Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany Part 15

20th October 1786.

We arrived here last night, having driven through the sweetest country in the world; and here are a few timber trees at last, such as I have not seen for a long time, the Tuscan spirit of mutilation being so great, that every thing till now has been pollarded that would have pa.s.sed twenty feet in height: this is done to support the vines, and not suffer their rambling produce to run out of the way, and escape the gripe of the gatherers. I have eaten too many of these delicious grapes however, and it is now my turn to be sick--No wonder, I know few who would resist a like temptation, especially as the inn afforded but a sorry dinner, whilst every hedge provided so n.o.ble a dessert. _Paffera pur la malattia_[Footnote: The disorder will die away though.], as these soft-mouthed people tell me; the sooner perhaps, as we are not here annoyed by insects, which poison the pleasure of other places in Italy; here are only _lizards_, lovely creatures! who being of a beautiful light green colour upon the back and legs, reside in whole families at the foot of every tree, and turn their scarlet bosoms to the sun, as if to display the glories of colouring which his beams alone can bestow.

The pleasing tales told of this pretty animal's amical disposition towards man are strictly true, I hear; and it is no longer ago than yesterday I was told an odd anecdote of a young farmer, who, carrying a basket of figs to his mistress, lay down in the field as he crossed it, quite overcome with the weather, and fell fast asleep. A serpent, attracted by the scent, twined round the basket, and would have bit the fellow as well as robbed him, had not a friendly lizard waked, and given him warning of the danger.

Swift says, that in the course of life he meets many a.s.ses, but they have not _lucky names_. I have met many _vipers, and so few lizards_, it is surprising! but they will not live in London.

All the stories one has ever heard of sweetness in language and delicacy in p.r.o.nunciation, fall short of Siennese converse. The girls who wait on us at the inn here, would be treasures in England, could one get them thither; and they need move nothing but their tongues to make their fortunes. I told Rosetta so, and said I would steal from them a poor girl of eight years old, whom they kept out of charity, and called Olympia, to be my language mistress, "_Battezata com' e, la lascieremo Christiana_[AC]," was the answer. It is impossible, without their manners, to express their elegance, their superior delicacy, graceful without diffusion, and terse without laconicism. You ask the way to the town of a peasant girl, and she replies, "_Pa.s.sato'l Ponte, o pur barcato'l Fiume, eccola a Sienna_[AD]." And as we drove towards the city in the evening, our postillion sung improviso verses on his sweetheart, a widow who lived down at Pistoja, they told me. I was ashamed to think that no desk or study was likely to have produced better on so trite a subject. Candour must confess, however, that no thought was new, though the language made them for a moment seem so.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote AC: Being baptized as she is, we will leave her a Christian.]

[Footnote AD: The bridge once pa.s.sed, or the river crossed, Sienna lies before you.]

This town is neat and cleanly, and comfortable and airy. The prospect from the public walks wants no beauty but water; and here is a suppressed convent on the neighbouring hill, where we half-longed to build a pretty cottage, as the ground is now to be disposed of vastly cheap; and half one's work is already done in the apartments once occupied by friars. With half a word's persuasion I should fix for life here. The air is so pure, the language so pleasing, the place so inviting;--_but we drive on_.

There is, mean time, resident in the neighbourhood an English gentleman, his name Greenfield, who has formed to himself a mighty sweet habitation in the English taste, but not extensive, as his property don't reach far: he is however a sort of little oracle in the country I am told; gives money, and dispenses James's powders to the poor, is happy in the esteem of numberless people of fas.h.i.+on, and the comfort of his country people's lives beside; who, travelling to Sienna, as many do for the advantage of studying Italian to perfection, find a friend and companion where perhaps it is least expected.

The cathedral here at Sienna deserves a volume, and I shall scarcely give it a page. The pavement of it is the just pride of Italy, and may challenge the world to produce its equal. St. Mark's at Venice floored with precious stones dies away upon the comparison; this being all inlaid with dove-coloured and white marbles representing historical subjects not ill told. Were this operation performed in mosaic work, others of rival excellence might be found. The pavement of Sienna's dome is so disposed by an effort of art one never saw but here, that it produces an effect most resembling that of a very fine and beautiful damask table-cloth, where the large patterns are correctly drawn.

_Rome_ however is to be our next stage, and many of our English gentlemen now here, are with ourselves impatiently waiting for the numberless pleasures it is expected to afford us. I will here close this chapter upon our various desires; one wis.h.i.+ng to see St. Peters; one setting his heart upon entering the Capitol: to-morrow's sun will light us all upon our search.

ROME.

