YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ITA Lies. BBIEF NOTES ON POLITICS, PEOPLE, AND PLACES IN ITALY, IN 1864. FRANCES POWER COBBE. '¦ -//MilA^;- ¦ LONDON: RUB NER AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. 1864. [ The right of translation is re/erved. ] EctK .^6^c )^^ V-v-j 1 T. RTCHATIDS, PRTNTER, 87, GREAT QtJEEN RTR TO HEE EXCELLENCY THB COUNTESS USBDOM, PABTLT WBITTEN TTNDEB HEB BOOF, IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. NOTE. Since the eai-lier sheets of this work have passed thi'ough the press, an important change has taken place in Italian affairs. The engagement of Napoleon III to recall his troops from Rome in two years' time will, if fulfilled, lead to a, position of Pope and King iu the highest degree favourable to the great hope of Italy — ^the annexation of Eome. It remains, however, to be seen, how far such an engagement wiU be found binding on the Imperial con tracting party at the end of a period amply sufficient for the intervention of complications annuUiug the stipula tions of twenty modem State-Treaties. The old project of an Italian Confederation under French influence can hardly be deemed abandoned nor the game played out, so long as a single French regiment remains at Civita Vecchia. The transference of the capital of Italy from Turin to Florence is, in any case, a material result of the new combination. Wliether such a change be worth its cost just now, is a point on which opinions may reasonably vary. Perhaps, after aU, it would be fortunate for Italy if her seat of govemment remained fixed, — not for a few years only, but for ever, within the storied walls of the beautiful old city which four years ago so nobly set the example of self-abnegation to aid the great cause of na tional unity — a city whose atmosphere, physical and moral, is untainted by the Malaria of Eome. Sept. 1864. CONTENTS. CHAPTER i. italia einascente ii. italy mends hee ways iii. italy sent to school iv. italy goes to delll v. italy teied by juby vi. italy beads hee newspapeb vii. " libebtt, equality, and the feudal system" viii. will italy gain venice and bome ? ix. will italy lose naples ? ... X. 'tis MASEEONI HIMSELF WHO NOW SINGS XI. THE NEMESIS OF WOMAN XII. CATHOLIC ITALY XIII. PADBB PASSAGLIA ... XIV. MADONNA IMMACOLATA 1 13 43 7386 117 130 158 184208224 260288 309 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XV. PBOTESTANT ITALY ... ... ••¦ ^^^ XVI. ITALIAN FUBNITUEE ... ¦.. ¦•• ''49 XVII. PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY ... ... 373 XVIII. PLACES WHEBE THE AUTHOE WROTE THIS BOOK. — PEACEFUL PISA ... ... ... 446 XIX. NEEVI, WITH NO SIGHTS ... ... ... 488 XX. CI-DEVANT ITALIE ... ... ... ... 509 ITALICS. CHAPTER I. ITALIA EINASCENTE. -pwESCBNDING from the Alps into Italy is -*-^ always like passing from winter into sum mer. Be the season of the year what it may, we never fail to feel the same sense of com ing into sunshine, and into the freedom of out door life ; and the first time we have occasion to open our hps after crossing the frontier, we are sure to air our Itahan — " dolce favella" — withaU the satisfaction belonging to the use of a cool smooth fabric suited for warm weather and idle hours. The kindly courtesy of the people — that nation of bom ladies and gentlemen — completes the transition, and we feel that we have left be hind the atmosphere of black frosts, moral and physical, and may expand ourselves happily in a much milder medium. As we sweep down the B 2 ITALICS. giant hiUs, and look over the vine-wreathed slopes and chestnut forests, stretching far away to the towers and domes of sun-bright Italy, we re call the summer days of childhood— perhaps those days in old country houses when the season was solemnly opened with a great May-day exodus from winter to summer dweUing rooms — fresh delicious days, when all the coming months lay glowing before us like one long bright holiday, and the Present overflowed with joy, and the Future had just enough of reserve of pleasures in store to save us from regret (little epicures that we were !) to be Hving over that joyous passing hour. For the last few years this entrance into Italy has had, however, another interest added to all the old and natural attractions. There is a human Spring reviving the beautiful land after its long winter of frostbound oppression. The darkness and the torpor are passed away, and a new life is pouring through the nation and bursting out into a thousand fresh forms wherever we turn our eyes. It would be a mind singularly consti tuted which could visit Italy just now without feehng an interest in the vast change going on ITALIA EINASCENTE. 6 therein, greater than that which we all experi enced in years gone by, when we approached it as " la terre des morts^^ — the land of the mighty departed heroes, and poets, and painters — of Cassar, and Dante, and Michael Angelo. The Italian Revolution, mised as it is, like all human things, with elements ignoble, and some what barren in the production of those great men whom lesser convulsions have rarely failed to draw forth, — is yet, assuredly, judged in all soberness, one of the grandest events in modem history. It is no sudden gust of national passion impetuously overturning the thrones of the past, but a slowly elaborated achievement wrought out with immense sacrifice — sacrifice not only of hves and gold, such as every Revolution claims, but of provincial and national interests and pre judices, which are the last things usuaUy abjured in such convulsions. It is not an outbreak of fanaticism either religious or political, the work of men disgusted by the falsehood of one system, and bhndly rushing at its opposite. Rather do we see with regret the Italian Catholic caring so little to cast down the idols of his church, and re joice to find the Italian citizen content to replace b2 4 ITALICS. political despotism by a Constitutional Monarchy, and not by any more democratic system for whose enjoyment he is yet untrained. Lastly, it is not a Revolution of a single class of the popu lation — a cabal of nobles, or a rebeUion of the middle ranks, or a riot of the mob — nor yet is it the work of a great capital city, deciding by itself the cause of the whole country, as Paris has so often presumed to do for France. Never, perhaps, in any history has a revolution been so completely the reverse of aU this. Before the campaign of 1859 (as I have been told by a statesman then in Italy), men of all ranks, nobles, professional men, and citizens, to the number of many hundreds, all severally moved by the same desire, went from every part of the country to ask of Cavour and Victor Emanuel — "What can be done to free and unite Italy ?" And from the opening of the war to this time, it would be impossible to teU which class has been most earnest in its efibrts, most ready with its sacrifices, from the old historic houses of Ricasoli and D'Azeglio to the poorest of the artizans and the peasantry. The great cities, Florence, Milan, Bologna, Naples, Palermo, are not more engaged in the cause than ITALIA EINASCENTE. O the lesser burghs, the villages, the scattered hamlets over the whole peninsula. It is Italy, the country, which has arisen — Italians, the race, who have made the Revolution. In a peculiar manner, also, the unification of Italy forms an experiment to the last degree interesting and important at this time of the world's history. On a large scale, in a country possessing a splendid geographical position as weU as unparalleled historical associations, and among a race with rare endowments, is being tried the solution of problems, social and political, on which the character of the future of our race for centuries, must iu great measure depend. Can populations, which have for ages been degraded by aU the evils of a double despotism, spiritual and poUtical, be raised to steady self-govern ment by that vast machinery which modern sci ence has given us — education, free press, and free locomotion ? Can the principles of con- stitutionaUsm, evolved by ages of effort in Eng land, — the freedom which has come to us Slowly broadening down Prom precedent to precedent — be grafted on another land, and become an equal ITALICS. source of prosperity and peace to a race the moral antipodes of the Anglo-Saxon ? Can the downfal of a vast Church, whose shadow has been the graveyard of religious thought for a thousand years, be the signal for a resurrection of Faith and Piety? Can the overthrow of a whole social system lead to social re-organisation and social regeneration, wherein for Ignorance we may find Education; for Brigandage, Com merce and Manufactures; and for Celibacy of clergy the reverence of Marriage and rehabilita tion of Woman ? These are surely problems of surpassing importance, and, besides them, we may perhaps discern in the peculiar conditions of Italy the opening of other political questions hardly less significant. If the existing order of things in Europe is ever to be so modified as to relieve the nations from the terrible and yearly-increasing weight of gigantic armies ; if each is not to be crushed to protect itself from the other, it must, doubt less be effected mainly by three great reforms : by the establishment of Free Constitutions, which shall put it out of the power of kings, for their dynastic purposes, to embroil nations against ITALU EINASCENTE. 7 their will ; by the amalgamation of small states into sufficiently large ones (of fifteen or twenty millions), to enable them to act as Great Powers ; and, lastly, by the restoration of those natural boundaries of Nationalities which appear to be indispensable to the real cohesion of popula tions. By these means it would appear possible that each country might obtain sufficient gua rantee of the stabihty of peace with its neigh bour to warrant the diminution of its arma ments, instead of prolonging further the neck and neck race towards universal bankruptcy in which one now vies with another, expending on the myriads of soldiers which challenge the myriads of their neighbours the treasures which would render each prosperous beyond example. As time goes on,' and the competition becomes more tenible, as the armies of half a century ago, which consisted of eighty or an hundred thousand men, swell to hosts of two or three, or four hun dred thousand, and only desolating conscriptions can supply the vast levies they demand — the problem becomes daily more urgent, and its pos sible solution more important. The cost of a great European army, such as statesmen aver to 8 ITALICS. be indispensable in the present day, to give the nation supporting it a place among the great Continental Powers, is from £12,000,000 to £16,000,000 per annum. This charge may, in a certain sense, be considered as doubly imposed on the country, for it has to be raised in money to pay and support the soldier, and it has to be deducted from the productive labour, to which the soldier, if left in his civil capacity, would have contributed. The nation is drained of the finest of its youths, and also compelled to pay down an enormous annual sum to support them in unproductive labour, the per contra of their expenditure in the country neither making up for the loss of their hands, nor for the taxation needed for their cash payments. To conceive the relief to the revenue, and the impulse given to every kind of free labour by the return of four hundred thousand men to a civil life, is to imagine probably a greater boon to any country in Europe than any territorial conquests, any colonial acquisitions, any mechanical discoveries, or any political reforms could possibly effect; yet this boon is every year further and further away under the present order of things. The ITALIA EINASCENTE. 9 one hope for it Ues, as we have said, in the forma tion of a real Balance of Power of great and free Nationalities, needing no Treaties of '15, nor diplomatic arts, nor huge armies to keep them safe and firm, but standing on their own basis of voluntary loyalty. Towards such a millennium the formation of a Free and United Italy is a real approach, albeit her first step has inevitably been the creating of another huge army to vie with all the rest. Italy is not doing her work by halves. She is putting out her whole strength to the task before her. In a poUtical sense, it is improbable that such efforts would long be sustained by any peo ple, unless such visible success should crown them as should serve to silence discontent. In a financial sense, it is stiU more unlikely that the same outlay can be continued without national bankruptcy. Already it is calculated the king dom has cost the nation more than £40,000,000 sterUng, or upwards of £2 a head. The annual deficit in the revenue is 300,000,000 of francs (of which 30 mUUons are expended on the Two Sicilies over and above the revenue derived from them) ; and this deficit neither the sale of rail- b3 10 ITALICS. ways, or royal domains, nor the confiscation of monastic property, nor general development of national resources and increased taxation, is even expected to supply. It is, therefore, visibly a battle of limited duration. Italy must gain her point, complete, organise, and firmly establish herself as a great and free country, or in a very short time her arms wiU drop powerless, the struggle will fail, and a worse state of things than the past must almost inevitably supervene. She has great resolution, great energy, great resources of aU kinds. She has also great difficulties, great weaknesses, great enemies. Who can watch such a struggle even afar off, without some stirring of the blood ? Who can go into Italy now and think of it only as the scene of old classic story, or the great museum of Cinquecento Art ? While Waterloo was being fought, there would have been found few geologists or botanists to chip rocks or dissect wUd flowers on the field of Quatre Bras. Even a woman is not called upon to spend her time beyond the Alps just now in strolling through galleries, criticising the singers in San Carlo and the Pergola, and choosing mo saics and merktto antico. If she can do no more, ITALIA EINASCENTE. 11 she may at least keep open her eyes and ears, and ask questions of those who may be wilUng and able to give her information. She may read on the spot the local publications and periodicals which carry with them the feeling of the hour, and (if she desire it) she may easily obtain from the kindly and courteous officials of Italy all pos sible reports and statements iUustrative of their work. Perhaps, the result of such superficial in quiries as these must necessarily be of trifiing value. They can at best assume to be only of temporary interest, addressed to those who have already studied Italian affairs, and merely desire to carry on their knowledge of them a few months later. Trusting that this little book will be understood to have no pretensions greater than these, I have ventured to put down as suc cinctly as may be the facts concerning the new order of things which have become known to me during five visits to Italy, and especially a resid ence in Tuscany and Liguria from October last to May 1864. A few sketches of places and people are added, which may, perhaps, recall pleasant reminiscences to other travellers. Assuredly, Italy possesses above aU countries that peculiar 12 ITALICS. charm which makes us always recur to the thought of it with a glow of tenderness ; and it must be a very bad description indeed — so bad as to fail utterly to recaU the original — which wiU not give a little pleasure to an old " forestiere." CHAPTER II. ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. TT is a common event aU over Europe when those -*- who are engaged in making excavations, and laying foundations for buildings in old cities, come upon Roman remains : Baths, villas, temples, palaces Ue everywhere under our feet, if we only dig deep enough to find them. In a very similar way, when we have groped about for some new grounds of civilisation and cleared away some long-existing nuisance, it is ten to one but we fall on the traces of the Romans and their wise old laws and noble works, and find that they made our discovery twenty centuries ago, and put it in practice . on the scale of the empire of the world. We, in London, are just now making drains which may match those of the half-mythologic king who buUt the Cloaca Maxima, and Italy has taken a vast step by dis- 14 ITALICS. covering that two thousand years ago she had great straight roads which led from Rome every where and from everywhere to Rome, and that those same roads were the first missionaries of civilisation. Pictures and statues, and marble Duomos and bronze gates of Paradise, are all very good things in their way ; but the history of Italy shows that their existence is perfectly compatible with uttermost oppression — utter most stagnant corruption of the whole social atmosphere. No painting of Raphael's has helped any city to self-government. The very finest of Michael Angelo's sculptures has faUed to im prove the condition — moral, poUtical, or sanitary — of a single parish. Nay, it would actuaUy seem, if we consider which were the great artistic ages, classic and Renaissant, that there was some singu lar correlation between the production and pa tronage of high works of art, and the synchro nous apparition of the most portentous depravity the world has known. The century of the Borgias was the very culmination of Italian painting and architecture. The greatest dilettante in history was Nero. No other land, probably, in all the earth has been the scene of so much cruelty, per- ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 15 fidy, and pollution, as Italy, the land of Art; and no other ages in the dark story of that land are black as those of the Ctesars and the Medici — the times of which the sculptures in the Vatican and the Museo Borbonico, the paintings in the Pitti and the TJffizij are the reUcs. Does art, then, make Saints and Heroes ? Nay, it cannot withhold man from a single vice, nor stay the hand of one solitary tyrant. Rather does it gild over corruption otherwise too gross and hideous, and add a delusive nimbus to the crown of the despot, who redeems the tortures of a nation by picking up the brush of a painter. Italy has had enough of such. Were salvation to have been attainable for her through pigments and chipped marble, she would have been beatified, yea canonised, by the world for three hundred years. But it was not so to be. Before her last revolu tion, where had all her glorious Art left Italy ? Not merely poor in mere commercial sense, poor in trade, poor in manufactures, in agriculture ; not merely behind all the nations of the north in inventions and machinery. This would have been a poverty more than outbalanced by her transcendent achievements in higher Unes of 16 ITALICS. human labour. But Italy's Art left her poor in Freedom, poor in morals, poor in aU such con ditions of human happiness as security of person and property, a righteous system of jurispru dence, and social confidence between man and man ; poor even in Religion itself — that true Religion, which does not stop when it has built splendid churches and endowed magnificent monasteries, and obtained from a priest a passport through purgSttory to paradise. In all these things her Art has left Italy poor — poorer, per haps, than any other country in Europe. For a pendant to the Vatican, Rome has got her prison of San Michele, crowded with men, kept for months and years untried in the poison ous cells al segreto (equivalent to death in a Roman summer), or else, — after the iniquitous mummery of a Papal political trial, — huddled so as to provoke from De Merode the brutal jest to their jailor: " Why do you not make more room by hanging these wretches like hams from the ceiling ?" Is the room in the Vatican contain ing Raphael's Transfiguration and Domenichino's St. Jerome a fair compensation for one of these dungeons fuU of living men, pining away the ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 17 best years of life in unmerited misery ? Perhaps some dilettanti in England may think |so. The mothers and wives of the incarcerated wretches are Ukely to be of another opinion. But if any number of square feet of canvas, covered by the very finest designs, are not found successful in stopping judicial murder and robbery, in putting down despots, or improving society, it does appear, strangely enough, that a certain amount of iron tramways with loco motives running np and down them, — or even of good post-roads with requisite appUances of vehicles and horses, is not inefficacious in these re spects. Tyrants, lay and ecclesiastic, seem to have the same difficulty in sustaining the scream of a railway whistle, that ghosts used to feel at the crowing of the cock. Mankind is only manage able by such gentry in a stationary condition. Locomotive humanity is always troublesome, full of new ideas, wanting to have rights like other humanities encountered in its travels, and gene rally fuming and spluttering and wanting safety- valves in the most inconvenient manner. We can fancy a good old despot of the Henry VIII type (not Mr. Froude's Henry VIII, but 18 ITALICS. the Bluebeard we used to know long ago) — a great burly tyrant who cut off men's heads from gaiete de coeur, and thought nothing of it — as brought into unnatural juxtaposition with steam- engines and being utterly disgusted therewith. A short time since, we heard of a poor labourer in the Fens in Lincolnshire, whose brains were rather of the agricultural order, thickened stiU more, poor fellow ! by the effects of his last ill ness, but to whom a zealous young clergyman most vigorously expounded his pecuUar views on the subject of Justification and the absolute neces sity there was for adopting them forthwith. The poor man, who had been hearing from other visi tors of more secular but not less surprising things, at last looked his pastor in the face with lack lustre eyes, and delivered himself of these words : — " What with justification and what with rail roads, it's aU a buzzin' and a fuzzin', and I know nothing about it." This said, he fell back and died. Probably many an old king called on to receive modern doctrines of constitutionaUsm and submit to the cutting up of his dominions by iron lines, would equally object to the "buz zin"' and the "fuzzin'," and be inclined to give ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 19 up the ghost. Much suffering, alas ! much sorrow and crime (as Lancashire knows too weU), may exist in a land whose map in Bradshaw looks Uke an iron cobweb. But somehow, not much re gular tyranny — not corrupt judges — not unques tioned, unpunished brigandage and assassination. Railways, and trial by jury, and coroner's in quests, and large newspapers, seem to have a deep occult relationship between them. Civilisa tion means Roads, and Roads mean CiviUsation, in the original Dictionary which existed before Johnson. And despotic governments (which at the utmost produce only veneered civiUsation, not the solid article), do not Uke railways, however they may pretend to patronise them. Say in France, for instance. The harmless traveller, intent only on getting from Boulogne to Mar seilles as fast as may be, and harbouring no regi cide designs in his soul, nor contraband cigars in his portmanteau, finds himself from the moment he enters the premises of any of the various Rail way Companies, in strict custody. He is not to run hither and thither after his ticket and his lug gage, and rush up and down platforms and change his carriage at pleasure, and get out and 20 ITALICS. caU for his luggage half way, if he so desire it. Oh dear no, nothing of the kind ! Persons who are guilty of wanting to travel must be treated very differently from this. They are not (as we fondly imagine in England) the customers of the Company to be used by its servants with every attention, but, on the contrary, persons, if not actuaUy convicted of crime, yet open to grievous suspicion — men found about unlawful business, trespassers, and probably poUtically disaffected individuals, who are not content to stay at home. The tenor of official behaviour towards them is necessarily regulated by this sad position in which they have so improperly placed them selves. Sometimes moved by natural clemency, a railway porter will answer them with curt dig nity when meekly implored to do so, and when pretty sure of a franc or two in return ; but this is an unusual case. The " Repression of Crime," as the venerable Recorder of Birmingham would say, strictly regulates the tone of French rail way officials towards their passengers. We have read somewhere, how the late Emperor of China, wearied with the difficulties suscitated by the litigious propensities of his subjects, pub- ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 21 lished a Decree, wherein it was set forth that thenceforth throughout the Celestial Empire, " Whosoever shaU go to law before the tribunals for any cause whatsoever, shall be treated without any pity." In Uke manner, he who desires to travel by public conveyance in France is properly felt to have put himself out side the pale of indulgence. He must come early to the station, else he cannot go at aU — yet not too early, or no admission is vouchsafed. He is pushed and pinched through a species of wolf-trap up to the window, where a fearful officer of justice demands his money and his intentions, and conveys both to the inner majesty behind the scenes'. He is knocked over by twenty boxes and twenty porters before his luggage is weighed, and then another officer and another hidden majesty fine him again (be his trunks of the smallest), and he is ushered into a Pen or Dock, first class, second class, or third class, as the case may be, where he is locked up in closest arrest with the other criminals of the day, probably for about haff an hour. -By and bye, a jailor comes to the glass door of the prison and proclaims the joyful news of relief: "Prenez 22 ITALICS. vos places." Everybody is ready to take his or her place directly ; indeed, a dozen of the more hardy prisoners have been long crowded round the portal of escape, toilsomely holding up their huge cloaks, bundles, and travelling bags, and brandishing their umbrellas so as to inform the rest of the gang : " We mean to get out first and choose the best places." They do get out first, but a moment of blank bewilderment always ensues ; for the train is never near the door, and generally at the other side of the vast Terminus, so that the grand coup which has been so dramati cally managed, proves a failure. No porters are ever permitted to attend the prisoners on this occasion ; but old or young, sick or strong, each must carry his or her bag, bundle, and infinite etceteras, and make his or her way to the train, across rails and down platforms, in the midst of screaming engines and shoving carriages and frightened passengers and trucks of luggage. Of course, as is right and proper, the feeblest arrive last, and vainly implore comer places. Every carriage usually must be filled to repletion; and the process of cUmbing np into it (about equal to that of getting on the roof of an omnibus) ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 23 performed unaided by all aUke. At the end of the journey the case is pretty similar. Of course the traveller must go to the end he originally proposed ; for heaven and earth may be moved sooner than a guard or Chef de Grare induced to aUow his luggage to be taken out half-way. Ar rived at the platform, say at Lyons or Marseilles, he is driven into a first Salle d'Attente, where he waits half an hour or three quarters. Then his prison is opened again, and he rushes into another salle, where he claims his coKs, and then after infinite worry, and probably a sUght scuffle with the octroi, is for that day set at Uberty by a too indulgent government. Some people applaud all this system, and tell us of safety of limb and luggage thereby secured. I can only say the argument seems to belong to the same order as that we often hear in behalf of negro slavery. It must be so pleasant for the black man to have all care taken off his mind ! What matters a little durance vile, and being treated as a chattel, and bulUed by every overseer, provided you are sure of your dinner, or your bandbox ? French civilisation is despot's civiUsation, al most as hoUow as that which Peter and Catherine 24 ITALICS. the Great tried to introduce into Russia; and, therefore, locomotion is essentially an inimical thing, which it instinctively treats with harsh ness.* Real civilisation, which impUes freedom and self-government, is fostered by every joumey of every citizen; and, therefore, in countries where it has taken root, equally instinctively is locomotion favoured and respected. The Italians knew aU this long ago very well ; and I can quite recall how in the old times, before there was much hope for Italy anywhere, wise men among them used to say, " Ah, let us only get permission to make ourselves railways, and then I" What times they were for travelUng in Italy, those days of paternal government ! There were the Inns like that at Terracina, immortal ised by Washington Irving; awful dens, with huge yawning archways, and dark enormous stairs, and bad beds — worse food — the chance of a robbery, the possibility of a murder, and the certainty of unutterable vermin. One of these I remember in my first voyage to Italy striking * For a most clever contrast of French and American legislature and society, see a receut French romance, "Paris en Am^rique". ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 25 horror into my heart, and giving me the worst nightmare I ever had in my life. It was in desolate grass-grown Ferrara. I had been travel ling alone, vetturino fashion, and reached the dismal old city late in the evening. The broad streets (so rare in Italy), down which once used to flow such a stream of Ufe and splendour, but which are now silent as those of a City of the Dead — the viUas passed on the road for mUes around, with their stone gateways all in ruins, their beautiful iron cancelK faUing from their hinges — their broken statues and dried up fountains, and dark giant cypresses shadowing the blank house, whose windows had not been opened for a generation — all these sights im pressed me sorrowfuUy. I needed not the view of Tasso's dungeon, or the court where Parisina's lover expiated his crime, to sadden me more. It was a dark grey cold evening — of those evenings more common in Italy than is supposed — I drove into the yard of an immense old palace, ascended the great marble stair, passed through some ante rooms, and entered what had been a noble dining haU, and was stUl hung round with numerous fuU-length portraits of bygone lords of Ferrara.c 26 ITALICS. Only one servant appeared. "Conld I have a room for the night?" "Yes, certainly. — ^Would thp Signora foUow him ?" The man took a lucema (one of the old classic brass lamps stUl used by. Italians), and went on before me. WeU can I re member that walk, fagged and depressed as I was. After the second room from the dining haU, there was no pretence of furniture at all, but a series of large and lofty chambers, leading one into another, perfectly bare and empty, their marble floors and richly wrought but ruinous ceilings echoing every tread. The walls were all covered with frespoes, which the neglect of some three centuries had more than half effaced, and which looked perfectly ghastly in the imperfect light. There were hunting scenes, with the wild boar and dogs : here a battle, with dead men lying in the foreground, and horses rearing in agony. Why heads and arms and Umbs appeared as they did, looking out of the obscurity and damp stains, I had no time to see. It only seemed like a most troubled evil dream. One huge red figure alone I recaU, a gigantic fury of a woman with blood coloured robes; who or what she was I know not. Seven of these awful ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 27 chambers did my guide traverse; and then, in the last of aU, accessible only through this gaUery of desolation, there was another room, and in it a bed, a few chairs, and a dressing table. I was to sleep there ! The reader wiU forgive me if I add that I sought a less terrible bower, and getting one only a Uttle less solemn, dreamed that a cer tain marble angel I had seen somewhere in the day came and waltzed up the stairs and down the seven chambers, and finally waltzed off with me, like the statue in Don Giovanni. These were the better sort of inns, in old times, in Italy. Then, as to carriage^, when one had not unUmited time and unlimited scudi to throw away upon aU too tempting vetturini, what horrors were in store in the diligences, going four miles an hour in the dust and heat of Italy, and with a fuU complement of ItaUan travellers, all ignorant ofthe fundamental principles of ablution. If the unhappy traveUer was not prepared, moreover, to go the whole journey — perhaps of thirty, forty, or fifty hours — he might be deposited anywhere, and find it quite hopeless to wait to be taken on further for days to come. The coach days of England, in a word, were days of luxury of loco- c2 28 ITALICS. motion compared to these diUgence days of Italy. How was all this to be remedied, and the Steam-god (whom, most assuredly, the old Ro mans would have placed among the Dii Majores) introduced into Italy ? Popes, Kings, and Grand- Dukes, aU professed great respect for the new divinity, but somehow their worship of him never went beyond the making of a short line for royal use ; and as to railways in the Patrimony of St. Peter, there seemed always to arise most un accountable and also invincible obstacles when ever they were proposed. The number of times those blessed Roman Unes have been attempted, and that some unforeseen calamity has over whelmed them and stopped the hopes of traffic, might perhaps be quoted as one of the instances wherein the aid of celestial Saints (who perfectly understand their own interests on earth) may be presumed to have intervened to stop modem inno- . vations. In simple truth, the difficulties were con siderable. Everything — rails, engines and carriages — had to be brought from England or France; for, even now, the new god is only a Deity in partibus in Italy. There are no foundries for him, nor any ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 29 proper naturalisation. Italians have ceased to caU a railway a " Strada Ferrata," a word much too long for famiUar use, and always speak affection ately of the "Ferrovia." They pet it, and admire it, and are proud of it; and when a festa (one of Italy's eternal festas) is to be held, the railway station is instantly changed by their transcendent taste into a long Jardin d'Hiver of flowers and flags. But the traveller still recognises in his carriage the Uttle brass or ivory plaque on the doorway, bearing the name of some English or French maker; and the engines with sonorous Italian names — GaUleos and Garibaldis — -have all issued straight from some Cyclopean forge, not in sunny SicUy, but smoke-begrimed Lancashire. Nor was it only the stock, "rolUng" and quiescent {sleepers, at least, deserve the latter term), which the makers of the raUs had to bring over. The whole idea of a navvy was necessarily a difficult importation. I have often driven among crowds of the Italian version of that thoroughly British production, and marvelled how on earth the wretched engineers got on with their task with such tools. Always half the number seemed either too weak or too lazy to roll their barrows 30 ITALICS. or use their pickaxes; and generally a detachment of women might be seen doing some of the very hardest part of the toil, with such little share of strength as they might possess. The Une between an ItaUan navvy and a brigand is sUght, not to say evanescent. As I have learned from a French gentleman in charge of large works on the Roman territories, the robberies which were daily practised on his Une were something marvellous. Casernes had to be built to shelter soldiers to superintend the men ; and these casernes were stripped of their tUes, and of every removable object as fast as it was supplied. Stabbing was a common occurrence ; one feUow murdering another, on one occasion, because in his sleep he had roUed over into his companion's bed, on the floor of some den they were occupying together. A man once came to M. S , and, professing great interest in his affairs, acquainted him that he was robbed in every direction. M. S repUed that he knew it was the case; he had tried every means to stop the evil, but found that, under the Roman govem ment, he had no redress. "Is it possible?" said the benevolent informer. " No redress at all ?" ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 81 " Too true," said the Frenchman. " Oh ! then," said the other, " I see I need not be under any apprehensions"; and from that day forth he was the worst robber of the party. Such were the mechanical and human agencies at the disposal of the ItaUan Govemment in making railways; yet, in a great measure, it has triumphed Over aU difficulties. The growth of steam-traffic in Italy since the Annexation would be surprising had there not been half such obstacles to encounter. In Piedmont in 1859, there were already more Unes of raUway open than in aU the rest of Italy together ; whUe in Naples, which had been the first to introduce 0iem into Italy, there were only a few mUes (al most exclusively of passenger service) in the whole kingdom. Between 1859 and 1864, the increase has been pretty equal over the penin sula. When the war broke out in 1859 there were only 1472 kUometres of raUways in activity from north to south. Of these, 807 were in Pied mont, 200 in Lombardy, 33 in EmUia, 308 in Tuscany, and 124 in Naples. In the beginning of 1864, 3065 kUometres were at work, forming 41 different raUways. This is surely a very con- 32 ITALICS. siderable step towards the free circulation of men in Italy, and consequently ofthe ideas they carry along with them. In the single year 1863, the following extensions and new Unes were opened : From To Kilometres. Ancona Peseara 146 Pescara Ortona 21 Salerno EboU 24 Castel Bolognese ... Eavenna 42 Palermo Bagheria 13 TrivigUo Cremona 66 Massa Sarzana 18 Leghorn Follonica 104 Ceciua Saline 30 Florence Montevarchi 29 Ortona Foggia 154 Virgato Pracchia 33 Bergamo Lecco 33 Sarzana Spezzia 15 Novaro Gozzauo 37 The cost of the 1693 kUometres of raUway made between 1859 and 1864, is between five and six hundred mUUons of francs. The Italian Govemment has now commenced the sale of these raUways to private companies, thereby, as it is hoped, contributing a Uttle to make up the tre mendous deficit of the revenue. Besides all this development of railways, and partly in consequence of it, the common roads of the country have been vastly extended and im proved, especiaUy in Naples and Sicily. Soldiers have been very judiciously set to aid this latter work, and have just opened a new road near Gar- ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 33 gano. When it is understood that throughout large districts of Calabria and the Abruzzi, there have been hitherto no roads at all — only rude tracks between one populous vUlage and another, and that this state of things was especiaUy pa tronised by the Bourbon Govemment — ^proposi tions for road making being always discounte nanced — it may be judged what a task the new govemment has got before it. The poor Com munes, accustomed only to be taxed and piUaged, do not yet understand what can be meant by af fording them grants for schools and roads, and sending them able engineers to lay out public works. " What does the King want ?" they say. "What good wiU it do him, our being better off?" Governments existing for the bene fit of the govemed, not of the governors, is a new idea in Naples. Very curious it is to note that on these new raUways in Italy (although in some degree they are planned in the French manner as regards passengers) there is never for a moment ex hibited that spirit of judicial severity towards the culprits who travel thereon, which we have signa- Used as belonging to France. Trained to sub- c3 34 ITALICS. mission under the French prison regimen, I con fess to a feeUng of keen surprise when, on enter ing Italian stazione, I have found myself a free agent and treated with the usual courtesy. Nay, it must be added, that being in a bad state of health, I found such rules as there were about entering the carriages and waiting rooms, set aside for me even before I asked for the favour, and every sort of kindness proffered by aU the officials. Italy is even now showing, in many a little symptom, that there is a real civilisation springing up in her such as France has never known — and never wiU know, so long as her idea of Order means Despotism. The extension of telegraphs is only second in interest to that of railways. The foUowing is an official summary of the works in Italy up to the beginning of the present year. Departmental Division. Bologna Cagliari Total Development of Wires in Kilometres. 2,722 ' ... 1,283 1,815 2,960 2,552 3,1122,616 3,982 3,862 Cosenza Foggia Milan Palermo Pisa Turin Total 24,904 No. of Telegraph OMces. 47 14 19 46 54 5344 65 86 428 Development ofWires of the Railway Companies. 448 464184 268 1,364 ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 35 In the beginning of 1862 there were in aU Italy only 10417 kUos. of telegraph, and the outlay of the expenses exceeded the receipts by an enor mous amount. Telegraphs are not only thus doubled in extension, but rendered actuaUy use ful to the pubUc, which they could hardly have been said to be formerly. The prices for mes sages were so enormous, and the transmission so slow and careless, that it was a very rare occur rence indeed which would lead any one to avail himself of the wires. It happened to me once, I remember, for example, four years ago, to need to send a message from Florence to Rome. I went to the bureau in Florence, wrote my mes sage (which consisted of the two words, Non venite) ; and asked what I had to pay for its immediate transmission to Rome ? The answer was "Forty-sis pauls", equal as nearly as pos sible to a pound sterling. I demurred ; but the tariff was there ; the message urgent. The official was quite positive, if I would but pay, my fiiend in Rome should receive the telegram im mediately. I did pay ; but twenty-four hours elapsed before the message was deUvered at the telegraph office in Rome, where it was impatiently 36 ITALICS. expected. In the spring of the present year, I repeated the experiment. The telegram cost six francs, and was received in Rome within a couple of hours. Postal arrangements have also imdergone great reforms in Italy. As in the case of railway tra veUing, the sending and receiving of letters is always, under a despotic government, a sort of minor offence, a sign of restlessness and dissatis faction. Ink is a nasty fluid in the opimon of autocrats, and the less that is spUled of it the better. A Uttle blood is not nearly so dangerous. In the good old times of Bomba and Bombalino at Naples, an assassin was sure of much more merciful judgment than a scribbler. Thus in Rome stiUj and in Italy generally before 1859, every sort of difficulty was prudently laid in the way of epistolary correspondence. There was one post-office (and no boxes) for each great city; a post-office closed at the most unaccountable Uours, so that when the letter-seeker had taken his long walk or drive, he found nothing but a blank window. Sundays and festas (and how many days were festas in Italy heaven and the priests only know !) of course, there were no ITALY MENDS HIE WAYS. 37 posts out or in. Stamps could only be had with infinite worry and struggUng at the single win dow whence they were suppUed. Of course, all letters were Uable to be opened, and were con stantly stopped ; and those received from abroad underwent any examination the officials pleased ; newspapers were hopeless things altogether. All this is changed so far as the Bangdom of Italy is concerned,, though Roman ways are very little mended, and letters stUl take precisely twice as long to go from Genoa to Rome as from Genoa to Naples, thanks to the admirable contrivances for delay of his Holiness' postmaster-general. Throughout Italy generaUy there are now abund ance of offices and pUlars for letters, letter-car riers, and all the proper machinery of the post. Special conveniences are even given for the trans mission of local newspapers, by the issue of stamps worth only one centesimo (the fifth ofa halfpenny), the general postage throughout the kingdom for letters being fifteen centesimi (a penny half penny). It is admitted also that persons losing letters have a right to make complaints (an im mense step for Italy) ; and the strictest engage ments are given on the part of the govemment 38 ITALICS. that all correspondence is sacred and free from examination. The book-post system also is par ticularly liberal, and much in advance of that of France, where open manuscripts are not avaU able; insomuch that I have transmitted from Italy to England for two francs a manuscript twice as large as one which cost me sixteen francs to send thither from France. But there is room for much improvement stiU in the Italian post-office. As letters and papers multiply by thousands, it is quite clear that their proper distribution becomes a problem which would be fearfully harassing to the ItaUan soul, if the ItaUan soul aUowed itself to be harassed by its proper business. Troublesome Forestieri, whose names, of course, are utterly unreadable, and which, indeed, nobody ever attempts to read ; and which sound as if they began with a K when they actuaUy do so with a C, and with that ridi culous English Th when they seem like D,-^thesQ wretched people are sad plagues in Florence, and Naples, and Genoa, and everywhere. They are always asking for letters — three times a day — though the post comes in but once ; and when they do not get them, they make a noise, and ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 39 stand at the window, and insist on having all the office searched ; and then when it happens (as, of course, in the best regulated post-office it may easUy do) that three or four of their tiresome banker's letters and other things are found in a different compartment, where they have been a few weeks, they go away abusing the office, in stead of being grateful for getting thera at last, and saying " Grazie tanto," as any well-bred per son would do. I was stopping this winter in the same hotel with a statesman of eminence, who confided to the table-d'hote that aU his news papers for three weeks had been stopped at the next post-office. A chorus of lamentations over other lost property echoed his plaints, enforced by various histories of appeals to Direttori, merely handed over to deUnqnent clerks, and (as in my own case) only rendering those clerks less civil and more inattentive than before. The Mar chese wrote to the prefect, who wrote to some ministere at Turin, whence came awful fulmina- tions, and as their consequence, a pile of joumals and packets which (not to exaggerate) formed a heap some two feet high. Shrewd surmises are entertained that some of 40 ITALICS. the losses of letters throughout the continent are traceable to another source beside the stupidity of clerks. If there be an argument to be found anywhere for the existence in human nature of Acquisitiveness, pur et simple, without any ima ginable good to be derived from the object ac quired, it is assuredly to be found in the new mania for coUecting Pcfstage Stamps. One ofthe Albums brought into existence by this popular delusion is a sort of Machine for the Promotion of Irrational Covetousness ; a perpetual sugges tion of wants which are no wants, and of desira ble acquisitions which are not desirable. Of the eighteen periodicals said to be published for the benefit of stamp coUectors, the shops in all the great towns which traffic in old stamps, the immense expenditure of time and correspondence, not to say money, which this mania has cost, there is no need to teU. It is rather desirable, however, to be forewarned that a rare American or Greek stamp on your letter wiU probably in sure it being stopped in the post office, and that Messrs. W. H. Smith's pretty round green and purple labels form temptations which your number of the Reader or Spectator is very Uttle likely to ITALY MENDS HEE WAYS. 41 survive. I have known letter carriers in Italy actuaUy write to my servant, after I had left a town, imploring the return of any which might come to me through other channels. Report says that the wives of certain Directors in Italy have the richest Albums in Europe. The know ledge of the fact would be infimitely consolatory, no doubt, to those who have endured agonies of suspense from the cessation of their correspond ence with absent relatives. I knew one lady, whose husband was in America last winter, and about whom she naturaUy felt great anxiety. He wrote, as it proved, every mail, but for six weeks she never received a letter. The stamps he used were probably pecuUarly rare and valuable. Truly, Sir Rowland HUl's magnificent inventions ought not to be tumed into playthings ! These malversations are, however, always now the fault of individual officials in Italy. The Govemment may not yet have organised aU its bureaux as perfectly as shoidd be done; but there is the im mense difference from the old state of things, that it always honestly desires to do so. Nobody doubts this; nobody supposes for a moment that the king or his ministers would prefer an iU- 42 ITALICS. regulated post office to a good one. And nobody has the sUghtest doubt that the Pope and Anto- nelU now, and aU the old kings and grand-dukeS heretofore, did very much prefer delays, mistakes, and every sort of difficulty and confusion, to the fadUtation of that evil and revolutionary thing — epistolary correspondence. CHAPTER III. ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. ri'^HE distinguishing feature of our modem -*- civiUsation, as opposed to that of the classic nations, is undoubtedly its width. They reached as high in many things ; a great deal higher in aU artistic things, than we ; but their elevation was that of an ObeUsk — ours of a Pyramid. A few dozen, a few hundred, at the most a few thousand men, in the old times, monopoUsed all the knowledge, the refinement, the Uberty of the world ; the millions were left advisedly to utter most ignorance, slavery, and barbarism. Those who rose highest sought least to draw their brothers along with them. They were content, in a word, that their civiUsation should rest on the narrowest possible basis, and the natural results followed, that that grand and beautiful civUisation, with all its glories of art and wisdom. 44 ITALICS. was utterly overthrown, and we are left to dig for its sculptured relics beneath the sands of the ages. The Hun and the Vandal avenged the Slave and the Helot. But our civiUsation — in ferior sesthetically, superior morally and scienti fically, to theirs — ^is essentiaUy broad-based, and tending continuaUy to spread itself over a wider surface. The printing-press as a material agent, a totally new conception of human brotherhood and human solidarity as a spiritual one, have between them changed the whole form of our edifice. We are as anxious to educate our arti^ sans and labourers, and to spread knowledge^ refinement of manners — even artistic taste-^ through our milUons, as the old Greek or Ro man was indifferent, or even adverse to such a course. He said, "Ne sutor ultra crepidam." We are not content if every cobbler does not go a very great way indeed further than his last 1 It is in this far larger foundation — a foundation we hope in time to make wide as the whole human race, that Ues the promise that modem civiUsar tion wiU never be overthrown like the old, but shall continue to grow higher and more beautiful while the world endures. So long as we are ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. 45 true to its laws of buUding, and for every stone we add to its height add as much to the base and the sides, there is Uttle fear for our pyramid. It is common to attribute this difference be tween the ancient and modem world to the in fluence of Christianity. Assuredly .that great transition in human nature, which we are ac customed somewhat vaguely to define as the Christian movement, has been at work in teach ing us at last that sense of the brotherhood of man to which it is due ; but it has been pretty nearly eighteen centuries in conveying the lesson. In the Middle Ages, and down to a hundred years ago, leamed men recorded their dis coveries, first in a manner designed especiaUy to prevent the "vulgar" from understanding them, and afterwards in ways which they never cared whether they did or did not so compre hend. Statesmen endeavoured from Alfred's time to diffuse education among the middle classes, but hardly among the actual working ones in any country in Europe. Even to this very hour the idea that a man is to be instructed, refined, elevated as a man, as weU as a bricklayer or blacksmith, does not seem quite a truism any- 46 ITALICS. where save in America ! When Petrarch was poUshing his sonnets, Galileo discovering worlds, Titian touching his pictures, and Michael Angelo delivering imprisoned angels out of blocks of marble — in Italy's Golden Age of Art, Literature, and "Science — Civilisation went below the sur face as deep as the ice which now and then thinly skins over the Tiber. The ice of Cinque Cento civilisation broke up ere long, and the thick muddy stream, laden with impurities, rolled on as before. Things did not mend when Art went down. The improvement of the people, the repression of mendicancy, the encouragement of labour, the advance of agriculture and manu facture, the education of the working classes — these were the very last things which Bomba and his aUies were likely to think about. On the con trary, some universities were closed because the students were troublesome, other schools were suffered (especiaUy in Naples) to die for want of funds, and such as remained were placed in the hands of the Jesuits. There was no sign that Pope, or king, or duke, would take a step in the direction of widening the base of the pyramid. ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. 47 The new government of Italy could not have given better proof of the thoroughness of the reformation it means to accomplish, than by the energy with which it has set about educating the whole nation, from the well-born youths in the universities, to the peasants in the fields ; from the adult artisan, who comes from his workshop to find a night-school waiting for him, to the babe of three summers who is left daily by its mother in the AsUo InfantUe to begin its study of the alphabet. A govemment which intended only political aggrandisement or political reforms— r- which aimed at sudden triumph for a party or a dynasty, would have put off popular education as a thing to be attended to when its primary pur poses were aU fulfiUed. At the very utmost there would have been a show of encouraging the schools, producing most rapid results — the universities and scientific lectures. But the actual existing Itahan govemment has done the reverse of aU this. The Army itself, on which the whole unity of the kingdom depends, has not taken a more prominent place in its care. The schools which have received its greatest attention have been those for the instruction of 48 ITALICS. the very humblest classes, and Normal Schools for the training of teachers, male and female, whose work cannot tell on the population for another generation. A government which has done this, and in doing it has but foUowed the unanimous desire of the nation, is no revolution ary junta. It is laying deep and wide the founda tions of an enduring civilisation such as the old : despotisms never knew. The CathoUc Church has often ostentatiously patronised education. It has founded abundance of Colleges for the Clergy, and some for the laity. It has sanctioned Orders devoted to the instruc tion of the young. It claims not unfairly to have been the grand depository of learning during the middle Ages. The chestnuts of VaUombrosa shaded_Gahleo in his youth, though the dungeons of the Inquisition shrouded his old age. Catholics, as a rule, would vehemently repudiate the accu sation that their system was inimical to the highest and widest education. M. de Broglie and Count Montalembert tell us that Oscurantism is no part of Romanism; that it has been by a grievous mistake and baneful error it has ever been identified with it or favoured by its chiefs ; ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. 49 and, in a word, that Rome is the seven-fold Candlestick which lights the Christian world. This is the theory of the case. Practically, how ever, by some fatality or other, it happens that the proceedings of the Church in the matter of Education are either so unlucky or so iU- advised, that they always result in fostering ignorance even when they seem to be most ardent in disseminating instruction. The Catholic countries of Europe and America, Italy, Spain, Ireland, CathoUc Germany and Switzerland, Mexico, the Southern Republics, and BrazU, are certainly not quite on the same educational level as England, Scotland, North Germany, Holland, Scandinavia, and the United States and Canada. France alone stands forward as a highly instructed CathoUc country : but is it to the Church or to the Government we owe its communal schools ? Are its men of letters and science supposed to be faithful disciples of any Christian Church ? If Rome has really been working aU these ages with her immense ma chinery and profound sagacity to accomplish the education of her children, it must be admitted her success has not been as decided as might have been wished. d 50 ITALICS. It happened to me to open for three successive years, in an Irish village, night schools, where boys and girls received instruction in Arithmetic, Geography,'and such matters. No religious teach ing of any kind was given, nor any suspicion breathed of tampering with the opinions of the scholars. Each year it also happened, that as soon as my schools were opened, the priest of the parish (professing profound respect and gratitude to me and my famUy) proceeded to open other night schools of his own, and to order aU my Catholic pupils to transfer their" attendance to the same. When I had acquiesced in this ar rangement, contented that education should be given, no matter by whom, or where, and con sequently closed my own school, it also happened (of course quite fortuitously, but stiU singularly regularly for three consecutive years) that the priest next week closed his schools also, and there was an end of education for that winter among the lads and lasses of the viUage. This is a very smaU incident, not worth recording ; but I cannot help fancying it affords a miniature view of a policy which has prevailed to no small extent over Catholic Christendom. When any people insist on being educated, or when Protestants ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. 51 are ready to step in and educate them, then the Church pushes in with immense bustle and dignity : " Leave it all to me. I will do every thing. It is my right and my privilege, and here are my Jesuits and my Nuns of the Bon Pasteur, and of St. Joseph, all ready to teach everybody everything under the sun." But, by and bye, when the ardour of the people sinks a Uttle, and Protestants have turned to something else, the energy of Mother Church relaxes, and the work is left pretty much where it was. A miserable Uttle gamin in one of our great tovms is left to run about the streets untaught, to beg or steal, tUl a Protestant magistrate or philan thropist seizes on him and shuts him up in an Industrial School, and then out comes the priest in tremendous anxiety for his soul : " He is one of my flock; give him up at once." In Uke manner, countries of CathoUcs, Uke Naples and Ireland, are left in uttermost ignorance and stupidity so long as nobody interferes ; but when the nation rises with new-gained freedom, or Protestant England appoints National Schools, there is an outcry : " Here we are, Jesuits and Nuns by scores. We wUl be the teachers every- d2 52 ITALICS. where. Give the children up to our care." The experiment has been tried on too vast a scale to leave much room for dispute. Which are the most ignorant countries of Europe ? The Two SiciUes, Ireland, Spain. Which are the most Catholic countries ? The Two SiciUes, Ireland, Spain. There are no other answers; and tUl the Romish Church can produce some other, it is surely vain to pretend she ever sincerely labours for the education of her disciples. During the old regime in Italy, it was the rule to endeavour to engage aU promising young students in the coUeges to devote themselves to the Church. If they declined the lures and bribes presented to them, their further education was pretty well stopped. Every sort of discouragement was thrown in the way of their appUcations : their teachers visibly lost aU interest in their progress, and rendered their attendance at their classes as difficult and disagreeable as possible. On the other hand, if they fell in with the wishes of their ecclesiastical tutors, they were placed under a system calculated with nicety to efface in them all natural feelings, to blind them to all modem light, and to saturate them with the ideas and prejudices of their Church. A young student of ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. 53 Divinity of this class furnished a friend with a rq^inute account of his education on this plan. The course lasts for eleven years, beginning at twelve and ending at twenty-three. Ten weeks' hoUday are aUowed in the autumn of each year. While in the Seminario, the pupils pray and study, and meditate, alternately, during the entire day, from five A.M. tUl night, with the exception of meals, and one hour's relaxation for conversation, of which half an hour is allotted to exercise ! The condition of a young man's mind and body, who from boyhood has had only an hour's amusement and thirty minutes of exercise (such exercise as Can be taken by a school of boys walking two by two in long traUing robes) may be imagined. The hapless young men, who have passed through such a dreary youth, and emerge from it with their minds loaded only with false philosophy, false science, false morals, utterly false views of Ufe, and aU its most sacred relations, are surely greatly to be pitied. If they, in their turn, darken other minds, and prove bigots and fanatics, or depraved debauchees, is it any great wonder ? Would it be more than human nature avenging herself for her wrongs ? Let us tum to a happier picture. 54 ITALICS. Before the annexation of. the other provinces. Piedmont was vastly in advance of the rest of Italy in Education. One in ten out of the entire population attended the schools, whUe in Naples not one in ninety did so ; and in Sicily, out of the female population, even at present, not one in two hundred. The very first care of the Government, as province after province has been joined to form the Kingdom of Italy, has been to reform the system of education, to open schools for both boys and girls in every commune, to train teachers who shall hereafter take the place of the very poor lay instructors, and the very dangerous ecclesiastical ones, who have hitherto shared the education of Italy between them. The task was Herculean ; but the whole nation has joined in it heart and hand, and the result is something amazing to any one who knows the difficulties in the way. We shall endeavour to give a brief sketch of what has been done in each of the four great depart ments, namely — i. The Univeesities, for complet ing the education of youths of the higher classes. II. NoEMAL Schools, for the training of teachers, male and female, intended for the Elementary ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. 55 Schools. III. Blementaey Schools, Upper and Lower, for the gratuitous education of all chil dren, boys and girls, from eight years old up ward. IV. The AsiLi Inpantili, or Infant Schools for the youngest children, also gratui tous. There are also a number of Adult Schools in different towns. The information I offer may be reUed on as accurate, the greater part of it having been derived directly from the Ministere deU' Istruzione at Turin, and the rest from a source perfectly secure. I. The Univeesities of Italy are somewhat troublesome problems to the Govemment. There have been nineteen of them from a remote period, and it is clear enough that, to supply nineteen Universities with first-rate Professors to fiU all the chairs of classics and science, is a matter which no country except Germany would find it possible to accompUsh. The number of the students in many of them being small (eight of them have less than a hundred, and three less than fifty), these first-class Professors must necessa rily have their Chairs almost whoUy endowed by Govemment. Nevertheless, the obvious plan of reducing Italy's nineteen Universities to Eng- 56 italics. land's three, is an undertaking at present im practicable. In each of the nineteen towns the University, smaU or great, is a matter aUke of pride and profit to the inhabitants, and its re moval would be a cause of public discontent. The various Provinces have given up their inde pendent Courts and local governments for the national good, but the loss of their Universities they never contemplated, and to force them to undergo it would be, to say the least, an un gracious task on the part of Turin. Another pro position has been made, which seems more pos sible of fulfilment just now. It is to apportion the different professional and other studies among different Universities, so as to have one for Medical Students, one for Law, one for Classical, one for Mathematical, one for Natu ral Science. The best Professor in each Une might thus be appointed to the Chair he could best fill, and where aU students seeking his special instructions would naturaUy be educated. Even such a plan, however, would entail many difficulties in the transposal of existing Chairs, and the fiUing up of those which in each Uni versity, although made of secondary importance. ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. 57 could not be left empty where the entire educa tion of young men was to be carried through. Heartburn is a common disease, alas ! in such places aU the world over. But it seems to be endemic everywhere in Italy. University Reform would bring on a perfect outbreak of it in the nineteen towns. The following is a Ust of the existing Univer sities, with the number of their scholars during the past year. students. Pavia II3I Turin 879 Pisa 568 Palermo 561 Bologna 454 Modena 398 Parma 268 Catania 213 Genoa 197 Siena 120 Perugia 99 Ferrara 97 Messina 64 Cagliari 63 Urbino 61 Sassari 39 Camerino 39 Macerata 31 Naples 2 Total : 5,270 d3 58 ITALICS, In Naples, in 1861-2, there were 1459 stu dents inscribed, making it the largest University in the kingdom. The downfaU of the numbers in 1862-3 depends upon a question of taxes, which the students resented as too high. I am not aware of the exact figures for the present year, but understand that a compromise has been effected, and the University is again filling with students. The education given in these Universities has not undergone any important change during the formation of the new Kingdom. In addition to them there are throughout Italy various insti tutions for the higher class of instructions, lyceums and scuole tecniche, of which I have some Reports, testifying to courses of lectures on Political Economy, Chemistry, Naval Architec ture, Physical Science, etc. II. The Noemal Schools, for the training of schoolmasters and mistresses for the Elementary Schools. These were decidedly among the most interesting and important of aU the new insti tutions in Italy, and prove, by their long-sighted poUcy, how deep and complete is the reform contemplated by the Government. TiU of late ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. 