morning and fair afternoon (60). — Tus- cany produces very good wine. Its price is, of course, according to its quality. The common wine, which we should not think worthy of the name of wine at all, is exceedingly cheap ; cheaper than our public-house beer in England. Much of this is hard; but the labouring people here, like the cider drinkers in England, do not regard sweetness as necessary to their beverage. The best wines are chianti, aliatico, vin saiito, and monte" pulciano, Montepulciano is the name of a mountainous neighbourhood in Tuscany, about fifty miles south of Florence, and the wine is so called after this spot, where the vines that produce it are grown. Redi says that the Montepulciano is the king of wines. It is a very fine wine; something like Burgundy. But it has its peculiar flavour, as every kind of wine has. How are we to account for the innumerable varieties of flavour, which are so many charms to the palate in wine ? It is ELORENCKw not climate, altogether, that causes this ; for I dare say t^ere are thirty or forty different parts of tliis state, the vineyards of which produce vines having as many dif- ferent tastes. Is it the soil then ; or is it not, perhaps, that the vines, in the different spots, have been originally propagated from seed, as with our gooseberries in England ? The chianti is what may be called the best ordinary wine about Florence ; the aliatico is delight- fully sweet; the vi7i santo is a very nice sort of small Madeira. The colour of some of the red wine here is most beautiful. It is not red, in fact, at all ; it is a deep purple, clear, and having as many shades of hue as there are lights to hold the glass in. This is what we never see in perfection in the wine that is brought to England. We call red wine the purple juice of the grape ; that is, when we talk as poets do, about things that are too good to be come-at-able. The saying has easily found its way into our language : not so easily the genniue^^ purple juice " into our mouths. No drink can be so wholesome and agreeable as the moderately strong wine that people have in the countries of the vine. This it was, the very juice of the grape, which Paul was recommending to Timothy, ^' for his stomach's sake md for his infirmities'^ > o\rst» — Steady rain all day (57). April. " Irsf. — Rainy morning: and fine towards evening (63). A hail-storm to-day, and thunder at night. 2nd. — Wet morning 5 but it clears up in the afternoon FLORENCE. 139 (62). — Take a walk this afternoon to Mont' Oliveto (Olive-grove Hill). This is about as far from the walls of the city as Bellosguardo is, and is on the same range of high land. On M071V Oliveto there is a convent, now inhabited by some friars, thrifty and gentlemanly- looking men, who are all dressed in long white gowns and old-fashioned hats with broad looped brims. The convent is a very large house, with a church of some size attached to it. There is a large garden and orchard, with olives and vines. It is a delightful, tran- quil spot. From a little knoll of ground, planted with cypress-trees, the friars have one of the finest views of Florence and the neighbourhood. The place is by no means so much beautified as it might be. Its inha- bitants do not seem to take much pains with it, though they have, I understand, the means for doing so. What would some rich Englishmen not give for a situation like that of MonV Oliveto ! 'Srd. — Fine warm day (64). — There exists in Flo- rence, and in the other towns of this state, a charitable institution, which, if it were everywhere known, would have praises pronounced and blessings invoked upon it by every tongue in Christendom. It is a confraternity, the persons composing which are called " / Fraii della Misericordiay^ or. The Brotherhood of Mercy* The thing is one of such interest, that I wish I could give a full account of it to all the people of England. I saw something of the Frati at Pisa : but here I have been quite delighted by what a countryman of mine has told 140 FLORENCE. me about them. They are numerous in all the Tuscan cities. They render the same assistance to people of all religions. Persons of all degrees may belong to the Brotherhood ; the present Grand Duke is one of them ; and Leopold I. is said to have put on the dress, and taken his part in the active duties, of this incomparable association. When any thing occurs to call for their lyiited aid, a large bell tolls, and a man or a boy, attired in their peculiar dress, goes through the streets ringing a bell, to call all together. The call is imperative : no mat- ter what the brother may be about, he must, if he be bodily able, instantly obey it. The garb of the Brother- hood is most striking, not to say somewhat frightful even. If you knew beforehand the pious nature of their occu- pation, you could not help being a good deal startled at the first sight of them when in the pursuit of it. They are covered all over, from head to foot, with a coarse and jet-black linen stuff. A large broad-brimmed hat, which is put on only when the weather is inclement, generally hangs over the shoulder, and a black rosary is tied to the girdle, or carried in the hand. You see their feet only ; and there are two small peep-holes for the eyes. This prevents any individual from being recog- nised ; and, consequently, allows no ostentation, or gra- tification of vanity. When on duty, they never speak but in a low voice, so that nobody knows the person by his tongue. I shall never fjrget the mirth I gave rise to in an excellent friend of mine one day at Pisa, when I went to open our door at the knock of one of these gen- FLORENCE. 