The first sleeping place between Sienna and this capital shall not escape mentioning; its name is Radicosani, its t.i.tle an inn, and its situation the summit of an exhausted volcano. Such a place did I never see. The violence of the mountain, when living, has split it in a variety of places, and driven it to a breadth of base beyond credibility, its height being no longer formidable. Whichever way you turn your eyes, nothing but portions of this black rock appear therefore; so here is extent without sublimity, and here is terror mingled with disgust. The inside of the house is worthy of the prospect seen from its windows; wild, s.p.a.cious, and scantily provided. Never had place so much the appearance of a haunted hall, where Sir Rowland or Sir Bertrand might feel proud of their courage when

The knight advancing strikes the fatal door, And hollow chambers send a sullen roar.

MERRY

To this truly dismal reposing place is however kindly added a little chapel; and few persons can imagine what a comfortable feel it gave me on entering it in the morning after hearing the winds howl all night in the black mountain. Here too we first made acquaintance with Signor Giovanni Ricci, a mighty agreeable gentleman, who was kindly a.s.sistant to us in a hundred little difficulties, afterwards occasioned by horses, postillions, &c. which at last brought us through a bad country enough to Viterbo, where we slept.

The melancholy appearance of the Campagna has been remarked and described by every traveller with displeasure, by all with truth. The ill look of the very few and very unhealthy inhabitants confirms their descriptions; and beside the pale and swelled faces which shock one's sight, here is a bra.s.sy scent in the air as of verdigris, which offends one's smell; the running water is of an odd colour too, like that in which copper has been steeped. These are sad desolated scenes indeed, though this is not the season for _mal' aria_ neither, which, it is said, begins in May, and ends with September. The present sovereign is mending matters as fast as he can, we hear; and the road now cutting, will greatly facilitate access to his capital, but cannot be done without a prodigious expence. The first view of Rome is wonderfully striking.

Ye awful wrecks of ancient times!

Proud monuments of ages past Now mould'ring in decay.

MERRY.

But mingled with every crowding, every cla.s.sical idea, comes to one's recollection an old picture painted by R. Wilson about thirty years ago, which I am now sure must have been a very excellent representation.

Well, then! here we are, admirably lodged at Strofani's in the Piazza di Spagna, and have only to chuse what we will see and talk on first among this galaxy of rarities which dazzles, diverts, confounds, and nearly fatigues one. I will speak of the oldest things first, as I was earnest to see something of Rome in its very early days, if possible; for example the Sublician Bridge, defended by Cocles when the infant republic, like their favourite Hercules in his cradle, strangled the serpent despotism: and of this bridge some portion may yet be seen when the water is very low.

The prison is more ancient still however; it was built by the kings; and by the solidity of its walls, and depth of its dungeon, seems built for eternity. Was it not this place to which Juvenal alludes, when he says,

Felicia dicas Tempora quae quondam sub regibus atque tribunis Viderunt uno contentam carcere Romam.

And it is in this horrible spot they shew you the miraculous mark of St.

Peter's head struck against the wall in going down, with the fountain which burst out of the ground for his refreshment. Antiquaries, however, a.s.sure us, that he could not have ever been confined there, as it was a place for state prisoners only, and those of the highest rank: they likewise tell us that Jugurtha pa.s.sed seven months there, which is as difficult to believe as any miracle ever wrought; for the world was at least somewhat civilized in those days, and how it should be contented with looking quietly on whilst a Prince of Jugurtha's consequence should be so kept, appears incredible at the distance of 1900 years.

That Christians should be treated still worse, if worse could be found for them, is less strange, when every step one treads is upon the bones of martyrs; and who dares say that the surrounding campagna, so often drenched in innocent blood, may not have been cursed with pestilence and sterility to all succeeding ages? I have examined the place where Sylla ma.s.sacred 8000 fellow-citizens at once, and find that it produces no herb but thistles, a weed almost unknown in any other part of Italy; and one of the first punishments bestowed on sinful man.

Marcellus's Theatre, an old fountain erected by Camillus when Dictator, and the Tarpeian rock, attract attention powerfully: the last particularly,

Where brave Manlius stood, And hurl'd indignant decads down, And redden'd Tyber's flood.

GREATHEED.

People have never done contradicting Burnet, who says, in his travels, that a man might jump down it now and not do himself much harm: the truth is, its present appearance is not formidable; but I believe it is not less than forty feet high at this moment, though the ground is greatly raised.

Of all things at Rome the Cloaca is acknowledged most ancient; a very great and a very useful work it is, of Ancus Martius, fourth king of Rome. The just and zealous detestation of Christians towards Pontius Pilate, is here comically expressed by their placing his palace just at its exit into the Tyber; and one who pretended to doubt of its being his residence, would be thought the worse of among them.