50 years, nearly the whole educational system of Italy was in the hands of the Church, and so long as this state of things continued, it was hopeless to expect the youth of the country to grow np with Uberal opinions. Yet to alter the system at once was impossible, seeing that the class of lay teachers, so common elsewhere, had been effectually excluded from Italy. Even last year it was found that, out of 14,253 masters of Elementary Schools, 6,378 were ecclesiastics, and out of 7,604 mistresses, 1,106 were nuns, the authorities having been as yet unable to fill up the number with lay teachers. In the pre sent state of things, however, aU teachers, whe ther lay or ecclesiastical, are appointed by, and solely dependant on the civil authority of the Commune where they are employed, and are re sponsible (so far as their office is concerned) to no ecclesiastical superiors. There are now existing in Italy Twenty- One Normal Schools for training Schoolmasters, viz., in AquUa, Ascoli, Bari, Casale, Cosenza, Crema, Florence, Forli, Lodi, Messina, Naples, Novara, Oneglia, Palermo, Perugia, Pinerolo, Pisa, Reg gio (in EmiUa), Sassari, TrevigUo, and Urbino. 60 ITALICS. There are also Eighteen Normal Schools for training Schoolmistresses, namely, at Alessan dria, Ancona, Bologna, Brescia, Cagliari, Came rino, Catania, Como, Florence, Genoa, Girgenti, Lucco, Milan, Mondovi, Naples, Parma, Perugia, and VercelU. The Masters' Schools contain 901 pupils; the Mistresses', 1637. Each pupU re ceives an annual pension of 250 francs. Previous to 1859, in the place of these Normal Schools, there existed in the Sardinian States (where lay-teaching was encouraged by the Go vemment in spite of the Church), some ten Scuole Magistrale for the training of masters and thirty for mistresses. These are stiU maintained. The instruction in them is of the same sort, but somewhat inferior to that afforded in the new Scuole Normale, They help to increase the num ber of teachers produced by the latter, which still are inadequate in numbers to the demand. In each Normal School are three Professors, with salaries respectively of 2200 francs, 1800 francs, and 1500 francs. In each Female Normal School there is an additional mistress, charged with the moral care of the pupils. The course of instruction in Male and Female Schools is the ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. 61 same, except that the young men only are taught gymnastics and militar}^ exercises, and the wo men needlework. This course of instruction is as follows : — 1 . ReUgion and Morals. 2. Pedagogia; or, the Art of Instruction. 3. ItaUan Language and Rules of Composition. 4. Geography and Natural History. 5. Arithmetic and the Elements of Geometry. 6. The Principles of Physical Science and Ele ments of Hygienics. 7. CaUgraphy. 8. Drawing. 9. Choral Singing. I have read very carefuUy the official programmes of examination, pubUshed for the use of all the Normal Schools in the kingdom. They are in many respects remarkable. "Religion" is defined to consist in " The catechism of the Diocese, and the story of the Old and New Testaments in two Books, approved for questioning children." Everybody knows what affairs are these Catholic stories of the Testaments — the miracles all kept ia, and the sense aU kept out. But it is per fectly comprehensible that the theology of these 62 ITALICS. schools should be of the briefest. " Morals" are developed much further, and truly the way in which they are handled is more suggestive of the Middle Ages than of the century after Kant. First, we find the Science analysed, beginning from '^'Definition and Division of Ethics," and a discus sion on "Free WiU" (all accompUshed on scholas tic principles), to the apparition of those long de parted virgins whom we have not heard of except on aUegorical tomb-stones for several generations — the Cardinal Virtues, Prudence, Justice, Tem perance, and Fortitude. On reading of these poor neglected ladies, introduced as still alive and influential, the mind naturally reverts to those other four characters likewise too long for gotten, the Four Elements, from which one of the Fathers demonstrated that there only were, and only could be, four gospels. The Physics of the Italian schools are, however, fortunately much in advance of their Ethics. The third year of Moral instruction takes the pupils into PoUtics, begin ning with proof that the social state is necessary to mankind, and proceeding to an analysis of the civil and political rights recognised in Italy, the constitution of the Monarchy, and the duties of ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. 63 citizens of free States. The books for students preparing for examination in Moral Science are, Cicero's Offices; the Doveri degli Uomini, by Sil vio PeUico; and four other modern Italian works, including the Libro del Popolo of Professor Scavia. The two greatest Italian moralists, old Beccaria and Mazzini, are not included in the Ust ; but it must be granted that it is neverthe less an incalculable advance over the infamous books of Casuisty and Guides to the Confessional, which have hitherto represented ethical science to the youth of Italy. After Religion and Morals come Grammar, the Elements of Literature, and the History of Italy, the latter including accounts of Dante, Michael Angelo, and GalUeo, no less than of poUtical personages. Geography is made to include notices of the various rehgions of the world and statistics of the population, military force, etc., of Italy. Arithmetic advances no further than to the Rule of Three, and the reduction of the old weights and measures into the new decimal sys tem. Also the art of Book-keeping. Geometry is the most marveUous part of the course. We 64 ITALICS. have been accustomed from the days of Alex ander to believe that there was no "Royal Road" to the science ; but apparently young Italy has found that secret path, for the pupils of the Nor mal Schools are expected, without passing through such humdrum ways as Euclid or Archimedes, to arrive, in some miraculous manner, at " prob lems and applications" which are to measure the superficies and solid contents of polyhedrons and pyramids, cones, cyUnders, and spheres. Drawing includes sketches of geometric figures and objects, of furniture, and also the manner of teaching the science to the pupils in the elemen tary schools. Evidently, it is not as a Fine Art, but as a useful assistance in study and trade, that such instruction is given. Italians, from the highest to the lowest, have a profound reverence for real Art, and no notion of arriving at it by any Royal Road, whatever they might imagine possible as to Geometry. Physics seem to form the most important part of the whole programme. Beginning with the Solar System, the course proceeds through forty heads, inclusive of Chemistry, Optics, Acoustics, Mineralogy, Botany, Physiology, Zoology, and ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. 65 Geology, and concludes with practical instructions on Hygienics. For the use of the Professors of this favourite department, a small cabinet of ob jects with Ulustrative diagrams, is required in each school. Curiously enough, in this depart ment, and this alone, the instruction of the Fe male pupUs is ordered differently (though not essentially so) from that of the young men. The whole course concludes with the Pedagogia, or Art of Teaching, which is to be the profession of the students. This long analysis of the course of studies at the Normal Schools of Italy, though somewhat tedious, is, I think, not without interest, as show ing at how high a mark the government aims for the future teachers of the nation. In reading over the formidable programme signed by De Sanctis, I have been tempted to wonder how far our weU-assured Enghsh Certified Teachers would stand such examinations, and also how far such a Circle of the Sciences is reaUy compassed by the young lads and damsels who frequent the Normal Schools of Italy. The Scuole Magist/rale, which we have spoken of as the imperfect forerunners of the Scuole 66 ITALICS. Normale in Piedmont and Liguria, a few of which are still maintained on the old footing, are so far inferior to the Normal Schools that their courses of instruction only include reUgion, the Italian language, arithmetic, pedagogy, and writing. Model Schools are not in use anywhere in Italy. The pupils in the Scuole Normale and Magistrale either practise teaching by attending the Ele mentary Schools in their neighbourhood, or have children from these schools brought to them in their own schools for instruction.* III. The Elementaey Schools. These are the great glory of the new Government, the institu tions which, had it done nothing else but esta bUsh throughout the land, it would stiU have claim to universal honour. The following is an accurate table of these Schools, derived from the Ministeroat Turin : — * Since writing the above, I have been favoured by J. D. Morell, Esq., one of H.M.S. Inspectors of Schools, with the results of his late examination into the actual state of Italian schools. He is of opinion that, as regards the courses of instruction, the Government plan is as yet but imper fectly carried out, except in a few schools in Piedmont. The rapid increase in numbers of schools and scholars through out Italy, compels for the present a hasty transference of teachers to the Elementary schools from the Scuole Nor male. ITALY SENT TO SCHOOL. 67 00 0 0 >n (N cq 00 00 ¦* eq "8 !< 0 -H »-H uo 0 CO 0 cq i-H -*¦*¦* CO CO CO 0 (N ^ TJf^O M -- 00 ¦CM '^., "*»"*., eq Q m co't.^ oTo CD 00" oth cq eq CO IN uo U3 I— t .-H .— 1 ¦* i.^ (M CO .-H 00 cq eo i~ eo uo T)H ¦* ¦* 0 (M OS OS eo CD t~ 0 CD ^ ¦* <^ 1-H cq 00 r-l 1-1 CO_ .0 c-i T— 1 TjT g f.^ IIIO CO o 0 eq CD OS (N CO u3 cq 1-1 0 CD !M 00 IO r-l ¦* U3 OS CD OS ¦* eo .-1 CO cq ¦* t^ cq CO eo m imune each ivince, 10 ¦* t>- 00 0 cq 0 cq cq 0 ^ (N CD CD »0 CO U5 CD t~- CO .* CO (M CO (N ¦* 00 CO CO t~ l-^fl rn" ci r-T 1> d CO 0 CO wo CO t~ 00 CD CO 00 o CD 0 CO 0 ¦* OS —1 1^ rf •* ¦43 .— '^ uo 1-1 (N Ir- CD .^ r-l •* 1 CT -Sf CD I^ >0 uo 0 CO CO od" ¦* CO (N IN —1 OS CD OJ h- cq s* t- t- 0 -< 00 eo 0 cq UO t-. 0 PL| EYOND aU the reforms now enumerated, the ¦'-^ Italian govemment has undertaken another, of perhaps wider significance than any ofthe rest. It has set free the Press. I am informed, by those best qualified to know, that the Uberty thus ac corded is quite real and bond fide, and that, unless under such circumstances as would lead an Englisb. government to prosecute, the Italian govemment wiU not do so. The results of such an absolute transformation of the whole Uterary system of a country we must, of course, wait some years to see. From the ebb to which despotism, civil and religious, had driven out literature, it must take many a day for the tide to rise again to high- water mark. An Index Fxpurgatorius for the benefit of theology and physics ; a poUtical Censorship for the correction of the daily press 118 ITALICS. and of any works aspiring to treat of social sci ence, political economy, or modern history; these were two engines to which Xerxes' whips were not to be compared. Italian Popes and Dukes were much wiser than the old Persian. By their care and attention, the once magnificent literature of Italy has dwindled to the issue of a few pitiful pamphlets and translations of French novels; and the periodical press, which might have arisen with that of other European countries, has been put back by about a century. The very language has been watered down, from Dante's time to our own, till, for a dozen words of his strong vocabu lary, about eighteen or twenty of modem flowing Italian verbiage are needed. It seems truly as if the task had been set before the nation. How to use most words and the greatest number of syUables to express the smallest quantity of thought. A bit of nervous English, with an epigram or two in it, translated into elegant Italian, becomes so mild and fair-spoken, that the efiect is that of knocking a nail into a wall with a pillow instead of a hammer. The rules of compo sition (thanks to the Della Cruscan School) are all as strict as possible; no sort of liberty is left for ITALY EEADS HEE NEWSPAPEE. 119 either introducing new words, or putting old ones into more vigorous combinations. An educated Italian holds up his hands with horror and dis gust at any such innovation as an English writer in our living, seething Saxon tongue would be at perfect Uberty to use. The crow-quill of the last century must not be exchanged for any goose or swan quiU or steel pen of our own. Phrases most unmeaning and ridiculous, provided they be legitimately constructed, pass muster. A news paper writer, when he wants to say a certain re port is a Ue, observes gracefully that it is " pie- namente inesatta" (fully ine^eactj. But if he were to fill up one of the innumerable vacancies in his vocabulary by a word most legitimately formed from the Latin, he would be condemned by every ItaUan pretending to literary taste. To read a modem Italian book (I speak, at least, my own feelings) is about as wearisome as to read a long poem in the old French heroic metre, such as the Henriade. You are not Ustening to a man giving forth himself in such guise as nature may teach: " Le style c'est I'homme" is not true as regards him, for he has no business to have an individual style at all. He must write under re- 120 ITALICS. strictions as close as the lines in those old copy books, wherein there were little breaks for the up and down strokes, and not a fraction more sloping up or sloping down was possible. It is a tour de force he is performing, to express what he has got to say under certain difficulties. True, someltalians conquer all this — Mazzini, d'Azeglio, Passaglia, aU write and speak with combined elegance and vigour, but lesser men can make nothing of it. They dance a minuet when they ought to be marching in quick time down the road. A few things are needed to create a literature : first, a language; secondly, some writers; thirdly, some readers. Italy-has at present to revive her language (shaU we say to exchange that poUshed and inlaid steel corslet for a Garibaldi red shirt?), and she has then to make the writers, and teach the readers. There is a circle she must manage to break in some way or other — the circle of cause and eflfect ; of there being no readers be cause there are no writers, and no writers because there are no readers ; no book trade because there is no Uterary pubUc, and no Uterary public because there is no book trade ; miserable news- ITALY EEADS HEE NEWSPAPEE. 121 papers because few people buy them, and few people buying them because they are miserable. HappUy, one little transgression of the circle leads to another ; a few more writers wiU make several more readers; and several more readers will help the book trade ; and the habits of a reading pub Uc wUl soon raise the periodical press. Italians are generaUy, however, Uttle disposed or able to spend money on luxuries of the class of books, though ready enough to stint themselves actually of food for matters of shew — for fine dress and carriages, and a box at the opera. The ideas of subscribing for first class newspapers, joining book clubs, and forming private libraries, are degrees of comparison of extravagance few of them have yet entertained. Perhaps, just at present, with so many new Unes of commerce, and heavier taxation, there are special difficulties in the way. StiU, the business has been begun. Italy wUl have a Uterature again. Freedom of thought, the intense new Ufe pouring through the nation, wiU break out and make a way for it self, we cannot doubt, ere long. What that liter ature may be — ^what place it may take in the Europe of the twentieth century — who may ven- G 122 ITALICS. ture to foretell ? There may be again a Virgil, a Cicero, a Tacitus ; again a Dante, a Tasso, and a Galileo on that eternally fertile shore. ItaUan genius has been silent for two centuries, or, rather like the fires of her volcanoes, it has been slumbering under its lava crust, to burst out, perchance, with a splendour great as ever of old. No one who knows the Italian nation believes that its ancient fire is extinguished. Whatever may be the failings of the people in the use of their gifts, the existence of those gifts is beyond all doubt or question. One reflection more adds to the brightness of this augury. The freest press (as England has proved) is the purest and most moral press in the world. The censorship of politics and religion in France and Italy have only degraded the literature on which they acted into lower and lower grossness and immoraUty. The freedom of the EngUsh press has been the pm-ification as weU as elevation of EngUsh Utera ture. If Italy can but revive the genius of the Augustan or the Medicean age, nay, but a ghost of that genius, — enlightened by the larger science, warmed by the higher philanthropy of our century, — then, with Freedom to give it wings and raise ITALY EEADS HEE NEWSPAPEE. 123 it above the mire, that Genius of Italy may soar more loftily than ever yet over the world. The changes as yet produced in the literature of Italy are nearly confined to the newspaper press. There are a few more book-shops, a few (but not many) more ItaUan books, a considerable sale of Bibles and also of certain French works, amongst which Renan's Vie de Jesus and its two Italian translations, and the Maudit and the Religieuse stand conspicuous. Liverani's book, About's Rome, and several works on Brigandage, are also to be seen everywhere ; but of anything to be caUed a national Uterature, there is as yet no sign. The newspapers which have really sprung to Ufe are stiU at the stage of our own a century ago — ^not so advanced indeed, perhaps, as that reprint of the Times of 1763 showed itself. One of the largest, L'ltalie, is pubUshed in French for the use of foreigners and natives, the knowledge of French being almost universal among educated people in Italy. Of the ItaUan newspapers, properly so called, the most im portant are L' Opinione of Turin, the Ministerial organ, the Perseveranza of Milan, and the Na zione of Florence — aU constitutional. The Maz- g2 124 ITALICS. zinians have got two papers, L'TJnita Italiana and II Diretto ; and the Reactionary, or Codino and Papal, party have got L' Armonia, La Ci- vilta Cattolica, and II Contemporaneo. Passaglia himself edits a daily journal. La Pace, and a weekly one, II Mediators, to represent his section of Uberal churchmen. The Protestants pubUsh at Florence the Fco della Verita, and some minor papers there and at Naples. Besides these, there are political papers published in various pro vinces : the Gazzetta Piedmontese, the Gazzetta di Genova, the Gazzetta di Firenze, the Nazionale di Napoli, the Giornate Offiziale di Napoli, the Gazzetta Offiziale di Sicilia, the Nuovo Oimento of Pisa, the Lomhardia of Milan, the Piccolo Corriere d'ltalia, the Italiano of Florence, &c. There are also a certain number of scientific periodicals now issued in Italy. Of these the Rivista Con temporaneo is the best, but a very long way behind the Revue des deux Mondes, or of our second-rate quarterlies. There are also, of various degree of merit, the foUowing — Statistica di Toscana. Griornale deU' Arti e Indus- BaccogUtore Medico. tria di Torino. AnnaU CivHidel Begno delle L'Istitutore di Torino. due SicUie. Biblioteca Italiana. ITALY EEADS HEE NEWSPAPEE. 125 Giomale dell' Ing. Architeo- G-iornale Soien. e Letter, di tro di Milano. Perugia. Giornale deU Istituto Lorn- Eivista dei Communi. bardo. H Politeonico. Eivista Omoeopatica di Pi- Q-iornale di Medica Veteri- renze. naria. La Bivista di Pirenze. EfFemeridi di Pubblica Is- H Tempo, G-iornale di Medica truzioue. e Chirurgica. La PamigUa e la Scuola. Museo di Scienze e Lettera- II Baoofilo. tura di Napoli. II Giardiniere. La Temia {The Themis). Giornale Agrario. Gazzetta di Tribunal!. Atti dei GeorgofiH. Letture di Familie. II Coltivatore. La Guardia Nazionale Eepertorio d'Agricultura. Aunali Universali di Statis- L' Eoonomica Eurale di To- tica. rino. n Mondo lUustrato. Eivista Agrouomica. Arohivio Storico Italiano. II Commercio di Pirenze. Besides these, there are (or were a few months ago, for they are always starting afresh and dropping oflf) six or seven humorous papers : H Lampione of Florence being the best of them, L'Uomo di Pietra, II Piovano Arlotto, Pasquin, La Chiacchiera, and L'Arlecchino. The re-issue of Punch, in its first volume, gives a tolerable comparison with the Lampione. The wit is some what of the same kind, less pointed and more personal than the EngUsh humourist would now condescend to use. The Italian paper has lately, however, obtained the services of an artist who. 126 ITALICS. under the pseudonym of Mata, produces excel lent lithographs. Some of his sketches are clever enough, and all are well drawn. It must be owned, however, that though we owe the words " Lampoons " and " Pasquinades " to Italy, it is hardly to be hoped we shall owe it further any very animated jokes. The language does not lend itself, Uke French, to anything epigrammatic, and the genius of the people, albeit gay and lively, seems to partake but moderately of wit, and not at all of humour. An Italian Sydney Smith, or an ItaUan Leech, are quite incogi table. A Uvely Italian writer of the old school wrote strings of indecent anecdotes, and the nation has ever since spoken of the Decamerone as if it were on the level of Don Quixote. A modern Italian hammers away on the old anvil of immoral priests and sUly women, and now and then makes a feeble hit at the absurdities of English travellers — and there the joke is exhausted. The favourite witticism just now in Italy seems to be a print of a particular kind, which, when widely opened, displays some innocent-looking picture — four prize pigs, a goat, a cat, or the like; when folded in a particular ITALY EEADS HEE NEWSPAPEE. 127 manner, these pictures become portraits of Gari baldi, the Pope, Bombalino, or anybody else. It must be owned the fun of this is not very overpowering. The best of the caricatures are somewhat serious satires on priestly doings, and it is curious enough to see crowds of ItaUan professed CathoUcs gathered laughing round the windows where such things are exhibited. One of these represents a church with the priests showing the people a winking Madonna ; in the background, behind the altar, other priests are disclosed pulling the cords. In a second, the Jesuits are coUecting money to " save the Church," and squabbling for it among them selves behind the scenes. Another, more audacious stUl, represents a crucifix on an altar, and the Pope kneeling before it; Christ lifts his foot and kicks the tiara from the Pope's head, thus performing the latest miracle of the Church. I have now very briefly and imperfectly sketched some of the leading changes which the New Govemment has made in Italy. Railways, the postal system, the telegraphs, have been at least doubled in extent and usefulness ; some 128 ITALICS. 3000 kilometres of railway and 1200 of tele graph wires having been actually added. Edu cation has been promoted on the scale of 21,000 Elementary and 38 Normal Schools (of which far the greater number have been newly opened), beside Infant Schools and Adult Schools to a very considerable extent. The Army, amounting to nearly 400,000 men, has been actuaUy created. The Jurisprudence of the kingdom has at least been relieved of its worst evils — trial by jury has been established, and the nation waits for the speedy promulgation of an uniform Code of the best laws for securing the life, Uberty, and property of the subject which the present stage of legal science may be able to furnish. There is no fear remaining of a government desiring ever again to tamper with the course of justice. Trade has been assisted by the removal of a multitude of obstructions, by the aboUtion of passports between the provinces, the facilities oflfered by the book-post and samples'-post for commercial affairs, and, finally, by the complete reform of the coinage and the system of weights and measures. Mendicancy has been partially repressed, and, last not least, the Press has been ITALY EEADS HEE NEWSPAPEE. 129 set free, and the first step taken towards the elevation of Italy to the rank of a literary country. It must surely be owned that these are results of four years work and forty millions of money, of which a nation may justly be proud. If there be some who tell us that many of these reforms are more ostensible than actual, and that much is needed yet to make the new schools, the new army, and the new laws reaUy effective ; — if there be others who treat all such reforms with disdain, and say that constitutional Uberty is valueless without a Republic ; and education, and raUways, and armies, and a free press of no avail withont the annexation of Rome and Venice ; — to both I would say, " Point to any other people or government who in so short a time have accomplished so much, and consider whether, in laying deep the foundations of future civiUsa tion, more has not been done for the nation than by raising the Cross of Savoy on the columns of St. Mark, or even by fulfiUing its greatest and most legitimate ambition — gathering the Senate of Italy in the Capitol of Rome." g8 CHAPTER VII. "LIBERTY, EQUALITY, AND THE PBUDAL SYSTEM." TTTHEN Cherubina, in the Heroine, makes her oration to the Irish hay-makers, we all remember how she concludes by proposing for their programme of action the above delight ful combination of advantages. This platform, as our American friends would caU it, perpetu ally recurs to the mind in marking the various and wholly inconsistent objects which are fre quently set forth by the same people with the utmost sincerity. Especially in Italy are the three ideas continuaUy lumped together, and society made to represent the not very consist ent result. I have thought that a few remarks on the changes taking place in this way, and speculations on their prpbable consequences, may have some interest for my readers, whether LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 131 they hold by Liberty and EquaUty or by the Feudal System, or prefer, Uke the sage Cheru bina, to unite aU three in their aspirations. The, Liberal party in Italy corresponds with the Whig party in England, not only in the general scope of its aim and principles, but in the curious circumstance that its great centre lies, not in the lower strata of society, where we are accustomed to think the desire of liberty is strongest, but in the higher ranks, where some of the noblest famiUes in the land have adopted the cause of a free constitution and of rational progress. There are, indeed, in Rome, Florence, and aU the old court cities, a majority of nobles attached to the elder regime, to the Pope and the exiled sovereigns. In Rome, probably, very few are liberaUy disposed, either of the handful who claim a classic ancestry, or the large number who, Uke the Barberini and Borghesi, trace their rise from the nepotism of the Popes. The ac- *complished Duca di Sermoneta, of the great house of Gaetano, and Prince Piombino, the ex iled master of the beautiful Ludovisi Villa, are almost alone in the reputation of liberal opinions. In Florence the families of Corsi, Corsini, Ad- 132 ITALICS. mari, MartelU, Alessandri, etc., are all noto riously - OocZiwi, — the Strozzi, the Ricasoli, Ri- dolfij and a few others, being alone in their adhesion to the govemment. StUl, how ever, it is these Uberal nobles, even when in a minority in their provinces, and with them the haute bourgeoisie, who have mainly contributed to the present order of things. They are the . statesmen, the cultivated and well-informed, the men of letters, and their desire of freedom and progress has been of that rational sort which enabled them to steer clear of the ScyUa and Charybdis of revolution and despotism which lay in their course. On the other hand, the Codini are singularly composed; partly of the old feudal aristocracy, attached by sympathy and hereditary friendship to the exiled princes, and partly of the low-born priesthood, who now alone supply the ranks of the Church. It must not be overlooked in any review of ' the state of Italy, that a very important change has taken place in the last few years in the con stituency of the whole ecclesiastical body, secu lar and regular. Formerly, the younger sons of LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 133 the nobles, in Italy (as ih France under the old regime) accepted the tonsure — more regularly, indeed, in Italy than in Prance, since the Cardi nalate and the Papacy itself were nearer to their grasp, and (according to the influence of their famiUes), more or less fairly an object of their ambition. But aU this is over. Since the French conquest the whole family system of Italy has been graduaUy changing from the feudal to the democratic, tUl Majorats are altogether abo- hshed, and the younger sons, by the inheritance of proportionate fortunes, are reUeved from the necessity of entering the Church as a means of support. Added to this, has come a general feel ing towards the priesthood, curiously mingled of official respect and personal contempt. The tide having once tumed, and the young men of good famUy ceasing to flock into the Church, the descent was rapid, the priesthood, represented by persons of lower and lower degree, became less and less socially respected, or looked to as a possible profession for a gentle man. Even in ordinary society, where the chap lain, director, or tutor, formerly made a regular part of every Salon and had his place at every 134 ITALICS. table, the last ten years has produced a total change ; and the visitor may dine at twenty tables, and frequent the best houses famUiarly for months together, without once seeing the skirt of a Soutane. The ladies of the family at tend Church and see their spiritual guides — perhaps a great deal too frequently — ^in the Con fessional. But they no longer admit them to the intimacy of their homes ; they are, in fact, socially unfit for their circle. Only in the case of some learned tutor for their sons is an excep tion made to the rule of exclusion. Thus it has come to pass that the Church is recruited only from the lower classes, save in the circumstances of any peculiar devotional feeling, or any special prospect of advancement, such as a Cardinal or Episcopal uncle might supply. The junior nobles of Italy go into the army or the navy, or into Parliament, or Uve (as too many are disposed) on their share of the family fortunes, with any possible addition from the dowry of their wives. The Mezzo Ceto of the richer sort become merchants, bankers, avvocati, physicians, engineers, farmers, or idlers, like the others. But neither noble nor bourgeois thinks LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 135 of entering the priesthood or becoming a monk, as probably his uncles and granduncles did for a thousand years. He must be very far down indeed in the scale to think of that resource I Thus the Church of Rome at the present moment is mainly composed of men who have risen from the ranks, either of the peasantry or smaUer tradesmen. Those who are alUed by birth to the higher classes and may retain tra ditions of their feelings and manners, may be almost counted on the fingers ; like the Pope himself, half a dozen Cardinals in Rome, the Archbishop of Pisa (who is a Corsini, and spoken of as probable successor to the tiara) and a few more. The remainder view the ex isting government and its supporters, not only with priestly hate and poUtical enmity, but also with the social jealousy of a lower caste. The famUy bond has ceased to unite the liberal laity with the retrograde priesthood ; and the last mitigation which might have softened the ran cour of the fallen sacerdotal order towards their conquerors, is wanting. The change to which I have above adverted, in the laws of succession to property in Italy, is 136 ITALICS. Ukely to lead to many other results beside this of deterring the cadets of great famiUes from enter ing the Church. Beginning from the French conquest, under the Great Napoleon, the system of primogeniture has gradually given way in one province after another, diflferent laws regulating succession having prevailed at one time in Lom bardy, Tuscany, etc. Since the Union, an uni versal system has been adopted and embodied in the Constitution. It is briefly this. All property, real and personal, is subject to the same regula tion. Over one half of it a father has absolute tes tamentary freedom ; he may devise it to one of his children, or divide it at pleasure, or leave it away from his family. The other half of his property, be it money or lands, must be divided equally among his children, be theymales or females. Such is the law. The practical result seems as yet to be beneficial. Parents usuaUydivide all their property among their children, reserving for their widows what their settlements require ; and the brothers and sisters, usually, are able to make friendly arrangements, preserving the landed estates and town palaces from going to the hammer. They are aided in such arrangements (which would appear LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC, 137 impossible with us, under such circumstances of division,) by several variances from our conditions. 1. There are rarely more than three, or at most, four, children in any Italian family. 2 . The daughters are nearly invariably married young, and, consequently, in the father's life time. An old maid is almost unheard of in any class in Italy ; least of all, in the monied class, even in cases of great personal deformity. The dot, if sufficient for the rank in life, is certain to secure a husband, the only question being, whether he is a Uttle younger or older, richer or poorer. The ugly, deaf, squinting, or hump-backed lady, with her fifty thousand francs, does not look for quite so young or wealthy a husband as if she were beautiful and weU-made ; but she is equaUy sure to have some husband found for her ; and that husband she is prepared to accept. Of course, when daughters are thus settled in the father's life, their fortunes are somehow paid by the parent, and not, I beheve, usually by any charge encumbering his landed property after his death. 3. ItaUan houses are enormously large, and Italian famUies have aU the habit of Uving under the same roof — ^brothers, sisters, uncles, nephews 138 ITALICS. — each in separate apartments, vrith either sepa rate or united menages, as may be convenient. Our idea of a house for each family, the family mean ing only parents and children, is almost unknown anywhere on the Continent, and, least of all, in Italy. Thus, supposing three brothers and two sisters (which would constitute a miraculously large family circle here) to require to divide be tween them a Palazzo in town, and a viUa in the country, they would neither think it needful to seU them, and divide the proceeds, nor yet give the town-house to one and the country-house to another, and charge the holders with the shares of the three juniors. These plans, which alone would suggest themselves to us in such a dilemma, would probably hardly enter an ItaUan's head. The brothers and sisters, with wives and children, would all live in both or either house, as season and convenience might decide ; possibly one brother going oflf, or one sister marrying imme diately ; but, very likely, no division whatever being made. How such things are, and no quar rels arise — how Italians and French, and Ger mans, too, contrive to be happy and friendly, with complicated households, which no one dare LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 139 attempt to set up in England — is a problem very well worth discussing. A simpler, and cheaper, and far less ostentatious, mode of life, may go for something — more amenable natures, and less positive wills, for a great deal more. Let it be understood that the resource of putting their sisters in a convent, to arrange their claims for house-room, would be a project now (in 1864) utterly out of date. That feudal form of female infanticide is a thing of the past. If women go into convents now in Italy, it is the priests who lure, or their own enthusiasm which pushes, them thereto. Fathers and brothers no longer make nunneries receptacles for unprovided relatives, or reformatories for refractory ones. 4. The number of new employments opened to young men, the vast increase of the army and navy, the growth of trade, the all too-numerous openings for a career, given by the hundred minor offices of state, filled by tribes of impiegati, make it an easy matter for a young man of good connections to work his way. Land is more valu able, property of aU kinds in the cities is more valuable, higher charges are more easily to be obtained. Thus the elder son, without his inajorat, 140 ITALICS. is not poorer than his grandfather who possessed it ; while the younger son, with his share of it, and his profession, is a great deal richer than his great uncle, who had no share, and no profes sion, save the Church. A nobleman, of high rank and office, assured me, that on the whole, throughout Italy, families of the status of his own were all the better, in a pecuniary point of view, and none the worse for the aboUtion of primogeniture, and the introduction of the pre sent order of things. In finding, however, that at present the Italian nobiUty have not sufifered from the radical change made by the n.ew law of succession, we cannot at aU feel assured that we have got to the bottom of the very curious problem presented to modern society by the relative claims of the principles of an equal and an unequal division of property. The circumstances to which I have alluded above as having saved Italian famiUes from in jury, are some of them evidently peculiar to the country at this crisis. When the new spur given to public works ceases to act, when the army of soldiers and the army of Impiegati are both re duced (as they must be reduced, if the nation is LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 141 not to be bankrupt), when the patriarchal mode of housing themselves is given up by the ItaUans, and marriages are less matters of parental ar rangement, and therefore less common, — ^when aU these things " begin to come to pass," then the loss of the Majorats will begin to tell on society. The great houses will be graduaUy de spoUed of outlying property, and then the chief palaces and viUas will be sold to permit of the payment of younger children's shares, or left (as often now) uninhabited because the owner can not aflford to occupy them.* Then the nobUity of Italy wUl undergo the fate of that of France and graduaUy become an order decorated with empty titles which no actual wealth or political influence renders important. The contempt dis played by the French lower classes for these titres is doubtless the same which awaits in time * I am writing at this moment in a large and beantifal viUa in North Italy, the rooms of which are hung with por traits of the owner's ancestors, and the hall adomed with their armour and the lances and halberts of their followers. The house is in perfect repair, handsomely furnished. The master, however, lives in a poor little house over the gate way, with his deaf wife (a rich heiress), and lets his paternal abode contentedly every year to forestieri. Hundreds of Italian nobles do the same in all the great cities. 142 ITALICS. the representatives of those grand historic names of Italy, Sforzas and Colonnas, and Santa Croces, and Aldobrandini, and Massimi, — ^which sound in our ears like the sackbut and psaltery of old. Is this s'ood — is this all as it should be ? Oiiiiht the dead past to bury its dead of Dukes, ]Mar- quises, and Barons, as Nature has buried the megatherium, the plesiosaurus, and the pterodac- tyle ? Will a better organised fauna arise upon earth when all these creatures with their coro nets and coats of arms have become fossils, and are only disinterred by antiquarians and specu lated upon in archasological societies ? There is a great deal to be said on the matter, and though a great deal has been said already, I am sadly tempted to say a little more. Two reasons may be urged for the maintenance of an hereditary aristocracy (titled or untitled) such as can be secured only by the system of Majorats regarding Real property. The first reason is Political — namely, the obvious use to a free Con stitution of an Order holding a middle place be tween King and Commons, and forming a second branch of the legislature like the English House of Lords, neither immediately nominated by the LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 143 sovereign Uke the Senates of France and Italy, nor elected by the citizens like that of America. The principle of a Second House of legislature being apparently universally accepted, the su periority of one thus independently formed seems evident. The other reason for the maintenance of the law of primogeniture is Social — namely, the experienced advantage of the existence in a country of an hereditary class who shall represent the highest culture, and retain the tradition of the most pohshed manners. CiviUsation of the highest kind being clearly a thing thus transmis sible, the physical ''high breeding" of the human race obeying in a certain measure (though with great exceptions) the same law of descent as that of horses and cattle, it appears on the face of the matter, imperative that aU possible care should be taken to maintain the stock in which it may be perpetuated. Such arguments are further en forced by alleged observations of the deteriora tion of manners in countries Uke America and France, where Majorats have either never existed or have been aboUshed. Regarding the first reason, a few reflections suggest themselves. There are two ways in 144 ITALICS. which the philosophy of Government may be contemplated. First, it may be argued that a government exists for a definite purpose. It is not a thing whose existence is an end in itself, only a means to another end. A society of saints and sages would leave a government nothing to do. For what end, then, do human govern ments exist ? Surely for the simple and only one, that right may be done ; that no member of the community should suflfer wrong, and every member of the community should enjoy the natural rights of a moral being to Ufe, property, and that freedom which is circumscribed only by the equal freedom of every other moral agent. This is so obvious, that it is a mere platitude to assert it; yet, in all our judgment of the dif ferent conduct of human government, it is con tinuaUy forgotten, and we need to be reminded of it every time we undertake to speak of them. Now, if the end of all government is, that "Right may be done"; and if a government which should secure that right perfectly to all its subjects would be absolutely faultless, and leave no room to desire anything better till man reaches a condition requiring no government at aU; then. LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 145 we say, it is clear that the problem of all States is simply this : How can such an approximation as human falUbility permits, to such an ideal govemment, be best secured? How can we most certainly provide that the " Right shall be done?" The question posed in this manner leaves only room for the response — " By committing the govemment to the hands of those who know what is right, and whom we have reason to hope wiU do the right when they know it." Obviously, the two elements of Knowledge and WUl are both needed, and obviously the Knowledge alone is within our power approximately to ascertain ; the WiU must remain a matter of presumption. To give power to those who do not know how to do right is to render even their good wiU useless. To give it to those who do know how to do it is, indeed, to run the risk of a faUure in their will to perform it ; but it offers the only warrant human faUibiUty leaves to us of the probability that the end may be accomplished, that the wiU may ac company the knowledge. This is actuaUy (from the point of view we are contemplating) the whole theory of government. 146 ITALICS. It only remains for experience to shew afterwards hoio it is to be ascertained what men or orders of men know how to do the right, and how the failures in their eflforts to do it may best be guarded against and corrected. It may prove that one man alone in the State, the true King {knowing -man), can best be trusted; it may be the king and upper classes only ; it may be the lower also ; it may be women and youths. All these points must be decided on experimental grounds only. Who could discover an a priori reason why power should stop at a certain rank or degree of wealth or age ? Only by experience, approximately, may lines be drawn, dividing the quaUfied from the unquaUfied. Lite rary education, though a great and (in these newspaper days) an indispensable element in the qualification, is not the sole one, though it be the sole reducible to test. Nothing but actual prac tical trial of who can, and who cannot prove knowledge of poUtical and civil right, ought to determine us to confide the protection of such rights in their hands. Thus (proceeding on this line of thought) all the arguments about the equal rights of every man to share in the govem- LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 147 ment of the community to which he belongs, appear to be altogether futUe. The government only exists, and is submitted to by his fellow citizens, for the end that " Right may be done," and if he does not even know now what that right is, it is absurd that he shoiUd be entrusted with the smaUest share in it. If he know nothing, for instance, of the rights and wrongs of the Federals and Confederates, the Germans and Danes, the English and Japanese, it is ab surd that he should have a voice, or a thousandth share in a voice, in deciding whether we should recognise the Southern States, or go to war for Schleswig-Holstein, or make restitution for Kagosima. And if he know nothing of the principles of poUtical economy or of criminal law, it is equaUy absurd he should be allowed to vote about the income-tax or the convict system. It is not merely a Uttle hazardous (as we often see it treated) to give him power under such circumstances — it is suicidal ; and (strictly speak ing) as absurd as to appoint a bhnd man to pur chase the national pictures. Thus, proceeding on the utUitarian argument, and regarding only the most efficacious means of reaching the ends h2 148 ITALICS. of government, it is clear enough that Power may be fitly lodged only in the hands of those whose superior knowledge of aU the subjects with which such government has to deal, quaUfies them to form enlightened judgment thereon. To deny this position, and claim a share of power for the illiterate {on these grounds) it is necessary to hold the ridiculous doctrine that Knowledge is needless to Justice, and that the hap-hazard action of ignorant men would be as Ukely to be just as that of the best-informed persons — a doctrine pretty nearly equivalent to one which should maintain every government to be more inimical to justice than entire anarchy. No escape can be found in the argument that igno rant men, in a democratic representative State, exercise political power only through educated representatives. This is only giving us igno rance at second hand. Here, then, the principle on which we have hitherto been arguing, of a simple regard to the ends of govemment, lands us in the conclusion that our only duty is to dis cover those who best know how right may be done in the State, and then entrust to them the sole government of the State. LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 14.9 But there is another principle deserving of our attention beside this of a regard for the ends of government. There is a principle claiming to be based on the. ultimate grounds of morals, by which every rational being has a certain natural right to a voice in the government of the State of which he is a member. There is (according to this view) no room for inquiries respecting the ends of government. Nobody, for any end, however good, has a right to govern A. B. unless with A. B.'s consenting voice. No law can be morally binding on a man if he have had no share in making or upholding it. Ignorant or leamed, rich or poor, it is all the same. The vote may be more or less judicious, or Ukely to be beneficial, but A. B. has a right to give it, and nobody is justified, by any pretence of public interest, in denying to him the exercise of such a right. Here are surely set face to face the two great principles of pohtics for which we continually vainly contend in the dark. The dispute between the aristocrats and the democrats, since the world began, lies, not in the application of the principles of public utiUty and private right, but in the choice 150 ITALICS, between the principles themselves. Starting with the one, we can hardly fail to reach the conclusion that all power whatever in the State should be lodged in the hands of the best edu cated ; starting on the other, we are equally sure to arrive at the residt of universal suffrage. Perhaps some gUmmer of light may be seen through the darkness of the dilemma, if we look at it on this wise. There is, abstractedly speaking, a real moral right in every rational being to have a share in the government of the state to which he belongs. A perfect democracy is the ideally perfect govemment, and to approach as near as may be to such abstract moral principles is unquestionably our duty; hence the noble ethical ardour of Uberal reformers with which our consciences aU sympa thise. But this abstract right to a share in state- government — or, as we may say, to poUtical fran chise — men have been compelled to postpone hitherto to the other principle of a regard to the end of govemment itself. In an imperfect and puerile condition of society, the claims of indivi duals were superseded by the general interest, and each man, in consideration of his share of the pubUc benefit, was caUed on (in case of his own LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 151 incompetence for government) to relinquish his abstract ethical right to possess a voice in that to which he was obliged to submit. Such is the universal state of the case to the present day throughout the world, even in the most purely democratic States. The abstract principle of individual rights has never yet been carried out, nor even has it been proposed to be carried out in any one town or province. A Moral Right of this kind, if admitted, must be admitted abso lutely, and can permit of tio arbitrary restrictions afterwards. If every man of twenty-one is to have a vote because he is a moral free agent, why is not a man of twenty — a man of nineteen — nay, a boy, as soon as he has become moraUy re sponsible for his actions, to have a vote also ? Is not the man of twenty a "moral free agent" ? If he be bo, we have no right to deny him his poUtical franchise, and then urge the "imaUen- able right" of his brother of twenty-one. Ex pediency, and the necessity of drawing a Une somewhere, are principles which, if admitted, lead us away utterly from our abstract rights, and straight to the opposite conclusion, that power, being given only to attain the great end 152 ITALICS. of government — namely, pubUc justice — should be given only to those who understand the nature of justice. Why is the lad of twenty denied his vote ? "Because he is not old enough to understand the questions to be voted about." But if he have a right to vote, nobody may law fully deny it to him. Certainly, nobody may do so, and then turn round and argue that the ignorant man of twenty-one has a natural right, which no motives of expediency — ^no fear of stultifying the very purpose of all government, can permit us to refuse. But there is stUl larger argument than this of age. Women are " moral free agents" assuredly as well as men. Their mental inferiority may be as great as it may please anyone to assert, but the moral right to political franchise of which we have been speaking, depends, not on any mental quality at all, but simply on moral free agency. If the principle be absolute, and every moral free agent have a natural right to a voice in the state, then assuredly women have this right as weU as men. Yet the universal sense of mankind, with very few exceptions, has decided that the exer cise of such a right by women would be inex- LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 153 pedient, and the consequence is that no serious attempt has ever been made to secure it for them. After this refusal of a right to half the human race, are we to argue for its admission to the other half, as if it were something too sacred to be sacrificed for any pubUc interest ? It is mani festly absurd that we should thus blow hot and cold in one breath. Either poUtical rights form the sacred appanage of every moral being, and then every woman and every youth down to the first dawn of ethical responsibiUty in chUdhood, must have her and his claims admitted and re cognised, never to be set aside for any expe diency; or else the community is justified in draw ing lines between those who may and may not exercise these rights, and then common sense de mands that they be limited to the educated classes.* * The question of the political rights of women is one which cannot here be discussed. It may be permitted me, however, to notice that, whether on the whole expedient or otherwise, their permanent disqualification for the frapchise acts against them iu a commercial manner which has been too little noticed. A multitude of widows and single women of the middle classes, very naturally desire to succeed their husbands, fathers, or brothers, in the tenancy of farms, small shops, and similar holdings throughout the country. In many cases, such women would be in all respects eligible h3 154 ITALICS. The sole legitimate answer to this Une of argu ment is simply this, that it is hy the exercise of poUtical freedom men become qualified to use it. Few wUl trouble themselves mnch to leam what is the right of a case unless they are Ukely to have a voice in deciding it. To give a man a share in the government of his country is at least to prepare him to qualify himself for its use. The elevating effects of power, both for the highest and the lowest, are the needful preparations for tenants. But, wherever the landlord of the farm or shop be a political partisan, a Member of Parliament, or desirous of carrying weight iu elections, the woman's inability to use the vote which her holding would give, is cause suffi cient (other things being equal) to determine her rejection. A woman must not only be as good a tenant as a man, but either a much better one, or else possessed of some quite irrefragable claim, to procure her acceptance by one land lord in ten. In the case of the higher class of ladies, hold ing landed estates, there are also many, although less im portant, injustices to be endured, arising from their dis qualification to use the rights their property would convey to a man. I have known more than one such woman, able, cultivated, clear-headed, managing large estates with great judgment, well versed in the politics of the times, and asso ciating habitually with the leading minds in various coun tries J yet these women were denied the rights possessed by the blacksmith who shod their horses, and never read a newspaper in his life, or travelled beyond the neighbouring village. If this difference be justified, let us hear no more of the abstract right of rational moral agents to a voice in the State to which they belong. LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 155 the exercise of power. We are shut up in a circle. The aristocrat may argue that he alone who possesses power should always keep it ; and that the plebeian having never had it ought never to get it. The democrat, on the contrary, may argue that the plebeian should be given it pre cisely because by possessing it he wUl become capable of exercising , it rightly. Very Uttle doubt, I think, can exist, that this last is the true view of the case — ^that if we can give to aU with safety the use of their natural rights to a voice in the state of which they are members, we are bound to do so ; and the only problem which re mains is how such power should be extended to the classes yet deprived of it. Not suddenly can this be done by any state to vast multitudes at once, else the original principle wiU be violated, and the end for which all govemment exists be frustrated. But by degrees, grade after grade downward may, by the exercise of poUtical rights, leam to use such rights with safety to themselves and the community, tUl aU be fitted for and in possession of their natural share of power, and the a priori " rights of man" and the proper ends of govemment both meet and be accompUshed. 156 ITALICS. If such a view be correct, the question regard ing such an institution as the law of Primogeni ture is : How far wiU it aid or hinder such a final arrangement of the rights of aU classes as we must now regard as the proper goal of our re forms? WiU the existence of an hereditary landed aristocracy tend to keep up class pre judices, and crush down the eflforts to rise of those beneath them with the dead weight of their steady influence? Or wUl such an aristocracy rather tend to elevate the whole community, and aflford precisely that fixed standard of high feeling and good breeding which will be more and more needed as the lower classes assume their share of power, and might (without such balance) intro duce grosser and coarser forms of manners ? The answer must depend on such an aristocracy itself. It moAj do the one thing or the other. As a general rule, each actual aristocracy in its better members eflfects the good, and in its worse the evil we have described. On the striking of the balance between benefit and injury must be de cided the policy in each country of maintaining or suppressing such an order. The world cannot too soon recognise this fact, nor the upper classes LIBEETY, EQUALITY, ETC. 157 everywhere too seriously take it to heart. Con stitutional Governments, thank Heaven I are not " on their trial," but the laws protecting an here ditary aristoc7-acy are so nearly everywhere. Let it be hoped that neither in Italy or nearer home wiU the misuse of the great powers possessed by such a class to benefit mankind, cause those powers at last to be withdrawn, and the world deprived of refining and elevating influences which we must, perhaps, wait very long to find elsewhere. CHAPTER VEIL WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND BOME? rpHE chances ofthe completion ofthe Kingdom -^ of Italy by the annexation of Venice and Rome, are naturaUy matters of paramount interest to the nation. In every society they are dis cussed, and in every journal there are more or less formal allusions to them. The Army List includes sketches and plans of the fortifications of the Quadrilateral, as if they were the main concern of the troops. On hundreds of walls I have seen the words chalked up : — " Liberiamo Venezia E scacoiamo Io stranier" — as if they conveyed the only idea of the writers after the eternal " W. Vittorio Emanuele Nostro Re." To what these chances may i-eaUy amount it would, of course, be very absurd for a mere idle forestiera to guess. The foUowing hints, col- WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 159 lected from men possessing the means of under standing the case, may, perhaps, however be of some use to the reader, who may desire materials on which to form his own judgment. The want of Rome, as a Capital for Italy, is one which presses with direful force on the whole nation. One of the great benefits derivable from national union is, a judicious and moderate system of centraUsation. But centraUsation, according to the modem plan, imperatively demands a capital where it may be seated with universal consent, and to the common convenience. Govemment, courts of civU and criminal law, the net-work of railways and telegraphs, the postal system, com merce, arts, science, social and courtly gaieties, aU need a capital city. Let any one conceive what it would be to France that Paris should be held by a foreign power; or even to far. less centraUsed England, that London should be severed from the nation, and that henceforth French govemment mnst be carried on at Mar seUles or Amiens, and EngUsh govemment at Exeter or Carlisle, and some idea may be formed of the condition of a great nation of modern times obUged to dispense with a great capital. I say. 1 60 ITALICS. '¦- ' ' ^ '- , advisedly, a nation of modern times, becarae in earUer ages, nations (Uke some of the lower organised creatures, who can put forth a new head on the loss of the old one) were far less dependant than we are on their capitals. The ganglia of lesser towns supplied the brain centres of Ufe and conscious activity. But in our day and stage of existence, every country must have a capital ; and any country compeUed to forego the use of its natural chief city, and make some in ferior and iU-placed town the seat of its govern ment, labours under incalculable disadvantages. Such is the present fate of Italy — a fate aggra vated by the fact that it is a hostUe power which holds Rome, and sends forth thence, from a focus of enmity, not only brigands to disturb one great province, but ecclesiastic spies and emissaries to fill every parish in the land with disaffection. Interest, obvious to every child, and most deeply felt by the wisest statesmen, pride, patriotism, resentment at the Papal conduct towards the new Kingdom — aU these sentiments combine to goad ItaUans to struggle for Rome. Yet, on the other hand, the undertaking (so long as France is ad verse) is so nearly hopeless, that the most auda- WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 161 cious spirits, since Aspromonte, have stood back appalled. Statesmen say that the matter is an impasse. Even if Napoleon desired to withdraw his troops (which is very doubtful), he dare not so far offend the parti pretre in France. And so long as a single French regiment remains' in Rome, the attack of the city by the Italians could only mean war with France, whose honour would be engaged in supporting her soldiers. War with France would be a calamity which Italy, at her present stage, dare not contemplate. Thus the "^ Roman Question" must remain an open one year after year, none may tell for how long. It does not in the least foUow (as many EngUsh people expect) that Pio IX's death wUl set the city free. Before that event is heard of beyond the Vatican, it is certain the cardinals (who are known long ago to have agreed on his successor) wiU produce a new Pope, perhaps more powerful than the last. A revolution may break out at the time — nothing is more Ukely ; but, unless Napoleon order his troops to give it way, the same terrible colUsion must arise. Rome itself would be too dearly bought by provoking the French to a contest of national honour. Much 162 ITALICS. more probable is it that the death of Napoleon, and a revolution in France, wiU be the solution of the Roman problem ; but, even in such a con tingency, it by no means foUows that the future ruler of France will alter his predecessor's poUcy as regards Italy. Thus the nation stands for the moment baffled and well-nigh despairing. There are those who think that this long pro crastination of Italian hopes may not prove, after aU, otherwise than beneficial. If the government, at present seated in Turin, could be removed at once to Rome, it is quite certain it would act with far less freedom — nay, that the priestly at mosphere of the Eternal City would be anything but wholesome for the Deputies to breathe. The cabals which have their permanent home in the Vatican would then have a great field of action ; and it is very doubtful, if, after all, the kingdom would be as united in sentiment as it is now. More important stiU is the reflection that, so long as the Pope holds the Temporal Power against the wishes of the nation, and deprives them of their much-desired capital, so long he is incurring their detestation. Each day that Pio IX holds Rome, he loses his moral infiuence. By WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 163 and bye, if this continue a few years more, the hatred of the Temporal tyranny will extend to the Spiritual Power, universaUy in aU ItaUan hearts; and then the two wiU faU with one mighty crash together. But, if the Pope were to abandon aU that he holds against the desires of the people, and conciUate them by frankly accept ing their programme of an United Italy, with Rome for its capital, then, on the other hand, he would remove the cause of animosity, the Spi ritual Power would be separated in men's minds from the Temporal, and, heaven only knows how many ages more it might survive ! Turning from the insoluble Roman Question, Italians, during the last year, have mainly given their enthusiasm to the hopes of acquiring Venice. It is worth whUe to inquire on what these hopes are founded. Italy may acquire Venice either, first by the aid of some potent miUtary ally, whose aid shall give her the superiority over Austria; or, secondly, without an ally, by taking advantage of such a contingency as may leave Austria too much embarrassed elsewhere to cope with her on equal terms in the Quadrilateral. For the first 164 ITALICS. chance there are two countries whose alliance might sufflce for the purpose — Prance and Eng land. WUat are the probabilities of either of them aflfording to Italy the aid required ? The policy of France in Italy (which involves the question of Rome, as well as of Venice) seems to be somewhat on this vrise. In undertaking the war of 1859, to which the new kingdom owes its existence. Napoleon was doubtless urged by the great political interest of withdrawing the Peninsula from the influence of Austria, and bringing it under that of France. Romantic personal sympathies were very Uttle Ukely to have weight in the councils of that as tute sovereign, in comparison with an ambition which he may be said to have inherited with the crown of France, from all his predecessors since Charlemagne. For ages back, Austrian and French interests have struggled together in Italy. Only in 1 849 did the star of Austria rise into an unquestionable ascendancy over the whole penin sula, leaving only to Prance the ungracious task of keeping garrison at Rome. Nothing is easier to understand than the motives of poUcy which induced Napoleon III to desire to give Lombardy WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 165 and Venetia to Piedmont, and thus, by exclud ing Austria from any territorial possession in Italy, destroy its influence generally, and sub stitute that which France could not fail to obtain from the gratitude of the nation. Stopped half way in his work, the Emperor yet hoped, by his scheme of a Confederation of Italian States, to retain for himself the supreme arbitration of affairs. But the vast and generous movement in favour of a real national unity, which Italy effected, not only without French instigation, but (it cannot be doubted) against French in trigues, changed the face of affairs altogether. Instead of the separate Uttle states, with unim portant armies which, Uke the sticks in the fable. Napoleon flattered himself he could break or bend one by one, at his pleasure, he found a strong /asciatZ us bound together by the cord of vigorous patriotism. The breaking and bending process was no longer feasible. Italy had sud denly become a real European Power, open perhaps to influence, but by no means subject to command. Almost immediately after this trans formation had been effected, the questions of Rome and Venice assumed the positions of vital 166 ITALICS. ones between Italy and France. The reasons which make the possession of Rome so important for Italy have already been stated ; and the posi tion of France, as not merely negative, but as actually the opponent holding the city for the enemy, against thewhole ItaUan and Roman people was one to exasperate aU national feeUngs. Here, however, all attempts at negociation have failed, and the matter is as far from a conclusion as ever it has been. The Pope says : " Non possumus." The Emperor says : " In that case, non possu mus also ! What religion forbids to him, honour forbids to me." And the Italians seem very much inclined to say: "The grapes are sour. We shall be aU the better for