141 tlemen. Some of the Brotherhood are constantly going about to collect money for the poor. They always go infidl dress. Our visitor came quite unexpectedly, and we had not happened to see such a person before. The instant the door was opened^ T was saluted by the rat- tling of coppers in a small charity -box, which the sable Brother thrust up close to my face. I could not, at the moment, resist the impulse of apprehension ; and my friend, who saw me jump back in amazement, had to come forward before he could know the cause of it, the tall black figure and the glaring eyes of this spirit of grace, whom I had almost concluded to be a goblin damned. I copy the following passage from a most inter- esting historical description of the Brotherhood, of which my English informant is the writer. — " Those who con- ^' tend that w^e excel our forefathers in humanity and " charity, will be surprised to hear that the Compagnia della Misericorditty the most conspicuous, even in the present day, for those virtues, has existed for nearly six hundred years within the walls of Florence. It was established in 1240 ; and its origin was extremely curious. At that period of the Republic, when the citizens w^ere acquiring immense profits from the ma- nufacture of woollen cloth, the city-porters were nume- rous, and usually took their stand round the church of " the Baptistery, near the cathedral. In fact, for the *^ most part they lived there ; and during the intervals of work, they ate their meals and drank their wine, or played at various games, either on the Piazza, or in FLORENCE. ^* the sheds erected for their accommodation. One among them, Piero di Luca Borsi, an old and de- vout man, was highly scandalized at the cursing and swearing of his companions. Therefore, as their elder, he proposed that he who should hereafter take God's or the Virgin's name in vain, should be mulcted to the *^ amount of a crazia (three farthings) ; and that the said crazia should be dropped through a small hole into a certain box^ so that an end might be put to such vain and sinful conversation. To this the porters " agreed, and the difficulty of conquering a bad habit caused the box to be well nigh filled. Piero then "reminded them that, for the benefit of their souls, " the contents of the box ought to be employed in " acts of charity, and made the following proposal. " Let uSy said he, purchase with part of this money " six litters, to serve for the six divisions of the city^ and let us in turns attend with them. Thus we " shall he in readiness to carry to their houses, or to the hospital, ail those who may he taken with sud^ " den illness, or who fall from a scaffolding , or other^ " wise he grievously injured in our streets, and stand in need of their fellow-creatures' assistance ; and " we will also carry to the churches the hodies of such " as may fall down dead, or he slain, or he drowned; " and let us agree that for each several journey of this sort the porter is to receive a giulio (six- " pence) /rom the hox. This not only met with appro- " bation, but each individual took an oath to observe it. FLORENCE. ^ " Their labours began, and they pursued them with so much diligence and charity (says their chronicler) that " every man in the city greatly applauded these porters, " sometimes offering them three giuli, as a present, for a " single journey ; but this the old man, Piero, would " not allow, bidding them perform their duty, cheerfully " and without bribes, and to wait for their further re- " ward in eternity. Such was the commencement of the Misericordia^ The heroic conduct of these men, during the plague, and the prevalence of other malignant disorders in Florence, has been remarkable ; and it is singular also that they themselves, always facing death in its most appalling forms, have very seldom been among the victims of infection. Kings, and emperors, and popes, have endeavoured to establish the same kind of thing in other countries. Bltonaparte wanted to have it in Paris. But it appears that Piero's plant is like the phoenix ; and that, first rooted in the soil of this spot, and here alone, it is not to be propagated, or cannot be made to flourish, in that of other countries. In what reverence the Misericordia is held by everybody here, may be easily imagined. A body of men, whose conduct exhibits such an example of indefatigable perseverance, such a disinterested and affecting constancy in the most pious pursuit, cannot fail to enjoy a kind of glory as rare as is the virtue of which it is the reward. Thus, says the writer I have been quoting, in concluding his detail, ^* there are no anniversary dinners, no toasts and sen- " timents with * three times three,' no blazing accounts 144 FLORENCE, " in the newspapers of their activity^ heroism, and cha- rity. All goes on quietly, modestly. The brothers ^' know how much they are beloved, and are content without a display of their influence. Every mark of respect is, however, paid to them : the military present " arms, and individuals take off their hats, whenever they pass along the streets.'' Ath. — Showers (59). — The Tuscans have one breed among their horses that deserves notice. They have a sort of carriage-horse that is very good. It is of mid- dling size, stout, handsomely shaped, entirely black, and with mane and tail left flowing at full length. A pretty active little horse in harness. I know a gentleman here who has two choice horses of this breed, and he tells me that the pair cost him not more than about thirty-seven guineas of our money. This list of prices, of various articles in Florence, is a copy from one made, and with great attention to correctness, by an Englishman resident here. The list was made out in the year 1826, for the special informa- tion of friends in England. But 'prices here have varied so little, that this list applies equally well to the present year. I am assured so by the person to whom I am obliged for it. He is a housekeeper himself, and happens to be about as well informed on such matters as it is possible to be. Bread, Common, per lb , , , . \\d. Do. Good, do \^d. Do. Best, do, l^d. FLORENCE, Beef, per lb Mutton, do 5d. Veal, do 5^c?. Lamb, do • 4^0?. Pork, do ^d. Hams (cured), do 10|c/. Cheese, Best do 12|c?. Do. Parmesan do lA^d, Butter, Kitchen do 10 fd. Do. Best do Hd, Oil (Olive), per quart , lid. Vinegar, do 2^d. Fish, per lb 7^d, to Ud. Milk, per quart 2^d. Cream, per lb 9d. Tea, Green, do 75. l^d. Do. Black, do 5s. Ad. Coffee, do Is. ^^d. Sugar, Raw, do. • 6^/, Do. Common Loaf do Scf. Do. Refined, do 10|(/. Do. Superfine, do \2d. Rice, do 2|c/. Salt, do 2d. Macaroni, Vermicelli, &:c. do, . • . 3jcf. Eggs, per dozen 6c/. Best last year's common red wine, per bottle 4cf. Best new do, do , \^d, H 146 FLORENCE. Candles, Wax, per lb. 2^, Do. Mould, do 41 d Soap, Common, do 7ic?. Turkies (small), each 2s. Do. (large) do 4s. Capons, large, do. ....... 2s. 3d. to 3s. Pullets, do. ^d. to l\d. Ducks, do Ud. to Uld. Do. wild, do 12d to U^d. Pigeons, do 6|c?. to Sd. Woodcocks, do \\d. to \Q\d* Snipes, do 5i