I recollect nothing else built before the days of the Emperors, who, for the most part, were such disgracers of human nature and human reason, that one would almost wish their names expunged, and all their deeds obliterated from the face of the globe, which could ever tamely submit to such truly wretched rulers.

The Capitol, built by Tarquin, stood till the days of Marius and Sylla it seems; that last-named Dictator erected a new one, which was overthrown in the contests about Vitellius; Vespasian set it up again, but his performance was burned soon after its author's death; and this we contemplate now, is one of the works of Domitian, and celebrated by Martial of course. Adrian however added one room to it, dedicated to Egyptian deities alone: as a matter of mere taste I fancy, like our introducing Chinese temples into the garden; but many hold that it was very serious and superst.i.tious regard, inspired by the victory Canopus won over the Persian divinity of fire, by the subtlety of the Egyptian priests, who, to defend their idol from that all-subduing element, wisely set upon his head a vessel filled with water, and having previously made the figure of Terra Cotta hollow, and full of water, with holes bored at the bottom stopped only by wax to keep it in, a seeming miracle extinguished the flames, as soon as approached by Canopus; whose triumph was of course proclaimed, and he respected accordingly. The figure was a monkey, whose sitting att.i.tude favoured the imposture: our antiquaries tell us the story after _Suidas_.

As cruelty is more detestable than fraud, one feels greater disgust at the sight of captive monarchs without hands and arms, than even these idolatrous brutalities inspire; and no greater proof can be obtained of Roman barbarity, than the statues one is shewn here of kings and generals over whom they triumphed; being made on purpose for them without hands and arms, of which they were deprived immediately on their arrival at Rome.

Enormous heads and feet, to which the other parts are wanting, let one see, or at least guess; what colossal figures were once belonging to them; yet somehow these celebrated artists seem to me to have a little confounded the ideas of _big_ and _great_ like my countryman Fluellyn in Shakespear's play: while the two famous demi-G.o.ds Castor and Pollux, each his horse in his hand, stand one on each side the stairs which lead to the Capitol, and are of a prodigious size--fifteen feet, as I remember. The knowing people tell us they are portraits, and bid us observe that one has pupils to his eyes, the other _not_; but our _laquais de place_, who was a very sensible fellow too, as he saw me stand looking at them, cried out, "Why now to be sure here are a vast many miracles in this holy city--that there are:" and I heard one of our own folks telling an Englishman the other day, how these two monstrous statues, horses and all I believe, _came out of an egg_: a very extraordinary thing certainly; but it is our business to believe, not to enquire. He saw my countenance express something he did not like, and continued, "_Eh basta! sara stato un uovo strepitoso, e cosi sinisce l'istoria_[AE]."

[Footnote AE: Well, well! it was a famous egg we'll say, and there's an end.]

In this repository of wonders, this glorious _campidoglio_, one is first shewn as the most valuable curiosity, the two pigeons mentioned by Pliny in old mosaic; and of prodigious nicety is the workmans.h.i.+p, though done at such a distant period: and here is the very wolf which bears the very mark of the lightning mentioned by Cicero:--and here is the beautiful Antinous again; _he_ meets one at every turn, I think, and always hangs his head as if ashamed: here too is the dying gladiator; wonderfully fine! savage valour! mean extraction! horrible anguis.h.!.+ all marking, all strongly characteristical expressions--_all there_; yet all swallowed up, in that which does inevitably and certainly swallow up all things--approaching death.

The collection of pictures here would put any thing but these statues out of one's head: Guido's Fortune flying over the globe, scattering her gifts; of which she gave him _one_, the most precious, the most desirable. How elegantly gay and airy is this picture! But St. Sebastian stands opposite, to shew that he could likewise excel in the pathetic.

t.i.tian's famous Magdalen, of which the King of France boasts one copy, a n.o.ble family at Venice another, is protested by the Roman connoisseurs to reside here only; but why should not the artist be fond of repeating so fine an idea? Guercino's Sybil however, intelligently pensive, and sweetly sensible, is the single figure I should prefer to them all.

Before we quit the Capitol, it is pity not to name Marforio; broken, old, and now almost forgotten: though once companion, or rather respondent to Pasquin, and once, a thousand years before those days, a statue of the river _Nar_, as his rec.u.mbent posture testifies; not _Mars in the forum_, as has been by some supposed. The late Pope moved him from the street, and shut him up with his betters in the Capitol.

Of Trajan and Antonine's Pillars what can one say? That St. Peter and St. Paul stand on the tops of each, setting forth that uncertainty of human affairs which they preached in their life-time, and shewing that _they_, who were once the objects of contempt and abhorrence, are now become literally _the head stones of the corner_; being but too profoundly venerated in that very city, which once cruelly persecuted, and unjustly put them to death. Let us then who look on them recollect their advice, and set our affections on a place of greater stability.