consoUdating the kingdom before encumbering ourselves with Rome. Let us get all the Umbs strong and active first, and then begin to treat the disorders of the national heart ! " Meanwhile, for the moment, everybody looks to Venice. Like her own famous Jew, between his lost money-bags and his daughter, after alternately clamouring for one and the other, they have settled to the pur suit of the fair Bride of the Adriatic, ravished by Austria, and everybody shouts, cries, and scrib- WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 167 bles on the waUs as aforesaid " Liberiamo Venezia e scacciamo lo stranier." The relation of this question to France is very different from the Roman one. In Rome, France is the obstacle of Italy ; in Venice, she might possibly be the aU- efficient aUy. WiU she condescend to become so in fact ? There seemed hope for Italy that it would be so when the Emperor last winter sent out his invitations for an European Congress. After warmly accepting the Emperor's scheme, Victor Emanuel desired Coimt PasoUni to ascertain from the French Government whether he was justified in anticipating a renewal of the poUcy of 1859. The answer of the Emperor, however, destroyed all such expectations. He announced very clearly, both in Paris and Turin, that he had no intention of actively co-operating with Italy in any attack on Venice, and that if such an attack were made, it must be entirely at the cost and risk of Italy herself. He added the advice that the king should forbear such an attack, but persevere in the formation of his army. To this counsel Italy adhered in both respects, and the relations of the two countries are perfectly 168 ITALICS. friendly and even cordial at this time. Still the position is a very peculiar one. Had Napo leon's plan of a Confederation succeeded, he would have found at his disposal a number of small, not very important allied armies. Now in United Italy he has to deal vrith a large power, actuaUy independent, but (so long as Venice remains unconquered) driven to look to France for the great aUiance, which alone is Ukely to turn the scale in her favour. France knows that if she attack Austria, Italy wUl fly to her aid with 300,000 men, while, on the other hand Italy may attack Austria and France remain perfectly undisturbed. Such a state of things, in which aU the advantage of the alUance is on the side of Prance, is far too favourable for the Emperor to be wilUng to alter it without urgent cause. He has the cards in his hand, and vrill not be in a hurry to let them out of it. To aid Italy now in acquiring Venice, unless the benefit of France is somehow to be obtained thereby, would be at once to use up an important element of his Italian influence and to lose popularity in France. Another disinterested war on behalf of Italy (even with such pay in prospect as Sar- WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 169 dinia after Nice and Savoy) would not now be by any means agreeable to the French nation. La Gloire of descending from the empyrean of the Champs Elysees to free a suppliant Lom bardy from the tyrant Austrian with the few magic touches of Magenta and Solferino was highly delightful to the imagination of the Grande Nation ; and when the Parisian Jupiter and his hosts returned to the clouds at ViUa franca, the cession of Savoy and Nice sufficed to complete national satisfaction. The acceptance of " Un pauvre nid de rochers" (as we have heard Frenchmen describe the glorious vales of loveliest Savoy and the subUme slopes of Mont Blanc) could not be supposed to tarnish the disinter ested magnanimity of GalUc intervention in be half of Italy. AU was weU so far, and it is pro bable that if the peninsula had meekly foUowed out the plan traced for her by her Liberator, and formed a Confederation of highly interesting but altogether powerless little States, as manageable as the divided bundle of sticks before mentioned, — then, indeed, French sympathy and gratula tion would no doubt have continued to foUow the not very alarming progress of ItaUan free- 170 ITALICS, dom. But wrong-headed Italy chose to form a single, powerful Kingdom, maintaining an army of 400,000 men, and holding up to the eyes of France, the possibility of great national pros perity and order under a form of govemment almost as purely constitutional as that of Albion the Detestable. Could French feeUngs be ex pected to remain true to the tricolor which bears green instead of blue, under such aggra vating circumstances ? Certainly not. If the Mediterranean is not to be a French Lake, at least it is to be hoped no power really able to cope with that of France wiU arisp in the middle of it to flout her flag at every tum. A rival so near the throne as this, — another free Eng land at her Southern shores, this would be, as Dogberry says, " Most tolerable and not to be endured." Accordingly Frenchmen habitually speak of Italian progress as a matter of no seri ous import, and their officers (as I have myself heard more than once) treat the idea of a great Italian army as altogether visionary. StiU — ^for these poor feUows — it would be ridiculous to go to war again. France has other things to think of, in Mexico and elsewhere, than redeeming her WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 171 pledge of freeing the peninsula " from the Alps to the Adriatic." Nothilig would be much more unpopular just now than for Napoleon III to send an army to aid Victor Emanuel in con quering Venetia and the Quadrilateral. But if the French Emperor will not inaugu rate a war in behalf of Italy, neither is it pro bable that he wiU ever suffer the new kingdom to be crushed by Austrian force. If a war should actually, against his wishes, break out between Austria and Italy, and Austria manifestly get the better, it is almost certain that the Emperor would interfere, in time to prevent Austria from regaining her old supremacy in Italy, though very probably not in time to prevent the new Monarchy from faUing to pieces, and the French Scheme of a Confederation being once more brought forward. Having discussed the hope of aid from France in the conquest of Venice, it remains to be asked if Italy may look to England for such practical assistance as might suffice to turn the scale against Austria ? I find that no statesmen in Italy qualified to form an opinion on the sub ject entertain any such anticipations. At one i2 1 72 ITALICS. time the Italians thought a great deal of the English alUance, and valued it above the French, as certainly mora disinterested if less practicaUy efficacious. The character of the nation, espe ciaUy of the Piedmontese portion of it — the " English of Italy" as they have been called — and our own, is in a thousand ways more sim- patico than that of the Italians and French. The form of constitution adopted by the ItaUans of course leads them continually to regard with deep interest and fraternal pride the success of the same institutions in England. Added to these causes are the friendly feeUngs engendered by the presence of thousands of warmly sympa thising EngUsh travellers in every town of Italy, spending their lire sterline almost as freely as Frenchmen spend francs, and often subscribing munificently to popular causes — Education or Garibaldian arms. AJthough these latter sources may have sometimes provoked other feeUngs than those of friendship, if the swarms of blonde Murray-studying foreigners be sometimes vexa tious to the natives, whom they nearly squeeze out of the railways, galleries, and churches of their own country, — if English gold, however WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 1 73 welcome to the hotel keepers and custodi, be a formidable nuisance to the Italian gentleman, who finds his market raised for every commodity of Ufe, — if the subscriptions of British dames be sometimes treated (as we have known a great SicUian duciiess describe a gift of £2000 to the schools of Naples) as "impertinent meddling," — yet, on the whole, we need not doubt the general feeUng of the Italian nation towards us is in the main a very kindly one. In poUtics, however, popular sentiments only form one element — and that not a very important one — ^in the decision of such practical questions as a great mUitary expedition. Count Pasolini, in his reconnoitring visit to London, described himself as having met on aU sides assurances of EngUsh sympathy and interest in the affairs of Italy — much more lively and general sympathy than he met in Paris. Nevertheless, when the question came, " How many thousand troops might your sympathy be induced to furnish us with, for the attack of Venice?" the response came with great pre cision, "None at aU." Everybody in. England, from Lord Russell downwards, is known to care intensely for Italy. Nobody doubts our since- 174 ITALICS. rity. Only we have taken lately to caring for oppressed nations, not in Cromwell's way, but in that of a certain order of Jewish philosophers frequently mentioned in Scripture, whose pracr tice it was to say, " Be ye warmed and fed," but by no means to bestow the means of. warmth and food on the objects of their benevolence. Doubt less we are all right. It would be a tremendous business, seriously to adopt for our motto the grand old text, " Deliver him that is oppressed from the hand of the adversary, and be not faint-hearted when thou sittest in judgment." In any case, as regards the Venetian question, no English Minister would be either justified in the equity of nations nor supported by the British ParUament, in allowing his sympathies with Italy to lead him to give armed assistance to an attack on Austria in her Venetian provinces. At the commencement of the Schleswig-Hol stein war there seemed some probabiUty that England, by adopting the quarrel of Denmark, would come in collision with Austria. The Ita lians hailed the prospect with many hopes, for in such a case their cause would have become our own. But the resolution once adopted to WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 1 75 let the Danes shift for themselves, of course leaves us with unbroken relations towards the Court of Vienna, — a Court we had begun, before this war, to regard with more favourable feel ings, since its late efforts at constitutional govemment. England remaining neutral, the Austrian force employed against the Danes was by no means sufficient to weaken the Empire, or cause any drain from the garrison of the Quadri lateral, and, as Victor Emanuel observed, " the occasion did not come up to the point of such a crisis as might justify the single-handed attack of Italy." Thus, not from " Non Intervention"-England, any more than from jealous France, can Italy look just now for aid in the enterprise she never ceases to proclaim as nearest her heart, the con quest of Venice. But, if a regular alliance with one of the Great Powers wiU not serve the tum of Italy, it is per fectly possible she may accompUsh her purpose by taking advantage of the movements of popular parties in Europe — ^nay, that the Republican party in Italy may drive the Govemment to the attack by arousing their confreres elsewhere to 176 ITALICS. disturbances, which would keep the hands of Austria too fuU at home to meet the ItaUan troops on fair terms in Venetia. The Hungarians, albeit they held back from aiding the Poles, are by no means disposed to final repose under Austrian rule, and one of their well-known leaders, who has been for some time residing in Turin and Florence, is supposed to be on the best understanding with the chiefs of the cor responding "Party of Action" in Italy, doubtless in readiness for any contemporaneous action which may seem desirable. Beside the Hun garians, aU the non-German populations, from Dalmatia to GaUicia, even including the Servian and Danubian principalities, are (it is known from authentic sources) preparing for insurrec tion, and not iU supplied already with arms and money. Their agents are in continual activity, coUecting supplies over Europe, and forming arrangements for simultaneous proceedings. If this plot come to successful issue, and Austria find herself like a house set on fire at many points at once, then Italy must and wiU un doubtedly arise. The govemment could not refuse, even if it were disposed to do so, the WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 177 popular enthusiasm for the war which such a state of things would create, and to abandon such a chance would be to perpetuate hopelessly that posture of affairs which the best Italian statesmen feel to be only endurable by the coun try as a temporary one — the maintenance of an enormous idle army without possession of a most important province of the Peninsula. The pres tige would be lost for ever, and it is very doubt ful if the ItaUan kingdom could long survive. Except the parti pretre and codini, it appears that aU shades of poUtics in the ItaUan parlia ment are united in this opinion, "Venice must be gained at the first good opportunity. We may wait awhile for that opportunity, but if it arrive, and we let it pass, it is over with the Kingdom of Italy." Venice is to be the bride, whose happy union is to settle the young and unsteady nation for ever. Till that matrimony is solemnised by a great Te Deum in St. Mark's (oh! how grandly it will peal through thos golden arches !) there is no coming to any family settlement, such as the state of the public purse most urgently requires. Then, when Austria is finaUy disposed of, the army may be placed on a i3 1 78 ITALICS. peace establishment {only about twice as great as that of mighty England), and then means may be found for checking the terrific budget before the national debt grows heavy enough to sink Italy in the sea. Theoretically, in even the freest constitu tional monarchy, it is the sovereign who de cides the choice of peace or war, and, doubt less, practically, in the case of Italy, it will be Victor Emanuel whose voice will give the signal for the attack on Venice. Now, Victor Emanuel, as all the world knows, is essentially a soldier-king. His ugly coarse face and burly figure speak him the dragoon rather than either the gentleman or .the sovereign. I shaU not soon forget my first sight of him on horseback many years ago, as he rode beneath the balcony where I was standing — the very ideal of a trooper, such as in an old Flemish picture would be dressed with huge boots, and slouching hat, and jingling broad-sword. Yet he is not what Shakespeare would call a "swash-buckler," for there was no swagger — only simply a huge rough soldier, whose saddle was his proper throne. Very much does Victor Emanuel like WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 1 79 fighting, and sometimes he talks of it and of slaughter in a somewhat coarse and butcherly way, as if he rather enjoyed the idea of a field of cai-nage. From this aide, then, it might be supposed there was everything in favour of the speediest caU to arms. The king of classic Italy would rush down on the Quadilateral at the head of his people probably witk as thorough enjoy ment of the coming battie as some old Scotch or Irish cateran would have ridden before his clan brandishing his pike and screaming " Crom aboo !" or the yet more elevated war-cry of the Grahames, "Might before Right !" StiU, there are reasons why Victor Emanuel as yet defers giving himself the pleasure of this glorious foray. One reason is, that he does not think his army is yet up to the work, or thoroughly amalgamated the, one part with the other, so as to work har moniously. Of this I have spoken already in Chapter in. Secondly, his present ministers are not warUke. Minghetti, the political economist, and Peruzzi, the suave and refined Tuscan, educated in the Ecole des Mines at Paris, are men of foresight and caution, rather suited to press forward ably the progress of Italy during 180 ITALICS. a time of peace than to launch it into war and hold the helm during the tempest. Ratazzi might be summoned once again, but he has shown himself to be a very indifferent states man, and personaUy he is disliked, and perhaps somewhat despised since his marriage with the Princesse de Solms. Ricasoli, the upright and noble-minded patriot, has incurred the deep enmity of the King by his somewhat too rough and imbending behaviour, and his violent remon strances against Victor Emanuel's private dis orders. Thus, since the gifted Massimo d'AzegUo is doubtless too advanced in years to accept again the charge of office, there is not at present a clear case as to whom the King could substitute for Minghetti were he disposed to dismiss his present ministry and appoint another more will ing to second his warUke propensities. Thirdly, there is a motive which is not very pleasant to think of, but which is suspected of influencing Victor Emanuel not a Uttle in deferring a new campaign. Garibaldi must take part, and a very prominent part (unless his health break down) in any such war. The nation would not suffer him to be neglected. But even if the King loved WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 181 his great subject cordially, instead of regarding him with very different feelings, the relations between the Sovereign Commander-in-Chief and such a General under his command, would be anything but easy ones. The jealousy with which the King now certainly regards his laurels would then be increased a hundred-fold by im mediate rivalry. The truth is, that, under all circumstances, the position of the Government towards Garibaldi is beset with difficulties. After the conquest of Naples, as is weU known; they offered to him, with pensions and other honours, the Order of Annunziata, conferred on RicasoU and Farini, who had likewise given pro vinces to Italy — a decoration which had raised them to a precedency over all the rest of the nobiUty. AU these rewards Garibaldi declined, pressing only to be made Viceroy of Naples, or rather to be supported in the Dictatorship he already exercised. But the evidences he had given, during his short reign, of his inabiUty to exercise such a function, rendered it nothing less than suicidal for any Govemment to bestow on him the place he coveted. Two acts alone, among many, were enough to show of what wild 1 82 ITALICS. imprudence he was capable — his dismissal of the whole Bourbon army, whereby troops which might easily have been rendered loyal subjects were converted into bands of brigands, and his appointment of the facetious mountebank, Alex andre Dumas, to the supreme Curatorship of the Museo Borbonico and Pompeii, with a palace and a table of forty covers a-day at the public cost. These two acts alone, we say, were quite enough to warn any government against com mitting its interests to the hands of the man who could be at once so impolitic and so absurd. True, Garibaldi was a hero who had won Naples with his own right hand, and then given it to his King, like a knight of old. Nothing in modern times surpasses the romance of the meeting of the chief and the monarch when the work was done, and Garibaldi saluted Victor Emanuel for the first time by the title long coveted by Italian hearts, "Re d'ltalia !" But if that gift of a kingdom were not to be a mockery — if it were not to be made into a misfortune for Naples' and a jest for Europe, it was needful to deny to the donor the Viceregency he demanded. The Italian government must stand absolved for its refusal WILL ITALY GAIN VENICE AND EOME ? 183 before aU right-thinking men. Yet not the less has that refusal, and Garibaldi's resolution to accept no other reward, been a most serious misfortune. Henceforth, even before Aspro monte, Garibaldi enjoyed all the dangerous privi leges of one who is at once the saviour and the martyr of his country. The relations of the government with him can never be otherwise than difficult, even were he a man more safe from dangerous counsels such as made him last winter resign his seat in ParUament, or less ad dicted to pubUshing erratic manifestoes. Such a man may be (and Garibaldi assuredly is) a great and true hero, but he is also a very formid able personage, with whom a jealous King, and a cabinet in the difficulties of a life-and-death war, might have to count. It is a disagreeable reflection, but perhaps a true one, that had Gari baldi's wound proved a permanent disablement, Victor Emanuel might have made more haste than now he is disposed to do to attack the Quadilateral and rescue Venice from Austria. CHAPTER IX. WILL ITALY LOSE NAPLES ? •\TAPLBS, tiU 1860, offered a deUghtful ex. ¦^ ' ample of the result of thoroughly Conser vative principles in Politics, Religion, and .ZEsthe- tics. Naples never had a repubUcan Revolution, a Reformation, or a Renaissance. The various waves which swept over Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, died away upon the shores of her lovely bay, and left not a ripple on the sands of time. Changes of Dynas ties there were — Saracen and Norman first, An- gevine and Arragonese afterwards, wise kings like William the Good, evil ones like WiUiam the Bad, murderous queens Uke Joanna (the Mary of Scots of the South), and turbulent demagogues like Massaniello, corrupt and cruel viceroys followed by yet more corrupt and cruel kings, servants of Bourbons, and Bourbons themselves. WILL ITALY LOSE NAPLES? 185 But never a Repubhc, like those of Florence, Venice, Genoa, — never a Commonwealth like that of England, Holland, Switzerland, America, — never even a great moral earthquake, Uke the first French Revolution, to right the wrongs of a thousand years and level the BastiUes of despot ism with the ground. As to Religion, Naples has known no change since the Dark Ages ; she has had no Luther, no Calvin, no Latimer, no Savo narola. Even for Art, she has had no Revival — ¦ there is no NeapoUtan School of Painting, or Sculpture, or Architecture, — no Raphael or Titian; no Michael Angelo or Bramante. No Poet has arisen to sing the fairest land on which the sun ever shone — there has never been a Dante or a Tasso, not even an Ariosto or a Petrarch of Naples. Vesuvius' lava is not more barren of fruits and flowers than the whole soil of South Italy of Liberty, ReUgion, Art, and Literature. Is this loveUest land, where fable has placed the Elysian Fields, but where History only shows a Sybaris and a Capri, is it to have no nobler Future than its dishonoured Past ? What is to become of Naples in the Third Era, which we 186 ITALICS. hope may succeed in Italy the empires of the Cfesars and of the Popes ? The first question to be decided is manifestly this. WUl the Bourbons be restored ? If they wiU, what may be the result ? If they will not, how will the new regime affect the population, of which the wild shepherds of the Abruzzi, the brigands of Calabria, the lazza- .roni of the Chiaja and the Chiatamone, are the types wherewith alone our English imaginations are familiar, but which assuredly must contain many far better and more hopeful elements ? The foUowing remarks, derived from the observations of those best qualified to form a judgment on the matter, may afford a clue to our anticipations. The condition of Naples previous to Garibaldi's Expedition, was one which in the nature of things could hardly long have been sustained. Even uttermost Japan in the far East has found it impossible to resist for ever the aggressions of modern ideas and European civilisation ; and for a country to maintain a small slice out of the Dark Ages within sixty hours of Paris, and se venty of London, was as difficult an achievement as to " make beUeve " it is night by closing the shutters and drawing the blinds at noon. Through WILL ITALY LOSE NAPLES? 187 every chink and cranny pours the blessed day light, and by every train and steamer and maU-bag the current feeUngs of the age enter into a country and pervade the minds of men, be they ever so carefuUy guarded against them. No Dogana in the world can keep out a contraband idea, and no passports are needed for the free-travelling of a sentiment. The reaction towards despotism, which followed after the great French Revolution everywhere in Europe, was singularly powerful in Naples. The downfaU of Murat and the restoration of the Bourbons was the signal for the effacing of every step of progress which had been made during the eighteenth century, from the accession of the wise and Uberal Charles III. Ferdinand II, on his retum, established a system of despotism as complete as could weU be devised. He kept a strong corps of foreign soldiers ; not merely an ornamental body-guard of Swiss, like those of the Pope and the King of France, but a formid able troop of unscrupulous mercenaries, forming the nucleus of a large native army. He main tained a secret PoUce, whose duty it was to watch and denounce all persons addicted to the danger- 188 ITALICS. OUS practices of reading, writing, or thinking on matters of reUgious or political reform. He con ciliated the lowest class of the populace, and especially the 70,000 lazzeroni of Naples, by every possible indulgence, — his weU-fiUed Treasury en abling him to display towards them the most paternal liberaUty. He gagged the native press /in an effectual manner, and did his best to shut out the productions of that of other coun tries. He formed an alliance, offensive and de fensive, with the Romish priesthood, especiaUy with the Jesuits, and confided to them the task of superintending the whole education of the people, and keeping it within those narrow bounds which best might coincide with a condi tion of spiritual and political thraldom. Such a system, carried on to completion in the reign of the late king, was assuredly as sagacious as in genuity could have devised, and as the most un scrupulous disregard of the moral interests of a nation could have borne out. Whether this regi men of the strait-waistcoat would have long continued to keep the patient quiet, had no ex ternal circumstances interfered, is a matter of no very great interest. Garibaldi's invasion having WILL ITALY LOSE NAPLES ? 1 89 loosened the strings, Naples started up, an nounced herself as perfectly well able to dispense with suc\ treatment ; and the experiment termi nated, for the time at all events, in the signal discomfiture of the doctors. The question which really concerns us is, whether there be any chance of another Bourbon Restoration ? WiU Italy hold together, or wiU Naples separate herself, and sd destroy for ever the hopes of Italian Unity ? It is a matter of intense interest, for on the loss or maintenance of Naples and SicUy must depend the prospects of the other five provinces. There can be no Kingdom of Italy without them. Let us pass seriatim in review the probabilities of the case. 1. WiU there be a Restoration by force of arms ? Some time ago there seemed some pro spects of this. The Brigand robberies and mur ders, Uke aU crimes committed on a sufficiently large scale, ceased to be called by those humble names, and were elevated to the rank of " Guerilla Warfare." Europe heard a good deal of these " soldiers" loyaUy fighting for " their exiled monarch," for his beautiful Queen, for the Madonna, and perhaps also for plunder; and 190 ITALICS. " Gentle Zitellas," who desired to spend a little EngUsh gold by the shores of Naples, were re quested to " banish their fears," and consider the whole thing purely political. BombaUno him self being courteously entreated by the French ambassador to leave Rome and give no more trouble, replied in a formal address (which was printed at the time), that he did not consider any complaints about brigandage touched him at all. His faithful people did perfectly right to stand out in arms against the usurping government of Victor Emanuel, and he was not the man to con demn them. Living in Rome at the time, we can weU remember tales current on aU hands, and some of them perfectly authenticated, proving that the justification of the brigands was not a barren moral judgment on the part of the King, but followed up by such assistance in the way of clothes and money as very fairly might claim in return the obedience of paid soldiers, as well as the allegiance of loyal citizens. There was, in fact, merely the pecuUarity in the Nea politan " Guerilla " corps, that they levied the royal " taxes " in the somewhat irregular manner of highwaymen. All this, however, has changed WILL ITALY LOSE NAPLES ? 191 of late. Brigandage, if ever pursued from high political motives and loyal devotion, has gradually become a trade Uke another, and Carusso and Crocco would, we believe, have been nearly as much astonished at being looked upon as mar tyrs to the cause of Francis II, as one of our garotters to that of Chartism. The young painter Gutzlaff, not long ago seized on the road to CasteUamara, and held captive for six days by these heroes, received from them the assurance that in the matter of politics they maintained the most perfect philosophic in difference, and cared nothing whatever who should possess Naples so long as scudi might- be securely extracted from incautious or over confident traveUers. On another occasion, a bridegroom, on his way to his wedding, being seized by the noted brigand chief Crocco, en deavoured to soften his captors by assurances of his entire devotion to the cause of Francis II. To all his protestations, however, Crocco only replied that Francis and Victor Emanuel were equal in his sight, but a good rich proprietario, who might afford a heavy ransom, was at all times wel come, to which ever side he might belong. 192 ITALICS. 2. There is a Bourbon party, undoubtedly of considerable numerical force, throughout the Neapolitan kingdom, from whom something might be hoped in the way of a Restoration. There are nobles attached by hereditary senti ments to their legitimate sovereign ; and there are ex-employ^s by the hundred, whom the prOr sent Government, with all its willingness to en gage their services, have wisely excluded from even such trust as the place of a post-master might imply. All these make up in mere num bers a pretty large sum ; bnt practically they are of small importance. They make little attempt to influence the course of events, and they gra dually merge into the mass of Uberals. In the last municipal elections, they attempted to try their strength, but utterly faUed; and, according to the avowal of the Duca T , one of the chief men among them, and an ex-minister of Francis II, they barely could count fifty persons of their party whose character and position gave them importance. The great majority of the loyal nobility followed the king into exile, and have either remained with him in Rome, or dispersed themselves in foreign countries. In case of a WILL ITALY LOSE NAPLES ? 198 Restoration, these would of course return to Naples, and the result would be a great addi tional briUiancy in the society of the city — more equipages in the streets, and more diamonds in the baU-rooms. But these courtier-nobles have very little political importance — very Uttle habit, in fact, of meddling with politics at aU, beyond the composition of good stories calculated to turn into ridicule the party of their enemies. 3. The Clergy are in great measure devoted to the cause of Francis II ; as well they may be, considering that his dynasty has been the best of friends to the whole system of ultramontane Ca- thoUcism. The NeapoUtan people, also, unques tionably form (with the Irish) the most devoutly beUeving branch of the Roman Church. But even these sources of power are failing. So long as St. Januarius' blood is duly lique fied every year, and the Sacraments avail able to all, whether brigands or peaceful citi zens, the nation interests itself Uttle in the intrigues of the sacristy — least of aU, now that the alienation of the revenues of the monasteries deprives the Church of that Power of the Purse, which is at least equally influential with the 194 ITALICS. " Power of the Keys". Education, which is progressing with giant strides in Naples, is of course a still more formidable foe to priestly authority. Hitherto the masses have been com peUed to beUeve whatever their teachers told them : and wonderful, indeed, were the fables which these shepherds imposed on their flocks. We may imagine what they were conceming re mote events and doctrines, when we find that even concerning such a matter as the actual pre sent existence of a King of Italy, they had the effrontery to publish the falsehood that no such personage existed, and that the man who this winter performed a royal progress through the country was no King, but a person engaged by the Piedmontese to personate that mythical cha racter ! A gentleman who accompanied the Court on the occasion, informs me that the pea sants were continually to be observed holding up centesimi and francs bearing the King's image, and comparing it with equal surprise and satis faction with the unmistakable countenance of Victor Emanuel, as he rode through the streets : " There is really a King of Italy ; and here he is, after aU 1 " The same gentleman was immensely WILL ITALY LOSE NAPLES? 195 struck at the absence of any symptom of hos tUity to the King, such as might have arisen from priestly or Republican prejudices ; and de clares that, though constantly in a situation to observe such demonstrations, he never once heard a hiss, or saw the slightest mark of disloyalty. 4. The Mazzinian party might, perhaps, do somewhat to disturb the actual government, but only with the aid of Garibaldi; and this aid Garibaldi wUl hardly be induced to give them. WUd as are his written manifestoes, he wiU be very unwilling to undo the action on which his glory hereafter must chiefly depend. 5. The Press, being free in Naples as else where in Italy, might perhaps be used as an instrument of Bourbon influence, if the art of reading were sufficiently widely diffused to give it the power it possesses in other European countries. But despotism has overreached itself here, as in so many other matters. It has put out the nation's eyes, that it might lead it more easUy ; and now stands vainly making signs for it to foUow from a distance. In the city of Naples, with half a million of inhabitants, K 2 196 ITALICS. there are only two newspapers of any sort of importance — the Pungolo (the Spur), and the Italia, both liberal; the latter a Govem ment journal. Besides these, the Bourbon party, the Clergy, and the Mazzinians, altogether, do not furnish a single periodical of the slightest importance. They only publish wretched half penny sheets ; sometimes abusing the Govem ment in coarse and stupid phrases, sometimes indulging in mere lampoons, but never ascend ing to a single serious argument of pohtical or theological discussion. 6. The Mob of Naples may be considered a somewhat formidable body, probably attached to the Bourbons, who showed it a fostering kind ness worthy of no small gratitude, and liable also, after the manner of mobs, to sudden revolu tions of sentiment. Masaniello's exploit — Gari baldi's conquest, might possibly, it is thought, be repeated in the interest of Francis II. A Demon stration of the 70,000 lazzaroni which that amia ble monarch left behind him, would at all events have a fair chance of upsetting the throne of the House of Savoy, yet very imperfectly flxed, in Naples, — and Naples the City is Naples the WILL ITALY LOSE NAPLES ? 197 Country, the one follows the other even more certainly than France follows Paris. Perhaps the danger after all lies here, and Brigands, Nobles, Priests, Newspaper Editors, and Maz zinians, are aU unimportant compared to that sans-culotte population who bolt Macaroni under the Chiaja ! Yet hardly so. First, vrithout too much offending these gentry, the actual govern ment has done much to reduce their numbers, to employ them (men and women both) on railway works, and to stop begging in the streets. The spirit of the corps is at once soothed by the unchanged exhibition of St. Januarius, and con- troUed by the yet more remarkable sight of 16,000 Guardia Nazionale, perfectly well armed and disciplined, and so securely attached to the existing Government, that the Prefect considers the city safe under any contingency without the aid of the regular army. There are discontents at Naples as elsewhere throughout the country. There is the eternal complaint that Turin, the remote, the upstart Turin, where ItaUan is a foreign language and the barbarous Piedmontese alone is heard, is the capital of Italy, — not Rome the Imperial, 198 ITALICS. not Naples the Beautiful, not Florence the City of the Arts. Men rose three years ago to the call of an United Italy, and Tuscany, Lombardy, the Romagna, and the Two Sicilies, gave in their adhesion with acclamation. But that " United Italy", whose vision was to them all like Con stantino's banner in the clouds, — a sign in which they found strength to conquer foreign foes and private feuds, and local jealousies and personal interests, in a victory which will long count among the most glorious in history — that " United Italy" was an Italy not only stretch ing from the Alps to the Gulf of Manfredonia, but throned on the Seven HUled City, and wearing the regalia of the Caesars. It was. an United Italy ivith Rome for its capital. How far any of the new provinces would have consented to join Piedmont had they fore seen that for years to come it was, in fact, only an extended Piedmont, with Turin for capital, which was to be created, is very doubtful. By good fortune, however, the future was veiled, the union took place, and hke other married parties, if they find themselves somewhat desil- lusione, they still have no desire for any such WILL ITALY LOSE NAPLES? 199 strong measure as a divorce. Italy may go on for years to come in the condition of a creature who has no proper brain -centre of life and power — no cerebrum of a Capital like Rome, only such ganglia as Palermo, Naples, Florence, Milan, and at the top the specially active little nerve-knot of Turin. Are the NeapoUtans more angry than the other townsmen at the descent from a capital to a provincial city ? Is it worse to lose a King — if it be a cruel and crafty Bomba, than a Grand Duke — if it be a mild and weU meaning Leopoldo Secondo? It does not seem so. Naples is no more discontented — so far as the lack of Royalty is concerned — than Florence. If there exist there, as elsewhere, some soreness at being obliged to look to up start Turin as capital, it is assuaged by the inti mate conviction that it is only the absence of power, not of exceUent good will, which prevents Victor Emanuel from establishing himself to morrow in the city of the Seven Hills. Some trouble has also arisen as to the Con scription. In Sicily there are said to be no less than 20,000 refractories who have sought to evade the lot ; and in the NeapoUtan provinces 200 ITALICS. there are also a vast though (in proportion) lesser number. The govemment pursues such defaulters vigorously, and punishes them with imprisonment for a time .^before transmitting them to their regiments. When once enrolled, however, they appear, as usual, to undergo the infiuence of the large body in which their indi- viduaUty is merged ; and the Neapolitan soldier, no less than the Tuscan and the Piedmontese, is contented and weU pleased with his service. The Bourbon cause would have nothing to hope from this quarter. Francis II has done somewhat since his exile to raise his personal character in the opinion of men. It is believed, perhaps on good grounds, that if now restored to his throne, he might form an exception to the practice of his House, and have both learned and forgotten somewhat which returning kings ought to learn and to for get. Will the Neapolitans, then, be induced by and bye, when wearied of the Piedmontese yoke, to recall their legitimate king ? Will some new General Monk, bring back this new Charles II ? It does not seem likely. The quaUties and con cessions which might have sufficed to keep WILL ITALY LOSE NAPLES? 201 Francis on the throne, are not of that greater and more brilUant kind which might restore him when banished. He represents to the minds of his' subjects (and must always do so, unless he have a chance to shew his better intentions) the system of arbitrary despotism, — of Jesuitry, — of broken pubUc faith. The son of the man who took and broke all the oaths of 1848-49, has no right to expect credit for Uberal designs or re Uance on any promises of constitutional govem ment. A return of an emigrant court and nobUity is a thing of which experience in many countries has shewn the inconvenience. The train of revengeful acts, of jealousies, distrusts, dismissals from office, and removal from private posts of wealth and influence, — who shaU calcu late ? To contemplate such an event is enough to remind us of the French charlatan, who in the last century scattered dismay in some town in the South by announcing (at the close of some clever tricks of juggling, cutting off heads and putting them on again, etc.), that on a certain day he would proceed to the churchyard, and bring back to life everybody who had been buried therein during the last fifty years. After k3 202 ITALICS. hurried and anxious consultations, the Mayor and Notables of the place sought the conjuror's abode, and offered him a considerable sum of money if he would forbear from the performance of an experiment which would cause all the pro perty of the town to pass from its possessors to their predecessors. The inteUigent gentleman (after having naturally stipulated for a stiU larger bribe), graciously consented to give up his in tentions, and the resurrection of the deceased citizens was postponed sine die. We are of opinion that if a return of the Bourbons were in question, there would be found more people ready to stave off the disaster by some similar expedient, than to welcome them back with such idiotic demonstrations as greeted the Restora tion of the not more hopeless race of the Stuarts. The simple truth is, that Francis II has nothing to offer which Victor Emanuel is not actually giving to the Neapolitans. Constitutional govern ment, freedom of the press, vast sums expended in education, and on railways and public works of aU kinds ; there is not only possession — posses sion supported by a powerful and loyal army, and WILL ITALY LOSE NAPLES? 203 in face only of the indifference and laissez-faire of a Neapolitan population, but also positive and great benefits bestowed every day upon the country. Between 70,000,000 and 80,000,000 of francs are now spending annually by the Ita Uan government in Naples and Sicily over and above the revenue derived from those provinces, for the exclusive advantage of the people ; and the poor Communes, accustomed only to view the powers above them as mysterious agencies for the coUection of imposts and punishment of Uberal ideas, receive with amazement not un mingled with distrust, the splendid grants af forded to them for local improvements of all kinds. The wisest of aU these aids, that which has opened Schools, elementary and normal, all over the country, is preparing a firmer basis every day for the govemment which befriends knowledge, and is the sole possible representa tive of the great idea of ItaUan Unity. The study of history and of the present constitution of the country, which is made a part of this edu cation, cannot faU to awaken in the minds of the new generation, a rational attachment to ex isting freedom, a weU-grounded horror of the 204 ITALICS. divided, and despot-ridden past, which shall effectuaUy guard them from any sudden enthu siasm for a Reaction. Every day a return to the old order of things becomes more unUkely, and in a few years it wiU be impossible. Once the former division waUs of petty states have been a little overgrown by those flowers of kindly feel ings which are sure to spring up wherever human barriers are thrown down, their very ex istence will be forgotten, and their erection again wiU be out of question. At the same time the importance of forming part of a great nation, secure of its independence and possessing weight in the affairs of Europe, wiU fix itself in the minds of ItaUans, and none wUl be found to forego the pride and the actual advantages of such a condition for the trifling local benefits of a Minor State. Of this Unity of Italy Victor Emanuel is the visible personification. In his govemment and dynasty lie aU the hopes of its final success. If he fail, and Italy faU to pieces again in his hand, scarcely a hope will remain of ever reuniting the fragments. The ItaUans know this, and re cognise in him the hope of their country. If his WILL ITALY LOSE "NAPLES ? 205 personal character leaves much to be desired, his merits are yet of a kind enabUng him to bear the weight of the confidence of a nation, and his faults are of the sort most easily pardoned in a country where private morals have never been cast in the scale of judgment of public men. Victor Emanuel himself knows how much de pends on him as the King of an United Italy, and on his submission to the restrictions of a Constitution, that he may exercise the functions of such a king, nor sink to the level of the auto crats he has displaced. There is smaU danger that either king or people wiU forego, for any temporary interest or passion, the high career which mutual fidelity opens before them. Unless some unforeseen poUtical storm arise to change the face of things, the course before them is safe enough. The army, every day more perfectly fused into one, wiU not suffer division ; the Par Uament, whose whole power rests on the unity of the kingdom, wUl not swerve from its aim; the vast body of impiegati, stationed in every town and vUlage of the land as the paid servants of the Govemment, wiU secure all the machinery of the State for the Sovereign. A rupture with 206 ITALICS. France ; an unsuccessful attack on Austria, fol lowed by heavy defeats ; an outburst of popular fanaticism for the Pope — these might, indeed, present formidable dangers ; but none of them are probable, the last scarcely possible. The death of Victor Emanuel himself would be of little consequence, since his son. Prince Hum bert, appears in every way qualified to take his place. In the carnival of the present year, 1864, his hberality and splendour at Naples produced a most advantageous impression in his favour ; and the Roman Court beheld with uttermost jealousy the forestieri, who should have lined the Corso and kept up the illusion of a contented and flourishing population in Rome, lured away to display their dominos and throw their confetti on the Chiaja and the Toledo, and attending the entertainments which made Naples for the mo ment the gayest city in Italy. There is even a younger prince of the House of Savoy, on whom the nation, on an emergency, might fairly rely. The horizon, then, actuaUy presents no cloud of any magnitude threatening the stability of the present union of Naples with Piedmont in one Kingdom of Italy. Of course, where human WILL ITALY LOSE NAPLES ? 207 foresight fails, there ever remains the great book of the unknown and unknowable future, whose pages, for aU we can tell, may be all covered with warning and disaster. CHAPTER X. "'TIS MASEEONI HIMSELF WHO NOW SINGS." T T is a favourite popular delusion that some sort -*- of crimes and vices have in them a good deal of aesthetic merit, that they are, on the whole, rather noble things, much more noble than hum-drum every day honesty and virtue . The passion of Rage, for instance, as represented by tragic actors and novelists, is altogether superb and imposing, very different from the piteous and hideous reality of an actual man or woman, with distorted features and disharmonised voice, undergoing the tyranny of their irascible natures to the shame of the true humanity within them. The career of English thieves and convicts, we have Ukewise seen glori fied into romance in books, and treated, by those who know nothing of it practically, as a field where courage and supet'-ordinary talent and cleverness are constantly displayed, instead of 'tis MASEEONI HIMSELF WHO NOW SINGS. 209 being, as in truth, a miserable alternation of groveUing fears and fidthy pleasures, undergone by a poor wretch on whose crushed forehead and animal physiognomy we may read at a glance the low propensities and short-sighted cunning of the brute,for whom aU the nobler joys and wisdom of humanity are yet to dawn. If there be one crime more than another, however, to which ro mance has attached itself, and " distance lent enchantment to the view," it is assuredly Brigan dage. A Bandit, a true NeapoUtan " Brigante," with a peaked hat, a belt fuU of pistols, and an image of theMadonna round his neck, is a dehcious bit of the Middle Ages, preserved for the ecstasy of mankind into the Nineteenth Century. When it is added that he is a " faithful adherent of his exUed monarch," Uving in daily perU of the muskets of the " brutal Piedmontese," we feel that every condition is fulfiUed which can recom mend him to the sympathies of a judicious pubhc. Of course he must (alas !) be eventually put down and terminate his lawless, but gaUant and in teresting, career, with a dozen balls in his breast Uke a brave soldier. MeanwhUe, it is impossible not to think of him with some kindliness, not to 210 ITALICS. say admiration. The vulgar London garotter^ who may meet us this evening round the comer of our own street and give us a choke which shall stop our respiratory processes for the future altogether, is a wretch for whose back the cat is a proper appUcation. But a Brigand among the far away blue Appenines, descending through the cypresses and perfumed orange groves, to carry away into his romantic haunts some rich traveller, who will pay ample ransom, half to be devoted to the Madonna and half to the poor, this Robin Hood of Calabria, is a very different character. Not young ladies alone may be wilUng to act " Gentle Zitellas" to such " Maseroni"; but men who ought to know better, speak of them with only half- concealed indulgence ; and the Church of Rome and Codino party every where, to their eternal shame, beyond a doubt, favour the ruffians. Let us try to get some smaU aperqu of the truth of the case, partly from the Report of the Commission of last spring, and Monnier's Histoire du Brigandage, H Brigantaggio, by Conte Alessandro de Saint Jorioz, and also later, from authentic private sources on which the reader may rely. 'tis MASEEONI HIMSELF WHO NOW SINGS. 211 The ultimate source of regular Crime, is Pauper ism. Hunger and hopelessness are two counsellors, who more than any others lead men to defy laws which for them are not protectors but enemies. Throughout a considerable part of the NeapoUtan territories there has been for centuries back an ever-increasing misery among the peasants. The caffoni, as they are called, the terrazzani, who have no habitation whatever, and sleep Uke wild beasts, as the chance of each night may lead them to a lair, these miserable beings, at the best of times, are on the borders of starvation. The lands (culti vated sometimes on a large scale by absent Pro prietors), offer them only fields of occasional toil, with a remuneration so pitiful that it barely suffices to procure for them bread, of which (a visitor says) a dog would hardly eat. The causes which have led to this state of things mount back to a distant time and the overthrow of the feudal barons; nay, possibly, may have been going on for many centuries before ; but the fact which alone concerns us is this present and wide-spread misery. Throughout all the distm-bed districts, the peasantry are next door to starvation — in the small one of Foggia alone there are actually thou- 212 ITALICS. sands, as Massari testifies, of the houseless terrazzani — and the proof of the connection between distress and brigandage is found in the circumstance, that, where the railways or other great public works have afforded employment and food for the people, the brigandage has disappeared. Besides this great cause, there are many lesser ones, which have caiised Brigandage to break out since the Annexation, as no longer an en demic disease but an epidemic. Ferdinand staved it off by favouring the lazzaroni and popu lace, and stUl more by everywhere enrolling the men, quaUfied by character and courage to be come bandits, in his own army, where they had many privileges and acted on the principle of the thief set to catch a thief. All this was exchanged under the new regime for an organised Opposi tion, the ex-king and the clergy favouring in stead of repressing the brigandage. At first, bands of honourable soldiers were sent in guerilla fashion from Gaeta, under men like Count Emile de Christen and General Luvara. Very soon these degenerated; Tristany and Borg^s were succeeded by men like Carusso, and all form of lawful war- 'tis MASEEONI HIMSELV WHO NOW SINGS. 213 fare was abandoned by mere robber outlaws. Yet these robbers continued to receive suppUes of money and arms from the king and the Comitato Borbonico, together with the immense moral en couragement of feeUng they possessed such friends, and that their chiefs were honoured by royal warrants. The priesthood, above aU, kept up the flame. For the Italian soldier, indeed, there was no absolution, no sacraments of the dying; but for the bandit there were relics in abundance for charms, " la Messa dei briganti," and every passport the Church could afford to the celestial kingdom. To understand the power of such ecclesiastical influence we need to recaU how utterly in Italy Religion and MoraUty have been dissevered for ages, and how Religion to the uneducated ItaUan means nothing but the sacerdotal enchantment whereby he is to escape from future fires. Give him his olio santo pass port to bUss, and reUgion has done for him aU it is qualified to do. Of reformation of life, or purification of heart, of love to God or man, he has no more thought when he speaks of religion than if he were talking of the boat which is to ferry him across the river, or the carretta to take 214 ITALICS. him to the neighbouring town. Religion is a machine for getting to heaven, and avoiding hell and purgatory. Having paid the passage money at the proper bureau, and received his ticket, his concern with it is over. He is " booked through," with the security of the official signature. The result of all these concomitant infiuences was the true Brigand of the Carusso type — a wretch whose business was plunder, and whose amusement cruelty — whom no human or divine law touched in any way, and yet who doubtless went through his life of crime perfectly secure that he was in favour with his legitimate earthly sovereign and the Vicegerent of Christ, and that when shot down at last by Piedmontese bullets, he was secure of admission into the paradise of God. The career of such a man has in it some thing hideous to think of. The more cruel he was, the more all around him trembled and obeyed; the satisfaction of his tiger passions of lust and bloodshed was actually a part of his pohcy. On one occasion he entered a tenuta (farm) where fourteen poor labourers were rest ing inoffensively; with a razor, Carusso cut the throats of thirteen Uke so many defenceless sheep. 'tis MASEEONI HIMSELF WHO NOW SINGS. 215 and then bade the last, who held his neck in his turn, go off and repeat what he had seen.* An other time, he seized three or four poor women, and left their burnt and mutilated corpses on the road, where they were found by the Mar chese de Casanova in a condition too horrible to be described. Yet fiends like this go to their work with images of the Madonna and relics of saints round their necks, and with the powder for their murderous weapons bearing on each packet the offlcial stamp of the Papal Manu factory at Tivoli, — the triple crown of St. Peter, the "Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven"! The Marchese de Casanova, Commandant of the Guardia Nazionale at Benevento, and engaged in the suppression of brigandage, testified to my informant, not only that he had seen this Papal stamp on the ammunition taken from the ban dits, but that he had known one of them, when led to execution, curse in his despair the priests who, when he had abandoned robbery and settled peacefuUy to an industrio^s life, had urged him * This story was told by Count BobHant, aide-de-camp of Victor Emanuel, to his Excellency Count Usedom, from whom I hold it. 216 italics. to go forth again and rejoin his band of as sassins. Others of the brigands seem to carry their resentment further against the ecclesiastical body, since the brothers La Gala, taken in the Aulis, were convicted at Naples (March, 1861) of having roasted and eaten an unfortunate priest who had fallen into their hands. For this, as weU as for many other atrocious murders, they were condemned to death, and the Emperor Napoleon, having no desire to be the protector of cannibals, per mitted their execution. Marvellous to relate, among these detestable savages were found more than one gentleman of birth and station from distant countries, actuaUy aUured to Naples by the prospect of joining in the feats of brigandage. The foUowing are sketches of some of these gentlemen of singular taste, from." the rare volume of Conte Alessandro Bianco de St. Jorioz. Marquis Alfred de Traz^gnies, of Namur in Belgium, a volunteer in Chiavoni's band, with the rank of superior officer ; acted as captain llth Nov., 1861, at the attack of Isoletta. Taken pri soner with arms in his hands, he was shot the 'tis MASEEONI HIMSELF WHO NOW SINGS. 217 same day with some of his followers by a picket of the 43rd regiment. He was a man of about thirty, of handsome and distinguished presence, and easy and noble manners ; tall and pale, with black beard and hair, elegantly dressed in a hunting costume. He wore a revolver, a magnifi cent dagger, and a carbine. In the interroga tory to which he was subjected before his death, he narrated the motives which had induced him to leave Brussels, and stated that he had reached Rome in the beginning of October with recom mendations to the Abbate Bryan, and on the 7th Nov. had set forth of his own free choice to join the band of Chiavone. Before dying, he wrote a letter, in which he mentioned his relationship with the Contessa di Montalto, wife of the Am bassador of Italy at the Court of Belgium. It appears that Marshal St. Amaud and his brother married two cousins of the Marquis de Traz^gnies, who is further stated to have been the nephew of De Merode and of the Countess of Nassau. In his pocket-book were found Uterary and scientific memoranda, an affectionate letter from his sister, a lock of hair, and the portrait of a most beau tiful and noble lady. A fortnight after his ex- 218 ITALICS. ecution, a French deputation arrived, composed of Major Gregoire, commanding the troops at Frosinone, Captain Bauzil, and the Abbate Bryan, accompanied by hussars and guides, and fur nished with authority from the French Com mandant in Rome for the exhumation of the body of the Marquis de Trazegnies. When the corpse was disinterred, the Abbate Bryan (doubt less an Irishman) manifested high disdain that it shoiUd have been placed with the remains of three or four ragged ruffians of his band. The Italian captain, who had shot de Trazegnies, thereupon remarked, "that he had only given him in death the same company he had freely selected in Ufe." The Abbate argued no more, but observed that at all events the deceased brigand was a "good Christian" (" che pure era stato un buon Cristiano") ! " ZiMMEEMANN is a man of twenty-seven years of age, ex-Ueutenant in the Austrian army. He has a mind and sentiments naturally elevated, and is more artist and poet than soldier. He paints in a masterly manner, writes verses, sings and plays on several instruments, and is exceed ingly effeminate in his habits. In a word, he was 'tis MASEEONI HIMSELF WHO NOW SINGS. 219 not made for a brigand; but he is an original who thinks it poetical to be the chief of a band of German ruffians, and to scour the mountains in search of emotions, picturesque views, and pretty peasant girls." " Don Jose Boejes, formerly a captain serving in the War of Succession in Spain ; he was a man of honour and feeUng, deluded by the reactionary party in Rome— the Don Quixote of a lost cause. On the 7th December, 1 861, he was taken with twenty-four of his companions, and condemned to be shot. Conducted to the place of execution, he embraced aU his Spanish foUowers, requested the Bersaglieri to aim carefully at their heads so as to save them pain, and then knelt down with nine of his men, chaunting a Spanish litany. The first discharge laid him dead. On the 27th December, the Prince de SciUa and the Vieomte de St. Priest obtained the permission of General La Marmora to exhume the body of Don Borjfe and transport it for burial to Rome." It is certainly curious to meet these dainty amateurs seeking '^emotions" and pretty girls, in company with such cannibal ruffians as those above described, or such a man as Francesco l2 220 italics. Piazza, nick-named Cuccitto — a truculent-looking brute, who assassinated his benefactor, dragging off his chin with his grey beard, and displaying it in Rome to attest the murder to his friends. This tiger, after many similar atrocities, was seized near Terracina with his band, consisting of nearly thirty individuals, all allied to one another by family ties — a family of wild beasts (as Count St. JarUoz calls them) who had terrified the whole country by their thirst of blood, their horrible cruelty, and their monstrous depravity. Perhaps the most curious of the whole tribe of bandits, however, was a woman named Maria Olivieri, of Calabria. When this gentle dame was arrested, in the spring of the present year, it ap peared that there were forty capital cases against her, including the murder of her own sister. A Neapolitan officer, who had just come from the district she had haunted, informed me that her age certainly did not exceed twenty-three, and that she was a fine-looking young woman. The means by which this whole dreadful system of brigandage may be put down are not neglected by the ItaUan Government. The case, however, is beset with difficulties. The obvious plan of 'tis MASEEONI HIMSELF WHO NOW SINGS. 221 punishing those who afford shelter and aid to the Brigands, the Manutengoli as they are caUed, can scarcely be put in practice without much hard ship and even injustice. The law affixing penal ties to this offence, commonly called the Pica law, has already been the source of much com plaint. Wretched peasants, with the pistols of a ferocious bandit levelled at their heads, can hardly be expected to refuse the succour so demanded, and to punish them for being robbed in this way, is neither just nor expedient, seeing that it can not fail to enlist their popular sympathies still more against the government. Better plans than this Pican law, however, are in action, and will, doubtless, produce better results. The guardia nazionale of the disturbed pro- rinces has been treated vrith implicit trust, and given upwards of 100,000 muskets, and, besides these, large bodies of regular troops have been sent into the country. General La Marmora, under whose command they are placed, has covered the worst districts with a net-work of detach- mep-ts, and thus prevents the formation of bands of any great strength ; albeit lesser parties stiU exist, and set the brUliant hussars, with red caps 222 ITALICS. and rattling arms, altogether at defiance to sur prise them in their well-watched dens among the defiles of the Appenines. Of course, however, the miUtary conquest of the existing bands of brigands is but the correction of the visible symptom of a disease which lies deep in the con stitution of the patient, and must be eradicated there, if it is not to burst out again the first moment the appUcation of such force is re moved. The eare of Brigandage is yet distant, and can be effected only by the slow processes by which the ignorant and starving caffoni can be raised into an educated and prosperous peasantry. The schools which Ferdinand II expressly /br&acZe to be opened in the villages, inhabited by la bourers only, and which Victor Emanuel has opened to the number of 1,755, throughout the province, afford the best hope of improvement of all. Railways, good roads (quite as much needed in Naples as railways), the draining of marshes, clearing of forests, division of lands, and stern repression of the feudal tyrannies and local en mities, which still subsist in these remote regions, all these causes together will doubtless, ere long, touch the root of the evil. For the satisfaction. 'tis MASEEONI HIMSELF WHO NOW SINGS. 223 however, of any one to whom, after the above true details, the name of Brigand may still pos sess a romantic charm, it may be affirmed only too certainly that many years must yet elapse ere the genus Carusso be finaUy extinct and buried underground with other " dragons of the prime" " Which tare each other in their slime" — and leave the earth fit for the habitation of a nobler and a happier race. CHAPTER XI. THE NEMESIS OP WOMAN. 1 N the old books for children about Africa there -*- used to be always a chapter devoted to a highly diverting subject, caUed Mumbo Jumbo. Generally, there was also what was caUed, a " cut" iUustrative of the chapter, in which work of art the infant eye dimly discerned, through innumerable smudges and false Unes, a sort of barbaric scarecrow, supported by the soUd shanks of a tall negro, and evidently in pursuit of some women and children, who were flying in as much trepidation as the somewhat limited powers of the " cut" maker permitted him to express. How we all laughed (at the mature age of ten) at those stupid negresses who could be taken in by the scarecrow ! What fun we thought it would be to act Mumbo Jumbo ourselves, especially if we might be permitted to make all the hideous THE NEMESIS OF WOMAN. 225 noises we read he was accustomed to produce ! It was aU very amusing — indeed, if our memory fails not, the only amusing thing in those rather dreary " Manners and Customs" books, in which all children were officially supposed (I know not wherefore) to be interested. In later years, we read Missionary works, — in which we were also considered to be somehow deeply con cerned ; — and with much pleasure we remember again meeting our old friend Mumbo Jumbo in the authentic narrative of some preacher in Southern Africa. It seems the worthy divine, having succeeded in gathering a distinguished audience of chiefs and their adherents, employed some hours in giving them what he felt to be a powerful and impressive summary of Calvinistic theology. The attention and respect with which bis imperfectly draped congregation listened to his discourse were all that could be desired ; and when the king formally thanked him for his la bours, the missionary's hopes of a large haul of converts for his celestial net were naturally much excited. They were somewhat damped, however, when the sable Majesty of Hottentot-Land pro ceeded to say : " We are very much obliged to l3 226 ITALICS. you for all your pretty stories, and in return we shall be happy to tell you some others, for we also have plenty of stories as well as the white man. There was once a Mumbo Jumbo who haunted a viUage," etc., etc. ! It does not ap pear, however, that the missionary took notes of the king's " story" — at least they were not pre served in the work from which we derived our information. Now the idea of a Mumbo Jumbo seems essen tially a great one. It is an invention whereby the female portion of humanity is kept in awe and order by the lordUer sex — not by brute force and cruelty (although Mumbo Jumbo does occa sionaUy thrash too audacious squaws), but by working on those fears of the supernatural which, it appears, are common to negresses as well as Caucasian dames. Mumbo Jumbo judiciously ex hibited, not ostentatiously paraded every evening, but just brought out when needed, is affirmed to keep a kraal in the most perfect order, and to render mascuUne authority and conjugal rights absolutely supreme. There is no female infidel in Caffraria or the adjacent regions. Articles on " Women and Scepticism" do not appear in THE NEMESIS OF WOMAN. 227 Hottentot Magazines. Bosjeswomen show all the beautiful simplicity of behef so often sighed for elsewhere. Even the King of Dahomey's Ama zons do not seem to add the crime of disbelieving in Mumbo Jumbo to the other more venial errors of their " strong-minded" characters. The plan appears to work with admirable regularity. All the men, of course, know that Mumbo Jumbo is a joke, but aU the women beUeve him to be an awful demon, ready to punish every feminine de- Unquency ; or, if they don't quite believe in him, at least pretend to do so, to avoid too forcible demonstrations of his diabolical strength. Order reigns in female Negroland, and Mumbo Jumbo is its beneficent guardian. Perhaps it might be possible, without going so far as Africa, to find some slight analogy to the great masculine idea of the Mumbo elsewhere. In other countries than Guinea, or Caffraria, or wherever may be the locale of that blessed spirit (our tender years when we read of him must excuse the inaccuracy of our geography) in other conti nents besides that of the race of Ham, there are notions afloat which bear no smaU resemblance to that hobgoblin. Perhaps, even in England itself. 228 ITALICS. there may be found a few husbands and fathers who choose that their wives and daughters should believe in certain ghostly enemies in whom they themselves have not the smallest credence ; and are also of opinion that only by such wholesome fears as this belief may suggest can the female character be properly preserved. In sober truth, it would seem that all the world over there has been a constant tendency among mankind to suppose that Lies are great moral agents. It is not only for the weaker sex that they have been thought efficacious, but generally for all the simpler, younger, or poorer classes of society. From the very earUest times, wise men in Greece and Egypt thought that it was good for them to learn at Eleusis and On that " There is but one God alone. The greatest of gods and of mortals"; but that for the o'i ttoWo", it was good to believe in Pan, and Vulcan, and Venus, or in Apis and Typhon, and cats and crocodUes, at discretion. Vainly did Moses and the great Founder of Christianity labour to make the secret of the priesthood the common faith of the nation, and to give to " the poor" the doctrines of " the kingdom THE NEMESIS OP WOMAN. 229 of Heaven." The same distinction of esoteric and exoteric lessons stole into the early Church, and through the Middle Ages pervaded not only theo logy but physical science, tiU it was thought as much the duty of the leamed to keep their disco veries from the vulgar by hiding them in enigmas, as we deem it to make them universally known. Science has escaped from this snare ; but theo logy, even in the freer churches of Protestantism, is far from having done so. Only a year ago, one of our teachers was rebuked (by the son of Dr. Arnold !) for attempting to speak openly to the masses on questions of criticism, and not confining to " edification" aU addresses to their benighted minds. Every day we hear the plea, "Do not let our young men, our working classes, our women, begin to question the popular behef. Let them keep back, whoever goes forward. This people who know not the law wUl be cursed if they come to hear new truths. " Bread" do they want ? We must give it them with a very Uttle wheat and a vast deal of chaff, or it wiU utterly poison them." So the cry runs, and whatever " Gospel" some among us have got — a Gospel of a Kingdom of Heaven which has no antitype 230 ITALICS. Kingdom of HeU — it is clear that it is not a Gos pel for the " Poor," or for " Babes," but only for the wise and mighty we mean it to be. The universal idea seems to be that Error is quite an innocent thing, and only Truth a dan gerous one. A Uttle Error more or less — or even a great deal of error, — is of no spiritual hurt. It is only very perilous to have too much Truth. We may leave people in their mistakes and blunders and false and frightful ideas of God and His Providence, without any sin or " re sponsibiUty". The wicked thing to do is to take away these errors from ignorant people and in cur the "responsibility" of teaching them that upon which we rest our own souls as Truth. Nay, the thing does not stop here. If it be a duty to leave people in error, it can hardly be any offence to help to propagate such error, to teach it to our chUdren, and pay others to teach it to the poor. In the interests of religion and moraUty we uphold an organised system of quasi delusion. Of course, in Protestant countries, this has its Umits; but in CathoUc ones there are no Umits, except those of expediency. Once admit the idea that it is good to lie for religion's THE NEMESIS OF WOMAN. 231 sake, and the Ue may grow to any dimensions. A Uttle lie may serve a man, but it is hard to calculate how big an one may be wanted to serve God. What is the cause of this wide-spread delu sion that the base metal is good for the currency of the spiritual realm, and only the gold needs to be naUed to the counter ? There can be but one cause, — an equaUy wide-spread disbeUef in Truth as Truth, in God as the God of Truth, in Mo rality as resting on Truth, on Human Nature as responding to Truth. Nothing but disbeUef, — a latent but most profound disbeUef, in these things could produce such results. If Truth be a dream, if God be a vision, if MoraUty be a politic inven tion, if Human Nature have as great affinity with miserable delusions as with the noblest and holiest realities, then indeed men would act logi- caUy in leaving Error fuU scope, and only placing padlocks on the Ups of Truth. But to hold the contrary, and yet be for ever distrustful of every truth which floats on the wind or shines down on us from the sky — ^this is iUogical; unutterably monstrous and absurd. There is a Scepticism which Ues much deeper 232 ITALICS. than any doubt we ever hear formulated in words. The Atheist is often free from this worst and lowest Scepticism, and many a professedly ortho dox Christian, who can sign his thirty-nine arti cles with a clear conscience, is eaten up with it. This is the Scepticism which doubts that good leads to good ; that heroic deeds had heroic motives; that saintly lives sprung from holy aspi rations ; that love, divine or human, is unselfish. This is the Scepticism whose arguments are all inductions from its narrow observations of hu man weakness, and never deductions from loftier grounds of confidence and trust. It has no great major terms of unassailable faith to which all minor experimental facts must be subordinated in its syUogisms. It has a huge Policy, but no MoraUty — a Body of Theology and not a spark of Religion. This, and this alone, is the true and fatal Scepticism of our time, and of all time, albeit no books are written to refute it, no pulpit resounds vrith its condemnation. The man who is a Sceptic in this sense will very naturaUy believe that new Truth is a far more dangerous and explosive thing than old Error, and that it is far better for the masses of THE NEMESIS OP WOMAN. 283 mankind to go on beUeving in anything they may have believed hitherto, and which has not utterly choked their souls, rather than run the risk of changing their moral diet. " What good after aU would more Truth do them? The mischief which the old error works may be greater or less ; probably it is the fault of the people themselves, their race, or their climate, or their government perhaps, — if a ridiculous theo logy be found in suspicious juxtaposition with groveUing fanaticism, stupid bigotry and univer sal corruption. Creeds have very little, if any thing to do, with men's conduct. Of course, if it be some utterly abominable sort of heathenism inculcating Thuggee or the like, we ought to put it down ; but otherwise, it is safest to leave it alone ! " Of course, there is a good side as well as this monstrous one to the too common reticence of Truth and profligacy of Error. There is a real and great danger in aU important transitions of opinion. We go through minor ones every day of our Uves, and correct some old mistake or add some new fact to our experience. But these affect us by degrees and it is only after lapses 234 ITALICS. of time and when the change has gone on so slowly as to have been free from danger, that we perceive we have drifted away from the banks between which we floated and have reached a wider and deeper part of the river. The danger is when we are suddenly pushed off our moorings and carried down the rapids before we know how to trim our little boats and seize the helm of self-control. No one who has passed through the crisis of a change of opinion on any vital matter, or who has any reverence for the struggles of the human soul, can deal with such things coarsely and hastily, or think it a Ught matter to bid his brother arise from any shrine, however poor may be its idol, tiU he feel he can surely guide him to the marble steps of God's own altar. Tenderness and reverence in removing Error, and earnestness and diffidence in teaching what to us is Truth — are the lessons taught us aUke by reason and experience. But these are the dictates of sound feeUng conceming the way our work is to be done. They never, rightfuUy, should check the work itself. Nothing but the Scepticism of which we have spoken, which doubts THE NEMESIS OP WOMAN. 235 that Truth is good and Error bad for all the highest purposes of Ufe, — can make it logically defensible for a man deUberately to starve Truth and feed Error, or to remain indifferent as to their nourishment. It must be confessed, however, that the cou rage of true faith is, in these matters, not always an easy thing to retain. Many aUowances must be made for those in whom it faUs short. In the first place, of course, there is the great funda mental difficulty, which so many experience, of assuring themselves that what they beUeve to be true, and what, in the last resort, they are com peUed to rest on for their own soul's repose, is actuaUy true in itself — objectively as weU as sub jectively. They feel, too, that in the infinite diversities of human inteUects, the formulae which convey one set of ideas to one man, seem to convey quite different notions to another, and they dread lest a Uteral truth may fail to teach the spiritual verity which a fiction has bome to their brother^s soul ; or that a moral lesson may be lost with the scientific blunder in which it has been enwrapped. And again, in looking round on the human 236 ITALICS. race and beholding it subsisting now, and having subsisted for milleniums since the dawn of his tory, with so vast a share of worthless husks and chaff, if not of dust and poison, mingled in its bread of Ufe, the question forces itself on the mind, " What if this be the inevitable form of spiritual nutriment for the large masses of men, who may be able no more to bear purely con centrated and extracted truth than the cattle could prosper on the essential chemical elements into which their food might be resolved ? What if the pure gold be unfit for the currency of human life, and an admixture of base alloy be needful ere it pass through rough and common hands ?" He who resists all these doubts, and holds on steadily to the principle that all Truth must be good, all Error Evil, and that in as far as he honestly beUeve anything to be true, in so far must he believe the knowledge of it will be a benefit to his brother ; — he, we say, who can hold by this principle, — he alone has real Faith, AU else is scepticism in disguise. The ancient and almost universal Monopoly of Truth among the higher inteUects, of which we have now traced the causes, — has always weighed THE NEMESIS OP WOMAN. 287 in a peculiar manner upon women. In all ages and countries, if any class has been more care- fuU}' than another excluded from the Mysteries and Illuminations of the period, and left to grovel in the lowest superstitions which priest craft could devise, — that class has always in cluded the female sex. To this day there is not a country in the world wherein whatever religi ous darkness may exist is not gathered thickest in women's minds. In heathen countries, Catho-. Uc countries, Protestant countries, the same thing takes place. Men emancipate themselves more or less, but women scarcely ever. In what ever temple, from Benares to Santiago, the most exaggerated and monstrous worship takes place, there are the throngs of female devotees. And, in like manner, in whatever church or lecture- room the purest and most enlightened doctrines are to be heard — there the usual proportion of the sexes is reversed, and men abound while women hardly appear. If we ask anywhere " Who are they who cry up some fanatical preacher, who buy some absurd book, who form a party for some ambitious priest, who aUow themselves to be fooled and made tools of for 238 ITALICS. the support of the most outrageous sect or reli gious society?" — there is always the same answer — " The women." Of course there is a natural explanation of the cause of this phenomenon, which reflects no blame on any one. In the great distribution of qualities between the two sexes there is little doubt that, on the whole, men have more Justice and women more Piety — men more Understand ing and women keener Intuitions. Women's piety and quick receptiveness make them as ready to fall into, exaggerated forms of religion {under the conditions of their imperfect education and Umited knowledge of the world) as the sense of justice and strong understanding of men pre serve them from such errors. If wild ideas are afloat they wiU assuredly lodge first and take root deepest, in the brain which is least cautious and logical by nature, and least weU furnished by education. If ecclesiastics find anywhere slaves and dupes, they will certainly do so among the most yielding and enthusiastic hearts. Human nature being what it is, it must remain to a certain point inevitable, that women should be more superstitious than men. THE NEMESIS OF WOMAN. 239 But what ought to be the course of action consequently adopted by men towards women ? Ought they not to labour — as fathers, husbands, brothers, to correct this deplorable propensity? Ought they not to afford those who depend on them for mental almost as much as for bodily support such strong meat as may help to render them healthy and sound, and competent to con tend against the inherent weakness of their constitutions ? The true religious education of a young woman, while gently correcting tenden cies to a hasty judgment and over-ready credu lity, would afford her such a basis of solid instruction, such habits of cautious examination and logical reasoning, as should arm her against the dangers to which she is pecuUarly liable. A sense ofthe infinite sanctity of Truth should be in culcated, sufficient for ever to forbid her hurried acceptance or prejudiced rejection of any opinion from that eternal source of woman's credence, — personal sympathy or antipathy. Every effort should be made to relieve her from the sordid fears of superstition, whereby her mind can be over-balanced by whomsoever may hereafter play upon them. That conviction which is the free- 240 ITALICS. dom of the soul, should be recognised as beyond appeal, that all God asks of us is the honest and earnest desiee to BeUeve what is True and to Do what is Right, and that when our hearts con demn us not for any failure or faltering in this high aim, then ought we " to have confidence towards God", let all the teachers in the world threaten us with His wrath. This education given to women, and the habit of free converse on religious matters vrith the sound minds of men versed in the ideas and criticism of the age, — would assuredly be the fitting protections for them against fanaticism, the proper preparations for them of a life of steady and rational piety. We may add yet more. Such education would fit them to use the special intuitive consciousness of holy things wherewith God has endowed them, in performing their share in the religious progress of the race ; and even as a mother's gentle lessons sink deep est into a child's heart, so might the tender sympathies of wife and sister draw many a hus band and brother by " the cords of a man and the bonds of love" to a piety he now rejects, because it comes to him in the guise of inteUec tual weakness and ignorance. THE NEMESIS OF WOMAN. 241 This is what might be the religious education of women. This is what enlightened affection for them ought to teach their fathers to give them, even when the error of their mother's own training makes them incapable of thus strength ening them. But what is the fact ? What is the actual education of young women all over Eu rope — in England as well as elsewhere ? What is the training chosen by fathers for their daughters, and afterwards prolonged through life by the influence of nearly every other man — husband, brother, friend, or acquaintance with whom they come in contact ? Surely, it is hardly too much to say that it is the re verse of aU this. In CathoUc countries, even priest-hating fathers, who bring up their boys to laugh at Romish superstitions, almost inva riably send their daughters to convents to be crammed with them from six years old to sixteen. In Protestant England or Germany they are not sent to convents but schools, or are in structed by governesses at home. And what is looked for in these schools and governesses ? Breadth of thought, largeness of culture, gene ral mental soundness and power ? I confess I M 242 ITALICS. hardly ever yet heard of a father who dreamed of looking for such qualities in the instructress of his daughter. On the contrary, multiplicity and brilliancy of superficial acquirements are the qualities in demand ; and, for reUgious opinions, the strictest form of orthodoxy of whatever the parents' church may be. A governess, or school mistress, who shoiUd admit herself to have latitu dinarian ideas, or even to have an acquaintance with works of German, French, and EngUsh free criticism, would hardly succeed in obtaining pupils in one famUy in a thousand. A young English lady of twenty or twenty-five years of age has gone usually through a course which would be absolutely suited to its object were it the deUberate purpose of her parents to make her as narrow-minded and bigoted as possible. She has had her memory and imagination cul tivated, but hardly ever her reasoning powers ; she knows a good deal of history, geography, music, and drawing, but nothing of logic, geo metry, or the various philosophical and religious systems of the world; she has attended the places of worship of her own sect, never those of any other ; she has read works to instU one set THE NEMESIS OF WOMAN. 243 of opinions, and never opened those which dis pute them ; she has seen dozens of people who either beUeve as she has been taught to do, or in her presence sedulously restrain a word or smile which should betray a doubt of them ; she has perhaps never once in her life experienced the curiously expansive results of looking at a good and honest human countenance, and re flecting that the owner was one of those she has been taught to consider outside the pale of Divine favour. AU this her parents have managed for her in her school-room ; but her little world, when she enters it at last, is pretty sure to do stiU more, and enforce the lesson by every kind of obloquy against divergence from the beaten track, and sentimental admiration for an excess of credulity. I would appeal to every woman whether in her youth this influence did not reach her from almost every man with whom she came in contact — no encouragement to read or think, no useful guidance to the mode of supplying, by self-culture, the terrible blanks left in her mental education, but always the same soothing voice, " Keep just where you are, it is safe — it is graceful for a woman to believe ; the more she M 2 244 ITALICS. can believe the more charming she is. Why should you vex your brains, which are meant for softer themes, with such hard problems as those of theology ? You wiU gain nothing by so doing, but peril to your soul. Remain orthodox, and you are safe, and women wiU love, and men approve, you. To diverge from it is to be dreaded by your own sex, and disUked by the other." Where does all this come from ? Why do men wish their daughters, sisters, wives, to be lieve more than they do themselves ? What pleasure can it be to them to keep them outside of their deepest interests, incapable of sharing with them their greatest thoughts ? There are several reasons for it all. Some of these are vain and sentimental. Feminine debiUty and dependence of mind, is the correlative of that physical weakness and cowardice which some men seem to need, to throw into relief a sense of their own strength and courage. A learned woman, a logical woman, a large-thoughted woman, distresses them by failing in her vocation in this way, and not aUowing their Eton Gram mar and Aldridge, and manly audacity of scep ticism about Balaam or the Flood, to stand out THE NEMESIS OP WOMAN. 245 in proper splendour of contrast. It is as bad that she should be "strong-minded" as "able- bodied" and strong-nerved, — and for the same reason. This is the poorest form of masculine dislike to female freedom of thought. Then there is a sentimental objection, felt by better minds than the last. They see how good and pure are often the lives and hearts of those whose inteUects are shackled by a thousand idle fetters ; they look on a young woman as on a beautiful chUd, and wish it might never grow older lest it lose some infantine grace or simple charm. Perhaps the remembrance of struggles not passed through without severe wounds which have left scars on the conscience, may make such a man shrink from the thought of a woman pass ing through the like — ^unknowing that she will often do so in her innocence better and more safely than he has done. This is the feeling which seems to pervade many of the best class of men — a feeling which we may trace even in the wide phUosophy of In Memoriam — " Leave thou thy sister, when she prays. Her early Heaven, her happy views ; Nor with thy shadowed hint confuse A life which leads melodious days." 246 ITALICS. After aU — the poet thinks — her mistakes are whoUy innocuous. She finds spiritual tmth even in formal error — " Her faith, through form, is pure as thine. Her hands are swifter unto good ; Oh ! sacred be the flesh and blood. To which she links a life divine ! " And all which the stronger soul has to do, is, not to clear away the errors which beset the path of such goodness, but to take home to itself the beautiful lesson it is made to teach : " See, thou that countest reason ripe. In holding by the law within. Thou fail not, in a world of sin And e'en, for want of such a type." But, yet again, there is another and much lower cause for the desire of some men to keesp women in religious bonds from which they have themselves long ago escaped. That deepest Scepticism of which we have spoken before — the scepticism of the power of moral obUgations un supported by threats and bribes, takes no form more decided than the disbelief in the virtue of woman, even of the very woman the sceptic yet professes to love. Distrustful of her honour and her affection, he curiously reposes confidence in her /ears; in those very terrors of religion which THE NEMESIS OP WOMAN. 247 are the first things he has discarded as imaginary. He cannot rest on her moral conscience, nor on her loyalty to the true Lord of Conscience, but only on her beUef in certain false doctrines, her submission to priestly authority, her dread of the physical torments threatened by priests. Thus his own want of conscientiousness and real reli gion, by making him incapable of trusting their power over another, throw him on resources, which, to his own recognition, are mere delu sions. He trusts his wife's virtue to no motive he thinks a true one, but solely to one he is con vinced is false. If she should perceive, then, some day that it is a false motive, he thinks she must be lost since she was supported by it alone, and by nothing more real. What marvel is it, that proceeding on such grounds, such a man should take the best care in the world that his wife, to the end of her days, should never discover that the basis of her virtue is all a mistake ? We need not dwell on the ugly features of this matter, the lack it betrays of all that should en noble the relations of men and women. Fortu nately, we may be assured that in England, at all events, things very seldom reach the point we 248 ITALICS. have described, and that even very base men feel that EngUsh women, on the whole, have other motives for keeping in a course of honour than any which the fictions of theology can supply, and that real love and loyalty to God and good ness, are paramount to fear. StUl, the notion that such threats have some use, and that it would be by no means wise to forego such ad vantage as they may offer, is beyond doubt a prevalent one, and takes a not inconsiderable place among the many motives of sentiment which combine to make men rather labour to obscure than to enUghten the religion of women. But, whatever Umits we may put to the pre valence of such ideas in England, it is obvious enough they have had great sway in southern lands, and under priesthoods more greedy of power than our own. In Belgium, France, Southern Germany, and Italy, women, from the Dark Ages, downward, have been left to grope among whatever superstitions their confessors and directors chose to teach them, withont an effort, so far as we know, on the part of men to with draw them from such influences. Of course, there have been no deliberate designs to bring them THE NEMESIS OP WOMAN. 249 up, generation after generation, in stupid cre- duUty. Neither a sex nor a class is ever con sciously and deUberately unjust to another. Fathers, who sent their daughters for education to the most bigoted convents, and husbands who held out no helping hand to them afterwards to escape from the slough, were as little alive to the wrong they were doing as the old Roman philo sophers, who never raised a finger to put down domestic slavery or elevate their slaves. Fathers and phUosophers aUke, took it as a matter of course, that women and bondsmen should con tinue mentally and physically enslaved. It was in the order of things that it should be so ; and this order had a side gratifying to the sentiments, and reassuring to the fears of those who main tained it. The result of this course, persisted in for ages, has come in our day into clear reUef. In aU Protestant countries, in a moderate degree — in all CathoUc countries, in an exorbitant degree — women are at this moment the upholders of whatever is most opposed to the progress and en- Ughtenment of humanity. Everywhere supersti tion, uprooted from men's minds, clings tightly M 3 250 ITALICS. round the souls of women, and spreads its poison ous infiuence from that sure ground. Everywhere the most designing and ambitious of the clergy find in women their best tools for promoting their schemes of political or spiritual despotism. Above aU, in Italy, is this dire misfortune most fuUy experienced. Here, where least con fidence has been either placed in them, or perhaps deserved by them — ^here, where they have most completely given over to ecclesiastical rule — here, in the land where nuns are " Murate" and " Se- polte vive," and daughters, wives, and mothers, left to adore winking Madonnas, and follow the direction of one of those priests whose gross and degraded faces strike the beholder with disgust — in this land the Nemesis of Woman has come indeed. After ages of disunion and misgovernment, worse than those of any other country in Europe, the ItaUan nation has arisen in our day and taken for itself in the world's sight the glorious posi tion of a free and united people. Probably, never before has a poUtical revolution, simUarly en gaged the hearts of the whole mass of a nation, and been equally the ardent desire of noble and THE NEMESIS OF WOMAN. 251 peasant, citizen and mountaineer. It must be seen to be understood, how the achievements already made stir the pride, and the further achievements yet expected rouse the hopes, of every man from highest to lowest with whom the traveUer comes in contact. The sacrifices of the long-cherished local glories of the several pro vinces, sacrifices freely and joyfully accompUshed for the attainment of an United Italy — the hitherto unexperienced taxes borne by the whole population — and the stUl more trying conscrip tion for the enormous army, aU endured in the hope of forming at last a free and power ful nation — these solid proofs would suffice, did we not meet in every rank and class through out the conntry, an interest in the subject quite amazing to witness. A few years ago, no one talked politics in Italy. Now, no one talks of anything else. It is not too much to say that the hope of completing the Kingdom, by the annexation of Rome and Venice, is at this hour nearer to the heart of nine ItaUans out of ten than any political object whatever is to one EngUshman in a thousand, and that few fears of a personal sort would weigh with them against the 252 ITALICS. horror of a retum to the ancient regime, darkened by all the accumulated vengeance of the restored priests and despots. Yet these hopes stiU hang in the balance, these fears are stUl full of menace. Italy has triumph antly passed through the first act of her drama of Restoration ; bnt there are many more yet to be performed ere the most sanguine can conceive the play to be acted out. Venice must be wrenched from Austria, Rome from the Pope ; and both without the nation rushing to certain destruction upon French bayonets, or permitting itself to be dismembered in the confusion of even a temporary defeat. Naples must be civilised, and redeemed from brigandage; and aU the seven provinces of the new kingdom fused into an union much more real than any which now exists. The Army must be completed, and the Navy created. A new Civil and Criminal Code must be composed and estabUshed. The use of free poUtical and judicial institutions must be taught to whole provinces, hitherto acquainted only with the methods of oppression and corrup tion. The perilous deficit in the revenue of three hundred miUions per annum, must somehow be THE NEMESIS OP WOMAN. 253 stopped short of national bankruptcy. Last, not least, the solemn problem of the future reUgion of the country must be solved, and some mezzo termine arrived at between the abandonment of all public recognition of the reUgious element in humanity, and the subservience of the Civil power to the tyranny of Rome. All these labours of Hercules yet Ue before the young nation, ere it may for a moment repose under the belief that its freedom is secured, and that evUs and dis grace, worse than aU those of the past, may not yet end aU its high hopes and proud promises. In this life and death struggle of a nation, it is not then a Ught thing, that well nigh half the population of the country should be, if not dis loyal, yet at least open to influences from the enemy. Of aU the foes of Italy, none are to be compared for danger to the reactionary priests ; in fact, with them and their machinations must sink or swim the cause of despotism or freedom, of disunion or unity. But these priests — bitter foes that they are of the New Kingdom, unscru pulous and cruel as all the world has recognised them for ages — these priests have got, in almost every household in the land, a spy and an accom- 254 ITALICS. plice; Jesuits, Capuchins, secular priests, and nuns, — they have between them the women of the upper ranks and of the lower, the matrons who seek them in confession, and the young girls who are placed in their convents for educa tion. A few women, indeed, set them at nought utterly ; a few more adhere to the party of Pas- sagUa, and choose their directors among the Liberal Clergy; a great many more, we must beUeve, give their heart's sympathies to the cause of their husbands and sons, albeit their tyrants force them to act as their betrayers. But, as a rule, the women of Italy are mere tools in the hands of the Neri, They have little or no com prehension of, or sympathy for, the great changes through which their country is passing : and the one thing they do see, and regard with consterna tion, is, that a rebelUon is going on against those in whose hands alone they have been taught to believe lie the keys of heaven and heU. The English reader may suppose that much of this description of the state of things must needs be exaggerated ; that it is impossible things can be so bad as this. Books of poUtics and news paper reports say nothing of them ; and English THE NEMESIS OP WOMAN. 255 traveUers, — intent on the Parliament or the Army, Mazzinians or Liberals, — ^have little chance of getting into the interior of Italian homes, where such evU is at work. Yet, he that has seen any way beneath the surface of domestic Ufe, from Piedmont to Naples, can testify that no descrip tion can weU be exaggerated of the fatal influence at this moment of the priesthood over the women of Italy. Once open on the theme in any company of ItaUan men, there is an outburst of complaints — a torrent of anecdotes. Here is an officer, who tells how his friend and comrade, a man of rank and high promise, fought gallantly at Magenta and Solferino, and seemed made to reach the best posts in the army; but his wife, hearken ing to the incessant lesson of her confessor that her husband was lost for ever if he remained under the ItaUan standard, exercised over him such influence, that at last, to pacify her, he threw up his commission. Here is a gentleman to whom a lady confided her regrets that she had been driven to induce her husband by prayers and tears to vote against his and her poUtical faith. Her Confessor had refused her absolution tiU she succeeded, and though she 256 ITALICS. cared much for her country and honestly believed the vote injurious, she dared not hazard her soul. Here again, are anecdotes of daughters who would not marry tUl their lovers should give up their employments under Government, and mothers who made their sons betray to them every infor mation which the priests desired to obtain. WUen it is remembered that all this goes on, — not in England where certain lines of official honesty are clearly drawn — but in Italy where there are hardly such lines left at aU by the utter cor ruptions of the past — not in England where there is little social caballing, but in Italy where aU social life is a complicated intrigue — then some faint notion may be gained of the state of affairs, of the dangers involved in the fact that nine- tenths of the women of Italy are the tools of the priests. Truly, the Italian gentleman is to be pitied whose heart is full of patriotic aspirations, who devotes his life to the redemption of his country, and who returns to his home from the camp or the senate to know that every word he says will probably be carried by his wife to her Con fessor, and that his mother's counsels have pro bably been dictated to her by the bitterest enemy THE NEMESIS OF WOMAN. 257 of his cause. That thousands are now enduring a paraUel misery in that country where females have been for ages left to suffer all the degradation of superstition, is a terrible instance of natural justice. If Italy, in her death-struggle, should faint and fail (which God forbid 1), among the causes which wiU have laid her at the feet of her enemies wiU be their influence over her women. Among the efforts which the new Govemment are making for the benefit of the country, few are wiser, it would seem, than the aid given to education of females. Hitherto, however Uttle was done for boys, stiU less by far was done for girls ; but the present Government has pretty weU placed the schools for the different sexes on a level both as to numbers of schools and the education given them. At present about half the female teachers in the Elementary Schools are necessarily Nuns — a sufficient supply of lay-schoolmistresses for the enormous number of new schools, being unattainable. The nuns, however, who act as teachers are wholly under secular supervision, and a regular supply of lay- teachers is being prepared as rapidly as possible 258 ITALICS. in the Scuole Normale all over the country. I have carefully examined the curriculum of in struction for these young teachers, and can only say if they get through the half of it, we may have no fear afterwards of London University Examinations for Ladies ! By the time these teachers are taught and have then taught their pupils, and these pupils have gone forth to be the wives and mothers of future Italy, priestly domi nion will have been far undermined. It is now, alas ! in the hour of struggle that the need is felt for such a change, and that Nemesis cannot be put off with any promises for the next generation. The New Code now preparing for presentation to ParUament, wiU, it is said, include several Articles, altering very essentially the position of ItaUan women. It will make Marriage a Civil Contract, leaving the special terms of it, it ap pears, very much to the option of the parties. It will also give women holding property. Muni cipal though not poUtical rights, and enable them to vote for the election of city officers, mayors, etc. It would be premature to pass any opinion on these projected laws which are yet merely sketched in the incomplete Code. Their THE NEMESIS OP WOMAN. 259 appearance there, however, seems to afford suffi cient testimony that the legislators of United Italy have no intention of perpetuating the old order of things as regards women — any more than as regards other matters. It is to be hoped, in any case, that before a law becomes effective which grants to women any political or municipal rights whatever, the generation which has benefited by the improved education, may at aU events, have partiaUy appeared on the stage. Ladies trained in convents in their youth. and ever since occupied only in those trivial amusements favoured by the priests and the old regimie, must assuredly be much more fit for judging of an opera or selecting a becoming- bonnet, than for giving votes on matters of poUtics. It would be rather a cruel chance if to such women were confided the first trial of any legislation affording new privileges to the sex.* * WhUe these sheets are passing through the press, an eminent divine of the Church of England has denounced the judgment of the Privy Cotmcil in the case of Drs. Wil liams and Wilson, and appealed in the Times for considera tion for the poor mothers who dread lest their sons be taught that future punishment is not eternal. Women are first drilled by the clergy into certain beliefs, and then their bigoted adherence to them is made a reason for teach ing those beliefs to their sons for ever. CHAPTER XII. CATHOLIC ITALY. nj'^HB subject of the present condition of religion -*- in Italy is one of great interest, yet not to be approached without considerable pain. In nearly all the past great revolutions of Christen dom, and notably in those of England, strong re ligious feelings were at work, and brought an element of deep solemnity into the struggle. In Italy, however, according to the unanimous testi mony of every witness, the interest in reUgious things has reached the very lowest ebb yet marked in the chart of Europe's history. The subject of Religion itself, in truth, has become generally distasteful to the minds of ItaUan men — if not of Italian women. A sort of Chinese indifferentism pervades the nation. "We have enough to do," they seem to feel, "with the affairs of this world — with poUtics, and raUways, CATHOLIC ITALY. 261 and the opera. Why trouble our heads about Heaven, and Hell, and Purgatory ? They are places which belong to the priests, if they have any existence at aU, which is a question we cannot spare time to consider." The bitterest enemies of the Papacy do but condemn it on secular grounds, the political tyranny it inflicts on its subjects, and the corruption of its jurisprudence ; and, above all, its opposition to the wishes ofthe ItaUan nation to make Rome their capital. It is not because the Pope and his priests, by their degrading theology, darken men's souls, and cloud to their eyes the light of the Divine Goodness, that their Church is hated. It is because, by their political action, they thwart the progress of the country. If the ItaUans curse Pio IX, it is not for shutting against them the gates of the Heavenly Kingdom, but those of the City of Rome. In this respect, indeed, the Papal government is detested enough to satisfy Exeter HaU itself. The word " Prete" (priest) is invariably pronounced by every ItaUan through his teeth, and with a pecuUar sneer, and every portion of the Romish system — even the most solemn services of the Church — are the fa vourite topics of private ridicule, and the carica- 262 ITALICS. tures of the public humorous papers. When we consider how shocked we should be in England to see " Punch" put forth sketches of incidents happening in a church, and that even a caricature of Convocation would hardly be thought in good taste, some idea may be formed of the sentiments of Tuscans, NeapoUtans, and Piedmontese, who crowd round the shop windows to applaud pic tures turning into jest all the ministers and ser vices of their reUgion — the Pope receiving a slap in the back {una solenne scullacciata) from Gari baldi — ^his general leading a corps of chorister boys vrith incense pots and cruciflxes, shouting "Pax vobiscum" — winking Madonnas with priests pulling the strings — or the image of Christ him self on the altar, kicking off the Pope's tiara, exclaiming : " My kingdom is not of this world." All these straws, flung out every week to the wind of popular feeling over Italy, prove beyond a doubt the current in which it sets at this moment. The mournful truth is manifest, that the pres sure of Romanism in Italy has effected a mischief deeper than any hitherto worked by false creeds in Europe. It has poisoned, or rather arrested. CATHOLIC ITALY. 263 the flow of the reUgious sentiment of the nation almost at the spring head. It is not marvellous that it should have done so. Superstition, Uke slavery, is an evil whose magnitude we under estimate altogether, if we imagine that human souls can be subjected to its degradation for ages, and at a moment's call arise fitted for freedom, and able to experience the emotions of piety. Every false doctrine and debasing observance must leave behind it more or less distorted ideas, more or less palsied feelings, and the vis medica- trix naturae (as real in the moral world as in the physical) can at least only effect a slow and im perfect restoration. But in Italy, religious error has aUied itself with secular tyranny — the error being the grossest, the tyranny the most corrupt which modern times have witnessed, and the re sidt is inevitably beyond the ordinary ill conse quences of superstition. Had Popery been merely a spiritual evil in Italy, it is possible it might have left behind it here, as it did in England at the Reformation, the fervent faith of the Marian Martyrs and the Pilgrim Fathers, to prove the yet unconquered vitaUty of the religious element in the nation. It might have left behind it en- 264 ITALICS. thusiasts who would have warred against and de stroyed it, because they loved Truth passionately enough to hate Error. The Iconoclast is the son of the" Idolater by the natural order of moral generation, and a hopeful symptom of vigorous Ufe in a nation is the appearance in its great crises of bands of such men, even if their zeal border on fanaticism. Would that one spark of such a spirit burned in ItaUan breasts just now ! But the double evU of a spiritual tyranny, which has been also a political despotism, and which has offered itself as an engine of corruption and oppression, shows itself in this, that it leaves those on whom it has pressed without even the energy to rise up and overthrow it. When the hour of its faU arrives^ it crumbles away, and crushes down from its own rottenness, and no hand is lifted to give it a blow — scarcely a foot raised to spurn it on the ground. Men do not clear away the wreck, and purify and hallow afresh the temple it profaned, but they pass by to the senate-house and the market-place, and the threshold of faUen Dagon is passed no more. In the old fabulous history of Ireland, there is a myth of a giant who once tyrannised over all CATHOLIC ITALY. 265 the land, and devoured the people for his food. At last, after centuries of oppression, the giant died, and men were set free. But his huge corpse lay prone upon the earth from north to south, and none could bury it, so that at last there arose frorn it a pestilence more grievous even than his tyranny had been, and men prayed that the giant might come to life again. Popery is not dead yet, nay, nor nearly dead. Old Bunyan's dream of him, sitting before his cave beside Pagan, no longer able to maul the pU grims, and falling into decrepitude, was a long forestalling of the work of years yet to come. But as the time approaches, there is but too much reason to fear that when all true Ufe has departed from the old tyrant of so many milUons of souls, there wiU be left behind the plague of a stifling indifference, an atrophy of the reUgious senti ment, which may make us weU nigh regret even the days of fanatical superstition. Of course so great a fact as this nearly uni versal indifferentism of a nation ought not to be attributed to a single cause. The tendencies of the age have much to do with it, as well as the local reaction from the ItaUan phase of Romish N 266 ITALICS. superstition. Savonarola himself, born in the latter half of the nineteenth century, would have been a very different reformer from him who Ughted the pile of books and jewels in the Piazza della Signoria at Florence. But the broader and deeper views which the progress of science and criticism have given to mankind, and which in England bring out so many eamest thinkers and men of profound religious faith — come in contact in Italy with minds wearied and disgusted by a long dominant superstition, and instead of caUing forth profounder interest and keener thoughts, lead only to the dull and stupid cry '^Anche Dio d Prete 1 Let us leave religion alone." Catholic Italy has three classes of men. There is, first, the great mass of Indifferentists, of whom I have been speaking, and who form the large majority of the nation. These all desire to retain the name of CathoUcs, despising ut terly that of Protestants, just as some Church men in England do that of " Dissenters ;" but as to their love for the Catholic reUgion, it may be averred, that if the Pope would only give up Rome, and permit of municipal and commercial reform, he might afterwards, in all safety, intro- CATHOLIC ITALY. 267 duce a second new dogma and set up Baal and Ashtaroth in St. Peter's, and they would cry, " Oh, Baal, hear us" as complacently as " Ave Maria!" Secondly, there is the far smaUer body, yet from its compactness, energy, and unscrupulous- ness, one of formidable power, the genuine Papists, who intensely care for the Church and her doctrines. This is of course the reactionary party, identical with the poUtical party nick named Codini (the Tails), and are commonly also caUed the Neri (blacks), or friends of the black-robed priests. Thirdly, there is the party of Reforming Ca tholics, headed by Padre Passaglia, of whom I shaU speak in a separate chapter. The Neri form a party, as I have said, of great power, presenting a very serious danger to the existing govemment, although their actual numbers be not very considerable. It contains, of course, aU the priesthood except Passaglia's ten thousand, and such proportion more as may be supposed to sympathise secretly vrith his re forms vrithout committing themselves publicly to the cause. The party also contains the ma- N 2 268 ITALICS. jority of the nobility of Tuscany and Naples (not of Piedmont), and the superstitious part of the population everywhere — the utterly ignorant and the women. Especially in the mountains and remote villages are the Neri to be found — just as at the fall of the old worship of Jupiter, idolatry still lingered on the heaths and in the hamlets after it was banished from the more civilised parts of the country, the idolaters being called Heathens and Pagans (villagers) in consequence.* .Thus we have a party formed of elements from the opposite extremes of society; the princely old historic houses of Rome and Florence; the illiterate peasants and savage ban dits of the mountains of the Appenines and the A.bruzzi ; and finally the high-born, bigoted ladies, educated in nunneries, a,nd knowing nothing of the world but their own inane coteries ; and the poor besotted women, who crowd round the altars of winking Madonnas, and offer tapers for lucky tickets in the lottery. * Monsignore Benier, Bishop of Peltre and BeUuno, in his Pastoral for Lent, 1864, laments grievously that the Catholic religion is now " driven from the towns and taking refuge in the villages." CATHOLIC ITALY. 269 It would be a great mistake to judge this party of the Neri as if there were nothing to be said in defence of their views or even of their bigotry. If anything could make us doubt that all human progress, even when it seems to carry us away from the altars of our fathers, must be truly a Progress towards God, and that every truth man acquires, whether it be positive truth or negative truth, must in the last result tend to strengthen his faith in the aU-righteous Lord, — • if anything, I say, could make us doubt this eternal principle, it would be the observation of the present state of reUgion in Italy, and the fearful rebound of men's minds in that country from Superstition to Scepticism. Even in Eng land, all who are not profoundly imbued with faith in the ultimate victory of reUgious truth, and convinced of the impossibility of ever doing God's work with the aid of man's deceptions, are to be found daily shrinking from the danger of exposing to the popular gaze the errors of the Church and of the Bible, which for ages have been entangled with our religion and our moraUty. How much more then are such hesi tations excusable in Italy, where the entire sys- 270 ITALICS. tem, religious and poUtical, of the whole land for a thousand years has been so intertwined with Catholic doctrines, that to remove such tares it would seem as if every grain of wheat in the field must be uprooted along with them ! Even a philosophic mind might be tempted to say, " Let things go on as they are — the danger is too great to be risked. Better let men continue to worship a winking doll than reverence nothing in heaven or earth. The masses, the uneducated miUions, are unfit here and everyTvhere for an enlightened creed. ' This people who know not the law are accursed.' These — saints and virgins — ^be thy gods, 0 Italy !" Much more then may men and women who are not philosophic at alL but altogether guided by sentiment and associa tions, and class prejudices and interests, desire ardently to retain the rule of the Church over the Nation. Inevitably to their judgment every blow aimed at Catholicism is a blow against the sole bulwark which yet remains against universal lawlessness and atheism. The attachment of the Catholic laity of the party I am describing to the Roman Church, is easily comprehensible ; and even when it assumes the CATHOLIC ITALY. 271 most puerile forms, has in it somewhat not to be regarded without tenderness. It is hardly to be called reUgious Faith in the higher meaning of the word. Those who hold it most fanatically, probably never dare to give an hour's examina tion to the tottering base on which it stands, or to the arguments which must level the whole structure with the ground. Yet, if not true Fa ith, it is the twUight, the after gleam of a past faith which once shone in the zenith of human thought ; and even such a tvrilight in Italy now bears vrith it a certain charm and glory. The priests themselves hold, of course, to the cause, a very different relation from that of the laity. Of the character of these Italian eccle siastics it is hard to speak. They are generaUy educated in Seminaries, where the course of in struction and physical training are such as to pervert the natural development of humanity almost as much as the artifices of Flat-head Indians or small-footed Chinese women. What can become of a young man, who from childhood till manhood, has had for sole exercise of his body half an hour or an hour's walk in double file with a score of other lads in long trailing 272 ITALICS. robes shuffling through the streets, and for exercise of his mind, only books speciaUy pre pared to imbue him with certain ideas, and mo notonous prayers, litanies, and meditations enough to stupify every faculty. Such a man's mind is not qualified to believe or disbelieve any doctrines. It is merely saturated with those with which it has been so unremittingly drenched. If the hapless beings so educated, shut out from home affections and all natural pleasures in youth, and refused the names of husband or father in later Ufe, if such beings prove narrow-minded, depraved, inhuman, what marvel is it ? What has there ever been done to make them wide of thought or pure in natural affections, or mercifiil through having been treated mercifully? The wonder is not that Romish priests should often be bad, but that they should ever be good. The actual characters of the ecclesiastics thus trained very naturally fall into two categories — the honest bigots, and the hypocrites. Of the relative proportions of the two, it is not for human spectators to decide. Of course, the more able the man may be, the more likely it is for him to belong to the latter class, and to use the CATHOLIC ITALY. 273 wretched juggling miracles and social intrigues of his Church, with the clearer consciousness of their falsehood. The whole ethics of Catholicism, however, witb which the minds of aU have been imbued, sanction so much for the cause of the Church (nay, who can say what they would not sanction for that cause ?) that it would be hard to decide when the priest, who pulls the string of a miraculous Madonna ; or adds another to the sixteen legs of St. Mark, scattered over Italy; or refuses absolution to a wife till she betray the secrets and thwart the purposes of her liberal husband, is really self-rebuked for the turpitude of his action. Of the personal morality of the priests more than enough has been said ere now by travellers. A good Italian once ex plained to me that we were wrong in confounding the vow of celibacy taken by all ecclesiastics with the vow of chastity taken only by the monastic orders, and that a secular priest, usuaUy without blame, openly avails himself of the difference. In Rome there is more prudery, and (according to every testimony) far more depravity. It is not to be wondered at, that vrith this monstrous paradox before their eyes at all times of ceUbacy n8 274 ITALICS. erected into a divine virtue — Saints canonised for it, and a Virgin adored as a goddess — and, on the other hand, the priesthood (vowed to this. superhuman virtue) leading lives which are the scandal and corruption of society — it is not to be wondered at, I say, if the result be what we behold, the greatest confusion in the moral sense of the nation regarding the whole subject of chastity.* I am not at aU sure that among the Italian laity, elsewhere than in Rome, there is as much moral disorder as has been alleged. Cer tainly I have seen numberless famiUes living together in great domestic unity and peace, in a way which some stories would lead us to suppose was almost unknown in Italy. But one thing, '* J. H. Newman has lately told us, that the Catholic Church holds that this virtue counterpoises all such vices as lying, idleness, dirt, etc. ; and that a filthy false-tongued mendicant, if chaste, has a chance of heaven denied to an upright and benevolent statesman of opposite habits. It is to be asked how fai the CathoUc clergy of Italy would con sent to be tried hereafter on such a principle. A friend has informed me that, once when lodging in Eome, she received — as it happened, alone, — ^the visit of an elderly Monsignore, to whom she had au introduction. After his short and formal call, her Boman servant apologised for speaking, but begged to warn her it was not proper in Bome for a lady to receive an ecclesiastic alone in her salone. Any body else, of course, si; ma un Monsignore, n6! Eti quettes of this kind are somewhat significant. CATHOLIC ITALY. 275 nobody who has conversed much vrith ItaUans can doubt — ^viz., that their theory of domestic moraUty is an extraordinaiy jumble of inconsist encies, and whoUy excludes the notion, that fidelity of sentiment is required to form a part of virtue. One of the best Italian gentlemen I ever met, endeavoured once to teU me a long and un pleasant story, iUustrative, as he assured me, of the great goodness of Englishwomen, for whom he entertained a profound respect. An EngUsh lady, residing with her husband in Florence, had attracted a Tuscan gentleman. Violent declara tions were made by him, and listened to com placently by the lady, who retumed his attach ment. FinaUy, after many such scenes, she asked him did he love her enough to do whatever she required ? The lover swore obedience. " Then," said the lady, " leave me for ever, and never see me more." " Was not this," said my Italian friend, " a noble action ? Was she not a virtuous woman ? I don't know where one would meet vrith any body to do the same; for, re member, she reaUy loved the Tuscan !" " More shame for her," of course I replied, and en deavoured to explain to Signor S., that to 276 ITALICS. receive passionate declarations of attachment^ and return such feelings, was already an offence in a married woman, and that any good English woman would consider such declarations as in sults. "You don't — ^you can't, mean it," said my friend ; " it is impossible." He was long in credulous ; but when at last I satisfied him of the truth, I shaU never forget the comical solemnity of wonder vrith which he Ufted up his hands and dropped them again, ejaculating " Cosa stu- penda !" At the head of the Catholic hierarchy, the present Pope stands clear of aU imputations such as his predecessors have too commonly deserved. There is much in the character of this remarkable man which vrill hereafter " point a moral " of the insufficiency of good dispositions to contend with a position so untenable as that of a reforming Pope. Probably, from the moment when he fled from Rome, and gave up his hopes of fulfiUing the glorious promise wherewith his reign com menced, he has been an embittered man, and his honhommie, once genuine, has changed to a somewhat hypocritical douceu7-eiox behaviour, con cealing not a little spite and duplicity. Such, at CATHOLIC ITALY. 277 least, is the character I have heard of him from many well able to form an opinion. He may, or may not, mean well to any individual ; but his good wUl, or semblance of such, is not to be relied on for an instant. The following anecdote of him is very amusing, and was told me on good authority. It is of course, however, of smaU importance as indicative of character, othervrise than as a dis play of his weU-known finesse. A young nobleman of the Papal States, on succeeding to his family title, found that his uncle and predecessor had expended nearly the whole property in assisting the Pope at the time of his fiight from Rome. The young man was left all but penniless; he accordingly naturally determined to seek Pio IX, expose his condi tion, and implore from his Holiness either re payment, or some such office as would recom pense his loss. It proved, however, no easy matter for him to obtain the desired interview. By some unaccountable contingency, the Pope was never able to receive him, though he applied through many channels for the favour. Months passed on, and finally two or three years, and the young nobleman was still soliciting the permission 278 ITALICS. to lay his claim before his holy debtor. At last, the Pope undertook one of his journeys; the noble man followed him, found him on one occasion less carefully guarded than usual, forced the consigne at his private door, and entering the sacred presence, threw himself at his Holiness' feet, and expounded his case. The Pope Ustened both patiently and amiably while the youth detailed all that his uncle had given, and how the family estates were mortgaged in conse quence, and how since the uncle's death he had been seeking the Pope to obtain favourable con sideration of his claims. The Pope, as I have said, listened most graciously, insomuch that the nobleman congratulated himself in the con fident hope that his petition would assuredly be granted. "And how long ago is it," said the Pope, " since your excellent uncle died ?" "Just four years ago, may it please your Holiness." " Then," returned the Pope, " for four years exactly, il suo signor zio has received in heaven the reward of his magnanimous devotion to the Holy See, — Benedicite ! " This said, and extend ing his two fingers over the abashed and kneeling suppliant, Pio IX swept out of the room. CATHOLIC ITALY. 279 The different orders of monks and nuns hold of course a very different relation to the present state of things, and it would perhaps be hard to involve them all under the head of active enemies of the Italian Kingdom. The more wealthy and powerful Orders, of course, are so ; the Domin icans, whose office it has always been to uphold Orthodoxy, as the Auto-da-Fds of Spain and the Inquisition of Rome have weU testified, and the Jesuits, who are more Roman than Rome itself; the quintessential spirit of all the ambition, per fidy, and relentlessness of that eril Church. The poor Franciscans, however, it is said, are often in the remote villages preachers of goodwill and honesty, and if they carry vrith them the bad ex ample of beggary elevated into a virtue, they make up for it in a degree by also setting a pattern of cheerfulness and pious resignation. The Domin icans and the Jesuits are Uke ideal Spanish Dons — dark, haughty, and inscrutable ; the Capuchin is more like an Irish peasant — simple, with a spice of humour, open-hearted, wholly undigni fied, and with an amazing preponderance of the theologie over the moral virtues. Perhaps I may generaUse from too smaU an experience, but 280 ITALICS. of many Franciscans with whom I have come in contact in Europe and the East, I have never known one who was not thus semi-Irish in dis position, and eridently quite as fully deceived as deceiving as to the marvellous stories he was ready to pour out. There is a hearty laugh to be had very often with a good brother of St. Francis in his brown cowl and incomprehensible accumulation of vermin. But where is the man or woman who could laugh with a Jesuit or a Dominican — the good laugh from the heart, I mean, — which means that quo-ad the joke in question we are in fuU accord ? I have tried it with a Cistercian; a magnificent six-foot jolly giant in white robes, who was selUng me some celestial liqueur such as oiUy monks and nuns can make all the world over — but the Padre was not to be got very far on the road to a joke. Not so a Capuchin, who took on himself to encourage me to do penance, so that I might go to heaven, for (as he explained) if one wants ever to get there, " ci vuole far penitenza," "How ought I to do penance?" said I, very innocently. "Ia. the first place," said the good Franciscan, "you must go barefoot as I do; that is a most im- CATHOLIC ITALY. 281 portant matter." "Oh, Padre mio," I exclaimed, "excuse me. I hope to go to heaven con buoni stivaletli" (showing him a very stout pair of English boots qualified to cope vrith the pave ment of Rome). The idea of going to Paradise in Balmorals so tickled the fancy of my Fran ciscan, that he went into fits of uproarious laughter which echoed down the chambers where we were standing — the grim chambers of bones and mummies in the convent of the Capuccini at Rome — and not a Uttle startled the visitors who happened to be at the further end. Every sort of droll story is told of these poor feUows in Italy. On one occasion, one of them was preaching very vehemently, having, as usual, on one side of his pulpit a small crucifix. By some ill chance, in the very climax of the ser mon, PoUcinello came round a neighbouring street, and the Italian congregation undergoing the invincible attraction of that sublime drama, which may be said to be the great national tragedy of Italy and England, gradually sidled away from the preacher to look at Punch. Find ing, at last, that half his audience had dissolved itself, the poor Franciscan, outraged in his ten- 282 ITALICS. derest feeUngs, caught up the crucifix with his left hand, and, striking it vehemently with his right, exclaimed, "Ecco! fratelli miei! do not ran away after that wretched show — Ecco il vero PoUcinello ! " * » On another occasion, a Capuchin preaching on St. Lawrence's day, struck out a reaUy novel figure of rhetoric. We have aU had enough of orators who suppose that they saw wondrous scenes or hea,rd sounds of woe or victory, but it was reserved for this good monk to smell a holy martyr with the nose of the imagination. Stretch ing over his pulpit on three sides successively, he commenced his discourse like the giant in the story of Jack and the Bean-stalk, by sniffing violently, and exclaiming " Sento came !" (I smell flesh.) Then, inquiringly, "E lesso?" (Is it boiled ?) Sniff, Sniff, Sniff. " No non e lesso!" (No, it is not boiled.) Sniff, Sniff, Sniff. "E arrostito?" (Is it roast ?) Sniff. SHE a/rrostito ! 0, Lorenzo, che brugia il fuoco, etc. ! (Yes ! It is roast. Oh, Lawrence burning in the fire, etc.) The effect upon the audience was tremendous. Surely the hint might be of use to * Here is the true Punch. CATHOLIC ITALY. 283 some orators in our country in want of a flgure of rhetoric not as yet exhausted and run to the death. Some other monkish sermons I have heard of are hardly less absurd, and much more mischie vous in doctrine. One of them, of deplorable impiety, was preached some few years ago in Naples, in honour of St. Joseph. The lesson it was intended to enforce was the especial advan tage to be derived from paying devotion to that saint. A great sinner, the preacher affirmed, had died not long before, a man who had com mitted aU sorts of crimes, but he had diligently offered in his lifetime a large amount of candles and intercessions to San Giuseppe, and when he was dead they were not forgotten. God sent the sinner to heU, but St. Joseph would not give up his votary and went to hell after him. After St. Joseph went the Virgin, who would not stay be hind when her husband was gone ; and after the Virgin went Christ, who would not leave his mother. Then aU the angels and archangels went after Christ till Heaven was left empty. So God was obliged to forgive the sinner, and let him come to Heaven, that St. Joseph and Mary and Christ 284 ITALICS. and the angels might all retum along with him, and not leave Paradise unpeopled for ever ! Vice and superstition among the clergy are not, however, alas ! their sole defects. The cruelty of priests is almost proverbial all the world over. Debarred from the most endearing and softening domestic ties, and forming among themselves a close corporation vrith interests apart from those of the community, they have ever been pitUess and remorseless in the persecution of their foes. In Rome the malignant enmity of the Govern ment and its relentless oppression of political opponents is a matter so well recognised, that it is an every day occurrence to hear, when a man has offended them in the smallest way, (by not illuminating his house, for instance, on some Papalino demonstration) , " Ai ! poor fellow, his fate is settled. Priests never forgive." An in stance of cruelty not acted in Rome, but sanc tioned by Roman authorities, occurred in Vienna in 1858, and is well worth recording. A Jewish lady had a child which her own health did not permit her to nurse. She and her husband had for many years longed for the little one, and now he was born their great re- CATHOLIC ITALY. 285 joicings were checked by the difficulty of pro curing for him proper nourishment. It was a delicate baby, for whom nothing would answer but the natural food, and at the time, as it hap pened, no Jewish nurse could be procured. With some trouble, however, and the help of abun dant money, a Catholic woman was found ready to undertake the office, and the infant appeared to thrive very well in her charge. Presently the parents were horrified at being told by the wet-nurse that her priest had positively forbidden her to feed the Jewish child. She dared not do so again ! The father instantly appUed to the priest, then to his ecclesiastical superiors, to rescind this cruel order, which he justly represented was equivalent to a sentence of death upon his chUd. It was of no avail. No Christian woman could be aUowed to nurse an infldel's baby, unless, indeed, he would consent to give it up to be baptised and educated as a Christian. The hours passed, and the poor little feeble creature, refusing to take the only food its parents could offer, grew iU and convulsed. The Jews in Vienna made every possible exer tion to obtain the revocation of the order to 286 ITALICS. the nurse, and telegraphed to Rome that in terest might be made with the Church autho rities. It was all in vain. There was no mercy with the priests, and the Austrian government would not interfere vrith them. Before the ensuing night the poor father and mother had the misery of seeing their only child expire of hunger before their eyes. Nemesis, however, in this case overtook at least some of the guilty parties. Almost imme diately after the death of the Jewish child, the same Government which had decUned to inter fere between the Catholic priesthood and their rictims, found itself in need of large sums to carry on the war then beginning in Italy. Of course it was to the great Jevrish houses it ap pUed for the loan ; but M. Rothschild, nobly adopting as his own the wrong done to his coreligionaire, refused to afford Austria any assistance. In vain were aU persuasions, — no Jewish money could then be obtained, and Ma genta and Solferino came to pass whUe the Austrian coffers were gaping for supplies, which (as M. Rothschild himself told my informant) the cruel behaviour of the government on the CATHOLIC ITALY. 287 occasion of the Jewish child's death, coupled with the affair of Mortara, prevented him from granting. The lesson was not thrown away. The Jews in Austria vriU doubtless never again, in their present advanced political position, be com peUed by any government to submit to similar wrongs on the part of the priesthood of Rome. CHAPTER XIII. PADEE PASSAGLIA. pARLO PASSAGLIA, or, as he is called by ^^ his friends (according to a custom common among the Italian nobiUty) Don Carlo, is the son of the late General Passaglia, a Lucchese gentle man, having good estates in Lucca and a palace in Florence. The family is an old one, and belongs to that class in Italy which (whether titled or otherwise) corresponds with our landed gentry. Don Carlo, haring only a sister, and no brother, his father's property would naturally have devolved upon him, exclusive of the smaU dowry paid thirty years ago to daughters. His choice of the priesthood was, therefore, a great divergence from custom. It seems that, in his childhood, he was a studious and religious boy, much attracted by ecclesiastical ceremonies, but his final decision was made under circumstances PADEE PASSAGLIA. 289 with a little dash of romance curious to attach to the character of the great Cathohc theologian — the Dante who was to descend through aU the tortuous giri of Patiistic lore, and find the doc trine of the Immaculate Conception at the bot tom — ^had also in his boyhood a Beatrice, a bright particular star (aged, we beUeve about sixteen when he was twelve), whose charms and merits made profound impression on Carlo's heart. "Dante's" affection was warm and constant for a long period in his young life, till in an eril hour, Beatrice, Uke her forerunner, proved un true. An old rich nobleman, whom by no idol atry of fancy could Carlo think she reaUy loved, obtained her hand, and at the marriage cere mony, which he stoicaUy attended, the heart of the boy of thirteen formed, in its bitterness, the terrible resolution to give up such dreams for ever, and become a priest. A Life of Ignatius Loyola, lately perused, and doubtless compUed with the express purpose of attracting young converts, decided his vocation in the direction of the CoUege of Jesuits. He thereupon gave him self up to severe study, and soon obtained re markable success. At seventeen he was already o 290 ITALICS. giring lectures very numerously attended. When the time came for him at the end of his no viciate to adopt definitely the habit of the So ciety of Jesus, he was called upon to make the sacrifice of his whole inheritance, or else relinquish his Order. Not that it is to be supposed that the Jesuits would have objected in the smaUest degree to admit a wealthy convert into their company, but the wise Leopoldine Laws of Tuscany had foreseen that this generous readiness on their part, might possibly be sometimes stretched so far as to lead them even to take measures especially to induce young men of fortune to enter the Society of Jesus, and had provided for such a contingency by making it imperative on the convert in such cases to transfer the whole of his real property to some member of his family. How far such legislation in the unimpeachably CathoUc country of Tuscany lends any colour to the cruel assertions of Protes tants, concerning the probity of the Romish Orders, we may perhaps be allowed to pause. and reflect. Unquestionably, if the interests of the community at large were equally regarded by the R.R. P.P. with those of their society; or that Catholic legisla- PADEE PASSAGLIA. 291 tors thought that those of the community and the Society were one; there would have been smaU need for encumbering the statute book of Tuscany by any such prorision. However this may be, young PassagUa found himself obUged to choose between the black gown and vow of obedience of the Jesuit and the inheritance of an estate valued at 200,000 scudi, or about £45,000 sterling ; a large sum for Italy and not a smaU one any where. The choice was made, and Don Carlo entered the fraternity, of which he remained a member for nearly thirty years, inclusive of his noritiate. This fact ought assuredly to be borne in mind in every estimate of this remarkable man. In his own Une of religious devotion he has shown quite as much disinterestedness as Garibaldi has done in secular affairs. If the one has refused to be rewarded for his patriotism, the other has first sacrificed a large fortune to serve, as he doubtless supposed, the cause of God; and then, when this sacrifice, at the end of thirty years, led him within the grasp of a sceptre, more powerful than that of any of the kings of the earth, — the staff of Ge neral of the Jesuits, — ^he again relinquished his o2 292 ITALICS. prospects of ambition at the caU of duty, and sank into the simple Catholic priest, separated from his mighty Order, and (as his chiefs told him) "powerless as the stick taken out of the bundle and ready to be broken by hands which could not have touched it before." Once aflfiliated to the Jesuits, PassagUa went to Rome and pursued patiently the studies of Patristic, and mediaeval theology, which graduaUy raised him to the greatest eminence in the CathoUc Church, so that when the Pope desired to find authority for estabUshing his favourite dogma, of the Immaculate Conception, it was to Don Carlo he naturally applied, not as it may be supposed, as if the young Jesuit were personally specially devoted to the interests of the Madonna, and anxious to procure for her all the honour which is understood to come from being bom unlike other people, but simply because he was known to be the most learned of living divines in the pecuUar literature appertaining to such matters. This was indeed the case, as the stupendous tomes of erudition he produced on the occasion amply demonstrated ; tomes which were hailed with deUght by the clergy who up- PADEE PASSAGLIA. 293 held the dogma, and which ensured for Passaglia the strong personal friendship of the Pope for many years, — tiU the champion ofthe Immaculate Virgin became the enemy of the Temporalities of the Holy See. It is, perhaps, hard for us in England to esti mate fairly the value of leaming, such as that possessed by a man Uke PassagUa ; it seems and is so perfectly abstracted from aU the real interests of . Ufe, and, indeed, from anything deserving the name of Truth at aU. If we heard of a man who knew all the controversies from Ptolemy to Descartes about the vortices of the planet Venus, and had made the most accurate measurements of the size which each philosopher maintained that imaginary vortex ought to have been, and where and how it inight impinge (had it existed) on other vortices (had any such been found in the universe), then, indeed, we may paral lel the leaming employed in demonstrating from the Fathers and Schoolmen the dimensions of the ultramundane and mysterious nimbus they have pleased to attach to the brows of the simple Mary of Nazareth. StUl, vain and dreary as it is, this leaming is doubtless not acquired without many 294 ITALICS. meritorious mental conquests, and an amount of training of the memory which all of us must envy. As to the reasoning powers of the human mind, whether they exert themselves better or worse in the vacuum of such speculations, may be a ques tion. To perform the processes of logic with no ground at all whereon to erect any proposition whatever, must needs be an arduous, if, possibly, a not very serriceable proceeding. The triumphant success of PassagUa, in prov ing that the Virgin was immaculately conceived, was immediately foUowed by the proclamation, or, as the Pope more deUcately phrased it in Latin, the definition of the dogma. Having re ceived from the seven hundred bishops of CathoUc Christendom affirmative answers (in aU but a handful of cases) to the query he had sent them, " Did they believe the Virgin immaculate ?" and having found five hundred to adrise further that the doctrine should be immediately announced, he considered it needless to defer the much desired ceremony whereby the " Queen of Heaven " was to be advanced so far in the honour of earth. True that the letters of the bishops hardly rea lised the requisite authorisation of an oecumenical PADEE PASSAGLIA. 295 Council. To estabUsh a dogma of any kind, it had been always affirmed that it was requisite to unite Pope and Council together — not the Pope without the Council, or the Council without the Pope, but both in harmony. Then that DiAdne Spirit, promised to every two or three gathered in Christ's name, and emphatically assured to the united Church, was (it was thought) inevit ably present and the Inspirer of all decrees. How far any one conversant in the history of the various (Ecumenical CouncUs, from Ephesus to Trent, could persuade themselves that ind.eed God's love and wisdom ruled in these assembhes of crafty and cruel men it is hard to think. Still, the opinion was received, and the Pope, in passing it by, and inventing his plan of letters of acquiescence, ran no smaU risk of his work being hereafter questioned. The device was, indeed, prompted by a well-grounded fear lest a real Council assembled in the flesh might have caused no smaU difficulty and disturbance. It was not, perhaps, a very flt subject to discuss in Parlia mentary form, that same dogma, though Councils of priests have rarely been awed by any sanctity of theme from expending their eloquence even on 296 ITALICS. the most awful mysteries of the nature of the Triune God. But, in any case, the Pope's queries and the Bishop's responses, were somewhat such a transaction, as if Lord Palmerston were to send the draught of a pet ministerial BiU to aU mem bers of Parliament by the penny post, with a request they would attach " aye " thereto, with their signatures ; and that, in the intervals of grouse shooting. Workhouse Boards, farming, hunting, croquet, and other senatorial pursuits, the M.P.'s sent back the document with "AH Right" endorsed thereon, followed by their honoured names ; whereupon the Queen should attach her signature, and the BUl become law. It must have been a singular scene that in which this marveUous dogma was "deflned." As many Monsignori, and high dignitaries ofthe Church, as conld be coUected vrithout danger, were gathered in St. Peter's; and the delighted PioIX, trembUng with excitement and shedding floods of tears, took his seat on that famous Chair from which the very authority of ex Cathedra declarations has become proverbial. Did that same Chair, under its covering of cloth of gold, shake under the surprising words which that day issued from PADEE PASSAGLIA. 297 between its arms ? That is the chair on which ChampoUion {teste Lady Morgan) avers that he read in Arabic letters, engraved upon the back, the great Moslem symbol of faith, "La Allah illah AUah ! Mahomet resoul Allah ! " Oh, dark-minded Saracen, who affirmed that there was " no god but God" ! From that very Chair was to proceed the decree that there are no less than Four Persons, sinless and stainless, the rightful claimants of human prayers ! Rome had been inundated for months -^ith the sup- pUcations men were to use to the Madonna, and Litanies in which, after addresses to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it was added, "Io vi adqro Maria Santissima, Sposa dell' Spirito Santo," and arguments enough to confound the most rebelUous intellect were pressed on the pubUc. "Eno"ch was certainly immaculate, or he could not have, been taken to heaven without going through Purgatory. But would the Holy Ghost have made any man immaculate, and not have done at least as much for his own Divine Spouse? It is impossible. K Enoch went to heaven, Mary was conceived without sin." — Q. E. D.* * S^ch (as we have been assured by a gentleman at o3 298 ITALICS. All was ready at last, and the tearful Pope finally announced to Christendom that, beyond all doubt, the Virgin was immaculately conceived. The glorious news impressed the world differ ently. Everywhere the more fanatically-minded rejoiced, and erected in France, Belgium, and Italy an infinite number of columns, on the top of each of which there is a Madonna, and some times (as in Rome) round the base a few Old Testament prophets, who look up with a surprise very natural to Moses, David, and Isaiah, at seeing, at the end of three thousand years, the first commandment abrogated, and a Nazarene woman put over their heads. But though the Jesuits aided the Pope in this matter, and the Capuchins (who ages before had continuaUy volunteered to undergo the ordeal in behalf of her immaculateness) were in ecstacies of joy, the Dominicans, and the more learned clergy generally, were a good deal disgusted. They did not doubt the Madonna — oh, no! no body did that, save heretics ; yet they felt it was hardly a judicious thing, in the nineteenth cen- Eome at the time) was actuaUy one of the arguments dis tributed as described. PADEE PASSAGLIA. 299 tury, to add another dogma to the bundle, already tolerably heavy, which weighed on the Catholic world. Could they not leave things as they were ? Open questions left in Churches afford the most wholesome safety-valves. When they are shut down close, vrith legal penalties to keep them secure, it sometimes happens that "when the fire kindles" there is an explosion. Anyway, the Immaculate Conception offers a field for Protestant satire, and is a needless weight added to the load on the Cathohc mind. Who knows but it may prove the straw which breaks that much-enduring animal's back ? Wben Pio IX was tumed out of Rome in '48, PassagUa had fied at the same time, and traveUed in Germany and England. He returned with the Pope, and grew in his graces and in the strong personal friendship of the General of the Jesuits, tUl, at the beginning of the troubles between the Papal See and Piedmont, the Pope sent him to negociate vrith Cavour, in hopes of arriving at some mezzo termine agreeable to all parties. This was the turning-point of Don Carlo's Ufe, and it is to his honour to think that the great patriot-statesman of Italy found in 800 ITALICS. him, not an impracticable diplomatist, but a man who (Jesuit though he was) had a mind open to see the true interests of his country, and a heart to embrace their cause, even to the destruction of his own career. Passaglia retumed to Rome to strive as well as he might to aid a friendly un derstanding. After a time he declared himself opposed to the Temporal Power, and used his learning to prove it was a thing unsupported by the authority of the Fathers. Then began the war against him. He retired from the ranks of the Jesuits (whether before or after his first at tack on the Temporal Power, I am uncertain), and the anger of that tremendous Society was bitter indeed. The English CathoUc lady, at whose house he then resided as her chaplain, received private intormatioTi from priests that she must secure that he should eat nothing but eggs for some days, since no other precaution would suffice to guard him from poison. The Palazzo Spada, where they resided, was entered by gens-d'armes, and when the lady asked to see the warrant, and sent the officer away till he should produce it, the house was beset and watched by a whole troop. Woman's wit and friendly aid. PADEE PASSAGLIA. 301 however, were able to baffle the enemy. Before the warrant arrived for Passaglia's apprehension, he had passed from the apartments occupied by Mrs. F. into the other portion of the Palazzo Spada. There — where in the great desolate hall, with its faded frescoes, stands the awful statue of Pompey with his outstretched arm (the statue at whose feet it is beUeved that Caesar fell) — in one of the innumerable apartments of the palace, Passaglia was concealed. Next night the owner gave a large party to aU the fashionables in Rome. The police were in despair, for, amidst aU the comings and goings, and crowds of servants and carriages, their prey might escape from his lair and disappear. Their fears were weU founded. The Principe and Principessa T entered one of the apartments, escorted by the noble owner ; and soon afterwards, the Principessa T left it on the arm of a gentleman in the dress of the Prince, who entered her carriage vrith her, and drove away in perfect safety, leaving the Prince to foUow when he had comfortably donned his host's attire ! After spending the rest of the night in a safe hiding place, Passaglia started at dawn in a small 302 ITALICS. carretta, vrith a servant whose dress and his own were nearly alike. They passed unquestioned through the Porta del Popolo, drove fast to the Ponte MoUe, and, beyond it, found three other servants of the T s, well equipped for the joumey, and haring vrith them a led horse for the fugitive. Away they galloped — dread ing, of course, every figure on the road. At last, when nearly overcome with fatigue, they reached the frontier, and managed by crossing the fields at night to evade discovery. Next moming PassagUa was welcomed vrith open arms by the people of free Italy, and his further journey was a continual ovation. In every town the authorities came to pay him their respects and express to him their sympathy. His cousin, to whom he had made over his paternal inherit ance, and who, being now married and with many chUdren, could not restore him the bulk of it, offered him 20,000 scudi, which henceforth se cured his independence. He proceeded to Turin, and soon organised the scheme of a Uberal party in the Church. Between that time and this (a period of three years) nine thousand two hundred clergy have signed his famous petition against the PADEE PASSAGLIA. 803 Temporal Power, and may be reckoned as his definite adherents. These men are all subject to infinite vexations, and often to absolute ruin (by the vrithdrawal of their clerical functions) from their ecclesiastical superiors, and they re ceive no favour, or even support against such tyranny, by the national government. There must needs therefore be some sterhng stuff in them generaUy, although their rank, socially and inteUectuaUy, does not seem to be often con siderable, and undoubtedly some unworthy liber tines have chosen to enter their ranks. To aid his cause PassagUa pubUshes two journals. La Pace, a smaU daily sheet, discussing ecclesias tical and poUtical matters, as our Record, Patriot, and Inquirer do, and the Mediatore, a weekly octavo brochure, containing leamed articles of his own, and letters from his friends. At present it has been occupied for some time in very dry disquisitions on the rather unpromising theme of the accuracy of M. Renan's statements in the Vie de Jesus. Two years ago PassagUa com menced a series of sermons in MUan which ex cited great interest, but the Archbishop forbade him to complete the course. He has now long 804 ITALICS. oeased to exercise clerical functions of any kind, although he gives Lectures constantly as Pro fessor, and is not regularly excommunicated. PassagUa's election to a seat in the Italian Par liament, is thought by some of his friends to be a hindrance to his work as an ecclesiastical reformer. He speaks always in a scholastic style of argu ment, unsuited to anything but an ancient Church CouncU, and curiously out of place in a modem senate, where the question is not how old autho rities decided a question, but how the clearest good sense of our time wiU do so. Of course his main work is to obtain relief from the oppres sion of their superiors, for the nine thousand two hundred clergy who foUow his banner. He is persuaded that, were the govemment to afford these (its true friends) any measure of pro tection — ^not to speak of favour, they would be followed immediately by thousands of other priests, who now do not venture to risk the losses of aU means of support which such parti sanship with freedom incurs. He assured me that hundreds of the Uberal clergy were on the verge of actual want — many of his personal friends Uring on a franc a day, in consequence PADEE PASSAGLIA. 305 of the withdrawal by their ecclesiastical superiors of the privilege of performing the functions by which they gained their livelihood. The refusal of the goveriiment and parUament to afford these men any redress appears marveUously short sighted, and can only be reconciled, either with entire indifference to Church matters and disin cUnation to meddle vrith them (a disincUnation not displayed when convents are to be sup pressed and Church property appropriated), or else to a latent conviction that, to use a popular phrase, by giving the Church of Rome "rope enough" it vriU end in destroying itself in the opinion of the nation, and that it is most desir able to do nothing to check that impending strangulation ! Assuredly many enlightened peo ple in Italy think that the longer the wrongs of the Temporal Power are allowed to go on, the more speedy and complete will be the downfal of the double tyranny of Romanism. To this, of course, Passaglia vehemently objects, asserting with emphasis that it is not only Popery but Religion itself which suffers every day the Pope remains the Temporal Master of Rome. In the interest of piety and morality themselves he claims that 306 ITALICS. this monstrous evil be ended by the joint labours of ecclesiastics and laymen : the laymen's part being to support the priests in their denuncia tion of it. This question, of the Temporal Power is at present the great aim of aU Passaglia's labours. The corresponding reform of the CeUbacy of the Clergy, which we in England have been led to think of equal interest to him (as it is undoubt edly of much greater importance to the whole CathoUc world), is in his"" estimation a matter which may Ue by for future agitation. The new Code now preparing will make Marriage a Civil Contract, and (if it contain no clause to the con trary) the priests who may choose to marry, wiU find it possible to do so with the aid of any Syndic sufficiently liberal to give his signature to the con tract. But Padre PassagUa does not think one hun dred priests will avail themselves of the law, nor that they ought to do so. They could only marry out of the Church, not with the Church's sanc tion, and this he would by no means commend. It might be lawful, but as St. Paul said, "All things lawful were not expedient." The sanction of the Church, which could alone render the mar- PADEE PASSAGLIA. 307 riage of priests fitting, could only be obtained by a General Council. No real Council has been held since that of Trent, and Passaglia earnestly desires that one might be gathered hereafter, to aboUsh the enforced ceUbacy of the clergy, and make other reforms. He deprecates all reforms made against the Hierarchy, saying that at best they may be outside of the Hierarchy, but never (lawfully) in opposition to it ; such opposition is " the sin of schism". As to any doctrinal changes, Passaglia desires none whatever, and assured me personaUy of his entire belief in the whole dog matic theology of the Church. His aims are purely disciplinary, not doctrinal, and only disci- pUnary so far as the fundamental constitution of the Church sanctions reform, or rather, return to more primitive arrangements. Passaglia is an exceedingly handsome man; taU, resolute, and powerful-looking; reminding me of a certain Bishop who has aimed at far deeper and bolder reform in England. But his countenance is exactly the reverse in point of ex pression, being anything but calculated pecu Uarly to engage confidence. The massive square jaw, and somewhat narrower high forehead, are 808 ITALICS. singular. His manners are very dignified ; and assuredly the beautiful Tuscan language never sounded more perfect than from his Ups. It is divine Italian ! Altogether, there are not a great many men in the world more remarkable in various ways than Don Carlo PassagUa. CHAPTER XIV. MADONNA IMMACOLATA. A NY notice of the state of religion in Italy ¦'-*- would be very incomplete without an allu sion to the marvellous new worship which of late years has nearly assumed the position of the sole Uving sentiment of the country. Renan was surely right when he said that the real Trinity of modem Roman CathoUcism is represented not by the nominal pictures of it — setting forth the Father, Son, and Dirine Dove — but by those others so common in Italy, caUed pictures of the Madonna Incoronata. In these last the Father and the Son seated, to the right and the left, place a crown on the head of the Virgin, who stands or kneels to receive it. Theologians in this and many other instances, give us theo ries and formal dogmas, but Art reveals to us 310 ITALICS. the thought which lies practically in the heart of mankind, and affords at once evidence of what men are really feeling and thinking, and an historical gallery of what they have felt and thought in past ages. Thus the theoretical Trinity has been replaced by another actually worshipped. And further, the members of this Triad have altered their order of precedence in the popular sentiment within late centuries, and are altering still further even now. The pictures of the Supreme Father, never frequent at any time, at first from Jewish reverence, later too probably from indifference, gave place to the Son represented as the Saviour. Then the Son became only the Infant, and Mary holding him in her arms was the prominent figure. Latterly (and notably since the publication of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception), the Babe has disappeared, and the Virgin stands alone — some times with the Seven Swords in her heart — more often, very recently, in simple glory, with the crescent moon under her feet, and the stars round her head, and her arms gently opened to receive and bless the world. On every waU of field or street in Italy, may be seen a shrine more MADONNA IMMACOLATA. 311 or less humble or imposing, containing behind its wire screen or window, an image of Madonna with some Uttle offering of lamp and fiowers be fore it. On piUars in the country and in the towns, she stands, an object in every point of sight. Let the traveUer examine these figures carefully, and he wiU always find that the old ones, from the bas-reliefs in marble to the poor little blue and yeUow majoUca images, imitated from Luca deUa Robbia's work, are Madonnas with the Child. The most recent, either handsome or paltry, scarcely ever contain the Bambino at all, it is simply the "Madonna Immacolata." Three or four centuries ago this was apparently far from the case, as the old wooden crosses, covered vrith the frightful implements of the Crucifixion, (cock and robe, and nails and spear,) and the exquisite iron ones on the way to the Monastery of Val- ombrosa, sufficiently testify. But equally in Italy, Savoy, and France, the Crosses are nearly aU old, the Madonnas nearly aU new ; and of the Madonnas, those vrith the Child are oldest, those without the ChUd, newest of all. No one ques tions, I beUeve, the fact, that Mariolatry is every day grovring in the South of Europe. CathoUcs 312 ITALICS. regard the fact generally with satisfaction. Evan geUcal Protestants raise their hands in horror, and adduce it as evidence of the Apocalyptic abominations of Rome. To the philosophic en quirer into the religious history of our race, the subject seems to demand a very careful and un prejudiced investigation. How has this modifi cation of Christianity occurred ? Is it the work of priests, or have priests (as much oftener happens) only gone with the tide of human senti ments and aided, but not determined their direc tion ? Why or wherefore, from what unfathomed deep in our common nature, or from what local and temporary " wind of doctrine", over southern nations in our century, has this current of emo tion arisen ? It is not in a trifling work like the present that these questions can be exarCiined, but a few reflections on the matter can hardly be out of place in any book treating of the present state of things in Italy. I have beside me a little pamphlet of rather singular character. It is entitled Ritratto di Maria in Cielo, and is published by the Pro testant party in Florence, 1868. The frontis piece consists of a rather artistic woodcut. MADONNA IMMACOLATA. 318 representing a woman of some sixty years old, much worn by care and suffering, but serene in piety and resignation. The book itself con tains an innocent romance about an abbess and a painter, who both arrived at the discovery that the Virgin Mary, at her death, must have been very much older than Raphael depicts her; in fact, very like the figure in the frontispiece ; and that all the sorrows she underwent, and the chUdren she bore, could not have faUed to leave her very much wrinkled and faded. Of course, as she was carried up by bodily Assumption into Heaven, we are justified in arguing from her looks at death to her present looks in paradise. There are some curious suggestions about this little book. Certainly the ideal Madonna is very different from what any body supposes the historical Mary of Nazareth to have been. She is and must always be, a beautiful and noble woman, in whom the purity of the Virgin, and the dignity of the Mother, — all that is most Divine in Humanity, and most human in Dirinity, is united. Make Mary old and plain, and she can no longer be Madonna. The Italian Protestant is quite wise in his generation to take p 314 ITALICS. up this line of the argument ; immeasurably vriser than the Irish Protestant who only quotes texts against idolatry, and elaborately demonstrates that the Apostles never worshipped the Virgin. If Catholics could but be persuaded that their beautiful, stately Queen of Heaven was ever an aged and care-worn Syrian peasant, there would be an amazing change in their sentiments. Her poverty and humble position they can admit, , nay, revere as something sacred. The assertion of the mischievous Jews, in the Toldot-Jeschut, that she was a milUner, the evidence in the Gospels that she was a simple village carpenter's wife, does not disturb them. There is no such feeUng now in the Christian world such as that which in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries made the Spaniards reach the supreme cUmax of moral vulgarity by transforming her into a Duchess, and the fishermen-Apostles into Marquises of GaUlee and Barons of Bethany.* Mary may be poor and simple of degree, without detraction * In the palace of the Duke of Medina CceU there is a picture of the Virgin in brocaded silk, exchanging compli ments with the founder of the fanuly. He motions to her to take precedence ; but she draws back, and says, " Ad vance, sir ! You are the Head of my House." MADONNA IMMACOLATA. 315 from her glory. But one thing she must not be ¦—ugly. Here is, perhaps, some clue to the mystery of the apotheosis by two-thirds of Christendom of a humble woman, to whom, so far as history or even tradition goes, we do not owe directly a single lesson, and whom naturally we should have expected to have been honoured only in the re flection of her Son's honour, yet who practically has ecUpsed that Son in the hearts of mUUons. The Ideal Mary has actually hardly a point of material historic fact to grow out of. But, in truth, such air-plants as ideal characters — men transformed into ideaUsations of manhood, women made ideaUsations of womanhood — thrive in the souls of their worshippers aU the more freely and vigorously, perhaps, when there is less of the earth at their roots. Mary of Nazareth has grown into the Madonna Immacolata, " Heaven's Queen and Mother both," and taken the place of Isis, Astarte, Ceres — aU the mother-gods of old, pos sibly aU the more easily, because the four Evan geUsts pass over her story in a few brief words. Be this as it may, it is certain that the historical Mary seems to have very Uttle attraction for the p2 316 ITALICS. most devoted adorers of the Madonna and the Panaghia. Every traveUer must have noticed with the same amazement as myself, how the crowds of Greek and Latin pilgrims in Jerusalem rush round the Sacred Places all day long, bow ing here, kneeling there, crossing, prostrating themselves, — gabbUng over the prayers which are to be of special avaU spoken in such locaUties, like Barak's " Curse me them /rom thence." No question of criticism; no hesitation as to the genuine spot ever ffits across their gaping faces. " Here is the place where Judas gave the kiss," or "where St. Veronica offered her handkerchief" — it is all equaUy satisfactory. But the Virgin's Tomb, — a rehc having quite as good claims as the rest, shrined in a Uttle Gothic chapel, buUt by the Crusaders close to Gethsemane, — nobody ever seems to visit; or, if visited at all, it is but as one of the minor " lions" ; not, as might have been expected, as second to, or equal with, the Holy Sepulchre itself. The door is constantly closed, and no guardian monk is in attendance either for his own devotions, or for the purpose of opening it for any casual pilgrim's backshish. Hardly could the same thing happen regarding any other MADONNA IMMACOLATA. 317 Catholic church or shrine, however humble, in any southern land. It is not, then, the remains of the dead Mary of Nazareth these pilgrims from every country in Europe desire to worship.* They adore the memorials of Christ's career with almost fanatical enthusiasm, but the Madonna (to whom at home they say ten prayers for one ad dressed to her Son) they do not care to think about as having lived and died in that place, a simple woman of Nazareth, such as those whose sweet faces they may, perhaps, see any day in the streets of Jerusalem. There is a cause which Protestants are accus tomed to allege as the proximate one for Mario latry. It is said that Catholics are afraid or * Some weight should, perhaps, be given to the influence of the popular beUef that Mary had, Uke her Son, a Eesur rection from the grave and bodily Ascension into heaven. This idea — exemplified in many great paintings, and notably in Titian's gorgeous Assumption at Venice — ^belongs to an early age, and may be fitly considered as the double-rainbow of the story of Christ — the repeated reflection of the beau tiful thought, thrown out by Hope on the falling tears of grieving friends. But, as the idea of Christ's bodUy Eesur rection has not prevented his sepulchre from being the chosen shrine of Christendom since the days of Helena, it does not appear why that of Mary should have prevented her tomb from being a place of pUgrimage, resorted to with a fervour proportioned to her relative share of adoration. 318 ITALICS. ashamed to pray to God or to Christ for the gra tification of their lower desires, but that they think they may ask of the Virgin, as of an over- indulgent human mother, every kind of thing they may covet — money, honour, success in love, vengeance, or a prize lottery ticket. Thus people pray to Mary out of vrickedness, not virtue ; and the favour in which her worship is found is a standard to gauge the deprarity of the age. There is, I suppose, some degree of truth in this view. No doubt school girls, French and Italian (as they have told me themselves), do pray to the Virgin vrith the full sanction of their convent-school teachers, for new frocks, bon bons, escape from punishment and specially de lightful hoUdays. " La chere Sainte Vierge," addressed by a young chUd who brings her a rose and talks to her as to a fairy godmother, is supposed to be fuU of infinite good-nature and not to be offended by the very idlest requests. Also it is certain that men and women of the ignorant classes continually pray to the Virgin for aU sorts of things which we disconnect utterly from the notion of reUgion. The number of wax candles on many shrines would dvrindle if it were MADONNA IMMACOLATA. 319 known that the Madonna would not hearken to petitions for lucky lottery tickets. Flowers would be more scarce on her altars did it escape that she never aided the course of love (true or otherwise) to run more smoothly than it was disposed. Brigands would buy fewer leaden images of her, blessed by his Holiness, to hang round their necks, were they aware that she does not arrange that rich travellers be robbed even by her most faithful adherents. Take away the Pa ganism of the thing — (a Paganism quite as gross and absurd as any belonging to the ancestors of the ItaUans two thousand years ago) — and Mario latry would certainly lose a number of vo taries. But would the worship of the Madonna therefore cease ? When aU these siUy and super stitious and wicked people were tumed away from her altars, would those altars be wholly deserted? I do not believe anything of the kind. I do not beUeve that the adoration of the Virgin Mary, any more than any other strong reUgious impulse of humanity, springs mainly from eril or low feeUngs. However degraded it has been, and as every worship must eventually be which is addressed to any being save the Ho- 320 ITALICS. Uest, it does not arise from degraded motives. If it had been so it would not have been on a Virgin Mother that would ¦ have gathered the halo of Deity. Men may pray to the Madonna Immaco lata to help them in profligacy, and erect her temple as Notre Dame de la Haine, where they may ask her for revenge on their enemies. But if profligates and assassins had invented a reUgion they would not have committed the in congruity of putting up a Holy Virgin to Usten to such prayers. Others than they have made the idol they honour — honour vrith such simple stupidity that they commonly imagine there are as many Madonnas in heaven as there are images of her. on earth. If they heard that there was another more potent witch or fairy, they would transfer their homage to her, Uke Browning's CaUban ; but those who have made Mary, the Catholic " Queen of Heaven," would remain faithful to her; and her worship, more pure, would be none the less fervent than it is now. We must look for the source of Mariolatry higher up in human nature than this muddy rill of selfish passion which has dribbled into it. Some Egyptologers affirm that the belief in MADONNA IMMACOLATA. 321 One only God was from earUest times received by the educated classes, and that the polytheism of the people was nothing more than the separa tion of the Attributes of the One God and their worship as distinct Deities : Osiris being His goodness, Ammon His creative power, Thoth His vrisdom, and so on. The theory finds sup port from the fact that nearly aU the separate gods of the Pantheon seem to have been grouped in Triads as the local deities of the different towns, and interchanged one vrith another in the various Triads, in a way very natural if they were only symbols of the attributes of One God, but equaUy perplexing if they were understood to be distinct beings. Whether this view of Egyptian theology be correct or othervrise, it affords at all events a good parallel to what has taken place more or less under many other creeds. Man needs for his God just so many attributes as at the stage of his progress he perceives to be Divine. First, Retributive Justice and Power; then Wisdom; then Clemency and Mercy; at last, perfect Love. The epoch at which a new concep tion is to be added to the old must always be one of reUgious excitement proportioned to the p8 322 ITALICS. religious earnestness of the nation which receives it and ofits advance towards monotheism. A fresh Ganesa or Avatur of Vishnu was doubtless added to Braminism, a Minerva or Prometheus to Greek mythology, vrithout disturbance or diffi culty. But when the Jews added to their con ceptions of Jehovah the idea of the Father of All men — when the Arabs took in the thought of the absolute Sovereignty of Allah — there were the stupendous revolutions of Christianity and Islam. Probably, if we could discern their sources, we should find that, at bottom, all the stirrings of religious change, the enthusiastic de votion to new found Gods (such as Mithras and Serapis), by the old heathens, and the rise of the great Orders of Catholicism and Sects of Protes tantism, pointed to some modification of, or rather accretion to, the prior idea of God. Not to press this thought too far, we may at least admit, that a Theology which does not make place for aU the great Attributes which the human consciousness and Reason announce to us as belonging to onr Maker, must remain a Theology hable to disturbance and modification whenever its deficiency becomes sensible. If it MADONNA IMMACOLATA. 323 be a dogmatic Theology, professing to contain the whole scheme of Divine things, then it must either perish or submit to the scandal of adding a new Dogma to its canon. Only a Theology wliich professes itself incomplete, and leaves room for fresh truths, can admit of constitutional Progress vrithout such Revolutions. At this hour the Church of England heaves in the struggle to admit the modern idea of Dirine Goodness, that is, of a Goodness which must exclude the existence of HeU. The heart of the nation presses for the reception of the new idea. The clergy vehemently refuse it entrance, and thereby do their uttermost to make the Reform a Revolution. The Church of Rome, a few years ago, was disturbed by the popular outcry for the authorisation of a doctrine which, in fact, amounted to the apotheosis of a Feminine Divi nity. The Pope took up the cause, and stopped all further struggle by proclaiming to astonished Catholics that a New Dogma had been defined — the Virgin was bom Immaculate. Very ab surd, and very pitiful, in some respects, was this great Romish movement ; but under the guise of a tenet only fit for the diseased imaginations 324 ITALICS. of mediaeval monks to have invented, it is pos sible we may find there lurked some Idea whose development marked a real step in the progress of CathoUc Christendom. "The world never apostatizes." Designing priests, poUtic Popes, fanatic monks and nuns have not made Mario latry, only fostered it. Mariolatry means some thing beyond a scheme for the aggrandisement of any Church or Order. It were worth a great deal if we could find out what that meaning reaUy is. A modification of creed, which has been going on in an ever increasing ratio for a thousand years throughout half Christendom, tiU it has fairly made a new Trinity, and directed all the freshest and most enthusiastic devotion to a new Divinity, is surely a phenomenon worthy of profoundest study. Its cause — could we ascer tain it — might avail not a Uttle to throw light on the mysteries of the religious nature of man and the Divine truths towards which (albeit, dimly, and in many a misleading myth and fable) his aspirations must point. The clue which may, perhaps, guide us some steps in this inquiry, must be the answer to the question, " What is it which Catholics worship MADONNA IMMACOLATA. 325 in the Madonna ?" It is quite clear, as we have already remarked, that they have idealised her out of aU identity with the historical wife of the Nazarene carpenter. The " Blessed Mother of God," "Queen of Heaven," " Star of the Sea," is quite another personage from any recorded by BibUcal historians or even Patristic tradition- aUsts. What is this ideaUsed Madonna ? If we had found her in Greek, Hindoo, or Egjrptian pantheon, how should we have described her ? Wliich Divine Attribute does she represent ? There can be Uttle doubt, I think, that the Maidonna personifies Goodness, Mildness, Pity, — in a word. Motherly Tenderness, She is the representative of aU the feminine virtues and perfections. Purity, SimpUcity, Humility ; but, above these and in pre-eminent degree, of Maternal Love, Men worship in the Madonna ideaUsed Motherhood endowed vrith the bloom ing beauty and dignity of one of the old Immor tal ^ods, and made mysteriously sacred by the added halo of virginity. She is Ceres and Minerva and Isis and Saraswati in one, and something more than aU, as the imagination of modern Europe is more profound and tender than that 326 ITALICS. of ancient Greece or Egypt or India. In wor shipping the Madonna, the CathoUc then worships a dirinity who stands in his soul's temple for the purest and most tender Love. Power, Wisdom, Sanctity are attributed to her in so far as they are needful to make up the conception of deity, but she is not adored primarily as Powerful, Wise, or Holy, — but as tenderly Loving. She is neither the Creating, Redeeming, nor Sancti fying God. Men do not look on her vrith awe as Omnipotent, nor with gratitude as a self- sacrificing Saviour, nor does it seem they often pray to her for spiritual Sanctification. They look to her with adoring affection as the most loveable being they conceive in the universe, and they implore her to comfort their sorrows and fulfil their desires, with precisely the same confiding freedom with which they rested their heads on their mother's lap in childhood, or asked of her indulgence the toys they coveted. The relation of the devotee to the Madonna is simply a repetition of the sweet and tender drama of infancy, acted in after Ufe vrith a mother crowned vrith stars and able to grant all en treaties. Mary is addressed as "Parent of God," MADONNA IMMACOLATA. 327 but she is felt rather to be the Universal Mother of Mankind. I have noticed in museums, where considerable numbers of images of Penates have been coUected, that most of them were evidently miniature portraits of women ; doubtless of the deceased female ancestors of the family, or occa sionaUy, perhaps, of some special benefactresses. The sort of dioKa paid to these Penates was a perfectly human Mother Worship — death alone had effected such Apotheosis, or rather. Canonis ation, as there was. Among the Chinese, as we aU know, the worship of deceased parents, male and female, is the most virid part of the national reUgion. A different phase of the senti ment is the adoration for a being not the mother of the individual worshiper, but contemplated abstractedly as a representative of Motherhood. The Ephesian Diana, Ceres, and Isis seem to have belonged to this order among the heathens. The CathoUc Olympus, beside several canonised human Mothers (among whom St. Monica is most noticeable), gives a supreme place to a Divine Mother in whom., — as aU Manhood was in carnated in her Son, — so aU Womanhood might be personified. The process by which the his- 328 ITALICS. torical Mary of Nazareth was transformed into such an ideal of Womanhood is not difficult to understand. If any one were to be so trans formed in the Cathohc theology it could only be the Virgin. As her Son was the new Adam, so must she have been the new Eve. The mystery of her Virgin Motherhood Ufted her at once into a region wherein no dignity, however stu pendous, could seem altogether out of place. Admitting Christ to be the God-Man, if there were to be a God-woman, it could only be his mother, whom St. Athanasius himself had re cognised as " Parent of God". The Child, as in the Chinese custom, ennobled the Parent; nor was there any other human relative to dispute her claims — ^wife, or daughter, or even sister — specified by the history. The Incarnate Deity had a mortal Mother ; but for other human ties, they we're either non-existent, or explained away by the story. Thus the only candidate for apo theosis in the CathoUc theology was Mary of Nazareth. No marvel was it, then, that when the sentiment of the Church demanded the ele vation of a new Divinity who should personate the Feminine Attributes, it was on the head of MADONNA IMMACOLATA. 329 the Virgin it placed the heavenly crown bestowed by the Father and the Son, and made with "Ma donna Incoronata" the new Trinity of Southern Christianity. What does this vride-spread sentiment, requir ing this new divinity, indicate ? It can surely only point to the fact that there was something lacking in the elder creed, which, as time went on, became a more and more sensible deficiency, tiU at last the instinct of the multitude (acting under essentially polytheistic conceptions) filled it up in this amazing manner. Other Divine attributes had been personified before, but Maternal Tenderness had been left out, and after long pressure was thus admitted at last. The position of the highest canonised saint was not sufficient for its representative. She has become, in strictest sense, "the Dirine Mother." There is a great truth and a great error in this wonderful act of CathoUc Christendom. The Protestant, who looks on it as mere stupid dere liction and idolatry, is exceedingly mistaken. The Reformed Churches have rather to ask them selves whether, in abjuring Mariolatry, they have not also abjured somewhat with which their 330 ITALICS, creed can Ul dispense. Had the old Egyptians reformed themselves, by abandoning the altars of Osiris (the Divine Goodness), and confining themselves to Ra and Thoth, the representa tives of Power and Wisdom, should we have said they gained much by the change whUe the Goodness of God remained forgotten ? The Catholic world has found a great truth — that Love, — motherly tenderness and pity, is a divine and holy thing, worthy of adoration. They have faUen into a great error, by conceiving of it, not as it is, in truth, the character of the One blessed "Parent of Good, Almighty," but as the attribute of another and inferior being. The truth is one the world should learn. The error is an inevitable result of the whole system of CathoUc theology ; in fact, is the original error of aU Polytheism — ^the attribution to secondary objects of worship of the honour due to the One God alone. How is the truth to be learned — ^the error to be foresworn ? Only in one way. When mankind, at large, receives the blessed faith that all goodness and tenderness, as well as justice, and power, and holiness, are absolutely imper sonated in God — that He is "our Father and our MADONNA IMMACOLATA. 331 Mother both," and that we have no need to multiply deities, and invent new gods, since every adorable attribute exists in its plenitude in Him. To purify our creed, by simply rejecting any Divine Person, vrithout taking up, at the same time, every Divine idea that Person conveyed to the mind of his worshipper, is impossible. We do not thus attain to more truth, but to less truth. Monotheism is not the analysis of Deity, vrith the reservation of one or more attributes. It is the synthesis of aU the true conceptions of God ever vouchsafed to man. How much the world wants this truth, which CathoUc Christendom has revealed in its myth of the Virgin's Coronation, there is small need to teU. The heart of humanity longs to rest itself on the compassion of its Creator. We have had enough of hell and "terrors of the Lord." The cry which has come from ten thou sand voices of our EngUsh clergy in behalf of the dreadful doctrine, does but testify to their sense that its power is passing — nay, has actually passed away. We are sick of such night-mare horrors, and tum away with disgust from the religious systems in which they Ue embedded. We crave. 332 ITALICS. one and aU of us, for a God whom we can per fectly, spontaneously, absolutely adore. That God is He, and He alone, who unites in one the Father's justice and the Mother's love. But if we need to adopt the truth, shadowed out by Mariolatry, we cannot blind ourselves to the evils resulting from the errors mixed up there with. In adding — as it has practically done — a new deity to its Pantheon, the Romish Church has not only gone one step further in Polytheism; it has gone a great way towards severing, even further than hitherto, the bond between morality and religion. Though the belief that the One great Judge is also our tender Parent, can only serve to help us to better obedience, — ^the belief that the Judge is a separate God, and our be loved and chosen Deity quite another — ^is no harmless delusion. Devotion to Mary does not mean at all, necessarily, a seeking for spiritual benefits of any kind. Mary may be most ardently worshipped, and her votary, in fact, Uve in com plete adoration of her {i.e., in what he beUeves to be a highly religious state) vrith exceedingly little of moral training whatever. Nor is this aU. The vile ethics of asceticism are visible MADONNA IMMACOLATA. 338 through the whole myth of the Madonna. Albeit a mother, and worshipped precisely because she is a mother, it is so managed, that natural, human motherhood, such as God has made it, should receive, not honour, bnt insult through her. She is a Virgin; herself "immaculately conceived." Her pictures must present, not glorious embodiments of maternity, like the old marble Niobe, but impossible combinations, after which the painter toUs in vain — the Maiden and the Mother in one. The laws which God has given to our nature, beautiful and sacred as they are ; the relations He has made so inexpressibly dear and sweet, are all viUfied by this degrading conception. He who would naturally feel that a human mother, pure and good, was the hoUest thing in all the world, is bade by every image of the Madonna to beheve she is not the holiest, not the most Divine. She would be hoUer if God's laws had been set aside, had she been a Virgin-mother. To be Dirine she must have escaped — not the weaknesses and fraUties of our nature, for of them there is no question, but — the beneficent material laws under which we exist. Is it any marvel that when such ideas are taught by every 384 ITALICS. symbol of religion which meets the worshipper's eye, his sense of the sanctity of natural purity should be completely perverted ? The deification of virginity can never be otherwise than the desecration of marriage. CHAPTER XIII. PEOTESTANT ITALY. rpHE problem of the success of Protestantism -^ in Italy is one of very large interest. We have aU been famUiar vrith the remark that the Great Reformation spread almost at once over all the countries, whose soU seemed filled for its re ception, and that for three centuries it has made no important progress in Europe. Political causes have been aUeged to explain this phe nomenon in a manner which shaU reserve the claims of Protestantism to possess an eternal suitabiUty to the wants of humanity — of humanity Latin and Greek, African and Asiatic, no less than Gothic and Teuton. The favourite beUef, for instance, that "^'the blood of the martyrs" must always and^invariably prove " the seed of the Church," has been formaUy reUnquished in the case of France, and it is admitted that the 66b ITALICS. dragonnades of Louis XIV effectually prevented the seed from germinating, and hindered that vast country from receiving the purer doctrines of the Reformation. English malversations and bad management, and Romish activity, have equally to explain the phenomenon of Ireland, still Catholic after two hundred years of Protest ant propagandism on the vast scale of the Irish establishment. Belgium, Catholic Germany, and Svritzerland, have Ukevrise doubtless their ex planations. Still, the fact remains that somehow Protestantism has hitherto only thriven under northern skies, or where the populations partake of a northem character. Now, in our own time, a new experiment is to be tried on a scale of great magnitude. Italy has hitherto held Protestantism at bay, by a moral cordon sanitaire of the strictest kind. The simplest attempts at Propagandism were met by such prompt and severe repression (as in the cases of Miss Cunningham and the Madiai) that it might justly be said, unless the obnoxious doctrines could enter over the '^•oofs, no door or loophole was left open for it south of the Alps. The case is now reversed. AU doors are flung PEOTESTANT ITALY. 337 open. There is an end (except of course in Rome) of any persecution, any repression of the liberty of worship, any obstruction to the free satle of Bibles. Political persecution is over, and of the social sort there exists hardly enough to effect the well-recognised serrice of binding together the persecuted party. There is UteraUy " a clear stage and no favour " for Protestantism in Italy. Government wiU neither hinder nor help it. If it have strength to grow, it may grow ; if it fail to do so, it vrill be by its own defect, and by no external repression. How wiU this important experiment succeed ? It is impossible yet to prognosticate. Two things, however, must be borne in mind, in judging hereafter of the lesson conveyed by the result. First, the Propagandism, conducted liberaUy enough, is mainly foreign— i. e., it comes either from the old nest of the Waldenses, in the vaUeys of Piedmont, or else from the missionaries sent by EngUsh and Scotch committees, stationed at Nice and Geneva. There is Uttle or no indigenous Protestantism south of Piedmont. Secondly, the form of religion thus propagated, both by Waldenses and EngUsh, is exclusively of Q 838 ITALICS. the extreme Evangelical type. Plymoutisti and Da/rbiiti (as they are absurdly called), the Walden sians and a few Wesleyani, are almost the only sects in the field. The High Church English party, I am informed, has despatched a few agents to discuss theology with the CathoUc clergy, and persuade them (if possible) that Anglicanism is an improvement on Romanism ; but it is solely the Low Churchmen in England and Scotland who support the existing church establishments throughout Italy, and pay the salaries of the preachers, only very partiaUy aided by local subscriptions of the congregations. Thus the question assumes its simplest shape. Will Evangelical Protestantism, thus fairly planted on Italian soU, take root therein, and spread abroad its branches ? If it vrill do so, the boast of its adherents that it has a divine adapta tion to the spiritual wants of humanity, wiU certainly obtain a very remarkable confirmation. If, -on the other hand, it prove that the seed can not thus grow or flourish, but continues to require perpetual sowing, while producing no corre sponding harvests of converts, then it ought to be held equally clearly demonstrated that it is not to PEOTESTANT ITALY. 389 humanity, as such, but to special races and classes of mind^ that EvangeUcalism commends itself, and is acceptable. It is difficult to over estimate the interest of such an experiment. The foUowing is an accurate account, obtained from several sources, of the state of the Protestant Church in Italy, in 1864 :— - 1. The Waldenses. Of these there are about 20,000 or 28,000, in their original vaUeys of Piedmont, and about a thousand or more scattered over Italy. These are all under a central ad ministration. 2. The Chiesa Libera, or Free Church. These differ from the Waldensian churches, not so much in doctrine as in discipline. They are not under any central administration nominally, although their pecuniary dependence on foreign support practicaUy brings them under something very like it. Theoretically, each congregation is in dependent of every other. In some of them it is also theoreticaUy held that there is properly no distinction- of clergy and laity, but that any member of the church (not a woman) may address the congregation — as among the Quakers. Only q2 340 ITALICS. very slight shades of difference in dogma exist among the various bodies. As I have said, they mostly hold those of the Plymouth Brethren and Darbyites. 3. The Wesleyans. These are sending both. money and missionaries somewhat freely from England. They have established a good congre gation at Milan, under Mr. Pigott, and aid generally the other churches. The localities of the different Protestant congregations through out Italy are as follows : — At Floeence. The Chiesa Libera, of Gualieri, number about 120 members, and have schools containing forty or fifty chUdren, in part sup ported by the Wesleyan Mission. Also the Chiesa Libera, of Magrini (a very violent Plymouth Brother) having a congregation of about 150. Also the Chiesa Waldese, which is the central one of the sect, and well filled. It has attached to it schools for boys, girls, and infants, contain ing eighty children, and a Sunday-school with forty pupils. There is also a " College of Theo logy," which has sent out nine students to the work of evangeUsation. Naples. The Chiesa Libera of Mezzacannone PEOTESTANT ITALY. 341 counts at least 200 members, who contribute re gularly to its expenses. The Waldensians have a church vrith a congregation varying from 80 to 200. Leghoen. a Waldensian church, very pro sperous, numbering 120 communicants, among whom, of course, are some foreigners residing in the towm. Attached to it are two elementary schools for boys and girls, counting 60 pupils ; an evening school frequented by 80 soldiers and 50 labourers ; a Sunday school ; a Societa di Mu tuo Soccorso, and a Confratemita to assist the sick and indigent. LucOA. A smaU, very eamest, Waldensian church of 40 persons, which has encountered many difficulties from the bigotry of the priests, who have forced it, three times during the one year of its existence as a church, to change its place of worship. In a population of 30,000, Lucca has 20 convents, and a proportion of one ecclesiastic to every 83 persons. Elba. A Waldensian church at Porto-Ferrajo, augmented by two-thirds in the last year, and having a school of 15 pupils. At Rio Marina, also, a small church of the same sect has been built, and vrill shortly be opened ; and there is a 342 ITALICS. school of 38 children. The minister of Rio Ma rina serves also a smaU congregation at Longone. Pisa. Two churches, presided over by Signor Perazzi, an ex-priest ; and Professor Michelis, formerly an advocate, both of the Chiesa Libera. A Protestant cemetery has been opened here out side the town, in a spot formerly used for the burial of unbaptised infants ; and there are schools containing 20 or 30 children. Peeugia. a small Waldensian church, which holds its meetings in the refectory of a secu larised convent, — to the vast disgust of the Car dinal-bishop. Genoa. A Chiesa Libera, with 95 communi cants ; and a Chiesa Waldese, having schools for boys, girls, and infants ; a Sunday school, and an evening school. A new church will shortly be opened in the suburb of San Pier d' Arena. De Sanctis and MazzareUa are remarkable men be longing to the Chiesa Libera here, and probably among tho most advanced in point of opinion of Italian Protestants. At PiBTEA Maeazzi, in Piedmont, near Ales sandria, there are in summer regular open air serrices attended by 300 and 400 persons of the Chiesa Waldese. PEOTESTANT ITALY. 343 PiGNEEOL. A small Waldensian church, and a school vrith 20 pupUs. The Val d' Aosta has three small Waldensian churches at Montestrutto, Aosta, and Courmayeur. TuEiN. The largest Waldensian congregation, vrith a handsome church, and two ministers en gaged in making proselytes. It has four ele mentary schools, containing 200 pupUs, a Sunday school, and an evening school. A second church wiU shortly be opened. There is also in Turin a Chiesa Libera, with about 60 communicants. Milan. The Chiese Libere boast of nearly 800 communicants, and the Waldese and Wes leyans of about 800 more. There are altogether six Protestant places of worship open in the town. At CoMO, the Waldensian place of worship for 120 persons, is found to be too smaU, and the services are repeated. At Argegno, and along the vaUey of Intelvi, there are smaU societies of Pro testants, to whom the Waldese send a mis sionary. Pavia, a small Waldensian church. Bologna, a Chiesa Libera, with about 140 members. 344 ITALICS, Bebscia, a small Waldensian congregation. At Alessandeia, Paema, Pontedeea, and An cona, there are also small Chiese Libere, and a few Protestants, (Waldese and others) are scat tered at AsTi, Aecola, Ceemona, Modena, Spez zia, Teeviglio, Monza, and Beegamo. At Pa- LBEMO there is a congregation of 50 Waldese.* The organs of the various Protestant churches are : — 1. The Eco della Verita, pubUshed at Florence, under Waldensian infiuence. This is a very re spectable controversial paper of a popular cha racter, its tone good, and the ability of some of the articles very fair. It has not long been esta bUshed, and at present has a circulation of 750 copies. 2. The Coscienza, at Naples, the organ of Mezzacannone ; a paper of no great merit. 3. The Civilta Evangelica, a new journal just started at Naples. * The Vaudois, out of a total population of 22,000, furnish forty-five missionaries for the conversion of the 22,500,000 ItaUans. Of these missionaries, eighteen are ministers. The finances of the Church, January Ist, 1864, showed a deficit of 12,000 francs, and engagements for the ensuing quarter of 18,000 more. There seemed, however, to be a reUance upon friendly aid. The figures given above aU refer to the beginning of the current year. PEOTESTANT ITALY. 345 4. The Balziglin, a small paper, written half in French and half in ItaUan, current in the Wal densian valleys. 5. The Scuola della Domenica, a paper for children, pubUshed at Florence, selling 2,500 copies, and containing smaU moral tales, such as one in which the familiar "Don't care" of our childhood receives a couleur locale by being car ried away by brigands, — and similar stories. 6. The Letture di Famiglia is a moral and Uterary periodical, supported by the Evangelicals, and bearing very fair comparison vrith our Leisure Hour. It is printed at Florence, and sells 500 copies. For the information of the English public, ac counts of Italian Protestantism are published in the News of the Churches (Edinburgh) ; and A Voice from Italy, a sheet privately distributed among those interested in the cause. There are also accounts of the progress made in Evangelical Christendom, but it is said that they are exceedingly couleur de rose. The expenses of the various churches in Italy, and the salaries of their ministers, are but very partiaUy defrayed by the respective congrega- q3 346 italics. tions. Two Committees of English and Scotch clergymen, residing at Nice and Geneva, distri bute the large contributions of British evangeli cals, and exercise, of course, proportionate au thority in nominating and appointing the minis ters. The Chiesa Waldese is principally indebted to the Free Kirk of Scotland, and the Chiesa Libera to English clergymen. On the whole, excluding the inhabitants of the Waldensian valleys and foreigners resident in Italy, we may calculate the existing ItaUan Pro testants of all denominations at somewhat under, or about 2,000 — certainly not 3,000 — inclusive of children and persons who attend the services without becoming regular members. These have been nearly all added since 1848, and mostly in the last year. Proportionately to the population of Italy, they are, of course, but a drop in the ocean, or one in ten thousand, and their social condition is of the lowest. With the exception of half a dozen men of station, they consist of artisans, or the poorer class of shopkeepers. Very few students or men of any education have joined them. The universal feeling that it is bad taste to change reUgion (quite as bad for a PEOTESTANT ITALY. 347 Protestant to become a CathoUc as vice versa) no doubt serves more effectually" as a barrier than any argument on the Romish side. Actual persecution, or loss of employment, the Protestants do not complain of often ; but when driven to take refuge in the hospitals, they are cruelly neglected by the attendant nuns on their refusal of the offices of the priest. Their friends, accordingly, niake many efforts to succour them by private charity; and in Florence have esta bUshed accommodation for them, besides claiming a separate ward in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. Probably, in a very short time, we shall be enabled to form a better judgment than now of the success of the whole experiment; which, at aU events, is one of profound reUgious in terest. CHAPTER XVI. ITALIAN MANUPACTUBE. TN Renan's Essais de Morale, there is one on -*- the " Poesie de I'Exposition," in which he clearly proved that the said Exposition had no poetry at aU. The perfection of manufacture is the annihilation of Art. As we advance in the comfortable we retrograde from the sublime and beautiful. There is an inevitable inversion of ratio between convenience and grandeur. In other words, paths are more romantic than roads, and roads than raUways. Galleys were more picturesque than ships, and ships than steam boats. The oxen and the sickle, the distaff and the spindle, more artistic compared to the steam- plough, the reaping machine, the cotton loom, and the spinning-jenny. Naked savages and men in armour, were better than gentlemen dressed in coats, trousers, and chimney-pot hats. Houses ITALIAN MANUPACTUEE. 349 vrith windows admitting no light through their dim lattices, and fire-places emitting unlimited smoke through their cavernous mouths, were more beautiful than abodes with plate-glass and poUshed steel grates. And so on, and so on. Woe to assthetic humanity ! Great Pan is dead ; Baldur has departed. We grow uglier and ugUer Ui secula seculorum,. "Wh.at we have seen" of beauty "our sons" vrill not "see". The "things which have been," were better than anything which will be again. International Exhibitions are the apotheoses of universal dere- Uction and decadence. What avails Steam when we have lost Perpendicular Architecture, or Pho tography and Telegraphs and Chloroform when we have no Raphaels, or Phidiases, or Michael Angelos ? Better go two miles an hour vrith a sense of dignity on a palfrey, than forty in the vulgar flurry of a railway. Better live portrait- less and newsless, and die outright when your time comes for it, rather than flU albums with cartes de visiles, and read penny daily papers, and owe your salvation to a drug to which no one classical or mediaeval association can be attached. S60 ITALICS. AU this has been said over and over again, and we need not discuss it any more. Whether tiiere be indeed any such change from the Beau tiful and Picturesque to the Ugly and the Mean, between the past and the present, is not our concern. Very probably a considerable share of such apparent declension lies in the same natural law of human feeUngs whereby everything else, as weU as beauty, is exalted when passed away, and contemned while still existing. We have only in our generation ceased to beUeve that men were taller in old times than now — forced reluctantly to come to such a conclusion from measuring their mummies and skeletons. We hardly believe, like the Hebrews, that they lived for several centuries, or like the Greeks, that they were able to Uft stones, such as " Scaice ten men could raise. Such men as Uve in these degenerate days." The " degenerate days" being those of Homer. Even yet we are not persuaded that summers WOTe not warmer and fruit richer in the last generation than our own. In a word, we are only beginning to understand that the phrase, "The Good Old Times," merely means "All ITALIAN MANUFACTUEE. 351 times when old are good," in respect of mate rial things, stature, longerity, prosperity, climate, and the like. By and bye, possibly, we may dis cover that the same feeUng which has made men in aU time thus exaggerate the 'material, has made them also exaggerate the aesthetic merit of the Past. Admitting, as we must all do, that greater artists, greater ages of Art, properly so- called, have existed than now exist; it by no means foUows, as M. Renan and his many echoes would seem to say, that aU ancient and mediaeval things — ^houses, furniture, dress, and other mat ters not of proper Art, should have been more beautiful than those of our own time. We re gard them, indeed (such reUcs of them rather as remain to us, and which we may conclude, since they have remained, were the best of their kind) vrith much tenderness and a Uttle romance. We do not attach to them the vulgar associations of our own abodes and costumes and utensils. We see them on the contrary, vrith their colours all toned down and mellowed, their sharper forms smoothed away, and all which reminds us of the mean incidents of our domestic life removed or faded. 352 ITALICS. Nay, more. The human soul assuredly sheds a light of beauty all its own, on whatsoever it can contemplate out of the glare of common day. The Distant, the Past, the Future, are always fair and noble. Little defects, little anxieties, poor and vain wishes, and struggles have no place in them. We do not see the vulgar detaUs of the far off city, whose towers and domes stand against the western horizon. We do not recall in the pictures of our childhood the baby griefs and boyish pains which were perhaps at the time as real an obstacle to happiness as the grave cares of later life. We do not mingle in our dreams of future years any thoughts of such poor petty disappointments and mesquin plea sures as (unless our natures be transformed) will, beyond doubt, form features of our existence then, no less than now. In every case it is the same. The eye looking over space, or the mind glancing backward or forward over distant time, sees only Beauty. The soul throws out its own rays where the cold white light of common day is absent; and this earthlight it is which we see rounding into perfect form the dim and shadowy world we cannot otherwise discern. Here again. ITALIAN MANUPACTTJEE. 853 as in the moral nature of man, are traces of the likeness of Him in whose image we are made. Each human soul loves and chooses Goodness when no disturbing passion intervenes. Each human mind beholds Beauty in all it contemplates outside of the petty interests of daily existence. Surely there is here a clue to the beauty which we attach to many of the things which have come down to us from distant times ? Of course it cannot explain in any way the real Art which pervades the Art-manufacture of the classic times of Greece and Rome, and the cinque-cento age of Italy. But it seems as if it did satisfac torily account for the othervrise mysterious halo of beauty and picturesqueness which hangs around the works of all ages except our own — the houses, the furniture, the utensils, the cos tumes which have for us a charm, simply be cause no vulgar associations attach to them, and the historical imagination invests them with that same self-reflected earthlight of beauty of which we have spoken. That old brick house overgrown vrith creepers, and vrith every line softened and broken, and every brick toned down by lichens, was probably as little picturesque or suggestive 854 ITALICS. to its first beholders, as the modem white vUla vrith green bUnds and trim gardens beside it, is to us. CromweU's plated armour was perhaps sneered at by the archaeologists of that day for its declension from the grandeur of the chain- maU of Coeur de Lion, as much as our dresses are scorned for their inferiority to doublets and trunk-hosen. How vulgar must wheel carriages have seemed to those accustomed only to horse men on chargers and dames on ambling paffreys with hawk on wrist ? The contempt lavished on our fire-horse the steam-engine by the anti quarian mind, has probably attached consecu tively to every improved mode of human convey ance. Yet assuredly that mighty, roaring Iron Beast which we have created to do us obedient serrice, with the strength of a score of elephants together, has in it somewhat of the true sub Ume, such as no clumsy war-chariot of old, vrith scythes in its wheels, jolting cart-Uke over the roadless plains of the East, could ever have pos sessed ? Turner's picture of "Wind, Rain, and Steam," is surely as suggestive of power (the great element of the SubUme) as any bas-relief of Roman Biga to be found in ancient art ? ITALIA2I MANUFACTUEE. 355 Hovvever aU this may be decided, there is cer tainly one matter in which Renan is right. The perfection and finnikinness of modern English luxury has a real and curious antagonism to beauty. It is not only because they are new and fresh, and associated vrith common-place every day ideas, nor only because they lack the soft glory of the Past, that our present houses and their contents are so Uttle exciting to the Eesthe- tic emotions. There is another cause for the phenomenon — a phenomenon which marks, be it noticed, our handsomest and most costly modem EngUsh homes, even more than those of less pretension. What is the reason that in a fine new London house, where the proportions of the rooms are all good, the colouring correct, each article of furniture or ornament individuaUy unobjectionable — a house where from ceUar to garret everything is perfect and complete — what is the reason, we ask, why such a house, instead of impressing us with the high pleasure of the gratification of our sense of the Beautiful, only impresses us with the far lower pleasure of the gratification of our sense of the Luxurious, or, at the most, of the Elegant and the Costly ? Surely 356 ITALICS. the fact must be accounted for thus. Such a house, by the very perfection of its appUances for Comfort, suggests at every moment that very idea of Comfort which is so distant from the idea of the Beautiful. We cannot be so ungrateful as to forget our comfort one moment where it is provided for with such infinite care. Little wants and their little supplies are perpetuaUy in question. The noiseless doors, so admirably hung and locked ; the carpets, which leave audi ble no tread and give the foot pleasure to touch them ; the silken, or fresh chintz, lounging chairs and sofas, and divans and ottomans, of every imaginable form, to give repose to every limb and accommodate every whim of posture ; the resplendent grates with all their contrivances ; the screens and candles and curtains, and weU fitted windows and bUnds and shades ; the tables of a dozen sorts, loaded with every conceivable knick-knack, for writing, work, drawing, read ing, or playing idle games — all these things, and all the corresponding arrangements of dining- room, bedrooms, and library, are each and aU suggestions of possible wants and reminders of care' taken to obviate them. What is this for — ITALIAN MANUFACTUEE. 357 and this and this ? Lest you should be cold ; lesf you should be hot ; lest you should need to summon a servant; lest you should hear noisy steps ; lest there might be a draught ; lest your legs or your arms, or your back or your head should desire rest ; lest you should want more light ; lest you should want less light ; lest you should want air ; lest you should need to hold up a book ; lest you should want to write a letter, or wipe your pen, or Ught your taper, or hold your papers, or cut open leaves ; lest, in a word, you should by any chance want to do anything and not find your vrish forestalled. Sometimes it is much worse than this, and exhibitions of brown hoUand and yeUow gauze and anti-macas sars on aU sides, say to you, " Lest your shoes should dust the carpet ; lest the gilding be tar nished ; lest your hair soil the back of the chair ; lest, in fact, you (for whom all these luxuries are humbly designed) should after aU take the Uberty of using them too roughly." Of course this is a second idea, meaner than the first, inasmuch as the care for furniture is even less an eesthetic emotion than the care for human comfort and ease. Bjit either is sufficient 358 ITALICS. to banish the sentiment of the Beautiful so far off, that not all the well-toned papers and cleverly- designed chairs and tables out of the best up holstery warehouse, vrill bring it back again. A really fine picture or statue in such a house, instead of seeming in a fitting shrine of splen dour, seems quite unaccountably out of place; and, if seen unexpectedly, is capable almost of giving one a " turn" — like a " grace" at a Green vrich dinner. We only get out of this net of small cords in England in country-houses, especially in those a few generations old, where the comforts are rarely so elaborated as in town, and are put out of prominence by the large nature all round us, visible through every window and open door. Trees and flowers were doubtless adapted for human wants, and to give pleasure to human hearts — but it was by One whose care for us is the grandest and sweetest thought the universe can supply. No fear God's prorision for our desires and our joys will make the cedar less noble, or the rose less beautiful. In the midst of woods and gardens, also, we may perhaps admit that much of the same detail ITALLAN MANUFACTUEE. 359 of minor comforts which renders a town house so essentially un-aesthetic, may be passed over without the same result. The contrast of ele gance and luxury vrithin, and nature without, has in it something picturesque. A mountain lodge, where the visitor passes abruptly from the vrild moor — abode of the grouse and the hare — into a Uttle oasis of softest turf, sheltered by laurels and pines, and dotted over with gorgeous rhododendrons and azalias, is full of delight. Even the trim Uttle conservatory, and smoothly- roUed gravel walk round the cottage, are not prosaic here, but add to the piquant contrast vrith the rudeness of the uncultured mountain. In Uke manner, the luxurious dravring-room of an old country-house, with its rich colours and carved furniture, and abundance of books and pictures, and bronzes and china, affords a charm ing complement to the masses of wood and reaches of open park in which it is situated. The reverse impression is given to that of almost simUar accessories in a town mansion, where the noisy street, vrith its clattering vehicles, its pavement and stiff rows of brick and stucco houses, is as artiflcial as the furniture vrifliin. 860 ITALICS. ¦ An EngUsh country house alone may be luxurious — (and, oh! how much more luxurious in its silence and sweetness than the most magnificent palace in the roaring, evil-odoured town !) — ¦ without losing claim to be beautiful. We can feel, in such old family abodes, actual sesthetic pleasure, debarred us elsewhere in our comfort- ridden England, and our senses, soothed by rich colours and stately forms, and perfumes of flowers and sounds of rustling trees and cawing rooks, leave us ready for the tender and noble associa tions of an ancestral home. But all these things are different in Italy. Neither in town palazzo or country villa is there any kind of danger that the superabundant provisions for convenience or comfort should obtrude themselves on us to the detriment of our sense of the beautiful. Quite the contrary. There is such an absence of aU the detaUs to which we have been accustomed from childhood, that on our first installation in an ItaUan room, we look around with blank amazement, and marvel how its proper office of drawing-room, bed-room, or dining-room, is to be carried on with such few objects as we behold — the half of ITALIAN MANUFACTUEE. 361 them, at least, also, being purely ornamental, and of no serrice at aU. I have myself used for months a dressing-room in which an excellent copy of Canova's Graces afforded a substitute for a washing-stand, and charming frescoes of Centaurs made up for the lack of a looking-glass. A handsome ItaUan drawing-room wUl usually contain sundry works of real art, and some carved chairs and tables on which the eye will rest with infinite satisfaction, but as to the thousand minute contrivances for supplying our smaU wants and incUnations, the chances are there are none at all. Instead of an inkstand or a taper, there is probably an antique tazza ; and, in default of a beU-handle beside the fireplace, a neat image of the Madonna. The soul may revel in the beautiful without any kind of disturbance from the comfortable. After a time we grow accustomed to the absence of aU our thousand and one little luxuries. We ask ourselves were they really needful, or even convenient, and not rather encumbrances and nuisances. The neces sity of making shift vrithout them somehow graduaUy becomes pleasant. Life seems a sort of perpetual pic-nic — a pic-nic of the kind, vrith E 362 ITALICS. champagne and music, be it remembered, not with sandvriches and bottled stout. It is half way between England and the glorious Eastern life of tents. The aesthetic sense has fullest sway, and the same picture or statue which seemed so incongruous in the " earthly paradise of ormolu" in Belgrave-square, seems here pre cisely in its right place. We are in the true land of the Beautiful. These observations lead, however, to a feature of Italian affairs which, descending from the regions of sesthetics to those of common hfe, is rather more curious than admirable. The manu facturers of modern Italy, with a few well-marked exceptions, are purely ridiculous — feeble and stupid in an amazing degree. This is a side of Italian life of which Englishmen who do not travel have rarely a conception. They hear from childhood, over and over again, that Italy is the land of Art, and they picture to themselves, not without justice, infinite beauties of painting and sculpture, lavished throughout the land. Those who have paid any attention to antiquities, are also well aware that among the disinterred treasures from Pompeii, in the Museo Borbonico, ITALIAN MANUFACTUEE. 863 is the most amazing coUection of bronze utensils for household use, each of which is a model of elegance and deUcacy. The vases, drinking vessels, water pots, dishes, and even the kitchen scales and cleavers, are beautiful — rich and fan ciful in design, and perfect in workmanship. But the manufactures of modern Italy are very different from these. The arts, which the ancients knew so well, have assuredly not been cultivated by their descendants. In the very palaces, whose waUs are hung vrith Titians and Raphaels, and whose marble floors and frescoed ceiUngs suggest magniflcence, unknown in England, the com monest matters of daily convenience are so clumsy and awkward as to be perfectly absurd. The carpenter's work, upholstery, iron and brass foundry, and pottery, are all the same. Every thing is ill-designed for its purpose, and ill-made even on its bad design. We need not look at the houses of the poorer classes, or of remote country places; but only at palazzi and villas, in and around the great cities, to see this helpless sort of manufacture; in fact, except when imported from England, France, or Germany, there is no such thing in Italy as a really well-made bit of e2 364 ITALICS. iron, steel, glass, or china, not to speak of ordi nary woven fabrics. There are plenty of marble earrings, and exquisite gold ornaments, and pretty Roman scarfs, and Tuscan straw plaitings and fine lace, and a really delicious luxuriance of fanciful and tasteful frescoes, larished over every wall and ceiling, and putting for ever to shame our mechanical waU-papers and ugly roofs. But, beyond these, there is really hardly anything good of Italian manufacture. There is, in the first place, no attempt to make any object accurately. The rooms have no pretensions to being buUt at right angles, but invariably form rhomboids of more or less exaggeration, I do not believe there is a well-squared apartment in all Lombardy or Tuscany. The largest hall almost in the world, at Ferrara, has three walls at right angles, and the fourth about twenty feet askew. It is the same vrith smaller objects, no table or chest is squared ; and if a box have a lid, which flts in one way (which would already be remarkable), it is sure that by no means may it be allowed to reverse the angles. As to iron and steel utensUs, a pair of tongs which does not on aU occasions cross its legs, a poker which does not bend, a ITALIAN MANUFACTUEE. 365 chisel, saw, plane, or corkscrew which does not entirely fail to perform its office, would be a marvel. The very hammers are miracles of clumsiness and disproportion. Pins are still made in Rome, under a Papal monopoly a century old, vrith head and shank in one, all formed of weak, bending vrire. As to scissors or knives, nobody dreams of nsing them who can afford the poorest refuse of EngUsh cutlery ; and the nails, screws, and horse-shoes, are as bad as bad can be. Glass bottles for vrine and oil are of such poor blown glass as to require always to be cased in vricker work. Brushes of all kinds are brought from France, though Italian tortoiseshell combs are as good as the rest oftheir shell and coral work. ItaUan vrindow sashes are invariably made of ill-fltting woodwork, painted at intervals too distant for easy calculation, and containing loosely fitted glass of a quality so bad that the portion of Ught they admit is about half what it ought to be. Of course, the process of opening or shutting such a window, is rarely accomplished vrithout laborious struggles with hasps and bolts, and at every gust of wind of a stormy day it is customary to hear the doors fly open from their 366 ITALICS. imperfect locks, and a vrindow or two violently banged and smashed, the wretched glass break ing at every jar. Such a window as this, vrith panes about a foot square, is to be seen forming one side of the famous ball-room in the Colonna Palace in Rome, probably the grandest apartment in Europe, with its costly marbles and bronzes and splendid pictures. In St. Peter's, also, over the great door, there is a row of such mean little vrindows of common glass, and in the shops in aU the great towns and the best private houses. Then for the doors. This highly gifted nation has devised a plan of placing the handles of every chamber door so near the post that it is impos sible to open and shut it vrithout catching the flngers and pinching them severely in the at tempt. Needless to say that the thin and paltry panelling excludes no noise, even of a whisper, from the adjoining apartment, and that there are generally spaces above, below, all round, and through the key-hole, for infinite draughts to pass with every faciUty. Chairs and tables in Italy very rarely have castors ; a large poltrone or arm-chair is conse quently pretty weU a fixture when the stone ITALIAN MANUFACTUEE. 367 floors are covered, as is usual during half the year, either by a double carpet or (in less well- furnished houses) by a carpet fastened down over a bed of hay. Sofas are huge unwieldy things, with broad plain feet, which it would take three men at least to shove out of their places. The forms of these articles of furniture are often good and artistic enough, but the manufacture abomin able. What many of them can be stuffed with, unless it be brickbats, to produce such a condition of induration, has always been a mystery to me. Looking-glasses, again, as articles of utUity, not of ornament, are matters of constant exercise, as a Quaker would say, to any unfortunate lady who may chance to be possessed by a curiosity to look at the results of her toilette. As to seeing her "natural face in a glass," it is what she need in dulge in no hopes of doing. Probably she wUl find her countenance extended laterally in an ellipse, one eye and cheek being much larger than another, so as to give her somewhat the shape of a map of Africa, while her colour will probably vary between drab and a deUcate green. Even the pleasure which such a gUmpse of what Mrs. Gatty calls the " Human Face Divine " 368 ITALICS. (especiaUy when it is one's own face) can be obtained only at intervals. ItaUan mirrors, mounted on huge frames, and often supported by columns which an infant Sampson might exercise himself in pulUng down, are yet invariably afflicted by a looseness of the joints, for which neither cod-Uver oil nor any other remedy, can be recommended. At that aggravating crisis, vrith which most of my female readers must be experi- mentaUy famiUar, when dinner is announced, and the hair is stiU over the shoulders, not to speak of the dress still unchanged — at that pecuUar moment your ItaUan looking-glass always svrings back, vrith a slow motion, presenting you for a moment vrith a vanishing view of your chin, and then remaining delicately balanced horizontally, so as to afford aU the advantage of its serrices to the flies on the ceiUng. Of course, you push it back to a perpendicular position, and make a furtive effort to adjust the bit of paper, or per haps haU'-pin, which you perceive some previous sufferer has stuck as a wedge or screw to tighten the joint. The result is that this time the glass flaps forward, your forehead appears for an instant in the foreground, and then the mirror remains ITALIAN MANUFACTUEE. " 3G9 stationary, face downward. At such moments, also, it is somewhat trying to hear a groan from your maid, who has rushed to the great clumsy chest of drawers in search of some indispensable gar ment ; and, as such drawers have never any handles except the key, and the keys are as bad as aU other manufactures in Italy, she finds that the process of puUing out a heavy and, of course, iU-fitted drawer by a small bit of iron has only ended in breaking the key and leaving the drawer a fixture. You tum for consolation to the wash ing-stand, and there indeed there is comfort; for, be the house or hotel you occupy generally well or iU furnished, you are equally sure to find English jugs and basins, and English watercrofts and tumblers. But should you need a fair sup ply of water for your traveUing bath, the vessel in which it has been left is — classic, no doubt — but about six stone weight, and requiring to be held ' topsy-turvy to let a single drop escape ; in fact, apparently constructed on the principle of those ink-bottles,, warranted not to spill their contents under any contingency. The crockery of Italy in the nineteenth century is more rude, ill-coloured, and senseless in form, e3 370 ITALICS. than can be dug out of any barbarian barrow or Nile mud twelve thousand years deposited. Rough daubs of green and yeUow paint cover a surface of the coarsest and worst baked clay. When they sometimes attempt a little ornament, — as for the scaldvni for carrying about hot char coal in winter, — it is absolutely ludicrous in its rudeness and ugliness. Even the common plates, and cups and saucers, all come from England; and our familiar patterns reappear everywhere, unless where, in some instances, the French white porcelain, half an inch thick, has taken its place. Well can I recaU the shock which the discovery of this fact gave me, when I had been fancying everything new and marvellous in Italy, the land of Art, — and, behold ! the vulgar old platters of England were stiU haunting me, with those trees, such as Eden never knew, that blue gondola on the white sea, the two gigantic doves in the sky, and the three little men, not a hun dredth part so big, going over the bridge in the foreground below. Being still rather young, and altogether fooUsh, at the time, I composed the foUowing Elegiac Stanzas, precisely in the time and locality they indicate. ITALIAN MANUFACTUEE. 871 Last night I stood in Eternal Eome ; I gazed on the midnight sky. And I noted how Orion blazed Aloft on the zenith high. " Even the staos," I said, " are changed, AU things are changed for me ; My old bright Ufe, Uke the Northern Wain, Has gone down into the sea. In this new year, what other stars May rise I caimot know : How weU I know how the calm old woods Sleep in the moonUght now !" To-day I walked on the wild rough grass Of the drear Campagna wide : Then tumed and sate me by the sea-.- The sea which hath no tide. " AU things," again I said, " are changed. Even this black sea-sand ; Aud never flowers or herbs Uke these Grew ou our EngUsh land. The bright sands of my life have run ; Time's glass holds darker now : The simple fragrant flowers of yore. Bound me no more shall grow."^ — . To-night I sate by a great wood-fire. In Civita Vecchia here. Waiting — ^not over patiently — Till supper should appear. It came at last — that sorry meal ; VUe coffee, vUer meat ! — But these were nought ; mine eyes were fixed At once npon the plate ! 372 ITALICS. The stars may (diange ! Great Algebar May down to Nadir roU,^ The Bear may swish his mighty tail Agaiust the Northern Pole, Plowers, grass, and trees may be transform'd ; December glow Uke June ; Earth's golden shores turn ashes black ; The tides forsake the moon : — But uever — never change shall reach One thing in mortal state : One only thing — I see it now — A WlLLOW-PATTEEN PlATE ! CHAPTER xvn. PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. TF I were asked which was the greatest plea- -*- sure incident to a residence in Italy, I should not say it was either beholding classic memorials and treading historic soU, nor yet admiring the glories of Italian Art. Nay, nor even revelling in the supreme loveUness of ItaUan Nature. To my thinking, tbe Social Life of Italy offers greater enjoyments than any of these. I am not speaking of the society of Italians themselves. Into the actual native circles a foreigner rarely enters, and, when he does so, seems to find few topics of common interest. Still less do I mean the fashionable coteries of Rome — where Belgra- via is transported vrith aU its inanities into the Piazza di Spagna. With the special delights of these circles I have no concern. But there are other people in Italy beside ItaUan nobles or 374 ITALICS. ItaUan Mezzo-ceto, and British "grand monde." There are in Italy, more than anywhere else in the world, a multitude of men and women more or less gifted, who lead real lives — Uves which they have carved out for themselves and have not merely fitted into — lives which have a definite aim, and that aim a high one. There are littera teurs high and low, from great poets and scholars down to newspaper correspondents. There are sculptors, painters, cameo-cutters, singers, musi cians, actors. There are also many men and women having independent means Uring in Italy in perpetual study, some of classic or Etruscan archEeology, some of Cinque Cento bric-a-brac, some of the priceless treasures of books in the Vatican and Laurentian libraries, some of the galleries, some of the Churches. Many more there are who are poor — so poor that in England they would need to Uve in perpetual self-denial and sordid economy; but who have had the courage to break away from the fetters of cus tom and find themselves enabled in Italy to enjoy nearly all the pleasures and quite all the honour and independence conveyed by wealth in England. Some few of these Uterary and ar- PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 375 tistic, studious or economical people are French ; many more German ; still greater number Eng lish and American. Especially does Italy seem the favourite land of gifted Americans, both men and women, and never perhaps is the American character seen to greater advantage. American women, in particular, seem to find it a congenial sphere for the development of the more marked indiriduality which characterises them. Italy has another advantage. It has not only more interesting people than almost or perhaps alto gether any other country. It has also fewer bores. As we recede from the shores of our beloved Britain and get further from Boulogne and Paris and Brussels and the Rhine, we leave behind us more of that class of tourists whose society cannot be said to convey any very bril Uant gratification. In Switzerland there are to be met many specimens of the genus Pater- famiUas, pompous and slow ; Materfamilias, fussy ' and fooUsh ; young ladies with empty faces, and young gentlemen vrith empty heads — an atmo sphere of execrable French pervading the whole. But once over the Alps, the genus " Tourist," vrith its proper female accompaniment, becomes 376 ITALICS. rare. A few, of course, are to be found. I have even discovered rare specimens so far south as Cairo and east as the Jordan ; in fact, it would be hard to say if there be a spot of earth un visited by this order of Mammalia. But (as I have said) remoring from its proper habitat, Boulogne (pronounced Boolon), the specimens dwindle perceptibly, tiU in Italy they form an inconsiderable proportion of the zoological curio sities at tables d'hotes. Italy is far off, and in Italy people speak something even more incom prehensible than " Boolon" French ; and Italy is not to be " done" in a month's holiday, and so blessed Italy escapes pretty well from one tribe of Gothic invaders at all events. Perhaps, in sober seriousness, it is not well to rejoice that so it should be. How is it that people become stupid, and vulgar, and conceited about themselves and their money ? It is, surely, for want of that higher education which is not to be had in boarding-schools, but in association " vrith large and cultivated minds — from seeing the world's beauty and the world's wonder — ^from having Mrs. Grundy snuffed out in grander in terests. Then, for the sake.of our race, we ought PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 377 rather to desire that aU such ennobUng influences be opened as vridely as possible to those classes who most need them. Perhaps, if we were to pause and consider, there are few things much more sad than the position of a young man, or still more, a young woman, who possesses many natu ral aspirations for better things, but whose whole horizon is blocked up with the vulgar vanities of worldly-minded parents. Take the girl, for in stance, educated in that vUe way which the Ladies' CoUeges have not yet shamed out of prac tice ; taught to seem everything, and to be no thing — trained thoroughly to no one art or branch of knowledge, or even to the right way of study ing anything whatever — only to make sham mu sic, sham dravring, to talk sham French and ItaUan, and to have glimpses of such superfi cial History and Literature, as may obriate the chances of exposure of too gross ignorance. After a youth spent in these inane pursuits, with no one preparation of heart or head to take life by the right handle, the young woman finds her self walled in by a circle of narrow-minded rela tives — perhaps, a vulgar mother intent on pushing into " society" — perhaps, a coarse despotic father. 378 ITALICS. and brothers and sisters brought up under the same influences. The friends which such a girl is likely to meet are only those who reflect the miserable vanities and follies of the rest. No aUusions to nobler aims of existence — no large and generous sympathies, perhapis, reach her from one year's end to another — no honest and real enjoyment of books or nature. If, by any chance, some great work, or the words of some higher mind, rouses the young soul for a moment vrith some pure enthusiasm, it dies down ere long in the atmosphere of worldliness. A weakly tree, growing in a crowded wood, has as much chance of becoming strong and beautiful, and stretching its boughs outward, and rearing its head upward in the pure air, as a young girl, under such con ditions, has a chance of becoming a morally healthy and happy woman. To transplant such an one into another field is the only remedy. We should feel something almost Uke pity for the sickly tree vrithout its share of soU or sunshine. Should we only shrink, as from a vtUgar bore, from the woman who has reached middle life vrithout a chance of emerging from the rank shades, or breathing a better and purer air ? A PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 879 young man who has any spark of nobleness in him, may fight his way out of his original sur roundings — ^may " grapple with his evil star, and grasp the skirts of happy chance." But to a young woman, ungifted with rarest energy and self-reUance, such a thing is almost impossible. A son is responsible for being narrow as a nar row-minded father. But a daughter is only to be pitied for being vulgar and worldly, as a vulgar and worldly mother. The old Lycians, who, Herodotus tells us, reckoned a man's pedigree only in the female line through his mothers and grandmothers, and counted him noble or serrile as they were of one class or another, would have been quite right had they so estimated only woman's genealogy. Nature and all social influ ences combine to enforce on a girl, save under rare circumstances, the same degree of elevation and reflnement, or baseness and coarseness, which belonged to her mother. The one chance for her is to transplant her altogether into a different ground and a different atmosphere. To return to the subject of my chapter. Here are a few of the people one meets in Italy. The door of my salone, in MachiaveUi's old villa on 380 ITALICS. Bellosguardo, opens straight on the gravel walk through the podere, — the blended oUve-yard, garden, and vineyard of Tuscany. Through this door enters a lady, with a warm word of recognition in French. She is no longer young, but seems careworn, and somewhat sad. Her grey hair is cut squarely on her high forehead. Her features are pale, and of the pecuUar cast of the old French noblesse, with high nose and thin lips, and oval shape, aU delicately chiselled. She wears a black dress, more like a Carmelite's than an artist's ; yet something in the charm of her greeting speaks more of the woman of the world than of either nun or sculpturess. And so it is ; for F^Ucie de Fauveau is one-third artist, one- third grande dame, one-third devote — Catholique et royaliste au bout des doigts. She may weU be royalist, the high-hearted woman, if sacrifices for a Cause endear it to us. Five members of her family perished on the scaffold in the old Revolu tion, and the whole of their estate was confiscated. She herself, in her youth, beautiful and gifted, quitted the gay world of Paris, where she was a special favourite, to follow the Duchesse de Berri as her demoiselle d'honneur through the Vendean PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 381 war. Through the whole of that wild enterprise she accompanied her ; was seized with her at the last; and then, when the hopes of the legitimists were utterly destroyed, was thrown by Louis PhiUppe into a miserable prison of lost women. Here she spent an entire year; as she has told me herself, enduring every sort of indignity and privation which the petty vindictiveness of the govemment could add to incarceration in such a place. For many months she was allowed no change of Unen, and was purposely confounded, as much as possible, with the wretched criminals and faUen women in the jail. At last she was set at Uberty, but ruined and penniless. The last shred of the large estates of her family were gone, and the royal house for whom they had been sacrificed was ruined Ukevrise. On the talents which had hitherto served to amuse her self and friends must depend thenceforth her sub sistence, and that of her mother. A younger brother joined them, and they went to Florence. At first, MdUe. de Fauveau took to painting, and sold a few pictures, but after a time tumed to modelling. "Sculpture," she said to me, "is an art always above one, always requiring more 382 ITALICS. knowledge, more skill, more physical labour than any other. Therefore, it is the only art for one whose Ufe is over, to whom the world is all inane and dull. Quand on a fait la guerre, do you think it possible to be interested in little feminine gossip and amusements ?" So she worked, some times at fanciful statues, more often at crucifixes and funeral monuments. There were many found to appreciate her labours, and she was enabled to support her mother in comparative affluence, and to enjoy, at the little grand-ducal court, and among the old noblesse of Florence, the society congenial to her taste and her prejudices. But misfortune followed her again. Her mother, the object of her whole heart's devotion, died, and was buried at Mount Oliveto ; and every week Mdlle. de Fauveau walked thither to perform pious duties at her grave, while she worked in the intervals at a tomb, perhaps the most touch ing ever made — a mother's tomb wrought by a daughter's hands. It represents the noble old lady gently sleeping in that repose of age and weakness which is the next stage to the last re pose of death. But, before the marble was com plete, the great change had passed over Italy PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 883 which has brought new life and liberty to so many, but to the old royalists only loss and sorrow. Her friends at the Pitti fled from Florence; the whole face of affairs was changed; and there was no longer interest enough among her party to prevent what she has felt most bitterly of all — the estabUshment of a caserne of soldiers on Monte OUveto, to the desecration of her mother's grave. The beautiful monument stands stiU in her own studio in the Via della Fornace, along vrith her carved wooden crucifix (so lifeUke as to be terrible to look upon), vrith the statue of a guardian angel ; the magnificent tomb ordered by Lord Lyndsay for his mausoleum in Scotland, and other works, nearly all sad and solemn. " I, who have made monuments for so majiy," she says, "I am not aUowed to place one over my mother's grave. I am not even able to go and pray there, amid the crowd of staring soldiers — the soldiers of this new kingdom !" Bnt among her friends, even those of utterly different politics and religious faith, this heroine and devotee is fuU of gentle gaiety and vrit. Among all the clever women in the world, I think there is hardly one whose conversation is so 884 ITALICS. brilliant. Sometimes it is full of anecdotes of her strangely varied life, but far oftener descrip tions of passing scenes, drawn with all an artist's vigour, and enlivened by epigrams such as only a Frenchwoman could make. On the evening I last saw her, as she dined with another friend and myself, she gave us an account of the Triduo, on account of Renan, which she had that day at tended in the Duomo of Florence, — the darkened cathedral, the catafalque with its few pale tapers alone visible in the gloom, the kneeling multi tudes prostrate and mourning on the marble •pavement, the few voices of the unseen choir, singing the dolorous Miserere. "Yes, he is a wretched creature that Renan! un petit vaurien, ramasse par charite. C'etait Monseigneur Dupan- loup qui lui a donne de I'argent pour son voyage en Syrie. Encore il ne sait pas un mot d'Hebreu." We laughed at the Myths circulated at the Triduo against the wonderful scholar and critic ; but Mdlle. de Fauveau was not to be laughed out of them. Three or four of her sayings I shall not soon forget. Speaking of disappointment in friendship, she said : " All other griefs and dis appointments have certain recognised consola- PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 385 • tions, or at least duties, which surrive them. But for the discovery that your friend is un worthy, there is no comfort, and nothing remains to be done. My confessor told me, that for this grief alone the Church had nothing to offer or to counsel." As to her political creed, she summed it up well one day when I urged that Bomba and BombaUno were as bad Kings as bad could be ! Her reply was final : " Mademoiselle, le pire des rois vaut mieux que la meilleure des repubUques !" Take another of the people one meets in Italy, the author of the Decade of Italian Women, and Filipjpo Strozzi, and Beppo tlie Conscript, and many other admirable studies of Italian life and history. He has a beautiful villhio, which he has buUt for himself in Florence, and filled with precious reUcs of cinque-cento art and furniture — ¦ a very museum of bric-a-brac and archaeology*. With him Uves his wife (hardly less weU known in the Uterary world) and his little fairy daughter, whose musical gifts are the wonder of Florentine society. She sings like nothing of ten years old in human shape — with such wondrous feeling and accuracy. s 386 ITALICS. What a mystery it is, how children, and (appa rently) very ordinary men and women, can render the infinite sadness or wild despair of composers like Schubert, or Chopin, or Beethoven, when they are themselves utterly ignorant of such feel ings ! Children who have never known a sorrow vrill seem to waU out some melody from the very depth of a breaking heart, and convey to the listener a whole world of grief, which it is im possible they should understand. Again, I have known grown men and women, in whom (at least in ordinary intercourse) it was impossible to dis cover any finer chords of feeUng, who seemed to be made of most common clay, who yet at the instrument became prophets, giring to the world the awful joys and struggles and despair of some mighty soul with whom it would seem their own could be in no sort of relation. What is this dramatic power in human nature which enables the possessor to render what he cannot under stand ? How is it that the coarse actor can rehearse fine poetry, the irreUgious painter (like Perugino) make pictures which shaU warm the piety of thousands ? There are but two theories possible. Either the artist has always latent in PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 387 him, a real potential, if not actual, grief, love, reUgion, or whatever other sentiment he may render ; or else there exists in human nature an artificial faculty, enabling- certain persons to simulate sentiments of whose real experience they are incapable, and (horrible to say) this artificial faculty is almost or quite indistinguish able from the genuine expression of passion, and often raises the possessor to a rank in art above that of the individual who actually feels aU that he only makes beUeve to feel 1 Here are more " People one meets in Italy." Cavaliere Massimo dei Marchesi d'AzegUo is probably, of Uring men, the one who has achieved success in the most varied Unes. As a statesman, he paved the way for Cavour, and inaugurated the Uberal policy of Italy. As a soldier, he distinguished himself in nearly all the battles of the last fifteen years in his country. As a painter, he has attained no small eminence. As a writer, he is reckoned universally by Italians the Walter Scott of their country. As a member of society, I can testify (after dining for many weeks in his company) that a more charming, witty, and instructive companion, is hardly to be s2 388 ITALICS. met vrith. In look and manner he is the high bred old soldier, easy and frank and courteous to everybody; his tall figure is rather bent by some seventy years, but his face, with its broad forehead and mild grey eyes, retains many traces of former beauty. To hear such a man talk of past history or present politics, or of art and literature, is necessarily a great pleasure, yet I think few would be prepared, considering the common-places to which even clever Italians are fond of Umiting their subjects, for the bold and original conversation of M. d'Azeglio. Of course, it is impossible to reproduce on paper, after some months, the course of such table-talk, but a few of his observations remain on my mind. Some officers and gentlemen in company were one day talking of "what Italy would do," "what the Emperor would do" — in certain con tingencies. "^^Ah," said M. d'AzegUo gravely, " we speak of kings and statesmen having saved Italy, and intending to do this and that, but it is God who is guiding it all, we know not how." Such an expression of religious faith — simple as it would have sounded from an Englishman — seemed from an ItaUan equally strange and memor- PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 889 able. Another day there was a discu ssion of Dutch art and of such books as Vanity Fair. " Some people," said he, " seek only for truth, and that is aU right ; but why should they think there is nothing true except ugliness ? (qu'il n'y a rien de vrai que le laid?") Again, another time an allusion was made to the beUef in miracles as a thing of the past. The old statesman gave a very characteristic definition of them. "Les miracles ? ah ! je n'en crois rien. Ce sont des coups d'etat celestes!" Perhaps at this moment, when so many are seeking for new theories and explanations of them, this \iew, that they are celestial "coups d'etat" may not be uninstructive ! Strange to say, M. d'Azeglio had never heard of a woman great in her way, as he in his, and whose whole heart was given to the course of which he was one of the leaders. Elizabeth Bar rett Browning has been constantly supposed to be an American, though she never visited America, and had no other connexion with the country than that which the passionate admira tion for her writings felt by so many Americans, caused them to establish by continual intercourse. Her house, indeed, "Casa Guidi" at the corner 390 ITALICS. of via Maggio in Florence, became a place of pilgrimage during her Ufe, and since her death bears a great marble tablet erected by the municipaUty of Florence, testifying to her resi dence. The large upstairs room, hung with tapestry, where she received her guests, was dear to many hearts. Even those who, Uke myself, had but slight acquaintance with her, could hardly help catching the enthusiasm of affection she inspired in those who knew her best. She was right to say in Aurora Leigh that women loved each other's mental gifts, for assuredly none ever received warmer devotion than she did from her friends. When I knew her she was no longer young, and much worn by incessant iU-health. She was small and slight in figure, and wore long black ringlets which concealed much of her face. I had traveUed from Venice to Florence mainly to avail myself of an introduction to the woman who could write Aurora Leigh, and the first feel ing at seeing her was one rather of surprise. There was no look of power,— only of fragihty and delicacy. But hardly were a few words spoken before one saw in her that unerring PEOPLE ONB MEETS IN ITALY. 391 mark ofa greatwoman,an eye calm and deep,look- ing through andthroughthe person she addressed. In her mode of speaking also was that same calm strength which, once felt, could never be for gotten. 1 should say that in a dravring-room fuU of company, Mrs. Browning would have been about the last person to have fixed on as the authoress of those most " muscular" poems, or, indeed, almost the last person one would have addressed vrith the idea of finding a gifted or original woman at aU. But to have met her eyes and spoken to her for five minutes, was quite sufficient to prove, that out of a thousand, she was the writer of Aurora Leigh,' What her genius might have accompUshed had it pleased God to spare her life, and had that life been an ordinarily healthy one, can only be guessed by considering what she accomplished under conditions of suffering and weakness which make of ninety-nine out ofa hundred women mere valetudinarians — patient, perhaps, but wholly en grossed by their own sickness and trouble. From her girlhood Mrs. Browning was always as it were hovering between Ufe and death, and only her husband's devoted care and the warm 392 ITALICS. .climate to which he brought her, retained her so long in the world. Always weak, constantly ailing, shut up for all the winter months in her -apartment, and, at the best, only seeing so much of things as may be beheld from a carriage or in few and rare visits, this marvellous woman con trived to amass stores of classic learning, such as, perhaps, hardly any other of her sex ever possessed, and to write books wherein all the social prob lems of our time are handled vrith amazing force and vigour. In her political poems, whatever may be thought of their merits, there breathes unmistakably the fervour of the passionate love she gave to Italy, and the earnestness with which she was able, from her sick room, to throw her heart into the great struggle then carried on upon the fields of Magenta and Solferino. I have seen long letters from her, written almost daily to an intimate friend, all filled with politi cal views and speculations, hardly ever making ¦reference to herself or her own affairs, save when she avowed having shed tears of -joy at some great rictory. Few lives, perhaps, offer so much that is instructive and admirable, and en viable also, as that of this nobly gifted woman. PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 393 Her solid learning and patient culture of her art were the secrets which raised it so far above all the ordinary poetry of women. Her courage and energy, surpassing the passive patience common to her sex, enabled her to do more in a state of constant weakness and suffering, than almost any other woman in full health and vigour. And lastly, she was every way enviable in her great powers, not only of writing but of loring, and in receiving their natural rewai'd of being beloved by many with enthusiastic affection, and in ob taining from her husband a devotion which has for ever broken the prejudice that Genius and Love cannot long combine together. That the marriages of so many gifted women have been singularly unfortunate may be traced to the simple fact — that the masculine for their femi nine was not discovered, or perhaps, easily dis coverable. Mrs. Browning found a man whose own powers were great enough and his heart large enough to appreciate and to glory in those she possessed. The result, as all the world knows, was one of the happiest unions which have blessed man and woman. Robert Browning is, I suppose, among poets, s3 '394 ITALICS. what Wagner is among musical composers. He is the Poet of the Future ; not very harmonious, — in fact generally writing a series of unresolved discords, wonderfully wise and scientific and suggestive no doubt, but asking a vast amount of cultivation and study to be "understanded of the people." Reading his poems, one might " construct the idea" of him out of one's moral consciousness, as a very sombre personage with square jaw, fit for the mastication of hard words, — a propounder of dark enigmas, exceedingly disdainful of th.e comprehension thereof by the profane vulgar. A very kindly and social gentle man, with pleasant face and warmly cordial man ners, addicted much to the telUng of droll stories, would remove the illusion by displaying the real Robert Browning. Here is a strange figure I once beheld, and always recall in my mind's GaUery of Italian Por traits. The scene is an old palazzo close over the Amo in Florence, with dead Templars buried beneath. On the first floor, some dark and dusty anterooms ; then a large and lofty, but most dreary chamber all set round with half finished pictures, standing against the walls. PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 395 In the centre, a large, faded, old puppet-show. Two odd-looking, dreamy women are poring over back numbers of Punch in one corner. A little child, pretty and weird-like, floats to and fro through the sombre room and into an inner chamber where sits an old man with long white beard and glittering eye, the nearest approach to an ancient wizard that well might be con ceived. There is a bookcase all fiUed with edi tions of Dante ; another and a larger one con taining several hundred volumes conceming Magic and the Black Art, from old black-letter vellum-bound tomes to the most recent pam phlets of the spirit-press of America. More pic tures; some of dead and gone beauties painted fifty years ago by the old man himself; some coUected in Florence, and among them an origi nal contemporary portrait of Savonarola in his ghastly ugUness. Three old tables covered vrith disused colours and artists' materials, and all the robacdo of an ItaUan studio ; a great carved chest once MachiavelU's, and stiU containing one of his manuscripts — everything dusty, dirty, worm-eaten. Underneath the grimy window the Arno rushing by. It was a dreary picture ; 396 ITALICS. only a little bright canary flitted over the por traits and the chest, and perched on the old man's shoulder, and seemed like a ray of light in the room. Very deaf and feeble, our host greeted us kindly and vrith the courtesy of an English gentleman. By "and bye, he began to talk of spirits, then to show sketches he had made in water-colours of the visions seen by him self and friends. One, I remember, represented a great grey veiled apparition rising out of the ground. Another was of a woman lately dead, a "Medium," who had been his friend, flying above the old man and guarding him with out stretched rainbow wings. I was saddened at the sight and turned to look at the library, where doubtless Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus and all their congeners of dreamers and impostors were to be found. My dress, however, was in a moment caught and pulled ; the poor little child had thought she could make a play-fellow of me — doubtless much needed in that dreary home — so after Imogen I went, and chased her into the large anteroom, and looked at her puppet- show, and thought it was a wiser toy than spirit-rapping manuals. PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 897 Here is another old man — very old — with a grand . massive head and white hair. He talks strangely, tells marvellous anecdotes of Byron's meanness and Shelley's goodness, and then abuses the world and ungrateful men in passionate and violent terms. He loves to have flowers given him, though his trembling hands cannot fix them as he desires in his coat, and he thanks me for doing it for him with old-world compliment, " You have placed them on my heart !" He has a beautiful Pomeranian dog always beside him, and " GiaUo" almost justifies his name, for his hair is chestnut and gold — a most singular and attached animal, and, like all true Pomeranians, a dog of one idea — videlicet, his master. This old man, — more like King Lear than one could have supposed a nineteenth-century gentleman could be, — ^is (or rather was, three years ago) Walter Savage Lander. He is now, alas ! poor old man, sinking quietly away in extremest age, with all careful tendance from his family. Here is a very different picture. A young American lady, tall and beautiful, vrith magni ficent hair and column-like throat. She has come to Italy to study singing and prepare herself for 898 ITALICS. the stage, and has given up all prospects in America from her devotion to her art. But sud denly an attack of cold destroys her voice. She is told by the physicians she must never sing again. Does she go about despairing and think ing her life over ? Very much otherwise. She engages to write as Correspondent to several New York and Boston papers, informs herself dili gently of all that is passing in Italy, goes to see whatever is to be seen of public festival or meet ing, and supports both herself and her mother in comfort on the pay of some of the best letters ever sent to a newspaper. She is not alone; there are many other young women in Florence and Rome thus admirably working their way : some as writers, some as artists of one kind or another, bright, happy, free, and respected by all. One of them (Miss Foley, of Rome) has selected the profession of a cameo-cutter, so pecuUarly fitted for a woman's work, and turns out of her studio admirable likenesses. The artist world of Italy is, however, a whole world of itself. Here is Hiram Powers of Flo rence — the sculptor of the Greek Slave — a tall, old man, with a brown eye, so like an eagle's, I PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 399 suppose no one has ever seen him for the first time without thinking of the bird, A realist in art is Mr. Powers, holding deliberately the theory that the artist's duty is only to copy nature ex actly. I asked him once, did not he hold that a sculptor or painter should do more than represent his subject at a certain moment and in a cer tain mood? Ought he not to make such a statue or such a picture as should give us the man, not only ordering his troops or speaking his oration, at twelve o'clock on Monday or six o'clock on Tuesday, at such a battle or in such a meeting — ^but the man as he was, in his study, in his garden, on the hunting field, any day and every day, vrith all the possibilities of love, ha tred, resolution, humour or anger that in him might be ? Mr. Powers' reply was " No ! Ask any artist who talks of doing such a thing to make you first a real picture or statue of the man exactly as he was at a given time and place ; and when he has done that, let him try his ideal por trait. Depend upon it, people only talk of the ideal when they cannot accomplish the real." " But, then, Art is no better than photography ?" " Suppose," (said he) " you heard that two sta- 400 ITALICS. tues of Homer had been discovered in Greece. One should represent him exactly as he may have been, the beggar in rags, with every squalid cir cumstance about him ; the other, idealising him as the majestic poet of the Iliad, with all the grandeur Phidias could have bestowed — which of those statues would you have most cared to see ?" " Assuming that Homer was ever a beggar in rags,— " The bUnd old man of Scio's rocky isle" — of course, the statue representing him as such, would be the most interesting." "And if one ofthe two statues only could be pre served, which would you decide should be saved?" " StiU the reaUst one." " Then, to make such statues is the proper aim of the artist." " It does not seem so to me, unless the aim of art be only to satisfy curiosity. We should prefer the realist statue of Homer, not from esthetic, but historical interest. A photograph and cast of his skull would be better than such a statue for our purpose. Surely art aims at more than these?" Of course, Mr. Powers held his opinion, and afterwards made the interesting remark that he PEOPLE ONB MEETS IN ITALY. 401 did not consider what we are accustomed to call Greek faces as peculiar, or even perhaps much more common among the Greeks than among ourselves. He thought them the expression of a perfectly balanced nature, all the faculties and powers being well developed and in due relation. Thus, in our day, in any country in the world, a man thus perfectly constituted is likely to have the Greek type of head and feature. The old Greeks doubtless knew this, and in making ideal statues always adopted the type we call by their name. I mentioned that at Athens I had noticed the form of face to be stiU predominant, and asked him if he did not think it betokened a " balance " which was somewhat of a stable equi librium ? These beautiful Greek heads, with straight foreheads, straight noses, small mouths, and well-cut chins, with much size on the top of the head and very little at the back, seem air ways to belong to men and women who were, like the old Greeks, calm and self-sustained, who fulfil their own ideal, and do not make life a struggle to mend themselves and the world. It is easy to fancy a Greek-faced man a Ruler, a Poet, a Philosopher — Pericles, Sophocles, Plato. 402 ITALICS. We cannot easily fancy him a Reformer, a Martyr — Luther or Savonarola. If we take a Greek bust, and imagine that some modern PygmaUon could endue it with life, we should find in it a lack of much which goes to make up the soul of a great man of our time. The calm " ox-eyes " would need to be changed for those very differ ent, albeit less beautiful ones, in which SheUey " Whoso gazes. Paints, entangled in their mazes," A face, far less regular, expressing in its imper fectly balanced form the unstable equilibrium in which we Uve, " Looking before and after. Pining for what is not j Our sincerest laughter With some sufi'ering fraught" — would be to us more natural and true than these divinely calm and immoveable Greek ideals. If modern portrait sculpture is to bear the relation to modern men and women that ancient sculp ture did to those of the antique world, it must somehow make room for this irregularity — this unstable equilibrium out of which comes Progress. When a sculptor now ideaUses his model, and PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 403 tones down his features till he makes a " classic bust," the result may be good in art, it may even, in a certain way, be a Ukeness of the original ; but somewhat of the soul is absent. We could not put the living man's eyes into the marble and not see flashing out of them something with which those well carved features were not in har mony. We should only possess the image of Undine before Love had given her a soul. Here is another American sculptor — of very different views from Mr. Powers, — William W. Story. Everyone knows the great palazzo Bar berini in Rome, the pile where the ineffable beauty of Guido's Cenci has been enshrined for centuries,' touching ten thousand hearts by its mute appeal — the appeal of hopeless and be wUdered misery on a face so young and fair, so singularly expressive, beneath all its weight of horror and agony, of the power of innocent and chUdUke joy. In that vast pile of the princely Barberinis, the great staircase of the left wing ascends, by many broad marble flights, above the great height of the terreno and the primo piano. Very beautiful are these palatial stair cases of Italy, especiaUy when seen at night, the 404 ITALICS. rare lamps gleaming on the marble columns and massive balustrades and great sculptured lions or bas-reliefs inserted in the walls, the width and depth of each step in the long flights being some thing we should hardly think of for the grandest public buUdings in England. At the summit of the Barberini stairs, the visitor who has "^ right of way" enters Mr. Story's home, an immense apartment of lofty rooms very handsomely fur nished, and often filled at his wife's receptions by a large share of both the Anglo-Saxon and Italian society of Rome. A charming daughter and two picturesque little boys make up the family. Of course, the studio is elsewhere, on a ground fioor in the Via San Niccolo da Torrentino. Tliere are the old Cleopatra and the new and stUl more beau tiful one, and the grand African Sibyl, and the bust of Theodore Parker, andmany earlier works. But why describe again what Hawthorne's pen has once touched, or say that the " Kenyon" of " Transformations" is the " Story " of actual life ? Here is an EngUsh, or rather Welsh, painter, Mr. Penry Williams. He has lived so long in Rome that the whole spirit and feeling of Roman scenery and character seem to have PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 405 passed into his brush. Yet he is stiU the same unmistakable quiet portly Briton, who might have spent his whole life between Temple Bar and Hyde Park Corner. His studio is fuU of delicious groups ot contadini, resting or dancing, Roman shepherds and bright-eyed girls, with behind them the wild desolate Campagna, or the rich soft shades of Albano. Mr. Williams has a countryman and friend in Rome, whose name stands in the first rank of artists of this or any age — John Gibson. Whether Mr. Gibson be right in tinting some of his statues, whether the ancients tinted theirs, or whether they were right or wrong if they did tint them, one thing is certain, that it is very provoking for anybody who has a glimmering of true art, to find that when Mr. Gibson's name is mentioned, or his works visited, that eternal question of colour or no colour, seems to be the sole idea suggested to the minds of the million by these masterpieces of grace and beauty. Simpering ladies, conceited dandies with eye glasses stuck between their eyebrows and cheek bones, pompous old gentlemen, who having, laid down the law for years at Workhouse Boards, or 406 ITALICS. carried influence on Change, think themselves perfectly qualified to decide ex cathedra on all affairs of Art, all give their important judgment about the tinting, and there leave the matter. Mostly they make show of (as they suppose) wonderful refinement and purity of taste, by pre ferring the "pure white marble," and vehemently condemning the colouring as " meretricious ;" only a few young gentlemen, who prefer singu larity, say that they are ready to patronise the, tinting with their high approval. But one and all, harp on the colour, and the colour only, and seem to consider the statue itself as not worth counting. It was truly marvellous the year of the International Exhibition, when the Venus, the Pandora, and Cupid, might have raised for ever the taste of thousands, to stand near them and listen to the everlasting twaddle of nine spectators out of ten about the colour. It is very possible that in future years Mr. Gibson may have added to his fame, as a sculptor, by the introduction of a modern school of tinting for statues. But it is quite certain, that in his own time, he has thereby limited the class of those who can appreciate his works to those who can PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 407 manage to refrain from considering the adjunct as the only thing to be noticed — i. e., doubtless, to the only class whose suffrage is of the least value to him. How shaU I describe this great artist, whose features Mr. Boxall has lately made famiUar, but whose personality neither painter nor novelist has reproduced ? Calm and simple to a degree which makes him seem (as in truth he is in more ways than one) rather an old Greek than a modern Christian, and yet as the French say, si fin, in quick and deUcate intelligence. To know him at aU, is to feel he is a man apart, lifted by his genius and simpUcity out of all our common life ; to know him well (judging by his friends) is to love him quite as much as to admire. It is pleasant to hear him tell anecdotes of his chUdhood, stUl a child at heart. More in teresting, however, is it to hear him speak, as he often vriU, even to the uninitiated in Art, of old classic doctrines and ideas which he seems to have imbibed rather by some process of metempsychosis, Uke a newly revived Praxi teles, bringing back from Hades all the feelings and habits and ways of thinking of the fourth 408 ITALICS. pre-Christian Century, than by dry study of books and archaeology. Once he said to me : " How ungrateful are Christians now compared with the ancients ! Pythagoras offered a heca tomb for the discovery of the square of the hypothenuse ; but men now-a-days discover all sorts of things — steam and the telegraph, and chloroform — and yet they never thank God for them — never. They have Te Deums in the churches — yes, Te Deums for battles and so on; but for real discoveries to make the world happier, they never have had one Te Deum — ^no, not one !" I ventured once to ask his opinion concerning the two smaU figures at the side of the Laocoon. To common eyes they hardly seem Uke statues of boys so much as of small men, and taken in the same group with the nearly double height of Laocoon, they suggest the idea of a different race. The notion had strongly impressed itself on my mind that the intention of the sculptor was to portray the struggles of a giant soul — a Prometheus, contending for the salvation of humanity against the adverse gods, and, though vanquished and crushed by inexorable fate, yet PEOPLE ONB MEETS IN ITALY. 409 with indomitable will resisting to the last. The countenance of Laocoon seemed to justify such a conception, and the figures at his side to typify the ordinary mortals in whose behalf he was suffering, and who were themselves utterly powerless in the folds of the tremendous Typhon. It was, in fact, a heathen Calvaiy, a " Deus Re- demptor" between two crucified malefactors. The deep niche, or rather bay, still visible in the chamber amid the ruins of the Golden House of Nero where the group was found, would have well befitted a statue of such solemn import, nor would such an idea as it seemed to represent have been unfamiUar to that age of Mithra- worship and Taurobolia. My Uttle hypothesis, however, Uke most others spun in ignorance of scientific facts, "out of the moral consciousness " of the spinner, was thoroughly broken up by Mr. Gibson's judgment. The two smaller figures were not dwarf men at all, but young boys. Their proportions were perfectly correct for the ages of the youths whom the sculptor, adhering to the original story, would have designed to represent. Laocoon was a magnificent rendering of a favourite tale, not an embodiment of a great religious idea. 410 ITALICS. The greater number of Mr. Gibson's works are, of course, well known in England, but there are a few which have never been brought over. One is a life-size figure of the young Bacchus crowned with ivy, and holding up his chalice. It is amazing that this figure should be so little known, for it is most lovely — a very imper sonation of Joy; nothing more perfect, as an ideal of gladness, can be imagined. Yet this statue has remained for some years in Mr. Gib son's studio, while EngUsh amateurs are found to give £4000 (four times its cost) for such rubbish as the Pompeian Mother — a mere trick of marble- cutting, representing the pumice stones on the woman's dress ! This same famous "Pompeian Mother," we have heard of a lady in Italy last year describing, vrith vehement admiration, as a statue of Pompey escaping the Eruption of Vesu vius, — by far the finest thing in Rome ! Among others of the less known of Mr. Gibson's statues are his Psyche, finished this year ; the Dancing Girl ; the Wounded Warrior, with his wife dress ing his wounds ; and the beautiful new bas-reUef of the Children coming to Christ. Mr. Gibson's pupil. Miss Hosmer, is a lady of PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 411 whom the world has heard a good deal, and is Ukely to hear a good deal more. After such severe application to the theory and practice of her art, as few women are able or vrilUng to give to any study, she began, a few years ago, to produce a series of works of constantly-increasing merit — Medusa, the Cenci, the monument in the Church of St. Andrea deUe Fratte (a most touching figure of a dying girl, a friend of Miss Hosmer' s), the colossal statue of Benton, her famous Puck and Zenobia (both in the Inter national Exhibition), the Siren Fountain, and one not yet in marble — a Sleeping Faun. Be sides these, she has designed a magnificent door covered with bas-reUefs in the style of the old Gates of Paradise, and representing various scenes illustrative of the allegorical figures sur mounting it — Earth, Air, and Water. Some of the groups already modelled.^ — of Night rising vrith the Stars, the FalUng Star, and Dawn, are exceedingly beautiful. The most admirable of her works hitherto, however, is undoubtedly the Sleeping Faun; the classic ease and grace of this statue is something marvellous. The Faun is reclining against a tree in a sitting posture, T 2 412 ITALICS. his left leg crossed indolently over the right, one arm drooping to the ground, the other laid on his lap. The repose of careless youth slumber ing after play, could not well be more perfectly expressed. One feels he may have been dancing with the dryads in the grove only a few moments ago, and that the heat of the summer's day has driven him to this spot for an hour's siesta, after which he vrill start up again, shake back his locks over his furry ears, and spring away as light-footed and joyous as ever. Not so fast, how ever, on second thought, does it seem he wUl escape. A tiny little Satiretto — what Victor Hugo would call a Gamin Satyre — with legs like a goat, and a face full of mischievous glee, has seated himself close to the pendant arm of the lazy Faun, and is preparing to tie it tightly in a Gordian knot to the trunk of the tree. The poor Faun, when he wakes, wUl feel like GuUiver in LUiput. Of course. Miss Hosmer's sculptures all show the result of Gibson's training in matters of exe cution, and in some pecuUarities of detail known to artists. Yet, on the other hand, there is an amount of character and originality in them. PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 413 which render them almost a contrast to those of the master. Mischievous Puck and majestic Ze nobia are as Uttle Uke Gibson's Venus and Psyche as any statues well could be. No one who studies them fairly could, I think, deny to their author that creative power which has been certainly far more rarely bestowed on women than on men — so rarely, indeed, that the doubt might be legiti mate whether it were ever in a high measure pos sessed by a woman. Secondary creation — the reproduction of poetry and music and painting, as actresses, singers, pianists, copyists — this, women have constantly accomplished well. But to write great poems, to compose music, to paint new pic tures, or model new statues, these are things they havemostrarely achieved. Simply, then, as amatter of experiment, there is not a little curiosity in the examination of the works of the first woman who has combined genius, vrith opportunity and re solution to study thoroughly under a great master the noble art of sculpture. Yet it would be a pe cuUarly unimpassioned disposition, I think, which could regard without stiU greater interest than this the labours of a girl who has spent the bloom of her youth in voluntary devotion to a high pur- 414 ITALICS. suit, adding to unusual gifts scarcely less unusual resolution and perseverance. If Miss Hosmer were not a great artist, only an American young lady residing in Rome, and tra veUing about Europe every summer, she would have the social reputation of being, in the first place, a most skilful and courageous horsewoman (her steeds are the admiration and envy of Rome) ; and, further, of being the possessor of a gift second to none in value to the owner and in charm to the spectator ; an inexhaustible flow of vrit, drollery, and genial joyous humour. Cole ridge's "happy elf" of a child, always singing and playing, and a woman creating majestic works of art — a. massive forehead, vrith large clear eyes, and a mouth all rippUng over with laughter and glee — a man's courage and stead fastness of purpose, and a young girl's fulness of fresh life — such are the elements out of which Harriet Hosmer has beenmade. Itmust be owned, it was when Nature was in a rare kindly mood. Here are two of Miss Hosmer's friends, with whom she has lived for some years back in the happy way women club together in Italy. Miss Charlotte Cushman, the celebrated American PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 415 actress, and Miss Stebbins, another admirable sculpturess and most accompUshed lady. Of the society often gathered in that bright house in the Via Gregoriana, the merry feasts where Cam pagna vrild-boars and American oysters were despatched together amid many a jest ; the even ings with large assembhes and fine music; or, better far, those vrith two or three friends only, and Miss Cushman's magnificent readings of Mrs. Browning — of all these pleasant hours, whoso has been admitted to share them, is sure to retain a lively recollection. Among all the circles into which the chances of a wandering life may throw us, few, I think, are nearly so charming a§ that of the great American artists in Rome. Yet they are none of them so thoroughly expatriated from America and rooted in Italy, or so engrossed by their pursuit of art, as to be indifferent to the great struggles of their country. It would be impossible to respect them equaUy could it be so. Last summer. Miss Cushman (who has long re tired from the stage) returned for three months to America, and learning there the need of vast sums for the reUef of the sufferers by the war, resumed her profession, realised some fifteen 416 ITALICS. thousand dollars, and offered them as her sub scription to the national cause. The " dolce far niente", which is supposed to affect aU sojourners under southern skies, does not seem to have gained much upon this lady ! Mrs. Beecher Stowe was, a few years ago, one of the " People to be met in Italy." The pub lished photographs of her are simply abominable, and the accounts of her given by many who have casually met her, seem to me Uttle more just. She struck me as a woman who had been com pletely stared out of countenance. The quiet Puritan New Englander, to whom Fame was presented in a more tangible and visible shape than probably to any woman since the world be gan, was doubtless very little prepared by na ture for playing the part of princess in that famous triumphal progress through England and Scotland after the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It would have taken different blood, or at the least different breeding, to meet quite un concernedly in royal style the gaze of all those crowds. Accordingly, Mrs. Stowe, as I have said, seems to have been looked at, till she could no longer venture to open her eyelids quite com- PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 417 fortably. Now and then only she does so, and then the kindly and piercing brown eyes lighten on the interlocutor and transform the somewhat rigid features into a bright and speaking coun tenance. I had the good fortune once to pass some hours vrith her on the terrace of a villa on Bellosguardo, overlooking Florence — the terrace described in the last pages of Aurora Leigh. The conversation first fell on the closing hours of a great man just departed — Theodore Parker. Mrs. Stowe differing from him utterly as to theology, yet honoured in him a fellow worker in the AboUtion Cause, and expressed much re gret at haring reached Florence too late to bid him fareweU. I described to her the peaceful days wherein his ardent life ended, and then inevitably expressed some of the grief in my heart for the close of his labours of love. If I had no other reason to honour Mrs. Stowe, I should always do so for the words she spoke on that occasion, and which I have mentioned elsewhere. Turning to me with warm rebuke, she said, "Do you think — Did he think — that Theodore Parker has no work to do for God now ?" The conversation passed on to discussion of t3 418 ITALICS. the possibiUties of intercourse between the more spiritual souls on earth and the souls of the departed, an intercourse which Mrs. Stowe be lieved might be possible now and would perhaps become frequent with the spiritual progress of the race. I urged on the contrary, that if such things ever were, if man obtained evidence of the unseen world through his bodUy senses, — from that moment our life here below would be out of joint, the perspective of aU events, aU past and future joys and sorrows would be distorted by the dazzUng vision ; the rewards and punish ments and hopes and fears, through which it has pleased our Creator to make us struggle hitherto towards the heavenly goal, would all be at an end, since nothing would be left on earth worthy of a thought, in comparison of that eternal Future which our eyes had actually beheld and our ears heard in the apparitions and voices of the re turning Dead. Two such different Dispensations as one in which beUef in Immortality should be the result only of moral evidence and reUgious faith, and one in which it should be revealed by direct report of the bodily senses, could hardly be together in the order of Providence. That PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 419 God has fitted all the wheels of our mortal lives to the pressure of the first spring of simple Faith, seems presumption enough that while our race remains what it is, the other vriU never in fringe upon them and revolutionise the whole scheme of existence. I must draw this long chapter to a close with out speaking of many more " People one meets in Italy," who yet would suffice to give interest to any circle elsewhere. So many nations meet in Italy, and generaUy the most remarkable people of each nation, that it can rarely chance to fill a drawing-room in Rome or Florence but some members of the society will be men of mark. Here is a Russian nobleman married to an English vrife, whose rooms in the Via Sistina I found strewed with numbers of the Co-operator and other pamphlets respecting English social and philanthropic schemes. The young Count, a Crimean Colonel and aid-de-camp of the Em peror, was busy translating Henry Fawcett's "Essay on Co-operation" in Macmillan into Rus sian, for the instruction of his countrymen. There is another Russian — a princess by birth, married to an Italian Marchese — her life devoted 420 ITALICS. to the care of the poor, in homeliest dress super intending the Nun's schools of San Niccolo in Florence. Here are two young ladies and their mother, who come to reside at a Pension at Naples. Everybody is charmed with their grace and astonished by their accomplishments, but no one can guess their nation — they talk to each other in a tongue we cannot recognise. Some body takes courage and ,asks their country, and they reply — that they come from a remote part of Finland ! The English members of the party confess in private they believed the Finns to wear seal-skin clothes and drink train-oil ! Here is an eminent English geologist, writer of charming books read by everybody. He is working the rich and almost untrodden mine of Italian geology. Here is an Italian Marchesa, born of one, and married into another, of the greatest historic houses of Genoa. Her whole heart is given to the cause of the regeneration of her country, and as her wealth is not enough to give it aU the aid she would desire, she paints and sells pictures for the benefit of her schools. A noble looking woman, a most briUiant talker, she pours out stores of information concerning PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 421 the working of existing laws and institutions. Very many of the facts given in this book concerning Education in Italy are due to her reports. Here is another ItaUan, the Minister Count Amari, the greatest Arabic scholar in Italy. Some years ago he translated into ItaUan the Solwan of Ibn Zaffer, a SiciUan Arab of the twelfth century. It has been re-translated into English, and any one who vrishes to know how fine a religion Islam may have been, cannot do better than read it. Here, again, is Dall Ongaro, the exiled Venetian poet, a handsome and very vrinning personage, throvring off, at an hour's notice, pages of airy and graceftil verses. Here is Marchese G — ¦ — , Prefect of G , the man whose energy secured the arrest of the five bri gands of the Aulnis, and who has done much other good service to the nation — a man with one of the most powerful faces I ever saw. I have heard him say that he was present once when the amiable Pio IX, with his eternal smile, was in a fury at some popular demonstration in Rome, and lifting up his two arms, and bringing his closed fists down each time with a thump, exclaimed, " Maladetti ! Maladetti ! Maladetti !" 422 ITALICS. Of Padre PassagUa, the Ex- Jesuit, certainly one of the most interesting of all the interesting people in Italy, — ^I have written elsewhere. Here is a great Hungarian exile who has settled him self in Italy ; it is said to gain rights of citizen ship, and hereafter poUtical and parliamentary influence. Only Italian statesmen say they are in no hurry for such accessions to their voters, and that citizenship is not so easUy to be had. He is a big, burly man, vrith a voice to blow off a roof. His wife, gentle and appeahng and in nocent of crinoline, busies herself in translating good educational works into Italian, and de serves hearty latitude therefor. Here is an English scholar of the first class, the author of the Progress of the Intellect, He is usually rather shy and silent, but as we drive through the classic lands outside Naples, by the Elysian Fields and Lake Avernus and the Sybil's Cave, he grows excited, and asks his fellow-travellers " Do they remember how Hesiod says this and Theocritus that ?" His good, wise wife and her ignorant friend, and the handsome young " Un protected Female" from Norway and Sicily, who has driven with them, are all shamefully back- PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 428 ward about the Greek, and miserably occupied with a basket containing ortolans and Falernian; and the learning of the great scholar only fills them vrith awe ; and they go home (at least one of them does) and study his writings, and think that if, instead of stating boldly unpopular opinions, he were to have defended orthodoxy, we should every day hear the name of R. W. Mackay ring in our ears with the query, how we could venture to differ from conclusions drawn from such stupendous stores of erudition. Here is a great Roman dignitary, who embarks at Naples for Alexandria. He is a tall and stately man, clothed in purple from head to foot, and reverently addressed as "Monsignore il Vicario Apostolico di Abissinia !" And Mon signore takes occasion, in the cabin, to instruct the company that England is the most miserable and unhappy country in the world, and that it has been going down lower and lower in wretched ness ever since it separated, three centuries ago, from the Catholic church, and that in England there are at least twenty rehgions. Then a naughty Englishwoman observes that, after all, EngUsh traveUers did not appear very poor, nor 424 ITALICS. were English arms or manufactures wholly un prosperous ; and that, as to twenty religions in England, there were a great many more; and that, as it appeared God never made two blades of grass alike, it was not very probable He meant to have all human souls reduced to uniformity. Whereupon, II Vicario Apostolico smUes plea santly, and says — "II n'y a que les Anglaises pour ces id^es lk"; and, by and bye, being very sick, retires from the cabin and the controversy. And here is a much greater Monsignore, once an archdeacon in the Church of England. He has a face which, if we could only persuade our selves asceticism was virtue, would prove its owner the very type of sanctity. No one can look on it — wom, pale and noble as it is — vrith out feeling a pang of regret. Such were the great mediseval saints ; such are, perhaps, even now, thousands of pure souls striring to lift themselves up to God — How ? By the macera tion of the bodies He has so fearfully and wonder fully made — by the far worse crushing of the affections and the intellect He gave them to lift them towards His own love and light. The Hindoo Sunnyasi, bome into the air by the iron PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 425 hook piercing his flesh, is as little enabled there- by to fly up to heaven, as the Christian is helped to rise up to God by his moral austerities, his tearing asunder of his affections, and lacerating his reason till he is Ufted off his feet in the whirl of superstition. Listen to this Anglo-Roman priest, and think that it is a cultivated English gentleman in the nineteenth century who writes such things. He is talking of the Blessed Sa crament, i. e., of the wafer which has under gone a certain form of words supposed to trans form it into a portion of Deity. " Where this is not," he says, "^'all dies." "Does any one know," he inquires, " the name of the man who removed the Blessed Sacrament from York Minster ? Is it written in history ? or is it blotted out from the knowledge of men, and known only to God and His holy angels ? Who did it, and when it was done, I cannot say. Was it in the morning, or in the evening ? In any case, when it was done, the Light of Life went out from the city of York."* * "The Blessed Sacrament the Centre of Immutable Truth"j a Sermon by H. G. Manning, D.D. Longmans ; 1864. 426 ITALICS. Such converts to Romanism generally bring to the more difficult dogmas of their new reli gion a superabundance of faith, which somewhat perplexes their instructors, and certainly differs by many degrees in tone from that adopted on such points by the great old Catholic divines of past centuries. But Monsignor M. is not always preaching, even if he be always (as he looks) in a state of fasting and mortification. He is a very charming and well-bred gentleman; very attractive, in deed, to young ladies of " High " affinities ; and he tells pleasant little stories as, for instance, the foUowing : — A poor ItaUan, sacristan of a church in Rome, once remarked to him : " Monsignore, those English heretics must needs be very pious people." " Why do you think so ?" he inquired. "Because, Monsignore, they go about all the churches and everywhere reading in those red prayer-books — you know, those English prayer- books, with some word like ' Murray ' on the back !" Perhaps the difference between Protest ants and Catholics in Rome might (we thought) be described as that between Murrayolators and Mariolators. But the jests about Murray in Italy PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 427 are naturaUy endless. An Italian gentleman told a young friend of mine that he was perfectly appaUed at the erudition of all the English girls vrith whom he danced at baUs — they quoted VirgU and Horace, about every place he men tioned, and knew much more than he did about every picture and statue. At last he found they aU quoted the same things, and made the same ar tistic criticisms; and this new miracle puzzled him stiU more,tUl in an Englishfriend's dravring-room, he found the clue to aU in a weU-worn copy of Murray. I do not, indeed, much wonder at the observation of one of these poor girls, who said : " Rome would be a very nice place, if there were no sights," The way in which she had probably been hurried by Paterfamilias every morning through galleries and churches, just verifying Murray, reading those horrid small double columns, and vrith a rapid glance at the picture or the buUding, merely identifying the object vrith the description, and then hurrying on to "do" another gaUery and church before luncheon, would be enough to make her hate " sights " for the rest of her natural Ufe. Nobody seems ever to reflect that the whole object of beholding 428 ITALICS. sublime architecture and beautiful paintings is to receive sublime and beautiful impressions, to have the sesthetic sense touched and elevated. But the beautiful cannot be felt with one eye on a double-columned guide book ; and the sublime emotions are effectually banished from the noblest pile in the world, if, instead of calmness and what the French call " recueiUement," we bring into it hurry and fuss. The purely intellectual process of hunting up a page in a book, and verifying what the writer says with the objects before our eyes, is about the most ingenious ever derised for nullifying all cestlietic sentiments on the occasion. Hurry-scurry is bad enough, but Hurry-Murray decidedly worse. Yet these Italians and Monsignori (I do not mean the English Monsignore in question), who laugh at us, are themselves not guiltless, as regards their own " sights." In the first place, it is rare to find a native gentleman (except a professional artist) in any gallery in Italy; and as to an Italian lady, I think I have met about three in all those I have visited, and those three were engaged exclusively in studying the bonnets of the forestiere, and looking cross at the gentlemen PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 429 who had led them into such stupid places. Secondly, in the churches, the behaviour of the priests and canons in attendance, not imme diately engaged in performing mass, is quite as Uttle religious as the study of Murray. I have watched them — Canons, Cardinals, and heaven knows what other dignitaries, in purple and scarlet, and nice white lace (which ought to have belonged to us women, and not to big, unwashed priests, vrith heavy jowls), and seen them, in the Duomo, at Florence, at St. Peter's, and every where, whispering and nudging, and passing snuff-boxes, and mopping themselves vrith their blue cotton pocket handkerchiefs, and, above all, eternaUy performing that process which it pleases us to attribute especially to Americans, and which it is to be supposed (in all senses) they carry further than any other people. Sometimes there are troughs fuU of saw dust for their use in the choir, but oftener the beautiful marble pave ments suffer improtected. Punch makes a strong- minded American female, in spectacles, hold up a placard intimating that " Gents are re quested to refrain from expectorating on the Boundless Prairie." I should be very much dis- 480 ITALICS. posed to exhibit a similar entreaty, as regards priests and mosaic pavements. Once I remember going vrith a party of friends into the beautiful church of Sta. Maria del Popolo, at Rome, just as some service had concluded, and finding the large semicircle before the canons' chairs in a state not to be described, — the magnificent inlaid marbles of the fioor having been visibly sub jected to a similar process for a period reaching back into a very remote antiquity. " Imagine," said one of the party, " those priests going on in this disgusting way, in such a place as this, and while a religious service was being per formed !" " I suppose," I suggested, " that they mistook the psalm they chaunted, and read it ' Expectans Expectoravi,' " Here is an EngUsh poet, lately ennobled, tra velling in Italy, of whose interests he has long been an able and ardent defender. He says, " Hereafter, when the history of the resurrection of the Italian nation is written, it wiU be attri buted to four men we rarely class together now — Napoleon HI, Cavour, Garibaldi, and Mazzini." Assuredly whatever opinion we may be inclined to take of the line of policy adopted by the last of PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 431 these great men, there can be little doubt he has done much in past time to rouse the national patri otic feeUng. Now we may think (and those who seem to me best informed on Italian affairs, do decidedly think) that the Mazzinian party have an injurious influence in Italy. A Constitutional Opposition is a thing useful, if not indispensable, to the action of a constitutional government. But an Opposition which notoriously aims, not to work the newly made Constitution, but to transform it, and which (as Garibaldi proved), would not scruple to take up arms at any mo ment for purposes of its own — is, assuredly, an Opposition which a yet unconsolidated govern ment, vrith such external foes as Italy has, may weU fear and repudiate. Mazzini himself has announced that " If the Itahans prefer a Monarchy to a RepubUc he is content with a Monarchy, although" (as I have heard him say, perhaps justly) " no subject of England can form an estimate of the unreliabUity of continental kings and their tendency to make common cause vrith other kings against their own sub jects." This great man, though not one of those to be 432 ITALICS. " met in Italy," is for ever to be associated in all men's minds with the country for which he has laboured and suffered so long. As I said before — his party seems now to me to be rather adding difficulties to the cause of Italian free dom, than giving it aid. But whether in this my imperfect means of judging may or may not mislead me, I cannot refrain from expressing the personal respect which, in common vrith those who know him better, I feel for Mazzini. Probably few more pure-hearted and devoted men have ever lived, or men whose life has been pitched in a higher moral key. Those who have really known him intimately for years, speak of him as a Saint, as a man whose words come to them from a sphere of thought to which few attain. Those who only know him in the brief inter course of society must aU have felt (as I have done) the indescribable charm of his serene and gentle manner. His face, care-worn and suffer ing, vrith broad white forehead — his emaciated figure (the double-breasted waistcoat carefully covering his chest from EngUsh fogs) give forci bly the idea of the scabbard worn out by the sword within. An old Hebrew prophet would PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 433 talk of him as bearing in his o'wn soul all the sorrows of his Israel. Yet in social life he be comes the cheerful and cultivated companion. I have heard him once institute a most exquisite critical inquiryinto the relative aesthetic and moral merits of Shelley and Byron — ^his verdict being for the man who strove to translate his poetry into action, and wrote his noblest verse at Mis- solonghi. Again, Mazzini debated the subject of language, frankly aUovring that his own had utterly degenerated and become washed out, and, . at the same time, stereotyped and im moveable under the influence of political and reUgious despotism. " It was one of the many works," he said, "which would need to be done for the regeneration of Italy — to reform and vitaUse the language." Of Mazzini's friend, the greatest of Uving ItaUans, who has lately received from England an ovation such as America in her wildest burst of hero-worship never gave, I know personally nothing. Probably, if the charm of his all-conquer ing looks had faUen on me (a charm which perhaps explains more than one page of past history), I should be able to partake in the enthusiasm he u 434 ITALICS. has universally excited. That he is brave as a Uon, disinterested, self-denying, kind-hearted, an excellent general for his own style of war fare — all these good and great qualities seem his beyond dispute. I must, however, avow the wish that he had either whoUy repudiated, or at least partially disowned, that atrocious " auto biography" edited for him by the European Barnum — Dumas. Did Garibaldi really write that Melange melodramatique of Baron Mun chausen and Cooper's Spy, which has been put forth in his name and (to all appearance) .with his sanction ? The story is familiar how he once confided the MS. to a certain lady well-known in Italy, his devoted nurse at Spezzia — how he asked her for it again as a loan, and then transmitted it to Dumas to edit and publish. The book itself comes forward in the strictest shape of autobiography : " I did this ; I said that ; I went here and there." Dumas has now and then inserted notes in his own person, saying that he had referred to "the General" for ex planation of certain passages, and that his reply was, so and so. Either the book is a most impu dent romance, merely founded on the original and PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 435 having no sort of claim to be what it pretends, or it is a real autobiography, the work of Gari baldi. I confess the latter hypothesis is so un pleasant that, since reading the book, I have never felt I could thoroughly honour Garibaldi, tUl some way or other it should be refuted. Even that he should have permitted such trash to go forth vrithout pubUshing one of his innumerable manifestoes to repudiate it, seems unaccountable. The world has a right to suppose he really por trayed his own exploits in this " King Cambyses vein," if he actually gave his manuscript to the editor and never denied the veracity of the edition. The luckless book throws an air of clap-trap over his whole career. His wife Anita was an heroic woman; his affection for her is one of the most pleasing traits in his character. But who can bear to think his wooing was made in the fashion he describes it — that he watched her across a river ; passed over to her one day, and walked up to her deliberately, saying for all introduction, "Vierge! tu seras a moi!"? Atala, dramatised for a Parisian theatre, would speak with some propriety in this style. When it comes to a really great man so addressing his u2 486 ITALICS. future wife, it must be admitted that bathos can no further go. The rest of the book is aU in keeping with this anecdote. Some simple peo ple may imagine that Italians constantly speak in this manner, and that Bombastes Furioso is a proper type of an officer in the army of Victor Emanuel. I can assure them, however, that there cannot be a greater mistake. The Italian dis position is altogether the reverse of the French. The language is cumbrous and wordy ; but the character of Italians is so devoid of the self- consciousness which is the source of theatrical affectation, that perhaps no people in the world are so simple — so free from clap-trap and bom bast. I have known many ItaUan officers, as well as cirilians, and have been particularly struck with their entire simplicity as well as good-breeding. What affinity brought Garibaldi and Dumas together, and made the hero give the mountebank not only the highest scientific office in Europe,*but the task of sending down to posterity the' proper view of his own career, is, I confess, * The curatorship of the Museo Borbonico and of the Pompeian excavations. To an immense salary was added a palace in Naples, with fourteen covers a day, provided at the pubUc expense. PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 437 a problem which lies sadly in the way of that entire admiration one would desire to feel for such a man as Garibaldi, and which in truth I did feel for him before I read this miserable book. One more of the " People one meets in Italy" remains for me to describe. It seems almost Uke trespassing on sacred ground to speak publicly of one most dear and rever enced; yet to omit the name of Mary So- merrille in an account of the residents in Italy would be impossible. There is no need to teU the world now that she is the most learned wo man (as regards physical and mathematical sci ence), who has ever lived; that her books are masterpieces of their kind ; or that her life has been the example to which all who have at heart the elevation of her sex, point to prove that the greatest inteUectual height is attainable by the best of vrives and mothers. That life, however, has so long been quietly passed far away from England, and her works have been' for a genera tion so familiar as scientific class-books among us, that there are many, I imagine, to whom it wiU come as a pleasant surprise to learn that she has outpassed the common limits of human mental 488 ITALICS. activity, and is now, in her eighty-third year, en gaged in completing a treatise which vriU pro bably be considered her greatest work. The book is devoted to the elucidation of the most recent discoveries of science regarding the ulti mate particles of matter, organic and inorganic ; the revelations of the microscope and of the solar spectrum — everything, in short, to which its beautiful epigraph from St. Augustine may fitly apply— " Deus magnus in magnis, maximus in minimis".* Probably the mere copying of this book in writing similarly firm and clear would be a task beyond almost any other woman of equal age. WUat its actual value as a Uterary work may be, it would, of course, be mere impertinence for me to say. Mrs. Somerville is truly the Humboldt. of Women, and this is her "Cosmos," the great work done after the common working hours of Ufe are over. Yet something very different from Humboldt in gravest ways is Mary SomerriUe. There are qualities in human nature nobler than even the quenchless thirst of knowledge and untiring energy in its dissemination ; and those nobler and diviner gifts of which the man had little share, ¦* God, great in great things ; greatest in the least. PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 489 the woman has much. The clearest brain pro bably ever granted to one of her sex has been vouchsafed, not to a woman lacking in tenderness, or simplicity, or vividness of reUgious conscious ness, but to one in whom these have aU had their highest development. It is surely a thing to be very grateful for in this world of fainting hearts and wavering minds, if we can point to one who has passed through fourscore years with ever widening vision and ever growing faith; and whose long sojourn here has left stiU aU " unspotted from the world." Eighty blameless years, fuU of duty and of honour, all glorified by that high pursuit of Truth which is the loftiest of human joys — what blessed sight is this ! Beholding it, we know that old age is not the dim closing of life's scene, but only the shade of the portal of immortality — a tvrilight, indeed — ^but the twiUght, not of the Evening, but of the Dawn. Perhaps, there is no great force in the testi mony of ordinary minds respecting their convic tions of things unseen. Carrying onward through life vrithout examination the reUgious ideas in- stiUed into them in childhood, their vritness of 440 ITALICS. consciousness is hardly more than the witness of their teachers at second hand. It is hard to cal culate, however, on the contrary, the value of the evidence afforded us by one who has faced the dread problems of existence through a long life of independent study ; and who, educated in such a creed as that of Scotland in the last century, has followed the progress alike of religion and of science, and stands at last in old age abreast of the foremost thought of our time. This is a voice to which we listen with thankfulness when it tells us that the result of knowledge is FaitJei. Does the reader ask what is the bodily pre sence of this great and good woman ? Is that strong brain lodged in a powerful form, or does she, in her mental superiority, weary of common men and women, dwell a little aloof, keeping her '^^ solemn, state and intellectual throne"? Perhaps it would not be very marvellous if it were somewhat difficult for her to descend to such common gossip as befits a morning visit, or a little evening social gathering. Natural or not, however, it is always quite clear that it is no difficulty at all to Mrs. SomerriUe to throw herself into the interests of those around PEOPLE ONB MEETS IN ITALY. -^41 her — to converse vrith each in his or her own way — to be, in short, simply the kindest and pleasantest member of society. I re coUect once asking a friend to describe to me (before I had met him) the outward semblance of Theodore Parker. After telling me of his looks, she wrote, "Parker is a gentleman — a smaU word for a great man, yet worth somewhat, also." It would be idle to say Mrs. Somer- viUe is a "lady;" a daughter of the old House of Fairfax was not very likely to be any thing else.* Yet, to imagine her rightly, it is needful to bear in mind that this most learned of women so far diverges from the proper type of that order, as to be quite simply a high-bred lady vrith the peculiar charm of manner of the elder generation — alas ! now so nearly passed away. In nearly every respect, indeed, Mrs. Somer- viUe must be a sad stone of stumbling to those who delight to depict that heraldic crea ture, "the Strong-minded Female," and have estabUshed it as a fact that the knowledge of EucUd is incompatible vrith the domestic affec- * Her father was Admiral Sir WilUam Fairfax, Bart., a coUateral descendant of the ParUamentary general. u3 442 ITALICS. tions, and that an angular figure, harsh voice, and brusque behaviour, are the necessary pre paratives for feminine authorship. Mrs. Somer ville is learned enough to alarm the best con stituted mind ; she is ardently interested in the education and elevation of women, and she has even divulged such terrible opinions about the Creation and the Flood, as to have incurred the penalty of being preached against in York Cathe dral. Yet that slight and fragile figure, clothed in rich brown moire antique — that head, rather delicately formed than large, surmounted by that soft lilac cap (which surely came from Paris?) — those features so mild and calm, with all their intelligence — that smooth hair, more brown than grey, even now — those kind mild eyes, aged, indeed, but needing no glasses — that lady, in short, who is talking in a low voice (probably about the last new novel, or the merits of Gounod's "Faust"), or laughing merrily over some little jest of her visitor's — that is said to be the translator of La Place's Mecanique Celeste, the authoress of the Connexion of the Physical Sciences. It is very distressing and unaccountable, but the identity seems pretty weU established ! PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 443 AU hearts must rejoice to know that an old age so beautiful and venerable is surrounded by everything which can make it happy. Mrs. SomervUle is the centre of more care and affec tion than can ordinarily faU to the lot of the aged. Though she has survived both her hus bands (the last, who loved her so devotedly, died two years ago), she has her three children, attached old servants, and very UteraUy "honour, obedience, troops of friends." It is touching to Uve near her, and see how Enghsh and ItaUans aUke vie to offer her any gratification — flowers, music, or social pleasures of any kind she might be disposed to accept. Among the most con genial of these friends, and whose daily inter course forms no smaU share of her enjoyment, is that same Marchesa (Teresa) Doria, of whom I have spoken as among the ablest and most patriotic of Italian ladies. Mrs. Somerville habitually spends her mornings in writing for several hours before she rises — her books and papers on her bed, and her Uttle pet sparrow hopping about, now perching audaciously on the precious manuscripts, now on the head so full of knowledge he Uttle recks of ! A certain splen- 444 ITALICS. did white Pomeranian dog and a parrot complete the circle. Very fond is the Padrona of her animals, and of all animals ; and only this last winter has she exerted herself vigorously to bring all possible influence to stop the hateful practice of vivisection which disgraces the sci ence she loves. In the afternoons she drives round the beautiful shores of Spezzia or the Acqua Sola at Genoa. Her son's visits from England are her great seasons of pleasure. He comes to her as often as his office may permit, but her two daughters never leave her and seem to live only to surround her with their cares. All strive to conduce to her happiness. And she is happy — happy in the innocent and noble pleasures she has found in this life — happier still in her firm faith in a yet hoUer and nobler life to come. The "Pilgrim" has reached the "Land of Beulah where there is no more night." Nature has led her most faithful follower " up to Nature's God." TraveUing much through the world, and see ing the great glories of scenery and of human art, or conversing with the larger minds of our age, is a matter for which I think we can hardly PEOPLE ONE MEETS IN ITALY. 445 fail to be thankful when it faUs to our lot. At every turn there is room for present enjoyment, and the certainty of future gain in memory thereof. Only this reflection injures our satis faction — how many others who could have more enjoyed and better profited by our experience, find it denied them ! * How many who, in com parison of us, are "prophets and kings," " have desired to see the things we see, and have not seen them" — nor shaU ever see them in this world ! But among the greatest of all the plea sures, and the most dear and sacred treasure of memory which many wanderings have given to me, the one for which I am most grateful is, not that I have seen aU the chief masterpieces of art — nor visited the loveliest scenes in Europe — nor beheld the "temples made with hands" of St. Peter's, and Milan, and the Parthenon, and Baalbec, and the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem : it is that I have been aUowed to see and know and love Mary SomerriUe — and learn that Age can be so blessed, and Womanhood so perfect, and Immortality so secure. CHAPTER XVIII. PLACES WHEEE THB AUTHOE WEOTB THIS BOOK.— PEACEFUL PISA. \ SLEEPY city is a sort of anomaly. The -^--*- country is the place for sleepiness. When people gather themselves together in towns, and huddle their houses one against another, it may be presumed it is for sociability, and because they do not wish for " golden silences," and " vernal airs," and " the sweep of scythe at early dawn," and aU that kind of thing, so much as for a little bustle and business, and the sense of living in a hive and not in a snail-sheU. When ever we alight on a quiet town, it is sure to be a superannuated one. New towns are all Uvely. Only old ones are somnolent, and try, as Cowper says, to " Drag the dull remains of Ufe Along the tiresome road." Such a place exists in virtue of the vis inertice. PEACEFUL PISA. 447 Having once existed, it takes a long time to clear itself away from cumbering the earth. People go on Uring in it, and even visiting it, because other people lived in it, and risited it formerly, tUl, by slow degrees, the force of habit grows too weak to break the ever-growing resisting medium of dulness, and then the poor old city sinks into final decrepitude and decay. Nevertheless, as Paley justly remarks : " Hap piness is to be found in the purring cat, as well as in the playful kitten." Placid and gentle old age is a very pleasing sight; and there are some sleepy cities which eminently partake of those attractions. In the first place, such a city is always distinguished for good breeding. It is not bustUng and arrogant, like prosperous, up start mercantile towns. It receives its fewer guests with more honours, and, indeed, vrith a certain urbane manner, which always seems to express : " I have seen better days, but I am very happy to receive risitors at my hotels, and shall charge you just the same as heretofore." There is no hurry or confusion, or missend- ing of things. Everybody knows the heaven sent risitors the day after their arrival, and their 448 ITALICS. letters from the post wiU be heralded, and their orders from the quiet shops carefully attended to, and hack vehicles will wait for them any length of time, and they wiU be adopted in general by the old city altogether affectionately. Every Uttle particular of their private history, which they choose to disclose, wiU be gratefuUy received as a crumb to allay the gnavrings of that natural hunger for useless knowledge which in such places endures perpetual mortification, and is, of course, proportionately ravenous. In the afternoons, in such towns, there is always some one spot where there may be found a par tial and factitious vivacity ; as in winter, we find a few belated bluebottles, buzzing in some stray gleam of sunshine in a particular window-pane before retiring into cobwebs and annihilation for ever. But evenings and mornings and mid nights, and all parts of the city, save the street in question, are slumberous and peaceful in variably, as if a Solemn League and Covenant had been entered into by the inhabitants, to make no needless noise or fuss on the road, from the cradle to the grave. When they die, the hearse does not go much slower than they habi- PEACEPQL PISA. 449 tually drove or rode alive, and the cemetery is only one degree more silent than their streets. Let us hope that " Requiescat in Pace," or " Mors aeterna quies " are not ineffectually in scribed on their tomb-stones. A lady we have heard of, once rebuked her too-sociaUy disposed daughters, for hoping that Heaven would be a state of vivid existence. " Unless," said the poor old chaperon (doubtless with many recollec tions of "gay" evenings before her mind), " unless Heaven be dull, it will be no Heaven to me !" The inhabitants of sleepy old cities wiU, doubtless, echo the aspiration, and, we hope, find all that, they may desire. Pisa is the Bath of Italy, or, rather, what Bath was ten years ago, before it underwent rejuve nescence, and put on a new wig, Pisa is warm, and Pisa is a place for invalids, and Pisa is eminently aristocratic, and has seen very much better days indeed (only those days are seven centuries ago instead of one), and Pisa is gouty, and has got broad pavements, — and altogether is a proper place wherein to toddle to the tomb. It differs from Bath in a few particulars. There is a river in Monmouth, and a river in Macedon, 450 ITALICS. however, and both begin with A, and Ifisa has got a blue sky, and Bath has a grey one, and Pisa has got a Duomo, vrith statues with noses, and Bath has an Abbey, with statues vrith no noses ; and the simUitude need not be further expanded. It appears that in dreams we have peculiar ideas of identity. We dream it is a certain place, and are quite satisfied that we are correct in our opinion, but the house we know to be small and whitewashed, is huge and red-brick ; the room we know to be lofty is low ; the garden* we know to have a fountain in the middle has got a haycock or any other absurdity. Still our faith remains unshaken. Also as regards people : Our respected Aunt, most proper of ladies, ap pears in top-boots ; our learned friend the Arch deacon, has a round jacket and trundles a hoop. The old are young, the ugly beautiful, the good hateful, and the stupid omniscient. Yet the faith in their identity never leaves us, though every condition by which in waking hours that identity could be known, is changed. A similar sort of hocus-pocus exists between Florence and Pisa. The same river Arno roUs through them both. PEACEFUL PISA. 451 and on each side are rows of houses of the same character vrith " Lung' Arno " written at the corners; the same Tuscan people inhabit both cities, and the same blue sky of Italy bends over all. But Pisa is the dream town and Florence the waking one. Pisa is all silent and dull, and the houses aU stained and old, and the shops poor and smaU, and the very river Arno seems changed, from the noisy rattling stream dancing over its artificial faUs near the Ponte Carraja of Florence, into Lethe itself, slowly and dreamily meandering through duU old Pisa, only bearing a few heavy barges, and a huge ferry-boat which might belong to Charon, on its muddy tide. Flo rence is the brightest city in all the world, fresh and clean, almost as if built yesterday, with its marble or newly-painted houses and green jalou sies, and handsome shops, and brilliant equi pages, and shoals of gay gesticulating people ; and flower-stalls at every comer, and glorious Duomo and Campanile gUttering in white, black, and red marbles, Uke the toys of a demigod, in the clear blue atmosphere — every rich moulding visible a mUe away. Florence the Beautiful — Florence the City of the Lily — Florence the Con- 452 ITALICS. queror ! Poor, decrepid, dull, old Pisa, to whom the Amo bears down only your ice and your drainage — if she were a little jealous of you, would it be very wonderful ? But living in Pisa people grow into a calm and placid state somewhat like that which is in duced by sitting on the sea shore and listening to the waves beating up monotonously hour after hour. We persuade ourselves we are thinking deeply, but in reality we are thinking of nothing at all. Our brains have performed the process which some of the Eastern sacred books say wag the beginning of all things. " After twenty millions of yugs of ages, ten hundred thou sand millions of particles concreted together and formed — emptiness !" The particles, I be lieve, happily concreted, after several trials, into "Chaos"; but our ideas seldom reach that stage. Rather do we attain the sublime condition of those sages who obtained beatitude by looking continually at their own noses. We are su premely blessed, — in the next stage of existence to annihilation. Such is the happy result of long sojourn at Pisa. As the local proverb avers, Pisa, pesa, a chi posa (Pisa weighs on him who PEACEFUL PISA. 453 rests in it) . A gentlemsn we know has received these soothing influences so long, that his ex ceUent inteUect is always at least a mile off, and out of the reach of hasty calls. Being asked one day with too rude a jar on his reflections, " how he was," he decided, after some labour, on appeal ing for aid in such an emergency to his wife : " How am I, my dear ?" The faithful spouse re plied : " Quite well now, I think ;" and the gen tleman was enabled to transmit the intelligence vrithout too much difficulty to the inconsiderate querist who had driven him to such straits. People who don't live long enough at Pisa to get into this happy state, take Ufe quietly and sun themselves on bright afternoons by the waters of Amo-Lethe ; and talk about their coughs, and read Galignanis a week old, and are mild and sociable and slightly plaintive. Nobody does any work in Pisa ; at least, if they do, it must be secretly under ground, for in the streets and open shops, men, women and chil dren lounge all day long ; and the men all smoke ; and the poorer women sometimes hold a distaff languidly; and others do not think it needful to make such a pretence, but merely 454 ITALICS. gossip a little, unaffectedly. There may be schools — there is even said to be an University at Pisa; but, if so, there must be perpetual vacation, for the boys are always in the streets. Nice, gentle, civU youths they are, no Gamins of the Gavroche genus, nor vrild English schoolboys ready for a "lark." Nobody takes "larks" at Pisa except roasted ones, ten on a little spit together. Two miles off (they call it three, and make it as long by going thither at funeral pace) there is one of the king's one hundred houses, on the edge of the wood, and in this place there are some dozen of camels. To see these camels is the only thing anybody thinks of in the way of a curiosity, and the drivers take travellers to their stables without even asking them whether they want to go there, so sure are they of the gratifi cation of beholding those peaceful Eastern beasts, which the " fitness of things" has brought to Pisa of all places in Europe. There they go in the forest with their long necks moring like swans and their soundless feet, carrying loads of wood in a calm, Pisan manner, very becoming and appropriate. All the country round is per fectly flat. Doubtless in the " glacial period," PEACEFUL PISA. 455 (an aUusion to which, of course accounts for everything), it was ironed out smooth by a glacier, or an estuary, or an earthquake. Any way it is delightfully flat now; for many miles there is no trouble of going up or down the smaUest hill. Canals glide through the plain and heavy barges through the canals, and people like them better than the fussy railway, and send goods by them even from the very stations. Formerly Pisa was close to the sea, but the sea being naturally inconstant, got tired of Pisa and • went away to Leghorn. There are still at the lower end of the Long Arno the round-roofed boat- houses, where the gaUeys of old used to be made and launched. There are big doors for the great gaUeys and little doors for the little gaUeys, but neither big nor little wUl ever come out of them any more. Nor is Pisa without other memorials of the days of old, which Moore, had he been a Pisan (conceive Tommy Moore a Pisan !), would doubt less have sung along with the " Collar of gold" and other reliques ofthe glories of the past. There are two hideous iron cages, like nests for ill- omened birds, made of iron wire, hanging out at 456 ITALICS. the corners of the principal Piazza. These cages used to hold human heads. How grim and ghastly they must have looked in them no tongue may tell, and fortunately, in our day, no living man describe. Close by these hideous things there is a little old door, very coarse and massive, a garden door of past days apparently, opening through a blank waU into a court. In that court there once stood a Tower. That was the Tower of Famine. There it was that the Archbishop of Pisa shut up Ugolino de' Gherar- deschi with his four sons, and left him to perish with hunger; after haring, as it is said, been driven in his agonies to prey upon their corpses. Those were good old times, glorious old " ages of faith," the beginning of the great cycle of Italian Art. How sad it is to live in these dege nerate days, when the Archbishop of Pisa is only a quiet gentleman, spending his 117,000 francs a year comfortably in his huge palace, without any tower wherein to lock up anybody ! Dante (as all the world knows) makes Ugolino gnaw the ecclesiastical head out of which such cruelty proceeded, to all eternity in the Inferno. It would have been a better compensation for his PEACEFUL PISA. 457 wrongs to have ' placed him in Paradise with a better repast, say (to satisfy his utmost cravings) vrith that famous Last Feast before him of which the Rabbins tell us, when Behemoth and Leri- athan vrill be cooked for the delectation of the Blessed, as the two piijces de resistance. But all these are exciting recollections, rather disturbing in Pisa. Let us rather keep to the Lung' Arno, and placidly stroU along under the vast palaces vrith closed shutters and silent halls, of which half the line is composed. Here is one belonging to the King, but of course he never comes to it — why should he ? Here is another all covered over vrith quaintest terra cotta carvings of centuries back. It has become a dilapidated cafe. Here are the Medicean balls upon ever so many houses, those "pills" which have had such ups and downs in the world, and have gone to the pawnbrokers at last ! And here is a lofty and very handsome marble palace in good repair, and vrith a fine carved lion-rampant on its ancestral shield. But over the architrave of the great doorway hangs an iron fetter, and on the Untel of the door is inscribed, in raised letters of red marble, "Alla Gioknata." x 458 italics. What does all this mean ? The legend says that there was once a Christian, taken by Barbary corsairs, who managed in his slavery at Tunis to lay by enough money to purchase his own free dom, and then by happy speculations to amass large treasure. Then he came home to Pisa, and built himself this palace, and hung his own chain over the door, and called the world to witness he had earned his wealth " alla giornata" (by day- labour). That is the only solution offered of the problem of this mysterious palace. Outside the walls, Pisa has small suburbs. It does not want them, seeing it has shrunk inside from 150,000 to less than 25,000, and no more fiUs its space than an old man, wizened and thin, would fill the clothes he wore in his prime. It has, however, a watering place close by — San Giuliano by name — and San Giuliano is precisely the sort of fashionable resort Pisa ought to have near it. At mid summer people go thither for baths, but now in spring it is inhabited by one lame lady and half a dozen men and women who rent the lodging houses. Everything is quiet, and sUent, and com fortable. When Carnival comes in Pisa, three PEACEFUL PISA. 459 shops hang ont some calico dresses and half a dozen masks, and some mistaken young lads hire them, and walk about in them to everybody's disgust; but it is soon over, and forgiven as a weakness of youth, and Lent comes in naturally, and Pisa is itself again. In sober earnest, there are moods in life in which this kind of place is not uncongenial. We want November as well as stormy March or glow ing August. Neutral grey is a good hue in its way. We cannot always be " up and doing with a heart for any fate." The tide of human ac tirity and enjoyment surging and tossing around us, is sometimes trying to nerve and heart when we have been cast up Uke a weed on the shore, and know not if we shaU ever get afloat again. Better let the sick and sorrowful herd apart, and leave bright places to bright people. Sleepy old towns are not useless in the world, so long as each forms a sort of natural Sanatorium on a large scale, for the sick, aged, and infirm. The real interest of Pisa centres, of course, in its marvellous group of buildings, the Baptistery, Duomo, Leaning Tower, and Campo Santo. Considering how few things of interest there are x2 460 italics. in the city, it seems a subject of regret they should aU he huddled together in one corner on two acres of ground. It is, however, a fine open space, affording rare advantages for seeing each of the edifices. The green turf on which they stand sets them off also, as it is much to be wished all other fine buildings could be set off. How different did the Greeks understand this art ! — - either building their temples on some natural elevation, like the AcropoUs, or the rock of Sunium, so that the columns might stand vrith the sky for a background; or eke raising the whole ground around the foundations, and but tressing it with walls, as in the case of the Temple of Jupiter Olympius. We build cathedrals like St. Paul's, and then allow houses to be clustered round them, so that not from one single spot can an uninterrupted view be obtained — nay, a view uninterrupted by the most sordid and hetero genous obstacles. A lady attired in velvet seated in a cart, or a splendid drawing-room with a door open into a scullery, are not more monstrous anomalies than our costly edifices on whose de coration we have bestowed treasures, and which we then permit to be hidden from sight be« PEACEFUL PISA. 461 hind the paltriest and ugliest of shops and offices. Pisa's sanctuaries, as I have said, stand all alone. The visitor passes out of the silent de serted streets into a large open green in which the Duomo occupies the centre, vrith the Bap tistery on one side, and the Leaning Tower on the other. Behind all is the quadrangle of the Campo Santo. In front, close to the entrance, is one of those sei-cento groups of colossal babies in marble which more effectually, perhaps, than anything else which could have been devised, serves to make all the buildings behind it seem small and petty — their columns are hardly so big as the Umbs of these unhappy puti ! Are these far-famed and wondrous edifices really and truly beautiful ? All that immense display of la bour and skUl — has it achieved a triumph of art, or is it like a Chinese pagoda, only an elaborate mis take ? There is no arguing these things in fact, but the question suggests many curious reflections. Religious architecture may be the expression of the religious sentiment in two ways. It may have sprung out of such a sense of awe and reverence, that with the mysterious power of true 462 ITALICS. Art, it conveys that awe and reverence to the beholder. This is the sublime in religious archi tecture, and it seems to have been attained in very early times. The Druidical monuments dis play it to such a degree that I suppose no man ever saw Stonehenge for the first time without feeUng his cheek blanch, and a sense of awe steal over him. The Egyptian temples, the Rock temples of India, the earlier Greek temples, the first Mosques, and such cathedrals as Winchester, all belong to this class. It is impossible not to feel that the men who built these fanes were themselves profoundly reUgious ; that, according to their various lights, they looked to the Deity vrith solemn veneration. Sometimes they seemed to vrish to veil their faces before Him in the darkness of cavernous cells, and under the shadow of vast arches. Sometimes they strove to make their temples so stately and magnificent that we might deem they had in their liturgies such a Psalm as the transcendent Hebrew Dedication : " Inft up your heads, 0 ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in !" They sought to make their temples worthy of PEACEFUL PISA. 463 the visitation of a Deity, and wrought as with a sense of stupendous Power and Mystery above them. Again, the religious sentiment may show itself, not in the Sublime, but in the Beautiful — not by Ufting up vast piles, by the force of awe and veneration, but by adorning and decorating edifices which shall be devoted to God's service. The sentiment in this case does not breathe through Art, it merely employs Art, which might, for any special character it possesses, have been used in a secular work, and which it has only seized upon and dedicated, as any other rich spoil, to the Deity. The spectator, in this case, cannot be bome away into regions of high emotion by the exalting power of the Art itself. He can only be edified by the sight of such an amount of voluntary pious serrice. The " Lamp of Sacri fice " shines out in the work, but not the lamp of such genius as should be in architecture what the .genius of Milton was in poetry, and of Handel in music. Nay, the Art may be (and often is) so inappropriate that we may justly con sider the sacrifice, however weU meant, as a mis take. The ludicrous figures often to be found in 464 ITALICS. the early pictures, the sing-song tunes affected by Methodists at all times, the wretched painted card-board images stuck in Calvary itself, the gargoyles and devils on the roof of Notre Dame, who can pretend to consider these things as reUgious ? The late King of Abyssinia, having received from some traveUer six coloured wood cuts of the Melton Mowbray Hunt, thought he could not do better than dedicate such a treasure to the Church, and accordingly hung them round the chancel of the chief cathedral of his capital. Immediately behind the high altar, was one of the series, representing an unfortunate sportsman at the moment of making a head-foremost somersault. These " works of Art," it must be avowed, however well intended, could hardly have served much to animate the piety of the Abyssinian congregation ! In a far less absurd manner, but yet to be classed under the same head of appropriated, and not naturally religious Art, we may surely count the minutely ornamented and costly buildings which seem in many countries to have succeeded to the earlier, more massive, and more impres sive ones. Much of the Flamboyant, the Perpen- peaceful PISA. 465 dicular, and Tudor styles are of this sort ; and in more barbaric shape, the pagodas of India and China — Greek churches nearly everywhere, and modern mosques. The very type, however, of such buildings seems to me (if I may venture to give an opinion on such a matter) these world- famous churches of Pisa. They present precisely the idea of works accomplished vrith infinite care and pains, and ungrudging cost ; but not a glimpse of the inspiration of awe or wonder. Genius of a certain kind presided over them — a genius graceful, fanciful, and rich ; but not a genius laden with the deep sentiments of a solemn religion. There is, indeed, another theory we may pre fer. We may say that not only may the same religion have the two kinds of edifices we have described, but that a different religion vrill neces sarily inspire a different type of art to those who have most fully drank of its spirit. A highly moral and spiritual religion vrill inspire a noble and solemn art ; a lower polytheistic religion will only inspire a fanciful and plaj/ful art. Thus, a relation might be estabUshed (if aU disturbing causes were removed) between the grandeur of x8 466 ITALICS. the faith and the sublimity of its temples. In such case, again, these buildings of Pisa would seem to bespeak a creed which appealed but Uttle to the more solemn sentiments of our nature. It was, in truth, a polytheism far more than anything else, that which prevailed in the twelfth century — the Supreme Father hardly holding as prominent a place as Jupiter did in the heathen Pantheon, but rather thrown utterly into the background by Christ and the Virgin, and uncounted tribes of Saints, Angels, and Apostles. The wonder is, not that such a creed inspired an architecture fanciful and ornate ra ther than grand or solemn, but that a creed very little, if at all, better presided over the designs of York and Salisbury. Perhaps the Southern race and the Northern race took the same sym bols very differently, even, as in crossing the Alps, from one Romish country to another, we pass from the roadside sanctuaries of smiUng Madonnas and Bambinos to the awful crucifixes, with bloody images dreadful to look on. At all events, it is singular to note that the Gama Tayloon and other mosques erected when Islam was yet in the early fervour of enthusiasm, in PEACEFUL PISA. 467 the eighth and ninth centuries, were all im printed vrith a character of simplicity and gran deur not ill befitting the Monotheist faith. At the very same time, in Byzantium, where Chris tianity had reached its lowest ebb, and all its purest doctrines were overlaid by superstitions — when quarrels about the Homousion and Ho- moiousion — about MonotheUte or Monophysite heresies occupied the foreground of religion — at that time the paltry and elaborate Byzantine architecture took its rise, and substituted orna mentation for dignity and grandeur. After aU, the morals of architecture must ever be very imperfectly developed; for no man sat down, probably, since the world began, and originated a building out of his own inspirations. The most original architects were doubtless still guided by the precedents of the buildings before them, which they did but modify, adapt, enlarge, or diminish. The early Greek houses, vrith logs to support the roof, doubtless suggested the first temples in antis, from which, by regular degrees, grew the splendid double-columned Corinthian Olympium, from whence again, by regular pro cess, came the Byzantine Church and Saracenic 468 ITALICS. Mosque, then the rounded Norman style, and then the Pointed Gothic, from the intercrossing of the rounded arches. It was all done step by step, and we can trace how the Greeks went from Doric to Corinthian, and how the early Christians modified the Roman basilicas into their churches, and the Arabs took the classic columns for their mosques, and the Crusaders brought away the plans of the mosques of Cairo to France and England, and these same old Pisan mer chants took from Byzantium the colonnades of their Duomo. The sentiment may have guided the choice and modification of the copy, but it can never have created its work as a sculptor or painter may do — a poet or a musician. Taking these buildings of Pisa, however, for what they unquestionably are — monuments of extraordinary labour, skill, and care — how do they affect us ? This "lamp of sacrifice," shining out in aU this inconceivably elaborate carving, and colonnading, and rich fanciful mouldings, and pillars of varied marbles, one more costly than another, and in laying of stones, Uke the marqueterie of a table or a box — what does it say to us as a book written seven centuries ago, and open before us now? PEACEFUL PISA. 469 There is nothing harder to reaUse than the great moral truth that the sustained practice of self-sacrifice in daily life is as noble and holy a thing as any one act of heroism conceivable. We aU say we beUeve it to be so; but still our hearts beat and our eyes kindle at some grand trait of generosity and self-abnegation ; while we take the Ufe-long devotion of many a mother, the angeUc patience of many a vrife, the martyr- courage of many a sufferer in our hospitals, — as if they were pretty nearly things of course. PracticaUy, we all know that it is immeasurably easier to do one great action than a thousand little duties. Few human beings are so consti tuted that there is not at the bottom of their hearts something which responds to any great demand and enables the weakest and meanest to go through extraordinary trials vrith unexpected dignity. It is not the applause which waits on noble actions which gives this strength, it is the real human predestination to things high and grand — that predestination which makes petty and paltry existence more irksome and wearisome than even great sorrows; and the glare of fitfty footlights worse than thp shadow of 470 ITALICS. a tremendous gloom. Man, the Immortal, " half angel and half ape," feels the angel wings thrust ing themselves forth, when some heroic action tempts him to soar into the upper air. But the little daily sacrifices whose real grandeur is hidden under the cloak of custom, which have nothing in them striking or unusual — ^how hard it is ever to recognise that they who perform them are often more than Heroes, are Saints also ? How infinitely harder to give such sacri fices their right place in our own self-legislation? Perhaps somewhat of this mismeasurement of moral things passes into our estimation of works of Art, wherein the " Sacrifice" has been of the oft-repeated and elaborate sort. Some minds seem specially to value and deUght in them, but the commoner feeling is that the labour was wasted ; that nobler designs would have been far preferable to richness of ornament or intricacy of fanciful ornamentation. I know not how this may be and whether we ought to feel always " edified " by laborious care in Art, as we ought certainly to be by the sustained effort of self-sacrifice in the ordinary affairs of life. Such a conclusion must depend PEACEFUL PISA. 471 on our judgment of the ultimate purpose and meaning of Art, whose discussion would be far beyond our present theme. Possibly, also, there may be in Art as in Morals, a certain pettiness and scrupulosity which a sound taste may force us to condemn in the one as in the other. Chinese temples, dress and furniture, are not really beautiful for all the detail of labour ex pended upon their tiny patterns and dots and streaks of a hundred colours. Actions are not always reaUy virtuous because an immense amount of scrupulousness and trivial fussing has been used regarding them. There is a "Mo rality of the Nursery" of small observances and petty exceptions into which people whose lives are very narrow and uninteresting are apt to fall — a Morality (as it has been well said of late) which rather comes of a desire to attach the large character of Duty to the tririal details of daily existence and thereby raise them into in terest and importance, than from any real deli cacy of a sensitive conscience. We are assuredly quite right in not giving to such Baby-house MoraUty the reverence due to real virtue. Os tentatious deviation from commonly received 472 ITALICS. formulas of courtesy which mean nothing but Courtesy in anybody's apprehension, and exag gerated obedience to forms and times — the whole " mint, anise and cummin" school of ethics, de serves no honour at our hands. Nay, such keeping of the eyes down on the little pebbles and straws and ruts of the road, seems directly to prevent men from lifting their thoughts to noble and holy aims above and beyond them selves. We should do them a serrice by urging them to spring forward a little, warmed by some generous aspiration to serve God or man, even if in doing so they were to neglect ever so many of their straws and ruts. It was a splendid say ing of Clarke, when some friend of the scrupu lous school asked him if, in his enormous and absorbing labours for Abolition of Slavery in the West Indies, he did not find himself neglect ing many religious observances to the detriment of his soul ? "I have been thinking of doing God's work (in some such words ran the reply of the philanthropist), and He will take care of my soul." Regularity, be it never so utterly and foully selfish — if it be. the very regularity of uninterrupted egotism never turning aside for PEACEFUL PISA. 473 any mortal's benefit — ^has a strange power to attract approval from a certain class of minds. A man who is regular in his habits and erects his habits into a religion, is sure to receive a respect which will be denied to another who sacrifices himself and his habits continually to the interests and pleasures of his feUows. But such respect is utterly misplaced. AU these Bye-Laws of Morals men make for themselves are essentially immoral. The one eternal Law makes no provision for such local enactments. The architecture which should hold to Art the relation which such Baby-House Ethics hold to true moraUty, is surely then worthy of no great honour. It may be elaborate and fanciful, but it is petty and finnikin. Such, with all respect for higher judgments of better qualified critics, I must avow is to my feeling the architecture of the famous Duomo, and Baptistery, and Campa nUe of Pisa. Whether the fault is in confectioners, who have profanely made their cakes like the Baptist ery, — or in the Baptistery, which bears a natural resemblance to a round sponge-cake, with sugar ornaments, I cannot pretend to decide. The 474 ITALICS. likeness is, in any case, equally strong and un fortunate. Perhaps we may justly decide, that if there had been no affinities between the architec ture and confectionary, the boldest of pastry cooks would not have thought of taking a church for a model, even if he were going to make, what we have heard an Italian avvocato speak of with restrained enthusiasm, as the product of a certain shop, " dei pasticci Sublime !" Pisa, however, this year of 1864, has had a gay festival — a festival in honour of her great philosopher Galileo. It was the tercentenary of his birth; and every kind of preparation was made to celebrate the occasion on the 18th of February. The sun, who had been chary of his smiles of late, shone out for a few hours (as he was in courtesy bound to do, in honour of the sage, who imderwent the torture to give him his proper place in the universe) ; and very soon the windows of the Lung' Arno effloresced, after the manner of Italian houses, with hangings — blue, red, crimson, and green — while banners of the bright tricolor waved from every available bridge and balcony. With the broad swollen Amo below, and the Pisan mountains, tipped with peaceful PISA. 475 snow for a background, and crowds of men and women in gala array, from Leghorn and Florence, thronging the streets : the scene was gay and pretty in no common degree. The first centre of attraction was the Uttle church of San' Andrea, in Fortezza, where GaUleo was baptised. Over the door was the inscription : — GEAZIE IMMOETALI AL ST7PEEM0 DATOKE d'oGNI BENE PEBCHE IN QUESTO GIORNO OK SONO TEE SECOLI IL NATALE DI GALILEO GALILEI ILLT7STB6 PISA d'inspeeata CHIAKISSIMA LTJCE. (Immortal thanks to the Supreme Giver of all Good, that on this day, three centuries ago, the birth of GaUleo GaUlei illumined Pisa with un hoped-for and resplendent light.) To this church the prefect, vrith all the magi strates, professors, etc. of the city, repaired, in full state, to hear a Te Deum. It is said that it was a fortunate circumstance that the baptism of GalUeo in this Uttle chapel afforded such good reason for fixing on it as the scene of the good prefect's very just thanksgiving; for, had he 476 italics. desired to celebrate it in the Duomo, the Arch bishop of Pisa would by no means have given his consent, much less his presence, to such a service. Be this as it may, the good feeling of such an act is surely worthy of remark. My knowledge of modern history is small enough to leave me at a loss to remember another occasion wherein St. Ambrose's grand old hymn, — so often raised for bloody battles, or the coronation of worthless despots, — has been used to thank the " Giver of All Good " for illuminating the world by sending into it a greatly-gifted soul to dispel the dark ness of ignorance and superstition ! Did any one think of thanking God for Shakespeare ? Close to the little chapel of San Andrea is the house wherein Galileo was born. It consists of a range of chambers, of no great pretensions, sur mounting offices, and apparently forming part of the great " fortezza," containing the palace and gardens of the Scotta family, whose present re presentative (an old Countess of eighty), be queathes her estate to the Corsini of Florence. The room in which Galileo was bom is a large square one, with rudely-built walls, and a single window. The furniture is modem. Beneath the peaceful PISA. 477 room is (and probably alwaj's was) a stable. Over the door of the house is a white marble slab, lately erected, beaiing the inscription " Qui nacque GaUleo GaUlei, Febb. 18, 1564." The Te Deum- being over, the next affair was a great public dinner, at two o'clock; then speechir fying at the university, then a boat-race on the Amo, then illuminations, a concert, and a ball — assuredly enough amusements for one day's festival. The iUuminations were beautiful ; the broad, vrinding river reflecting the thousands of lights in the palaces on either side, and the four flne obeUsks of lamps, erected at each end of the principal bridge. The Leaning Tower was, of course, the chief object ; and those who have never seen a Pisan Luminara, would find it difficult to imagine how beautiful this strange buUding can become. The six lower stories are each surrounded by a fringe of fire, whUe behind each tier of columns, large stars of lamps are placed, so as to produce the effect, of the whole being actually transparent. Round the summit is another crown of glory. The sky this evening was cloudy, with a half-moon only occasionally 478 italics. breaking forth ; and the appearance of the tower thus beheld was indescribably lovely — like no thing I have ever seen before. Least of all, did it resemble a solid edifice, reared by human hands, from whose summit, three centuries ago, the great philosopher performed his experiment on the velocity of falUng bodies. A fragile lamp of white paper, to be overthrown by a breath, seemed more like its substance, so exquisitely delicate and transparent. On the whole, the festival has been very suc cessful. The •" Starry Galileo " might have found some compensation for his " woes," in receiving all the honours his native city could offer to the day of his birth. Nor is the celebration of such an anniversary without serious interest. The Pisans are perfectly aware of the meaning of their act, and that they have been holding a festival to commemorate the victory of Science over Superstition; of Truth over all the power which the Church could bring to crush and silence it. .^he archbishop's palace, stand ing black and unilluminated, beside the blaz ing Campanile, witness of Galileo's experiment, was Uke an allegory of the war between Dark^ peaceful pisa. 479 ness and Light; and among the gay voices of the people, more than once I caught the phrase — ominous to ecclesiastical ears — " San GaUleo !" After the celebration of Galileo's birthdaj^, many smaU pubUcations appeared connected with his history. The most interesting of these was a pamphlet, entitled " Nel Trecentesimo Natalizio di GaUleo." It contains some original letters of the great philosopher, which had escaped the notice of Viriani, Alberi, and his other editors and biographers. The first letter from Galileo, dated June 26, 1612, is certainly curious. The subject is a discussion of the relative merits of painting and sculpture. Galileo is all in favour of painting. He says : — "As to what sculptors argue, that Nature moulds men but does not paint them, I reply that she makes them not less by painting than sculpture, because she both sculpts and colours — but that this is their imperfection, and a thing which detracts from the value of sculpture ; be cause, the farther are the means by which a thing is imitated from the thing itself, so much more the imitation is marvellous. . . . Do not we ad- 480 ITALICS. mire a musician who by singing represents the complaints of a lover, much more than if he did it by himself weeping and crying ? Still more we admire him, if, being silent, by means only of his instrument he describes the same. For this reason, then, what merit is there to imitate the sculpture of nature by sculpture itself ? Certainly none at all, or very Uttle; but most artful imitation is that which represents relief by its contrary — which is a plane. Painting, therefore, is more admirable in this respect than sculpture." This is surely a new and curious canon of art. Mr. Gibson would have something to say to it in reply. Galileo goes on to say : — " The argument of the eternity of sculpture is of no value, because sculpture does not render marble eternal, but marble renders sculpture eternal; and this privilege is no more peculiar to it than to a rough stone. Finally, sculptors always copy, and painters do not copy ; and those imitate things as they are, and these as- they -appear ; but, inasmuch as things are only in one mode, and appear in infinite modes, the difficulties of attaining to exceUence in art are greatly increased by so copying them; — where- PEACEFUL PISA. 481 fore, exceUence in painting is more admirable than in sculpture." The letter concludes by Gahleo adrising his friend CigoU (who seems to have consulted him on the subject) to keep to his own art of paint ing, adding — "For you have rendered yourself with your canvas as worthy of glory as our dirine Michael Angelo with his marbles. So I conclude, cor dially kissing your hands, and begging you to continue to me your love and the further ob servation of the spots (on the sun) . "Galileo Galilei." An appendix to the pamphlet contains a notice of a sufficiently remarkable incident in the life of Gahleo, hitherto unknown. The authority is an autograph paper of Diego Franchi di Genova, preserved in the Monastery of VaUombrosa, numbered 120 in the archives of the Ubrary. Franchi says : — "The name must not be omitted of the great mathematician GaUleo GaUlei. He was a Val- lombrosan novice, and made the first exercise of his admirable genius in the school of VaUom brosa. His father, under pretext of taking him 482 ITALICS. to Florence for the cure of ophthalmia, removed him from his religious ties. When grown up he was intimately connected with Don Orazio Mo- randi, the Abbot-General, and participated in some of his misfortunes, arising from the too curious contemplation of the stars." Morandi died in prison in Rome, October 6th, 1630, after haring been tortured by order of Urban VIII, the cause of his persecution haring always remained hitherto a matter of doubt. The learned editor. Professor Selmi, very justly remarks : "It is interesting to consider that, if the tortures in flicted on Galileo by the Inquisition are called in question, we now know that a man who was his acquaintance and admirer, underwent others so cruel as to cause his death," and (as Franchi plainly intimates) for the same offence of "too curious contemplation of the stars." This Uttle account of Pisa must not close with out some mention of the one great charm of its neighbourhood — the Cascine. Too often in Italy people spend all their time in going over gal leries and churches, and utterly omit to visit the lovely scenes beyond the waUs — the slopes of Bellosguardo over Florence, or the grand and PEACEFUL PISA. 483 glorious Campagna of Rome. But there is no temptation of the kind in the present case. People may as weU go out of poor dear old Pisa, for, after the Duomo has been visited, there is no earthly reason to stop in it ! There is a long avenue through the fields, and then come the Cascine. Passing the king's hunt ing lodge and the stables of the camels, a noble broad road runs right through the forest down to Gombo. A glorious forest it is — oak and chestnut, and a variety of trees, but mainly mag nificent pines of a kind resembling the Scotch fir in wUdness of growth and roughness of bark, yet having fuller foUage. A whole avenue of these, very old and grand, runs for two miles at right angles to the main road from one cascina (farm-house) to another ; and, again, further on, in the depth of the wood, a vast laund has been cut, running from the FiumiceUo to the Arno further than the eye can see. Beyond and above the dark green woods, gUtter in the spring sun the snowy tops of the Carrara mountains with their broken outUnes of marble. It is a nobler forest than Fontainebleau, and grander in cha racter than the Schwartzenwald, The ground y2 484 ITALICS. is overrun with all the rich herbage of Italy, and huge heather grows under the pine trees like a thick shrubbery. At last the great avenue opens out and terminates right upon the sea shore. The glittering Mediterranean fills the whole span of the horizon, and breaks gently on the narrow belt of golden sand, where the woods abruptly cease. A loveUer strand can hardly be found anywhere; to sit beside it, and then wander in those odoriferous woods, and watch the sun go down into the west over the sea, and the purple hues of evening gleam over the moun tains, is perhaps as much of pleasure as nature can well give us. And what pleasure is there in such days ! What are the enjoyments art can ever give, compared to them ? Can art bring us calm and peace, and soothe pain of heart and weariness of brain ? Can it Uft us up nearer to heaven? Perhaps some art can do so to some minds. But Nature is for aU, and at all times. " The woods were God's first temples." " Hot vainly did the early Persian make His altar in high places and the peak Of earth o'er-gazing mountains, there to seek That Being, in whose honour shrines are weak Upreared by human hands." PEACEFUL PISA. 485 We have assuredly lost much, partly by the exigencies of our variable climate, partly by the formality of our Protestantism, in making religion so completely an in-door thing as it is with us. Our worship has lost many . elevating influences, and Nature has lost many hallowing associations. The Romanist vvay-side shrines, to be found alike in the cultivated flelds and rine yards and in the loneUest solitude of wood or mountain, are beautiful in their origin, and doubtless, even vrith all the superstition where vrith they are joined, of no smaU spiritual ser rice. Through the magnificent chestnut groves of VaUombrosa, how the graceful crosses (older than the day when Milton clomb those thick- leaved slopes !) each vrith its striking inscrip tion, — seem to befit the place ! How the Mos lem oratories in many a lonely Syrian path, with the niche pointing out the place of prayer, give a new direction to the thought of the wayfarer ! By dint of keeping aU our devotions for churches and chambers and special hours and special days, aU minds among us not very profoundly imbued vrith reUgious feeUngs (or else driven by vary ing creeds from common worship) come to feel 486 ITALICS. that woods and plains, the sea-shore, and the mountain-side, are altogether secular things — places where heathens might sacrifice to Baal or Ormusd, but quite unfit for Christian prayer or praise. Yet, in truth, a vast and noble forest is a cathedral such as aU the architects of the world could never build, and whose incense of flowers and choirs of happy birds are better than aU the smoke of censers or roll of golden mouthed organs. We may say truly in such a spot — " Lo ! how God Himself has planned this place. So that aU sweet, and caUn, and solemn thoughts. Should have their nests amid the shadowy trees ! How the rude work-day world is aJl closed out By the thick-curtained foUage, and the sky Alone disclosed — a deep zenith heaven. Fitly beheld through clasped and upraised arms Of prayer-Uke -trees ! There is no sound more loud Than the low insect-hum, the chirp of birds. The rustling murmur of embracing boughs. The gentle dropping of the autumn leaves. How the wood's breath is perfumed ! Prom the pines. And larch, and chestnut, come rich odours pure ; — All things are pure, and sweet, and holy here." The road from the forest back to Pisa passes on one side near the modern Campo Santo which has replaced the old one (adorned by Orgagna's tremendous paintings) in ordinary PEACEFUL PISA. 487 use. Near, also, to the road is the new and very humble httle field and chapel belonging to the Chiesa Evangelica (the Italian Protestants) of Pisa. There is always something deplorable in the idea of separate cemeteries for the members of different sects. Have we not been enough dirided in life by all our poor systems and creeds, that when we go underground, and " the right ear which is flUed vrith dust" can hear no more of truth or falsehood — ^we must still be separated vride apart ? Methinks the noblest Burial Service ever chaunted, or the finest prayers uttered over a grave, would not com pensate for the offence against human nature of this Exclusiveness of Death. A differ ent cemetery, a waU, or even a gravelled walk, used to mark out — what ? The different thoughts of God once held by the souls which animated the poor clay below — the souls which have now passed away where there are no dif ferences of reUgious opinion ! How the de parted may sigh as they sit, perchance side by side, in heaven, to see such pitiful distinctions made between their corpses mouldering aUke in the dust of earth ! CHAPTER XIX. NEEVI WITH NO SIGHTS. " Beatjtipttl Italy ! golden amber ! Warm with the kisses of lover and traitor ! " — CJANG EUzabeth Browning, the last and not ^ the least of the poets of two thousand years who have lauded the lovely land. And two thou sand years to come in some yet unspoken tongue, more rich and noble than human Ups yet have uttered, doubtless other poets wiU sing in higher strains, and praise again and yet again " Beauti ful Italy." To enjoy this beauty thoroughly, however, it is before aU things needful that we content our selves with one kind of beauty at a time — the beauty of Art, or the beauty of Nature — and cease to hold the deluding idea, that we can feast our eyes as a greedy child crams itself alternately vrith sugar-plums and strawberries. Sugar-plums NERVI WITH NO SIGHTS. 489 are good, and strawberries are good, and Italy has plenty of them for everybody. The lover of the one may go every day to some wondrous gaUery, or church, or museum, and pay down his franc to the custode, and enjoy himself to the uttermost of his appetite, on such deUcious bon bons as Raphael and Michael Angelo have pre pared for him. But let him not rush out and pluck hastily the earth-berries beside, and think his surfeited appetite capable of appreciating them. No : if he want to know what Italian nature is, let him put away aU divided homage from his heart ; let him give himself to humble and patient attendance by early dawn, and starUt eve, and under the glow of noontide sunUght ; and then the spirit of mountain, wood, and wave wUl reveal herself in her beauty divine. Thus I hold that the spots in Italy, where nature is really to be enjoyed, are, above all, those wherein there are no works of art to compete with her — where there are no galleries, no churches, no buried Roman towns, or Etruscan tombs — in a word, where travellers most rarely go, where there are no " sights." Such a place is Nervi, on the Riviera dell' Le- y3 490 ITALICS. vante, only a few miles from Genoa, on the road to Spezia. It is quite a poor little town, not a picture in it, for aught I know, nor a church worth risiting — not a shop where a sheet of paper, or a pair of gloves, or any of the miscellaneous Uttle huxtery — "^loUypops, mouse-traps, and other sweetmeats," of the poorest English hamlet could be procured. It has no history, and no body expects it to become a " rising emporium," or fashionable watering place, or anything else detestable, in secula seculorum. Poor little Nervi! There are no oil-lamps in the one long straggling street, not to speak of gas, or pavement, or superfluities of that kind. There are no Institu tions of any sort — nothing that by any chance you can be expected to go to see ; and when you come back to England, vrithout having seen, be snubbed by more dutiful travellers for neglecting, with the perpetual exclamation of surprise : " What ! you went to Quaranta-mila-vedute, and didn't see Baldardassero-di-Cinque-Cento's Madonna ? I never heard such a thing ! What do you travel for, may I ask ?" Nervi is de spatched in half a column of Murray, the greater part of which is devoted to the attractions of the NEEVI WITH NO SIGHTS. 491 " Stabilimento;" and the much reUeved reader is only told he might go to see a Church, if he Uked, but, eridently, vrill not be much to blame if he decUne the undertaking. As the said church is situated several hundred feet up an apparently inaccessible cUff, and the weather at Nervi is rarely below summer heat, it is not too much to expect that the gracious permission to neglect it wiU be accepted. But Nervi has a few attractions too, though it has no pictures by Baldardassero, nor statues, nor churches. There is a viUa at Nerri, which, unless the reader have pecuUar taste, he vrill, I think admit, a man might Uve at, without great self-denial, even vrithout seeing the pictures, statues, and churches aforesaid. Out of the village street, just beyond the high- peaked, ruined old bridge, there is a Uttle lane, then an ancient looking iron gateway, — a cancello, as they caU such things in Italy, — with a porter nearly as old as the gate, dreaming and potter ing aU day beside it, though his task does not seem to be a very arduous one, for Nerri is far enough away from Genoa, and everywhere else in the world of business or fashion, to secure that 492 ITALICS. visitors should not be over numerous. There is a short paved road, bordered vrith hedges of roses, then an open gravel space, with two large orange trees in the midst; perfect giants they are, at least eighteen or twenty feet high, and covered vrith masses of blossom. Between them is the " por tone," the official Italian hall-door, apparently calculated vrith nice adjustment to the necessities of a race of whom GoUath was a puny specimen — doors which, I suppose, are shut in Earth quakes and Revolutions, but which seem invari ably left open under less pecuUar emergencies. The house to which this door serves as en trance is a tall old pile, built in the shape of the picture and window-frames of a hundred and fifty years ago in England — a quadrangle, with each of the angles salient, as if forming four square turrets. The terreno, or basement story, slopes outward pyramidically, like an Egyptian temple. Well-proportioned and massive, he who is in search of a good design for a country house had better study Villa G — at Nervi. He vrill not find many more desirable. Only on one side is the symmetry of the plan disturbed, and that. is on the front, where, on each side over the NEEVI WITH NO SIGHTS. 493 door a deep terrace vrith marble balustrades projects over the lower story — a deUcious ter race where one may lie aU the day long and look over the sea and feel the cool sea breeze. The whole centre of the house is occupied by a hall two stories high (two ItaUan stories, equal to three EngUsh ones). Needless to say, it is large and lofty and cool, with its black and white marble fioor and arched roof. Across each of the four comers run balconies with great marble balustrades, and supported by heavy marble earrings ; and all round the haU are hung old faded portraits of bygone counts and barons ; and pieces of armour, — ^breast-plates and helmets and swords, and eight great stands full of lances and halberds. It is the Italian version of the "Fine old English Gentleman's" abode : "The haU so old, aU hung about with pikes, and guns, and bows. And swords, and good old bucklers, which had stood some tough old blows " — Only instead of oak pannelUng, and black roof, and huge fire-place, ready with its andirons for the yule-log, there are marble floors and gal leries and vrindows on all sides ready to admit the floods of ItaUan sunlight, or be closed during 494 ITALICS. the hot hours by the jalousies, tiU the cool dark ness is only broken by the beautiful stair and its gUstening columns. The upper stories of the rilla — there are three of them — have abundance of quaint rooms and curious passages, and another fine haU, and draw ing-rooms, fuU of modem handsome furniture and flowers and pictures. But we wiU not pause to describe them. There is one room more — the dining-room, opening into the lower haU on one side and into the garden on the other ; a long arched room, with pretty frescoed ceiling and odd bronze medaUions of some unknown gentleman in armour and lady in ruff; and over the door an I.H. S., to remind us we are in Italy — as if there were any danger of forgetting it, when through the vride open door and lofty vrindows pours the soft warm air, and beyond the oUves glitters the blue Mediterranean, and the perfume of the lemon-flowers in the orchard says "Italy! Italy! Italy!" to every sense. Breakfast is over— the French idea of a break fast, vrith fish and hot things and Montferrat vrine; and Mr. Banting's pamphlet, which Ues on the adjacent sofa, has been referred to in NEEVI WITH NO SIGHTS. 495 solemn conclave to discover if lobster, or peas, , or some other dish, "^ pleasant to the eye and good for food" is forbidden fruit; and having ascertained that it is utterly obnoxious and in jurious, everyone who, like Falstaff, has " much flesh and therefore much fraUty," has UberaUy partaken thereof; and the three brown cats, which have prowled round us like small tigers, have aU been fed, and Ukewise the white one, which always comes last and looks pathetic, and is caUed by the Padrona, the " Interes- santer Katze ;" and the heroic spaniel, who be longs to nobody, but who, having saved her pups from a flaming tree where cruel boys tried to destroy them, has estabUshed a permanent claim to universal respect and unlimited bones ; and the pups themselves, thus snatched as brands from the burning, but stiU so unconverted as to have nibbled to utter destruction two treatises on poUtics, towzled an ambassador's dispatches, eaten a portrait of Victor Emanuel, and torn straw from straw the hat of the present unfor tunate anthor — aU these have been satisfled; and three or four brown-skinned and black-eyed beautiful Uttle ItaUan urchins, who have been 496 ITALICS. furtively peeping from behind the rose-bushes, have been suddenly transported into Elysium by la petite Comtesse cramming their Uttle brown paws with French plums and almonds. And then the day at Nerri may be said to begin — not over early — at about twelve o'clock. Opposite the breakfast-room, beyond the grass pleasure ground and the beds of roses and aza leas, there is a broad straight walk through the orange orchard some two hundred yards long. Oranges and lemons — large oranges, Uke good sized laurels, and dwarf Manderine oranges not bigger than myrtles, and lemons trained against the wall — all in masses of blossom. Just as I write, the contadini are gathering the flowers into cloths which they lay on the ground. About half the produce they seem to strip from the trees, learing still as many flowers as wiU by and bye cover the whole bush vrith glovring balls of fruit. A curious luscious harvest it is — these little hay cocks of orange flowers. By and bye, they will be distilled into sweet water, and send their fragrance all about Europe. Now we are at the end of the orange garden. On one side a grass walk leads up to a little mound of roses NEEVI WITH NO SIGHTS. 497 surmounted by a white Tuscan column with a Madonna vrith outstretched arms on the summit. In front there is an olive wood, aU marked off by grassy paths Uned vrith rose and myrtle hedges, and here and there leading to stone seats sheltered by cypresses or laurels. Here is another orange garden and a little walk, and then a terrace right over the sea — the waves breaking on the rocks over which it is built. Such a riew as there is here ! To the left, the lovely coast of the Riviera dotted with houses and vrith the mountain slopes covered with trees and — stretching out into the sea about ten miles off, — the grand headland of Porto-Fino. In front, the deep blue Mediterranean glittering vrith a TnillifiTi diamonds. To the right, the whole gulf of Genoa vrith the coast trending away far off under the snowy summits of the Maritime Alps, on the uttermost horizon. Over-, head a huge old pine stretches across the ter race and shelters us from the sun. Nothing can exceed the beauty of these sea- riews at Nerri. The white sails of innumerable boats and ships passing across the gulf in every direction, the water itself sometimes (of a clear 498 ITALICS. day) of a deep metallic smalt; sometimes soft and tender as the blue eye of a young girl ; and sometimes, when a storm is threatening, dashed vrith great patches of that grassy green which Claude Lorraine loved to paint, and which seems so unnatural in his pictures, till we have seen the real colouring of Italy — all this makes the sea no less than the land, another world of beauty from our own. There is a corresponding terrace to the one I have described, in another rilla in Nerri, where the pine-trees fragrant as burning cedar in the hot sunshine, throw their shade across a walk close over the shore, and produce that pecuUar effect, which must be seen to be understood, of the contrast of their deep green boughs vrith the azure of the Mediter ranean. At the end of this terrace is a pavilion, a large square room vrith cool scagliola floor and sofas and rocking-chairs, and tables covered vrith books, and windows opening down to the ground, — one to the wood, one to the side of the coast and Porto Fino, and one immediately over the sea. Sitting there in the utter stiUness, the ineffable beauty, with the soft waves of the tideless Mediterranean gently playing among NEEVI WITH NO SIGHTS. 499 the low rocks a few yards away, and the white lateen saUs sweeping like swift and silent birds across the waters, one's heart grew soft and weak, and it seemed as if all the burden and the struggle of our EngUsh life were a troubled, senseless dream ; and here in this paradise vrith one true friend and many a book — books to read, and books mayhap to write, would be all we should ever crave in earth or heaven. The beating breast of ocean would lull us as when we were chUdren in our mother's arms, and her soft voice murmured some low sweet song whose words we comprehended not, but whose tone meant peace and love. Care and sickness and all our pitiful troubles would be soothed even as they used to be when half smiUng at our baby woes, half weeping with motherly tenderness and com passion, she hushed us to rest and smoothed back the little tangled locks from the hot tear- stained face, and bathed the crying eyes, and at last let us drop asleep when we had kissed her, and promised to weep no more. But we must not Unger aU day by the shore, beautiful as it is at Nervi. We tum back into the olive wood, and estabUsh ourselves by an old 500 ITALICS. stone seat, sheltered by a semicircle of red cy presses. It is quite a lonely little spot, with a grass walk leading nowhere, and where nobody has any work to do,' not even such Eden- work as gathering orange blossoms. There are only (out side the olive wood) vines running up their sup porting stems, ready by and bye to be looped together in endless garlands, and a pear tree or two, and some figs, and a Uttle corn, and a row of roses — all the worst farming in the world, like everything in Italy, but all the more delicious on that account". The vrild flowers and, I fear, a good deal of grass besides, grow through the wheat, and the wheat grows through the rines, and the vines grow through the figs and apricots, and in the midclle of all there is one patch of beans and another little bed of oats, — and then there is the Madonna and her roses. An English farmer would be disgusted vrith such agricul ture, just as an English gardener would be with such gardening; but very humbly I beg to tell them both the result is none the less lovely and luxuriantly delicious. As I write at this moment at this same stone seat, with the birds singing and bees humming in the clover (grow- NEEVI WITH NO- SIGHTS. 501 ing, alas ! along with all the rest, in the wheat), I think not many spmce farms or well ordered gar dens would be haff so charming. Beyond the little village, far enough away for no jarring voices to reach me, I see the houses among the olive woods which cover the sides of the mountains, and the httie churches perched high up with their white campanili ready for the music which is to come by and bye. WUen it is evening, the whole air vriU suddenly become resonant vrith the sUvery joy bells which at such distances form a sort of universal melody in the atmosphere rather than any defined sound of any kind. I know not what is the difference between the composition of the beUs used in Italy and the south of France and those vrith which we deafen our ears in Eng land, but it is as great as can be conceived. The moment we pass into the region of the southern bells, the sense of pain and irritation which with such infinite cost we procure for ourselves in the north gives place to one of pleasure and repose. The iron-clang which " makes day (especially Sunday) hideous" in our towns, and induces us to sigh with envy of that blessed isle of Alexander Selkirk where 502 ITALICS. " The sound of the church-going beU, The vaUeys and rocks never heard" — that dreadful BeU of England is heard no more. Sunday shines a Sabbath day to us in brighter lands. We may remember with a smile the in struments of torture which our beloved compa triots have expended their sovereigns in esta bUshing for their hebdomadal mortffication ; on one of which we have heard of their inscribing with natural pride, if not vrith high poetic feeling, the distich — " At proper times my voice I'll raise. And sound to my Subscribers' praise !" There are no such bells, and I think I may ven ture to say no such distiches in Italy. The fresh breeze from the sea, some forty or fifty yards off, is blovring to me over the garden of lemon trees ; the birds are singing aU round ; unconverted little Brand haring presented me vrith an old shoe found in the field, has lain down beside me for her siesta, leaving me in temporary peace of mind regarding my books and my hat. A lovely little Uzard, green and yeUow, vrith bright black eyes, has just crawled down one of the cypress stems, vrithin reach of my hand. The NEEVI WITH NO SIGHTS. 503 roses in the hedge along the grass walk where I am lying, are glovring in their sweet beauty. All things are cahn and sweet and beautfful. But the evenings in Nervi are the best part of the day. There is in front of the old house, just before the dining-room door, a garden seat, between two acacia trees and two huge bushes of lavender, which grow at their feet. Just the place for coffee after dinner. The sun has gone down long enough for us to be safe from that unwholesome air which accompanies the sunset hour in Italy. It is cool and calm, and as the stars come out, the sweetness of the atmo sphere is inexpressible. For a time, we can see the purple sea, and the lights in the vessels pass ing over it. An archway in the old wall, all over grown vrith lemon trees, frames the picture to the right — a few oUve trees, the sea breaking on the shore, and the tower of the viUage church, whence the chimes of the Ave Maria are sounding softly on the evening air. In front, there is the orange grove, among which a few fire-flies are beginning to flit, and to the left, a Uttle bosquet of shrubs, — magnoUas, and myrtles, and daphnes, — among which, standing in the rich green grass, a white 504 ITALICS. marble statue is gleaming. By and bye, if grows darker, the distant view fades away, the bells are silent, only the sound of the waves slowly beating on the shore breaks the perfect stilness. The fire-flies leave their roses, where " aU the long and lone dayUght" they have lain folded in the heart of the flower, and dart hither and thither through the darkening trees. The heaven is so full of stars, there seems no space into which the eye can penetrate where in some infi nite Beyond it finds not a world — even as in a holier life with stronger vision we shall gaze around and find, amid aU which seems darkness now, some new and radiant token of the handi work of God. At last we leave the garden and re-enter the house. There is one more room I have not yet described, a large one leading out of the dining-room and forming the private study of our host. A gloomy place it ought to be, the study of an ambassador, one of those vrily de signing German diplomatists who are universaUy known to be always plotting the extinction of liberty all over the world. Nevertheless, it looks an innocent room enough, and the con- NEEVI WITH NO SIGHTS. 505 sumption of cigarettes and reading of half the Reriews and Magazines of Europe seem to all appearances the chief pursuits of the occupant. Stay — ^there is an awful picture just over the writing table, which must portend something worse — only, unfortunately, it belongs to the Itahan owner, not the German tenants of the house. I never saw such a picture in my life. A large oval frame some six feet high, and on the canvas the representation of a man in black robes and long grey wig, vrith such a face as, thank heaven ! is not often seen in this upper world — whatever it might be in the lower one ! The forehead high and narrow, the huge nose hooked like an eagle's, the lips rolled back as if doubled over into the most hideous semblance of a grin, and the smaU eyes peeping out of their sUts actuaUy round the corner. If the cleverest caricaturist had designed to compose a countenance expressive of cunning, cruelty, baseness, and perfidy, he could hardly have suc ceeded so weU as the portrait painter who some hundred years ago doubtless limned as accu rately as he could this Ukeness of a scion of the noble ItaUan famUy of G . To make it com- z 506 ITALICS. plete, one of the wretch's long white hands with claw-like fingers is stretched out across his body in the direction of his eyes though not of his face, precisely as if he were going to grasp and crush some most unfortunate creature. The other hand holds in the back-ground a bundle of papers, which doubtless afforded the instru ments of the legal hawking, which seems to have been the professional pursuit of the subject. Un less all physiognomy be a delusion, the owner of that face must have been one of the most portentously wicked of the race of Adam. But we do not sit looking at this dreadful picture (though it is impossible to keep one's eyes from wandering to it now and then), but solace ourselves on arm-chairs and sofas, to talk and drink tea ; or, best of all, to Usten to our host reading with infinite taste some of the beautiful ballads of his country, which he does not weary to explain to his stupid guest. Sometimes he passes from poetry to history, and teUs the yet unfinished tale of the great events in Italy and Europe in which he has borne a part. Who can live in Italy and not revert continually to the marveUous poem unroUing before our eyes — the NEEVI WITH NO SIGHTS. 507 Regeneration of a Nation ? Every subject leads into this one. Every day's newspaper adds to it another and yet another Une. No small plea sure is it to be helped to read it clearly by one who, sympathising with the Uberated people, is quaUfied to know the under-current of events, and vrise and strong of head and heart to grasp the meaning of the whole great story. Not every evening, however, in Villa G is so spent in garden and study. Sometimes the table has been surrounded by guests, and the beautiful haU and rooms above have been hghted and filled vrith flowers ; and other " de signing diplomats," and their families, and men and women of many lands are gathered together, and there is much singing and more talking ; and la petite Comtesse plays Wagner and Chopin, as no chUd of eleven years old has any business to understand such things ; — more shame to the young Svriss lady who is officiaUy considered to be her instructress, but who is infinitely too charming and pretty to fulfil properly that ne cessarily sevefe and harsh duty of the nurture and admonition of the youthful mind — defects of her friend which, alas ! Grafinn Hildegarde be- z2 508 ITALICS. trays by the sad results of altogether exuberant health and joyousness. And everywhere through the lighted and flower-filled rooms, beside every guest in tum, is the presiding spirit of this dear house — the good and kind and gifted mistress — that beautiful sight, a woman in her stately prime, spreading happiness through her home, and wide into the circles of the world beyond. CHAPTER XX. CI-DEVANT ITALIE. ri^HBRE was a grim sort of joke in despoiling -*- Victor Emanuel of Savoy just as he ac quired the dignity of King of Italy. The old cradle among the rocks, from which his warlike race arose, was the forfeit for Lombardy con quered, and Tuscany permitted by Imperial con descension to annex herself. How the transfer was made — how Cavour put the province in pledge to the Shylock of the Tuileries, before ever a French soldier crossed the Alps to strike a blow at Magenta ; and how, when the pound of flesh came to be exacted, there was a great deal of fumbling and speechifying ; but at last the excision was effected, and the patient, by and bye, recovered, while the pound of flesh was duly devoured and assimilated by Shylock : all this is no concern of ours just now. We have heard. 510 ITALICS. indeed, sundry queer stories of how the Vox PopuU, on the occasion of the Plebiscite, was gently aided and encouraged to speak. More arts than one seem to have been in practice; down to the mission of a tribe of pedlars, who converted all the good 'housekeepers of Savoy to the cause of France, by selling them French goods at fabulously cheap prices, assuring them that such was the usual cost of the same, in countries having the happiness to form a part of the Empire of Napoleon III. The non-appear ance of any such pedlars, or, at least, of any such prices, since the Annexation, is a fact only too vividly realised by those who may have occasion to make purchases in the little ingenuous towns of sweet Savoy. By whatever means the change was brought about, however, it does not seem as if the Savoy ards lamented it seriously, or even sentimentally. The Kings of Sardinia, so far from showing fa vour to their original country, were rather hard masters to Savoy. Taxes were heavy, and public works few — in fact. Savoy paid for the honour of belonging to Italy. There was even a severe duty upon Savoyard goods carried over Mont CI-DEVANT ITALIE. 511 Cenis. The Italian conscription, which at the time of the annexation had obtained 12,000 re cruits from Savoy, was in its terms of service less popular than that of France. Altogether there are enough pros to balance the cons of the change, to make the Savoyards sufficiently con tent. Some of them would have liked to remain Itahan — others vrished to become French — a few patriots, vrith rather sanguine ideas of the possi biUties of nineteenth century diplomacy, urged that Savoy should be erected into an independent State. But aU parties bowed to fate in the shape of the Emperor, vrith sufficiently good grace, and very soon the change of masters vrill be forgotten. The people, whose patois is about as near French as Italian, are leaming French to deal with foreigners; and the laws of the Code Napoleon have superseded the old ones ; and French red- trousered heroes figure about the barracks in stead of ItaUan blue-trousered ones ; and all is pretty nearly said and done necessary in the business. Perhaps I may be allowed, for the last time, to speak of Savoy as ci-devant Italie. Countries differ from one another in their physiognomies very much as do races of human 512 ITALICS. beings. A type pervades the landscapes of each country, as the features of each race. There are brunettes and blondes, swarthy and xanthous countries — countries with hard bony outlines, and countries vrith soft swelling ones — lean hungry countries, and fat jovial ones — countries that frown on the beholder, and countries that smile on him — countries that are undeniably handsome, and yet somewhat repulsive — and countries which have no ostensible beauties, and yet are winning and home-like and loveable. Of all those types of countries. Savoy seems to me to resemble that not very common sort of person, who, at first sight, seems somewhat hard and cold, perhaps a little bitter, but whose countenance, aU of a sudden, beams out into a smUe more soft than ever belongs to faces habitually bright. Such countenances are among the most attractive in the world, when once understood ; and have the property of holding the affections as weU as at tracting them. The face, on the contrary, which may be seen to smile a hundred yards off, whose lips are always curled upwards fixedly, while .the eyes look sharply about them vrithout any smiles at all, (such a face as that of Pio IX, for instance,) CI-DEVANT ITALIE. 518 loses its first attractiveness every time we look at it, till at last it becomes to us utterly banale and blank, if not false and treacherous. I have never seen one of these fixed smiles but they portended some harmful quality — sometimes it is ill-temper, sometimes perfidiousness ; sometimes (curiously enough) religious fanaticism, appearing in all shapes, fcom that of nuns in convents in Ireland, France, and Italy, to the deluded victims of Brother Prince in the Agapemone. When the human face has got something to lock up, this is the shape of its worst padlock. It is not used for hoarding sorrow, or love, or pain ; the key leaves a different impress on the lips, when it is turned with patient resolution on these holier secrets. But there is a devU's padlock made of thin curved Ups, which whoso sees may recognise for an eril token. The first glance at Savoy is anything but of this smihng sort. The northern slopes of the Alps are immeasurably less rich than the south- em ; in fact, any region much more desolate is diflficjilt to remember. The bare mountains are flaked vrith daubs of snow which, even in summer, lie in every hollow, to keep up the tenure of z3 514 ITALICS. the grim Frost Giant till he come again in October, Fiercely driven in his chariot-throne. By the tenfold blasts of the Arctic zone — to re-assume his universal domain over these Alpine solitudes. The roads are bordered every few hundred yards by smaU stone cabins omi nously labeUed "Houses of Refuge"; -perpetual memorials of storm and darkness, and miserable travellers lost in snow and vrind, striving vainly to reach them in the wintry night. Crosses, too, there are — tall, bare-Umbed crosses, not carved Uke those of the valleys, nor covered vrith all the dread insignia of Calvary, Uke those of Northern Italy ; but gaunt beams of heavy wood, such as seem ready for a victim now. Why do they stand there, even closer to one another than the Houses of Refuge, and alternating in such ghastly sort of anachronism with the telegraph posts, which remind us of busy Ufe and pleasure in the world below, yet through whose wires the keen wind ofthe mountain blows an eternal wail ? The crosses are there to mark the spots where Death has ridden faster than the traveller and overtaken him ; and Winter, Death's accomplice. CI-DEVANT ITALIE. 515 has hidden the corpse under his white winding- sheet ; and when these two have gone away laugh ing in the howling vrind, men have found the mur dered wretch, and put up the cross over his grave. Below lie vast dreary valleys, vrith here and there scattered riUages of poor cabins with stone roofs, weighted down by other and heavier stones to protect them against the storms. No gardens are there round these houses, huddled together Uke paupers at a workhouse door, in the snow. Hardly any cultured fields. The very belfries of the churches are poor dwarf things, covered vrith metal cloaks for protection from the blast. The pines on the mountain sides look black and vrild, so that one hears without wonder that out of them every winter come troops of wolves to harry the rillagers, and now and then a grim brown bear is seen, as the short wintry day closes, prowUng outside the forest in search of Ms prey.* Such is Savoy — dark, and rugged, and gloomy, on its frontier — only a few hours away from the glowing and luscious plains of Susa and Northern * One was killed at St. Jean de Maurienne in 1863, which was sold in Paris for 900 francs. 516 ITALICS. Italy. But, by and bye, the smile is seen steal ing over the hard cold face. Savoy is going to welcome us vrith other looks than these beetling cliffs and grim elf woods hanging over her brows. Down we sweep, past the bare moun tains into the valley of the Isere, and, lo! the hills are covered vrith rich woods and delicious pastures, all filled with flowers, whose perfume flits across the road in gushes of sweetness ; and the springs of clear water leap out from under the ash trees and the chestnuts ; to the right and the left the valleys open, richer and softer one than another, till Savoy meets us face to face all beaming with tenderness and joy. I have seen many rich spots in the world, but none more lovely than the valleys which reach from Chambery northwards, and in whose breast lies the Lac du Bourget. Leman is more grand, Luceme more magnificent, Como more gorgeous, Asphaltites, under its Syrian sun, more glitter ing ; but for pure loveliness and sweetness, there is surely none which excels that blue expanse wherein are refiected the peaks of the Dent du Chat (over which once shone Hannibal's spears), and the delicious rineyards and plane-trees of CI-DEVANT ITALIE. 517 the Tresserves. There is an opulence of Nature about Savoy which is marvellous. The herbage and the corn; meadow, and wheat, and buck wheat, and hemp, and beans, set at defiance all rotation of crops, and bear year after year splendid harvests on the same ground. The foliage of the planes, acacias, and walnuts, is the richest conceivable, every leaf being above the usual size, and growing thicker than any " leaves on VaUombrosa." Never does there seem to be a bUght on one of them, or even an early vrithering. In summer, when the corn is grow ing yeUow, and the huge vines, — garlanded over every field, are in fullest leaf and blossom, — join ing the perfume of their deUcious flowers to the lime and the acacia, the whole country is a wilder ness of beauty and fragrance. But the rintage in autumn is of course the glory of the year. It comes in Savoy just after the walnut harvest, when down every road the fine trees have been chmbed by the boys, whUe mothers and sisters stood with baskets and carts below to catch the green fruit as they shook it over them; and, amid much laughter and play, the stores were brought home, then stripped of their green husks. 518 ITALICS. and sent away — perchance to be eaten at many an EngUsh and Scotch Hallowe'en. Everybody works in Savoy, whatever may be age or sex, apparently with complete impartiality. I have seen an old woman, of at least eighty, comfort ably sitting down in the middle of a corn-field (doubtless her famUy property), and reaping and making sheaves as far as her poor old arms could reach ! As to the children, jolly Uttle blue-eyed imps, they seem to do haff the work everywhere; an urchin of six, like Tom Thumb, often con ducting a huge pair of oxen, and little demure damsels of five aiding vigorously at the vintage. Even the milch-cows are by no means let off from their share of labour on account of their interesting condition — ^interesting, at all events, one would think, to those who drink their mUk. I have watched, day after day, from the charm ing bosquet of the Hotel des Princes, four of them patiently ploughing a field, conducted by an old lady of seventy or thereabouts ; the man behind driring a plough constructed on the pattern of that of Cincinnatus. But it is no hardship, apparently, to cows, or old women, or babies either; for everything is done gently and peaceably, as be- CI-DEVANT ITALIE. 619 comes the inhabitants of a happy valley ; and as to cruelty to animals, over- driving or beating them, I do not think any Savoyard is capable of such thing. Horses and dogs and oxen, and even the absurd black pigs of the country, which are actually concave underneath, and more Uke weU-disposed hyaenas than any beasts destined to become bacon, — aU are made pets of. Often have I watched vrith pleasure a pair of magnifi cent oxen obeying meekly a single gentle word of their driver, walking over to their cart •of apples or grapes, straddUng across the pole to their places, and then waiting to have their heads fixed to the yoke as placidly as if dragging wag gons was the principal pleasure of Ufe. Double is the reUef of such a sight, and of the friendly re lations of man and horse and dog, coming from Italy, where " Non e Cristiano" is an argument apparently sufficient to justify complete indif ference in the northern prorinces, and the most atrocious cruelty in Naples. Savoyards are rather stupid, perhaps, but it would not come into their heads to do to their poor little curs what I have known a Tuscan gentleman do to his beautiful Pomeranian dog— cut off its tail as 520 ' ITALICS. a psychological experiment to promote domestic sentiments, or, as he explained it courteously to us, "per affezionarlo alla casa !" (to attach him to the house) . Still less would they load a miserable lame jade of a horse, as I have con tinually seen NeapoUtans do, with sixteen and even eighteen people, and then flog it into a furious gallop, or race down the tremendous hill of Capo di Monte (as my own driver once did against another charioteer) to the batter ing of the horse's feet utterly to pieces on the \)nes. ./'Probably some of the milder attributes which adorn the Savoyard character may be traceable to the circumstance that the more ill-disposed and vagrant of the nation are all provided for by the intelligent public of England, for whom Chiavari barrel-organs have an attraction. Lon don is an Industrial School (not at all a Re formatory) for all the " vagrom men" and boys, the idle and roguish and disorderly inhabitants of Savoy. Thus there remain hardly any ill- disposed people in the country. The Maire of Aix himself told me that hardly any kind of crime passed under his notice. Theft is almost CI-DEVANT ITALIE. 521 unknown, as is evident from the habit of the people to hang baskets containing all their little stores by cords under the eaves of their houses, so that anybody might help himself without the least difficulty if so disposed. Only since the last few years have brought an influx of French, were ceUars ever possessed of keys ; the wine — and right good vrine it is — was open to any passer by in every cottage. I am sorry to confess the Savoyards drink ; on fete days, ap parently, they drink a good deal; but it never seems to make them quarrelsome or mischievous, only good-humoured and fooUsh and affectionate. I never saw anything more ridiculous than the train of feUows, old and young, going home one aftemoon, after a fair, and Uning the pretty road from A i-r les Bains to the MouUn des Primes. Everybody had either bought a pig or a cow, or was returning vrith a pig or cow which had failed to find a purchaser. The pigs and cows were, I suppose, sober, but somewhat independent. The men were much too kind to beat or even scold the beasts, and besides, had themselves and some rather far-gone friends to mind also. So 522 ITALICS. it was a confused journey altogether ; but all full of good humour and laughing at mishaps, and ridiculous adjurations to the sharp and lively hyaena-pigs, to walk in the ways of vrisdom and not turn back to root for comestibles. Among aU the hundreds of people there was not an angry face, or loud voice, or rough act. It is certainly a singular fact that there should be so much drinking and so little crime in Savoy, and so little drinking but such abundance of crime in Italy. Whether the Vine be the original Forbidden Fruit and tree of Evil, however, I shall not stop to inquire ; but assuredly the vintage of Savoy is one of the loveliest sights in all the world. The land holds then its great Feast of Tabernacles, all festooned with purple wreaths. Everywhere the men are gathering the sweet grapes and dropping the bunches to the women and children, who catch them in their hands, and stow them away in the white wooden pails. At the corner of each field stands the heavy old cart, with its grey oxen patiently chewing the cud, and now and then stamping at too intrusive flies which CI-DEVAJfT ITALIE. 523 the pretty nets on their foreheads have not suf ficed to banish ; while some little child of five or six sits by them and plays at keeping the beau tfful beasts, or cUmbs up and helps himseff to some of the grapes in the huge tubs on the waggon. And round and beyond us on every side, are other fields of corn and vines, and lanes of walnut and acacia, and further yet the grand mountains and the lovely lake, — now emerald green, now turquoise blue, — gleaming through the trees and the garlands, tUl, far away, Mont Cenis, with his crown of snow, grows rosy in the setting sun. A httle story recording the effect which the beauty of a scene, just similar to this, once made on a traveUer (a Princess of the House of Or leans, visiting her uncle the Duke of Lucca), was told me by FeUcie de Fauveau, as we sat on the terrace of a villa on BeUosguardo, looking down the lovely Val-d'Arno, whence Milton drew his dream of Eden. I have tried to put it into verse, and shall end my little " Notes" by quot ing it here as a last glimpse of the glory of the vine-clad South. 524 ITALICS. A princess came to a Southern strand. Over a summer sea ; And the sky smUed down on the laughing land. For that land was Italy. And the lady gazed on the glorious scene, TUl the tears sprang in her eyes ; For hardly human sight may brook The vision of Paradise. The fruit-trees bent their laden boughs O'er the fields, with harvest gold ; And the rich vines wreathed from tree to tree. Like garlands in temples old. And over aU feU the glad sunUght — So warm, so bright, so clear : The earth shone out like an emerald set In the diamond atmosphere. Then do-wn to greet that lady fair Came the Duke fr-om his palace haU : " I thank thee, gentle Sire," she cried, " For thy princely festival ! " For honoured guests have towns, ere now. Been decked right royaUy -. But thy whole land is garlanded — One bower of bloom — for me !" Then smUed the Duke at the lady's thought. And the thanks he had Ughtly won ; For Nature's eternal Pesta-day, She deemed was for her alone. A poet stood by the Princess' side — " O lady ! raise thine eye : The Giver of ihis great festival — He dweUeth in yon blue sky ! CI-DEVANT ITALIE. 525 " Thy kinsman prince hath welcomed thee ! But God hath His world arrayed. Not more for thee than yon beggar old. Who rests 'neath the Uex shade. " His sun doth rise on the peasant's flelds. His rain ou his vineyard pour ; His flowers bloom by the worn way-side. And creep o'er the cottage door. 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