The columns are of very unequal excellence, that of Trajan's confessedly the best; one grieves to think he never saw it himself, as few princes were less puffed up by well-deserved praise than he; but dying at Seleucia of a dysenteric fever, his ashes were brought home, and kept on the top of his own pillar in a gilt vase; which s.e.xtus Quintus with more zeal than taste took down, I fear destroyed, and placed St. Peter there.

Apollodorus was the architect of the elegant structure, on which, says Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, the G.o.ds themselves gazed with wonder, seeing that nothing but heaven itself was finer. "_Singularem sub omni caelo structuram etiam numinum ascensione mirabilem_."

I know not whether this is the proper place to mention that the good Pope Gregory, who added to the possession of every cardinal virtue the exertion of every Christian one, having looked one day with peculiar stedfastness at this column, and being naturally led to reflect on his character to whose honour it was erected, felt just admiration of a mind so n.o.ble; and retiring to his devotions in a church not far off, began praying earnestly for Trajan's soul: till a preternatural voice, accompanied with rays of light round the altar he knelt at, commanded his forbearance of further solicitation; a.s.suring him that Trajan's soul was secure in the care of his Creator. Strange! that those who record, and give credit to such a story, can yet continue as a duty their intercessions for the dead!

But I have seen the Coliseo, which would swallow that of pretty Verona; it is four times as large I am told, and would hold fourscore thousand spectators. After all the depredations of all the Goths, and afterwards of the Farnese family, the ruin is gloriously beautiful; possibly more beautiful than when it was quite whole; there is enough left now for Truth to repose upon, and a perch for Fancy beside, to fly out from, and fetch in more.

The orders of its architecture are easily discerned, though the height of the upper story is truly tremendous; I climbed it once, not to the top indeed, but till I was afraid to look down from the place I was in, and penetrated many of its recesses. The modern Italians have not lost their taste of a prodigious theatre; were they once more a single nation, they would rebuild _this_ I fancy; for here are all the conveniencies in _grande_, as they call it, that amaze one even in _piccolo_ at Milan and Turin: Here were supper-rooms, and taverns, and shops, and I believe baths; certainly long galleries big enough to drive a coach round, and places where slaves waited to receive the commands of masters and ladies, who perhaps if they did not wait to please them, would scarcely scruple to detain them in the cage of offenders, and keep them to make sport upon a future day.

The cruelties then exercised on servants at Rome were truly dreadful; and we all remember reading that in Augustus's time, when he did a private friend the honour to dine with him, one of the waiters broke a gla.s.s he was about to present full of liquor to the King; at which offence the master being enraged, suddenly caused him to be seized by the rest, and thrown instantly out of the window to feed his lampreys, which lived in a pond on which the apartment looked. Augustus said nothing at the moment; to punish the n.o.bleman's inhumanity however, he sent his officers next morning to break every gla.s.s in the house: A curious chastis.e.m.e.nt enough, and worthy of a nation who, being powerful to erect, populous to fill, and elegantly-skilful to adorn such a fabric as this Coliseum which I have just been contemplating, were yet contented and even happy to view from its well-arranged seats, exhibitions capable of giving nothing but disgust and horror;--lions rending unarmed wretches in pieces; or, to the still deeper disgrace of poor Humanity, those wretches armed unwillingly against each other, and dying to divert a brutal populace.

These reflections upon Pagan days and cla.s.sical cruelties do not disturb however the peace of an old hermit, who has chosen one of these close-concealed recesses for his habitation, and accordingly dwells, dismally enough, in a hole seldom visited by travellers, and certainly never enquired about by the natives. I stumbled on his strange apartment by mere chance, and asked him why he had chosen it? He had been led in early youth, he said, to reflect upon the miseries suffered by the original professors of Christianity; the tortures inflicted on them in this horrible amphitheatre, and the various vicissitudes of Rome since: that he had dedicated himself to these meditations: that he had left the world seventeen years, never stirring from his cell but to buy food, which he eat alone and sparingly, and to pay his devotions in the _Via Crucis_, for so the old Arena is now called; a simple plain wooden cross occupying the middle of it, and round the Circus twelve neat, not splendid chapels; a picture to each, representing the various stages of our Saviour's pa.s.sion. Such are the meek triumphs of our meek religion!

And that such subst.i.tutes should have replaced the African savages, tigers, hyaenas, &c. and Roman gladiators, not less ferocious than their four-legged antagonists, I am quite as willing to rejoice at as the hermit: They must be better antiquarians too than I am, who regret that a nunnery now covers the spot where ambitious Tullia drove over the bleeding body of her murdered parent,

Pressit et inductis membra paterna rotis: