UC-NRLF ^B SD3 fllb T»f» T THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID J^' A- ^' -; / / -A,, SOUTH BY EAST. INTERIOR OF PALATINE CHAPEL. [P. 190. South by East: ^oit§ of Srauil in ^tftitli^nt ^urir^^. BY G. F. R O D W E L L, SCIENCE MASTER IN MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE. W,it\) i^timerous Illu2trati0n0. ILontron : MARCUS WARD & CO., 67 & 68, CHANDOS STREET, STRAND, And royal ULSTER WORKS, BELFAST. 1S77. Marcus Ward and Co., ROYAL ULSTER WORKS, BELFAST. i^0 the P^morit OF FRANCESCO NARDI I DEDICATE i^his l00h. D(^ PREFACE. N the following pages I have made no attempt to preserve a special continuity in the treatment of the subjects discussed, or to give a formal description of any of the places mentioned. Such descriptions will be found in guide-books, and in that excellent class of books which has arisen during the last few years, of which Hare's Days in Home may be taken as a good example. Here I have jotted down ideas and impressions, which presented themselves from time to time while visiting certain well-known places. These chapters are literally what they profess to be, "Notes of Travel," often desultory, but, I trust, seldom inaccurate. Portions of several chapters have appeared from time to time in our school paper. The Marlhurian, and the major part of the " Summum Bonum " is from The Cliftonian of 1870. Nearly the whole of the chapter on Athens was printed in the Dublin University Magazine for July, 1875, and the account of the Tuscan Memorial to Galileo in Nature, for August, 1873. I must express my thanks to Prof. Ehousopoulos for permission to copy the engraving of the heads of Homeric Heroes, from his ErXEIPIAION TH2 EAAHNIKH2 APXAIOAOriAS. G. F. EODWELL. Marlborough, May IJfth, 1877. CONTENTS CHAP. I. — General Impressions of Northern Italy II. — Milan ..... III. — Verona, Padua, Venice IV. — Bologna, Elorence, Pisa V. — Eome . . . . , VI. — The Monastery op Monte Cassino . VII.— Naples .... VIII. — Messina, Taormina, Catania . IX. — Syracuse . . . . . X. — Palermo and Girgenti XL — Athens . . . . . XII. ^ — Cairo . . . '. PAGE 9 20 . 31 47 . 70 106 . 137 161 . 170 187 . 216 251 'i^t 0f Jllu^traticn^. Interior of the Cappella Palatina, Palermo — Erected in 1132 (p. 190) . . . . Milan Cathedral ...... S. Anastasia, Verona .... House of the Capulets . Cathedral of S. Mark, Venice Florence ...... Michael Angelo ..... Pisa ....... Lake Trasimenus in Roman Times . Cathedral of Pisa, and the Leaning Tower Baptistery of Pisa . . . . . The Appian "Way ..... The Capitol ..... The Forum, Restored ..... Arch of Titus ..... Table of Shew-Bread, &c., on Arch of Titus The Coliseum ..... Columbarium ...... Hadrian's Tomb, Restored .... Castle of S. Angelo ..... Piazza and Basilica of S. Peter Apollo Belvedere. Vatican .... Head of Apollo Belvedere .... Laocoon Group. Vatican .... Zeus of Otricoli ..... Sleeping Ariadne. Vatican .... Barberini Juno. Vatican .... Frontispiece. 20 32 33 36 50 52 56 61 63 64 70 72 72 73 74 74 76 77 78 80 83 84 85 86 87 88 List of Ilhtstratioits. PAGE Melpomene. Vatican .... ... 89 Head of Eros. Vatican . . . . , . .90 Bust of Cronos. Vatican . . . . . .105 The Well, Monte Cassino . . . . . . .110 Entrance to the Church, Monte Cassino . . . . .111 Monte Cassino . . . . . . , . ll.> Study of Monks' Heads . . . . . . .126 VieAv of the Monastery from the Garden . . , . .128 I^aples ......... 137 The Catacombs of I^aples . . . . . . .141 Demeter Enthroned. Painting from Pompeii. N'aples . . . 142 Persephone Enthroned. Painting from Pompeii. IS"aples . . .143 Farnese Bull. JSTaples . . . . . . .144 Farnese Hercules. !N'aples . . . . . .145 Head of Juno. ]S"aples . . . , . . .146 Pallas Athene. Naples . . . . . . .147 Eesting Hermes. iN'aples . . . . . .148 Terra Cotta Bowl, Bronze Lamps and Stands, found at Pompeii . .149 A Temple at Pompeii . . . . . , .150 House of Pansa, Pompeii . . . . . . ,150 The Solfatara ........ 153 Baise ......... 157 Cameo of Athenion. N'aples Museum . . . , . 1 60 Entrance to the Harbour of Messina . . . . . .161 The Castle of Scilla . . . . . . .162 Messina ......... 162 The Cathedral of Messina . . . . . .164 Taormina ......... 165 Euined Theatre at Taormina . . . . . .166 Calabrian Coast, as seen from Messina . . . . .166 Catania . . . . . . . . .168 Greek Theatre at Syracuse . . . . . . .172 Syracuse and its Environs . . . . . .174 Archimedes . . . . . . . . .176 Tomb of Archimedes . . . . . . .177 Charnel-house of the Monastery of the Cappuccini, Syracuse . . .182 Papyrus ......... 184 The Island of Capri . . . . . . . .187 8 List of Illustrations. The Harbour of Palermo, and Monte Pellegrino King Eoger of Sicily receiving his Crown from the Hands of Christ Interior of the Cathedral of Monreale Campanile of the Church of La Martorana Cloisters of the Monastery of Monreale Bronze Eam of Syracuse ..... Porta Nuova, Palermo ..... Grotto of S. Eosalia ...... Temple of Concordia, Girgenti .... Interior of the Temple of Concordia .... Ancient Distaff still used in some parts of Sicily The Heroes of Homer ...... Salamis ....... The Academic Grove, Eestored ..... Temple of Zeus Olympius ..... Dionusos and Lion. From the Monument of Lysicrates Theseus. Prom the Pediment of the Parthenon The Acropolis, Athens ...... The Acropolis, Eestored ..... Parthenon and Erechtheum ..... Erechtheum, Eestored ..... Caryatide of the Erechtheum ..... Arch of Hadrian ...... Greek Vases ........ The Dodwell Vase preserved in Munich. An Example of early Greek Vase-painting ...... Eondanini Medusa. Munich ..... Pompey's Pillar, Alexandria ..... Palm Trees ....... Street in Cairo ...... Eastern Asses ....... Water-Carriers of the East ..... Mosque of the Sultan Hassan ..... Pyramids of Ghizeh ...... The Sphynx . . • . Tombs of the Mamelukes ..... Obelisk at Heliopolis ...... Sakieh ....... PAGE 188 190 190 191 192 195 196 198 204 205 215 216 228 229 231 232 232 233 234 235 236 236 238 246 247 250 252 254 255 256 257 261 262 263 267 268 270 \ ^.^ 'ni SOUTH BY EAST. C H A P T E K I. GENERAL IMPRESSIONS OF NORTHERN ITALY. The Journey — Turin — Cheapness of Labour — Resources of the Country — Paper Money — Character and Individuality of Italian Towns — Alessan- dria — Genoa — Beauty of its Position — A Desecrated Shrine. T is to be hoped that the Continental railway companies will soon adopt the system of Pullman sleeping cars, which all American railways possess, and which we use in our own country for long journeys to the North of England and Scotland. For j|,|. such a journey as that between Paris and Turin they are IP really essential, if it is to be accomplished with any degree p of comfort. The coupes are very poor substitutes for V the roomy, well-furnished Pullman, which is so carefully fitted with springs that the shaking is reduced to a minimum, if and is, moreover, provided with every comfort and con- y venience that the space will admit. The mail train between Paris and Turin consists of a few first-class carriages, and the delays are as infrequent as possible. Yet the journey occupies twenty-two hours, and the tedium of it is indescribable ; you leave Paris at eight o'clock in the evening, and if you are fortunate 10 Impressions of Northern Italy. enough to get some broken sleep, you awake perhaps at four or five o'clock next morning shivering with cold, and you look out upon a dull, grey landscape, sufficiently monotonous in every direction. In travelling through central France you pass over scores of miles of flat, fertile country, which even in spring does not look bare, and which in summer presents a mass of variegated colours. Towards the afternoon the country becomes more rugged, and for some distance before the Mont Cenis tunnel is reached the train traverses a very picturesque mountainous district. A slight delay takes place near the entrance to the tunnel, carriages are changed, and in less than half-an-hour we shall be in Italy. The tunnel is 8^; miles long, and we traverse it in a little more than twenty minutes ; it is perfectly ventilated, no discomfort is experi- enced in passing through it, and the carriages are well lighted, and run with surprising smoothness. It was snowing slightly on the French side of Mont Cenis, but as we emerge on the Italian side, a really warm and dazzling sun makes us open the windows and pull down the blinds, and the thick snow-clouds and leaden sky of the other side of the tunnel are replaced by a blue and cloudless heaven. The efiect is almost magical, and reminds us of the feast of Albertus Magnus, on which occasion he is said to have taken his guests into a garden in which there were several feet of snow and all the surroundings of a severe winter day, but so soon as they were seated at the table Albertus muttered an incantation, where- upon the snow suddenly disappeared, a bright sun shone from out a cloudless sky, and midsummer suddenly replaced midwinter. As we emerge into Italy the beautiful and fertile plain of Lom- bardy stretches out before us to the south and west, while to the north we see the semicircular range of the Alps. Wherever we may be in Northern Italy, even for miles to the south of Turin, we see this great belt of mountains sometimes bounding the distant horizon, sometimes comparatively near. Towards evening we reach Turin, a prim little town, which between 1859 and 1SG5 was the capital Cheapness of Labour. 11 of Italy, and the residence of the king. It contains a large number of parallel streets, and a few fine piazzas, which are clean and new- looking, although the town is of considerable antiquity. Like Jerusalem, Turin has endured many sieges ; so early as 218 B.C. it was destroyed by Hannibal, and it has undergone many subsequent changes. It scarcely retains a vestige of its older buildings, and with a site and name two thousand years old looks like a city of yesterday. It contains but little to interest the traveller — a fairly good museum, a renaissance cathedral of 1498, and a university with about 2000 students. You have no sooner entered Italy than you are struck with the cheapness of labour. At the last station on the French side of Mont Cenis you may notice that the railings are of the usual flimsy laths which are used in many parts of France for this purpose, and which, as far as strength or security are concerned, are simply use- less. On the other hand, at the first station on the Italian side of Mont Cenis, the railings are formed of square stone pillars, placed at short intervals with intervening beams of wood. As the lath railings are too flimsy and paltry, so are these unnecessarily massive and elaborate, and probably each pillar has taken as long to fashion as would make twenty yards of the lath railing. We find many other examples of the cheapness of labour : men are often seen ploughing with a primitive wooden plough which has scarcely been altered since the time of the early Eomans, and which is drawn by six or eight (on one occasion we saw as many as twelve) oxen. Two or three men manage one plough : one guides it, and occa- sionally uses a long ox-goad tipped with steel ; the others walk by the heads of the foremost oxen. Compare this with a steam-plough, or with an ordinary iron plough drawn by a pair of good English cart-horses ; the work would be done twice as well and twice as expeditiously. At the same time, we have to remember that if labour be cheap in Italy the necessaries of life are also cheap, and the land is so prodigiously fertile that it repays any care expended 12 Impressions of Northern Italy upon it an hundredfold. If the soil of Italy could be placed under high Norfolk farming, the yield would considerably increase the wealth of the landed proprietors, and, through them, of the whole country. That the resources of the country require to be extended there can be no doubt. Few countries possess less capital. The chief currency is paper money, of which you get about twenty-seven one-lire notes for a sovereign. Each of these notes goes at least as far as a shilling in this country ; a porter makes you a low bow on receiving a bank note for 2^d., and the custodian of a' church thanks you profoundly for a note which is worth nearly 5d. It is to be hoped that the finances of United Italy will soon be in a more satisfactory condition ; the people are somewhat heavily taxed, and taxation must increase to pay for the new ironclads, hundred- ton guns, and army equipments, unless the agricultural and com- mercial resources of the country can be developed. Then a silver currency will begin to make its appearance, and the detestable local bank notes, which are useless outside the town in which they are issued, will disappear. Northern Italy is in many respects different from the southern parts of the peninsula, and we cannot wonder at this when we remember that till lately the country was broken up into a number of small States and Duchies — Lombardy, Venetia, Parma, Modena, Ferrara, and so on, each with its separate government. It is curious to notice how little the Northern Italians know of the south of their kingdom : you meet Italians in Milan and Venice who have not been in Rome for five-and-twenty years, while they have visited England, France, and Germany several times during the same period, and Switzerland many times. There could be no united national feeling so long as Italy was divided into a number of petty states ; and there can be no doubt that the country will now evolve and maintain an individuality which it has never before possessed. Characteristics of Italian Towns. 13 The larger cities of Northern Italy possess but little character compared with the smaller towns. Milan, Florence, and Turin in many respects resemble Paris, and you scarcely feel that you are among a new people. Some of the churches and palaces in these cities are indeed remnants of the past ; but there is little else of antiquity, and the towns seem to have lost all character and individuality. Some travellers rave about Venice in such an unconscionable way that one goes there expecting to see one of the prodigies of the earth ; but the expectation is not always realised. The beauty of the city is very dependent on external causes — a bright clear air and delicately-tinted clouds. As we entered Venice on a dull, leaden day, the approach from the mainland reminded us forcibly of the Norfolk marshes : it rained pitilessly ; the Grand' Canal looked like a deserted pond ; there was the usual squabble among, guides and porters and hotel-touters, and until we found ourselves alone in a gondola, with our luggage lying about us, we might have imagined that we had just arrived at Hull or Bristol. Again, in Florence you find neat, modern-looking houses, omnibuses in the Piazza della Signoria, cabs and cabmen of the usual kind, unclean beggars, and abusive guides. Commend us rather to such delightful old towns as Verona, Pisa, Padua, Bologna ; these possess a thousand times the individuality of such cities as Turin and Milan. In them you really feel yourself in Italy. In them you find quaint old buildings and battlements, herb-markets of the fourteenth century, beautiful public fountains, and tombs, gardens of cypress trees five hundred years old ; palaces which once belonged to Ghibellines and Guelphs, Capulets and Montagues ; churches in which the same faith has found a home for a thousand years ; old grey campaniles that have rung in fifty generations of men, and have rung once more at their departing. From Turin we go to Genoa by way of Alessandria, a town of some sixty thousand inhabitants, founded in 1167, and named after Pope Alexander III. On one occasion we had a forced 14 Impressiojis of Northern Italy. detention of several hours in Alessandria, and found it to be a singularly uninteresting town ; in fact, we can remember but two facts connected with it — the one that a cattle fair was taking place in the market-place, where we saw numbers of the beautiful cream- coloured oxen of the Maremma, splendid placid beasts with large dark liquid eyes and black muzzles ; the other that we were a good deal surprised to find a large church used as a hay-barn. The city of Genoa owes much to its j)osition ; seen from the sea, or from above the town, it fully justifies its name of La Superga ; but when you descend to the harbour, through narrow winding streets, the illusion disappears, and you are reminded of any other busy seaside port — Marseilles, or the neighbourhood of the London docks. Although Genoa in the Middle Ages was one of the most important seaports in the world, having great oriental possessions and an enormous commerce, it never attained the position which was reached by its great rival, Venice. It was often disturbed by internal dissensions, and was perpetually at war with the Pisans and Venetians. The city never seems to have developed so important a constitution as Venice ; we rarely hear either of its Government or its Doges, while the Venetian Councils and the constitutions of the Doges are often quoted in the history of Europe. Many of the old Genoese palaces remain, and attest the wealth of their former occupants ; some of them contain a few good pictures, and one of them has been converted into a flourishing university apparently much devoted to law, for we saw therein a professor of natural philosophy lecturing to some half-dozen students, whilst the professor of law had a crowded class-room. Few of the churches of Genoa are of interest ; perhaps S. Lorenzo, the Cathedral, is the most interesting. It dates from the twelfth century, but has been so frequently altered that it combines three distinct kinds of architecture — Romanesque, Lombardo-Gothic, and Renaissance. We can scarcely be surprised, therefore, to find it a somewhat unsightly and inelegant building. It has a great relic Genoa — A Desecrated Shrine. 15 in the sacristy — the vessel which was used by our Lord and His disciples when they partook of the Paschal Lamb. It was captured at Csesarea by the Genoese during one of the crusades. One remembers Genoa best on account of the beauty of its situation. Placed at the summit of the curve formed by the Italian coast trending to the north-west, and the French coast trending to the north-east, it forms the culminating point of the gulf which bears its name, and a sort of half-way house on the lovely Kiviera. Its climate is very mild, for while it is protected by hills to the north, it is open to the sea and the sun on the south. So admirably suited for a maritime city is it, that it has been used as a harbour from very remote times, certainly long before the Christian era. Now, in common with Venice and Pisa and other Italian cities, it shows signs of commercial decay, but it still possesses a considerable trade, and its population is equal to that of Newcastle. The decayed splendour of the city is not nearly so conspicuous as it is in Venice, yet we have rarely seen anything so utterly desolate and God-forsaken as a desecrated shrine which we once saw in one of the streets facing the harbour — a street busy with life and full of the voices of men. Here we saw a large broken window, raised somewhat above the level of the street, but in a line with the rest of the windows, and approached by three or four well-worn steps. It proved to belong to one of the small wayside shrines common in Italy, and had no doubt been much resorted to by sailors before starting on a voyage. The shrine consisted of an altar surmounted by a figure of the Virgin and Child, rudely carved in wood or made of plaster of Paris, and clumsily painted with many colours. Above the altar were hung numerous votive offerings, which had been presented to the shrine in the hope of securing a prosperous voyage, or which had been vowed in a time of peril at sea. We could but think of the sailor in the Naufragium of Erasmus, who promised mountains of gold to our Lady of Wal- singham if he was saved from drowning ; and of the Zealander (at 16 Impressiojts of Northern Italy. whose expense Erasmus has made so merry) who, as the ship was sinking, bellowed out loudly so that S. Christopher might hear him, promising him a great statue to be placed in his church in Paris if he should ever set foot on dry land again, and then added in a whisper to his companion, " Si semel contigero terram, non daturus sum illi candelam sehaceam." But somehow the Genoese shrine had fallen into disrepute ; the vowed gifts hung upon the sacred walls had failed to appease the potent god of the sea, and the mariner had complained of his faith and changed gods, and had therefore deserted them. It was now a desecrated shrine ; no sailor about to trust himself to the waves knelt upon the steps to pray for a prosperous voyage, no sailor's wife to supplicate her husband's safe return. The place was desolate and deserted, no one even bowed the knee in passing it ; the glass of the window was broken ; great lumps of plaster had fallen from the ceiling, a black wine-bottle stood on the altar, everything was mouldering and going to rack and ruin. And then we thought that surely a desecrated shrine is one of the saddest and most pitiful sights in all the world. We wonder what the worshippers in the first Church of San Clemente in Rome would say if they saw above their old church the present San Clemente, and the buildings of the Irish Domini- cans I And what would the still earlier worshippers of Mithras say if they could see their temple with two San Ciementes above it, dark and desolate, flooded with water, with the altar at which they had been wont to worship standing in the midst of the waters far from the light of day 1 Or what would the Sicilian worshippers of Athena of twenty-three centuries ago say if they could see their temple in Syracuse converted into a Roman Catholic cathedral ? What would they say if they could see (as we once saw) IMonsignor the Bishop surrounded by half-a-hundred canons, priests, deacons, sub-deacons, deacons of the throne, chanters, sub-chanters, acolytes, thurifers, bearers of crosier, mitre, biretta, and pastoral staff, singing mass on some fine sunny January morning on the occasion of a Pagan Temples and Chris Han Churches. 17 festaf "Desecration, forsooth," they would exclaim with one voice, "it is much more: insult has been added to injury; our temples have not only been destroyed, but other temples have been built with and upon their ruins, and other worships have been celebrated within our fanes." Verily they too would lament the changed gods."^'' * In speaking of a heathen temple in Catania which had been converted into a church, Brydone {Sicily and Malta, 1776) is led to make some curious remarks concerning the resemblance of the Roman Catholic rites to those of the heathens. He dissents somewhat from the opinions expressed above, and has certainly pushed his point too far ; but the subject is suggestive. He says of the temple : — " It has now been purged and purified from all the infection contracted from the heathen rites, and is become a Christian Church, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, who has long been constituted imiversal legatee and executrix to all the ancient goddesses, celestial, terrestrial, and infernal. And, indeed, little more than the names are changed, the things continuing pretty much the same as ever. The Catholics themselves do not attend to it ; but it is not a little curious to consider how small is the deviation in almost every article of their present rites from those of the ancients. I have some- where seen an observation, which seems to be a just one — that during the long reign of heathenism, superstition had altogether exhausted her talent for invention ; so that when a superstitious spirit seized Christians, they were under a necessity of borrowing from their predecessors, and imitating some part of their idolatry. In ' some places the very same images still remain ; they have only re-christened them, and what was Venus or Proserpine is now Mary Magdalene or the Virgin. The same ceremonies are daily performed before these images, in the same language, and nearly in the same manner. The saints are perpetually coming down in person, and working miracles, as the heathen gods did of old. The walls of the temples are covered with the vows of pilgrims, as they were formerly. The holy water, which was held in such detestation by the first Christians, is again revered and sprinkled about with the same devotion as in the time of paganism. The same incense is burnt by the priests, arrayed in the same manner, with the same grimaces and genuflexions before the same images, and in the same temples too. In short, so nearly do the rites coincide, that were the pagan high priest to come back and resume his functions, he woidd only have to learn a few new names ; to get the Mass, the Paters, and the Aves by heart, which would be much easier to him, as they are in a language he understands, but which his modern successors are often ignorant of. Some things, to be sure, would puzzle him ; and he would swear that all the mysteries of Eleusis were nothing to the amazing mystery of Transubstantiation, the only one that ever attempted to set both our understanding and our senses at defiance, and baffles equally all the faculties both of the soul and bodv." 18 Impressions of Northern Italy. We have not far to turn if we would discover other desecrated shrines — the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, the temples of Baalbec, the Parthenon, the ruined abbeys of England, the thousand and one temples in Mexico, India, Burmah. But these we view in a different light from the deserted shrine of the harbour of Genoa ; for we almost forget the desecration in the beauty of the ruins, and in the fact that the faith in whose service they were erected, and in some cases the very race of men who erected them, have passed away. Time the destroyer, less ruthless than man the arch- destroyer, so often gives a charm of its own to the ruins of ancient temples, that our sorrow for their loss is almost turned into joy for their present beauty. The various clothings of nature ; the dark- green ivy, the pale-grey or yellow lichen, the hues of weathered stone, the perfection and harmony of the buildings themselves, and, above all, the ever-changing tones of light — all these things divert our thouorhts from the ruin as it was, to the ruin as it is. There is a picture by Turner which should claim our attention in this regard : — The ruins of a Greek temple stand upon a bold promontory overlooking the sea ; its desolation is complete , wolves howl among the ruins, great birds of night perch upon the broken columns, dark vegetation covers the floor ; below is seen an angry sea ; above, the moon breaking through skimming clouds, and fitfully illumi- nating both sea and temple. The whole scene is very weird, and infinitely saddening. One would like to look at it with the music of the church-scene in Faust, or the tomb-scene in Ernani, sounding in one's ears. But let us complete the ruined temple, range the columns in order, cover them with a star-spangled roof, put frieze and pediment in its place, and a great statue of gold and ivory in the midst, and then imagine a crowd of gaily-dressed worshippers streaming towards the beloved fane. And this is the place in which wolves howl, and owls wing their noiseless flight I Truly the world is growing old. One thought forces itself upon us as we gaze at such desecrated Reflections. 19 shrines. Will S. Peter's ever make way for the temple of an unknown faith, and will its carved alabaster and verde antique be built into the palace of the conqueror ? Or, again, when the New Zealander stands upon the ruins of London Bridge, will S. Paul's be open to the sky and desolate — a deserted temple as woe-begone and lone as the Virgin's shrine in Genoa ? CHAPTER 11. MILAN. The Cathedral — The Relics — S. Carlo Borromeo — Holy Thursday Ceremonies — S. Ambrogio — The Bibliotheca Ambrosiana — Milan as a Musical Centre — Career of a Promising Singer — The First Night of a New Opera at La Scala. ILAN, the capital of Lombardy, is a fine modern city, nearly as large as Sheffield, It has undergone the same process of Haussmajinization that Paris lately underwent, and is now full of fine broad streets, lofty houses, and palatial public buildings. Since the Austrian evacuation it has passed through many changes. Very little remains of the old city except a few churches. Of course the central point of attrac- tion is the Cathedral, called by the Milanese the eighth wonder of the world. It is the third largest cathedral in Europe, and has been so often described that we shall say but little about it, save that it is the most wonderful and imposing and elaborate mass of white marble that the mind can conceive. The rich- ness of the exterior passes description ; there are nearly a hundred separate spires (or spirettes, if we may use such a word), and 4500 white marble statues, the size of life. Within, it is supported by fifty-two columns, fifteen feet in diameter, the beauty of which is somewhat marred by the replacement of the capitals by niches containing statues. Moreover, the vaulted roof is painted in imitation of open work, a terrible <! W H <! o S. Carlo Borromeo. 21 barbarism in such a building. The high altar and its surroundings are worthy of the building, and two fine bronze pulpits are affixed to columns near the altar. The Cathedral contains many relics, among others the ring and staff of S. Carlo Borromeo, the great Archbishop of Milan, whose character is described so lovingly by Manzoni, in / Promessi Sposi. A descendant of S. Carlo (Cardinal Edward Borromeo) is now Archpriest of S. Peter's in Kome. First among all the relics in the Cathedral is the body of S. Carlo, which rests in the Cappella S. Carlo Borromeo, in front of the choir. It is preserved in a coffer of rock-crystal, which is placed in a tomb of chiselled silver, decorated with gold and precious stones. If ever a man deserved to be canonised, that man, as all who have read his life must allow, was S. Carlo Borromeo. But it is an unseemly and barbarous thing to show his poor shrivelled corpse, decked out with gold and jewels, to chance visitors, for five lire each ; and to have them stand curious, open-eyed, and open-mouthed, where the faithful kneel with closed eyes and in prayer. And what would S. Carlo himself, the least selfish and ostentatious of men, have said, when he walked bare- footed through the streets of Milan, with his plain wooden crucifix, to visit the poor, plague-stricken, and djdng, if he had known that their descendants would have dressed him out in cloth of gold, and exhibited him for broad silver pieces ? And what must the devotee who kneels praying in front of that silver tomb think when he repeats " et expecto resurrectione mortuorum . . . " ? Come ! let us leave the subterranean chapel of the dead, and go upstairs into the scarcely less dim choir. It is Holy Thursday, and the great relics are to be exposed, the vessels and candlesticks of silver, the jewelled effigies of former Archbishops, the bones of the Saints ; and the successor of S. Carlo — Luigi Nazari, by the Divine Mercy, and the grace of the Holy Apostolical See, Arch- bishop — is to attend at an early service, and to wash the feet of twelve poor men, after the fashion of His Holiness the Pope, on 22 • Milan. the same day. It is raining hard, the morning is very dim, and, as a consequence, the Cathedral is almost in darkness ; so much so indeed that candles are necessary in the organ loft, and in front of the Archbishop's throne. There are but few persons present, perhaps not a hundred in the whole of the vast edifice. A subterranean passage connects the Cathedral with the Archbishop's palace, and near this we patiently wait for the procession. At length, between eight and nine o'clock, the front of the procession begins to surge up from underground, headed by the magnificent jewelled crucifix of great antiquity, preserved with the rest of the Cathedral treasure. Then come chanters and sub-chanters, acolytes and thurifers, and the twelve old men, dressed like bakers in white frocks fastened round the waist, and with flat white caps upon their heads. They are for the most part fine men, with long grey beards, and plenty of self-confidence. Then a pause ; then priests, deacons, and officers of the Archbishop's household ; and then, bearing himself like an Emperor, came the Archbishop himself. No King, First Consul, Viceroy, Emperor, or Sultan could possess a more magnificent mien and carriage, or be more becomingly dressed. Imagine a fine man, who understands the nature of a processional pace, and who moves with a steady, even^ and dignified gait ; imagine him clothed in fine linen, and in a flowing robe of purple silk, carried by a train-bearer ; above the robe a cape of ermine, upon which rests a crucifix of gold ; at the back the robe looped up by a gold tassel, so as to reach the collar, and divide the ermine into two parts, and beneath the cape, simple sleeves of white linen — imagine all this, and you will have some idea of the Archbishop. We could not help thinking that this simple but rich dress of white linen, purple silk, and ermine, just relieved with two simple ornaments of gold, was infinitely more becoming than the gorgeous dress in which an Archbishop celebrates High Mass ; jewelled mitre, cope of cloth of gold, lace sleeves, embroidered silk gloves, and so on. A crowd of Mon- The Church of S. Ambrogio. 23 signori followed the Archbishop, who was conducted to a faldstool (somewhat like that at which the Pope is kneeling in Eaifaelle's "Miracle of Bolsena") in front of the altar; after kneeling for a few moments he left the choir, and was conducted to a side chapel, where the priests formed a square about him, and the service began. The service was very long, and we could not stay to the end, but no doubt it was conducted in the same manner as the corresponding office in Eome, which has been often described. The old men sat alone in the choir ; the silver vessels were exposed on an illuminated altar. A most striking effect was produced by going into the darker portions of the Cathedral and looking at the circumscribed highly illuminated space immediately surrounding the Archbishop. The effects of light and shade Were wonderful ; the Chiaro-oscuro would have delighted Rembrandt, and the masters of his school. The singing was rather good ; the organ loft, almost in darkness, was illuminated by a few large candles for the singers ; a priest stood at one extremity to watch the ceremonies below, and give notice to the organist when to commence. The faces of the singers — now in dark shadow, now in bright light, now in a demi-tint, at one time animated, at another at rest — formed a wonderful picture. The oldest church in Milan is S. Ambrogio, which was founded by S. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, in the fourth century, on the ruins of a temple dedicated to Bacchus. The front of the church dates from the ninth century, and is enclosed by arcades, under which are preserved a number of old monuments and tombstones. It was here that S. Ambrose closed the gates of the church against the Emperor Theodosius after the massacre of Christians in Thessalonica, and compelled him to undergo a public penance — a very daring act for a Churchman in the fourth century. Three Saints are buried in the church, SS. Ambrose, Protasius, and Gervasius. The Mosaics in the Tribune are very fine, and are earlier than those of S. Mark's, in Venice. Of the remaining 24 Milan. seventy-eight churches of Milan but few deserve any notice : — S. Lorenzo, for its antiquity ; S. Alessandro, for its costly decora- tions ; and S. Maria della Grazia, in the convent of which latter church is still to be seen that great glory of Milan, the Cenacolo — Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper." This wonderful picture, which is familiar to every one in the form of an engraving or oil-copy, is unfortunately in a very bad state of preservation, but several old copies of it still exist, and give one a good idea of what the original must have been. Milan possesses some good pictures in the Brera, or Palace of Arts and Sciences. Among others, RafFaelle's "Marriage of the Virgin," Francia's "Annunciation," and Mantegna's " Saints." In the same building there is a collection of 170,000 volumes and 1000 MSS. One of the finest collections of MSS. in Italy exists in the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana, founded by Cardinal Frederic Borromeo in 1609. Here there are 15,000 MSS., many of them being holographs of celebrated Italians : Petrarch, Tasso, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, S. Carlo Borromeo, and others. Among them is a large folio volume completely filled with notes and drawings by Leonardo, who was at once eminent as a painter, sculptor, engineer, musician, mathematician, and man of science, and who was at least a century in advance of his time. Milan possesses the finest hospital — the Ospedale Maggiore — we have ever seen in any city. It contains 6000 beds, and is consequently nearly ten times larger than the largest London Hospital. Architecturally it is a magnificent and very ornate building of red terra-cotta, and it contains no less than nine courts, the first of which is surrounded by arcades. Milan is the musical centre of Italy, and a singer is scarcely recognised at any of the Italian Operas of Europe who has not first satisfied the critical Milanese. The Milan School of Singing is resorted to by almost all those who intend to make music a profession ; there are at least four celebrated masters who Career of a Proinising Singer, 25 can command almost any price for their lessons, and who have pupils from all parts of the world. Again, singers have been known to pay the director of La Scala large sums of money for permission to appear on his stage. The fortune of a singer who has appeared at La Seala and has pleased the Milanese is made, at least in Rome, London, Paris, and St. Petersburgh. The English and French impresarii are always glad to announce a new singer as "from the Teatro della Scala." The career of a promising singer is frequently of this nature. He enters the Conservatorio of some small but musical town, such as Bologna or Parma, where the fees are very low. He makes considerable progress, and after a few years of really arduous study under very competent masters, he appears at the Apollo Theatre at Rome. Fairly successful here, he passes on to the San Carlo in Naples, then perhaps to the Pergola in Florence, and thefi, if he has had the good fortune to have succeeded, he appears at La Scala. This is the turning-point of his professional existence ; if he finds favour with the Milanese, he may be a happy man for the rest of his life ; there is London, Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburgh before him, and an enterprising impresario soon hears of him, and engages him for a season of forty nights, for a sum upon which he can live in luxury for the rest of the year, and the very interest of which would more than have sufficed for his expenditure while a student in the Bologna Conservatorio. There is a bright prospect in the future ; a long vista ended by a pretty villa near his native city, or in the environs of Paris, if he prefers to follow the example of many of his eminent countrymen — Rossini among the rest ; or if the singer be a lady, there are the chances of marrying a nobleman, after the manner of Patti and Lucca, or at least of marrying a rich husband. Also the pleasure of being described as prima donna assoluta, and of having showers of flowers, and adulation and applause, rained down upon her head. Often she will receive more substantial results, expressed by such 26 Milan. paragraphs as the following : — " Tlie Emperor of Eussia, at the conclusion of the Opera, presented to Mdlle. Soprano a bracelet set with diamonds and pearls. The gifted singer will start in a few days for London, w^here we understand she has been engaged by- Mr. Gye for the season, for a sum of 100,000 francs." But there is another side to the question : suppose that our singer fails to please the Milanese critics — suppose that she is heartily hissed at the end of her first song, and that the audience laugh audibly at her acting (and the habitues of La Scala never hesitate to go to such extremes), then she is doomed — doomed for the rest of her life to wander over the face of the earth from one theatre to another, a seconda donna or less : Bertha in II Barhiere, a " damigella della Kegina " in II Flauto Magico, Eudige in Guglielmo Tell. Although, as we have stated, Milan is the musical centre of Italy, and a singer has to get her diploma at La Scala, it is notorious that you ordinarily hear worse singing at the Italian Opera in Milan than you hear either in Paris or London. The reason is obvious. The Milanese do not offer their singers so large a salary as the English or French managers, consequently the successful singer, having used La Scala as a ladder leading to fortune, climbs to the uppermost rung, lands herself safely at the top of the musical and histrionic tree, and kicks over the ladder. II Direttore, il Impresario, il Segretario, and all the other officials, may go down on their knees and beg the new prima donna to stay, the signorina points to her draft of agreement with the English impresario, and reminds the officials that she has a living to make and has worked hard for it. Thus the regular staff of La Scala is far less efficient than that of Covent Garden or the Italiens. We suppose the salaries offered by the Milan Director would be less than one-quarter the salary offered in England, France, or Russia. In the Gazetta Musicale of Milan, we noticed an offer of IGOO lire (nearly £64) a-year for a competent and able First Night of a New Opera. '^7 musician to direct the services in the Metropolitan Basilica of San Marco in Venice. In this same journal a long list of names was given of different singers oj)en for engagements after such and such a date, in this fashion : — Jacobo Campanella, baritone, buffo singer, has sung at the Pergola, and Carlo Felice ; after June 2nd, address, &c. We surely must not blame the Italians because their operatic performances are inferior to our own, when we tempt away their best singers by the offer of large salaries. The principal musicians in this country are Italians. Not to mention the great influx (even down to the chorus) which takes place at the commence- ment of the Italian Opera season, we have many located amongst us, for instance Costa, who undertakes the management of the principal musical performances in this country — Her Majesty's Opera, the Sacred Harmonic Society, various Provincial Festivals, &c. We can afford in this country to give a great star more than a hundred pounds for one night's performance, in Russia they do more than this, and in America even more. AVe were fortunate in being present in La Scala on the first night of a new opera, Viola Pisani ; founded on Lord Lytton's Zanoni, and composed by the Maestro Perelli. The latter is a young and poor musician, who has shown considerable talent, and has received the patronage of a rich merchant in Milan, wdio, anxious for the success of his protege, and confident of his talent, agreed with the Director of La Scala to make good any loss, should loss occur ; and the lio-htino; alone of the laro-est theatre in Europe costs a heap of money, to say nothing of principal singers, second singers, chorus, conductor, orchestra, prompter, scene-painter, music-copyist, and so on down to the sub-assistant scene-shifter. Let us look at the libretto before we listen to the opera. The adapter of the novel to the opera still speaks of " Sir E. Bulwer," forgetting that he was created a Baron in 1866 ; he calls his opera a " dramma lirico-romantico," and gives a very brief sketch of the 28 • Milan. plot, from which one is led to infer that the whole opera has been adapted from about half-a-page of the novel. Among the singers there is not a single name we recognise : — " Clarenzo Glyndon giovane ingiese" is taken by Signor CamjDanini Italo ; we had lately in England, at Her Majesty's Opera, a Signor Italo Campanini. This inversion is curious, but operatic names are often inverted, or invented altogether : Miss Charlotte Scales shows talent for singing, is sent to Italy for a year, and returns — the butterfly escaped from the larva condition, as Mdlle. Carlotta Scalessi ; nay more, Mr. Thomas Firkin, a sturdy basso of great promise, who does not go to Italy at all, appears at a concert at Hackney Wick as Signor Ferdinando Acquapendente. But to return to La Scala ; after the list of actors, a full page of small print is given of the various persons concerned in the production of the opera, beginning with Maestro Concertatore e Direttore per le Opere, and ending with the barber and bootmaker. Between these extremes we find the names of the principal musicians. One thing is very noticeable ; the Director appears in every instance to have secured the services of the very best authorities on each particular subject ; no doubt the very bootmaker has taken out a patent. The Master of Declamation in the Eoyal Conservatorio is engaged, so also is the Professor of Perspective in the Poyal Accademia. The Collahoratori are mentioned, and the costumier, and the florist, and the gasman ; and these no doubt are each at the head of a staff" of men, for as many as four hundred people are sometimes concerned in the representation of a great opera, including of course nearly a hundred musicians. But we are tired of looking at the book ; the big theatre (said to be capable of holding 4000 persons) is nearly full ; the musicians have done tuning their instruments, the conductor and prompter are in their places ; the time has arrived, and the orchestra commences the overture. Meanwhile we are thinking of the happiness, mingled with intense anxiety, of the young First Night of a New Opera. 29 Maestro Perelli, sitting perhaps somewhere hidden in a box, with the generous old merchant, who thinks of the full house, and the opera, and his money-bags perhaps about to be lightened. Can any delight, says somebody — perhaps Holmes — be so intense as that of a violinist playing his own compositions on a perfect instrument ? We would also say, can any excitement — a first game at roulette, a first charge in battle, a first novel, a first sight of the Pyramids — be so altogether glorious as this which the old merchant afi'orded to the young maestro ? A great performance, in a great theatre, in a great city, in the presence of the artistic, literary, and fashionable cream of a highly cultivated community ; an operatic apotheosis. This little heap of manuscript, wrought out in the dead of night, practised in the morning, altered at mid- day, examined, refined, developed, thought about, always — this little roll of paper has, like a magic scroll, evoked the appearance of orchestra, chorus, the descending series from the director to the bootmaker, and the vast audience. Could more be done for S. Cecilia herself? Surely, Master Perelli, this must be the proudest and most anxious moment of your life ! The overture is received coldly ; no applause ; audience rather restless ; people entering the house late. A good deal of introductory recitative ; several airs are sung ; the house is without emotion. Clarenzo, near the end of the first act, sings a long air ; the people hiss ; the Master Perelli shudders ; the merchant claps his hand on his pocket and thinks of the Maremma Eailway (at 63^). Act 2 has commenced ; the singers know their parts well, and do their best ; they bear admirably with the audience ; a song is loudly hissed while the singer is in the middle of a phrase, he does not blench ; perhaps he is used to these solemn sacrifices. The Milanese seem happy enough ; they seem to enjoy the discomfiture of the singers much as the Spaniards laugh at an awkward bull-fighter who is only a little gored. The merchant is biting his lip. The Master Perelli is praying to his patron saint, and vowing a little censer of 30 Milan, silver if the next act passes without a hiss. And what of il Maestro Concertatore e Direttore? He is sipping some black coffee, he does not care, perhaps he thinks Perelli a young upstart, and thinks of the glorious days when Rossini wrote and Tamburini sano-. And what of il Maestro Direttore ed istruttore del Cori f He is an old hand at these matters, and has that song from the Sonnamhula " All is lost now" running in his ears. The ship has struck ; it is now only a matter of time. The third and fourth acts are loudly hissed, other signs of disapprobation are rudely shown ; no one has been ajjplauded, no scene has been applauded, the curtain falls for the last time, amid hisses ; no one is called before the curtain. The Master Perelli is in tears, ay, crying like a child ; and the kind-hearted old merchant pats him on the shoulder and tells him to be comforted, and we hope one of his argosies will return from the East laden with unwonted treasures, to recoup him for his generosity in the cause of art. And we are fain to remind the Master Perelli that at least one of the most popular operas of the day was hissed off the stage the first night. After the opera came a really splendid ballet (Le due Gemelle) which lasted more than an hour, and was finer than any ballet we ever saw, either in Paris or London. The Milanese applauded this ; a week before they had hissed Lohengrin. They appear to like lively, bright, catching themes, which can be listened to for awhile, and taken up again at any time, rather than severe philosophical compositions, which requii-e the undivided attention, and which, compared to the others, are as "Paradise Lost" or the " Purgatorio" to a collection of vers de Societe. The Milanese like to use their Opera House as a kind of salon, and to discuss the affairs of the day, and exchange the courtesies of life at other times than between the acts. No wonder, therefore, that they prefer the elegant, light, infinitely harmonious themes of Bellini, to the more formal, severe, and philosophical compositions of Wagner. CHAPTER III. VERONA, PADUA, VENICE. Verona — The Scaligers — S. Zenone — Padua — Its University — Giotto's Chapel — A Procession in Padua — Venice — The Piazza of S. Mark — The Basilica of S. Mark — High Mass on Easter Sunday — Church Music in Italy — Music at S. Mark's — Churches of Venice — Murano. KOM Milan we went to Verona, one of the most charming old towns of Northern Italy. Every one who goes to Italy ought to visit Verona, if only for the sake of Romeo and Juliet ; but there are other reasons why it should be seen. When places lie out of the direct highways of commerce, changes come to them but slowly, and they preserve their integrity much longer than cities which are the residence of the Court of the country, or centres of art and commerce. AVe certainly felt that we were really in Italy, much more thoroughly in Verona than in either Turin or Milan. The most prominent structure in Verona is the Amphi- theatre, erected under Diocletian, in 284 a.d., and capable of containing 27,000 spectators. It is in a good state of preservation, and stands in the very centre of the town. Not far from this is the Herb Market, the buildings surrounding which have not been altered for centuries ; or, if altered, have been simply restored in their original style. This was once the site of the Forum of the Republic. 32 l^erona, Padua, Venice. For many years Verona was governed by the Scaligers, whose wonderful tombs now form a conspicuous object near the centre of the town. They were erected in the thirteenth century, and the most considerable of them consists of a fine sarcophagus, covered by a canopy, and surmounted by an equestrian statue of Can Signorio Scaliger, Verona ceased to be a separate Eepublic in 1405, when it was conquered by the Venetians, and held by them till it was captured by the French General, Massena, in 1796. Afterwards it was occupied by the Austrians, and finally became a part of United Italy in 1866. It is the second city in Venetia. Verona has many churches, but none of them are of much interest or imjDortance, with the exception of S. Zenone, a Romanesque basilica of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with a campanile of the eleventh century, and cloisters with slender and delicate columns, which are asserted to have been restored as early as 1123. S. Zenone was a Bishop of Verona and a patron saint of fishermen ; he is represented in the choir of the church by a crudely painted marble statue, holding an Episcopal stafi", and also a fishing-rod with a silver fish on the end of it. S. Anastasia is also a fine edifice. We entered by chance a church in Verona dedicated to our own S. Thomas of Canterbury, and there witnessed a rather curious performance. The church was empty, but a vesper service was going on, and a few priests stood in front of the high altar, one of whom was most lustily chanting some verses alternately with the choir. The latter, and the only instrument — a harmonium — were placed behind the altar, and were quite out of sight. This arrangement produced a most slovenly service, musically considered, for the harmonium-player sometimes did not begin in time, and som^etimes began too soon. The priest, who evidently enjoyed the sound of his own voice, frequently indulged in ad libitum passages. He would lenojthen out the last word of a verse with various embellishments ; or he would execute an elaborate passagio ■a Curious Performmice. 33 chromatico, and introduce as much Jioriture as he conveniently could on the spur of the moment. Meanwhile, the harmonium- player, who did not know the priest's treatment of this or that particular passage, sometimes interrupted by commencing the next verse, together with the choir, before the priest could bring his HOUSE OF THE CAPULETS. improvisation to an end. The effect of this was disastrous, nay more — ludicrous. Two courses only were left open to the priest — he could either stop abruptly, or he could rush headlong down the scale, and prepare for the next verse. Near the Herb Market is the lofty, bare, and cold-looking 34 Verona, Padua, Venice. house of Juliet's parents ; the armorial hat of the Capulets is still to be seen over one of the doors. The tomb of Juliet is shown in a garden belonging to a Franciscan Monastery. It is a great trough of red marble, and was probably originally a water trough. There is no authority for calling it the tomb of Juliet, but as everything connected, even remotely and by name only, with the history of that unfortunate young lady is interesting, everybody goes to see it. Another sight should not be missed in Verona, the Giardini Giusti, on the left bank of the Adige ; for not only will the visitor obtain from it a good view of the town, and of the Alps and Apennines, but he will also see some cypress trees more than a hundred feet high, which are said to be five hundred years old. On the way from Verona to Venice one cannot avoid stopping at Padua, a quaint old town of Venetia, best known perhaps by its University, which was founded in 1238. When Harvey studied at Padua in the sixteenth century, the University possessed 18,000 students, and it still has a considerable reputation as a legal university. The only church of any importance is the Basilica of S. Anthony. The Arena Chapel, a small mortuary chapel erected in 1303, contains Giotto's celebrated frescoes,. painted in 1304. It is difiicult to believe that some of the better preserved of these frescoes are more than 550 years old. The west wall is occupied by a single painting representing the Last Judgment, in which it is supposed that some of the figures were suggested by Dante, who visited Giotto in 1304. Some of these frescoes are being reproduced by the Arundel Society, and it is to be hoped that good copies will be taken of all of them before it is too late. We were surprised between seven and eight o'clock one morning in Padua to notice a long procession of priests and attendants walking through the streets. A large wooden crucifix was carried at the head of the procession ; then came a number of men in short surplices carrying large candles, then a priest dressed in full canonicals carrying the Viaticum under a canopy supported A Religious Procession. 35 by four men, tlien more men in surplices carrying candles, then a number of men in their ordinary dress carrying candles, and lastly, school children and the usual accretion of idle bystanders. They were lustily singing a low wailing chant. The bystanders knelt on the pavement as the priests passed. The procession soon halted at a very dark and mean blacksmith's shop, and the priest with one or two attendants entered. He was carrying the Viaticum to dying persons. When he entered a house the whole procession knelt, and remained kneeling in the open road (for they walked in the middle of the street), until he returned. The effect of all the lighted candles in bright, hot sunshine was curious. Although there was scarcely a breath of wind, the mere fact of movement in the open air made the candles gutter extravagantly, until they began to assume all sorts of monstrous forms. Men walked by the side of the large candles (which were three or four feet long, and four or five inches in diameter), carrying large paper cones to collect the dripping wax, by the sale of which they no doubt hoped to realise a few centesimi. Some of the candle-bearers purposely carried their candles at an angle of about forty degrees, by which means the guttering was of course considerably increased. One of the collectors of wax had certainly a pound of wax in his paper cone. Such processions through the main streets of a town can only take place in quiet out-of-the-way towns like Padua ; in a town with any life or traffic they would be impossible. In Florence, for example, the matter is managed in a far less formal manner. A man goes in front loudly ringing a bell, probably to warn people to clear the road, then follow two or three men in the habit of monks, then the priest with the Viaticum, over which a kind of gilt umbrella is carried. The priests are always at the service of the poor ; a soul in distress is sure to find solace at their hands ; they are always ready to lighten the journey of one who is about to die, and their services are in constant requisition in every Itahan town. Whatever a man may have been during life, if he has nedected 36 Verona, Padua, Venice. confession and the offices of the Church, and been otherwise a notorious evil-liver, he seeks for priestly advice and consolation at the last, "when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows are darkened;" and that consolation is never denied. From Padua to Venice the distance is short ; the marshes begin near Mestre, and you cross over to the city by means of a long, low railway, built on piles. A smooth-gliding and noiseless gondola takes you to your hotel, and your bedroom looks out upon a narrow street of water. There is always a peculiar charm about placid waters ; the aspect of Nature becomes changed in their midst, the lights are far more changeful, and the reflections far more multiform than we are accustomed to on dry land. It takes a day or two to get used to Venice, but then if you have only bright sunny days and moonlight nights you obtain a thousand effects of novelty and beauty. Among these must surely be reckoned the sight of a sunset over the lagoon from the Campanile, and a view of the Doge's Palace, by moonlight, from the lagoon. The centre of life in Venice is the Piazza of S. Mark, which is not altogether unlike the Palais Royal in Paris. It is surrounded on three sides by lofty houses, the lower parts of which are shops or cafes, while on ' its east side stands the Cathedral of S, Mark, in front of which the three lofty masts which once bore the banners of Candia, Cyprus, and the Morea still stand. The Basilica of S. Mark's is altogether oriental in its magnifi- cence. It is in the form of a Greek cross, and upon the extremity of each arm rises a dome, while a larger central dome crowns the whole. The domes are covered internally with mosaics, some of which date from the tenth century ; the floor is of marble mosaic, and the whole interior is rich with gilding, bronzes, and variegated marbles. On the outside of the building, and over the principal entrance, are the celebrated bronze horses, which were formerlv o > O Hi P w High Mass in S. Mark's. 37 believed to be the work of a Greek master, but are now believed to be Eoman, and probably of the time of Nero. It is probable that Constantine caused them to be conveyed to Constantinople, whence they were brought to Venice by the Doge Dandolo, in 1204. They were carried to Paris by Napoleon, in 1797, and were restored to Venice in 1815 by the Emperor Francis. There are some comparatively recent mosaics over the doorways on the outside of the building. The Treasury of S. Mark is very rich in relics, among other things a silver column containing some of the true cross, a portion of the skull of S. John, and a crystal vase containing the blood of our Lord. We were anxious to see whether the services in the Cathedral corresponded to the splendour of the building, and as we were in Venice on Easter Sunday, we determined to go to the High Mass at 11 A.M. There had apparently been services from a very early hour, and the Basilica was tolerably full of people, who stood in different parts of the building (for there are but few seats in Italian cathedrals) ; a few had penetrated into the choir, and had found seats between the screen and a railing enclosing the high altar and the stalls of the priests. While waiting for the Patriarch we had leisure to remark the high altar, a magnificent work of wrought bronze covering; the relics of S. Mark ; the Pala d'oro behind the altar, a broad surface of jewelled and enamelled gold ; the throne of the Patriarch ; seats and stalls for the Monsignori and other priests ; and an altar for the Patriarch opposite his throne, on which were placed four mitres of cloth of gold, three of which were jewelled ; a gold ewer and basin, gold salvers and anointing vessels ; several books bound in old silver bindings, white shoes and stockings, and other things, all for the exclusive service of His Eminence. A slight commotion in the body of the church proved that the procession was making its way to the choir, and a moving mass of red could be seen in the distance ; a few minutes after, the cross- 38 Verona, Padua, Venice. bearer entered the choir; then chanters and other officials, then four laquais de place, body- servants of the Patriarch, then Monsiguori ; finally, Joseph Louis, Cardinal of Treviso, Primate of Dalmatia, and Metropolitan, himself. He was clothed from head to foot in crimson silk, and had a long train carried by a train- bearer. The service immediately commenced. And here we were struck by what we invariably noticed in Italian churches, viz., that the service had apparently no reference to the people ; the priests had met together to perform ceremonies and worship, but no part of the service was directed to outsiders ; ninety-nine people out of a hundred could certainly not hear what was going on in the choir, and eighty per cent, of the people (at a guess) could not see. The priest appears to worship for, not with the people ; in Florence we saw a large body of priests (in Santa Maria Novella ?) celebrating vespers in their stalls behind the high altar, and therefore out of sight of the people in the church, who indeed did not number a dozen. Often and often one may enter a church in Italy and find several priests lustily chanting a service by themselves, and to themselves. In the Cathedral of Pisa we saw a large body of ecclesiastics, who celebrated High Mass among themselves, and formed several processions to various side altars, apparently for their own edification ; the people in the Cathedral did not appear to take much interest in the matter. But to return to the Easter-day service : not only did the priests appear to be performing the service for their own behoof, but half the service appeared to consist of adoration of the Patriarch, or something very akin to it. He was approached on bended knees ; when they took ofi" his gloves they reverently kissed them, placed them on a gold salver, then upon his altar; whenever they bowed to the high altar they turned and bowed to the Cardinal also ; they frequently knelt before him and poured water over his hands from the golden ewer into the gold basin, both of which were replaced upon the Cardinal's altar, together with the fine linen towel with which he High Mass in S. Mark's. 39 had wiped his hands. Various attendants having brought the white shoes and stockings from the altar, a kneeling Monsignor — without his mitre — drew on the holy hosen, fastened them, and then put on the sacred shoon. The Cardinal's mitres were often changed, his red robes were covered with great vestments heavy with cloth of gold. At intervals he read, in a nearly inaudible voice, from a book held before him ; occasionally he placed his hands together and said Pa-a-ax Voheescoom. Meanwhile several of the Monsignori — there were nine present — notably those in the more backward stalls, entered into conversation in fairly loud sotto voce; the musicians and singers in the gallery behaved as indecorously as men in their position (just above the Cardinal) well could ; the visitors talked and craned their necks ; the natives in the body of the church talked, spat loudly on the mosaic pave- ment, and women tried to hush their screaming babies. The four laquais de place sat behind the Cardinal's altar within the railings ; they had no books, they made no attempt to follow the service, but looked about them in a vacant sort of manner, simply star-gazing. These are the things as we saw them, and as such are stated merely as facts ; not to be viewed in any spirit of ridicule or severe criticism, for the time has happily passed when a man may deride the faith and worship of another. We question whether we have any right to speak jocularly of the many-armed idol of the Chinese, or of an African fetish, though it be fashioned ever so crudely out of wood and stone. AVe speak here of a Church which was once our own. When the preliminaries were finished, the Cardinal approached the high altar and knelt before it, while one of the Monsignori removed his mitre, and another his small red skull-cap, not otherwise removed. Then he celebrated the office of the Mass, while the people in the church, being warned by the ringing of a bell, knelt. After this the service was practically at an end, some of the priests left the church, others, to the number of about eight. 40 Verona, Padua, Vejuce. followed the Cardinal into a capacious circular pulpit, where he sat down in a great gilt chair, and read aloud (apparently to himself, for his voice was very feeble, and he never looked up), from a large book, for at least an hour. The Monsignori about him looked edified, and some of the people crowded round the pulpit, but he was quite inaudible at a short distance. And this was the termination of the service. So much for the ceremonial part of the service ; let us now enquire whether the music was equal to the place and to the occasion. Let us be pardoned here if we make a slight digression in regard to Church music in Italy, before we arrive at the special case of the Easter-day music at S. Mark's. And firstly, let us very briefly trace the history of Church music. We know practically nothing of the music of the ancients. The forms of their instruments are indeed preserved. One of the best Egyptian frescoes in the British Museum, which dates from the fifteenth century B.C., represents a musical entertainment in which flutes and other instruments are used ; on a monument in Rome which was brought from Egypt by Augustus, an instrument resembling a Neapolitan guitar is to be found ; and Hermes Trismegistus is said to have invented the lyre. The Greeks attributed the invention of several of their musical instruments to the Egyptians. Although we know that the ancients possessed a musical system, we know nothing of that system, save from the vague accounts given by Vitruvius, ApoUodorus, and a few other writers. Here and there we can obtain scraps of information relating to the instruments, such as the account of the addition of the seventh string to the lyre, the high price of a good flute in the time of Pericles, and so on, but no more. Of the ancient arts, poetry and sculpture alone remain to us ; music and painting have been almost lost. We say almost, because certain musical instruments were found in Pompeii, and the very numerous wall decorations show us that the ancients Modern Music. 41 were by no means deficient in the art of painting. When we remember how wonderfully the Greeks excelled in the two former of these, it is reasonable to imagine that their music and painting were equally great. Dr. Burney has remarked that religion only can impart permanence to any system of music : he conceives, moreover, that the hymns sung in the temples in the time of Plutarch were then relatively of the same antiquity as some of the oldest hymns of the Roman Catholic Church are now. With the disappearance of the old gods came the disappearance of the wonderful temples erected to their honour, the sculptures which visualised them, the paintings which adorned their shrines, the magnificent poetry in which they were addressed, the music which formed a part of the ceremonies of worship. It is to Italy that we must look for the birth of our modern music. There the Church once did its best to give permanence to the musical system, and fostered musical talent to the same extent that it fostered painting. For a number of years all music was sacred : the finest musician and the finest painter were alike secured for the service of the Church, as they should still be, and to some extent, and in some countries, still are. A plain chant of the Catholic Church is said to have been composed in the fourth century by S. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan. Two centuries later, Gregory the Great composed some of the chants which still bear his name, and introduced Gregorian music into the services of the Church. The music of Italy of course became the music of the Roman Catholic world. So early as 1310 a book of sacred songs (now preserved in Florence) was in existence. The most notable event in the early history of music was the designation of the sounds of the octave by points or marks distributed upon lines and spaces, a scheme suggested and introduced in 1022 by Guido of Arezzo, a Benedictine monk. He also introduced the names Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and took them, it is said, from a hymn sung on S. John's day which commences : — 42 Verona, Padua, Veiiice. Ut queant laxis resonare fibris, Mix'A. gestorum /amuli tuorum, SolwQ polluti ^abii reatum. /S'ancte Johannes. The Si was afterwards added by Le Marie, and was taken from the initials of the words of the last line. The progress of the art in Italy cannot be traced here ; we may allude, however, to several notable facts in its history, simply to show that it owes its earlier and much of its later develop- ment to Italian genius. In the year 1330 a treatise appeared on counterpoint, in which are certain laws strictly observed even in the present day. We remember also to have heard of a later treatise, De falso Contrapuncto, which profoundly influences music ; but we must confess to having forgotten the name of the author — certainly an Italian. Then near the end of the fifteenth century the " Terminorum Musicse Diffinitorium" of John Tinctor, the first precise treatise on music, was published, followed a few years later by the treatise of Gafi'orio. In the sixteenth century appeared Palsestrina, who united melody and counterpoint, and who established a school of music which was very generally followed. He was the author of no less than eighty masses. A few years ago a mass of Palaestrina's was employed for the Easter Sunday service in S. Eoch, at which church the finest musical services in Paris are to be heard. The anxiety of the public to hear the mass was excessive, and the crowding and pushing in the church altogether unseemly in a place of worship, but the music was not liked, and the revival has not been re-attempted. We need scarcely allude to more recent Italian composers : Pergolesi, Paisiello, Cherubini, Pacini, and many others. Although the Germans have excelled in several forms of composition, and many seek for the " music of the future " far to the north of Milan, no one denies that the Germans received their music fiirst from Italy, and that the greatest composers of all Mtisic in S. Mark's. 43 countries have received their first ideas of music more or less directly from that source. It being admitted then that Italy is the parent of modern music, and that the art owes its chief development to the fostering care of the Church, we should surely expect to hear fine Church music there in the present day. Nothing can be more disappoint- ing. The Church music of Italy is generally quite unworthy of the edifice in which it is performed, the service which it professes to interpret, and the people who desu-e to use it as an auxiliary to the Church ceremonies and their own acts of worship. This is the more remarkable when we notice that no expense is spared in the decoration of the edifice and the vestments of the priests. A church may be encrusted with verde antico ; it may contain fine paintings, marble statues, vessels of rock crystal, a painted roof, an altar of chiselled gold; the vestments of its priests may be heavy with precious metals and embroideries ; it may possess priceless chalices, cinque-cento crosiers, and pastoral staves covered with Limoges enamel ; but the Mass you hear on a high day may be badly sung to the strains of a small organ altogether out of tune. Let us take as an example the Easter Sunday service in the Church of S. Mark, of the ceremonies attending on which service we have spoken above. The musical arrangements are of this nature : on each side of the chancel, right and left of the high altar and about fifteen feet above it, there is a gallery containing an organ, in front of which musicians playing violins and violoncellos, and the singers, sit. At the approach of my Lord Cardinal, the conductor (in the left hand gallery) rapped loudly with his baton, and the organ and musicians forthwith began rather irregularly. There seemed throughout to be no communication between the manager of the ceremonies in front of the high altar, and the conductor of the music above ; on one occasion, when the organ began to play in the middle of some 44 Verona, Padua, Venice. solemn office, a priest was obliged to look up and loudly say "hssssh." Between the conductor and the organist in the right hand gallery there appeared to be absolutely no communication, and the only way of stopping the organ when necessary was to rap loudly two or three times with the baton. The conductor (who during any intervals of leisure laughed and talked with the singers around him) had a very peculiar mode of directing his choir ; he never varied his system of three strokes, twice he rapped loudly on a projecting ledge apparently placed for that purpose, then he elevated his baton, thrust it forward with a waving motion, and then followed two more raps and another wave. This lasted through- out the entire service. What music there was, w^as utterly spoilt by this continuous and loud rapping : perhaps the conductor thought it would make the music more spirituelle, but it did not appear to have that effect. "^^ The singing was not good. The singers and musicians made no attempt to preserve the most ordinary decorum when they had nothing to do. During intervals in the Mass, when, for example, His Eminence was washing his hands or putting on vestments, the organist played popular operatic pieces — not the prayer from Masaniello, or the march from Le Prophete, but light pieces, which, for aught we know, may have been serenades. When the service was about half over, the musicians and singers hurried away, and left the organist alone, who, having lost his mainstay, the conductor, appeared to play whenever he pleased ; at least the service often * This unpleasant addition to a musical performance is more or less common throughout Italy, but it would seem to be specially indulged in at Venice. Goethe, writing from Venice in 1786, says : — "The performance would have been a source of great enjoyment if the accursed maestro di capella had not beaten time with a roU of music against the grating, as conspicuously as if he had to deal with school- boys whom he was instructing. As the girls had repeated the piece often enough, his noise was quite unnecessary, and destroyed all impression, as much as he would, who, in order to make a beautiful statue intelligible to us, should stick scarlet patches on the joints. The foreign sound destroys all harmony." The Campanile of Venice. 45 went on without having any regard to the music, and the organist returned the compliment by playing without any reference to the ceremonies around him, except of course at certain well-marked parts of the service. Altogether the whole affair was so carelessly managed, that one could but regret that any music had been introduced at all. We hope the time will come when the Italians will endeavour to make their Church music something like what it once was. We wonder whether the Patriarch of Venice has ever seen Gide's picture, "The Practice of the Choir," or Rubio's picture of "Palsestrina repeating the Mass of Pope Marcellus." We recommend them to the notice of His Eminence, and we would also ask him to remember that Adrian Willaert was Mcestro di Capella of his metropolitan Church of San Marco ; that he founded the Venetian School of Music, and numbered among his followers Rore, Zarlino, and Costanza Porta. Nearly opposite to the Basilica of S. Mark rises the great Campanile of Venice, a tower 304 feet high, which is ascended by means of a winding inclined plane. The view from the summit well repays the tedium of the ascent. The Palace of the Doges, of fourteenth century Venetian- Gothic, is a building adorned with many columns and rich mouldings outside, while within, its numerous chambers are full of the finest examples of the Venetian School of Painters. The Palace is connected with the State prisons on the east side by the famous Bridge of Sighs. Venice contains a capital gallery of pictures, in which, among others, is without doubt one of the finest pictures in the world : Titian's "Assumption." The churches are very numerous, and some of them, such as the Gesuiti, are rich beyond description — altar pieces by Titian and Tintoretto, spiral columns of verde antique, walls inlaid with variegated marbles, and fine monuments of gilt bronze. A pleasant afternoon may be spent in Venice, if the day be fine, 46 Vero7ta^ Padua^ Venice. by taking a gondola from one end to the other of the Grand Canal, and distinguishing the various palaces on its banks. Another afternoon may be devoted to Salviati's glass-works on the Island of Murano, where one not only sees the manufacture of his beautiful imitations of old Venetian glass, but also a museum containing some rare specimens of the antique glass. As we returned from Murano we saw a curious hearse-shaped gondola gliding towards an island full of cypress trees. It was a funeral barge on its way to the Cemetery Island, for no burials are allowed to take place within the city. Still nearer to the city we heard most piercing shrieks and wails long continued, painfully rending the still air about us ; our gondolier said that we were passing the madhouse of Venice. CHAPTER IV. BOLOGNA, FLORENCE, PISA. Bologna — Tlie University — The Leaning Towers — Florence — Art Collections — The Baptistery — The Duomo — Santa Croce — The Monastery of S. Mark — Savonarola — Galileo's Tower — The Memorial to Galileo — Pisa — The Cathedral — Galileo's Lamp — The Baptistery — The Leaning Tower — The Campo Santo- -The Dream of Brother Angelo. '^^/f HE railroad from Venice to Bologna passes through Ferrara, which was long governed by the cele- brated House of Este, one of the most ancient and noble families in Europe. There are some f^^ good pictures in the town, and the Castle is a most picturesque mediaeval building. As we approach Bologna, the low marshy ground, which prevails more or less between Venice and Ferrara, gives way to a fertile tract of country, in the midst of which Bologna stands. Few cities of the earth have had such enduring vitality as Bologna. It was founded by the Etruscans, and during the Punic War we find it espousing the cause of Hannibal. It was con- stituted a free town by Charlemagne, and has always been celebrated as a learned and literary city. Its University, which still flourishes, is one of the oldest in the world, and was founded in 1119, according to some authors at a much earlier date. The University has always been celebrated for the study of jurisprudence and of anatomy. It now possesses one of 48 Bologna^ Florence^ Pisa. tlie finest anatomical museums in the world, and it is said that the anatomy of the human frame was first taught here in the fourteenth century. In the University we were shown the portrait of a lady who for many years lectured with great eclat on anatomy. She is said to have been in every respect a most cultivated and accomplished woman, and to have possessed great personal attractions. Bologna has also numbered among its professors a lady (Tambroni) who lectured on Greek, and another (Laura Bassi) who was Professor of Mathematics and the Physical Sciences. Here are facts for those who advocate the rights of woman ! The University once possessed 10,000 students, but at that time universities were far less common than they are now. It now possesses about 400 students and sixty professors. The buildings are very complete, and comprise a fine Library and a Museum of Antiquities. Associated with the University there is a Hospital, Collection of Natural History, Botanical Garden, and Observatory, and it is one of the most complete educational establishments in Italy. In art Bologna was as prominent as in literature and science. It has given its name to the Bolognese School, and has produced Francia and the Caraccis, who in their turn were followed by Guercino, Guido Eeni, and Domenichino. The town possesses some magnificent specimens of the works of these artists in its Academy of Fine Arts. The gem of the whole collection, however, is Raffaelle's " S. Cecilia." Bologna, like many other of the Italian cities, was for some centuries governed by the heads of various powerful families ; in 1512, it was annexed to the States of the Church by Julius II. From that time, until (in 1859) it united itself with the Kingdom of Italy, it has undergone several changes of government, and has been 'the scene of various revolutions. In Bologna the traveller feels himself in old Italy. The town is full of quaint old buildings, palaces, churches, and towers, and The Leaning Towers. 49 the streets are lined on either side by long rows of arcades, under which the citizens find protection from the scorching summer sun. The very numerous churches contain a number of good pictures. There are said to be 130 churches in the city ; in an English city of the same population the number would certainly not exceed 40. Near the centre of the town stand the two Leaning Towers — Asinelli and Garisenda. The latter was erected in 1110, and although only 138 feet high is 8 feet out of the perpendicular; while the former is 272 feet high, and is only 3 J feet out of the perpendicular. The view from the top is good, but the ascent is made by a series of very rickety wooden staircases, and we never felt less secure in a lofty building. One of these days, if a number of people go up at once, it is to be feared that an accident will take place. The obliquity of the towers is due, in both instances, to the settling of the foundations, and in the case of Garisenda this took place so rapidly that the tower was never completed. Between Bologna and Florence the railway crosses the Apennines, and although the ascent is long, and slow, the scenery is a great relief after the monotonous level of the district between Venice and Bologna. Florence rests in a valley enclosed by the Apennines, and the beauty of its position has rendered it one of the most attractive towns in Italy. Between 1864 and 1870 it was the capital of the United Kingdom of Italy. It is a very modern-looking city compared with Padua or Bologna, and during the years that it was the capital it underwent a good deal of renovation. Florence dates from the first century B.C. It attained its greatest prosperity and splendour under the de Medicis, and it has always been the great focus of the arts and sciences, of literature and languages, indeed of every form of intellectual activity in Italy. The mere mention of the names of some of the men who worked their life's work in Florence will prove this : Dante Alighieri, first and foremost, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Galileo, Orcagna, and Brunelleschi, Ghiberti and 6 50 Bologna, Florence, Pisa. Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Angelico, and Savonarola. In fact, if the Renaissance was the gift of Italy to Europe, we may say that it was first the gift of Florence to Italy. Painters, poets, . statesmen, men of science, churchmen, men of letters, sculptors, musicians, men possessing to the highest extent those faculties which most ennoble the human race, and most conduce to an advanced and exalted civilisation — such men congregated at the Court of the Medicis. Florence is full of works of art, many of which have been rendered familiar to us for many years by means of engravings or photographs. The two great galleries, the Uffizi and the Pitti, are not only filled with fine pictures, but they contain some remarkable masterpieces of an- cient and modern sculpture, and a rare collection of precious gems — vases of onyx, rock crystal, and lapis lazuli, vessels of chiselled and jewelled gold, in- cised stones, and bassi-relievi in gold and jasper. Many of these were collected by the Medicis. One of the most celebrated of the saloons in the Uffizi contains the famous group of Niobe and her children, found in Rome in 1583, and acquired by Cardinal Ferdinand de Medici. The figures are believed to be antique copies of works by Praxiteles or Scopas. The Baptistery is a somewhat plain octagonal structure, dating perhaps from the thirteenth century. Its magnificent bronze doors are justly celebrated all over the world. NIOBE. O w o fa Churches of Florence. 51 The first door, which is the oldest of the three, occupied Andrea Pisauo twenty -two years. The others are by Ghiberti, and were finished about a century later. They are among the finest specimens of bronze work that have ever been produced. In the interior of the Baptistery there are some old mosaics, and the tomb of Pope John XXIII., with a recumbent statue by Donatello, The Baptistery possesses an altar and cross of polished silver, which together weigh 466 pounds. The Cathedral of Florence is some- what disappointing inside, owing perhaps to its darkness ; the proportions are very good, however, and Brunelleschi's dome is a model of architectural skill and beauty. The fagade of the cathedral is still unfinished. From the summit of the dome a beautiful view of the surrounding country may be obtained. The Campanile, commenced by Giotto in 1334 and recently restored, is a square tower containing four stories, and reaching to a height of 293 feet. The lower part is richly decorated with statues and bas-reliefs, and alternate bands of variegated marbles are frequently introduced into the structure. Conspicuous among the churches of Florence is the Santa Croce, which is its Westminster Abbey, and contains the tombs of many of the most eminent Florentines, or monuments erected to their memory. Michael Angelo is buried here, and there are monuments to the memory of Dante, Galileo, Leo Baptista Alberti, Alfieri, Machiavelli, and many others. The church also contains some remarkable frescoes by Giotto, recently discovered under the whitewash. The Church of S, Lorenzo, facing the Piazza of S. Lorenzo, and near the centre of the town, is one of the most ancient churches in Italy, having been consecrated by S. Ambrose in 393. It was burned down, however, in 1423, and was subsequently erected from the designs of three of the most eminent Italian architects — Brunelleschi, Michael Angelo, and Donatello. The Sacristy contains the world-renowned monuments of the Medici, which are considered the chef dJ ceuvres 52 Bologna, Florence, Pisa. of Michael Angelo. They were erected by the order of Giulio de Medici (Pope Clement VIII.) in 1523. MIOriAKL ANOELO. Memorials of Michael Angelo meet one at every turn in Florence. His city is justly proud of him. Mrs. OHphant speaks of him as "the greatest Florentine master, he who stands alone among the crowd, exceeding all, as his gigantic statues tower over all other works, alone at once in greatness and in individuality."'"" The four marble figures — Day and Night, Evening and Da.wn — * u The Makers of Florence," 1876. Monastery of S. Marco. . 53 are among the finest of modern sculptures, and may be compared without disadvantage with some of the finest sculptures of antiquities. Near to this Sacristy is the Chapel of the Princes, in which six of the Medici are interred. It is a most gorgeous structure, encrusted with marbles and mosaics ; the princes are buried in vast granite sarcophagi, above some of which there are bronze statues. The chapel is said to have cost the Medici family more than £800,000. In the Church of S. Maria Novella there are also several fine private chapels, which belong to the Strozzi, Gaddi, and other noble families. To our mind one of the most interesting places in all Florence is the Monastery of S. Marco, in which lived Fra Bartolommeo, Fra Angelico, Fra Girolamo Savonarola, and Sant Antonino. The cell occupied by Savonarola is still shown, together with a few of his books, and a picture representing his execution. The Florentines burned their great Reformer one day, and the next almost worshipped him. The custodian of S. Mark's heaped all sorts of epithets upon the perpretators of the crime, when we asked him his opinion on the subject. Villari, in his admirable Life of Savonarola, has given us a very just estimate of his influence. " He was," he writes, " the first to raise up and display before the world the standard of that epoch which many call the Kenaissance. He was the first in the fifteenth century to make men feel that a new life had penetrated to and had awakened the human race. Hence he may justly be called the prophet of a new civilisation. But whoever would make him the head of a sect, of a system, would be greatly mistaken, and would prove that he neither knew Savonarola nor his time; The Renaissance was not yet modern civilisation, but was only a presentiment of it ; it had a general character, but it was undefined and undetermined. The men of that time foresaw a new and more vast synthesis of the human race, and felt that they were approaching nearer to God. The blood beat in their pulses with feverish strength ; ideas followed each other with 54 Bologna, Florence, Pisa. delirious rapidity ; tliey were subject to a power greater than themselves, which launched them into an unknown ocean, to discover a land unknown but divine. . . . Two Italians first led the way to the epoch of the Renaissance. Columbus opened the paths of the ocean. Savonarola began to open those of the spirit. While one was ascending the pulpit, the other was spreading his sails to the wind, and dashing his bold prow through the waters of an unknown sea. Both believed themselves to have been sent by God to spread Christianity over the earth ; both had strange visions, which aroused each to his appointed work ; both laid their hands upon a new world, unconscious of its immensity. One was rewarded with chains, the other with a consuming fire." Many of the cells in the Monastery of S. Mark contain paintings by the loving hand of Fra Angelico ; sometimes we find frescoes of Fra Bartolommeo, and in the small refectory there is a "Last Supper," by Ghirlandaio. The first-named of these great painters is well called II Beato Angelico ; his subjects were always taken from the life of the Master he loved so well, and no painter has ever exceeded him in a spirit of devoted piety and profound sympathy with all subjects connected with the Christian faith. A few miles out of Florence, at Arcetri, stands the Tower of Galileo, which he used as an observatory, and from the summit of which he made so many great discoveries. The new Florentine Observatory is fittingly placed near to the watch-tower of the inventor of the telescoj^e. On the way back to Florence, we passed the villa in which Galileo spent the last years of his life, and in which Milton visited him. Here we saw a bust of the great philosopher, with the following inscription beneath it : — 2vv Qeio Aedes qiias viator in tueris licet exiguas Divinus Galilseus Coeli maximus spectator et Natiiralis Philosophise Eestitutor, sen potius Parens pseudoso- phorum malis artibiis coactus incoluit ab anno 1631, Kal. Novembis ad annum 1642, VI. idus Januarii. Huic Natura Concessit Loci Genium Sanctum Venerare et titulum ab lo. Bapt. Clementi Nellio. Galileos Children. 55 Galileo spent the greater part of his domestic life at Arcetri. It was by no means a happy home. Of his three natural children, his son Vincenzio was a constant thorn in his side. He was a lazy fellow, who was always writing to his father for money, and who, Italian-like, preferred to idle away his life in singing and lute-playing, to adopting any profession, or attempting to get his own livelihood. We cannot find one good quality in Vincenzio Galileo ; he was mean, selfish, inconsiderate and unnatural in his behaviour towards his father. One example of this is sufiicient. He had quartered himself on his father, together with his wife and children, when the plague broke out in the neighbourhood ; whereupon Vincenzio deserted the old man, and went to a more healthy locality, leaving him to take his chance with the other inhabitants of the district. Galileo's daughters Polissena and Virginia were placed in the Convent of S. Matthew, at Arcetri, in 1614, when the eldest was only thirteen years old ; henceforth they became Sister Maria Celeste and Sister Arcangela. Of the latter we hear but little, but Sister Maria Celeste constantly corresponded with her father, and the greater number of her letters have been preserved, and are now in the Palatine Library at Florence. These letters contain some interesting details of convent life of the period, but of necessity they do not bear upon many of the doings of the outside world ; their general tenor is the same throughout ; they are full of her love for Heaven and for her " dear lord and father," as she was wont to call Galileo, and they almost invariably pass to an opposite extreme of matters exceedingly of the earth, earthy — the baking of cakes, the mending of linen, the getting up of his collars, and so on. She tells her father all the minute details of her work, as — " I have been extremely busy at the dinner-napkins. They are nearly finished ; but now I come to putting on the fringe, I find that of the sort I send as a pattern a piece is wanting for two dinner- napkins : that will be four hraccia.^' The last paragraph of this desultory letter begins, " These few cakes I send are some I made a 56 Bologna, Florence, Pisa. few days ago, intending to give them to you when you come to bid us adieu ;" and ends, "I thank Him for everything, and pray that He will give you the highest and best felicity ;" and a postscript immediately follows this — " You can send us any collars that want getting up." Galileo's villa was very near the convent, and a constant inter- change of courtesy seems to have taken place ; Galileo sent money and presents of meat and wine, while Sister Maria Celeste sent him plums, and baked pears, and candied fruits, and cakes, and mended his linen, and kept his wardrobe in order. Her love for him amounted almost to worship, at least to veneration. When at length, worn out by watching in the convent infirmary, by ill health, and by the many privations inseparable from a convent life, she felt her end approaching, Galileo was in confinement at Siena, and she feared she should see him no more ; but he was allowed to retire to his own house, and arrived at Arcetri in time to see his daughter before her death. Writing of this time (1634), Galileo says: " Here I lived on very quietly, frequently paying visits to the neighbouring convent, where I had two daughters who were nuns, and whom I loved dearly ; but the eldest in particular, who was a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most heartily attached to me." Galileo continued actively employed to within a few years of his death, in January, 1642. During his latter years he was a great sufferer. " I have been in my bed for five weeks," he writes to Diodati, in 1637, "oppressed with weakness and other infirmities, from which my age, seventy-four years, permits me not to hope release. Added to this, 'proh dolor ! the sight of my right eye, that eye whose labours (I dare say it) have had such glorious results, is for ever lost. That of the left, which was and is imperfect, is rendered null by a continual weeping." Thus the poor old man complained, until finding that his blindness was incurable, and that his many ills were increasing, he ceased Memorials of Galileo. 57 repining, and begged his friends to remember him in their prayers, till his unhappy chequered life was closed by death. The Florentines fully recognise the greatness of the philosopher of Arcetri : they have built him a shrine worthy of a saint ; in the inscription on his house they call him Divinus Galilceiis ; and in the shrine itself they have preserved, after the manner of a saintly relic, one of his forefingers which was detached from his body when it was removed from the chapel of SS. Cosmo and Damianus to Santa Croce. This relic is preserved in a small reliquary urn, upon the base of which is the following inscription written by Thomas Perelli : — " Leipsana ne spernas digiti quo dextera coeli Mensa vias nunquam visos mortalibus orbes Monstravit, parvo fragilis molimine vitri Ausa prior facinus cui non Titania quondam Suffecit pubes congestis montibus altis Ne quidquam superas conata ascendere in arces." Again we have Via Galileo and Bihlioteca Galileina. The Pisans point with pride to the Lampada Galileina in their Cathedral, and honour his statue in their University ; and these are the descendants of the men who paid Galileo tenpence a day for his services in the University ; who made him abandon his professorship because he proved that Aristotle was not infallible ; and who said derisively to his followers — " Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ?" or, as Ponsard has it — " Ecoutez ce que dit 1 Apotre : Dans les deux Pourquoi Galileens, promenez-vous vos yeux ? C'est ainsi que d'avance il lancait Tanath^me Contre toi, Galilee, et centre ton systeme." The Tuscan Memorial to Galileo is in Florence, in the Museo di Fisica e di Storia Naturale. It is entirely the work of Tuscans, and is said to have been constructed at a cost of 1,000,000 lire (nearly £40,000). It consists simply of a vestibule, from which 58 Bologna, Florence, Pisa. opens a small rectangular hall, witli a semicircular tribune, in which is placed the statue of Galileo by Prof. Costoli. The interior of the hall is entirely lined with white marble, and with frescoes in admirable taste. The frescoes in the vestibule represent Leonardo da Vinci in the presence of Ludovic Sforza, Duke of Milan, to whom he is making known some of his great inventions. Apropos of this, there exists in the Ambrosian Library, in Milan, a large folio full of MSS., notes, and drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, which the courteous director of the library is always willing to place in the hands of interested strangers, and which well repays the most careful examination. Some of the sketches of hydraulic apparatus appeared to us to be worthy of minuter study than they seem to have received. Opposite the fresco described above is one representing Volta explaining his invention of the pile to the members of the French Institute, in the presence of the first Consul Napoleon, and I^agrange. In the vestibule are also placed marble medallions of Leo Baptista Alberti and Baptista della Porta. A fresco in the hall, by Bezzuoli, represents Galileo lecturing in Pisa on the laws of falling bodies. This is a really striking and well- conceived painting : Galileo in his professional toga stands by the long inclined plane, showing his results to his colleague, Mazzoni. In the foreground is a professor in a monastic habit, kneeling near the inclined plane, and counting the time of descent of the falling body by the beats of his pulse. Young students are pressing round Galileo, in order, if possible, to aid him in his experiments ; while on another side the Aristotelian professors are looking on with derision, and searching in vain the writings of the Peripatetic for explanations of the new facts. In the background appear the Cathedral and the Leaning Tower. The whole conception is noble and spirit-stirring, and one longs for a similar treatment of other great discoveries in science — such as Davy discovering potassium, Faraday obtaining the first magneto-electric spark, and magnetising a ray of light. The opposite painting represents a meeting of the The Galileo Memorial in Florence. 59 Accademia del Cimento : the patron of the Society, the Grand Duke Ferdinand II., is eagerly watching an experiment which is being made by Eedi, Viviani, and Borelli, on the apparent (to them real) reflection of cold by a parabolic mirror. One of the rough spirit thermometers recently invented by the Academy is placed at the focus of the mirror, and a block of ice is used as the source of cold. The three frescoes in the Tribune immediately around the statue of Galileo represent three notable events of his life : in the first he is seen intently watching the swinging of a lamp in the Cathedral of Pisa ; in the second we see him in the act of presenting his telescope to the Venetian Senate ; and in the third he is represented as an old man, in his house at Arcetri, dictating the geometrical demonstration of the laws of falling bodies to his disciples Torricelli and Viviani. On the arch above the stgitue, the astronomical discoveries of Galileo — the Italians claim for him the Milky Way, the Nebula of Orion, the Phases of Venus, the Mountains of the Moon, the Satellites of Jupiter, the Solar Spots, and the Ring of Saturn — are pourtrayed very efiectively on a blue ground. Bas-reliefs in marble on the pillars of the arch represent his terrestrial discoveries — these are said to be the Pendulum, the Hydrostatic Balance, the Thermometer, the Proportion Compass, the Keeper of Magnets, the Telescope, and the Microscope. Beneath the frescoes and around the statue are niches, containing some of Galileo's instruments, his telescope, an objective made by the astronomer himself, a proportion compass, and a magnet, with a keeper which he constructed for it. Immediately surrounding the statue we notice the busts of his most celebrated followers, Castelli, Cavalieri, Torricelli, and Viviani. In the hall there are six cases containing old apparatus, chiefly that of the Academy of Cimento. The various thermometers figured in the " Saggi di Naturali esperienzi" of the Academy are here to be seen ; the vessels they used for showing the incompres- 60 Bologna, Florence, Pisa. sibility of water ; hygrometers ; together with astronomical and geodesical instruments. Here, also, is the large burning-glass constructed by Bregaus of Dresden, employed by Averani and Targioni in their experiments on the combustion of the diamond, and afterwards used by Sir Humphry Davy. The various inventions and discoveries of the Academy are shown in bas-relief on the pillars of white marble. The memorial is altogether worthy of the man, and of the fine taste of the Florentines. It is, perhaps, the only sanctuaire scientiJiquG which exists, but we may hope that the example will be followed in this and other countries. The Milanese have recently bought the collection of apparatus and the MSS. of Volta (for a sum, we believe, of 100,000 lire) ; a suitable museum for them will, no doubt, soon be fitted up. It is much to be wished that Faraday's apparatus could be collected together in one place, as a memorial to the man. We have spoken above of the discoveries attributed to Galileo by his countrymen. We are inclined to think that some of his claims have been pressed too far ; but on such a subject an almost endless controversy might be carried on, for we may remember that even the invention of the telescope has been claimed for others of his own countrymen (Antonio de Dominis and Baptista Porta), as well as the Dutch ; and the invention of the thermometer has been attri- buted to Cornelius Drebbel, Sanctorio of Padua, and others. But if we put all this aside, Galileo still stands out pre-eminently as one of the fathers of experimental philosophy : he did not create it, but he introduced a taste for it, and enlarged it, and he possessed in an eminent degree the true spirit of philosophical inquiry, the ardent love of research, the " Provando et Riprovando" which the Academy of Cimento adopted as its motto. The journey from Florence to Rome carries one through some interesting country. On either side of the railway, one sees at intervals picturesque old Etruscan towns perched upon hills. The first From Florence to Rome. 61 important town is Arezzo, beyond which the railway passes through the fertile valley of the Chiana. Till the middle of the eighteenth century this valley consisted of an unhealthy marsh, perfectly useless for purposes of agriculture. Its drainage was commenced by Torricelli and Viviani, mathematicians of the seventeenth century, and pupils of Galileo. But the work was not completed until the last century. There can be no doubt that if the same system were applied to thousands of acres of malarious land between Pisa and Rome, it might be converted into productive soil, and small towns would speedily, spring up in the midst of districts which are now all but LAKE TRASIMENUS IX ROMAN TI.MES. uninhabited. A little to the north of Lake Trasimenus stands Cortona, which, like Arezzo and Perugia, was one of the twelve confederate cities of Etruria. After leaving Cortona, the railway skirts for some distance the shores of the lake, and then, turning a 62 Bologna, Florence, Pisa. little to the west, follows its course to Rome by way of Cliiusi and Orvieto, a short cross Hue which has only recently been opened. A good view of Lake Trasimenus is obtained from the railway. Its greatest breadth is about eight miles, and its circumference thirty. The shores are prettily clothed with olive groves, and in some directions are bounded by precipitous hills. It contains three very picturesque islands, upon one of which there is a Monastery. It reminds one a little of one of the Lakes of Killarney, but of course of Killarney seen under very different aspects of light and shade and weather than those which usually prevail on the humid coast of Kerry. It was on the north-east shore of this lake that Hannibal defeated Flaminius (b.c. 217), with the slaughter of 15,000 men; and the battle was thereafter known as the "Battle of Lake Trasimenus.'* A residence of many weeks is necessary in order to know Florence thoroughly, and then the environs are so beautiful that another week or two may be advantageously spent in exploriug them. A short journey by rail takes us to Siena, Pisa, Lucca, or Leoliorn, and the beautiful coast road between Pisa and Genoa can easily be reached in a few hours. In Pisa the four great gems of the town are set close together in one corner — the Cathedral, the Canipo Santo, the Baptistery, and the Leaning Tower — and it is really difficult to describe the peculiar delight with which one makes acquaintance for the first time with these old friends of our childhood. Pictures of the Leaning Tower seem to be amonof our earliest recollections — whether as nursery prints, or as pictures in our first reading-books. All the rare beauties of the town are concentrated in one spot, and it is well for them that they are in such good company, for each one is so beautiful in itself that it does not suffer from being placed in juxtaposition with its equally beautiful neighbours. The Cathedral dates from the early part of the twelfth century ; it is of white marble, and the fa9ade is adorned with four different tiers of Galileo s Lamp. 03 columns placed one above the other. Many of the columns in the interior were taken from ancient Greek and Roman temples. Within, the Cathedral contains a few good paintings and some magnificent carvings. On one occasion when we were there High Mass was being celebrated, and we were surprised to see to how great an extent the officiating priests exceeded the worshippers. The priests appeared to monopolise the service altogether ; it apparently had no reference to the outside worshippers. The music was very bad, and there were frequent processions round the aisles. We were shown the Lampada di Galileo, a ponderous and ornate lamp of bronze, which hangs from the ceiling, and is said to be the work of Benvenuto Cellini. It is called Galileo's Lamp because it is known that he discovered the isochronism of the pendulum by watching the swinging of a lamp in this very cathedral. He observed that the lamp was swinging backwards and forwards in a given time, and that whether the space through which it swung were large or small, (say) an arc of two inches or an arc of two feet, it always executed its swing in equal times. After this discovery, the pendulum was at once employed as a measurer and regulator of time. W^e are very much inclined to believe that the lamp shown as Galileo's Lamp is not really the one which led to the observation, but that most likely one of the smaller lamps in the side aisles was set swinging, and kept up its motion long enough for Galileo to make the observation. The Baptistery is of nearly the same date as the Cathedral ; it is a beautiful circular buildino; with reliefs, and a number of columns both inside and out. It contains a large stone pulpit, carved by Nicola Pisano in 1260. The spherical surface of the interior and the perfect form of the dome lead to a curious echo within the building ; if a sound be produced, it is reverberated backwards and forwards for fifteen seconds. The Campanile or Leaning Tower was finished in 1350 ; it is entirely built of white marble, and is eight stories high. The view from the summit, 151 64 Bologna, Florence, Pisa. feet above the pavement, is very good. The Tower is no less than twelve feet out of the perpendicular, and it has often been wondered whether this is the result of accident or design. There can be little doubt, we think, that the ob- liquity has been pro- duced by the settling of the founda- tions, as in the case of the Leaning Towers of Bologna. The upper layer of the Pisa Campa- nile is not in- clined to the same extent as the lower stories, as if an attempt had been made to compensate for the defective verticality of the rest of the structure ; moreover, the largest bell, which weighs six tons, is hung on the side of the tower remote from the overhamjino; side. The Campo Santo of Pisa is certainly the most remarkable and beautiful cemetery in Italy. It is enclosed by a long quad- rangle of arcades, the sides of which, opening on the burial-ground, are filled with open pointed windows containing delicate tracery. BAPTISTERY OF I'ISA. The Canipo Santo. 65 Below, there are a number of carved tombs and monuments of all ages — Etruscan, Eoman, Mediaeval, Modern. The ground in which the dead rest was brought from the Holy Land. The walls are covered with frescoes by some of the older masters. Among these are the " Triumph of Death," attributed by some to Orcagna ; " Hell," " The Last Judgment," the chief events narrated in Genesis, perhaps by Buffalmacco, and various other scenes from Old Testament History, by Benozzo Gozzoli. The Campo Santo of Pisa is a place in which one loves to dream day-dreams. Shut out from the noisy world, surrounded by the dead of all ages ; weird, beautiful, solemn, and antique, the environment is such that one feels altogether separated from the busy life of men. The thoughts revert to the time, nearly 700 years ago, when Archbishop Ubaldo began the work ; one thinks of the many generations of princes, poets, painters, philosophers, and priests who have wandered beneath its arches, and slept within its holy earth ; and one remembers its long placid existence, through all the times of revolution and war, and the intestine feuds of its rulers, for God's acre is always sacred. Our day-dreaming ultimately took the form of the following little story, which we have called— THE DEEAM OF BEOTHER ANGELO. During the Papacy of Nicholas V. there lived in the Convent of S. Antonio, at Pisa, a monk called Brother Angelo, who was renowned for his piety. He had entered the convent as a young man, and had spent the best part of his life in it, ministering to the wants of the afflicted and the poor, and performing the number- less duties which belonged to every member of the Brotherhood. When the day's work was done, he loved to wander in the Campo Santo, which was close to the convent ; he would walk round the cloisters again and again, admiring their beauty, sometimes looking lower, and contrasting the old Eoman tombs and tablets with the 6fi Bologna, Florence, Pisa. monuments of more recent date ; lie would watch the cypress trees in the green quadrangle, and bethink him that the loved ones over whom they waved their branches rested in earth which was doubly holy, for they rendered it holy, and it had been brought from the summit of the mount, sacred in all ages to corqe as the scene of the Divine Tragedy. Here, too, he would rest. He had selected for his last home a corner of the sacred field opposite Orcagna's great fresco representing the Dream of Life, the Triumph of Death, and the Last Judgment. At this he would never weary of looking. He would sit by the hour together, till daylight had darkened into night, with his eyes fixed upon it in a kind of dreamy contemplation. Now he would scrutinise the courtiers in the oranore grove, and the dread w^inged figure of Death swooping down upon them with his broad scythe, and then turn his gaze upon the group of halt and maimed begging to be gathered in the same garner ; his eyes would wander slowly over the whole picture until he could have reproduced every detail of it from memory — the hunters stopped by the three open coftins ; the dogs; the hermit milking a doe; the great-eared rabbit in the background ; the chapel overshadowed by palm trees, the monks peacefully following their occupations, and above them all, the Condemned in the grasp of demons, and the Blessed borne to their rest on angels' wings. In such contemplation sat the Brother Angelo one evening as the sun went down over the old city. The bells of the Leaning- Tower were softly ringing in the night, and the dying sounds of the Vesper Psalm — " Tu es spes mea, portio mea in terra viventium" — exhaled from the Cathedral, were carried by the evening breezes into the cemetery ; otherwise all was silent within the cloisters. The monk was alone with his own thoughts. And he thousfht how the bells would still be rinfrintx when ten generations of his successors should have passed away ; how the same vesper service would be chanted in the Cathedral by other voices in the centuries to come : and how infinitely more evanescent was man than every- The Dream of Brother Angelo. 67 thino- else around him. He wondered, too, whether the world and the race of men would be changed in the far-off future times ; when the place of Nicholas of Sarzana would be filled perchance by a Nicholas X. or a Leo XXV., Servus Servorum Dei. Thus the monk sat thinkino" till the sun went down, and the vespers were ended, and the bells had ushered in the night. Darkness and silence rested upon the city ; the cemetery was very still, no bird of night winged its dusky flight among the cypresses, only a faintly- moanincr wind waved their branches to and fro with a dull muffled sound. Yes, there was something else astir — surely the fresco had started into life ! The courtiers made merry in the orange grove ; soft music and sweet voices mingled with the gentle rustling of the leaves; the oranges shone "like golden lamps in a green night ;" the hermit milked the doe ; the big-eared rabbit hopped away from the doo-s. the horses whisked their tails and stretched out their necks ; the cripples cried La buona mancia, Frate, la huona mancia ! the angels waved their wings ; but the figure of Death stayed his scythe, and the demons ceased their torture, and no flames issued from the abode of the Condemned. The living groups then descended and dispersed themselves about the cloisters ; the horses clattered on the pavement, the dogs barked ; the courtiers were joined by a great throng of Popes and Cardinals, Princes and Poets, Painters and Musicians, and courtly dames, who laughed and talked, and told of Florence two centuries before. But as the monk looked and listened, he heard all at once a dull beating sound, and the air darkened — Death was on the wing, and the mowing had commenced. The gay multitude, lately so full of vitality, were in a moment levelled with the ground ; the last stroke of the scythe was made, it would be the monk's turn next ; Death was flying towards him, the scythe whistled through the air, its cold edge touched his neck, and — he awoke, shivering to find himself in darkness, in the dead of night. "I know," said he, "that I have been warned;" Death requires me now, and has spared me a little while, that 68 Bologna, Floyence, Pisa. I may go hence and die among my brethren." So saying, the Brother Anofelo returned to the Convent, and his brethren looked upon him wonderingly, for his visage was changed, for lo ! he was about to die. And he said " My brethren, farewell, I am going to leave you ; bear me to the chapel and be with me while I pass the dark river ; for already I see dimly the bright Land beyond," and he sank into their arms, and became henceforth as one already dead. Then the monks carried him to the chapel and placed him upon a low catafalque, with his head a little raised and turned towards the high altar, upon which stood an uncovered monstrance. Lighted candles were placed around the catafalque and upon the altar, otherwise the chapel was in darkness, and the shadows retreated into the surrounding gloom. The monks were in their places, the Abbot and the priests stood on the steps of the altar ; and when all was ready they began to chant a Miserere. At length the solemn service of extreme unction was concluded, and the monks gathered around their brother to sing a last hymn. At his head stood the Abbot, at his feet a priest holding a monstrance upon which his dying gaze might most fitly rest ; on either side there were monks wavino- censers ; over his head one held a crucifix ; the others knelt. Then the hymn began. But from the first the Monk Anselo had been as one who is dead : his head had fallen back, his eyes were closed, he was motionless even to his heart, and the last hymn was drawing to a close : — Christe, cum sit hinc exire, Da per matreni me venire Ad palmam victoripe — sang the monks to an old, simple, solemn measure ; then the dying man opened his eyes, and raised himself a Uttle, while a soft indescribable glow seemed to surround his head, as he joined them The Dream of Brother Angelo. 69 in the hymn in a clear and wondrously sweet voice, so that his brethren thouQ-ht it was the voice of an ano;el wlio had come to meet his departing soul : — Quando corpus morietur Fac ut animse donetur Paradisi Gloria. and then the sweet voice was heard no more, and the monk fell back into the arms of the Abbot, while his pure and most spotless soul was borne on the wings of the ascending hymn to heaven. "Amen," sano; the monks. They buried him next day in his chosen ground, over against the great picture. Where were now the waving orange trees, and the prancing horses, and the cripples who cried for alms so lately \ Figures on the walls only ; stony, motionless, dead, as we see them now. But as the tearful Abbot said, ..." qui credit in Me etiam si mortuus fuerit, vivet," . . , the figure of Death seemed to fade out of the fresco, and the wings of the angels to shine with an unearthly sheen. Kim^f^wxirvK:t»'trwf<>f',w?tf,r::Mr^r'%w\w^r'^rw^r\wnmm'Jtv»mM«m^ CHAPTEE V. ROME. General Character of the City — Ancient Rome — The Surroundings of the Capitol — The Coliseum — The Columbarik — The Castle of S. Angelo — S. Peter's — Other Churches in Rome — Art Collections in Rome — The Study of Art — Rome as a Religious Centre — The Roman Catholic Hierarchy — The Vatican Palace and its Inmates — Complex Politics of the Church — The Attitude of the Church in reference to Modern Progress. city in the world has had so prolonged and so famous a history as Eome. No city has more profoundly influenced the destinies of the human race. In no city can so much be found to interest a cultivated mind. It is difiicult to know where to begin, the old and the new in all things are so strangely blended together. Structures which were erected two thousand years ago stand next to houses of yesterday. Here is a wall which was built five hun- dred years before the Christian era, brought to light in making the foundations for a new villa. Here is a Christian Church which was built more than twenty years before the birth of Christ ; and another which covers in its lowest basement a temple in which Mithras once was worshipped. Here S. Peter was imprisoned, there Jordano Bruno was burnt. Here Christians fought with wild beasts ; there, in the most magnificent and lavishly decorated fane in the world, < Ancient Rome. 71 silver trumpets sound and cannon blare at the supremest moment of the Christian ceremonial. As one enters Eome for the first time, the more prominent facts of its history crowd themselves upon the mind, and produce only a blurred and confused series of ideas, which require time for their disentanglement. A city which can boast a long line of C£esars, followed by a long line of Popes ; once a centre of Paganism, long since the centre of a great faith. A city taken and re-taken, built and re-built, by Etruscans and Eomans, Gauls and Saracens, Goths and Vandals, Guelphs and Ghibbelines, Neapolitans and Germans, French and Italians. And in turn sending out soldiers to conquer Samnite and Carthaginian, Greek and Macedonian, Parthian and Arabian, Gaul and German, Neapolitan and Sicilian. Again, there is the whole modern aspect of the Eternal City from the point of view of religion, literature, art, and human progress. It is perhaps preferable first to see what we can of the ancient remains of the city, and thus endeavour to realise it in the time of the Csesars. The old wall, which is very massive, and nearly fifty feet high, entirely surrounds the city, and is twelve miles long. It is pierced by twelve gates, of which the Great Porta del Popolo leads to the north and east of Italy, while the Porta S. Paolo is an opening on the south-west, leading to Ostia, and the Porta S. Sebastiano is the gate of the Appian Way leading to Albano and Southern Italy. Outside the walls the country is in some directions very bare and desolate. You pass through long stretches of malaria-stricken district ; or you suddenly find yourself at the edge of a tract of low marshy ground, recently flooded by the Tiber, and quite impassable, even on horseback — a continuation of the Pontine marshes. The Capitoline Hill was the central point of ancient Rome. It is rendered conspicuous by the buildings upon it, rather than by its own height, for it stands only 160 feet above the sea. A 72 Rome. beautiful view of Rome may be ob- tained from the sum- mit of the Campanile which now surmounts the Capitol, and cer- tainly one of the best, if not the best, view of the Forum and Coliseum. The Piazza of the Capitol has in its midst a magnifi- cent bronze statue ol Marcus Aurelius, which once stood in the Forum. It is flanked on either side by palaces, the one the Capitoline Museum, the other the Palace of THE CAPITOL. THE 1-UKLlM, UtblOKLU. The Arch of Titus. 73 the Conservatori ; the former contains by far the most interesting collection, and possesses some of the finest extant sculptures : among others, the Dying Gaul, the Satyr of Praxiteles, and the Faun of rosso antico, from Hadrian's villa. Many of the statues in the Capitoline Museum are from the villas of Sallust, Antoninus Pius, and Hadrian; others have been found from time to time during the excavations of Rome. The Tarpeian Rock is near the Capitol, and is now a most insignificant elevation ; if this is indeed the Tarpeian Rock over which criminals were thrown, the level of the ground beneath must have been considerably raised. To the south-west of the Capitol are the remains of the great Forum Romanum, which was once the centre of civil and political ARCH OF TITUS. 74 Rome. life. On either side and at the end are the remains of temples or other buildings — such as the Temple of Saturn, the Colonnade of the Twelve Gods, the Temple of Vespasian, the Temple of Concordia, and the Arch of Septimus Severus. Following the Via Savia, the old pavement of which remains in good condition, we ^ pass beneath the Arch of Titus, taking TABLE OF SHEW-BHEAD, ETC., ON ARCH OF TITUS. of the captive Jews, in which the Table of Shew-bread and the 1 Seven-branched Can- dlestick are repre- sented. A little further we see on our right hand the well-preserved Arch of Constantine, the sculptures on which were taken from a triumphal arch which stood at the entrance to Trajan's Forum. On our left hand is the Coliseum. The Coliseum is undoubtedly one of the most imposing structures in the world, but we are often led to imagine that it is THE COLISETTM. The Coliseum. & quite the most imposing. This it assuredly is not. After looking at the smaller but more perfect arenas of Aries and Verona, we confess that we were somewhat disappointed at the first sight of the Coliseum, although we saw it under very favourable circum- stances — a clear moonlight night, on the first night of our first visit to Kome. If we compare the impression which it produces upon us with that of the Parthenon, the Pyramids, and Heidelberg Castle, we are not quite sure whether we should put the Coliseum last, or last but one. But it is necessary to remember that we do not see much more than one-third of the building. The guide- book statistics — to the eff"ect that it could contain 87,000 spectators ; that 5000 animals were killed in it during an hundred days, and so on — really convey no idea at all to the mind. In its present ruinous condition one cannot realise it as an arena nearly so well as in the case of either of the amphitheatres before mentioned, each of which contained nearly one-third as many spectators as the Coliseum. The Amphitheatre of Aries is so comparatively perfect that bull-fights are still held in it, and it accommodates all the sight-seers of the town. The Coliseum^ on the other hand, is quite ruined as to its interior, and requires to be propped up by enormous buttresses as to its exterior. It is dreadfully disfigured by the large holes which were cut in every part of it during the Middle Ages, in order to extract the iron clamps which formerly held together the blocks of travertine of which the exterior is constructed. Let us, however, give the Coliseum its due : the appearance of it from a neighbouring elevation is very grand, and the fa§ade, which is more than two hundred feet high, is really magnificent. Extensive excavations have lately been made within the Coliseum, and they have brought to light some of the arrangements for flooding the arena with water ; indeed the works had to be stopped on account of the quantity of water which accumulated, and the water had to be pumped out day and night. An interesting ceremony took place 76 Rome. in the Coliseum a few years ago. The relics of S. Clemente, who suffered martyrdom in the Coliseum, were carried in procession by a large body of ecclesiastics from his church (hard by in the Via S. Giovanni in Laterano), through the Coliseum, in token of the triumph of the once despised faith, and of its permanence com- pared with even such gigantic structures as the Coliseum itself. The Palatine Hill is covered with ruins of the Palaces of the Csesars, which are of comparatively little interest, but the views of Eome which can be obtained from different sides of the hill are interesting. Following the Appian Way from the south- west corner of the Palatine, we soon come to a small street which leads to the Baths of Caracalla. This must once have been a very sumptuous building ; it had space for sixteen hundred bathers, and was adorned with frescoes, mosaics, and statues. In the immediate neighbourhood are the tombs of the Scipios, and in an adjacent garden three well-preserved Coliimharia. These are deep square subterranean vaults, the sides of which are perforated with pigeon- holes (hcDce the name Columbarium), in which small cinerary urns, often of clay, sometimes of marble, were placed. These vaults were sometimes possessed by two or three separate families, who deposited the ashes of their dead in different parts of the structure, inscribing the name of the deceased on a tablet above the pigeon-hole. Ordinary burial and cremation were for a long period practised at the same time in Rome. In this quarter of the city remains of ancient Eome meet one at every turn, and they are described in detail in scores of books ; the remains of the ancient walls, the house of Tiberius Claudius Nero, the porticoes of Septimius Severus, the portico of Octavius, the Temples of Vesta and of Fortuna Virilis, and the Cloaca Maxima, are a few of the principal. Of the great Temple of Jupiter Stator, the foundation of which was ascribed to Romulus, very scanty remains exist, insufficient indeed to enable the antiquary to assert that they really belonged to the old temple. CJOLUMBAKIUM. Castle of S. Angelo, 17 The most conspicuous monuments of mediaeval and modem Rome are the churches, which are met with at every turn. Of course S. Peter's claims the first notice among these, and it generally receives an early visit from strangers. It stands on the right bank of the Tiber, on the site of the very ancient Etruscan city of Vaticum. On crossing the Ponte S. Angelo, we find ourselves face to face with the Castello, formerly the tomb of r" IlliflliliP^ I!,. j>irv-t'J^..^.'ii''- ill" J HADRIAN S TOMB, RESTORED Hadrian. Here there is but little to detain us. It is a huge cylindrical structure of travertine, which was once faced with marble, and probably surmounted by a low cone of masonry, on the apex of which was a statue of Hadrian. The empty niches for the reception of the cinerary urns may still be seen in the centre of the building. Many other emperors were deposited here. The Goths converted the building from a tomb into a fortress, and it has been used by many of the Popes in that capacity. A long covered passage connects it with the Vatican Palace, and in times of tumult Popes have sometimes taken refuge within its walls. The castle was besieo;ed in 1527, in the time of Clement VII. There is 78 Ro7ne. little to be seen in it now. The view from the summit is very fine ; and on the way thereto various dungeons are pointed out, in one of which Beatrice Cenci was immured ; a torture chamber is also shown, and various apartments used by the Popes. In one of these there is a large wooden coffer, standing five feet high, which a certain Pope left full of ducats. On emerging from the castle, and walking in an easterly direction for a short distance, we come to the Piazza of S. Peter's, surrounded by colonnades. The columns are four deep, and on the roof of the colonnades there are 126 statues. The Egyptian monument in the centre was brought to Rome by Caligula. It was erected in its present position by Sixtus V. in 1586. A curious incident, which is often alluded to in scientific works, occurred during the elevation of this enormous mass of stone. It had not been foreseen that the strain on the ropes would stretch them, and that allowance must be made for this in the arrangement of the raising gear. Thus it happened that, when the workmen had got to the end of their tether, it was found that the column was not yet quite in a vertical position. A sailor in the crowd, however, who knew that ropes shorten when they are moistened, called out, "Moisten the ropes," and the contraction thus produced enabled the 800 workmen to hoist the obelisk into its proper position. The sailor, who lived on the Riviera, near S. Remo, was rewarded by being allowed to provide the palm-branches for the Palm Sunday services in S. Peter's, a monopoly still enjoyed by his descendants. On each side of the obelisk there is a fine fountain, and at the corners of the steps leading to S. Peter's there are colossal statues. On the rioht the colonnade leads to the Vatican Palace. The earliest Basilica of S. Peter is said to have been erected by the Emperor Constantine. It was a magnificently-decorated edifice containing a quantity of treasure, and inlaid with mosaics. Many Emperors and Popes were crowned in it, amonoj others CharlemaQ:ne, who received his crown from Leo III. in 800. The old cathedral had fallen into a state of o o H S. Peter s. 79 decay by the middle of the fifteenth century, and had likewise been damaged by fire. Pope Nicholas V. commenced the new building in 1450, and it was continued by Julius 11. , Leo X., Alexander Vn., and Urban VIII., under the charge of the most skilled architects of the time, notably Michael Angelo, Fontana, and Bernini. The church was finally consecrated in 1626, on the thirteen-hundredth anniversary of the consecration of the original edifice by Sylvester. It has from first to last cost nearly £12,000,000 sterling. Cardinal Wiseman, in his essay on the " Points of Contact between Science and Art," has given an interesting account of the method which was adopted to strengthen the dome. As early as the year 1681, it was noticed that large cracks were beginning to show themselves in the dome, and these increased to such an extent that it was feared that the whole structure would fall in. The weight was calculated, and it was found that the dome alone with its lantern weighed more than 55,000 tons. An ultimate calculation showed that the excess of pressure against support amounted to 1674 tons ; and this had to be compensated for at once, otherwise the complete ruin of the edifice might be looked for. Large iron girders were braced round the drum of the dome, and no further movement has been apparent. On entering S. Peter's we are at once struck by its great magnitude ; people who are wandering about near the high altar look quite small; and the canopy which covers the altar is nearly 100 feet high, but itself looks small until you are near to it. S. Peter's has nearly twice the area of the Cathedral of Milan and S. Paul's in London ; more than twice that of S. Sophia at Constantinople, and nearly three times the area of the Cathedral of Cologne. S. Peter's contains no less than forty-six altars, and nearly four hundred statues. The interior is very rich ; rare marbles encrust the walls and pillars ; marble medallions portray eminent Popes and Saints ; there are statues in bronze and marble, and a good 80 Rome. deal of mosaic work. The dove with the olive branch perpetually appears on all the pilasters. The tomb of S. Peter is beneath the high altar, and before it eighty-nine lamps are kept perpetually burning. At the extreme end of the Cathedral there is a great bronze chair containing within it the wooden chair of S. Peter. In the side chapels there are many pictures, statues, bas-reliefs, and rich shrines. Of all the statues we admire most that of Alexander VIII., a beautiful bronze work by Arrigo di S. Martino. The Pontiff is seated, and is in the act of giving the blessing ; his attitude is very striking, and his aspect calm and dignified. During a visit to Rome the visitor is constantly tempted to wander into S. Peter's ; there is sure to be something that he has not seen before. Yet it must be confessed that in point of beauty the great basilica will not bear comparison with such beautiful edifices as the Church of S. Ouen at Rouen, or Strasburg Cathedral. Of course as far as sumptuous internal decoration is concerned, S. Peter's exceeds any existing cathedral of even half the size, but we cannot admire the building either within or without from an architectural point of view alone. Out of the 360 churches which Rome possesses, not more than six or seven are of any great interest to the ordinary traveller. After S. Peter's, the Patriarchal Archbasilica of S. John Lateran should be visited. This was for many years the principal church in Rome, and calls itself by the proud title, " Omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput." It has a fine gilt stucco ceiUng, a beautiful and very graceful shrine, containing the heads of S. Peter and S. Paul, a number of marble statues, and a beautifully-decorated chapel. The great Church of S. Maria Maggiore contains two of the most sumptuous chapels in Rome — the Sixtine and the Borghese. All that architecture, painting, and sculpture can do has been done ; all kinds of decorative work have been lavishly introduced, gilt bronze, Florentine mosaics, amethyst and lapis lazuli, choice paintings, cofi'ers of gold repouss^ work containing .11 W &4 o 03 pa Q <: M The Churches of Rome, 81 the rarest of relics ; such things appear in many churches in Rome, in the Gesu for example, and in the magnificent Basilica of S. Paul's without the walls. The Church of 8. Clemente is of special interest from its great antiquity. The upper church dates from 1108, while beneath it has been discovered the original church, of which S. Jerome speaks in 392. In this latter a number of frescoes were discovered a few years ago ; some of these, although of early date, are in a very good state of preservation. The Abbot, Father Mullooly, has published a capital account of the lower church, which was excavated under his auspices. Beneath the lower church, we descend to a Temple of Mithras, which is now nearly filled with water. The inner sanctuary containing the altar is, however, visible. Those who are fond of church architecture will find but little to interest them in the churches of Rome. There is but one building that even approximates to Gothic — S. Maria sopra Minerva — and, as a rule, the churches are unsightly without, and often full of tawdry decorations within. The round arch and the square pilaster often appear ; also gilt stucco ceilings, pictures, and marble statues. The high altars are often of richly carved and inlaid marble ; sometimes of bronze, and sometimes of chased silver. Most of the churches possess relics : thorns from the crown of thorns ; boards from the holy manger ; the bones of Saints ; the imprint of the Apostles' knees or feet ; sometimes the complete skeleton of a Saint reposing beneath the high altar, the poor skull covered with gleaming jewels, the skeleton covered with richly- embroidered mantles, and the long fingers thrust into white kid gloves. Rome is, we need not say, one of the great homes of art. The education of a painter or sculptor is not considered complete until he has spent some time in Rome. The city contains quite a community of painters and sculptors. Among the studios most worthy of a visit we may mention that of Mr. W. W. Story, many of whose works are well known in this country : — his recent 82 Rome. production, "Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon" seems to us to be one of the most beautiful creations of modern times. Mr, Benzoni's " Julia and Diomed fleeing from Pompeii" is also a fine work. There are innumerable private collections which are thrown open on certain days — such as the Doria, Farnese, Barberini, and Borghese collections — and, above all, there are the incomparable collections of the Capitol Museum and of the Vatican. The works of art which these museums contain are quite over- powering. Unless you are an artist born and bred ; unless you are specially interested in art and specially educated in art, it is simply useless to wander about through long galleries containing the finest sculpture and painting in the world. The study of art is notoriously neglected in this country, and when we go abroad we too often find that we are quite unable to appreciate the beauties of a statue or a painting, or to discover its defects. Under any circumstances, what is the possible use of wandering through the Capitol Museum, when the first room contains such profoundly grand works as "The Dying Gaul," "The Satyr" of Praxiteles, "The Antinous " from Hadrian's villa, "The Amazon," and "The Demeter," Here surely you have artistic food enough to satiate the most rabid lover of art. It is mere waste of time after this to go into the Room of the Philosophers, or the Stanza del Fauno,"'^ Again, in the magnificent collection of the Vatican, you see in succession " The Apollo Belvedere, " The Laocoon," " The Mercury," " The Perseus," and " The Pugilists," and then you had better go away to the Egyptian Room, or to the Sixtine Chapel, or to something absolutely diflferent. It is mere folly to continue to see statuary after this. The notion of wandering from one room to another, and saying, " I like this," and " I don't care for that," is quite absurd, * " I have seen," says Goethe, writing from Rome in 1786, "the frescoes of Domenichino in Andrea della Valle, and also the Farnese Gallery of Caraccio's, Too much, forsooth, for months — what, then, for a single day!" The Vatican Gallery. 83 Instead, therefore, of attempting a detailed account of any one gallery, or any one work of art, we have preferred to insert some woodcuts of notable statues. The Apollo Belvedere was found in the ruins of the ancient APOLLO BELVEDERE. TATICAX, Antium at the close of the fifteenth century. In 1792 a bronze statuette, which must have been copied from the same original, was found near Janina. It is a work of incomparable merit. " The attitude of the god," says Llibke {History of 84 Rome. Scvlpture), "is full of pathos, and is conceived at a dramatic moment. Ardently excited, and filled with Divine anger, with which is mingled a touch of triumphant scorn, the intellectual head is turned sidewards, while the figure, with elastic step, is hastening forwards. The eye seems to shoot forth lightning, there is an expression of contempt in the HEAD OF APOLLO BELVEDERE. corners of the mouth, and the distended nostrils seem to breathe forth Divine anger. It is a bold attitude, thus transfixed in marble, full of life-like and excited action, indicating, it is true, a distinct aiming at theatrical efi"ect — which is increased by the faulty restora- tion of the hands — and therefore only calculated to be viewed from one aspect." The Vatican Gallery 85 The celebrated group representing the punishment of Laocoon, a priest of Apollo, for an offence committed against the god, is mentioned by Pliny as the work of the Rhodian sculptors, Agesander, Athenodorus, and Polydorus. It was found in the ruins of the Palace of Titus in 1506. " The sculptor," says Liibke, " conceived the incident at the decisive point, and with astonishing art formed LAOOOON QSOTTP. VATICAN. one united and closely connected group from three successive moments of action. The sudden violence of the evil is depicted with a life which verges on the extreme limits of plastic art, and even encroaches upon the picturesque. . . . There is something light- ning-like in the composition, for although it embraces three separate moments, it combines them so completely that they appear as one." 86 Rome. The marble head of Zeus discovered at Otricoli is probably a Koman copy of a work executed during the epoch of Alexander the Great. It indicates a departure from the most perfect Greek type, and is not without faults of style, but it still remains a powerful work. Ltibke says, "The main point of the charac- ZEUS OF OTEIOOLI. VATICAN. terisation lies unmistakably in the abundant hair falling on both sides in thick masses, and in the bold, elevated brows, beneath which the eyes seem to gaze over the vast universe. The compact brow and prominent nose complete the expression of wisdom and power, while the full, slightly-parted lips imply mild benevolence, and the luxuriant beard, and firm, well- The Vaticmi Gallery. 87 formed cheeks, betray sensual vigour and imperishable manly beauty." The Sleeping Ariadne of the Vatican, although belonging to rather a late period, is a beautiful example of elegant grace. The attitude of repose is represented in a masterly manner, and the details of drapery have been most carefully worked and per- fected. The Barberini Juno is also a finely-draped figure, but it lacks the extreme delicacy of the Ariadne. Among the many statues of the Muses in the Vatican collection, SLEEPING ARIADNE. VATICAN. we may mention the Melpomene and the Euterpe as well-conceived and carefully treated studies. The head of Eros, which was found at Centocelle, is remarkable for its boyish grace, together with a peculiar dreaminess of expression which has been conveyed by the subtlest touches of the artist's hands. 88 Rome. The head of Cronus has a certain massive sternness well be- fittinof the character of the god. The Dying Gaul is believed to be a work of the school of Persamos, It is treated with wonderful realism, and is one of the finest sculptures extant. It represents a Gaul who, having been conquered in battle, has killed himself with his own sword to avoid slavery. Let us ask the ordinary well-educated person, who is not a specialist, or particu- larly devoted to sculpture, or painting, or music, if he really remembers, and can really talk of, and knows anything about, any twenty statues, pictures, musical composi- tions, buildings, ruins, views, or books, in the whole world. And if not, is not the folly of rushing from one town to anotlier, to walk throuoh miles of galleries, sufficiently obvious ? We will beirin these lists with works about ^ which we imagine there can be but little dispute, and will ask the reader to complete each list up to twenty, and then to see how much he really knows about each one of his favourite works. Sculpture : — The Dying Gaul, the Faun of Praxiteles, the Antinous, the Venus of Milo, the Apollo Belvedere, the Venus BARBEUIXI JUNO. YATICAX. The Study of Art. 89 of the Capitol, the Sleeping Ariadne, the Farnese Bull, the Hercules, the Laocoon, the Zeus of Otricoli, the Young Augustus, and the Perseus, will form a good beginning. Bronzes: — Our own magnificent head in the British Museum, from the Castellani Collection, the head of Bacchus in the King's Palace at Naples, the Eeposing Mercury and the Drunken Faun in the Naples Museum, and the Ram of Syracuse. Pictures: — The *' Assumption " of Titian, the " Immaculate Conception " of Murillo, the " Transfiguration," the San Sisto Madonna, the Communion of S. Jerome, the Tribute Money. Ruins : — The Parthenon, the Theseum, the Pyramids, Heidelberg Castle, the Coliseum, the Temples at Paestum, Glastonbury Abbey. Existing Buildings : — Notre Dame of Paris, the Cathedrals of Milan, Cologne, Strasburg, and Ely, the Church of S. Ouen at Rouen, the Donaustaufi" Wal- halla, S. Mark's, Venice, the Great Group at Pisa ; and so on for musical compositions, and scenery, and books, and all else that tends to the cultivation of an elegant taste, and the refinement of human life. We say then, if your time is your own, and if you have an elegant and cultivated taste, and a highly sympathetic and MELPOMENE. VATICAN. 90 Rome. appreciative temperament, you may, by spending some years in Eome, acquire a very satisfactory amount of real knowledge concerning history and literature, archaeology and art. Then, if you will, you may visit that long list of collections, beginning with " Albani Villa," and ending with " Vatican Collections," together with the thousand and one sights in the way of Churches, Catacombs, remains of Temples, Golden Houses, and Fora. But, and if, your visits to Rome consist of a week or two, once a-year, it is better to thoroughly examine and try to understand a few of the best sculptures, pictures, and buildings, and thus to carry away a little real and perma- nent knowledge, in place of a dim and- hazy recol- lection of many things imperfectly seen, and often altogether mis- understood. It is true that poetry is cultivated in our English educational system, but music, painting, and sculpture are altogether ignored as general sub- jects of study. Ought it not to be possible to acquire in our schools, side by side with history, grammar, and arithmetic, ideas concerning one or other, or all of these ? In Germany, France, and Italy, it appears to be possible, and if we had so much as a good series of art primers, the experiment could surely be tried in this country. We can generally say why we like or dislike a man, or a horse, or a book ; but can any one man out of ten — might we not say one out of a hundred ? — say precisely why he likes this or that picture, or song, or piece of sculpture ? HEAD OF EROS. VATICAN. The Study of Art. 91 We think there is no place in the world in which one feels so utterly at sea, as in a gallery of painting or sculpture. We confess that the other day we saw a picture in a large English gallery which impressed us more than anything in the whole collection, and if we were asked the simple and natural question, " Why ? " we could not give one single reason. Can anything be more ridiculous ? A very few elementary ideas about art would at least enable one to know what to look for in a picture, and if these ideas were cultivated one might in time get to crudely analyse the impression made upon one's mind by a picture. Compare for the moment the pleasure to be derived from the sight of a picture — in this instance simple enough in itself, a portrait of Don Balthazar Carlos with a bloodhound beside him ; — if one sees in it simply a piece of canvas with a representation of a boy painted on it, or if one sees it with the eye of a man who describes it thus : — " The little man is booted, gloved, hatted, wearing a dark green suit stiff with gold, and is holding by the muzzle with his right hand a short gun of which the butt rests on the ground. A bloodhound watches half asleep beside him, with its heavy face laid along the ground ; two small greyhounds sit, all eagerness, behind. It is the very magic of reality, and that without ostentation or sign of toil. The strokes and spots of colour, when one is close to them, look all confusion ; but fall back, and there is the living frame of the boy standing sturdy and alive in his suit of green and gold ; in the gold an incredible subtlety and soberness and variety ; in the expression of the dogs an intense truth of character, rendered with two or three weighty and perfectly calculated touches of the brush ; and then a wild landscape full of romance, full of silver light and azure shadow, and ending in a range of dark sierras that you can scarcely distinguish from the clouds above them." And this is no description written by an artist for artists, but an extract from last week's newspaper written for the general public. If we were to read one of Mr. Euskin's rhapsodical 92 Rome. descriptions of a great picture, we should feel our ignorance yet more. We should be glad even to know the aim and object of the painter : is it to present us with a faithful representation of that which he paints ; is it to idealise ; is it to convey subtle and obscure impressions ; is it to evoke a certain mode and tone of thought in the observer ? Will anybody walk through this gallery with us, and point out the special beauties of each of the greatest pictures ? Here is a Dutch kitchen with red pots and pans strewn about it, a large cabbage and some carrots on a table, a woman in a white cap plucking a lean yellow fowl, a child sprawling on the floor — it is a great work of art, and cost £4000 only three weeks ago. Then very near is the figure of a gentleman dressed in black velvet with his hand on the hilt of a sword ; a very straight and formal S. Sebastian tied to a tree and pierced full of arrows, but exhibiting no traces of pain ; then a group of men in a thousand possible and impossible caps, dressed in long robes of vermilion, indigo, and pea green ; a monk with a skull ; a dead warrior ; sheep feeding in a pasture ; a banquet scene ; a market-place in winter ; the interior of Milan Cathedral ; the portrait of a Cardinal ; a landscape ; a storm at sea ; a sunset ; the ecstasy of a Saint. We wander among all these in a dream, the images become superposed — the Cardinal is in the kitchen, and the monk is at the helm of the foundering vessel ; we cannot comprehend what we see because we do not know what to look for, what to admire, in a word, because we have never been taught the very first rudiments of art. Again, let it be a gallery of sculpture : it is as difficult for a man who is ignorant of art to discern the fine points of a statue, as for a man ignorant of horseflesh to choose a perfectly sound horse. Why do people rave about the Faun of Praxiteles ? Why is that magnificent statue of Mercury condemned as the most debased art ? What do people see in that much mutilated arm to The Study of Art. 93 admire ? We cannot tell, because we have never known what we ought to look for in a statue. With music it is perhaps different, it is too subtle a matter to analyse the varying moods produced by varying themes ; we should not care to know why we listen to " Le chemin du Paradis," and " Poor Mary Ann," and " Quis est homo," with streaming eyes ; or why our hearts beat quickly, and we become animated with a lively motion (as our neighbours over the water would say), and inclined to sing, or shout, or dance, when we listen to "II segreto per esser felice," or the "Largo al factotum." To know this would perhaps be the blunting of some of our finer emotions ; we should be on the verge of elliptical brain currents, reflex action of the sensory nerves, and all that sort of thing. But we do protest against our growing up to be men and then finding that we have no notion why we like one picture or statue better than another, and that we possess no words even to talk intelligibly about such things. Leaving now Rome as a centre of art, we have to consider an altogether different aspect of the Eternal City. Apart from all other points of interest, Rome has been for many centuries the great religious focus of a large portion of Christendom. We suppose there has never been a system, either religious or ethical, which has maintained such intense and uniform vitality as the Roman Catholic Church. When Mr. Gladstone's government was defeated a few years ago by the " Noes" of the Roman Catholic Irish Members, one of the French journals drew attention to the fact, as a proof of the still-existing power of the Church. We may talk of the " decline of Papal power," " the waning energy of the Roman Catholic Church," and so on; but the Church which has any hand in the defeat of a powerful government in a distant land is scarcely in its dotage. The Annuario Pontijicio yearly gives a list of the Popes, commencing with " 1. — Peter, 94 Rome. Saint and Apostle ; native place, Bethsaida ; Date of Election, a.d. 42 ;" and ending with " 257. — Pius IX., Giovanni, Maria, Mastai, Ferretti : — Sinigallia — 1846." A succession so vast, so continuous, so prolonged, that no one kingdom or empire of the earth can show any series of rulers to be for a moment compared with it. When people shake their heads and tell us that Pius IX. is the last Pope, we wonder if they remember the number of his predecessors, and if they know aught of the inner life of this great and wonderful Church. The man is not yet born who will see the last Pope. A Church which has outlived fifty generations of men, has seen the fall of fifty mighty empires, and has witnessed chancres in the tone and mode of thought and of life more varied and more profound than can ever occur in the world again, is not likely to succumb to a loss of temporal power. Its power and influence over the minds of men will outlive many kingdoms which do not yet exist. The vitality of the Church, we repeat, is marvellous ; its power throbs through the veins of the remotest and least cultivated communities : a mandate issues from Home, " Apiid S. Petrum sub Annulo Piscatoris die . . . Pontif. Nostri Anno ... ," and forthwith men travel from the remotest Siberia, from Mexico, from the very ends of the earth, to attend the (Ecumenical Council. The mandate of Pio Nono, Pontifex Maximus, Servus Servorum Dei, ad Perpetuam Rei Memoriam, as it thunders from the Vatican, spreads like a wave of sound, enlarging as it spreads ; its echo is heard on the very confines of space. Telegraphs transmit it to the brink of the higher civilisation ; couriers gallop with it day and night over prairies, through burning deserts, over frozen steppes ; it is carried over wide rivers and untracked mountains ; it is found in the midst of pathless forests. The whole Roman Catholic world responds to it. At the end of every year there is published in Rome a clergy -list of the superior clergy — including Bishops and ]\Ion- The Roman Catholic Hierarchy. 95 sigiiori — entitled La Gerarchia Cattolica, e la Famiglia, Fontificia. A glance at its pages may help us to understand by what means two hundred millions of the human race are directed and governed in matters ecclesiastical. At the conclusion of the year 1875 the Catholic Hierarchy consisted of — The Sacred Colle2;e of Cardinals 57 Patriarchs of both Eites 12 Archbishops and Bishops of the Latin Church . . . 734 „ „ of the Eastern Church . . 50 „ „ with the Titles of Sees in partibus Infidelium .... 274 Patriarchal Archbishops and Bishops without title . . 28 Abbots without a Diocese* 11 1166 The present Pope has created 23 new Metropolitan Sees, and 129 Bishoprics. There have been 257 Popes, of whom the first 56 were canonised; 21 were afterwards canonised, the last being S. Pius v., who died in 1572. Thus more than one-fourth of the entire body are Saints of the Church. The complete titles of the Pope are " Bishop of Eome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor to the Chief of the Apostles, Pontifex Maximus of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the Temporal Dominions of the Holy Roman Church;" besides additional titles as the holder of certain offices, such as " Prefect of the Sacred Roman and Universal Inquisition," " Protector of the Arch- confraternity of the Via Crucis," &c. His Holiness is now 85 years old, and has been Pope longer than any one of his predecessors, viz., for thirty-one years. * That is to say, Abbots, Uke the Abbot of Monte Cassino, who themselves exercise episcopal jurisdiction, and hence belong to no Diocese, but are directly subject to the Holy See. 96 Rome. The College of Cardinals may consist as a maximum of seventy members. There are, however, thirteen vacant hats. Of the fifty- seven existing Cardinals, eight were appointed by Gregory XVI. The oldest Cardinal (Filippo de Angelis) is eighty-four years old, the youngest (Lucien Bonaparte) is forty-eight. No less than twenty-five of the Cardinals — an approach to half of the entire number — are seventy years old or upwards. There are six Car- dinal Bishops, forty-two Cardinal Priests, and nine Cardinal Deacons. Among the latter are Cardinal Antonelli, Secretary of State, and Cardinal Borromeo, descended from S. Carlo of Milan, the Arch- priest of the Patriarchal Basilica of S. Peter. First among the Cardinals, and in many respects as important a man as the Pope himself, is Constantine Patrizi, Bishop of Ostia and Velletri, Dean of the Sacred College, Archpriest of the Patriarchal Archbasilica of the Lateran, Vicar-General, Grand Prior Commander in Eome of the Sacred Military Order of Jerusalem, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Kites, Secretary of the Holy Eoman and Universal Inquisition — together with a page of other titles of lesser impor- tance in small print.'"" During the Pontificate of Pius IX. no less than one hundred and nine Cardinals have died. After the list of Cardinals, we find more than a hundred pages given to a list of the Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops in Residential Sees : thus — "Dublino, Diiblinen. — Arciv. Irlanda, -f- Emo e Emo Sig. Card. Paolo Culleu, alumno, del Pont. Collegio Urbano della Propaganda, n. in Dublino 27 Ap. 1803, ell. all' Arciv. di Armagh 8 gen. 1850, trasl. nel mag. 1852." * This was written last year, towards the latter end of which both Cardinal Antonelli and Cardinal Patrizi died. A few changes have been produced by this means, but for the purposes of this notice they are quite immaterial. Only last week several new Cardinals were elected, and in to-day's Times (March 19th), there is the last Papal Allocution — a document well worthy of perusal. The Roman Catholic Hierarchy. 97 This is followed by more than fifty pages of names of Arch- bishops and Bishops inpartibus hifidelium, among which we notice the sees of Halicarnassus, Apamea, Bethlehem, Bethsaida, Corinth, Hebron, Olympia, Sidon, Sion, and Troy. A short list of Abbots and Prelates without dioceses follows ; then a list of the Latin names of all the Sees arranged alphabetically, as — Soutwarcen . Soutwarcum . Southwark. Cliftonien . Cliftonia . Clifton. Kildarien . Cellaquercus . Kildare. After this we have the Apostolic Delegates of the Propagation of the Faith, Vicars- Apostolic (stationed in every part of the known world, Central Thibet, Tonquin, Yunnan, &c). Prefects- Apostolic, and Principals of Eeligious Orders. The second and smaller part of the book treats of " La Famiglia della Santita di Nostro Signore Papa Pio IX., Gloriosamente Eegnante." This commences with Cardinals and Prelates Palatine, Confidential Chamberlains, a secretary of despatches, an under- secretary of state, a sotto-datario (that is, an ofiicer of the Chan- cery who affixes the " datum Romse " to the Pope's Bulls) ; and a Chaplain of the Sacred Apostolic Palaces. Then follows a long list of the Pope's Domestic Prelates, including, apparently, a large proportion of the Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, and Monsignori in the Hierarchy ; the College of Apostolic Protonotaries, the Auditors of the Sacra Rota Romana, the Court of the Segnatura, which includes in its numbers most of our Euorlish Monsionori ; Pontifical Masters of the Ceremonies. Then the Officers of the Noble Guard, Chamberlains of Honour in purple robes. Chamber- lains of Honour without the City, Officers of the Swiss Guard, Officers of the Palatine Guard of Honour, Private Chaplains, the Confessor of the Pontifical Family, the private steward, the Carriers of the Pontifical Chair, and so on down to the avant couriers. In the Appendix an account is given of the Sacred Congrega- 98 Rome. tions : and first of the Sacred Roman and Universal Inquisition, of which the Pope himself is Prefect, and the Vicar-General Cardinal Patrizi, Secretary ; a long list of Counsel, a compiler, a reporter, and a notary. Secondly, the congregations of the Consistory ; the Bishops and Monks ; the Council ; ecclesiastical privileges ; the Propagation of the Faith ; the Index ; Sacred Eites ; Ceremonials ; the discipline of the Monks ; Indulgences and Sacred Relics ; the examination of Bishops ; Extraordinary Ecclesiastical affairs ; — next in order, the officers of the Apostolic Penitentaries, Courts of the Apostolic Chancery, of the Apostolic Dataries, of the Apostolic chamber ; the secretary and sub-secretaries of state, of despatches, of memorials, and of the auditor's office ; the Apostolic Nuncios and Delegates, the Ambassadors ; the Vicariat of Rome ; and, finally, the Apostolic Colleges. Large as is the number of dignitaries in the Roman Catholic Church, it would appear that the number of offices is still larger ; all the principal dignitaries seem to take a part in the direct government of the Church as a body, as well as individually, in their own dioceses. The offices are for the most part of considerable antiquity, and it is curious to find the Congregation of the Inquisition still in existence. Some of the offices exist now only in name, and were created when the authority of Rome was more widespread than it now is ; that is, when cases were sent to Rome to be judged in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and when Popes governed Emperors, and Emperors governed Barons, and Barons governed serfs. At the present time the Vatican contains more than five hundred persons, including the Pontifical Guard, the various officers of the Pope's household, a,nd the ecclesiastics more directly concerned with the external administration of the affiiirs of the Roman Catholic Church. There is a private printing press within the palace, and a stafi" of men connected with the propagation of the Papal decrees. Many of the congregations meet in the Vatican. The Inmates of the Vatican. 99 The Pope has remained in the Vatican, a self-constituted prisoner, since the occupation of Rome by Victor Emmanuel in 1870. Between the Pope and the King there is no love lost, and many bitter speeches relating to the Italian Government have found their way into the Papal allocutions. The Pope refuses to accept the three-and-a-half millions of lire (about £130,000 in Italian paper money) which the Italian Government offered as a compensation for the loss of tlie Temporalities of the Holy See. The advisers of the Pope maintain that it is impossible to receive payment without yielding a certain amount of allegiance, and that hence it is better to decline the offer altoo^ether. The collection of Peter's Pence amounts to nearly double this amount, and from time to time the Pope receives more direct presents. Thus, only a few weeks ago the Duchess di Galliera forwarded £40,000 to the Vatican, with a request that masses might be said for the soul of the recently deceased Duke. The expenses of the Vatican are considerable ; all the internal mechanism of the ecclesiastical government, the stipends of numbers of archbishops, bishops, monsignori, and canons, the repairs of S. Peter's, and so on. The Pope, in spite of his great age, is still an active old man. He walks daily in the galleries or gardens of the Vatican, and at an early hour he meets some fifteen or twenty of his more special advisers, who discuss the affairs of the Church and of the world. Formal councils and committees, and frequently receptions, follow. Probably no court in the world possesses more minute information concerning the affairs of other countries and other courts. The Papal ambassadors, nuncios, delegates, and other members of the Hierarchy, are found in every part of the world, and are in constant communication with the Vatican. The curious chapter in the " Wandering Jew " about M. Rodin and the des- patches, and the globe covered with little red crosses, does not much exaggerate the case. " From this room," said a general of the Jesuits to the Duke de Brissac, " I govern not only Paris, but 100 Rome. China ; not only China, but the whole world, and all without any- one knowing how it is done." We must remember the very exceptional facilities which the members of the Church possess for obtaining information. ■^''' In the chambers of the Vatican the minutest change in the tone, and temper, and attitude of at least all Eoman Catholic courts and countries is well known as soon as it occurs, and every species of subtle diplomacy is bred within the earner e secrete of the apostolic palace. The Pope, as we have said, still regards himself as a prisoner, and it is a positive fact that in certain parts of Belgium — and, we have been assured, also in Ireland — straws, purporting to have come from the Pope's dungeon (for prison, used in a very wide and general sense, may easily become dungeon, used in a very literal and restricted sense, a thousand miles from the scene of action), are sold as charms to the more gullible and least well-informed among the faithful. Thus His Holiness, who lives in a palace of a thousand rooms, full * An able writer in the Times (Feb. 3rd, 1877) makes the following very just remarks : — " The Eoman Catholic Church is, at the least, the most powerful Corporation existing in Europe, or even in the world, and is second in authority and influence to few among the Civil States of Europe themselves. It is not merely a Corporation, but an admirably organised Corporation, capable of acting with a rare union and persistency, and possessing a variety of agencies unequalled by any similar political organisation. It has of late committed itself to a dogma which is in such astounding contradiction to the facts of history and the conscience of mankind, that it is incredible the Church should fail, sooner or later, to undergo either some violent convulsion, or to encounter some tremendous collision with the world at large. But for the present its members accommodate themselves to the extraordinary demands made upon their faith ; they are docile, and even enthusiastic. At the same time there exist in most Continental countries, social and religious dreams which menace the existing order of civil life. The minds of the artisan class are seething with plans for the reconstruction of society, and in countries where these illusions are not so freely exposed to the light of day aB they are in England, they are magnified by a feverish imagination. An organisation resisting these principles and holding this position, is capable of becoming at any moment an extremely potent influence in political and social life." The Vatican Council. 101 of the choicest works of art in the world, surrounded by a highly- cultivated body of men devoted to his service, is, for the base purposes of petty priestcraft in distant countries, represented as a literal prisoner, languishing in a dungeon on a bed of straw. The extraordinary complexity of the politics of the Roman Catholic Church may be well judged of by the letters which were written from Rome during the sitting of the Ecumenical Council. They were published in the AUgemeine Zeitung, and are said to have been written by the secretary of Cardinal Hohenlohe, and to represent the views of those prelates who were opposed to the Dogma of Papal Infallibility. The letters were published in this country in 1870, under the title of "Letters from Rome on the Council," by Quirinus. If they are to be relied upon, they form a most remarkable record of the workings of the inner machinery of the Vatican. It is shown that various attempts were made to force the acceptance of this unpalatable dogma upon the minority, that discussions were stopped, and the mouths of the dissentients shut in many ways. The author endeavours to prove that the retro- spective force of the dogma is prodigious. The seal of infallibility has been set upon some of the most autocratic and tyrannous decrees that have ever been promulgated. Thus, according to the Decretal Novit of Innocent III., the Pope may reverse any judicial sentence, and summon any sovereign before him to answer for what he believes to be a grave sin, and he may even by his sole power depose the king. According to the same authority, the Pope may remit all sins of all men. The Pope, by Divine right, can give over whole nations to slavery for a sin committed by their sovereign ; he may make slaves of foreign nations if they are not Catholic. Leo X., in the Bull Pastor Eternus (1517), declares it to be con- sonant with the Gospel to burn to death as heretics those who appeal from a sentence of the Pope to a General Council ; and in the Bull Supernce Dispositionis he rules that all clerics may con- sider themselves not bound in conscience by civil law. Once 102 Rome. again, the Bull Sahhatliina of John XXII., confirmed by Alexander v., Clement VII., Pius V., Gregory XIII., and Paul V., affirms that they who die wearing the Carmelite scapular will be delivered from Purgatory on the Saturday next after their death by the Virgin, and will then be carried straight to heaven. On the other hand, good and learned Catholics will tell you that the Pope is only infallible under certain strictly defined and limited conditions, and in matters of faith, not in matters of discipline ; that some of the above outrageous Bulls were forged ; some applied to one special kingdom under special circumstances ; that some are not recognised ; and that the question of Infallibility does not afi'ect them. On the one hand we have Dr. Littledale [Contemporary Review, January, 1877), waiting about " The Inner Life of the Vatican Council," from the opposition point of view of Roman Catholics, and from his own point of view as a Protestant ; w^hile Cardinal Manning [The Nine- teenth Century, March and April, 1877) gives us "The True Story of the Vatican Council," from the extreme Ultramontane point of view. The ultimate result is that the reader comes to the conclusion that he knows nothing about the matter, and if he takes the trouble to read •' Vaticanism," and one quarter of the replies thereto, his mind gets into such a state of confusion in regard to the whole matter that he ceases to attempt to unravel it. Of one thinjT there can be no doubt — viz., that a great deal is said about Roman Catholicism which emanates from the most sheer ignorance, or from the grossest illiberality. How it is that people can assimilate with the idea of Christian charity the monstrously offensive remarks which they make in regard to a very noble religion, which was once our own, w^e cannot pretend to understand. When ignorant people, who see Italian peasants kneeling in front of the figure of the Virgin, and pouring out the prayers of their souls, talk about " abominable idolatry," " terrible superstition," and so on, they show the narrowness of their own culture, and the illiberality of Misconceptions. 103 their own minds. We have no doubt they would say that it would be preferable not to pray at all than to pray in that fashion, forgetting that the outward and visible image is only to remind these poor people of the existence of the Divinity to whom they pray.'"" You often find, indeed, far more true piety in your Italian peasants, than in the peasantry of more northern countries pro- fessing other faiths. As the world grows older, and wiser, and more liberal, it ceases to place eternal salvation upon one minute, and particular, and strictly defined, mode of worshipping God, and recognises the fact that, so long as the weightier matters of the law are truly accepted and followed, the tithes of mint, anise, and cummin, are of very little import. No one can deny for a moment the great abuses which have existed in the Roman Catholic Church. When we look back to the Middle Ages and think of certain bulls, decretals, briefs, allocutions, and apostolic letters ; of denunciations of heresies, limitations of the modes of faith, torture, imprisonment, starvation, burning, in the name of Christ ; of pious men and good citizens, in every sense servants of God, tied to the stake, and in the midst of fearful agonies exhorted to repent by archbishops and bishops professing to be followers of Him who showed charity to all men ; when we see countries devastated, the poor reduced to starvation, virtuous kings deposed, Christian burial refused, death multiplied by exterminating w^ars in the name of Christ ; when we see the privacies of home life dis- closed, son encouraged to denounce his father, daughter to plot against her mother, all home ties, and all social relationships, * " Now, pray, don't you think," says Brydone, referring to this same subject a century ago, " that this personal kind of worship is much better adapted to the capacities of the vulgar than the more pure and sublime modes of it, which would only distract and confound their simple understandings, unaccustomed to specula- lation, and that certainly require something gross and material, some object of sense to fix their attention % This even seems to have been the opinion of some of the sacred writers, who often represent God under some material form." p 104 Rome. all that makes the fireside sacred, perverted under a false guise ; and finally, when we see the exorbitant pride, arrogance, and love of power of some 'of the successors of the Fisherman of Galilee, the rise and progress of the vast system of ecclesiastical laws which are afterwards permitted to override and abrogate the civil laws of States ; when we see all this, we are led to ask ourselves whether it can be true that this is really the religion whose Founder advocated love, charity, mercy, justice, and peace. Or whether we have wit- nessed a religious system which has been employed by crafty men to obtain immense governing power over the minds of men, who have attempted to gratify this innate love of power, and to acquire great temporal happiness, by acting upon a special quality of the human mind which all races alike possess — the fear of the gods. That any one man or community of men should, at the point of the sword, and by the exercise of every tyrannous and vile practice which the heart of man can conceive, endeavour to force his fellow- men to worship God in one particular manner and after one particular form, does seem to us to be one of the most extra- ordinary anomalies in the whole range of human existence ; and from this standpoint we are inclined to agree with the King of Brobdingnag, when he concluded from Gulliver's account of the doings of his people that they were " the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever sufi'ered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." All sects, down to the very smallest, in all lands, put in practice propagandism, and are all vindictive and cruel in thought, if not in deed, when that one question of difier- ence in belief comes before them. There seems to be a tendency in many human natures and communities to force their own belief upon others — a sort of fanatical mania comparable with spiritual- istic madness or the extreme dominance of any abnormal idea contrary to the light of nature. This form of mania has been a characteristic of certain orders of minds from the earliest times. It is much to be regretted that the present sovereign Pontiff, The Church and Modern Progress. 105 who began his career as a Liberal, did not continue a Liberal. If he had met modern progress half-way, instead of utterly renouncing and opposing it, there can be no doubt that the foundation would have been laid for a closer brotherhood amons; the members of the Christian community, and that his own faith would have been at this moment in a stronger position than it is now. To renounce the progress of Biblical criticism, the discoveries of science, the different tone, colour, and temper which facts assume in this nineteenth century of grace, and to plunge back into the obscurity of the dark ages, was surely the most unwise method of forwarding human progress and augmenting human faith. - Wv. ^ ''W<\N;^\\ ^^^ \ ^ x'^'^ J^rST OF CRONUS. VATICAN, CHAPTER VI. THE MONASTERY OF MONTE CASSINO. San Germanno — Ascent of Monte Cassino — Entrance to the Monastery — The Central Court— The Well— The Refectory— The Church of Monte Cassino— The Sacristy— The MSS. and Charters — Life of S. Benedict — History of the Monastery — Present Condition of the Monastery — A Walk in the Garden — The Summum Bonum. liEVENTY miles to the north of Naples, and nearly ninety-three from Rome, the train stops at the small town of San Germanno. It stands on the site of the old city of Casinum, and was itself much more important than now in the Middle Ages, for we read that Courts were held there by Popes and Emperors, treaties signed, and important alliances made. It now possesses but little of interest : the scanty remains of an amphitheatre, mentioned by Pliny as having been erected by a rich Roman lady at her sole expense ; and a square building surmounted by a dome, probably an ancient tomb and now a church, are the only sights worth seeing in the town. But above, on Monte Cassino, a conical mountain of limestone, stands a vast white building, which is perceived long before the train enters San Germanno. It is the world-famous Monastery of Monte Cassino, from whence went S. Augustine to Christianise the Island of Ascent of the Mountain. 107 Britain, and witliin whose walls sleeps one who most profoundly influenced the whole civilised world, by his words, and thoughts, and deeds, the founder of the first Monastery and of Monte Cassino, the great S. Benedict. The mountain on which the Monastery stands is about seventeen hundred feet above the sea, and is ascended by a broad, winding road, three and a-half miles long, paved throughout with rough stones. It takes a good hour and a-half to walk to the summit, but the road can be traversed by mules and horses. At intervals wayside chapels and oratories appear ; one, the Chapel of S. Mauro, which marks the place where S. Benedict and S. Mauro took leave of each other ; another, the oratory of S. Scholastica, the sister of S. Benedict. Then we come to crosses standing here and there by the roadside, and as we get higher and higher, these increase in number. One of them surmounts a rock upon which is engraved : — Padre Nostro Che sei nei Cieli Affratella a noi I'lnghilterra Nella Unita della Fede. It was at this point of the road that Father Tosti converted an illustrious Englishman to Eoman Catholicism, and he expressed a wish in the above inscription that all the children of Albion might be similarly converted, after the example of the Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. A cross a little higher on the road stands over a stone which bears the imprints of the knees of S. Benedict. It is said that when, in the year 529, he ascended Monte Cassino for the first time, he found the inhabitants of the mountain wor- shipping pagan gods. When he came in sight of a Temple of Venus which crowned one of the lesser heights, he fell upon his knees and prayed that the false gods might be exterminated, and when he rose he found the imprints of his knees in the rock ; soon 108 The Monastery of Mojtte Cassino. afterwards, adds the chronicler, the profane habitations of the priestesses of Venus became the cells of the monks, who consecrated them by prayer and labour. The last chapel on the road is dedicated to S. Agatha, and was first erected in 1373 by the Abbot Faenza, with a hope of obtaining the intercession of the ^ Saint with heaven, for the aversion of the frequent shocks of earthquake, which had sometimes proved disastrous to the Abbey. We met in ascending the mountain but few persons. Sometimes two or three men would be seen who were conveying necessary stores to the Monastery ; sometimes groups of boys, or young men, belonging to the College of Monte Cassino, in long black garments and broad black hats, were to be seen at various turns of the road. These seemed to us the politest little men in the world. Instead of staring at the stranger who had thus invaded their solitude, they took off their big hats with a grace and courtliness worthy of any period or occasion. The College is attached to the Monastery, and the Professors are Benedictines. The boys belong to many of the best families between Eome and Naples, and often begin and finish their education in the Monastery. They looked very healthy and seemed very happy, but we wished that some benefactor of the College had levelled for them a cricket field somewhere, and made it an ordinance that football should be played thrice weekly in winter. We saw a few gjonnastic appliances within the Monastery, otherwise the sole exercise seemed to be to walk or run someway down the mountain, and then to return again. Summer and winter they rise at five, and work many hours of the day. The holidays, however, amount to nearly three months. It is said that the discipline which is maintained in the CoUege is so strict, that many young feUows who have been educated there depart from the ways in which they have been taught to walk as soon as they pass out from the great gate for the last time. Others Entrance to the Monastery. 109 return again and again to their old school, and spend some of the great fete days of the Church within its walls. A portion of the Monastery is now undergoing repair, and the slowness of the work and difficulty of transporting materials were very apparent, and helped us to realise that the work of construc- tion of the whole vast building must have been a labour almost comparable with that of building the great pyramid. For example, we saw a block of stone about a yard square and a foot thick, being dragged up the mountain with the greatest labour by six oxen with the assistance of seven men. Four of the men goaded the oxen, the other three helped the stone to ascend by inserting large levers behind the wheelless truck on which it was placed. In spite of all this expenditure of force, the oxen frequently stopped panting for breath, and at the rate of progression which prevailed so long as we watched the group, the cortege must have started many hours before. At present we have only reached the portal of the Monastery. We enter it by an ascending passage formed of large blocks of travertine, noticing to the right the old entrance, now walled up. Near this entrance four miracles were performed by S. Benedict : the first, the resuscitation of the son of a peasant ; on another occasion S. Benedict slipped and fell, and left an impress of his elbow upon the stone ; again, in order to rebuke the avarice of his cellarer, he threw a bottle of oil to the ground, but it was not broken ; and again, near this same spot were found one morning two hundred sacks of flour, without any clue to discover who had brought them. These miracles are recorded in the following lines : — " Mortuns hie puer est, Benedieti voee revixit. Taeta silex eubiti subsedit pondere sacri. Pleno oleo pMala signantur saxa eadenti. Bis eentum modii farinas mane videntur." Beyond the door at the end of the ascending entrance we find level ground, in the form of a large court, called the Cortile 110 The Monastery of Monte Cassino. Centrale, and side courts; those on the right leading to the libraries and archives, while those on the left belong to the College. A series of arcades, called the Loggia del Paradiso, run round the central court, and they are surmounted by a stone balustrade, from which, in one direction — west — a lovely view over the plains of the Garigliano may be obtained. In the centre of the great court there is a cistern ; the opening is surmounted by two marble pillars supporting an architrave, to which the pulley for the water bucket is attached. From the central court a broad marble staircase, flanked by colossal statues of S. Benedict and S. Scholastica, ascends to the raised platform upon which The stairs occupy the whole length of the court, and lead to a square cloister containing the statues of benefactors, and standing immediately in front of the church. These were constructed in the sixteenth century. Many of the columns supporting the cloisters are said to have been taken from the Temple of Apollo, which formerly occupied the site of the church. Among the statues we find those of Abondance, the mother of S. Benedict ; Urban V., who restored the abbey after the earthquake of 1349, and who accorded to the Abbot the privilege of taking precedence of all the other Abbots; Charlemagne, who made the Fathers of the Monastery, Chaplains of the Holy Empire ; and Robert Guiscard, whose gifts, according to Peter the Deacon, were too numerous to count. We come now to the church itself, but this we shall have so many opportunities of visiting, during our stay, that we need not specially describe it here — and the more so because THE WELL, MONTE CASSINO. the church stands. Evening Service. Ill we have not yet housed ourselves for the night, or indeed got beyond the porter's lodge. Arrived there, we send in ENTRANCE TO THE CHURCH, MONTE CASSINO. our letter from Eome to the Abbot, and presently a monk, the politest of Frenchmen, comes forward and welcomes us very cordially to the Monastery. Then having sent the luggage to our room, he offers coffee or wine, and takes us into the library, where we examine the treasures which it contains till sunset, rushing out for a moment to see the red-litten sky over the western mountains. A little later, the monks have their evening service in a small chapel beneath the church, always used in winter. The huge central reading-desk, which, together with the vellum-leaved missal upon it, had been used for similar services for centuries, by many generations of men, was alone illuminated ; the rest of the chapel was almost in darkness. As the monks from time to time came out of the darkness and gathered around the reading-desk, some fine effects of chiaroscuro were produced.. After the service, we went at once to the refectory, in which, at half-past twelve and 112 The Monastery of Monte Cassino. balf-past seven, the monks meet. Tables were ranged around the walls. Silence was observed during dinner, and one of the monks read from a low pulpit. The Abbot — Monsignor d'Orgemont, Nicholas III. in the long line of Abbots — sat at a small table in the centre of the cross tables, that is, at one end of the room, and mid- way between the walls. Sitting here with these solemn, silent, and black -robed brethren, one felt carried back five hundred years, and no doubt that yery scene has scarcely altered in any material detail during that period. The next day we dined in the large refectory, a fine well-proportioned room, with the Professors and the boys. Here there were central tables as well as tables ranged round the wall. The reading from the pulpit during the meal did not take place, but silence was observed. The interior of the Monastery consists of long arched corridors, opening out of which are the rooms occupied by the Fathers. These are simple uncarpeted chambers very plainly furnished, and usually commanding a lovely view ; in fact, all the front windows of the Monastery look out upon one of the most beautiful views that can be well imagined. In the extreme distance, to the west, a little strip of sea may be seen — the Gulf of Gaeta, — while to the east stretches the valley of San Germanno, bounded by the mountains of the Abruzzi. The north-east view includes wild rugged mountains, together with the most lofty and conspicuous height in the neighbourhood — Monte Cairo — which rises close to the Monastery to a height of 5000 feet. To the west and south stretches the valley of the Garigliano, separated from the sea by the mountains of Gaeta. This fertile plain was the Campania Felix of the Eomans, and there once existed in it the cities of Fregella, Interamna, Casinum, and Aquinum. Small villages now occupy the sites of the older towns. Near Eoccasecca we see the ruins of the castle in which S. Thomas Aquinas, the great glory of the Church, and its greatest theologian, was born. He was partly educated at Monte Cassino. In the middle of the plain View from the Monastery. 113 there are remains of the Convent of Piumarole, founded by S. Scholastica in a.d. 542, shortly after her brother had founded Monte Cassino. It is said that once a year S, Scholastica ascended from her Convent to the base of Monte Cassino, to meet S. Benedict, who descended from his Monastery. The brother and sister are buried together beneath the high altar of the Church of Monte Cassino. The ancients speak of the neighbourhood of Casinum as being often subject to fog. This is still very noticeable, although the MONTE OASSINO. plain is not considered to be especially unhealthy, and the air of the mountain is very pure. Looking out of our window just before sunrise, we noticed long streaks of mist hanging over the plain, and marking out the course of the rivers ; but the neis^hbourinor moun- tains on a level with us were perfectly free from cloud, and were seen sharply defined through a perfectly clear atmosphere. The sunrise was very lovely. It was curious to be standing in a warm bright blaze of light, and to see the town of San Germanno beneath. 114 The Monastery of Mojite Cassino. buried in comparative obscurity. It seemed a long time before the sunlight reached the plain, and began to dissipate the mists. The huge shadows of the mountains receded slowly, and the first rays of the sun did but little to clear the air. All this time Monte Cairo and the complete amphitheatre of mountains around were flooded with bright light, and stood out clearly above the nether gloom. Soon after sunrise came one of the courteous Fathers to see how we had slept. He had been up since five o'clock, and had already done a good deal of work. After a while he returned to the library to continue his labours of copying old MSS., having first told us that there would be service in the church at eleven o'clock. "We devoted some of the intermediate time to the church, which is one of the great glories of the Monastery. Murray says of it, "the interior far surpasses in elegance and in costliness of decoration every other in Italy, not excepting S. Peter's itself;" and indeed, without going quite so far as this, we know of no Italian church with which we can compare it for richness of decoration, except San Martino in Naples, and perhaps one of the side chapels in the Gesu in Kome, and in S. Maria Maggiore — but these latter are of a somewhat difl'erent character. Rather than attempt a description from notes or from memory, which would probably be wanting in some particulars, let us give in brief abstract the account by M. Paul Guillaume, in his Description Historique et Artistique du Mont Cassin. The church was originally erected on the site of a Temple of Apollo in 529, by S. Benedict, but it was destroyed sixty years later by the Lombards. A hundred and thirty years afterwards, Petronace of Brescia constructed another church upon its ruins, which was destroyed by the Saracens in 884. Twenty years later, the Abbot, John I., rebuilt it, and it was enlarged and embellished by the celebrated Abbot Desiderius in 1066, and consecrated by Pope Alexander II. in 1071. This beautiful building remained for nearly three hundred years, but it was The Church. 115 overthrown by an earthquake in 1349. It was at once recon- structed, but in 1648 the building showed such evident signs of decay that it was thought to be better to rebuild it. It was built from the designs of Cosmo Fansaga, a Spaniard, the most celebrated architect of his time, and it was consecrated after nearly a century of work had been expended upon it, in 1727. This is the church that we now see : its various vicissitudes are recorded in a Latin inscription, which commences : — Casinensem Ecclesiam. Quam falsi numinis fano araque subversa S. Benedictus anno DXXIX. Vero Deo dicaverat." The bronze doors of the church were made in 1066, by order of the Abbot Desiderius. They record all the possessions of the Monastery in the eleventh century, in the case of the left-hand door, in letters of silver. Here are also two side doors. The church possesses the title of cathedral, and the monks are Canons of the Cathedral Church. On entering, we notice that there are three naves, with four chapels on each side. Over the high altar a lofty painted dome rises, and the choir is prolonged some distance behind the altar. On each side of the church there are arches separating the naves, supported by square pilasters, flanked by columns from the church erected by the Abbot Desiderius. The square pilasters are encrusted with rich marbles, forming various designs ; among others appear the crosses of the ten religious and military orders which follow the rules of S. Benedict. The roof and the upper part of the walls of the church were painted by Luca Giordano (1632-1705). The subjects are taken from the life of S. Benedict. Of smaller compositions, there are twenty of the most celebrated Popes belonging to the Benedictines, and twenty symbolic virtues, among which we notice Discretion, Patience, Hospitality, Constancy, and Zeal. Each chapel is a gem in a 116 The Monastery of Monte Cassino. setting of its own ; all that rich Florentine mosaic, marble statues, gilt bronze, lapis lazuli, silver, and paintings, both in oil and frescoes, can do to render a place of worship worthy of its Deity has been done. The high altar of the church is of marble of the kinds called nero antico and bianco antico, and of polished amethyst quartz ; it is said to have been designed by Michael Angelo. Beneath rest the remains of S. Benedict and S. Scholastica. There are two conspicuous monuments to the right and left of the high altar; one to the memory of Peter de Medici, who was drowned while coming to the assistance of the Monastery in 1503, the other to that of Guido Fieramosca, Prince of Mignano. In the choir there are 82 stalls of carved wood, which are certainly the finest examples of wood-carving we have ever seen. Of these M. Paul Guillaume says, "C'est un monde de statues, de portraits, de figures, d'animaux, de fruits, de fleurs ; le tout travaille, fouille avec un fini, une patience dont on retrouve ,difficilement un autre exemple. . . . Sur les bras de chaque stalle, on voit un petit gdnie dans un position tout differente de son voisin. D' autres figurines, ayant divers emblemes sym- boliques soutiennent les premieres. I.es dossiers des stalles superieures sont orn^s de capricieux dessins en relief, ou toute la nature est representee, et qui entourent constamment quelqu illustre personnage de I'Ordre Benedictin, figure, en demi-buste, dans une petite niche." The choir further possesses one of the finest organs in Italy, and no less than fifty -seven choral books on vellum, of the fifteenth century, many of them adorned with fine illuminations. Beneath the choir is a subterranean chapel, a mortuary chapel, and a small chapel which the monks use in winter when the upper church is very cold. The sacristy contains mosaics, sculptures, bas-reliefs, and paintings, some of which are of great beauty. The reliquary contains among other things the metal weight showing the exact weight of bread allowed to each monk daily. It weighs 1053 grammes (about 2 J lbs.) ; and upon it is inscribed in Roman The Collection of Manuscripts. 117 characters, Ponc^ws lihre, panis Beati Benedicti. It is the only- real relic remaining of S. Benedict. Other relics are thorns from the crown of thorns, a portion of the veil of the Virgin Mary, and a piece of the true cross. The latter is enclosed in an equal-armed cross of gold and enamel of the tenth century, and bears a Greek inscription in uncial letters. The abbot's pastoral staff, which he carries only on state occasions, is a magnificent sixteenth century work, attributed to Benvenuto Cellini. It is of gilt copper, and is of very graceful form, and beautifully chiselled. Soon after the service we had a mid-day meal of soup, meat, and apples. Then we strolled very leisurely over some parts of the Monastery of lesser interest, such as the capitular chamber and the gallery of inscriptions. The picture gallery was unfortunately closed for repairs; and the tower of S. Benedict, in which he is believed to have lived, was also being repaired. Monte Cassino possesses a very rich collection of MSS. of great literary and historic value. Classified according to age, we find : fifth century, one ; sixth, one ; seventh, two ; eighth. Jive ; ninth, forty-one ; tenth, thirty-seven ; eleventh, two hundred and ten ; twelfth, eight y- three ; thirteenth, one hundred and forty-six ; four- teenth, one hundred and twenty ; and fifteenth century, eighty-four. Of those anterior to the sixteenth century, there are 39 MSS. of the Holy Scriptures, 43 on dogmatic theology, 30 on canon law, 18 on astronomy and mathematics, 22 letters of the Fathers. Thirty-five MSS. prior to the sixteenth century have illuminated figures and other ornaments. We were much struck by one gigantic choral book of vellum, which was freely illuminated throughout ; but when we came to the service for Christmas day, all the rest was outdone, the pages being painted a magnificent rich crimson, and the letters of gold. We have read somewhere that in the library of El Escorial there is a Gospel of S. Matthew the leaves of which are of purple vellum, while the letters are cut out of sheet gold, and gummed to the vellum — the weight of gold is said to exceed 118 The Monastery of Monte Cassino. seventeen pounds. The Monte Cassino MSS. are almost all in Latin or Italian, only three are Oriental, six Greek, two Proven9al, and thirty-eight Spanish, while eleven hundred and ten are Latin, and two hundred and fifty Italian. The earlier MSS. are the works of S. Ambrose and S. Augustine, Homilies, and Epistles, Lives of Saints ; also Hippocrates and Galen. In the eleventh century MSS. we notice Confessions of S. Augustine ; Boethius' Arithmetic; Bede's History of England; Acts and Canons of the Councils ; and Laws of the Lombards. In the twelfth century : John the Presbyter concerning Ancient and Modern Music ; Constantinus on Surgery ; the Decretal of Gratian ; a Lexicon ; and the Acts of the Council of Ephesus. In the thirteenth century: Chronicles of Casinum ; S. Thomas Aquinas ; Abelard ; Tracts on Medicine and Surgery ; and Homer's Iliad. In addition to the MSS., Monte Cassino possesses 90,000 charters, usually legal instruments relating to the Monastery. The most ancient of these dates from the eighth century, and is a diploma of Grimoald II., Prince of Benevento, granting certain privileges to the Abbess of S. Marie de Cinglis. A well-preserved chartulary is that of the Abbot Desiderius, afterwards Pope Victor III, ; the signature is given in curious Lombard characters, in which each letter is remarkably prolonged : — Ego Desiderius Di. gra. abbs. SS. The history of an institution which has endured for twelve centuries must of necessity be of considerable value, not alone in reference to the history of the country in which it exists, but also as afi'ecting the human race. Several good histories of Monte Cassino exist. A book often quoted is the Historia AhbaticB Cassinensis, of Father Erasmus Gattula, published in Venice in 1733, in four folio volumes. But the great historian of the Monastery is Father Luigi Tosti, now an inmate of Monte Cassino. His Stona della Badia di Monte Cassino was first published in S. Benedict. 119 Naples in 1843. The following facts we have taken from the above-mentioned work of M. Paul Guillaume, who for two years resided in the Monastery, and who freely used the works of Gattula and Tosti in the compilation of his smaller history. S. Benedict was born in Nursia in 480, of a noble family both on his father's and mother's side. Even while young he perceived the extreme corruption of Rome, and this induced him to retire to Subiaco, where he lived in a cave for three years, and where his life was so saintly that many illustrious persons visited him, and some remained to live near him. But Florent, the priest of the place, became jealous, and tried to poison the holy man ; whereupon S. Benedict, together with two companions, S. Mauro and S. Placidus, left Subiaco and were led by three ravens which they fed. The birds flew to Monte Cassino, where, in memory of their guidance, they still keep a most pert and comical raven. In the eleventh century S. Peter Damian mentions that the monks of Monte Cassino preserved the race of ravens which had guided S. Benedict. The mountain was then — a.d. 529 — crowned by a cyclopean wall, remains of which may still be seen in the garden of the Monastery ; and in the midst of it rose a temple sacred to Apollo. Even at this time, two centuries after the conversion of Constantine, there existed, not many miles from Rome, the most rank pagan idolatries. On the heights of Monte Cassino, Janus, Venus, and Apollo had temples, sacred groves, and troops of faithful worshippers. S. Benedict began his work at once ; he preached the true God to the inhabitants of the mountain, and converted them. The statue of Apollo was thrown down, and a cross put in its place ; while the temple became a Christian Church. S. Benedict then began to frame rules of life for his numerous disciples, and he drew up a code which was soon put in practice in many parts of Europe. Among other things he enjoined his followers to occupy themselves with manual labour, with song, and with letters. During the rest of his life S. Benedict gave an example of all the virtues to his R 120 The Monastery of Monte Cassino. followers, and is said to have performed many miracles. He was the founder of the first and greatest of the Eeligious Orders, and must ever be regarded as a great benefactor of the human race. He died in 543, having lived to see his Monastery in a state of prosperity, his discijDles a numerous body of men, and himself beloved. In the year of his death the Order of Benedictines took root in France, and six years previously it had been introduced into Sicily by S. Placidus. During the lifetime of S. Benedict, the Monastery had been en- dowed with various possessions. A good deal of land surrounding the mountain had been given to it, and in the hands of succeeding abbots these temporal domains increased in number and value. Thus the cupidity of the surrounding nobles was aroused, and we are not surprised to find that, in those lawless times, the Monastery was pillaged and destroyed. This happened for the first time in 589, when Noton, first Duke of Benevento, attacked it at the head of a lawless band of Lombards, and destroyed it. The greater number of the monks fled to Eome, where they were allotted a habitation near S. John Lateran by Pelagius II., and where they founded the celebrated Monastery of the Lateran. A few monks only remained at the tomb of S. Benedict. One hundred and thirty years later, Petronax, a rich and pious citizen of Brescia, rebuilt the Monastery, and the restored church was consecrated in 748. Its reputation soon rose again, and various illustrious personages assumed the Benedictine habit, among others Carloman, the uncle of Charle- magne, and Ratchis, King of the Lombards. During the succeed- ing hundred and fifty years the Monastery flourished wonderfully ; the buildings were increased and embellished, the monks became far more numerous, letters and arts flourished, and a school of learning arose there, to which the Bishop of Naples sent his clerics to be instructed in the sacred and profane sciences, and in music. At this time, also, a number of monks began to Forhmes of the Monastery. 121 transcribe the works of antiquity, and it is due to their care that many precious treatises have been preserved to us. But the Monastery was not destined to meet with continuous successes. In 844, Siconolfo, the first Prince of Salerno, attacked it, and carried off all the riches which had been accumulated by the beneficence of Pepin le Bref, Charlemagne, and Louis le Debonnaire. Some years later, devastating hordes of Saracens utterly destroyed it, for the second time since its founda- tion. The monks fled to Teano, carrying with them a few rare manuscripts and imperial diplomas. Early in the tenth century the Abbot Leo began to reconstruct the Monastery, and he was much assisted by Landolfo, Prince of Capua, and the Abbot Aligerno. Under the latter, it flourished considerably, and soon possessed a large number of monks from various parts of Europe. But the eleventh century was the golden age of the Monastery, under the abbots John III., Atenolfo, and Theobald. In the time of the latter (1022-35) the arts and letters flourished wonderfully at Monte Cassino ; a great deal of translation was done, and a considerable amount of original literary work. In 1022, Odilon, Abbot of Cluny, visited the Monastery, and gave the abbot the title of Ahbas Ahhatum, which was confirmed by Pope Pascal II. in 1116. Cardinal Frederic de Lorraine, afterwards Stephen IX., showered upon it all sorts of benefits — enriching the church with precious ornaments, and the library with richly-illuminated missals and antiphonaries. But the Abbot Desiderius, afterwards Pope Victor III., surpassed all his predeces- sors in generosity and magnificence. He belonged to the family of the Princes of Benevento, and in his youth had been a very warlike man. Later in life he became disgusted with the world, and put on the Benedictine habit. He was elected Abbot of Monte Cassino in 1058. For thirty years he devoted himself to the interests of the Monastery, and proved himself a great patron of the arts and letters. He entirely restored every part of it, and the 122 The Monastery of Monte Cassino. new church was consecrated by Alexander II. in 1071. Desiderius collected works of art, both ancient and modern, from all sources, and brought together at Monte Cassino a number of sculptors, painters, and workers in mosaic. His monks were learned in all sciences, sacred and profane. Among them may be mentioned Alfano, who afterwards became Archbishop of Salerno ; Pandolfo, the father of the Princes of Capua, who composed a treatise, De Calculatione, and another, De Luna ; Amatus, the historian of the Normans ; Leo of Ostia, the author of the famous Chronica Casinensis Minor ; and Constantinus Africanus, the founder of the medical school of Salerno. Desiderius founded a special school of copyists, whose works became so famous that scrittura Cassinese became a term for beautiful writing. Among other ancient works which were transcribed we may mention — Cicero, De Natura Deorum ; Homer, Terence, Ovid, Fasti ; Seneca, Virgil, and Theocritus. The Cardinal Odorisio, who succeeded Desiderius as abbot, continued the good works which his predecessor had inaugurated. It is impossible to expect uniform progression in anything, and the golden age of Monte Cassino in the tenth century was followed by a period of decadence in the eleventh. The abbots were great feudal lords, and were obliged to take part in the numerous wars which at that time occurred in Southern Italy ; " et ils y perdirent," says M. Guillaume, " a la fois, repos, richesse, et amour des arts et des lettres." In 1120 the inhabitants of San Germanno broke into open rebellion. Twenty years later, Roger, King of Sicily, made an attack upon the Monastery, and the soldiers of his successor drove out the monks, and established themselves in their place. Frederic II. converted the Monastery into a fortress, and made Gordano di Calabris their captain, a man "poco amante dei monaci." In 126G, Charles d'Anjou took it under his protection, and repaired its fortunes. The removal of the Fortunes of the Monastery. 123 Popes to Avignon, and tlie numerous wars which desolated the kingdom of Naples, were the source of many ills to the Monastery. In 1322, Pope John XXII., wishing to increase the dignity of the abbots, who already exercised episcopal jurisdiction over a large diocese, elevated them to the rank of bishops. The new abbots were often sent from a distance, and sometimes they were not Italians ; the monks became discontented, and thus in- ternal feuds arose. Then in 1346, Louis of Hungary marched into the kingdom of Naples, and laid siege to the Monastery. Finally, in 1349 a terrible earthquake reduced the beautiful buildings of the Abbot Desiderius to a heap of ruins. In the following year Boccaccio visited Monte Cassino, and found the library in the most dire state of confusion ; — a few monks continued to live among the ruins. At length, in 1362, Guillaume Grimoard, a Benedictine, and Abbot of S. Victor in Marseilles, came to visit the tomb of his patron Saint, and was touched with com- passion at the sight of the monks weeping among the ruins of their Monastery. Afterwards, when Grimoard became Pope Urban V., he commenced its restoration, and in his hands and those of Andre de Faenza, and a noble Roman, Pietro de Tartaris, the work made good progress, and a noble pile of buildings arose. During the second half of the fifteenth century the Monastery had the misfortune to be governed by abbot-commanders (ahbati commendatari), who cared more for its revenues than for the interests of the monks, and who gave its best offices to favourites, and often resided at a distance. The last abbot-commander was John de Medici, who was given this important office when he was eleven years old ; he became a cardinal at fourteen, and later we know him under the name of Pope Leo X. It is unfortunate that Monte Cassino could not keep to its peaceful and religious duties without constantly mixing itself up with any wars which took place in its vicinity. As the Monastery owned a good deal of land, it was perhaps impossible to remain 124 The Monastery of Monte Cassino. non-belligerent. But the constant petty wars in the kingdom of Naples caused it to become a fortress or a barrack time after time. It was repeatedly fortified ; it was taken and re-taken, and bloody massacres took place within its walls (1502). At length, a thousand years after its foundation, peace seemed to be restored ; the abbot-commanders were replaced by regular abbots, as the surrounding country became less and less subject to wars. When we look back at the numberless vicissitudes through which the Monastery passed during the first thousand years of its existence, we are led to wonder by what means the numerous diplomas, charters, and other MSS. which it possesses, could have been preserved. No doubt they were often hidden, and brought to light again in less troublous times. Early in the sixteenth century (1510), the Abbot Squarcialupi of Florence (Ignatius I.) began a complete restoration in a style worthy of its ancient fame. This work was continued by his successors in the seventeenth and eis^hteenth centuries. The present church was commenced in 1637, and many successive abbots lavished treasure upon its decorations. In 1796, Ferdinand, King of Naples, established himself and his court in Monte Cassino, while the French General Mathieu took up his residence in the abbatial palace in San Germanno at the base of the mountain. Ferdinand soon fled to Capua. In 1799, the French imposed a heavy war tax on the monks, and as thay were unable to pay it in full, the treasure of S. Benedict was seized : beautiful chalices, ciboria, and reliquiaries were melted down, together with two busts of S. Benedict and S. Sebastian in silver. A little later, the French Republicans com- pletely sacked the Monastery. The monks fled into the mountains, with the exception of Giambettista, Federici, and Enrico Gattola. When the soldiers entered the building, these men besought tbem to spare the historic treasures of fourteen centuries, but in vain. At the entrance to the rooms containing the archives, young Gat- Fortunes of the Monastery. 125 tola knelt, and entreated the soldiers at least to spare them ; to which request the only answer he received was the stroke of a sabre, which stretched him senseless, and bathed him in blood. The insensate villains wilfully destroyed books and manuscripts which could never be replaced, and fed with the precious archives the fire wherewith they cooked their food. Surely the author of " Daniel Deronda " must have been thinking of some such scene as this when she penned the very vigorous passage placed at the head of chapter xxi. — " It is a common sentence that knowledge is power ; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of ignorance ? Knowledge slowly builds up what ignorance in an hour pulls down. Knowledge, through patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery, and makes record of it ; Ignorance, wanting its day's dinner, lights a fire with the record, and gives a flavour to its one roast, with the burnt souls of many generations. Knowledge, instructing the sense, refining and multiplying needs, transforms itself into skill, and makes life various with a new six days' work ; comes Ignorance, drunk on the seventh, with a firkin of oil and a match, and an easy ' Let there not be,' — and the many-coloured creation is shrivelled up in black- ness." Early in the present century Joseph Buonaparte converted the Monastery into a museum of objects of art ; the abbot was called Direttore delta Stabilimento, and the monks, deprived of their Benedictine habit, became the guardians of the treasures. But when Ferdinand I. reascended the throne of Naples, it was restored to its rightful use, and was allowed a grant of nearly £2400 annually. In 1821 it was once again applied to military purposes, and occupied by the Neapolitan soldiers who went to oppose the Austrians ; the Monastery did not, however, sufier harm. When Victor Emmanuel became King of United Italy, one of the first Liberal measures was the suppression of Eeligious Houses. Throughout Sicily and Italy we constantly meet with such institutions converted to secular uses — sometimes into barracks, sometimes into schools, and sometimes they are left tenant- 126 The Monastery of Monte Cassino. less. It was feared that Monte Cassino would meet the same fate, but owing to the exertions of Mr. Gladstone, whose Government was then in power, the Italian Government consented to allow Monte Cassino to continue to exist as a monastery and an educa- tional establishment. We heartily thank Mr. Gladstone for this one Conservative action of his later years, and we echo the Floreat perpetuo which he has written over against the time-honoured name of the Monastery. Monte Cassino is now permitted to exist as a great national monument, and as an important educational establishment, in which a number of the sons of the principal families around Eome and Naples are educated. The Fathers are regarded by the Government as the guardians of the national monument, but they continue to live in community and with the strict observance of the rules of S. Benedict. They for the most part belong to good families, and are men of considerable learning. In 1855 there were twenty brethren, nine laymen, and seven- teen noviciates ; the present number is, we believe, somewhat larger. The main division is into Fathers, called Dom or Pere, and Brothers, called Fra or Frere. The costume for all is black ; a soutane, girdle, and scapular, and a broad hat turned up on three sides, together with a large flowing mantle on certain occasions. The abbot is exempt from all episcopal jurisdic- tion, and is subject Inmates of the Monastery. 127 solely to the Pope. He is elected by a general Chapter composed of ail the abbots of the congregation, and sometimes by the Pope direct. He holds office for three years, but he may be re-elected. Formerly he was the first baron in the kingdom, and was entitled to drive a coach and six. He still governs the whole community and diocese of Monte Cassino, which contains about 100,000 persons, and is one of the largest dioceses in Italy. At the time of its greatest splendour the Monastery possessed, according to M. Hoeften (Commentaris sulla Vita di S. Benedetto), two principali- ties, 20 countships, 440 towns, boroughs, and villages, 250 castles, 336 manors, 23 seaports, and 1662 churches. Its revenues for- merly exceeded £20,000 a-year. No wonder the abbot was so great a personage. He is still addressed — " Illustrissimo e Reverendissimo Monsio'nor Dom N. N. Abate Ordinario di Monte Cassino." He has almost all the powers of a bishop — administers the sacrament of confirmation, officiates pontifically with the mitre and pastoral staff, wears a pectoral cross and ring, and gives the solemn triple benediction after the office which he celebrates. Charlemagne created the abbots of Monte Cassino, Chancellors of the Holy Empire, while Urban V. granted them the privilege of occupying in all councils the first place among all the other abbots. After the abbot comes the Prior, who is charged with the interior discipline of the Monastery ; then the Father Vicar, who administers the affairs of the diocese ; the Master of Novices, the Grand Cellarer, who has charge of the revenues of the Monastery ; the Father A^xhevist, who has charge of the archives ; the Father Librarian, the Strangers Father (" il Padre Foresterario "), who receives strangers, and exercises the hospitality of the Monastery ; the Father Vicar of the Sacristy, and so on. The monks have four services in the choir daily — 8 a.m.. Primes; 11 a.m.. Tierce and Grand Mass ; 2 p.m., Vespres and Complines ; 7 p.m., Laudes. In the morning the Fathers give all their free time to the instruction of the boys in the seminary, or to copying MSS. in the archives ; 128 The Monastery of Monte Cassino. in the afternoon they walk for an hour or two in the environs of the Monastery. During the very hot weather everybody takes a siesta after dinner. Our last evening with these kindly, pleasant companions has come. The sun is going down, and already as we look from our window the valley is in deep shadow, and the evening mists are beginning to rise. Father Anselmo comes to tell us that his labours for the day are over, and that he proposes a walk in the garden. And so we wander out to the edge of the VIEW OF THE MONASTERY FROM THE GARDEN. small plateau on which the Monastery stands, and look right and left into the valley beneath. The cyclopean wall is at our feet, and a few huge detached blocks of stone are lying in the gar- den. Lettinoj the mind wander from the time when this, the first structure of the mountain, was built, we try to realise some of the subsequent events in the life of Monte Cassino. It is capped by a many-columned temple, surrounded by groves sacred to the gods, and the people are prostrate around a statue ; now the statue is replaced by a cross, and on the site of the temple stands the Church Father Anselmo. 129 of Christ. Again the scene changes — the Valley of the Garigliano is full of soldiers, and they are scaling the mountain — a gun booms from the roof of the Monastery, and mail-clad soldiers pour from the great gateway. Once more grave Fathers wander in the long corridors, and the sound of the Vesper Hymn comes from the chapel. And then we thought of the many generations of men which had lived and died on this spot, of the work that had been done here, the treatises written, the manuscripts transcribed, the missals illuminated, the youth instructed, the poor comforted. Father Anselmo talked of many things as we paced up and down — of his life, and duties, and religion ; of S. Thomas Aquinas and S. Augustine, both connected more or less directly with Monte Cassino. The one he compared, as to his mode of reasoning, with Aristotle, the other with Plato. Of S. Thomas he said — as we have always heard in every Roman Catholic country without one dissentient voice — that he stands out as the first theologian of the Church in all time. Hearing that physical science was our favourite subject, the father asked for a definition of fire, and made us repeat the scientific definition until he had learnt it by heart. Then he said he had often thought that an admirable symbol of the Trinity was to be found in the science of acoustics, in the case of a stretched string and its principal vibrating divi- sions. The string vibrating as a whole gives the fundamental note ; when it divides itself into two vibrating segments it gives the octave, and when into three vibrating segments, the tierce, the three simplest relationships of any three sounds ; and the string may simultaneously vibrate after these three modes. Thus we discoursed till the sun went down. The next morning we had time, before descending the mountain, to take a parting glimpse at some now familiar scenes — to see the sun rise over the valley, and to wander on the terrace, and get a last look at the church, in which there was always some newly-discovered beauty to be found. The time for parting has come : — Farewell, dignified and learned 130 The Monastery of Monte Cassino. Abbot ; farewell, genial and kindly Prior ; farewell, Father Cellarius, to whom we have been more specially indebted for the direct acts of hospitality ; farewell, Father Tosti ; and farewell you. Father Anselmo, whose urbanity, and consideration, and thousand kindly offices will not soon fade from our minds. You who so gently over- looked our ignorance, so patiently listened to our lame discourse, you who helped us so kindly when we halted in our knowledge ; who at dawn of day came to see how we had slept, and at close of even to wish us God-speed and the grace of heaven. Farewell — but not a long fare- well. We must descend to the nether world. Every step downwards seems to take us further from old-world life. We are leaving behind us the cinquecento, and fast entering the century of hard, bullying, practical facts, and mad toil and moil, and struggle for existence. Presently the train carries us off to Naples, and we get a last glimpse of the Monastery standing out calm and clear above us, incoronate with the lingering splendour of the day. There are monasteries and monasteries. No doubt the Italian Government did wisely in determining upon a reform in this direction ; but a wholesale suppression was rather a severe measure to begin with. In many cases the system had been grossly abused, and to enter a monastery became an excuse for leading an idle, profitless, and sometimes sensual life. We may no more compare such grand institutions as Monte Cassino with a monastery of fat, dirty, idle Cappuccini, than we may compare Milan Cathedral with a joss-house. The remarks on the subject made in a subsequent chapter do not apply to Monte Cassino. The attractions offered by such a monastery are manifold : — a calm and dignified repose in the midst of learned brethren of one mind and fraternity ; a systematic and orderly life raised far above the petty cares and turmoils of the world ; the example and rules of a great Saint of the church, their founder ; the possibility of doing good work in the world ; — these things, and many more, commend themselves to certain orders of mind. If to be God-fearing and self- The Monks of Monte Cassino. 131 denying ; to be honest, and brave, and sober-minded ; to be diligent and humble, and true ; to live in the beauty of holiness, at peace with all men, and in the exercise of works of charity ; if to attain the "calm content of which Seneca says so much, with all else that he considers needful for the attainment of a happy life, and to put in practice S. Paul's precepts and rules of Christian life : — if these things conduce most to individual happiness, and to the sum total of earthly felicity, then we say that the monks of Monte Cassino must be the happiest of men. 132 The Stimmum Bonum. THE SUMMUM BONUM. A Conversation in the Garden of Monte Cassino. * ^ old Casinum's height there stands a Fane Founded long centuries ago, by one Whose saintly life and store of earnest works Were fitly crowned by his last legacy, His great example, and a sect of men, ^BJ Who passed from age to age his much-loved fame. His piety and rules of discipline ; And made the stately minster he had reared Eenowned and noble to all future time. There wandered once adown the garden's slope. At close of day, two men whose fervid talk Betokened some grave subject of discourse : A Father of S. Benedict, who passed His holy life on Mount Casinum's height, And a philosopher who loved to trace In pagan modes of thought his rule of life. Thus one had more of faith ; of reason one. This one had read, and studied, and worked out The subtleties of old philosophies. And shed on them the essence of his mind. The other, blessed with faith, his reason made At one with that of a most holy saint ; And thus in perfect calm of faith he lived. They talked of life, and death, and man's career ; They asked each other how to best attain The summum honum of our earthly strife. How runs the course of pure philosophy ? How should we walk therein — how strive, how grasp The summum honum of our reasoning life ? Look you ! the course of pure philosophy Is as a devious path, all rough with mounds, Which have been raised by mortals in fond hope The Summum Bonum. 133 Of seeing further, and with clearer ken, Than they who stand upon the nether ground, Into the ghostly caverns of the past — Into the mist of ages yet to come. Some mounds there be which signify the place Where the ripe thought of ages has amassed Its varied treasures : monuments are these To wisest, greatest, truest of earth's sons ; And travellers by the path delight to rest Upon their rugged tops, all hoar with age, And thence survey their journey's distant road. But there are others which are monstrous foul : Oft they contain within their festering mass Dead forms of antique systems, which the world Has buried from her most offended sight. Because they were such hideous, loathsome things. Albeit some ascend these fearful tombs. And when they reach the summit they are worn With plodding through the heavy, reeking soil ; And as the light of day fades quickly out, They lie them down hard by the mouldering dead, To rest awhile their over-wearied limbs ; And lo ! 'tis here their travail has its end. As we commence our journey by this path, Full soon we see a most neglected mound, Which long has ceased to be the halting-place Of any traveller to the distant land ; And in dull faded letters there we read — " Gorgias," " Polus," " Prodicus," wise men Who once received the homage of mankind, Sophist ! quick arose thy lofty mound, Founded in sandy soil, the storms of Heaven Rave it quite through from base to highest crown. Not far from this we see a massive mound Upreared by Socrates, augmented much By Megaric and Cyrenaic crew ; A very mountain bears the mighty name 134 The Summum Bonum. Of Aristotle ; twice a thousand years, He meted love of wisdom to mankind. Here is a mount beloved of deadly snakes And scorpions, and the ever-croaking frog ; All horrent reptiles crawl upon its sides And hide their hideous forms within its breast. Hard by the summit is a darksome cave, Whilom a wizard grim at his weird work Had sat therein, and ofttimes shrieked aloud His cursed spells into the midnight air. Then slacked the birds of night their droning wings, And listed drowsily, and drooped their heads, And wondered if a prey were near at hand. Here he invoked Azael and great Sammael : He asked the stars in his profanity For clearer ken of hidden mysteries ; And passing quickly to a grosser work, More suited to his own most gruesome soul, Besought the smoking entrails of a beast To unfold the glories of the seventh sphere. What wisdom this ! A Mediaeval lore Eooted in Eastern soil, which grew apace. And flourished greatly in a Western land. It is not here. Oh ! no, we find not here The summum bonum of our reasoning life. Cartesius' mound is very broad and flat ; No name is seen upon it, but below A broken slab repeats the vanished theme, Cogito ergo sum. Let us pass on. On Leibnitz hill we still are fain to find The famous fish-ponds : far more lasting they Than the crude argument which they evoked. The mound of Berkeley is of solid rock, Of substance most material ; he said, It lacked a real existence, a perception, Subjective phenomenon, an idea. But it remains conspicuous from afar, The Sumjnum Bonum. 135 While liis poor frame, so quick, so sensible, Has crumbled out of objectivity. We may not stay to name them one by one. We must go on more quickly, lest our halt Keep us for ever from the wished-for goal. Full many mounds we see of varied forms, Some covered with a beauteous bosky cloak From which peep ruins of forgotten shrines; While asphodel and cypress cover some. And others groves of myrtle and of bay. Some are morasses, eager to entrap The traveller's foot, and rife with fell disease. Such one is seen in an accursed mound Full of decay, too loathsome to approach, The home of vultures and of fearful ghouls, And of uncleanly beasts of varied kind ; And lo ! the names in fiery blazon writ Of Diderot, Holbach, and La Mettrie. ISTot far removed from this a hill is seen In aspect new and in proportion vast ; To it there flock of every race and creed Innumerable followers, and they help To make it yet more vast, for they would fain Climb up to heaven by its slanting sides : And on it is the name of Auguste Comte. But oh ! what graceful peak uprears its head Sublime above the plain, until it cleaves The snowy canopy of clouds above ? It is thick clothed with amaranthine flowers. And on its utmost top it bears a fane Sacred to Immortality ; within There dwells the calm, the most ineffable. The sovereign spirit of the greatest Greek. Here let us rest, here throw our burden down, Of Moleschott, Eenan, Biichner, and their school ; Tlien start afresh well strengthened for the toil. All Platonized in essence, and in soul. 136 The SmmuMm Bomtm. Here ends the course of pure philosophy ; Strive we no further, we have now attained The summum honum of our reasoning life. Then spake the son of Benedict, and said — • " That same immortal goal we humbly seek In faith, in love of Christ, in charity, In active labour with our hands and minds. In meditations, communings of soul ; In showing forth to all men the great love And mercy of their God, and how He died To purge and whiten their most scarlet souls." The monk went upwards to his cloistered height, The sage returned to the great world below, Thus parting company, but not for aye. Qmiiiiii fl A % . i 1 1: CO fk < •A ■iiMiip^ CHAPTER VII. NAPLES. Populousness of the City — Life and Death — Character of the Neapolitans — Condition of the City as regards Art— Musical Taste — Sights of the City — The Cathedral — San Martino — The Catacombs — The Museum Collections — Library of Papyri — Pompeii — Vesuvius — Puzzuoli — The Solfataras — Lacus Avernus — The Grotto of the Sibyl — The Grotto del Cani — The Amphitheatre of Puzzuoli — Baise — Salerno — The Temples at Pisestum, E always think that Naples must be the most populous city, for its size, in the world. That it should thus appear is no doubt due to the fact that the inhabitants spend most of their time in the open air. Morning, noon, and night, the great central Via di Roma is thronged with people, who walk in the middle of the street, fill up the spaces between the carriages, squeeze themselves into the narrower streets, and who appear to be constantly in slow motion from the upper to the lower part of the town. Then the Molo is always crowded with sailors, the suburbs with the poor popu- lation, and in the afternoon every one who can afford a horse, and a vehicle of any sort, drives along Our first impressions of Naples associate death the Chiaja. 138 Naples. with it as well as life. In the thickest part of a crowded street a great oblong gilt coach slowly winds its way ; at its four corners sit priests holding lighted candles, and it contains a coffin within. Or sometimes a great gilt coffer, with a movable lid like an old- fashioned tea-caddy, is carried along high above the crowd on the shoulders of the bearers. Or, if the coffin be a small one, it is sometimes carried in its bald, uncovered form on the head of a bearer, while the mourners follow. One evening we passed a shop which was brilliantly illuminated ; facing the street on a sloping bier lay a dead daughter of the house dressed as a bride. Tall candles were burning around the coffin, and the relatives sat around. Three hours later we passed the same house : the candles were still burning, and some of the mourners still watched, others had fallen asleep from sheer weariness. One old woman stood immovably fixed, gazing at the dead. The family watches all night, and twenty-four hours after death the corpse is removed, under the charge of a Confraternita, to which all those who can afford it, belong. The members of these Societies have the sole charge of burying the dead. At the end of less than two years the coffins are opened, the bones are collected and cleaned, and then stowed away in niches belonging to the special Confraternita of which the deceased was a member. The members of these different Brotherhoods have distinctive dresses: red, black, and white are the most usual ; the garments envelope the whole person, and a hood with openings for the two eyes completely covers the head and face. Each person carries a book in one hand and a lighted candle in the other, and there is something very ghostly and horrible in the whole affair. The terrors of death are often brought before the living. In a church in Girgenti there is a flaming picture of souls in Purgatory on the front of the high altar ; and we remember to have seen in Salerno a side chapel in one of the churches specially dedicated to souls in Purgatory. The altar was covered with small wood carvings Character of the ISfeapolitans. 139 representing a pink body emerging from a mass of very red flames : one of these little images was placed in each of the candlesticks, and a large wooden image in the same condition was placed on one side of the altar. The rich Neapolitans do not pay much respect to the dead, and sometimes desert their houses as soon as the breath is out of the body of their nearest relative, leaving the whole matter in the hands of the Confraternita. At the time of any rapid mortality, these Societies are sorely tried. Naples has been frequently visited by cholera, and sometimes by the plague. Pictures in the Museum represent the city in an indescribable state of horror, during the visitation of plague. It has also suffered much from earthquakes, and from sieges by Greeks, Romans, Goths, Saracens, Normans, and Spaniards, yet it has always remained populous, and now contains more than half-a-million of inhabitants. The Neapolitans are a gay, lazy set of people, too indolent to be of much use in the world. While Florence has produced some of the most illustrious poets, painters, sculptors, architects, musicians, men of letters, and men of science which the world has ever seen, Naples has scarcely produced one great man in the whole range of its long existence. This of course may be partly attributed to the frequent changes of rulers, the bad forms of government to which it has been subject, and the want of patrons of learning, like the de Medicis, to foster a taste for arts and letters, and to stimulate genius. As far as music and painting are concerned, art is not well represented in Naples. The pictures in the Museum cannot for a moment compare with the galleries of Florence and Rome. As to music, the singing in the churches is very bad ; we heard an execrable performance of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Mercadante, and even at the great San Carlo itself — one of the finest opera houses in the world — the performance was not nearly so good as that which one hears in London, Paris, Milan, or Rome. La Forza del Destino had been played for many nights. It lasted four 140 Naples. hours, and was followed by a ballet which lasted raore thau an hour, and concluded with a great transformation scene like that of a pantomime. The ballet was very elaborate, but the dancing was not nearly as good as that which one sees in Paris. Throughout Italy, one might almost say throughout Europe — for we have heard one or other of them, from Belgium to Cairo, taking in Athens by the way — Offenbach and Lecocq seem to be the most popular composers. A French company, at any theatre in any city, which gives "La Fille de Madame Angot," or "La Grande Duchesse," is sure to get a crowded house week after week, while the great opera houses and the native theatres often languish. Yet Naples once had a name as a great musical centre. Scarlatti, Porpora, Pergolesi, Sacchini, and Jomelli were Neapolitans, so also were Cimarosa and Paesiello ; and the Neapolitan School of Music claims Rossini (born at Pesaro), Bellini (born at Catania), and Mercadante. Within Naples itself there is but little to be seen. There is a great palace at Capodimonte, high above the town, containing a few pretty pictures, and some passable porcelain ; and another near the water's edge, containing some fine saloons, a hanging garden from whence a lovely view over the bay may be obtained, and, above all, a bronze head of Bacchus from Hercul- aneum, which is certainly one of the finest bronzes we have ever seen. Then in the midst of the city, and high above it, stands the Castel Sant' Elmo, which must be ascended for the sake of the view. In a Monastery adjoining the Castle is the famous Church of San Martino, which for richness of decoration can alone compare worthily with the Church of Monte Cassino. It is profusely adorned with a great variety of coloured marbles, and with mosaics, bronzes, and paintings. We never remember to have seen so many relics in any one place (except perhaps in Cologne) ; there is some of the hair of the Virgin, and whole coffers full of bones of the Saints. The churches of Naples are usually some- u THE CATACOMBS OF NAPLES. The Catacombs. 141 what unsightly buildings, and frequently gaudily decorated in bad taste inside. There is something to be said for the Cathedral, however, although it was nearly destroyed by an earthquake, and has had frequent additions since. The fagade is decidedly good, and it would be seen to much better advantage if it were not hemmed in by houses. There are some fine tombs of kings, and some of the side chapels are in fairly good taste. The ceremonial is magnificent on great occasions, when the Cardinal Archbishop (Riario Sforza) is present. The Canons wear large capes and sashes of crimson silk lined with white fur, and it is somewhat difficult to distinguish them from the Cardinal himself. There is a large choir of boys of all ages, dressed in long black garments covered above with lace. Beneath the high altar there is a chapel which contains the shrine of S. Januarius, the patron Saint of Naples. The principal relic of the Saint which is shown is one of his fingers. The phial containing his blood is (unlike most of the relics in Italy) never shown to visitors. The greatest Church Festivals in Naples occur at the time of the liquefaction of the blood of S. Januarius, which takes place three times a-year, in May, September, and December, and immense throngs of people witness the miracle. Naples is full of priests ; between the station and the hotel we certainly passed a score. The services in the churches are frequently attended, even on week days, by a large number of people. The people in some respects seem to be blindly superstitious, in others sincerely pious, and in others utterly profane. The Neapolitan temperament is very difiicult to analyse. The Catacombs of Naples are of great interest even after those of Rome; they are said to extend for several miles underground; and they consist of broad arched passages hollowed out of the rock, containing on either side niches which once contained the bodies of the dead. They were without doubt excavated by the early Christians ; many Christian emblems are painted upon the walls, sometimes in a very rude manner. In some places the 142 Naples. original fresco has been covered with a coating of plaster, and a second fresco has been painted over the first, occasionally even a third. A work on the Catacombs of Naples by Herr Schultz is about to be published in Jena, and it will no doubt throw great light upon the history of these very early Christian tombs. The great sight of Naples is the Museum, now called the Museo Nazionale, formerly the Museo Borhonico. It has existed since DEMETEU ENTHRONED. PAINTIiJG FROM POMPEII. NAPLES. The Museum. 143 1790, and has acquired some superlative treasures from Pompeii, Herculaneum, Capua, Puzzuoli, Minturnse, Stabise, and Cumse. All the older separate collections belonging to the State were gathered together in this Museum : those from Portici and Capodimonte, and the Farnese and Borgia collections. In many respects the Museum is unrivalled ; for instance in ancient bronzes, wall paintings, and implements of domestic life. The collections of sculpture and of PEKSEPHONE ENTHRONED. PAINTING FKOM POMPEII. NAPLES. vases are also very fine. The wall paintings from Pompeii and Herculaneum are the only specimens of ancient painting on a large scale which exist ; the small paintings on vases, generally of one 144 Naples. colour, are the only other examples in the world. They prove to us that the art of painting was well understood by the ancients. Some of the pastoral pieces possess a grace and delicacy which we could scarcely have looked for at the period. The interiors of all the principal houses in Pompeii were painted, often with great skill and taste. MahafFy {Rambles and Studies in Greece," 1876) justly says of the Pompeii wall-paintings : — " Though they are only the wall decorations of a second-rate mongrel Greek town, there are both grace and power in many of the figures. The colouring is bright and life-like, and the faces full of expression." FARNESE BULL. NAPLES. The Museum. 145 A few good mosaics were also found in the city, and are preserved in the Museum. In the Gallery of Inscriptions there exist two of the finest pieces of sculpture in the world ; the Farnese Hercules from the Baths of Caracalla in Kome, and the Farnese Bull. This latter is an incomparable work, by the •PARNESE HERCULES. NAPLES. 146 Naples. Rhodian sculptors Taiiriscus and Apollonius. It is believed to have been bewn out of a sino-le block of marble, but when found in 1534 it was very much mutilated. It was restored by Michael Angelo in a very effective manner. The gracefulness of the attitudes, the boldness and vigour of the design, and the animation transfused throughout the whole conception, are beyond criticism and praise. The group represents Dirce bound to the horns of a wild bull by the sons of Antiope. Llibke says of it : — " Besides the dramatic life, the distinct and at the same time thrilling arrangement, and the rapid action expressed in the scene, HEAD OF JUNO. NAPLES. The Museum. 147 there is a special fascination in the splendidly-formed figures which have all something heroic in them, and the treatment of which, though betraying accurate knowledge, is less detailed than in those of the Laocoon." The Farnese Hercules, which was also found in the Baths of Caracalla, is probably a copy of an original by Lysippos. "The design," says Llibke, "is extremely grand, and the figure has something of the ideal form of a demi-god, not merely from its colossal size, but still more from the powerful structure of the limbs. The exceeding smallness of the head also, combined with the exaggerated breadth of shoulder, chest, and thighs, may be justified as characteristic of the Hercules type." The beautiful head of Juno in the Museum is probably a copy of a work by Polycletos of Sicyon, who was a younger con- temporary of Phidias, and the greatest sculptor of the Pelopon- nesus. The Pallas Athene found at Herculaneum rejDresents the goddess in a warlike attitude, with a helmet and armour. The action is vigorous, but the work is not one of any great merit. The bronzes, for the most part from Herculaneum, are fine examples of ancient art. We have already alluded to the Head of Bacchus in the Palazzo Eeale. The "Eeposing Mercury" in the Museum is perhaps the finest com- plete ancient bronze extant. This statue was found at Herculaneum. Llibke says of it : — " It presents a fresh picture of elastic youth, resigning itself to a moment's easy repose, after preceding efi'ort ; one of the numerous ideas which the Palaestra afi"orded to Greek PALLAS ATHENE. NAPLES. 148 Naples. sculptors." The Drunken Faun, the Sleeping Satyr, the Apollo, and the Runners, in the same room, are also works of high art. In an adjoining room there are many examples of Greek armour from Psestum, and of the helmets and body-armour of Gladiators from Pompeii and Herculaneum, When scrolls of papyrus were first discovered in Herculaneum, it was hoped that if they could be unrolled and deciphered, valuable additions might be made to our collections of ancient classics. Accordingly great care was taken to unfold the carbonised remains of any papyri that were found, to paste them on rolls of linen, and then to decipher and transcribe them. But the hope has not been justified by the result ; no work of any interest has been discovered, and the principal papyri which have been deciphered BESTING HERMES. NAPLES. The Museum. 149 are found to be Greek treatises on the Epicurean Philosophy, written by a contemporary of Cicero. At present scarcely a single papyrus has been found at Pompeii, but it is thought that in a town of its size there must have existed a Public Library ; it is therefore confidently hoped that in the buried portion of the town, a number of these manuscripts may yet be found. TERRA COTTA BOWL, BRONZE LAMPS AND STANDS, FOTTND AT POMPEII. The Egyptian collection of the Museum is small and poor ; and the picture gallery contains but few good works. The library has 200,000 volumes, and some rare Greek MSS. The collection of coins is very complete, and the mode of exhibiting them to the public might well be followed in the British Museum, and in some of the Continental collections. The collection of vases contains many 150 Naples. examples of the highest art. In some adjoining rooms a number of domestic utensils and implements from Pompeii are preserved. They are mainly of bronze, and include beds, chairs, cauldrons, baths, tables, kettles, candelabra, surgical instruments, cooking utensils in great variety, musical instruments, tripods, pitchers, weapons, and many other things which at every turn remind us that the domestic appliances of a Pompeian eighteen centuries ago did not differ much from those of the modern Neapolitan. This collection in the Museum should be seen and carefully studied, both before and after Pompeii itself is visited. A TEMPLE AT POMPEII. Pompeii can be reached in an hour from Naples by train, or if the day be fine, and the visitor is inclined to start early, it is a pleasant drive along the edge of the Bay of Naples. The history of the destruction of the town by ashes from Vesuvius, is too well known to need even passing notice. Those who have not read O < A, o CO o Pompeii and Herculaneum. 151 any of the graver histories of the event have been fascinated by the Last Days of Pompeii, written when the author was staying there, during a very active period in the history of the excava- tions. The town seemed to be doomed to destruction ; the awakened energy of Vesuvius began to show itself in a.d. 63, when a fearful earthquake laid the whole place in ruins. However, nothing daunted, the inhabitants re-erected the city, and had scarcely finished it when the final catastrophe of a.d. 79 destroyed it for ever. A dense shower of ashes fell, and covered the town to a depth of three feet, and shortly afterwards showers of red-hot vol- canic dust and pumice stone added an additional eight feet ; these showers continued until the stratum of volcanic matter was twenty feet deep. The excavations were first commenced in 1748, and have been continued, not without intermission, until the present time. More than half the town still remains buried beneath the ashes. The process of excavation proceeds very slowly ; the exca- vated ashes are carried away in small baskets on the shoulders of boys. It is performed at the expense of the Government, and any treasure-trove which may be found is at once removed to the Museum in Naples. The bare walls of the town are standing, the roofs, which were mainly of wood, do not remain. All is open to the sky. Almost as good an idea of Pompeii is obtained by studying the model in the Naples Museum, and then carefully examining the various things found in the city, as by visiting the city itself. It is true that one sees the walls of the houses, the counters of the shops, the oil jars, and amphorae for wine, the ruined Forum and temples, theatres and amphitheatre, the street- fountains and the stepping-stones, the baths and the gardens, bake- houses and taverns, ovens and corn-mills ; but the main interest, when once the general character of house, theatre, temple, and Forum are ascertained, is concentrated in the various relics of domestic life found in the city. They recall the life of the inhabi- tants as much, or even more, than the walls of the houses. From 152 Naples. first to last we are reminded of the fact that, although we boast much of nineteenth century civilisation, we have in some respects made no progress at all. Herculaneum is believed to have been a much finer and more wealthy city than Pompeii. Although the excavations have been carried on to a far more limited extent than in the case of Pompeii, very rich treasures in the form of bronze and marble statues have been found. The city is no less than 119 feet below the level of Eesina and Portici ; it was overwhelmed by lava, and subsequent eruptions contributed quantities of ashes and lava to further raise the level. A portion of the great Theatre of Herculaneum has been excavated, and it is estimated that it held at least ten thousand spectators. Of course we visited the dire cause of all these calamities — Vesuvius. We ascended from Portici, and our path at first lay through a somewhat narrow gully full of large stones. We soon came upon the lava, and by following rough pathways we reached the foot of the cone. Here the real fatigue of the ascent com- mences. The rest of the ascent has to be made under rather trying conditions ; the slope of the cone is considerable, and the ashes of which it is composed are so loose that the foot sinks into them, and for every step forward there is a perceptible portion of a step of retrogression, due to the movement of the ashes under the pressure of the foot. When at length you reach the edge of the crater, you sometimes get a fine view over the surrounding district, and the course of the lava which was last emitted may be easily traced ; sometimes you get no view at all, and a chilly rain descends ; sometimes you are enveloped in sulphurous smoke, and have to grope your way out of it. If the day is tolerably fine, you are glad to sit down and rest near the edge of the crater. The guides cook eggs in the hot ashes, and produce bottles of Lachryma ; they also thrust a stick into a fissure, in which red-hot lava can be seen, and bring it out blazing. The crater is lined with sulphur as far as the smoke allows one to see into it. The smoke consists to a great Vesuvius. 153 extent of sulphurous acid gas. The descent is easily made ; you run down the cone in five or six minutes, and are back at the Observatory in a very short time. This building stands on a spur of rock, in such a position that a lava stream must divide and run on either side of it. In it Prof. Palmieri watches for any indi- cations of unusual disturbance. Some of his instruments are con- nected with rods which are sunk some distance in the rock, and the least movement is registered automatically. The Neapolitans say that Palmieri is perjDetually predicting an eruption of Vesuvius, and that he is never right. It is as well, however, in such matters to be on the safe side, and no doubt when the next eruption does take place it will afford abundant evidence of its intention before- hand. The whole district around Naples is very volcanic in character. At Puzzuoli there is a half-extinct volcano, from fissures in the crater of which sulphurous and other vapours are perpetually ascending. At one point steam and sulphurous acid pour out of a kind of cavern with considerable force. When Vesuvius THE SOLFATAKA. 154 Naples. is active this outburst ceases. The crater of the Solfatara (as this half-extinct volcano is called) is surrounded on all sides by steep banks of pumice stone. The vegetation is very scant. In some places the soil is so hot that six inches below the surface you cannot touch it. In one spot hot blue mud bubbles up, and small sulphur crystals are often found incrusting the light white pumice stone. The ground is quite hollow beneath you — -you are literally "dancing on a volcano;" a large stone thrown down upon the ground causes a hollow resound beneath. Who knows but that the whole interior of the crater may not some day be blown out, as the interior of the crater of Vesuvius, once covered with meadows, was suddenly upheaved ? The last eruption was in 1198. The scenery of the Solfatara is very weird ; it might be the entrance to the infernal regions. Here you have the place ready to hand for any number of legends, or dread stories of doom. From such a place might Zeus have thundered beneath the earth when he summoned Edipus to the shades below — " Hither — by this way come — for this way leads The Unseen Conductor of the Dead — -and she "Whom Shadows call their Queen ! Light, sweet Light, Rayless to me — mine once, and even now I feel thee palpable, round this worn form Clinging in last embrace — I go to shroud The waning life in the Eternal Hades. Then suddenly a bodiless voice is heard : It called on him — it called ; and over all Horror fell cold, and stirred the bristling hair ! Again the voice — again — ' Ho ! Edipus, Why linger we so long ? Come hither, come.' "* Not far from the Solfatara rises Monte Nuovo to a height of 45G feet. It was upheaved in 1538 after an earthquake, and is mainly * Trans, by Lord Lytton (Athent^-, Bk. 5, Chap. iv.). Lake A vermis. 155 composed of trachyte and pumice stone. On the road to Baise, near Monte Nuovo, a long narrow passage in tlie face of a rock leads to some springs which have a temperature of 198°, and eggs are easily cooked in the water. A quantity of hot vapour pours out from the roof of the passage, and as you enter you feel almost stifled. These hot springs were called Thei'moB Neroniance by the ancients. Close at hand is Lacus Avernus, which the ancients regarded as the entrance to Hades. The Cimmerii were believed to live in perpetual obscurity in the caves under the surrounding rocks, and here also Eneas descended with the Sibyl to the shades below. A cavern near the lake is called the Grotto of the Sibyl. The floor descends somewhat until you come to an opening in the side of the cavern which is called " The Entrance to the Infernal Regions ;" here the guide lights a torch, and you have to clamber upon his back while he carries you through a narrow rock passage knee deep in water. You presently come to a chamber full of warm water which is called the "Sibyl's Bath;" certain frescoes are pointed out on the wall. The whole place is very unpleasantly warm, and you are half-stifled with the resinous smoke of the torch which is carried just in front of you. It is altogether a very uncanny place, and well deserves its name. Lake Avernus itself, though evidently formed in the crater of an extinct volcano, does not possess that desolate and weird aspect which one would have expected from the ancient accounts of it. It is a circular basin 200 feet deep in the middle, and four or five hundred yards across. The water looks black ; it was absolutely motionless when we saw it. The precipitous sides of the crater are covered with bushes and underwood, and the general aspect is far less solemn and weird than the crater of the Solfatara. The Lago d'Agnano (now drained) is another example of the crater of an extinct volcano. It is rather larger than the Lake Avernus. Just beyond the edge of the crater there are some hot sulphur baths, very similar to the Solfataras of Puzzuoli. On one side of the crater is the celebrated 156 Naples. Grotto del Cani, a cavern from which issues no less than six hundred pounds weight of carbonic acid gas in the course of the twenty-four hours. The cavern slopes rather abruptly down- wards. When you enter, a peculiar warm stratum of atmosphere is at once perceived rising a little above the knees, and if you lap up some of the warm invisible gas with the hollow of your hand, you perceive a fresh taste like that of very fully aerated soda-water. The dog — a fat white Pomeranian — which is immersed in the gas for a few seconds, to show its stupefying effect, did not in the least object to the operation, and trotted along to the mouth of the cavern by the side of his master, in a very willing and docile manner. A striking experiment was made at the end, illustrating both the weight of carbonic acid, and its inability to support combustion. We were requested to go outside the cavern, and to stoop down so that our eyes were nearly on a level with the layer of carbonic acid in the cavern ; the glaring torches were then suddenly depressed below the layer, and were instantly extinguished, while a dense layer of resinous smoke floated on the surface of the carbonic acid. The neighbourhood of Puzzuoli is of extreme interest. Not only does it contain the before-mentioned Solfataras, but there are the remains of a fine Koman amphitheatre, which is estimated to have held 40,000 people. The form is a singularly elegant oval. The building is in almost as ruinous a condition as the Coliseum, but there is a well preserved sub-structure, two stories in depth, containing receptacles for wild beasts and for gladiators, and there are arrangements for flooding the arena with water on the occasion of naval combats. In the town of Puzzuoli near the sea-shore there exist the remains of a temple known as the Temple of Serapis. A few columns only remain standing, but these are of special interest to the geologist, because they bear unmistakable signs of having undergone a change of level, more than once since they were erected. At one period the sea-level was apparently Baice. 157 twenty feet above the present level, and this was probably caused at the same time that Monte Nuovo was upheaved. The coast-line now seems to be gradually sinking, A pleasant drive from Puzzuoli, past Monte Nuovo and Lacus Avernus, leads to Baise, once the most fashionable of Eoman watering-places, full of villas, baths, temples, and all the adjuncts of Eoman luxury in the time of Hadrian. The present village is full of the ruins of its former greatness. The first of these is a large domed building, probably a bath. There is a curious echo here, often met with in circular domed buildings ; the voice seems to run round the walls of the building; rather than to be reflected. If you stand near the wall, a whisper directed against the opposite wall is very distinctly heard, but if you move a little away the sound is very much enfeebled. Before we left the ruin an old woman came in with four young girls, who ofiered to dance the Tarantella. If this were the true Tarantella, it is a very stupid dance. It reminded us most of a very slow Irish jig, BAI^. 158 Naples. with all the spirit taken out of it. We were told in Naples that there are fourteen steps in this dance ; but there did not appear to be more than four. The old woman played a large tambourine, and occasionally yelled cacophonously ; the dancers made use of large castanets. They were soberly clad, without the admixture of bright colours one sometimes sees worn by the Neapolitan peasantry. Near the present harbour of Baise there is a curious octagonal building called the Temple of Venus, in a very ruinous condition. At the somewhat primitive inn at Baise we had some oysters from Lacus Lacrinus, which certainly does not keep up its ancient fame in this respect. The oysters were the most miserable, thin, taste- less little things possible. The Spigola, on the other hand, a fish from the same lake, is extremely delicate and toothsome. We drove a little further along the Baise road to Bacoli, to see the view in either direction from the hill above the town. In one direction the eye rests upon Ischia and Procida and Cape Misenum, while in the other Nisita and Posilippo stand out into the sea, and Vesuvius is seen beyond ; the Bay of Puzzuoli is just beneath one to the south. Near Bacoli there are well-preserved remains of a gigantic reservoir called the Piscina Mirabilis. The coast to the south of Naples is as interesting as that to the north. For some little distance beyond Pompeii, on the Salerno line, the scenery is uninteresting, but presently the railway passes through some lovely mountain valleys, and at length makes a magnificent descent into Salerno. The railway passes through tunnels just above the sea, and as it emerges upon a rock gallery beautiful glimpses of the very lovely bay are seen. Salerno itself is a bright, gay little town, with a cathedral, well worth a visit, containing mosaics, sarcophagi, and antique columns. It is said to enshrine the remains of S. Matthew, which were brought from the East in 930. At five o'clock in the morning Ave started ofi" to visit the ruined temples at Psestum ; as far as Battipaglia we went by train, and drove the rest of the distance in a somewhat primi- PcBestum. 159 tive carriage drawn by three horses harnessed abreast. The road has always been infested by brigands, and the whole district is considered to be as bad as the worst parts of Sicily. We were assured, however, that such stringent measures had lately been taken by the Government that it was quite safe to travel without an escort of carbineers. We escaped quite unmolested, but less than a fortnight after our visit we read in the newspapers that one of the brigand chiefs had just been shot near Salerno during an engagement with the troops. The officer commanding the detachment of troops stationed at Psestum told us that all had been quiet there for some length of time. The temples at Psestum are admirably preserved, when we remember their great antiquity. The columns are all standing, together with architraves and pediments, and the remains are considered the finest existing exam23les of Greek temples, with the exception of those at Athens. They are of very early Doric, and slight peculiarities in the capitals and in the tapering contour of the shafts has secured for them the name of " Psestum Doric." The temples suffer considerably from the nature of the material of which they are constructed, which is so coarse a travertine, that as in the case of the temples at Girgenti, it was covered with stucco. If these temples had been constructed of white marble, and had been placed upon an eminence with a rich background of dark green, they would surely have been in every respect among the most beautiful buildings that have ever existed. The temples stand on a plain a few miles from what used to be called the Sinus Pcestanus, now the Gulf of Salerno. Their low position, and the peculiar squat massive nature of both columns and buildings, remind one not a little of certain Egyptian temples. The finest of the three is the Temple of Neptune, which possesses 36 columns, 30 feet high and 7 J feet in diameter, while in the interior there are tVv'O series of seven columns each supporting smaller columns above, which in their turn supported the roof. The second temple 160 Naples. possesses 50 columns, 6 feet in diameter. It is considered to be later, and of less elegant proportions than that of Neptune. The Temple of Ceres is less well preserved than the others, and the dimensions are smaller ; it is, however, in better condition than ninety-nine out of a hundred remains of the period, . It is difficult to understand why these temples have suffered so little either from time or the hand of man ; there appears to . have been no earth- quake to throw them down, sirocco to wear them away, or man to quarry them for building materials, in all the three-and-twenty centuries of their existence. At the best of times Psestum is an unhealthy malarious place, and was considered so even in the reign of Augustus. The region is very desolate ; we passed large tracts of low, marshy, unculti- vated ground, in which the only living things to be seen were buffaloes. The population is very thinly scattered, and the whole district fever-stricken. As we returned the rain came down in torrents, and although we were pretty well protected, we caught such a cold that it took us many days, combined with the warm air of Cannes, to get rid of it. CAMEO OF ATHKNION. NAPLES MUSEUM. 03 02 s o Pi o « Pi a tn H o H H Zi CHAPTER VIII. MESSINA, TAORMINA, CATANIA. Entrance to the Harbour of Messina — The City — The Cathedral — Taormina — The Theatre — Aci Reale — Catania. ^E leave Naples late in the afternoon of a January day, and the departing daylight only allows us to get a good view of the city and of S. Elmo. Vesuvius and Monte Somma continue visible for some length of time, and we pass close to the island of Capri. On the following morning we find ourselves among the Lipari Islands, and the regular cone of Stromboli is specially con- spicuous. Soon after we sight the Sicilian coast and the prominent lighthouse at the entrance of the Straits of Messina, which are here so narrow that the smallest houses on both the Calabrian and Sicilian shores arc plainly seen. Nearly opposite the extremity of Sicily we see Scilla on the opposite coast ; then we enter the harbour of Messina, protected from the sea by a projecting sickle-shaped mass of land, from which the town took its Greek name of Zankle [(dyKX-q, a sickle). The town is built at the water's edge, and at the bottom of a low ridge of hills ; it presents a long 162 Messina, Taormma, Catania. array of well-built lofty stone houses facing the sea, and connected with each other by stone arches wherever a block of houses has to be interrupted to make way for a street. The extreme massiveness THE CASTLE OF SCILLA. of the houses, and their connection by means of arches, is necessary in a town in which earthquakes are not uncommon. Although no serious earthquake has occurred for many years, it is usual to ex- perience a shock at least once a month, and the first thing that we heard on landing was that a shock had been felt the previous day. Otherwise the situation of Messina is admirable, and it is the most flourishing commercial town in Sicily. Nothing can better illus- trate the perfection of the position of the city than the fact that it still continues to flourish after a lifetime of more than twenty-two centuries, during which it has undergone numberless xfltSS?:: ■i''^^^^^^^ ■''''?''yiillll'll!iil!||[lllilT, 1 1 ii!|liiiW*!ii||| ' CO Messma. 163 vicissitudes. As early as 396 B.C. the town was entirely destroyed by Himilco, and it was repeatedly assaulted and reduced in after times. During the last two centuries it has been attacked by foes of another kind :— in 1740 the plague carried off 40,000 persons, and the great earthquake of 1783 reduced it to ruins. It was rebuilt, however, and suffered no further signal disaster until the bombardment of 1848, and finally, the outbreak of cholera in 1854, which destroyed 16,000 persons. In spite of all this the town has now more than a hundred thousand inhabitants, and it carries on a large trade with various parts of the world. More than 5000 vessels enter its port yearly, and the harbour is at all times gay with a great variety of craft. Messina contains very little of interest, and on one or two subsequent occasions, when we have been obliged to stay a few hours while our vessel was coaling, or discharging merchandise, the time has hung very heavily. The Cathedral, and the Fountain of Montorsoli, are the only objects of much interest. We climbed a hill at the back of the town, and obtained a lovely view of the Calabrian coast, the straits, and the harbour. We also went to a Convent of Cappuccini, a little to the north of the town, and saw the same sort of sight that we have described in connection with the Convent of Cappuccini in Syracuse. The principal amusement of the Messinians seemed to be to stroll through the Strada Garibaldi, or the Corso, returning by the long lines of quays, and taking by the way the public market-house, in which we never failed to find all sorts .of curious fish, from fresh anchovies to red and blue fishes like those which the Arabian fisherman found in the pond between four hills, after he had released the Genius. In the evening: there was plenty to do, for the inhabitants of Messina are very musical people, and provide themselves with a fairly good opera company during the season. One of our favourite London stars made her debtit at the Messina Opera House a few years ago. We heard a moderately good performance of Mose in Egitto. 164 Messina, Taormina, Catania. In spite of the numerous earthquakes which have destroyed Messina, a portion of the Cathedral dates from the fourteenth cen- tury. It has suffered twice from fire, and was almost entirely over- thrown in 1 783, but the fa9ade remains to testify to the beauty of the original building. Within the Cathedral there are a few mosaics of the fourteenth century, a monument to Archbishop Giudobaldo by Gregorio da Siena, and a high altar which is said to have cost more than £150,000. The latter is inlaid with rare polished marbles and lapis lazuli, and would be suitable for such a church as S. Paolo fuori le Mura, near Eome. It contains the letter which the Virgin Mary is said to have written in the year 42, and to have sent to the inhabitants of the city by the hands of S. Paul. A very slow train took us from Messina to Taormina. Much of the distance we passed in sight of the sea on one side, while on the other there were groves of lemons or oranges. Taormina, the old Tauromenium, is a large village perched upon a hill-side nearly a thousand feet above the sea. It has the great charm, among several others, of being a very primitive place. We saw a woman grinding maize in a small stone quern, exactly like those which we preserve in our museums as relics of a remote civilisation. We were the only foreigner in the place during the two days we were there. There are two village inns, and we had been recommended to go to the Timeo. Here we found a small house on the edge of a steep rock, inhabited by three persons only — the landlord, his wife, and their son ; the latter waits upon you, while his mother cooks for you, and the padrone himself superintends everything, and, if you desire it, will sit down to the piano and play to you all the evening. W^e were quickly served with some capital fish and an omelette, and some Monte Venere — a very fair wine. There was no butter to be had in the village, but plenty of honey, also from Monte Venere. We were apportioned three rooms en suite, one at least of them facing the sea. At a little after seven o'clock the next morninsf we were 2 A THE CATHEDRAL OF MESSINA. Taormina. 165 awakened by a flood of liglit, and looking out of the window, we saw such a sight of loveliness as surely no one can hope to see often in a lifetime. The sun was rising over the sea beneath some light banks of fleecy clouds, which shone with splendid rosy hues ; a great path of light was reflected from the placid sea, in which also the many-hued clouds were mirrored ; on the left was the Calabrian coast, the hills of which were beginning to receive the morning sun ; while directly below us was the hill-side, dotted with houses. A little later we saw Etna from the roof of the house, covered with snow, reflecting a splendid pink light. Every moment the scene altered as the sun rose higher, or as the position of the clouds varied. The scene was altogether indescribable. TAORMINA. After breakfast we climbed to the Castle of Taormina, which stands on a hill 1392 feet above the sea. This place, if rebuilt and well fortified, would be as strong as Gibraltar or Ehrenbreitstein — that is to say, practically impregnable. It was once the Acropolis of Tauromenium, and was founded in the fourth century B.C., since which time it has undergone many sieges, and has, at one time or 166 Messina, Taormina, Catania. other, been captured by Greeks, Syracusans, Romans, Saracens, Normans, French, and Neapolitans. The castle is now a complete ruin, but the visitor is well rewarded for his toilsome climb on a hot January day by the splendid view from the summit, in which, in one direction. Mount Etna and its lesser spurs are the most conspicuous objects, and in the other the sea and the Calabrian. coast. But the great sight of Taormina is the Greco-Roman Theatre, RUINED THEATKE AT TAOKMIXA. which stands on a spur of rock 436 feet above the sea, and which commands a view of the coast of Sicily, both southward towards Syracuse, and northwards towards Messina, The Theatre of Dionusos, on the slope of the Acropolis at Athens, and the Greek Theatre at Syracuse, both command such fine views that one at first imagines that they could not be surpassed, but the sight of Taormina altogether exceeds these, and the view at the time of the setting sun is one that we know not where to match. The Theatre itself, which was restored by the Romans, is one of the finest From Taonnina to Catania. 167 remains of an ancient theatre. The stasje is said to be the best preserved in existence next to that of Aspendus in Pamphylia. We left Taormina with great regret, and, provided that one could ensure the same absolute isolation and quiet which we enjoyed, we should like to spend many days there. After the noise and bustle of a city like Naples, and the worry and turmoil of what is called sight-seeing, nothing can be more delightful than a few days in this incomparably lovely place. We have seen from time to time paintings of Taormina, some of them by good artists, but we cannot say that they the least help one to realise the beauties of the place ; and indeed no one can hope in a picture to give any idea of the ever-changing shades of light which, from sunrise till sunset, course over the place, and which bathe the whole scene in a magic glow. We were sorry to leave the Timeo, with its kindly, good- natured people, who did their best to adapt their little hotel to the requirements of nineteenth-century life, and succeeded too. In the visitors' book we read a letter from an Englishman who had been obliged to spend a Christmas Day there, and who said that perhaps the best recommendation he could give the place was that he had passed there a happy Christmas, although alone, and far from his native land. At the foot of Taormina lies Giardini, an unhealthy place, where fevers prevail. Here we take the train for Catania, and soon enter upon a lava-strewn tract of country, which looks very bleak and desolate. The prickly-pear is the only plant that grows between the crevices in the lava, but when the latter is dis- integrated it produces a capital soil, especially for vines. The first station of any importance to which we come is Giarre, near to which are the remains of the famous chestnut-tree di cento cavalli, under the shade of which a hundred horsemen could repose. A little further on we come to Aci Keale, where the small stream of the Acis empties itself into the sea. Here, too. 168 Messina, Taormina, Catania. was born the charming pastoral my thus of Acis and Galatea, and the one-eyed PolyiDhemus. At Aci Castello we see the seven Scogli de' Ciclopi, the rocks which Polyphemus in his rage hurled after Ulysses, and a few minutes afterwards we stop at Catania. Catania, like Messina, was founded several centuries before the Christian era, and, like Messina, has undergone destruction many times, either by the hand of nature or of man. But the district is so fertile, and so rich in mineral wealth, that the town has always speedily risen again from its ruins, and it has now nearly 70,000 inhabitants, and a considerable trade in sulphur, wine, cotton, and grain. A town which has been so often destroyed, of course contains but little of interest from an archaeological point of view. There are fragments of a Greek Theatre, and well-preserved remains of Koman baths. The Cathedral possesses a silver coffer containing the remains of S. Agata, who was put to death in 252 a.d. by the Prsetor Quintianus. Near the outskirts of the town is the magni- ficent Monastery of San Nicola, one of the largest institutions of this nature in the world. Since 1866 it has suffered the fate of nearly all the monasteries in Italy, and is now used for various purposes, such as barracks and schools. It contains some fine specimens of architecture, and in the chapel there is an organ by Donato del Piano, which possesses five rows of keys, and is said to be one of the finest in Europe. From the garden of the Monastery (in which we gathered orange blossoms in the open air early in January) a fine view of Etna is obtained, and one of the great lava-streams stopped just beyond the garden wall. The ascent of Etna is made from Catania, but the cone was thickly covered with snow, and the guides refused to make the ascent, so that we could only admire it from a distance. When Brydone visited Catania in 1770 he found there a con- siderable manufactory of amber crosses, beads, and figures of saints. " We bought," says he, " several of these respectable figures, and found them electrical in a high degree, powerfully attracting ir ^" T\'^iRiN s m m Amber Saints. 169 feathers, straws, and other light bodies, somewhat emblematical, you will say, of what they represent. Some pieces of this amber contain flies, and other insects, curiously preserved in its substance, and we were not a little entertained with the ingenuity of one of the artists, who had left a large blue-bottle fly with its wings expanded exactly over the head of a saint, to represent, he said, Lo Spirito Santo descending upon him." CHAPTER IX. SYRACUSE. Syracuse — The Fort ot Euryalus — The Greek Theatre — Stone Quarries — Ear of Dionysius — Latomia cli Cappuccini — Tomb of Archimedes — A despoiled Monastery of the Cappuccini — A Charnel-house — The Anapus and the Foun- tain of Cyane — The Papyrus Plant. mm W\^ T last the train from Messina, which travels scarcely ji|!(j: as fast as an old stage-coach, creeps into Catania, ■[(; : and late in the afternoon of a warm January day we take our seat for Syracuse. Our companions are an English lady going to Malta, and two or three Sicilians. We pass through some miles of desolate lava- strewn country covered with the prickly pear, then through groves of oranges and lemons. Meanwhile the sun is sinking fast, and lighting up the snow-capped peak of Etna ; the balmy air of midday is becoming chilly, and we feel unaccountably sleepy : presently the English lady (who lives in Messina) awakens us with many apologies, remarking that a foreigner is very apt to catch malarious fever if he sleeps at sundown, and with great difficulty we remain awake, chill and uncomfortable, until we reach Syracuse. The station is very dark, a few miserable oil lamps only make the gloom more oppressive, and the station yard is in complete dark- 4 Antonio. l''! ness. We call out in bad Italian for a cab, and are at once answered in unmistakable English, " There ain't any cabs here, sir ; here's an omnibus." At the same time a tall, dark man comes forward, tells us he is a Manchester man, a guide, and the only Englishman in all Syracuse, and begs to be allowed to show us the city. Whereupon we tell him that we had proposed to take Salvatore Politi, the custodian of the museum, for our guide, but upon his assuring us that Salvatore knows scarcely a word of English, we accept his services, and had no reason to regret having done so. Antonio proved himself a kind of Figaro ; he was at once guide, philosopher and friend, interpreter, major-domo, and valet. He was at the hotel early in the morning and late at night, recommended the best room and the best wine, kept beggars, touters, boatmen, at a distance, made bargains, arranged the day's proceedings, procured a capital open carriage, for which we paid six lire (about 4s. lOd.) a day, and was altogether a factotum. Add to this the fact that his charge was very small, and you per- ceive he was a useful man, but it must be confessed that he was too fond of the strong Syracusan wine, and was a far less efficient guide in the evening than in the earlier part of the day. It would be interesting to know more of the history of this man ; he is a fine, broad-shouldered fellow, evidently well acquainted with English life, and fond of sport. The only part of his history that he would tell us was that he was once in a different position in life, which we can quite credit. By this time the lumbering omnibus has passed the two drawbridges and the gates of the city, and we find ourselves in a dim-lighted narrow street, and soon after stop at the Locanda Victoria, where the landlord, who appeared also to keep a bookseller's shop, revived us with some capital fish and a bottle of Muscato di Siracuso. Early next morning came Antonio with the carriage, and we drove at once to the Fort of Euryalus, the western extremity of , Epipolse. Here we found a number of rock-hewn passages com- 172 Syracuse. raunicating with a great court, approaclied by flights of steps. The rock is full of galleries provided with openings at intervals through which the besieged could speedily retire into the inner- most parts of the fortress. There are also galleries for mounted men, positions for catapults, and a surrounding ditch. The whole constitutes one of the most interesting Greek remains in existence. Euryalus is the key of Epipolse. When Dionysius enclosed the city with the walls, the outline of which is still to be seen, he was care- ful to specially strengthen this north-west corner, and to erect upon OEEEK THEATRE AT STRACTTSE. it the stronghold, the ruins of which we see. It is probable that Archimedes, at the request of Hiero the Second, made important additions to the fort. The view from Euryalus was very fine : the sky was perfectly cloudless ; Etna covered with snow, and, forty miles away, looked only a few miles off in that clear air ; nearer at hand, Hybla was visible in the one direction, the sea in the other, and to the east the town. We then drove back to the Greek Theatre a ma^jnificent structure, and the largest of its kind after The Greek Theatre, 173 those of Miletus and Megalopolis, and the Theatre of Dionusos on the slope of the Acropolis. It is nearly semicircular, and consists of more than fifty tiers of seats hewn in the solid rock ; the eleven lower tiers were once cased in marble. It could accommodate no less than twenty-four thousand persons. A few inscriptions are still visible, among them the names of Hiero and his queen PhiUstis. . The view from the theatre is magnificent ; the spectators sitting in their places could command a full view of Ortygia and the harbour ; a little more to the west their eyes would roam over the vale of the Anapus and rest upon the great Temple of Zeus Olympius, and the monuments of Gelon and Damarata. In this theatre ^Eschylus recited some of his dramas, and here perhaps some of the comedies of Epicharmus were first acted. Near at hand is the rock- hewn street of tombs in which, as in Pompeii, the ruts left by the chariot wheels can still be traced ; its rocky sides are full of cavities long since robbed of their dead. Descending from the street of tombs, we reach the Latomia del Paradiso, one of the numerous quarries in which prisoners and slaves were con- fined and compelled to work, and from which the stone for building the walls was procured. In one of the quarried caves men were engaged in extracting nitre from the soil. Scores of slaves had lived and died in that cavern, and now, after the lapse of centuries, the nitrogen which had entered into the composition of their blood, and muscle, and brain, was converted into nitre. The soil is so excessively nitrous that it is only necessary to boil it with water, and strain off the clear liquid, which on cooling deposits a plentiful crop of crystals. Near the nitre cavern is the so-called ear of Dionysius, a curious curved cavern a hundred feet long, and seventy or eighty high. It narrows to a thin curved roof, and this no doubt has much to do with the peculiar acoustic properties of the cavern. The least sound is augmented by reflection to an extra- ordinary extent, the voice is painfully loud, a piece of paper flipped by the finger produces a noise like the report of a pistol, and the dis- 174 Syracuse. charge of a pistol produces a succession of reverberations exceeding that of any thunder-stcrm we ever witness in this country. Near the upper tiers of seats of the Greek Theatre there is a passage which £s1ACIJSEanditsENV1RQNI3 C<tStf2luri'tti\ inicks wudtr Scale. 1 ^ V"'! Mtt^ leads to a small chamber placed at one extremity of the roof of the ear of Dionysius ; here it is possible to hear every word uttered by a person below, more than a hundred feet distant, even if he speaks in a low voice. Whether there is any truth in the suppo- Latomia de Cappuccini, 175 sition that this cavern was used by Dionysiiis as a place of confine- ment for State prisoners, and that every word they uttered was heard by a person placed in the roof-chamber, we cannot pretend to decide, but we certainly never saw a more complete arrangement for eaves-dropping. Near the beautiful Greek Theatre is an ungraceful Eoman amphitheatre, which is quite devoid of interest from any point of view, and will bear no comparison with such structures as the arenas of Verona and Aries. Close to the amphitheatre is a large tabular mass of masonry nearly seven hundred feet long, which is called the altar of Hiero II., and upon which it is believed the hecatombs of oxen were annually offered in commemoration of the expulsion of Thrasybulus. Further to the east in the Achradina (where ax/oaSes are said still to grow), we come to the Catacombs, an underground city of the dead hewn out of a somewhat soft rock, and believed to contain at least eight miles of passages. Near to this is the Church of San Giovanni founded in 1182, and beneath it is the Crypt of Marcian, in which is shown the altar from the steps of which S. Paul preached when he landed at Syracuse. There can be no doubt of the extreme anti- quity of the crypt. Close to this ancient church is the Latomia de Cappuccini, the quarry in which it is believed the Athenian prisoners were confined. It is shut in by vertical rocks covered with vegetation, and below is full of lemon trees and pomegranates. The sides of the rocks, wherever a chink can be found, are covered with caper plants, while here and there is seen the fig and the olive. There are a few graves of Enoiish and American sailors, the inscription being rudely cut upon the adjacent rock. The place is now a luxuriant garden, with nothing to remind us of what once took place in it. Everything around is peaceful and smiling. "Yet this is the scene of a great agony. This garden was once the Gethsemane of a nation where seven thousand free men of the proudest city of Greece were brought by an unexampled stroke of 176 Syracuse. fortune, to slavery, shame, and a miserable end. Here they dwindled away, worn out by wounds, disease, thirst, hunger, heat by day, and cold by night, heart sickness, and the insufferable stench of the putrifying corpses. The pupils of Socrates, the admirers of Euripides, the orators of the Pnyx, the athletes of the Lyceum, lovers, and comrades, and philosophers, died here like dogs ; and the dames of Syracuse stood doubtless on those parapets above, and looked upon them like wild beasts. What the Gorgo of Theocritus might have said to her friend Praxinoe on the occasion, would be the subject of an idyll a la Browning ! How often, pining in those great glaring pits, which were not then curtained with ivy or canopied by olive trees, must the Athenians have thought with vain remorse of their own Ehamnusian Nemesis, the goddess who held scales adverse to the hopes of men, and bore the legend — ' Be not lifted up ' ! How often must they have watched the dawn walk forth fire-footed upon the edge of those bare crags, or the stars slide from east to west across the narrow space of sky ! How they must have envied the unfettered cloud sailing in liquid ether, or traced the far flight of hawk and swallow, sighing, ' Oh that I too had the wings of a bird ! ' The weary eyes turned up- wards found no change or respite, save what the frost of night brought to the fire of day, and the burning sun to the pitiless cold constellations."''' As we returned from the Latomia de Cappuccini we were shown the tombs of Archimedes and Timoleon ; on the former we could trace no signs of the cylinder and the sphere which Marcellus caused to be engraved upon it, and by which in after years Cicero discovered it near one of the gates of AKCllIMEDES. * " Sketches in Italy and Greece," by J. A. Symonds. Compare the conclusion of the Seventh Book of Thucydides Avith this description. Modern Syracuse. 177 the city, overgrown with thorns, and forgotten. Indeed it is believed that these tombs are far later monuments to Eoman citizens. Near the entrance to the city stands a single column which once belonged to a temple of Ceres ; in the open space around it the peasants winnow their corn, and celebrate harvest festivals. The bread of Sicily is worthy of the Island of Ceres, for, although it is unfermented, it is perfectly white, and is made in the form of the most tempting little loaves one can imao-ine. TOMB OF AKCHIMEDES. Of the present city of Syracuse there is but little to be said, A town of about twenty thousand inhabitants entirely confined to the island, full of narrow dirty lanes, unlighted by gas, and offering no attraction of any kind. We believe there is not an English- man in the place (except Antonio), even our consul is an Italian. The morality of the place is at a low ebb ; stabbing societies exist, and a very few lire suffice to put a man out of the world. In many respects Syracuse resembles the lowest part of the Quartier St. Antoine in Paris. Of actual sights in the citv, there is the 1^8 Syracuse. Cathedral built on the site of an ancient temple, and between some of its massive columns ; there is the Museum containing a finely-draped but headless Venus : and there is the Fountain of Arethusa, planted with papyrus. Adjoining the Latomia de Cappuccini is the Monastery, from which the stone-quarry takes its name. Till recently it was a flourishing institution, full of fat Sicilian monks, but when Italy came to be united into one kingdom, under one sovereign, it shared the fate of the greater number of Italian monasteries : the monks were expelled, and the building converted to secular uses. We saw lately in Rome a large monastery which had been thus taken from the clerics, and converted into science laboratories in connection with a technical college, with Signor Cannizzaro, Senatore del Regno, as Director. We have heard Roman Catholics of the Papal party complain most bitterly of such appropriations, not apparently so much because the monasteries contained, in their opinion, a useful body of men, of service to the State, or at least to the Church, but because they afforded places of retirement and repose, in the decline of life, to a large number of persons. Further, it is urged that monasteries tend to prevent starvation among the lowest classes of the community, in a country which possesses neither poor-rates nor work- houses. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that they harboured a number of people too lazy to work, and glad to live by begging in the name of the monastery as a charitable institu- tion. Mr. Sayce (in the Fortniglithj Review for October 1st, 1875) gives a curious account of a monastery at Gubbio, which " had so fattened upon the decay and demoralisation of the town that, out of a population of six thousand, between two and three thousand were entirely supported by that institution, whose weekly doles saved them from the trouble of workino; for their bread. The oversown resources of the Monas- tery were the monopoly of twenty monks, each of whom kept a Monastery of the Cappitccini. 179 family in the town. When the Monastery was dissolved, the monks and their families, amounting in all to some two hundred persons, were added to the standing army of beggars, and the landed proprietors in the place find themselves compelled, by the fear of an emcute, to support as best they can this idle and degraded population." The members of the primitive monasteries had four main objects in view — solitude, labour, fasting, and prayer ; to these were added a fifth — poverty. No one could recognise in many of the monasteries of Italy, institutions which would have found favour in the eyes of S. Benedict, S. Bernard, S. Dominic, or S. Francis. Although we should be grieved to see the spoliation of such grand and historic institutions as Monte Cassino and the Convent of S. Calixtus, we can but regard the suppression of the monasteries by the Italian Government as a most wise policy. Monasticism in this nineteenth century, this busy work-a-day world, is an anachronism. Essentially a mediaeval institution, it has outlived its age : it is an ecclesiastical Struldbrug. But we are on our way to the suppressed Monastery of the Cappuccini, which is about half-a-mile outside Syracuse, near the coast of Achradina, and from which a lovely view of the town and harbour may be obtained. Antonio tells us that if we are inclined to stay in Syracuse at any time for a month or two, he could get us rooms in the Monastery, for, we really forget what, ridiculously small sum of money a month ; and he promises splendid shooting over Lysimeleia and the marshes around the Anapus — flocks of woodcock and snipe, and a liost of other birds. On our way to the Monastery we passed a benevolent-looking old man, who saluted Antonio with a grace worthy of Louis Quatorze, He was once a monk in the neighbouring Monastery, and it was his duty to show the charnel-house to visitors. Now it once happened that an English yacht put into Syracuse harbour, and the inmates of it, including a doctor, visited the Monastery. In the charnel-house 180 Syracuse. the doctor noticed a very fine skull, so well proportioned and anatomically perfect that he coveted it, and offered the monk ten lire for it. The latter was unable to resist the offer, he reached down the skull from its shelf, and it was presently on its way to England. But the mercenary monk was discovered, and promptly dismissed, and from that day to this, said Antonio, he has never prospered. It was otherwise in a monastery in Rome, where we have heard a man say he was shown a collection of bones of the saints, and on asking for a morsel as a relic, was politely told, " Take what you will, Signor ;" whereupon he carried ofi" a sanctified tibia in his sleeve. Having reached the Monastery, we are met at the gate by the chief inhabitant, a coarse-looking boot-maker, whose wife had charge of a small collection of native wines. In fact a part of the Monastery was converted into a kind of inn, and one or two persons lived in other portions of it. The boot-maker, Antonio in- formed me, was the possessor of a capital voice, and accompanied himself on the guitar in a really creditable way. We tried in vain to get him to perform, but were, unfortunately, a little too im- portunate, for when we showed a good deal of eagerness to hear him, the man all at once turned shy, and declared we were a maestro from Naples come to see the musical nakedness of the land. The interior of the building was dreary in the extreme ; it contained large, vaulted, whitewashed rooms and passages echoing to the tread, but otherwise dull, desolate, and lifeless ; an empty refectory, in which some two hundred monks could have dined ; and a chapel, the most dark, and terrible, and God-forsaken we ever saw, better fitted for the mysteries of Isis and Horus, than for the worship of the Saviour and the Virgin mother. The chapel stands in the very heart of the building ; it is ill- lighted, tawdry, full of faded tinsel, cobwebs, dust, and ashes ; a high-altar, surmounted by some barbarous specimen of modern art, and flanked by a couple of dusty glass cases, each containing the The Charnel-house. 181 mummy of a deceased monk clad in his brown habit. But greater horrors awaited us yet. A large wooden trap door in the floor was opened, and we were requested to descend. On entering the crypt we saw niches in the wall around us, and in every niche the horrible, shrivelled remains of what had once been a man. "What thou art I was once: what I am thou shalt be soon," was written in a conspicuous place. Boxes were placed on the floor and on shelves ; they each contained similar horrible relics of humanity, dressed in the clothes they had worn. It was the cus- tom of the monks to place a deceased brother in a small chamber containino- lime for some weeks after his death, at the end of which time he would be found a mummy, the dry, shrivelled skin clinging horribly to the almost projecting bones. It was pitiful to see these poor remains; "chapless and knocked about the mazzard." Antonio pointed out a round hole in the breast of one of the occupants of a niche, and remarked, "There is a rat's nest there." There was a hideous little mummy dressed in a faded biretta, a dingy alb, and a discoloured stole, upon which was placed a small ticket setting forth that it was the Canon Stephano, who had died at such-and-such a date. We shall not easily forget the ghastly aspect which the skull presented ; a set of grinning teeth, deep eye-sockets, the shrunken skin parted on each side of the nose ; it reminded one a little of the figure of Death, in Albert Durer's " Knight and Death." Surely Holbein must have visited such a place as this while he was painting his " Dance of Death." There are several of his subjects which are not unconnected with our Canon : — the preacher over whose head Death holds a jawbone, to show that he is the better preacher; the priest whom Death accom- panies, as he carries the viaticum to a dying person ; the Canon before whom Death holds up an hour-glass as he enters a cathedral ; and the Mendicant Friar, who is just entering his Monastery, with full money box and w^allet, and who is seized by the cowl and dragged back by Death, while underneath is 182 Syracuse. written, " Sedentis in tenehris et in urnhra mortis, vinctos in mendicitate." The Canon Stephano is the culminating point of the charnel- liouse horrors. Enough, enough ! " Call the carriage, Antonio," " Ecco calzalaio, grazie, grazie ;" thank heaven we are once more in the blessed light of day. Such places have not in them any- thing that savours of immortality ; we are brought face to face with corruption in its most ghastly forms, and the refrain of our souls is, " Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery ;" but as we issue from the loathsomeness of the charnel-house into the bright air above, and find ourselves in the presence of teeming Nature, the old form ever-dying, the new form ever-born, it is then that the refrain of our souls becomes, " I am the resurrection and the life," and we feel that in a double sense we have passed from darkness into light. It is pleasant to turn from the horrors of the Cappuccini charnel-house to the bright, sunny scenery around Syracuse. Before eio-ht o'clock the next moruin^ Antonio came to the hotel to conduct us to the Anapus and the Fountain of Cyane. There was no breakfast to be had at a moment's notice, so we bought some bread and oranges by the way, and hastened down to the harbour, where we found a boat and three boatmen waiting for us. Having rowed across the Great Harbour, we soon came opposite the mouth of the Anapus, when the boat suddenly grounded on a sand-bank, and the sailors got out and began to push it over the bar. We then entered the river, a most insignificant stream bounded by high banks covered with luxuriant vegetation, and with the large reeds seen throughout Southern Italy. The boat had to be pulled, and sometimes one or two men got out and towed it. The Anapus is now a mere streamlet, not so large as the Wilt- shire Kennett in dry weather, and it could never have been much, if indeed it were at all, larircr than it is now. It is curious. The Anapus. 183 therefore, to find it described by Theocritus as /xlyavpoov"' (Idyll 1, 1. 68), and more curious to find this translated " the hroad stream of Anapus" by Banks, and agaiu, " hroad Anapus" by Chapman. Edwards, in his Latin translation of Theocritus (1779), has trans- lated it magnum Jlumen. As the passage in which this occurs is without doubt one of the greatest beauties of Theocritus, closely imitated by Virgil, Milton, Pope, and Lord Lyttleton, we give it in full. Banks translates it as follows : — " Begin, dear Muses, the bucolic strain ! For Thyrsis sings, your own iEtnean swain. Where were ye, Nymphs, when Daphnis pined away, Where through his Tempe Peneus loves to stray, Or Pindus lifts himself ? Ye were not here. Where broad Anapus flows, or Acis clear. Or where tall JEtna looks out on the main." Fawkes (of the Idylliums of Theocritus, 1767) gives the fol- lowing translation : — " Where were ye, Nymphs, when Daphnis pined with love ? Did ye on Pindus' steepy top reside ? Or where through Tempe Peneus rolls his tide ? For where the waters of Anapus flowed. Famed streams, ye play'd not, nor on Etna's brow, Nor where chaste Acis laves Sicilian plains, Begin, ye Muses, sweet bucolic strains." About three-quarters of a mile from the mouth of the Anapus the Cyane enters it, and we turned into this smaller stream, both in order to see the papyrus, and to reach the clear source of the river, called the Fountain of Cyane. Low, marshy ground lay on both sides of the river, and not far from its junction with the Anapus we saw two columns of the famous Olympieum, the * Ov yap Srj Trorafjuo ye [xeyav poov. 184 Syracuse. Temple of Zeus Olympius, in which Gelon placed a statue of the god covered with a mantle of gold. It was near to this spot, according to ancient legend, that Pluto descended with Proserpine into the lower regions. As we moved slowly up the narrow rivulet, we soon came in sight of the papyrus growing in the water at the edge of the bank, in a state of great luxuriance. It is a beautiful tufted reed which grows to a height of from twelve to fifteen feet, and the stem may attain a diameter of two inches. This is the only place in Europe — almost in the world — where the Egyptian papyrus (Cyperus Papyrus) grows, and it has probably been found on the banks of the Cyane for more than two thousand years. The only other place in which it has been seen of late years is on the banks of a small river a few miles north of Jaffii. It has quite died out of Egypt, probably because it was only The Papyrus. 185 allowed to be grown in certain parts of the country belonging to the Government, in order that it might increase in value. "The remarkable prophecy of Isaiah," writes Sir Gardner Wilkinson,'"' "has come to pass which foretold that the papyrus should be no more in Egypt : ' The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks . . . shall wither, be driven away, and be no more,' and this Egyptian plant no longer grows in Egypt. Yet its name is des- tined to survive ; the ' Bible,' or book, is so called from the hyhlus, and its other name, pajDyriis, will be perpetuated in 'paper.'" Papyrus paper is still prepared, in small quantities, at Syracuse, as a specimen of an obsolete manufacture ; it is not nearly so smooth or even as the best kinds of ancient papyrus, but it is prepared in the same way. The rind is taken from the stem of the reed, and the light pith within is sliced longitudinally, the thin strips thus produced are placed side- by-side on a flat board, and a second layer is placed upon them at right angles to the first, then they are gummed and firmly pressed, and are afterwards dried. Pliny gives a full account of the manufacture in ancient times, and mentions that the tufts at the top of the long reeds were used to deck the statues of the gods. Papyrus paper seems to have been more or less in use till the time of Charlemagne, when it was superseded by parchment. As we pushed our boat along we frequently met with small forests of the papyrus, the drooping heads of which hung over into the boat and brushed us lightly as we passed ; at length we reached the source of the rivulet, a circular basin some fifty or sixty feet in diameter, full of exquisitely clear and blue water. The name Cyane is no doubt connected with Kvavo?. This is the very fount, say the myths, into which the nymph Cyane was changed for daring to oppose the will of Pluto. Every spot here is connected with some mythological story, and the name, as * Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. 186 Syracuse. in tliis case, has often endured from the earliest times of Sicilian pastoral poetry. Keturning to Syracuse, we note the remains of the ancient bridge near the junction of the Anapus and the Cyane, also some magnificent Sicilian oxen browsing in the marshes. The whole landscape is flooded with bright sunlight (it is the 7th of January), and it is as warm as an English August day ; wild flowers are blooming on all sides, and we begin to realise more fully than we ever did before, why the earlier idyllic poets were the children of this beautiful land. o o >!^/;®"%'/^ CHAPTER X. PALERMO AND GIEGENTI. Entrance to the Harbour of Palermo — Situation of the City — The Conca d'Oro — General Character of the City — The Martorana — The Cappella Palatina — The Cathedral of Monreale — The Cloisters — The Cathedral of Palermo — The Museum of Antiquities — Th'e Catacombs — Monte Pellegrino and the Grotto of S. Rosalia — Journey to Girgeuti — Present State of Brigandage in Sicily — Girgenti — Its Situation — The Temples — The Rock of Athene — Sulphur Mines — The Cathedral of Girgenti — A Curious Bajitismal Ceremony — The Acoustic Peculiarity of the Cathedral — The Prison of Girgenti — Statistics of Crime — Brydone's Visit to Girgenti in 1770. ^[T^jT six o'clock Id tlie evening we leave Naples, uj(| too late to see the bay to advantage at this time y^ of the j-ear (January 3rd). Before startino-, we have leisure to see the sun set behind the town, while Capri and the Calabrian coast are shrouded in a thin blue mist, and the smoke of Vesuvius is red- dened by the last rays of the sun. As we steam out of the harbour, the Castle of S. Elmo is dimly visible above the town, and the line of the bay is marked out by a row of gas lamps. Our boat is unpleasantly crowded, and although the sea is very calm, the conviction that the Italians are bad sailors is often forced upon us in a very dis- agreeable manner. There were on board an entire opera company going to Palermo to perform during the Carnival, 188 Palermo and Girgenti. and a number of soldiers whose immediate object was to put down brigandage in Sicily. We had a very smooth passage, and a clear, starlit night. At half -past six the next morning there was a pale yellow glow in the east, and it was sufficiently light to read. A thin haze floated on the water, through which the Island of Ustica was visible on the one hand, and the Sicilian coast on the other. The sun rose clear from the sea without any accompaniment of clouds at a quarter past seven, and an hour later the mountains which surround Palermo were clearly seen : — Monte Pellegrino with its zio-zaof road leadina; to the Grotto of S. Rosalia on the rio;ht, and Monte Catalfano on the left. Palermo is situated at the edge of a plain, enclosed on the west, south, and south-east sides by mountains, while to the north and north-east it is open to the sea. The plain has thus somewhat the form of a shell, and it is called the Conca d'Oro or golden shell, on account of its great fertility. The city is surrounded by orange and lemon groves, and even in midwinter roses and lilies blossom in the open air. In fact the coldest weather is like an English June, and the mornings and evenings even in January are very mild. Owing to its proximity to the sea the landscape is often overcast, and the perfectly cloudless sky which is so often seen in the interior of southern lands is seldom observed here. In consequence of the great masses of cloud which float in from the north, the effects of light and shade are very striking : great shadows frequently pass over the landscape and travel up the sides of the mountains, and the sun may be shining brightly on one part of the city while another is shaded by a densely-black cloud, and the low hills in the vicinity may at the same time be capped by clouds. We have never seen such a continuous change of lio-hts. At this moment the hills to the south-east are in shadow, a briafht spot of sunshine rests on Monreale and the lower part of Monte Cuccio, a cloud rests on its summit ; Monte Pellegrino is in complete shadow, the mountains just behind it in complete sunshine, while 2e Church of La Marforana. 189 a thousand lights and shades pLay upon the sea. A few minutes later and the whole scene is changed ; in fact, from morning till night the lights and shadows, and half-lights and half-shades, are not constant for one moment, yet in the valley not a breath of wind is felt, and one wonders at the constant movement of the clouds. Palermo still justifies its Greek name, Panormus {ttciv, all; op/xos, harbour) ; and formerly the name was still more appropriate, because the small harbour, called La Sala, extended much further into the city than it now does, and separated the Acropolis from the outlying portions of the city. In fact, one arm of the harbour is believed to have extended as far as the present site of the King's Palace, now nearly a mile from the water's edge. Even before the Greeks settled here, the harbour was employed by the Phoenicians, and a town arose on the site of the present city. The modern Palermo is a town of about 200,000 inhabitants, square as to its shape, and divided into four nearly equal portions by two long streets, which intersect each other in the centre of the town. It has had many masters, and at one time or other of its existence has been governed by Phoenicians, Greeks, .Romans, Arabians, Normans, French, Spaniards, and Italians. In spite of its antiquity Palermo contains but few objects of interest. It has several early Norman churches, and a few rem- nants of Saracenic architecture. Among these is the church called La Martorana, which was erected by the Admiral Georgios Antiochenos early in the thirteenth century. It possesses three apses, and a dome supported by four columns ; the interior is covered with fine mosaics, which have Greek inscriptions. The church has from time to time been disfigured by additions in very bad taste ; it is now being judiciously restored by the Government. The Campanile is worthy of notice. The finest mosaics in Sicily are in the Cajppella Palatina, the 190 Palermo and Gir genii. King's Private Chapel in the Eoyal Palace, which was erected by Roger IX. in 1132, and is in every respect a gem of Saracenic architecture. The floor is of marble, inlaid in designs with coloured stones, as also are the walls for the first ten or twelve feet of their height, beyond which they are entirely covered with fine mosaics on a gold ground. The ceiling is of the indented nature so often seen in Moorish buildings, and the mosaics have inscriptions in Greek, Latin, and sometimes Cufic. In the centre of the central apse Christ is repre- sented as a majestic half-figure in the act of blessing, while the wall mosaics represent THE HANDS OF CHRIST. sccncs from both the Old and fAMosaicofthelSthCentvryintheChurchofLaMartorana.J-\T T' ■(- f 'VV. f^ fl, dral of Monreale, which is situated on the side of a hiU KING ROGER OF SICILY RECEIVING HIS CROWN FROM of Monreale, wnicn is situatea on tne siae oi a four miles from Palermo, is also famed for its mosaics, which cover a space of more than 60,000 square feet, and are invaluable records of the art of the twelfth century. When we remember how very lengthy and laborious is the construction of even a few square feet of mosaic, it is obvious that the amount of labour expended upon the internal decoration of this cathedral must have been prodigious. These imperishable pictures represent scenes from the Old and New Testament, commencing with the creation, and ending with the life of S. Paul. In the great central apse is a singularly majestic head of Christ, with the inscription — I. Xp. iravTOKpaTwp, and beneath it an enthroned Madonna. <! O o" o Q Cathedral of Monreale. 191 The floor of tlie Cathedral consists of inlaid marbles, and the walls, as far as the commencement of the mosaics, are of white marble, relieved at intervals by inlaid work. The ceiling, which is new, is in good taste, and presents a bril- liant mass of colour. Other con- spicuous objects are the thrones of the King and Archbishop on opposite sides of the choir. They are of fine marble inlaid work, and have rich mosaics above them. Alto- gether the Cathedral presents a most brilliant mass of coloured decora- . tion, without being offensively _: gaudy, or in bad taste. We had the good fortune to see it on the l| day of a great festa, and the effect^^l. was extremely striking. The whole of the choir, which occupies about; half the area of the Cathedral, was filled with canons, priests, and ' choristers. The Archbishop was on his throne, on the steps of which stood various assistants in the cere- monies, in robes of purple. The choristers on the side of the Arch- bishop wore long purple cassocks edged with red, and black birettas ; while those on the other side wore red cassocks and red birettas. The effect of this many-coloured assemblage, combined with the magni- ficent decoration of the choir, was gorgeous in the extreme when seen from a little distance, especially when a long, slant beam of sunlight would suddenly fall upon one part of the building, thereby CAMPANILE OF THE CHUECH OF LA MARTORANA. 192 Palermo and Girgenti. bringing out its brilliant colouring with an intense vividness. The only thing that was quite incongruous in the service was the singing, which was execrable in the extreme. The organ, a large and new instrument, was one of those peculiar constructions called Orchestrion, or some such name, which combines a number of instruments with the organ; thus trumpets could be blown, and CLOISTEKS OF THE MONASTEKY OF MONREALE. drums beaten at will, and at first we were quite convinced that an orchestra was stationed behind the organ. When the Archbishop's procession entered, the organist played a very lively operatic air, with accompaniments of cymbals and kettledrums ; during the rest of the service he chiefly confined himself to the organ portion of the instrument; the singing was altogether out of tune; and, from a musical point of view, the service was most slovenly. Cathedral of Palermo. 193 The Cathedral of Monreale is a very unpretending and, indeed, unsightly building outside. It possesses a nave, two side aisles, and three apses. The arches of the interior are Saracenic, and the capitals of the columns and all the surface above them are covered with mosaic. The bronze doors, which are in admirable preser- vation, were erected in 1186, and within the Cathedral there are some massive sarcophagi of porphyry of the same period, which are the tombs of King William I. and his three sons. The Benedictine Abbey of Monreale was founded in 1174 by William XL, and the Cathedral was the abbey church. All that now remains of the abbey is the garden, and, near at hand, some beautiful cloisters, supported by 216 coliimns of white marble placed in pairs. The capitals of these columns are all different, and the shafts were formerly covered with mosaic ; the empty groovings which one now notices were for the reception of mosaic work, traces of which remain on many of the columns. The cloisters date from the twelfth century. The Cathedral of Palermo, dedicated to S. Rosalia, the patron saint of the city, possesses a few external points of beauty ; some of the windows for example, and the graceful Norman towers ; but it has been so often restored and so often disfigured that there is very little to be said about it. Towards the end of the last century a Neapolitan architect made the whole building an eyesore, by erecting a dome altogether out of keeping with the rest of the structure. Within, the building is most unsightly; its plain, white- washed walls and roof are a strange contrast to the gorgeousness of Monreale, and an attempt to decorate the ceiling of the choir has resulted in a most miserable failure. Red and blue streamers hang down between the circular arches, and at the western extremity of the building hangs a portrait of Victor Emmanuel under a kind of canopy, before which are placed four candlesticks. The Cathedral possesses four magnificent and massive sarcophagi of porphyry, which would be more suitably placed in Monreale. They belong ^94 Palermo and Girgenti. to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and contain the remains of King Eoger, Henry VI., Frederick II., and of Constance, the daughter of King Eoger, and wife of Henry VI. The sarcophao-i were opened nearly a century ago, and the remains of the Emperor Frederick were found to be but little decomposed in the course of more than five hundred years. He was clad in magnificently embroidered robes, covered with Arabic inscriptions, and the im- perial crown and sword lay by his side. The crown and a part of the robe are in the sacristy : the former is a kind of leather skull- cap, covered with large uncut gems ; the latter is entirely covered with embroidery of seed-pearls and gold thread. The only other church of any interest in Palermo is a small ruined structure dedi- cated to S. Giovanni degli Fremiti, which is of great antiquity, and bears evidence of its Eastern origin. It is in the form of a tau cross, and possesses three apses, covered by a large central dome and four smaller domes, like S. Mark's in Venice. The bell of this church was the first to ring the alarm at the time of the massacre known as the Sicilian Vespers, in 12S2. Of other buildings worthy of passing notice there is the Arch- bishop's Palace, which possesses a beautiful tower of the twelfth century, connected with the Cathedral by a flying arch high in the air. The present Archbishop, Monsignor Michael Angelo Celesia, was formerly Abbot of Monte Cassino, and belongs to a noble Sicilian family. He refuses to acknowledge the present King of Italy, and has consequently been turned out of his palace and deprived of his revenues. He lives in the Archbishop's Seminary close by, and receives his salary from the Pope. The Government cannot take further stej s ; they have no power to appoint a new Archbishop. The Sicilians generally are very disafi'ected towards the Government, and would probably revolt if they got the chance. Near the Archbishop's Palace there is a great hospital, erected in 1330, and now used as a barrack. It contains several cinque- cento frescoes, one of them the '• Triumph of Death," surely a most o S S ►J < o o Mtisettm of Antiqtnties, 195 inappropriate subject for a hospital — at least inappropriate to be before the eyes of the patients. Palermo possesses a large and flourishing university, and a library well supplied with works relating to Sicilian history. The Museum of Antiquities has lately undergone considerable extension, and it now contains some good examples of early Greek and Etruscan sculpture. Some of the former go back as far as the seventh century before Christ, and are older than any existing Greek sculptures, with the exception of the Lions at Mycenae. The sculptures at Palermo are mainly from Selinus and Selinunto ; they are, unfortunately, executed in very coarse sandstone, and in many instances are much worn by the weather. The exposed portions — face, hands, and feet — of the female figures are of white marble, while the drapery, and the whole of the male figures, is of the coarse sandstone used for the other portions of the temples. Another of the great treasures of the Museum is the Bronze Eam of Syracuse, an undoubted Greek work, of great per- fection. The Museum contains a few good pictures, some capital terra-cottas and vases, a good collection of Sicilian coins (con- cerninsf which the Director of the Museum, Signer Salinas, is writing a long-expected mono- graph), and a fine bronze group from Pompeii. (^^^'^ »«■ "^^ iVMsewin, at Pu;emo.> The sheltered Conca d'Oro is very warm even in the middle of winter, and the greater number of our hot-house plants flower in the open air. Camellias and orange blossoms, and many other flowers, may be purchased for a mere trifle. Some of the villas around Palermo have beautiful gardens, and within the city there are several squares laid out as gardens. Perhaps the prettiest of these is that called La Flora, a promenade, one side of 2 F BRONZE RAM OF SYRACUSE. 196 Palermo and Girgenti. wliicli faces the sea. It is laid out with numerous walks, shaded by orange trees, and contains statues, fountains, and small Greek temples. We were a little surprised one afternoon when the band was playing in the gardens to suddenly come upon an enclosure planted with large cypress trees, and containing tombs. To com- bine a pleasure garden with a cemetery seemed somewhat incon- gruous ; but on closer inspection we found that the tombs were dedicated to the memory of great Sicilians who had lived long ago — Archimedes, Theocritus, Empedocles, and so on. The environs of Palermo, in all directions save that of Monte Pellegrino, are still very unsafe ; mounted soldiers patrol the road between Palermo and Monreale, and it is considered alto- gether a risk to go as far as Selinus, or even a little beyond Monreale to San Martino. AVe visited a Saracenic chateau called La Zisa, about a mile from the gate of the town. The view from the flat roof is lovely in all directions ; and below, the Moorish aspect of the building still reveals itself by the fountain and fish- pond, and by the Arabic inscription. Near La Zisa is the Monas- tery of Cappuccini (now converted into barracks), in the Catacombs of which the rich people of Palermo deposit their dead. For some months the dead are placed in dry earth, perhaps mixed with lime ; at the end of that time they are taken up, and dressed in the clothes which they wore during their lifetime, and are then either put in a wooden coffer and deposited in the Catacombs, or are placed in a standing position against the walls. The long corridors of the Catacombs are thickly lined with these miserable relics of mortality, which look down upon you from the upper walls, to which they are fastened, in a horrible fashion. Each one bears in his hand a placard, setting forth his name, age, and date of death. Some hold in their hands a photograph of themselves, taken when they were full of life and health. One word more about these horrors, and we have done. On a certain occasion some men were carrying a corpse to its assigned position in the vaults. They had PORTA NUOVA. PALERMO. The Grotto of S. Rosalia. IST' descended the steps, cand were proceeding through one of the long corridors, when they suddenly observed a skull move to the edge of one of the shelves, and roll off on to the floor ; again it began to move, and the men, thoroughly frightened, threw down the coffin, and rushed upstairs as fast as their legs could carry them. Having told their story of the animated skull, a number of people deter- mined to see the phenomenon, and having arrested the motion of the still moving skull, they found a rat inside it. We made a pilgrimage to the Grotto of S. Rosalia, near the summit of Monte Pellegrino. The zigzag road, built on arches, is very tedious, and it is better to follow a goat path. After a climb of more than an hour from the base of the mountain we come in siMit of the Grotto, the front of which is now hidden by a church, through which one passes to the abode of the saint. It is said that S. Rosalia chose to live in this cavern from motives of piety, and that she died there. Her remains were not discovered till 1664, at which time the plague was raging at Palermo. It was speedily banished by the presence of the sacred relics, and from that time S. Rosalia has been the patron saint of Palermo. The Cathedral is dedicated to her, and every year there are festivals in her honour. Thousands of people make a pilgrim- age to her cave, the town is illuminated, and there are horse races, and several days of fete. In the Grotto there is an altar to mark the spot where the remains were found, and beneath it there is a beautiful recumbent statue of the saint in white marble, somewhat too profusely gilt. A boy who was wandering about near the church ran in, took a candle from the altar, and thrust it almost into the face of the statue that we mis^ht the better observe it. He appeared to be the only person in the place. As we descended the mountain we fell in with a herd of about two hundred goats, which had been browsing on its scanty herbage during the day, and were now returning to Palermo. We vrere anxious to see the ruined temples at Girgenti, and as 198 Palermo and Girgenti. the railway between that town and Palermo had just been opened, we decided not to adopt the usual plan of going by sea, but to try the new route. The distance between the two towns is less than a hundred miles, but the journey occupies seven hours, and some- times more. Nothing can be more tedious : the train stops at GKOTTO OF S. ROSALIA. every small station, and the officials gossip and waste time to their heart's content. We have heard, however, that before the railway was completed as much as three days were sometimes occupied by the journey, or rather by attempts to effect the journey, at a time youniey to Girgeiiti. 199 Avhen the winter rains had rendered the rivers almost impassable. The present line is only a single one, and it has been nearly com- pleted for some time; prior to the 16th of last December (1876), it was necessary to break the journey, and drive seven miles by diligence, and the accommodation was often quite insufficient, so that it happened that but few persons visited Girgenti by that route. The completed railway has made a good deal of difference ; althouoh the train started between five and six in the morninsj, the station was crowded, and our one enfrine had to drag thirteen heavy carriages. No wonder the progress was slow. The line does not appear to be very well constructed, or perhaps the sleepers have not yet settled into their places. The shaking was excessive, and the unevenness of the rails at times very apparent. Not many days previously the train had run off the line near Acquaviva, and the passengers suffered a delay of several hours. It is now proposed to run an express train between Palermo and Girgenti, at the considerable rate (for Sicily) of nearly thirty miles an hour ; but it is questionable whether the line, at least in its present condition, can stand the wear and tear, and we should be sorry to be among the passengers on the first occasion of the increased velocity. For the first twenty-five miles the line runs to the south-east, turning due south after passing the river Torto, a little above the village of Cerda. The scenery is not very attractive — the sea on one side, and grey hills clothed with scanty vegetation on the other, while in the plain there are olive trees or vineyards, and sometimes corn, and occasional groves of oranges. Near the town of Termini we notice on the shore several miles of long, narrow nets for the tunny fishery, and many scores of people mending them. About half-way between Palermo and Girgenti we come to Lercara, a town of nearly ten thousand inhabitants, and the northern limit of the sulphur mines. It was within a short distance of this station that Mr. Rose, an English sulphur merchant, residing in Sicily, was 200 Palermo and Girgenh. captured by brigands a few months ago. His ransom was fixed at £2400, and until it was jDaid the brigands carried him about from place to place, hiding during the day in caves, and moving rapidly to a new hiding-place during the night. As soon as Mr. Eose was liberated, he took active steps to recover the amount of his ransom- money from the Italian Government, and we believe the suit is still pending. It seemed to be generally thought in Sicily that the Government would refuse to pay the money, and in speaking of it people said, "Would your Government pay back the money which a robber had taken from you in England?" At all events, the action of Mr. Rose, and the prompt and severe notice taken of the occurrence by the leading European newspapers, has caused the Italian Government to act with unusual vigilance. Troops are being sent to Sicily ; there is a gunboat in the harbour of Naples at the service of the coast cities, and one of the most active colonels in the Italian army has been sent to the island to take the chief command. Our train contained a number of soldiers whose destination was Girgenti, and there were soldiers at every station armed with pistols in addition to their usual weapons. The people here say that there is not much fear now, and that Leone, the chief of the brigands, has escaped from the island. In Girgenti we were told that it was quite unnecessary to take an escort of carbineers to the ruined temples, although not long ago some brigands were captured in one of the temples. Still the panic has not subsided, as the following extract from yesterday's Times (Jan. 24th, 1877) clearly shows : — " Brigandage in Sicily. — A memorial, bearing many signa- tures, has been sent to Lord Derby by British subjects who are engaged in or connected with trade and industrial enterprise in Sicily, have invested capital in such enterprise, and employ numerous persons, many of them British subjects, in the conduct of their business in that island. They state that a system of brigandage exists in that island which places their property in danger and Sicilian Brigandage. 201 uncertainty, and imperils the personal safety of those employed by them. They accordingly ask Lord Derby to bring this matter before the Italian Government with all the urgency possible, and to press upon it the necessity for taking prompt steps for representing the lawless system wdiich exists, and securing to those dwelling in that island that security and protection for life, limb, and property which every citizen, whether foreigner or native, is entitled to expect from the Government under which he resides. It is a matter of notoriety, confirmed, the memorialists believe, by official reports made to the Italian Government, that there exists on the part of a considerable portion of the population of Sicily, including, it is said, some of the higher classes, a widespread sympathy with . the brigands, and on the part of others a mysterious dread of their vengeance, which prevents and paralyses any ordinary efforts to put down the system. The means hitherto adopted of sending troops to hunt the brigands in the mountains, unaccompani-ed by other measures, is found not to be sufficient, as the recent capture of Mr. Rose in the midst of a large number of persons, without any resistance being offered by the bystanders, and the levy of a ransom to the amount of 60,000f. (£2400) fully testifies, as well as the more recent case reported in the newspapers of the capture of Signor Tasca at the very gates of Palermo. Both of these events occurred while the country was filled with troops. The memorialists suggest that, in addition to a vigorous employment of military and police, each province or locality should be held responsible for the peace and security of the same, and that in the event of any act of brigandage being committed therein, should be held responsible for any damage occasioned thereby, or ransoms levied in respect of it. In the first instance, the Government should pay at once to the person injured the amount of any such damage and ransom, and should assess double the amount thereof on the province or locality within which the act of brigandage has been committed, and proceed at once to levy the same on such locality, quarlering troops therein 2g 202 Palermo and Girgenti. upon the population, until such amount is paid. The troops to be employed in the service should not be taken from Sicilian regiments, but should be drawn from the mainland, and especially from the northern parts of the Kingdom of Italy." Beyond Lercara sulphur mines appear at intervals, and as Girgenti is approached they become more numerous, and the surroundino; rocks are more and more crvstalline in texture. For some miles the rocks consist of great masses of highly crystalline gypsum, which shine in the sun like mica. At length the sea becomes visible between the hills, and we presently stop at the base of the Acropolis of Girgenti. The train goes on to the Porto Empedocleo, the harbour of Girgenti four miles distant. A drive of twenty minutes along a steep winding road brings us to the Porta del Ponte of Girgenti. The town now contains about 22,500 inhabitants. The old Greek city Akragas ("AKpayas) is said to have contained 800,000, but this, no doubt, is a monstrous exaggera- tion. If the whole of the ground within the limits of the ancient walls (which are easily traced) were covered with houses, there would be room for probably 300,000 persons, and there may have been extensive suburbs stretching down to the sea-coast. The present town stands on a rock 1160 feet above the sea, the site of the Acropolis of the old town. Pindar calls Akragas " the most beautiful city of mortals," and surely, whatever the buildings of the city may have been, it would be difficult to find a more lovely situation. The Acropolis and the hill beneath it slope gently towards the sea, with a southern frontage. The view from the present town embraces many miles of lovely sea, with a fertile plain intervening, while on the north, and west, and north-east, there are low grey mountains. The climate is delightful when the sirocco does not blow, and the plain is luxuriant with flowers even in midwinter. At this time (January 8th) the almond trees are covered with blossom, and many wild flowers are blooming ; the morning and evening air is as soft as that of an English June, The Temples at Girgenti. '^03 while the midday sun rivals that of our August. The town, with its white houses standing out conspicuously, with the fertile plain at its feet and the clear blue sea beyond, presents a charming picture to the eye. As we descend towards tlie sea the old city wall may be readily traced ; it is partly natural — that is to say, formed by a low escarpment of rock, and where this breaks off or sinks too low, it is continued by means of great blocks of stone. Along the southern edge of the wall are the ruins of the old temples. It must be confessed that the temples at Girgenti are very disappointing, if one is already familiar with those at Psestum, and with the Theseum and Parthenon. The rock of which the temples at Girgenti are built is an extremely coarse brown sand- stone full of shells. Such a material can never be worked with anything like the sharpness of marble, and it weathers far more easily. In certain directions the stone is very much worn by the sirocco. It is true that this uncongenial material was once covered with a stucco made of white marble dust, traces of which still remain ; but this, at the best, must have been a very poor imitation of real marble ; and when the dark brown sandstone began to show itself as the stucco wore off, the effect must have been deplorable. The Temple of Juno Lacinia stands at the south-east angle of the city wall, 420 feet above the sea, and more than 600 feet below the Acropolis. It was constructed in 500 B.C., and is regarded as a very perfect example of the Doric style. Only sixteen out of its thirty- four columns are still standing; time, and earthquakes, and the sirocco have rendered it a complete ruin. If we follow the southern wall of the old city in a westerly direction, we come to the Temple of Concord, a well-preserved Doric structure, rather later than the Temple of Juno. It owes its preservation to a great extent to the fact that it was used as a church during the Middle Ages ; its thirty-four columns are still standing. The incongruous circular arches in the walls of the cella were constructed in the Middle Ages. Proceeding still further to the 204 Palermo and Girgenti. west, we find, near the Porta Aurea of the old city, a great heap of ruins which indicates the site and all that remains of the Temple of Hercules ; and beyond this are the ruins of the Temple of Zeus Olympius, which was commenced in 480 B.C., but never completed The dimensions were on a grand scale ; the temple was 344 feet long and 172 feet broad ; half columns of the Doric order, 52 feet high and 10 feet diameter, projected from the walls. The temple TEMPLE OF CONCORDIA, GIRGENTI. is now an absolute ruin, not one column or even portion of a column remains standing. The oldest ruin in Girgenti is believed to consist of some steps and the bases of columns which once formed a part of the Temple of Zeus Polieus, and which are now built into the Church of S. Maria dei Greci, near the Cathedral. From any point of view the temples of Girgenti are very insig- nificant, no doubt on account of the mairuitude of the surrounding The Temples at Girgenti. 205 landscape. When we first looked out from an elevated point in the town over the plain in which they stand, we did not distinguish them for some length of time. Even the Temple of Juno had to be pointed out. No doubt they are dwarfed by the surrounding hills and the broad plain. The modern town towers above them, and the wide sea is beyond them ; the colour of the stone does not allow it to stand out conspicuously like white marble, even in bright sun- shine ; again, the temples which are standing, are, as we have said. INTERIOR UF THE TEMPLE OF CONCORDIA. small, and badly preserved. The ruined heaps of the temples of Zeus Olympius and of Hercules are invisible from the town. A Greek temple must always owe much to its position ; the Parthenon itself would have a very different effect if it stood at the base of the Acropolis instead of on the summit. The fine modern Greek temple (the finest copy of a Greek structure in the world), the 206 Palermo and Girgenti. Valhalla at Donaustauf, has its beauty enhanced tenfold by its position on a hill rising abruptly from the Danube, and backed by pine forests. To the east of Girgenti, not far from the principal gate of the modern city, the " Eock of Athene" rises to a height of more than 1200 feet above the sea. The view from its summit is magnificent in every direction ; towards the north and east a succession of rocky masses are visible, while the sea occupies the south of the landscape, and the modern town stands on the heis^hts to the west. The Acropolis of the old town included the Eock of Athene, which is said to have once borne a temple of Athene on its summit. Whether we look down from the town over the fertile plain of the Akragas and the Hypsas to the sea, or whether we look up from the plain towards the town with its surrounding mountains, the eye is always satisfied, and always rests with pleasure upon each separate part of the landscape, and upon the entire and complete view. Modern Girgenti, although picturesque from a little distance, is ill-built, and full of narrow streets and alleys. Many of the streets have a continuous ascent by steps to the upper part of the town, and the only possible traffic in them is carried on by means of mules. The town is excessively dirty ; an open sewer runs down many of the sloping streets. There is no good inn, and it is almost impossible to get a cleanly and properly-cooked meal. The inhabitants are, without exception, the slowest people we ever came in contact with. If you order a cup of coff"ee you are kept half-an-hour waiting for it, and at dinner they have no idea of commencing to cook one dish until you have finished that which went before. To be three-quarters of an hour late in keeping an appointment, is with them to be punctual. They are, however, a most polite and civil people, and very courteous to the stranger in their land. As to occupation, they appear to have nothing whatever to do, and they do it. They wander in the streets, talk, smoke, sun themselves, and so on from morning till night. Sidphur Mines. 207 But we must make one exception at least in this matter of idleness. Go outside the town to one of the sulphur mines, and the work will remind you of Egyptian slavery in the time of the Pharaohs. We saw mere boys, nearly naked, toiling up a steep incline of badly-cut steps, with great lumps of sulphur ore on their shoulders. The process of sulphur-mining as carried out in Sicily is most primitive ; no machinery is employed, and the ore is brought to the surface l3y manual labour alone. The sulphur is found associated with gypsum, and sometimes with sulphate of strontia in beds of grey clay. As much as 40 per cent, of sulphur is got out of the ore even by the crude processes employed, and some ores are much richer than that which we saw. The mine usually consists of a steep slanting shaft sunk to a depth of about 100 yards into the side of a moun- tain. The descent is effected by roughly-cut steps in the living rock ; anything less secure we have rarely seen ; a false step would probably precipitate a person to the bottom, unless he were supporting himself by the walls of the shaft. No doubt the bare feet of the miners prevent them from slipping. The sulphur ore, when brought to the surface, is piled up over a large kind of oven like a very shallow lime-kiln, a fire is then lighted underneath, and the sulphur melts out of the rock, and flows away through an orifice below. It is then run into cakes, sent to the Porto Empedocleo, and shipped for its final destination. The Sicilian- sulphur trade is said to be now in a rather bad condition ; far less sulphur is sent to England than formerly, because we can obtain it from iron pyrites at a cheaper rate. The sulphur mines of Sicily are, however, very rich, and if worked with proper machinery they would probably yield a considerable profit, even with the present low price of sulphur. The w^orld consumes yearly several millions of tons of sulphur, chiefly for the manufacture of gunpowder and of sulphuric acid. The Sicilians are centuries behind the age, not only in mining operations, but in many other respects. In central Sicily the 203 Palermo and' Glrgenti, agricultural operations are of the very simplest description ; they still make use of the one-handed plough, which is at least twenty centuries old, and they sow their corn broadcast — a practice of still greater antiquity. The fertile earth makes up for all deficiencies of labour, and returns abundant crops of corn, sumach, oranges, lemons, olives, grapes, and chestnuts, for the least possible expenditure of labour. The live stock of the farmer is miserable ; goats indeed seem to flourish, but the horses and oxen are the most miserable, lean, half-starved creatures that one can imagine. A good deal of the internal traffic of the island is carried on by means of mules, and a really good mule is the most useful animal which you can possess in Sicily. On the first evening of our arrival in Girgenti we made our way to the Cathedral, which stands in the highest part of the town. A curious sight presented itself on entering. The building was almost in darkness ; it was faintly and very partially lighted by some candles which were placed u23on a table in the aisle. Around this table was a small group of persons, together with a priest and a sacristan. It was the baptism of a new-born babe. A large flat pewter dish stood upon the table, containing some water, and a pewter ladle. The ceremony was a long one ; the priest read from a book, then poured water from the ladle over the face of the infant ; and this was repeated several times. During the ceremony three men made the most hideous noises in the world with primi- tive instruments of music — Italian bagpipes, such as one sees in the hands of the pifferari, a triangle, and a tambourine. These men sat in the nave, and continued without ceasing their dreadful din. Presently about a dozen new-comers presented themselves with other instruments of music — two violoncellos, a violin, and a drum among other things. Forthwith each man began to play on his own instrument as if it were the only one in the world, and entirely without reference to the others. We thouo^ht of Prince Asfib — it was music that he would have liked — A Baptismal Ceremony. 209 " Of Agib, who could readily at sight, Strum a march upon the loud Theodolite. He would diligently play On the Zoetrope all day, And blow the gay Pantechnicon all night. " They played him a sonata — let me see I Medulla oblongata — key of G. Then they began to sing That extremely lovely thing, Scherzando ! ma non troppo,pppJ'* Then under shadow of the darkness, and in a moment of cessation of the music, some boys ran away with the drum, and they were promptly chased from one pillar to another, through the centre and the side aisles. The drum having been rescued, the infernal din began again. All this time the priest droned from his book, and the sacristan manipulated the candles, and tried to keep order among the noisy executants. Thus was the poor little Girgentine babe received into the Church of Christ, cum omne strepitu tuharum et aliormn miisicoriim instrumentorum. Not long afterwards, when the ceremony was over and nearly every one had gone away, we heard a furious altercation at the Cathedral door, and found that it was impossible to get out, for it was surrounded by a number of people, who did not appear to be very remote from ruffians. The sacristan was trying to shut the door in their faces, while they seemed to be demanding a recompense. They were the vagabond minstrels who had last come in to mar the baptismal service, and " to render night hideous, and we fools of nature." They were now adding insult to injury by demanding payment for their services. We are glad to add that the sacristan escaped with his life. On the followinof mornino; we returned to the Cathedral to see the famous sarcophagus representing the story of Hippolytus. It is a very fine work, although it is supposed to be only a Roman *• Bab Ballads, by W. S. Gilbert. 2 H 210 Palermo and Girgenti. copy of a great Greek original. In the room in which the archives are preserved we saw a rather fine vase which was found in a tomb near Girgenti. On enquiring for the letter which used to be preserved here, and which is seriously believed to have been written by the devil in 1676, we were told that it had been sent to Rome. We were further assured that it is written in no known language, and that no one could read it. We were anxious to examine the acoustic peculiarity of the Cathedral, which has given rise to a good story, to be found in most treatises on the science of sound. It is said that one of the confessionals in the Cathedral was so placed that the voice of the penitent, having been reflected to a certain distant part near the high altar, was brought to a focus. This was discovered by accident, and it was found that, by placing the ear at the focus, the words of the penitent could be distinctly heard. For a while the discoverer amused himself and his more intimate friends by listening at this place to the revelations which were intended for the priest's ear alone, and he thus became acquainted with some of the profoundest secrets in all Girgenti. But on one unfortunate occasion his wife occupied the confessional, and he, like another Pentheus, was properly punished for having pried into the mysteries of things.''" Now it is indeed true that if * We probably owe this story to Brydone (Sicily and Malta, 1776). We have certainly seen him quoted as the authority in a French work on Acoustics. He says, *' If one person stands at the west gate, and another places himself on the cornice at the most distant part of the church, exactly behind the great altar, they can hold a conversation in very low whispers. For many years this singularity was little known ; and several of the confessing chairs being placed near the great altar, the wags who were in the secret used to take their station at the door of the Cathedral, and by this means heard distinctly every word that passed betwixt the confessor and his penitent, of which you may believe they did not fail to make their own use when occasion offered. The most secret intrigues were discovered, and every woman in Agrigentum changed either her gallant or her confessor. Yet still it was the same. At last, however, the cause was found out ; the chairs were removed, and other precautions were taken to prevent the discoveries of these sacred mysteries; and a mutual amnesty passed amongst all the offended parties." The Prison of Girgenti. 211 you stand near the great west door of the Cathedral a whisper may be heard at a certain point in front of the curvature of the apse, and about twenty feet above the high altar. This we tested and found to be an ordinary case of reflected sound ; but it is only at this point that the sound is heard, and to it neither the too curious man nor his friends could have easily penetrated. Moreover, we all know that confessions are literally whispered into the priest's ear, and unless the people of Girgenti have a speciality for loud confes- sions, after the manner of the Pharisees, it is quite impossible that the sounds could be audible to any one but the priest. One word more about the Cathedral. We noticed that the portrait of a man in uniform was suspended immediately over the Bishop's throne, and under the episcopal canopy. On asking the meaning of this, we were told that it was a portrait of the King, and we were the more surprised at this when we remembered that Monsignor Turano, the Bishop, will not acknowledge the King, in consequence of which he is deprived of all his revenues ; his sulphur mines, which made the See of Girgenti one of the richest in all Italy, have been confiscated, and he has been turned out of his Palace. But the portrait of the King is surely a symbol only ; it is no more like Victor Emmanuel than it is like Eoejer I. or Ptobert Guiscard, and if the King should ever visit Girgenti it must certainly be taken down. Perhaps it is the portrait of the late King. When the ecclesiastical authorities of Girgenti say Le Roi est mort, Vive le Roi, they give their own special interpretation to the phrase. What else of Girgenti ? One thing more. We went over its prison, which is a converted monastery, and is fairly comfortable and clean for a Sicilian gaol. It is very spacious, yet we sometimes saw five or six men crowded into one small cell. Many of the crimes were very serious. In the small Province of Girgenti there are many murders in a year. Perhaps under such circumstances the Government is rio-ht in abolishing 212 • Palermo and Girgenti. capital punishment — in course of time the inhabitants would be decimated by this means, and the island would be underpopulated. These hot-blooded people have recourse to the knife and the pistol on the least provocation, but their blood cools as rapidly as it boils.'"" * Since writing the above, the late Sindaco of Girgenti, with whom we visited the prison, has been so good as to send us the statement of the Procuratore del Re, made on the 5th of January, 1877, &ulla Amministrazione della Giustizia, during the year 1876. It applies to the Province of Girgenti alone, which is one of the seven Provinces into which Sicily is divided. This Province contains a popula- tion of about 250,000. During the year (1875-1876) there was only one daring murder in the city of Girgenti, with 22,500 inhabitants ; but there were 9 homicides, and 19 highway robberies in the district immediately outside the town. In the other Communes of the Province there has been an increase of crime : thus the number of criminals in 1872 was 1712, increasing in 1873 to 1904, and in 1875 to 2163; a decrease of 178 took place in 1875, but last year the number rose to 2019. Unfortunately the augmentation is due to the more frequent occurrence of grave offences : — the assassinations increased from 24 to 35 ; the highway robberies with homicides from 4 to 8; the omicidi volontari* from 34 to 45; the robberies with- out homicide from 81 to 116; the woundings with other assaults against the person from 583 to 635 ; thefts from 281 to 326 ; and finally violent resistances to the public authority from 42 to 55. The Procuratore admits that there are many undetected crimes, and that many daring criminals have escaped owing to the cowardice or connivance of the juries. The peasantry wiU often feed and shelter the Avorst criminals, and will refuse to help the authorities. Sometimes men will be seen who are apparently pursuing the quiet avocations of husbandry, and who, on being questioned, deny all knowledge of the brigands for whom the troops are in search, but who, as soon as the interlocutors disappear, will throw aside the spade, and take up the gun, ready to cry " Abhuccdi sangii della j\[adon7ia" to any passer-by who is Avorth the robbing. When they can find no better prey, they often rob the small farmer returning from market, Avith the price of his corn in his pocket. The large landowners dare not reside on their estates, and are obliged to place them in the hands of agents, Avho often rob them of half their produce. No wonder the Procurcdore laments the state of the Province, and calls upon all the respectable inhabitants to aid the Government in the right administration of * We have no English law tenn which exactly expresses omicidio voloniario. It signifies wilful inurdcr, of such a nature that the crime has not been provoked by any cause, or if provoked, twenty- four hours are required to have elapsed between the provocation and the murder. Thus a man who kills another in a brawl is not guilty of omicidio volontario ; nor one who, having been aggrieved, returns to his house for a weapon, and kills his enemy before twenty- four hours have elapsed. Brydones Visit to Girgenti, 213 Addendum. — Since writing the above we have met with Brydone's Tour through Sicily and Malta, a volume of travels published in 1776 in the form of a series of letters. The author visited Sicily in the summer of 1770, and it is curious to compare his impressions with those which are afforded to the traveller a century later. The book is full of acute observations and quaint remarks. It is frequently inaccurate, for in those days there existed neither "Murray" nor "Baedeker;" and the author has sometimes missed an important sight. He sails from Malta to Girgenti in a sparonaro, accompanied by two friends ; as he approaches the Sicilian coast, he is struck by the magnificent appearance of Girgenti, and says that it is " little inferior to that of Genoa," but on closer inspection the city did not appear by any means so splendid. Our traveller was anxious to see whether the Girgentines still preserved the character for splendour, luxury, and hospitality to which the ancient writers make such frequent allusion. Plato says of the inhabitants of the city, " they build as if they were never to die, and eat as if they had not an hour to live." ^lian and Fazzello abuse the city for its drunkenness, and praise it for its hospitality. Diodorus says that the vessels of the Agrigentines were made of silver, and their chairs of ivory ; he also mentions one of its citizens who, on returning victorious from the Olympic games, entered the city justice. Let us remember that this report was published a few weeks ago, in the capital of the Province (Girgenti), and in the midst of the scenes which it describes. The Procuratore puts in the first rank of offences, murders, assaults, and woundings, and in the second, outrages on the public safety, and violence and resistance to the public authorities. If we compare the above startling statistics with the crimes committed during the same period in the County of "Wilts (of nearly the same size and population as the Province of Girgenti), we iind remarkable differences. We have to record one attempt to murder, two cases of manslaughter, one case of cutting and wounding, eleven cases committed against property with violence (mainly burglaries and highway robberies), and 4G9 common assaults. It must be remembered that a "common assault" in Girgenti usually means a wound Avith a knife. 214 Palermo and Girgenti. attended by three hiundred chariots, each drawn by four white horses. Brydone gives an amusing account of a dinner, to which he was invited by the nobles of Girgenti, to meet the Bishop. He rose from table convinced that the ancient inhabitants of Akragas could not have understood the laws of hospitality or the luxuries of good eating better than their descendants. There were thirty at table, and for these were served an hundred dishes of meat, including the morene, a peculiar species of eel, and a dish made of the enlarged livers of fowls. Of the latter Brydone says, "It is indeed a most incom- parable dish, but the means of procuring it is so cruel, that I will not even trust it with you. Perhaps, without any bad intention, you might mention it to some of your friends, they to others, till at last it might come into the hands of those that would be glad to try the experiment ; and the whole race of poultry might ever have reason to curse me : let it suffice to say that it occasions a painful and lingering death to the poor animal." After drinking a good deal of Sicilian wine, Brydone quaintly observes, "The company was remarkably merry, and did by no means belie their ancient character, for most of them were more than half seas over, long before we rose from table." Although " they were beginning to reel exceedingly," they requested the English visitors to make a bowl of punch, a liquid they had often heard of, but never seen. When it was duly concocted, the Sicilians preferred the punch to any wine on the table, and the bowl was often replenished. "They called it Pontio, and spoke loudly in its praise, declaring that Pontio (alluding to Pontius Pilate) was a much better fellow than they had ever taken him for." Presently, however, a reverend Canon became excessively ill, and exclaimed with a rueful counten- ance, "I always knew that Pontius was a great traitor;" where- upon one of the guests shouted out, " Aspettatevi Signor Canonico. Niente al pregiudizio di Signor Pontio, vi prego. Kecordate, che Pontio v'ha fatto un Canonico ; et Pontio ha fatto sua ExceUenza Brydone's Visit to Girgenti. 215 "uno Vescovo. Non scordatevi mai di vostri amici." After this fashion did the reverend Canons of Girgenti talk in the presence of their Bishop in 1770. The Bishop, a man both of genius and erudition, appears to have entered into every joke, and enjoyed it. From Girgenti, Brydone went overland to Palermo. He describes the tedium of the journey, the perpetual fear of brigands, and the beauty of the approach to Palermo. A long chapter is given to the feast of S. Rosalia, during which the whole city was illuminated, and the inhabitants enjoyed a five-days' holiday. ANCIBNT DiaXAFF STILL UahiK IN iiOilJi PAKTS OF alCILV. THE HEROES OF HOMEK. CHAPTER XL ATHENS. The Voyage from Marseilles to Athens — A Capful of Wind in the Medi- terranean — Athens Forty Years Ago — Statistics of Progress — Athens of to-day — The City and its Surroundings as seen from the Acropolis — Five Zones of Vision — The Acropolis — The Parthenon and the Erechtheum — The Modern Agora — Greek Brigands — Educational Progress in Greece — The University of Athens — Addendum. ''ARSEILLES and the Chateau D'lf have almost faded from our sight, and we have a long journey before we again touch land. On the afternoon of December 28th we passed through the Straits of Bonifacio, being about twenty-four hours out of Marseilles Harbour, and on board the French steamer " Labourdonnais," bound for Athens. We had fondly expected to see numberless ships of various capacity, flag, and rig ; to pass in sight of interesting and historic shores ; to meet Massaniello-like fishermen with red caps and striped jerseys in picturesque feluccas; to get glimpses of great fish, and curious sea-birds, and wonderful sunsets, not to speak of the marvellous and unrivalled blue of the Mediterranean, of which The Voyage. 217 some travellers speak in such terms that we might imagine all other seas to be of some other colour. We were doomed to be disappointed on this day at least. Our diary recorded nothing very wonderful : — " Saw one guU, afterwards a ship." The most verbose writer could only have said : — " Awoke, got up, dressed, read, breakfasted ; went on deck, saw a gull, talked to fellow-passengers, read, saw a ship, dined, read : sea calm, a little rolling. This life is becoming monotonous; went to bed." And he might have added, " Slept till morning," had not an event happened which we must now relate, begging our readers to prepare their minds for startling nautical details, by calling to remembrance such accounts as Sir Stamford Eaffles' story, or the chapter " Portentosum Mare " in Lhomme qui rit, or the Naufragium of Erasmus ; or the picture in the Graphic of a few months ago illustrating an incident in Quatre-vingt-treize, in which a loose gun rushes about the vessel during a gale like a mad creature, killing the sailors, and finally staving in the ship's side. Let us then begin in the orthodox manner. About 3 a.m. on the morning of the 29th, we were aroused from sleep by But we must first be truthful, and this compels us to adopt the fashion of the most barbarous class of modern sensational novels, published in monthly parts, which end their last chapter in each part at the commencement of a climax ; in fact, they very often climb with you to the last rung of the ladder, and keep you waiting there till the next month's number comes out, thus : — " Sir Anthony grasped the pistol ; it was loaded to the muzzle with swan shot. One second more and " . . . To be concluded in our next — or "In that supreme moment the man was sublime. . . . The water had risen to his neck. Could he escape?" — or "No," she replied firmly, "we have burned the will, this is for us, and she displayed a dagger of curious workmanship, covered with Venetian arabesques, and Byzantine damaskening." We do not, however, intend to keep our readers waiting for a month, after this fashion, 2i 218 Athens. but, returning to our original proposition, we must first (let us add* and last) be truthful ; we may as well say that, although we have spoken of a diary, we spoke of it only in the abstract, and seriously deprecate the practice of keeping one. If kept at all, it should be as meagre as possible ; and it is only warranted, we think, in the case of the most treacherous and unreasonable memory, or when the writer is making a long and very varied tour. For this keeping of a diary during one's travels tends to create an artificial memory external to the individual. Suppose we could separate that portion of the brain which contains the mechanism of memory from the rest of the organism, should we like to run the risk of carrying it in our pockets, and of becoming like the Struldbrugs whenever we left it in the pocket of a changed coat, or mislaid it ? Yet this is what we do with our diaries. We replace good service- able memory by a little book which is lost as easily as a purse. Moreover, this habit of making a book take the place of our faculties of memory on slight occasions, tends to weaken those faculties, just as wearing our arm in a sling weakens the muscles of the arm. The memory does not strive to retain a fact recorded in a diary, because it is easier to remember that the fact is in the diary, than to remember the fact by itself. We can imagine a man trusting so much to the record of events and facts in his diary, that on referring to the real memory he would find it gone — a self-induced aphasia — and all conversation, save of immediate surroundings, would be conducted through the medium of the written record. For the above reasons we kept no diary, and have preserved on the tablets of our memory that considerable entry : " Saw one gull, afterwards a ship." But this, as Swift says so often in Tlie, Tale of a Tub, is a digression, and yet he must needs give us in the same work a very dry " digression about digressions," a practice which in this instance we do not intend to follow, therefore let us resume. About 3 a.m. on the morning of the 29th, we were aroused The Voyage. 219 from sleep by being bodily shifted in our berth through a space of about three inches, first in one direction, then in another. (The berths were at right angles to the length of the vessel.) Then also began the overthrow of chairs in the saloon, the rolling of chairs on deck, and a thousand-and-one noises. It was quite impossible to sleep, and too dark to read. The vessel was rolling through a very large arc (a fellow-traveller said 45°), and every- thing on board that had the least play, were it but the eighth of an inch, assumed the alternating motion of the vessel. When morning came it was very difficult to dress ; it was impossible to sit without holding on with one hand, and dexterously moving the body so as to keep its centre of gravity in the right place, twice with every complete roll of the vessel. Walking on deck was impossible ; the most you could do in the way of progression was to watch your opportunity when the deck was approaching horizontality, and then to rush to the nearest support and cling to it until the deck passed through its second phase of horizontality, and then to make another rush. In fact, the whole day was spent in the preservation of one's balance. It was impossible either to read or talk with comfort, — worse than all, to dine. Of course everything placed upon the table rolled off at once ; but the steward was equal, and apparently used, to the occasion. A frame with a number of cross-cords was fitted over the table, and the cords were tightened so that the table presented the appearance of a gigantic ^Eolian harp. Tumblers fitted in between two cords, plates between others, dishes between others ; but even thus a good deal of manipulation was necessary to reduce the discomfort to a minimum. For if, in an unguarded moment, one left either knife or fork to itself for the fraction of a minute, it slid away, and perhaps darted into the waistcoat of a man opposite ; potatoes rolled with considerable velocity to the other side of the table, then fell to the floor, and even when you converted their rolling friction into sliding friction by dividing them and thus giving them a broader 220 Athens. basis, they quietly slipped away and were seen no more. The eating of soup could only be attempted during the short phase of horizontality, and during the movement of the deck some few degrees on each side of this position. The observation of our claret, at a level altogether different from that of the top of the tumbler, led us to realise a condition in which the first law of hydrostatics would require correction and emendation. It was curious to see the guests struggling each in his own way against the powers of Nature. Roll, roll, roll, and then would come a SeKaKVfiia, and one man would lose his soup, another his knife and fork, a third his balance, a fourth his temper, a fifth his seat, a sixth his equani- mity, a seventh courage, an eighth heart, a ninth faith in the Mediterranean as a pacific sea. The tenth was dexterous ; albeit a man of extreme ponderosity; he fought with the powers of Nature, he was fain to cling with one hand to an iron pillar in the centre of the saloon, and one was minded of the fact that his centre of gravity was somewhat lower than that of most of us, and was more easily kept within the base line. But it was curious to watch that " cruel force gravity," as Mr. Mill calls it, trying with all its might to secure so good a prize and to drag the great mass lower and lower. And it was interesting to calculate the vis viva of this mass supposing that it had fallen (a) to the floor, {/3) to the bottom of the ve>ssel ; then a calculation of foot-pounds, of total energy, and of the heat produced by the ultimate stopping of the mass, by collision with the greater mass of the vessel. We have seen in a pantomime a feast spread out upon a table, and as soon as the guests were seated, the viands were raised high into the air by invisible strings ; we have seen also a bun dance on a table, but we had never before witnessed such constant commotion. The old nursery rhyme which ends " And the dish ran away with the spoon" best describes the situation. The oranges were the most troublesome things of all, they were perpetually disporting them- selves on the table and on the floor, and even if they were placed Arrival. 221 iDclividually and apparently securely between the afore-mentioned ropes, they managed to bob under them, or jump over them, and so to escape. And what was the cause of all this ? The wind was not very high, and would probably be called less than half a gale, but the waves were large and often ran crosswise. The centre of disturbance was probably distant, and there no doubt the wind was very high. It all died out in about 20 hours, and next day (Dec. 31st), we were passing Cape Matapan at 8 a.m., in a delightfully warm atmosphere, the sea calm, not a breath of wind stirring, the sun shining brightly, and the oldest passenger amongst us was sitting on deck without either hat or great-coat. A few hours later we passed between Cape Malea and Cerigo, and at 10 p.m. we anchored in the Piraeus. Here a good deal of unnecessary delay occurred. It was the last night of the year, and as we were assured that we could not land till morning, we were going to have a game of whist, and driuk the health of absent friends in a bowl of punch. Presently some Greek officials and a doctor came on board, and after much discussion, and an inspection of the ship's papers, we were told that we must land at once. Only one other passenger landed, the rest were going on to Constanti- nople, and the " Labourdonnais" soon after steamed out of the harbour. As soon as we landed, we found that the last train to Athens had gone some hours before, and we had a drive of an hour in a somewhat chill air. After leaving the Piraeus, we traversed a broad, very muddy road, lined on both sides by vineyards and olive groves ; at length some houses began to appear, then the beautiful Temple of Theseus was seen on the right, and the dim Acropolis beyond. We soon found ourselves passing through narrow dimly-lighted streets, then we emerged into the broad street of Hermes (oSos 'E/D/io{5), and presently stopped at the hospitable doors of the Hotel d'Angleterre. So much has been written about modern Athens since the 222 Athens. termination of the War of Independence, that, at first sight, it mio-ht be assumed that there is nothingr more to be said on the subject. But we are dealing with a city which has quadrupled its population in less than forty years ; while the energy, culture, and general progression of its people have been more than quadrupled during the same period. The city is now passing through its period of renaissance. liCss than a century ago Gibbon asserted that it would then be difficult to find in all Greece a copy of the works of Plato or Demosthenes, or a person capable of reading them. It is far other- wise now. Your modern Greek of culture worships the very footsteps of the ancients. " This," said an Athenian lately, as we were walking over the hill Ardettus, " is virgin rock, untouched since the creation ; here may have walked Plato, and Socrates, Zeno, and Aristotle." The history of ancient Greek literature is largely studied in the University of Athens ; Homer, and Sophocles, and Thucydides are the subjects of long courses of lectures ; the works of the poets and philosophers of former ages are eagerly read. The Athenians love their city and everything that belongs to it ; they dwell with pride upon the great deeds of former days ; they cherish the former remains of ancient art which they possess, and a law of the land forbids the exportation of antiquities. Dr. Wordsworth, writing in 1832, says : "The town of Athens is now lying in ruins. The streets are almost deserted ; nearly all the houses are without roofs ; the churches are reduced to bare walls and heaps of stones and tnortar. . . . The least ruined objects are some of the ruins." A year later he writes : " Here there are no books, no lamps, no windows, no carriages, no news- papers, no post-office. The letters which arrived here a few days ago from Napoli, after having been publicly cried in the streets, if they were not claimed by the parties to whom they were addressed, were committed to the flames." In place of all this we have now Signs of Progress. 223 a trim little city, possessing most of the advantages of a modern continental town, and containing some 50,000 inhabitants. The streets are hghted by gas, and are tolerably clean for an eastern city ; the shops and hotels are good ; there are capital cabs, and electric bells are not unknown. There is a university, an academy, an observatory, a theatre, a royal palace, far too big for the city, a new cathedral, several hospitals, capital schools, and a post-office, which issues a set of stamps bearing the head of Mercury, and beloved by collectors. There are several publishers, and an original literature is beginning to make its appearance ; three or four papers are issued daily, some in Greek, others in French. A railway has at last appeared, telegraphic communication with Central Europe and with India {vid Zante, Candia, and JEgypt) has been established ; a standing army exists, and brigands are not only caught but im- prisoned into the bargain. Progress is apparent in every direction. So long as the Turks ruled and oppressed the land, reform and revivification were impossible ; the vitality of the nation was crushed out of it. Now the oppression has ceased, and the Greeks are once more a free people; they have recovered rapidly both from the effects of their recent state of bondage and from a destructive war, and have shown an earnest desire for regeneration. Much remains to be done ; but the progress made during the last forty years has been surprisingly great.'" * At the conclusion of an interesting paper " On the Statistics of the Kingdom of Greece," M. Demetrius Bikelas makes the following remarks in regard to the progress of the country : — " From the foregoing statements it results that in thirty- five years of self-government the population of the Hellenic kingdom has been doubled, while her revenues have increased nearly five-fold ; that her towns and villages have been rebuilt and new ones founded; that her fields have been cultivated to a considerable extent, and her seas covered with shipping; that public education has attained a notable development, and that, in short, her people have not remained idle. With a revenue of from £500,000 to £1,000,000 a-year, her Government has managed, besides keeping up an army and navy, with a civil list and all the outlay of administration, to establish schools, to open ports, and erect lighthouses, to make some roads, and, generally speaking, to deserve a place 224 Athens. Perhaps some of our readers will protest tliat tliey really care nothing about modern Athens, and are solely interested in its antiquities, which must be always the same, and have been often described ; yet in truth, in this respect also, the city is undergoing change, and change in the right direction. So late as 1852, the among the civilised governments of Christendom, in spite of all its shortcomings. That its shortcomings are not few has been pointed out in many instances in the preceding pages. But, under the circumstances which saw this small State begin its political existence, the question is whether more could be fairly expected from a first generation of freemen." This was written in 1868, and we must remember that the same progression has continued from that time to the present. M. Bikelas remarks that the friends of Greece expected at the time of her emancipation that she would quickly take the same position in the world as certain other states of equal magnitude, and would follow the example of JS'orth America ; but he clearly shows that this could not be the case for many reasons. " The Greeks, emerging from ages of serfdom, had none of the benefits of civilisation ; they had no political, or social, or intellectual education to boast of ; they had no laws, no aristocracy to lead them in the work of their regeneration ; and after they had achieved, by dint of desperate efforts, the work of independence, they had to go through a series of revolu- tions before settling down into an organised body politic ; while the belief that their national unity is not yet complete has tended, and may for long tend, to disturb the work of their internal development." The following details show the extent of the progress made in various directions by the Greeks. At the end of the ten years' War of Independence, only nine towns had *' partly escaped the total devastation of the rest." Since that time no less than ten new towns have been founded, and twenty-three old towns have been rebuilt at a cost of about 1\ millions sterling. . . . The army consisted in 1868 of about 14,000 men, and the national guard of Athens of 7000. ... In the seven years from 1858 to 1864 the trade of Greece increased to the extent of 40 per cent, on imports, and 10 per cent on exports. . . . The number of Greek exhibitors in the International Exhibition of 1851 was 36 ; in 1855 (Paris) it had risen to 131; and in 1862 (London) to 295. ... In 1834 the mercantile navy of Greece, including the Ionian Islands, numbered 2745 vessels; in 1858 it had increased to 3920; and in 1866, to 5156. . . . As to public works, no less than thirty lighthouses have been built, the Straits of Euboia have been widened, and 236 miles of roads have been opened. . . . Postage stamps were introduced in 1861, at which time there were 92 post-offices in Greece. ... In 1867 there were 693 miles of telegraph worked by the Government at a yearly loss of about £5000. Since this time many miles of wire have been added to those already existing. Modern Athens. 225 Acropolis was partially covered with Turkish bastions, which have since been removed ; the ruins of the Odeum of Herodes Atticus were exposed in 1857, while the magnificent Theatre of Dionusos was only laid bare in 1862. More recently an ancient cemetery was discovered at a considerable depth near the commencement of the Sacred Way ; it is still in progress of excavation. Let this fact of the ever-changing nature of the city, both old and new, be our apology for discussing an apparently trite subject. It may fairly be asked at the outset whether it is worth making so long a journey for a short time % To this we would unhesitat- ingly reply, " Yes." Of course it would be preferable to spend six months in the country, and to make walking tours to the principal places of interest ; but, being at Athens, and having a clear week at one's disposal, it is possible to see everything of any interest in the town, and some few things outside of it. Athenians who are most ardent in the praise of their city, tell you that three days are sufficient to enable you to see the antiquities thoroughly. Everything is so small in Greece ; the whole country is smaller than Portugal ; Attica about half the size of Norfolk ; Athens smaller than Ipswich. A visit of a week allows one to make a daily visit to the Acropolis, to which, as can well be imagined, the traveller is irresistibly drawn ; indeed he never likes to have it out of his sight. There is a charm, a fascination about the wonderful collection of ruins on its summit which is indescrib- able. And yet, we may ask, what is it that gives this citadel of ancient Athens such a power over the mind and imagination ? The simple rock, 150 feet high, with a surface of 1000 feet by 500, is not in itself specially remarkable. Saint Chamas has a fine position for a citadel, so have Corinth and a dozen other places. We think also of Stirling Castle and of Ehrenbreitstein, and of several elevated positions near the Rhine. Yet, could we see the Acropolis as the Athenian of old saw it, we might exhaust even his fruitful and magnificent language in the attempt to find new phrases of admira- 2 K .226 Athens. tion. Here was placed his parent city ; here the statues and temples of his guardian goddess ; it was the fortress and treasury of the city ; the home of its finest works of art ; the scene of its most solemn ceremonies. We love the place because it was beloved by that great succession of poets, orators, and philosoj^hers, whose works have had the profoundest efiect upon humanity, and have penetrated into every land ; because around it was spread a city which for a thousand years was the source and home of all that most delights, dignifies, ennobles, and refines the mind of man — pure philosophy, soul-stirring oratory, divine poetry, heroic drama, the most perfect culture in its most perfect form ; because upon it we see, albeit in a ruined form, the grandest examples of an architecture created and perfected by the most pure artists of all time — an architecture which has served for twenty centuries as a model for every civilised people, and of which we find copies in every city in the world. Thinking of these things, the traveller forgets the length and discomfort of the journey ; he girds up his loins ; stuffs " Words- worth," and "Smith," and "Herodotus," into his portmanteau, hurries through France, and steams out of Marseilles Harbour, some mild afternoon in December. Then a thousand miles of sea and buffetings by rude waves, and delicious sunnings on deck, and much pondering over Smith's " History," and useless regrets concerning forgotten knowledge. And as often as he looks at the book he is carried back in spirit to the time so long — so far too long — ago, when that same "History" was a source of trouble and vexation to him, till he sees himself a schoolboy once again, puzzling over the details of the seventh year of the Peloponnesian War, and ever and anon wandering away to the pictures of the restored Acropolis, and the Temple of the Winds, and the Vale of Tempe, and thinking how easy it would be to learn Greek history there. How often have we not, under such circumstances, regarded these too ideal scenes — vales and mountains, and sacred groves Viezu from the Acropolis. 227 beloved of the gods — as a kind of fairy-land to wliich we should like to be suddenly transported by some magic horse or enchanted carpet, from the dull, hot, class-room, within ten minutes of a commencing lesson ! But the artist has not indicated in his fairy views the parching heat, the dead herbage, the dried-up water- courses, the uneven zigzag roads, the infinite inconveniences of traversing them, or the thousand-and-one things which mar the beauty of such scenes ; moreover, he had often deftly introduced luxuriant semi-tropical plants where, afterwards, we could only find bare, barren rock. Let us not blame him ; he gave us happy anticipations. How lean and dull the real would be in this life without the ideal. The lives of most of us are made up of much dreaming and a little waking ; it is pleasant to believe our apples sweet, even should they afterwards turn to ashes in our mouth ; but we are surely dreaming now. The first thingr that the traveller does on arriving^ in Athens is to ascend the Acropolis, and scan the view which is presented to him in every direction. Aristides compared the Acropolis to the innermost zone of a shield, surrounded by four other zones ; the second Athens, the third Attica, the fourth Greece, the outermost the whole world. Thus Greece was the centre of the world, Attica the centre of Greece, Athens the centre of Attica, the Acropolis the centre of Athens. Let us also divide our field of view seen from the AcrojDolis into five zones of vision, and commence with the outermost. We are in the centre of a plain, surrounded on three sides by mountains. Turning to the west, we see Mount JEgaleos and the island of Salamis beyond ; to the north-west the ridge of Parnes ; to the east Pentelicus ; and to the south-east Hymettus ; while on the south and south-west is seen the J^o-ean Sea, with all sorts of wonderful lights and shades playing over its unrufiled surface. We see also on the coast the three bays — Phalerum, Munycbia, and the Piraeus — the last of which is still the harbour of Athens. Within 228 AtJieiis. the second zone we have the plain of Attica, extending between the mountains and the city. It is gently undulating, not unlike some of the Wiltshire downs ; a few narrow and very uneven roads cross it in various directions and connect the outlying villages with the metropolis. The plain is for the most part bare and treeless, but on the west and north-west there is a winding grove of olive-trees, some of which are said to be of great antiquity. Their peculiar SALAMl.S. silvery foliage affords infinite relief to the eye, after the sight of barren mountains and barren plains. The site of Plato's Academy is within this grove. Between the olives there are vineyards, and the Cephissus, which even in December is a mere streamlet smaller than the Kennet in Wiltshire, flows through the grove. Small villages are seen here and there in the plain — Patissia, Colonus, and Kara. The third zone brino-s us to the immediate neio;hbourhood of Athens. Here we sec, on the south-west, the Museum Hill, once covered with houses, and still containing the remains of a monu- View from the Acropolis. 229 ment erected to the memory of the family of Autiochiis IV, The Poet Musseus is said to have been buried here. Then a low hill, the site of the Pnyx — the place where the public assemblies were held, and from the raised hema of which Demosthenes addressed the people, A little nearer the Acropolis, and on its western side, is the Areopagus or Hill of Mars, upon which the Athenian judges sat to pardon or condemn, and from whence S. Paul addressed the THE ACADEMIC GKUVE, Ul.STUHED. too superstitious men of Athens. Beyond the Areopagus rises the Hill of the Nymphs, on the summit of which is the Observatory. A word as to the latter. We are glad to know that good astronomical work is now being done in the city, and quite appreciate the generosity of Baron Sina (a wealthy Greek of Vienna), who built the observatory; but we must protest against its present position. However good it may be for purposes of astronomy, it is undeniably an eye-sore from an aesthetic point of view. The building is utterly out of harmony with the graceful and beautiful ruins around it, and does no little to mar the general effect. The mind is perpetually recalled from 230 Athens. its visions of the past by the sight of this formal building dedicated to science, and, no doubt, destined to make all sorts of lovely visions "yield their place to cold material laws." Shall we ever see tall factory chimneys blackening the pure Pentelic marble ; a waterworks company in possession of Ardettus ; telegraph wires affixed to the Temple of the Olympian Jove ? Heaven forbid it in our time ! Here at least let us be conservative. To the north of the Acropolis is Mount Lycabettus, sometimes called Mount S. George, the most conspicuous hill near Athens. It is 900 feet higher than the Acropolis, and the view from its summit is magnificent in every direction. As we continue our course southwards we see the King's Garden, the Greek and Protestant cemeteries, the hill Ardettus, and the remains of the Stadium — a racecourse shaped like the letter U, 700 feet long and 110 across, constructed B.C. 330. The fourth zone brings us within the span once inclosed by the walls of Athens. In it we see, a little to the north of the Areopagus, the graceful Doric temple called the Theseum, the best preserved ruin in Athens ; indeed, at a short distance, it appears quite uninjured : yet it dates from B.C. 470. More to the north is seen the greater part of Modern Athens, the new cathedral, the old Byzantine churches, the long Street of the AVinds, terminated near the Acropolis by the Temple of the Winds, and prolonged north- wards until it reaches the villao^e of Patissia. The Street of the Winds is intersected a few hundred yards from its commencement by the second principal street of Athens — the Street of Hermes — the west end of which is terminated by the railway station, and the east end by the king's palace. To the right, not far from the base of Lycabettus, we notice the University, and the beautiful new Academy of Pentelic marble, now in course of erection, the gift of Baron Sina. Looking from the south-east corner of the Acropolis, we observe the sixteen remaining columns of the Temple of the 01ym23ian Jupiter, the largest temple The Temple of Zens Olympiits. 231 ever dedicated to his fame. The columns, which are nearly seventy feet high, are Corinthian, and of Pentelic marble ; near it flows the Ilissus, a streamlet which is dry in summer, and which we crossed at a chance place by stepping on projecting stones, without wetting our boots, hard by the fountain of Callirrhoe, which is now a stagnant pool, overgrown with water-weeds. Nearer the Acropolis we see, still looking in a south-easterly direction, the graceful little monument of Lysicrates, constructed in B.C. 335, and said by some to be the first example of the use of the Corinthian column : still TEMPLE OF ZEUS OLYMPIUS. nearer, on the very slope of the Acropolis, is the Theatre of Dionusos, brought to light a few years ago. It is in good preservation ; the stage remains, and several rows of marble chairs in the lower part of the theatre, each bearing the name of the owner ; a chair in the centre, a little raised above the others, was for the High Priest of Dionusos. At the south-east corner of the Acropolis^ and also on its slope, we see the remains of the more modern Theatre of Herodes Atticus (b.c. 140). Unlike the Theatre of Dionusos, it was covered, and is said to have had a roof of cedar. 232 Athens. The mass of small arches above the sta2;e, and the dark colour of o^' the stone, do not lend any charm to the ruin. We are now at the DIONUSOS AND LION. FROM THE MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES. entrance to the Acropolis, and may narrow our gaze to the fifth and innermost of our imagined zones, which we, indeed, have in reality in the walls of the Acropolis, within which is that wonderful collection of ruins, the chief of which are known as the Propylsea, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheum. THESE0S. FROM THE PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON Around us now we have desolation and ruin. The ground is thickly strewn with blocks of broken marble. Tempus edax, homo edacior. Had it not been for the Venetian and Turkish bombard- The Acropolis. 233 ments, and the fatal thouglitlessness of storing gunpowder within the whilom shrines of deities, these beautiful temples would be standing intact. Time would, indeed, have partially obliterated the finer lines of the more exposed sculptures, and would have given to the marble that brownish tinge which we notice in the Theseum and elsewhere. But no more. We should not see broken columns in every direction ; the marks of cannon-balls upon architrave and frieze ; the broken pediments, and the overturned altars ; neither should we have had to mourn so many lost sculptures of Pheidias, and Praxiteles, and Mvron. THE ACROPOLIS, ATHENS. As we stand within the entrance to the Acropolis, we see before us a broad flight of steps leading up to the Propyleea — the gates of the Citadel, constructed by Mnesicles, and finished in 432 B.C. The building contained both Doric and Ionic columns, and its fine gateways were closed by gates of bronze. The great central gate- way and the smaller side openings still remain, together with a few of the supporting columns. On the right there is a quadrangular chamber which was once used as a picture-gallery, while on the left stands the elegant little Ionic temple of the Wingless Victory, 2l 234 Athens. On emerging from the Propylsea we see the interior of the Acropolis, with the remains of the Parthenon on the right and the ruins of the Erechtheum on the left. The rock becomes steeper as we approach the Parthenon, and at its highest point there is a raised oblong platform upon which the structure of the Parthenon rests. The base of the great Doric columns is nearly on a level with the top of the Propylsea, and this elevation causes the Parthenon to be a most conspicuous object, not only from the THE ACROPOLIS, RESTORED. entrance to the Acropolis, but from every part of the surrounding plain. Many of the gigantic columns are still standing, particularly at the ends of the temple. One realises, even in the present condi- tion of the Parthenon, the remark of Colonel Leake, that "simplicity and majesty of mass and outline forms the first and most remark- able object of admiration in a Greek temple." The Erechtheum is in an extremely mutilated condition ; here and there may be seen elegant ornamental carvings and capitals of Ionic columns. An The Acropolis. 235 attempt has been made to partially restore the Hall of the Caryatides, but the figures are very much broken. Looking at the Acropolis in its present form, let us try to imagine what it once was — to restore the great array of columns, the great frieze of the Panathenaic procession, and the star-spangled roof ; to hang up the shields under the metopes, and cover the walls with delicate paintings of ivy-leaves, and vines, and fighting warriors ; to look into the treasury, and see the most valued possessions of the city, and to place the gold and ivory statue of Athena in the centre of all. PARTHENON AND ERECHTHEUM. We must think of the Acropolis as it was in the days of Pericles, when the whole of the summit of the rock was covered with temples and statues, altars and votive ofierings ; when the Propylsea formed a magnificent entrance to the great collection of buildings within ; when it was a splendid aggregation of marble columns of dazzling whiteness, enriched with gilding and colour. On passing through its central gate we should have seen a roadway edged with statues and altars ; on the left the great bronze statue of Athena Promachus, 70 feet hio^h, the work of Pheidias. On 236 Athens. entering tlie Parthenon, the gold and ivory statue of Athena, also the work of Pheidias, would have attracted our gaze, placed in a ERECHTHEUM, RESTORED. chamber of white marble delicately tinted with colours, and adorned within and without by magnificent sculp- tures and paintings. In the Erechtheum we should have seen the most sacred image of the goddess, the olive-wood figure of Athena Polias, said to have fallen from heaven. Here too would be the olive-tree planted by Athena, the mark of the trident of Poseidon, the golden lamp of Callimachus, which perpetually burned before the statue of the goddess, and the silver throne from which Xerxes witnessed the battle of Salamis. And if it were the year of the great Panathenaic procession, it would have been a wonderful sight to have seen the horsemen and charioteers, the elastic-limbed boys from the Palaestra in the glory of early manhood, and the dancing daughters of Athens, in all the grace of their flowing garments and with golden grasshoppers CARYATIDE OF THE ERECHTHEUM. The Theseum. 237 in their hair, winding up the hill, bearing the crocus-coloured peplos to place upon the statue of Athena Polias. It is for the sake of such dreams as this, which may be augmented at pleasure by the aid of the works of Aristophanes and Pausanias, Wordsworth and Leake, Penrose and Dyer, that the traveller is tempted to spend so much of his time on the Acropolis. The view from the summit, the perfection of the ruined temples, the attempt to imagine their past condition — all form irresistible attractions. After the ruins of the Acropolis, the Theseum is the most interesting remain in Athens ; and is, perhaps, the most perfect example of an early Greek temple which exists. It is 30 years older than the Parthenon, and, like it, is of the purest Doric architecture. The roof is Supported by thirty-six columns, and the entire building is 122 feet long by 52 broad. The columns are nearly all perfect, all remain in their places, and the temple might be regarded as the work of a much later ao;e, were it not for the tinge of brown, which reminds us that it has stood for centuries. The sculptures upon it portray the exploits of Theseus and the labours of Hercules. Like all Greek temples, it was once painted ; traces of red, blue, and green drapery have been found, also of a painted foliage and gilt stars. This temple, like the Parthenon, was converted into a Christian church in 667, and was dedicated to S. George of Cappadocia. It was afterwards used as an hospital, now as a museum. It is fortunate that gunpowder has never been stored in it, and that no Turkish or Venetian shell found its way through the roof. The remaining monuments of Ancient Athens are of comparatively little interest. The Temple of the Winds, otherwise called the Horologium of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, was erected B.C. 100, long after the best period of Greek art. The figures of the winds sculptured upon its upper portion wUl bear no com- parison with the beautiful reliefs of the Parthenon. The Arch of Hadrian is very incongruous on account of its surroundings. 238 Athens. Ancient Athens was chiefly situated on the west and south- west sides of the Acropolis ; the modern city extends to the north and north-east. The busiest portion of the town is to the north of the Acropolis, near the crossing of the two principal streets and the Tower of the Winds. Here we find the modern Agora, and near it remains of the old Agora, in the form of some massive masonry. The Agora is a collection of sheds as close as the rows of ginger- bread booths in a fair ; the commodities appear to consist princi- AUCH OF HAUKIAN. pally of fruits and of various kinds of meat — joints of mutton, lean yellow fowls, kids, pigeons, and woodcocks. Then there are stalls full of oranges from Poros, pears from Trieste, dates, dried figs, and green vegetables. This market is a curious contrast to the Ilalles of a French town of the same size ; the floor is uneven, and of unpaved earth, and an attempt is made to keep out rain and sun by thin boards, which slope from a central beam. Near the Agora, in a The Agora. 239 very narrow lane, is the clotli-market, full of goat-skin cloaks and rough cloth woven by the natives, and red Albanian shoes. In the vicinity the chief life and activity of the city is to be seen. Here are people dressed in at least ten different kinds of costume. Peasants from the neighbouring villages bring their flesh and fowl to market, and return with household necessaries ; others bring fruit and fish from the Piraeus, wild fowl from the marshes, firewood from Hymettus. We saw one old man, in semi- Albanian costume, who was driving about a dozen lean turkeys with a long cane ; several hours later we met him again apparently with an undiminished flock. He was still patiently driving it about, and doing his best to kill two birds with one stone ; for, while he was quite willing to stop if the turkeys found anything to eat by the way, he was still more willing to stop if he found any one to eat them. Round about the Agora there are restaurants, or ^evoSoxfta, and cafes, where the inhabitants sip masticha, smoke cigarettes, and read the 'E^^^^epk or "Eo-Trepos.* * The 'E(f>r][jL€pi\ gave a short abstract of this article when it first appeared in the Duhlin University Magazine in 1875. We append the two concluding paragraphs in order to show how little Greek has altered since early times. The pronunciation appears to have altered much more than the spelling, if indeed we really know how ancient Greek was pronounced. It is curious to hear such words as (Saa-tXev; pronounced vasilefs. KaTcure/DW Treptypac^wv ti/v dyopavAeyei: "'H ayopa €ivc cnvdOpota-fia fJiiKpiov ^vXlv(x)v TrapaTTip^ jxariiiv cos ^K^lva twv ttwAoi'vtwv ev rats Travy]yfivp€(riv ev EvpwTrr; 8ia(f)opa avTtKet/xeva. 'A7ravTW/xev iv avrrj KaXa TTopTOKoiWia tov IIopov, (XTrtSta T>}s Tepyecrrr^s, <f>OLViKas, ^i)po. avKa, crrac^iSa, Kal Trepairepco npeara ufiviou /cai TTpoSdrcDv, dypav, Trepicrrepas Kal ydXXovi. To eSa(^o5 o/xws elve /SopSopoiSes Kat cAeetvov, Trotei 8e irepUpyov dvriOeo-LV Trpos rots yaAAtKoLs dyopas (halles). UXrjcriov T^s dyopas virdpyet peydXi] kivijctl's, IStS 8e /3Ae7re6 rts TOvXd)(i(rTOV SeKa el8wv ev8v[xa<rta<s. Tlept Tqv dyopdv elve TroXXd ^€vo8o)(eLa Kal Ka(jieveia, ottov ot KaTOiKol TTivovcrt p.a(TTixo-v, Kairvi^ova-i crtydpa Kal avayi,V(j}(rKov(Tt Wjv '^(\>y]p.ipi8a Kal tov "Eo"7repov." 'O K. Rodwel yvwpL^iL Kal to, TroAtn/cd [xa<; Trpdy/xara* oixiXeu irepl twi' KOinidTtav Ktti Aeyet, on eKctvos ^a tjto croJTrjp Trj<s 'EAAdSos, oVrts ^a KanopOov va l8pv(Ty VTTOvpyeiov jSwo-ifiov ctti fiaKpov Kal vd ivwcry to, Koyu/xara TouAdxtcrroi' eis Si'o. 240 Athens. Near the Agora there is a prison, which, when we saw it, was full of brigands. They were walking about an inner court in twos and threes, in their usual goat-skin cloaks ; and although they wore heavy iron chains extending from the waist to the ankles, they appeared fairly comfortable, and were chatting and smoking as if nothing particular had happened. A good deal of misapprehension exists in this country in regard to Greek brigands. The country is far safer now than it used to be, and if the Turkish Government would co-operate with the Government of King George, brigandage could be altogether suppressed. At present if a robbery is committed and the brigands are pursued, they have only to cross the frontier to be in comparative security. The Greeks are always on the look-out for brigands, and are doing their best to suppress them ; two members of the brother- hood were recently captured at Nauplia, whither they had gone in order to escape by sea. Since the murders on the Marathon road, no less than 300 brigands have been captured, and seventeen were said to be awaiting execution at the commencement of this year (1875). It was, moreover, proposed that the bodies should be hung in chains, as a warning to others, in various conspicuous parts of the country. Whether this will be done is perhaps doubtful. It is still deemed necessary to have an escort of soldiers for the long drive to Marathon, but for shorter distances it is unnecessary. For instance, the road to Eleusis is quite secure ; and on one occasion we rode out into the country alone, for several miles, in the direction of Sunium, returning by the coast near Munychia and Phalerum, and so back to Athens by the Pirseus road. Although we met several men armed with fowling-pieces, and very similar to the imprisoned brigands in general appearance, not one of them seemed inclined to give up his occupation of woodcock-shooting even for the five minutes which, with a loaded gun levelled at our head, might have sufficed to relieve us of watch and purse. It is probable that almost any journey might be undertaken with safety if it were The Government. '^41 kept secret. AVben it is known that a traveller, supposed to be worth robbing, is to make a certain expedition on a certain day, the chances are greatly increased that the brigands will swoop down from the mountains, put to rout the escort, which consists of some five or six soldiers, and rob the traveller. It should be stated that the Government authorities are always most willing to supply an escort to visitors, and to offer them every facility in the prosecution of their travels. In ancient times, we remember that the small Greek states were perpetually fighting against each other, and the same thing now prevails in a somewhat different form. In this little kingdom there are no less than four political parties, and changes of govern- ment are of very frequent occurrence. If there could be a fusion of parties — if the four parties could coalesce into two, the welfare of Greece would be largely promoted. " Unity makes strength" is a wise maxim. The four State parties are apt to fight out their grievances among themselves, and to leave the State to take care of itself. The man who can form a stable coalition ministry will do a great service to the State.'"" * Apropos of the Government of Greece, we recently met with the following remarks in the letter of a Greek who is well acquainted with the state of his country : — "It must not be forgotten that political education is the last growth of civilisation, and that we cannot reasonably expect Greek society (emerging, as it does, from the barbarism of Turkish oppression, and isolated from the rest of Europe by the sea that surrounds it on three sides, and by Turkey on the north) to all at once assume the virtues of political life, which we fail to discover in other countries that have not had to fight against the same disadvantages. " Greece is now getting its political education. What is the best system for such an education? Protection (as we may call absolatisiti) or Liberalism'? I trust that with the liberties we possess we shall eventually arrive as a nation at the goal which our well-wishers have in view \ but meanwhile we stumble over many difficulties in gaining our political experience ; and we deplore our failings, and strangers laugh at them. At any rate, are we not likely to arrive at the goal earlier and safer than if we were under an absolute Government? "Moreover, could the present state of government have well been otherwise? The Greek nation attained its independence by itself, by its own desperate efforts. 2 M 242 Athens. Whatever the faults of government may have been, it is unde- niable that great progress has been made since the War of Independence. In no respect is this more apparent, perhaps, than in the matter of education. We have been assured that the system of State education in Greece is more complete and comprehensive than that of any other country. In Athens there is a flourishing university, in which 1200 students are provided with a high-class education, and there is a great central school for girls, which, with its branches in the neighbourhood of Athens, provides education for no less than 1500 pupils. We all know how eagerly the schools of Athens were resorted to by students from all parts of the world during the time of her great philosophers ; and when Greece became a Roman province, the conquerors respected the ancient fame of the city, and in* matters of learning became the disciples of their captives. Thus the force of arms gave way to the force of intellect and of spirit. Not only did the flower of Roman intellect, Horace and Cicero, and many whose names are familiar to us, study at Athens, but people from every part of the world met in the city for one common object — viz., to study the learning that he loved best. He had plenty of choice ; there were four schools of philosophy, as in the Once that independence attained, was it possible, was it practicable, to deprive the people of their share in the immediate government of the country % They were not tit to exercise such duties and rights, it is true. But they will learn. A genera- tion or two must first pass. What has been done is a safe guarantee of what will be achieved hereafter. '' Fancy, fifty years hence, Greece with rail and carriage roads to every corner of its beautiful and famed lands ; with cultivated fields throughout, and well-built towns close to one another, and good hotels everywhere, and two or three lines joining the country with the rest of Europe, east and west (in a northerly direction, of course), and travellers thronging to it from every land, and the native population on a level Avith the rest of civilised Europe not only in intellectual culture, but also in material well-being. Fancy all that, and then you will understand the impatience of Greeks to hasten the work and shorten the period of those fifty years to come. All this will come." TJie University of Athens. 243 better days of iVthenian learning. "The student," says Gibbon, " according to the temper of his mind, might doubt with the * Sceptics, or decide with the Stoics — sublimely contemplate with Plato, or severely argue with Aristotle." Round about Athens were the groves in which both mind and body could find refresh- ment and gain energy ; the Garden of the Epicureans, the Portico of the Stoics, the Academy of Plato, and the Lycseum of Aristotle. A city thus somewhat remote from the busy world of commerce was well suited to be the great academy of the world. But all this came to an end in the sixth century, when Justinian closed the schools of Athens. Paganism was about to die, and Christianity to blot out the remembrance of the old philosophers and of the old gods. The pagan temples became Christian churches ; the Parthenon, dedicated to the virgin goddess Athena, was now dedicated to the Virgin Mother ; the Theseum became the church of S. George of Cappadocia. Thus the schools of learning which had endured for a thousand years ceased to exist, and we hear of them no more. But schools of Attic learning sprang up in every land. Tlie philosophy of Aristotle was the philosophy of the Middle Ages ; Homer was read in all countries ; once again intellect set force at defiance. But Athens had lost its renown as a focus of culture, and we have no record of any attempt to re-establish schools of learning until the year 1837, when the present University was founded. That it is a worthy attempt to restore the credit of Athens as a centre of learning no one can deny, when it is remembered that many of the students, after completing their university career, travel into Asia Minor, and Turkey, and Egypt, and disseminate the learning wliich they had acquired at home. In fact, the University of Athens has become the University of the East. The city is the centre of Oriental culture. While Greece was in bondage, other centres of learning flourished and extended culture. Athens cannot acain become the intellectual focus of the 244 Athens. world ; humanity and letters have moved westward ; the march of civilisation is from the East to the West ; but let us never fail to remember that the sun of all learninof rose in the East. The University of Athens is like all continental universities ; no one lives in college ; it is a place where lectures are given, examina- tions held, and degrees conferred. The building consists of a finely- decorated hall, in which speeches are delivered and the meetings of the Academical body are held ; a well -arranged library of 200,000 volumes ; a cabinet of coins, and a number of lecture-rooms for different professors. The course of studies is divided into four faculties — theology, law, medicine, and philosophy. The lectures commence at 8 a.m., and in the different departments are given throughout the day till 6 p.m. Theology and law are, apparently, less studied than medicine and philosophy. There are six professors of theology and one sub-professor ; nine professors of law and five sub-professors ; sixteen professors of medicine and eight sub-pro- fessors ; and twenty professors of philosophy with four sub-professors. The faculty of philosophy is a very comprehensive one ; under the term is included almost everything except that which we usually call philosophy, viz., logic and metaphysics. There are lectures on Homer, Sophocles, Thucydides, and Pindar ; on ancient Greek literature, and on the history of philosophy ; on Cicero, Horace, Tibullus, and Juvenal ; on Eoman literature ; on the history of the middle ages ; on analytical geometry, natural philosophy, kinematics, chemistry, archteology, anthropology, ethnology, zoology, vegetable physiology, and geology. This is a very large section, and no wonder the number of professors should be more than one-third of the whole body. The professors are a cultivated body of men, many of whom have travelled in Western Europe, while some have studied in France, others in Germany ; they are all well acquainted with the literature of their special subject, whether French, German, or English ; but French seems to be the favourite language, and a Collections of Antiquities. 245 foreign work is usually made known to them through a French translation. The wants of the University have caused the appear- ance of an original Greek literature. The students require text- books, and the professors must supply them with books in their own language. This original literature will, no doubt, largely increase.^'" There are several fine private collections of antiquities in Athens. One of them will be remembered by all who have visited the city. In it we saw several bowls of coloured glass of great antiquity, rare specimens of coloured glass bottles, an armlet of gilt bronze, several strigils of bronze, and a great quantity of vases and terra-cotta fio-ures. The same collector has a cabinet of well-selected Greek coins. Antiquities are constantly turning up. Lately a number of very ancient terra-cotta figures have been found at Tanagra, some of which have been sold at from £30 to £50 a-piece. Dr. Schliemann's collection of Trojan antiquities, about which there has been so much controversy of late, is now (1875) housed in Athens. Although it is perhaps questionable whether the enthusiastic doctor is ris^ht in imaffinino: that he has found the treasure of King Priamos, there can, we think, be no doubt that the gold and silver vessels belong to a period of remote antiquity. But we must take a last look at the many familiar objects around us ; so utterly new a week ago, now, from constant com- * In 1837 the University possessed 52 students; in 1845 tlie number had risen to 195; in 1855, to 590; in 1866, to 1182. Between 1837 and 1866 the number of students who had passed through the University amounted to 4631 ; of these 2969 were born in the kingdom, while 1662 had come from other countries, chiefly from Turkey. In 1830 there were 110 schools in Greece; in 1855, 497; in 1860, 752; in 1866, 1307, including the Ionian Islands. In all, in public and private schools and gymnasia, including the University, there were in 1866 no less than 75,873 persons under instruction, or (taking the population as 1,500,000) at the rate of 1 in 20. (From the Report of M. Drosos, Minister of Public Instruction, 1866.) 246 Athens. panionsliip, apparently so old. The boat for Marseilles leaves the harbour very early in the morning, and there will not be another for a fortnight. So on the morrow we find ourselves steaming down the iEgean sea, ever and anon catching a glimpse of Lycabettus and the Hill of Musseus, and between them the scene of the greatest literary and artistic triumphs the world has ever seen. GREEK VASES. a A large vase five feet high, somewhat exaggerated in style, and adorned with an excess of ornament ; h, c, vases of the finest period of art, having black figures on a red ground ; d, an early vase, having a black ground, and red ornamentatiou. Addendum. — Since the above was written, few events have happened in Athens of any importance. Several new public buildings which were then in progress have been finished ; a Dr. Schlietnann. 247 museum lias been built on the Acropolis, and some progress has been made in excavations. Athens promises soon to have one of the finest museums of Greek antiquities in the world. Dr. Schlie- mann is still making discoveries at Mycenae, and he has promised to place whatever he finds there in a museum at Athens. His success has already been most wonderful. He believes that he has discovered the tombs of Atreus and Agamemnon, of Cassandra and Eurymedon. In the various tombs already opened he has found a gold diadem, gold cups, and a quantity of gold button- THE DODWELL VASE PRESERVED I>f MUNICH. AN EXAMPLE OF EARLY GREEK VASE-PAINTING. like ornaments ; also a quantity of pottery, and many bronze implements. In a recently opened tomb he found four gold vases and some engraved signet rings, and in another tomb the bones of a man and a woman covered with ornaments of pure gold. Archaeology owes very much to Dr. Schliemann, who is the most indefatigable excavator of modern times. He is doing that for Greece which Belzoni did in regard to Egyptian antiquities."^' * Dr. Schliemann announced his discovery to the King of the Hellenes in the following words : — "To his Majesty King George — With unbounded joy I announce to your 248 Athens. In literature the Greeks have not been idle during the last two or three years. Among other things, we may mention that three plays of Shakspere (Othello, King Lear, and Romeo and Juliet) have been translated into Greek by M. Demetrius Bikelas, and others will speedily follow. AVe give below short extracts, together with the Englisli, to show how M. Bikelas has accomplished his task. lOYAIETA ^KKOfxiq 8ev'^'q[Ji€p(j)cre' 6a <f)vyrj<s oltto Twpa', "Htov cj)(i)vr] dr]8ovLov, KopvSaXos 8ev tjtov TTov aov e(f)6f3i.cre tolvtI fxl to /ceAa Srj/ia tow 's €K€Lvr^v Trepa rrjV pu>8iav tolko'vu) Kade vvKTa. "Q, ! TTLO'Tevcrefi, dy air')] [jlov, -t^Tov avTO a-q8ovL. PI2MAI02 KopvSaAos eXaXyjce Kal Tr)v dvyrjv KrjpvTTei. 8\v dvar]86vL. Kurra^e rot (f^dovepa ^apaKia, TTOV €(Trj[jLa8evcr€ tv (^ws 's rats aKpais rwv (rvvv€<f>(a]/. 'ISe, T^s vvKTas €(rf3vcrav ol Av;(vo^ ei'a? eVas, Kat T(apa eAac^poTraTci Tracri^apry ry p-epa els TtDv (Sovviov rats Kopvcfjals Trais Tra^vocr/ceTracr/xsvats. TrpeTret va (f^vyw va crco^w" av fiitvo) ^'aTTo^avw. Juliet. Wilt thou be gone ? it is not yet near day, It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear ; Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree : Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. Majesty that I have discovered the monuments which tradition, as related by Pausanias, points out as the tombs of Agamemnon, Cassandra, Eurymedon, and their companions, who were all killed whilst feasting at a banquet by Clytemnestra and her lover ^gisthus. These tombs are surrounded by a double parallel circle of tablets, which were undoubtedly erected in honour of these great personages. In these tombs I have found an immense archaeological treasure of various articles of pure gold. This treasure is alone sufficient to fill a large museum, which will be the most splendid in the world, and which, in all succeeding ages, will attract to Greece thousands of strangers from every land. As I am labouring from a pure and simple love for science, I waive all claim to tlus treasure, which I offer with intense enthusiasm in its entirety to Greece. Sire, may these treasures, with God's blessing, become the corner-stone of immense national wealth. "Dr. Hknry Schliemann. Modern Greek Literahtre. 249 Borneo. It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale : look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east : Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die. Act III., Sc. 5. Again, take the fool's speech in King Lear (Act L, Scene 4), which commences — Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowest. Lend less than thou owest, Eide more than thou goest. This is rendered by M. Bikelas as follows : — 'E)(e TrAetOTepa aTr' ocra '^oSeviLS, Aeye 'Atywrepa irapocra yvw/ot^ets, fSaxTTa TzXeLOTepa dTrocra Savet^€6S, fj.r) TTCpnvaTTJS orav ijfnropTJ'S va Ka/3aAiK€U7ys, aKove TToAAa, kl oXiya va TricrTevy?. Prof Papparougopoulos has completed his Hellenic History ; Prof Rhousopoulos has written a work on Greek Archaeology, the frontispiece of which represents seven fine studies of Homeric Heads (placed at the head of this chapter) — Menelaos, Paris, Diomedes, Ulysses, Nestor, Achilles, Agamemnon. Prof Oikonomos continues his OiKovofxiKr] EiriOewpya-Ls ; and Prof Stroum- pos often contributes scientific papers to Les Mondes. Thus the Athenian professors are by no means idle, and the Uni- versity will soon be far more independent as regards text-books than it has hitherto been. In a letter received within the last few weeks from a Greek, who, having lived for many years in London, has returned to Athens for the rest of his life, we note the following remarks : — " I may tell you one thing : that I have found much progress in everything. The town gets larger and prettier ; the pavements are 2n 250 A thefts. covered in most streets with beautiful slabs ; a great many houses have been erected, some of them really splendid mansions. I am told that 300 houses, or thereabouts, were built last year. The Municipality is trying to increase the supply of water by clearing out and utilising the magnificent subterranean aqueducts of the Eoman period. Many public edifices have been finished, or nearly so — the Polytechnic School, the Academy, &c. They are going to build new law courts. In short, Athens is becoming a very pretty little capital. I am told that the population is now between 65,000 and 70,000, while the Piraeus has 20,000. . . . As to the Government, the progress is not there equally marked. Our politicians are not generally admired by the people at large. But there is some latent improvement that way. There is a public opinion being gradually formed. It has as yet no real organs. But as people get more educated and prosperous by degrees, they will end by imposing their opinion on the governing class." KOjMDAMINI medusa. MUNICH. CHAPTER XII. CAIRO. Alexandria — Cairo — The Hotel — Climate — Novelty of an Eastern City — The Bazaars — New Cairo — The Mosques — The Citadel — The Pyramids and the Sphynx — Memphis — Eastern Burying-grounds — Other Sights of Cairo — Detention at Alex- andria — The abrupt Termination of an Argument. EAVING Naples on one of the last days of the year (1875), we arrived in the harbour of Alex- andria, after a dull and rather boisterous voyage, which occupied about five days' time. The usual crowd of boats surrounded the steamer as soon as our anchor was cast, and the dragoman of one of the hotels came on board, took charge of our luggage, and conducted us on shore. On landing, he advised us to give a rather formidable-looking Government official a few piastres (four of which go to the franc), in order to get our luggage passed without being opened. Alexandria was particularly miserable-looking, it had been raining hard, and the streets were one mass of mud. At the best of times there is but little to detain the traveller here ; there are no remains of the ancient city, and it now reminds one more of a second-rate French seaport than of anything else. 252 Cairo. We were glad to take the train the next day for Cairo, and to leave behind us a town which is more European than Eastern, and which is inhabited by the most mixed population under the sun. We arrived at Cairo towards evening, and having procured a cab and got clear of the station, we expected to find ourselves at last in an Eastern town. Imagine then our astonish- ment at being driven through a long boulevard lighted by gas, and flanked on either side by tall white houses with shops below. Ten minutes later, the Frankish city dissolved as if by magic ; we had entered a dark, narrow unpaved street, and we suddenly came upon a little cortege consisting of a boy carrying a large paper lantern and leading a donkey, upon which sat a great balloon-like mass of black silk, while a second boy walked behind and urged on the donkey. It was a lady of Cairo, closely veiled, and enveloped from head to foot in a great silk mantle. We knew now that we were in an Eastern poMPEY's piLLAi;, ALEXANDRIA. clty. Prcseutly wc stopped in the middle of the street called the Mooskee, at the top of a long narrow lane, and the dragoman told us that this was the Hotel du Nil. The entrance did not look very prepossessing, but when we had reached the end of the lane, we found a very comfortable hotel kept by a German, in which, although we were supplied with the chiefest of European luxuries, we ran no risk of forgetting that we were in an Eastern land. The hotel is built round a small quadrangle, which is planted with palms and other tropical plants. Most of the bedrooms are First Acquaintance with the City. 253 on the ground floor, and open into a verandah which runs round the quadrangle ; the dining-room is at one corner of the quadrangle, while a kiosk in the centre serves as a drawing-room. The hotel w^as very full of people — English, Americans, Germans, and French; several families who were on their way to Upper Egypt, and several artists, both English and German, helped to make up our party. The hotel life was very pleasant, and the place became liome at once. An artist with whom we had travelled to Alexandria spent several whole days, apparently very happily, in painting a palm- tree opposite his bedroom window, and some of the ladies passed a great deal of time in the hotel. We all met twice a-day at table d'hote, for breakfast at half-past twelve, and again at half-past six for dinner. After breakfast it was usual to sit in the garden till three o'clock, that is, during the greatest heat of the day, for although it was early January, the sun was as hot as on our hottest August day. Some people preferred a siesta. A few Arabs came into the garden every day after breakfast, either to amuse us, or to sell their wares. The objects ofiered for sale were of the most varied kind : — magnificently-embroidered table-cloths and silks, amber mouthpieces for pipes, coins, bronze figures of Osiris, scarabsei, photographs, pottery from Siout, were the most common ; sometimes an Arab would bring a melancholy -looking Egyptian vulture, or a jackal bound hand and foot, which he had caught in the desert, or more probably prowling about one of the cemeteries at night. As to our after-breakfast amusements, we sometimes had conjurors, and sometimes serpent-charmers. A little Arab boy would squat down in our midst, and presently would shake out of a bag two large Egyptian cobras, a smaller snake, and a large kind of lizard. The cobras raised themselves on their tails, and swayed backwards and forwards, following every motion of the boy with their glittering eyes ; then they would open their mouths and hiss, and occasionally dart at the legs of a person passing near, for which they were promptly struck down to the ground. The 254 Cairo. Egyptian cobra, like its Indian cousin, is one of the most deadly- snakes that exists, and the Arab boy was questioned as to the capabilities of his specimens, whereupon he seized one of them and forced its mouth open to show that the fangs had been removed, PALM TREES. and more than this, he fearlessly pressed that part of the jaw from which they had been extracted, and caused some of the yellow gum-like venom to exude. When there was nothing else to do The Climate. 255 during the siesta hour, we read our guide-books, or Lane's Modern Egyptians, and talked. The time passed pleasantly enough. Apart from all the sights of Cairo, the pleasure of living is enormously enhanced by the lovely climate. It rains on an average only six days in the year, and day after day in early January the sky is cloudless from morning till night, and the sun is deliciously warm. Then the effect of contrast is exquisite. Not many days before, the traveller experienced a succession of English STREET IN CAIRO. fogs, then perhaps snow and sharp frosts in central France, rain in Italy, and half-a-gale in the Mediterranean ; now he finds himself enjoying the most perfect summer weather, and, as regards vegeta- tion, in the midst of a perpetual spring. Yet to be just, we must confess that the evenings are sometimes chilly, and the night air damp and unhealthy, although we noticed in the Mooskee that the Nubian servants sleep all night outside their master's shops in the open air on a kind of wicker bed. Again, on a certain morning on our way to Sakkarah, at a somewhat early hour, a chilly, very 256 Cairo. dense fog, worthy of Glasgow in November, hung over the Nile, but we emerged from it into a blazinor sun. A traveller who visits Cairo for the first time does not care to see any of the greater sights of the town for the first few days. The whole environment is so novel, that it takes some time to get a general idea of the life of this teeming city. We have often stood in the Mooskee, or in one of the bazaars, and thought that we had never seen anything in the grandest stage scene (in which everything is of course exaggerated to heighten the efi'ect) which approached EASTERN ASSES. this, both for novelty and variety. Some years ago we remember to have seen a pantomime called Aladdm, at Covent Garden, and our glimpses of bazaar -life reminded us of that more than of anything else. Turbaned men, with splendid flowing garments of green, and purple, and maroon silk, poorer people with simple blue cotton clothing and fezzes, portly eunuchs riding on white asses, water-carriers and melon-sellers, donkey-boys urging their steeds througjh the crowd, guards of the Khedive on high- mettled Arab horses, and, if the street be wide enough, some The Bazaars. 257 of tlie ladies of His Higliness's harem in a close carriage, preceded by a running footman with flowing white robes and a many- coloured sash, and followed by outriders in black European clothes and fezzes. The streets are full of life, and of ever-changing life. A day in Cairo is scarcely complete without a ride or walk in the bazaars. Some of these are so narrow that two camels cannot pass abreast. The shops are mere large cupboards, in front of which the owner sits on a carpet smoking a long chibouque. In these cupboards, however, you find the productions of all lands, and oriental manufactures in superabundance. If you want to purchase anything, you find the operation more difiicult even than in Venice ; -^ — • WATER-CARRIEKS OF THE EAST. the seller invariably begins by asking far more than his commodity is worth, or than he expects to get ; the buyer promptly oflfers one- half, or one-quarter, if he thinks that he has been much imposed upon ; then the seller slightly lessens his demand, and the buyer probably walks ofi". A moment later he is overtaken, and a fresh reduction in price is made, and finally, by a little elasticity on both sides, the bargain is struck. Certain bazaars have certain special market-days, when trade is unusually brisk ; on such a day you see men running about with their commodities among the closely- packed moving throng. In the Turkish bazaar we saw a second- o 258 Cairo. hand scimitar hawked about in this fashion. Among the more interesting bazaars are the copper bazaar (beloved by artists on account of its picturesque surroundings), the silk bazaar, the perfume bazaar, and the carpet bazaar. The present Ruler of Egypt has done much to transform Cairo into the semblance of an European city. No doubt the health of the inhabitants has been improved by some of the changes which have been made, but it is equally certain that the picturesqueness of this beautiful city has been partially destroyed. Ten minutes' walk from the most truly Eastern portion of the city in and around the Mooskee 'brings you to the Eshekieh, a kind of large square laid out as a garden, after the manner of European towns. Around this a number of new buildings have been raised by European architects, in European style. Large white lofty houses resting on arcades, as in Paris, the lower portion shops and the upper let out in flats, an opera-house, a French theatre, and the new Hotel d'Orient, are conspicuous in New Cairo. The three last-mentioned buildings are the property of the Khedive, and are kept up at a yearly loss of many thousand pounds. A fairly good French company performs at the theatre during several months of the year, while a decidedly good and exorbitantly-paid Italian com- pany present some of the most popular operas at the other house during the same period. Here we saw Faust given before a very thin audience, and a few nights later, Aida, which is always popular in Cairo, and the representation of which was well attended. Aida was written by Verdi for the Khedive for the opening of this new opera-house, and it is represented with a completeness worthy of Paris or London. The story is completely Egyptian from beginning to end, and themes from Egpytian airs are often introduced in the course of the opera. The Khedive is certainly a most enlightened potentate for an Oriental ; he is a liberal patron of the arts and sciences ; he constructs bridges and railways, erects sugar refineries, and does all he can to develope the oppressive System. 259 resources of his country on the one hand, while in matters of taste and refinement, he keeps up his French theatre and Italian opera, and invites artists of eminence to take up their abode in Cairo and paint pictures for him. But unfortunately the revenue of the country is altogether inadequate to such sweeping changes, and the fellahs sufi'er an oppression which is quite unknown in any European country, except perhaps Turkey. Money is still extorted after a barbarous fashion, and the country is taxed to the utter- most. Whether the schemes proposed by Mr. Cave and Signor Scialoja, and more recently by Mr. Goschen, will improve the financial condition of the country, remains to be proved, but we can scarcely look with much satisfaction on the Khedive's reforms so long as the means to carry them out are wrung from the oppressed inhabitants of the land by the present harsh and unjustifiable system. We have heard of old grey-headed men who have been bastinadoed because they did not furnish a sum of money arbitrarily extorted from them by the Sheik of the village to make up his government assessment; and of children driven to their work with whips, staggering and fainting under their burdens. A man who knows Egypt well, and who spends a large portion of every year there, assured us that the poorer people can no longer afibrd dates, and* that they replace them by a kind of small cucumber steeped in vinegar. Not many years ago the salt was taxed — always the most iniquitous of taxes, because salt is an absolute necessity, not a luxury of life. The very donkey-boys are taxed. The mosques and minarets of Cairo are very numerous, and some of them are of great antiquity. A few years ago it was dangerous for a stranger to go into any of them even when accompanied by a soldier, but since the Cairenes have had greater intercourse with Europeans they have learned to treat them in a more civilised fashion. Still it is necessary to be accompanied by a soldier, and to have a written order from the central ofiice of 260 Cairo. police in Cairo, before venturing into some of their mosques. This is notably the case with the Mosque of Touloun, and the Mosque of El Azhah — the University of Cairo. First we had to obtain a written order in Arabic from our consulate ; this we were told to take to the police office, a curious, very un-official looking building, full of small rooms, in which people stood about and talked, or sat on divans. After a good deal of delay, two papers were given us stamped with an official seal, and a soldier was directed to accom- pany us. We went first to the mosque of the Sultan Touloun, which was built in 879, soon after the foundation of the city. It is in a very ruinous state, and has been given up by the Khedive to the beggars and outcasts of Cairo. A more horrible place we never saw. It is a kind of Cour des Miracles. Within the strongly-barred gate of the mosque a violent scuffle was going on, and the guard inside refused to admit us until quiet was partially restored. When we entered, the first thing that we saw was a man stretched on the ground, and one of the guards ad- ministering the bastinado to him. A little further on, an alfresco butcher was cutting up an animal which had evidently just been killed. In the large quadrangle swarms of miserable human beings in filthy rags were herding together, lepers and cripples and outcasts of every description. We were glad to get out of the place, and did not care to penetrate far into it. It appeared to be in a very ruinous and dilapidated condition, although retaining some evidences of its former mao^nificeuce. Before obtaininof admission to the Mosque of El Azhah, we had to take our docu- ments to the Sheik of the Mosque — the Chancellor of the Univer- sity of Cairo — for signature, and here arose another delay. Orientals have no idea of hurrying themselves. El Azhah is a most interesting place, and like most of the larger mosques, it is a small town within a town. Inside the gate sat three grave-looking men having their heads shaved, and people on either side were engaged in a variety of occupations. Ihen we entered a large enclosure, in which were The Mosques. 261 little groups of students squatting on the floor around the professor, who expounded Mohammedan law, physic, or divinity. Cairo is the most celebrated of Arabic universities. The number of professors appeared to be considerable, although the learners surrounding any one of them rarely exceeded a dozen. Another mosque into which we went was filled with worshippers. It was a MOSQUE OF THE SULTAN HASSAX. magnificent new building, richly carpeted and hung with a multi- tude of lamps, while the roof was supported by numerous arches. We particularly remember this mosque, because it was unprovided with the usual matting slippers which visitors have to slip over 2G2 Cairo. their boots before they are allowed to enter a mosque, consequently we had to take off our laced boots in the crowded street, and then step into the building. Imagine the discomfort of unlacing one's boots in Cheapside before entering a door standing flush with the edge of the pavement ! Another mosque of beautiful proportions^ but rapidly falling to decay, is that of the Sultan Hassan, erected in 1362, and containing some beautiful carved work. Perhaps the most gorgeous mosque in Cairo, both as regards position, proportion, and internal decoration, is the Mosque of Mehemet Ali, built upon the Citadel of Cairo. It is conspicuous from a great distance, and is indeed the most prominent object in the city. Its slender minarets PYRAMIDS OF GHIZEH. seem to pierce the sky. From one corner of it a fine view of Cairo may be obtained, and the Nile may be traced for many miles. The Pyramids can also be seen, and we rarely omitted a day without climbing the Citadel to see the sun set behind them. The sunsets are indescribably beautiful ; a rosy glow illuminates the atmosphere just before sunset, and if watched in January from the Citadel, the clear disc of the sun is seen to sink just between the two Great Pyramids of Ghizch. Of course we went to the Pyramids, and were pushed up and The Sphynx. 263 pulled down in the usual manner by the Arabs, and then pestered for hackslieesli. Of the Great Pyramid we can only say that it takes the mind some appreciable time to realise the vast size of it, and the extravagant amount of human labour which must have been requisite for its erection. It stands on the very edge of the desert, and from its summit the narrow valley of the Nile is well seen. Egypt then appears — what it really is — a very thin strip of fertile land bordered by desert; to the west one sees nothing but a THE SPHYNX. dreary expanse of desert, to the south-west, desert edged by the pyramids of Sakkarah, and to the east and south-east the narrow strip of green fertile land which has been so justly celebrated through all ages. The Sphynx is wonderful and inscrutable. Of all the travellers, from Herodotus downwards, who have written about it, we think Mr. Kinglake has best conveyed to the reader some of the thoughts and impressions which pervade those who gaze upon this wonderful creation of antiquity. Hence we 2G4 Cairo. make no apology for the following quotation {Eotlien, p. 248) : — " And near the Pyramids, more wondrous and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphynx. Comely the creature is, but the comeliness is not of this world ; the' once worshi23ped beast is a deformity and a monster to this generation, and yet you can see that those lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty — some mould of beauty now forgotten — forgotten because that Greece drew forth Cytherea from the flashing foam of the ^gean, and in her image created new forms of beauty, and made it a law among men that the short and proudly-wreathed lips should stand for the sign and the main condition of loveliness, through all generations to come. Yet still there lives on the race of those who were beautiful in the fashion of the elder world, and Christian girls of Coptic blood will look on you with the sad serious gaze, and kiss your charitable hand with the big pouting lips of the very Sphynx. Laugh and mock if you will at the worship of stone idols, but mark ye this, ye breakers of images, that in one regard the stone idol bears awful semblance of Deity — unchangefulness in the midst of change — the same seeming will, and intent for ever and ever inexorable ! Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings, upon Greek and Roman, upon Arab and Ottoman conquerors, upon Napoleon dreaming of an Eastern Empire, upon battle and pestilence, upon the ceaseless misery of the Egyptian race, upon keen-eyed traveller, — Herodotus yesterday, Warburton to-day — upon all and more this unworldly Sphynx has watched, and watched like a Providence with the same earnest eyes, and the same sad tranquil mien. And we, we shall die, and Islam will wither away, and the Englishman straining far over to hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the seats of the Faithful, and still that sleepless rock will lie watching and watching the works of the new busy race with those same sad earnest eyes, and the same tranquil mien everlasting. You dare not mock at the Sphynx." The Pyramids. 265 On another occasion we went to see the pyramids of Sakkarah, which, although of less size than those of Ghizeh, are believed to be of greater antiquity. Of the magnificent city of Memphis scarcely a trace remains : a few broken fragments of columns and a recumbent statue of Rameses are almost all that we see above ground. But here was found by Mariette Bey, in 1850, the marvellous Apis Mausoleum, containing gigantic sarcophagi of granite, in which the sacred bulls were placed after having been embalmed. The whole neighbourhood of Memphis, on the desert side, was a vast necropolis, and all the principal pyramids of Egypt are within a few miles of the site of the ancient city, including those of Ghizeh. Whether or no the great pyramid of Cheops was designed, not only to preserve the relics of a king, but to hand down to posterity measures of length and capacity, astronomical data, &c., as Professor Piazzi Smyth would have us believe, may be an open question; but there can, we think, be no doubt that the pyramids are no more nor less than gigantic cairns to mark the resting-place of the illustrious dead. There are no less than seventy pyramids in Egypt, of all sizes, and in all stages of decay. Some are so disintegrated that they have lost their pyramidal form, and are now mere irregular heaps of rubbish. In the neigh- bourhood of the pyramids (particularly at Sakkarah) fragments of skulls and other bones, and small masses of mummy cloth stuck together by bitumen, may be found in great abundance. "This raised ground is a tomb," says an old Greek epitaph, attributed to Isidorus of iEgea, "0 ploughman, stop your oxen, and draw out the coulter of your plough ; for you are disturbing ashes, and upon dust of this kind pour not out the seed of wheat, but tears." The raised ground about Memphis is indeed a vast tomb, but there is no ploughman to disturb the ashes, for the ground is barren, and nothing can grow in the desert sand. The real disturbers of the ashes have been travellers and explorers of the Belzoni class, who have played the resurrectionist to a terrible extent. 2 p 266 Cairo. There is scarcely a local museum which has not at least one mummy. When the Khalif Almamoun penetrated into the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid, and having rifled the tomb in the hope of finding treasures, scattered the ashes of the great king to the winds, he set an example which has been followed unceasingly from his time till the present. It was stated some years ago that the remains of mummies were being shipped to Europe by the ton, and there sold as a good manure for wheat and turnips. Here is an opportunity for moralising after the manner of the " Imperial- Csesar- dead-and-turned-to-clay" soliloquy ! The ashes of those mighty sovereigns who ruled the world when it was young, torn from their native land, are mixed with the soil of a Norfolk cornfield, and the ploughman neither stays his oxen, nor draws out the coulter of his plough. To what base uses may we not come. Perhaps in this dish of mashed turnips there are atoms of nitrogen from the brain of Sesertasen, and in this penny roll there may be phosphoric acid from the bones of his chief baker. Yet if the man who makes two blades of grass to grow where one grew before is to be regarded as a great benefactor of his race, Osiris, having that precious jewel the king's soul, will surely grant us the casket which contained it ; and the king himself will rejoice that the ever-errant atoms of his brain have helped to promote the civilisation of a new race, in a land far distant from the land of his birth. We have been assured by a man who knows Egypt well, that mummies have been frequently used as fuel for locomotives, and that this fact is founded on much more than Mark Twain's story of the Egyptian engine-driver, who called out to an attendant fire- man, " Hang these plebeians, they won't burn at all ; hand out a king !" The same informant asserted that he knew \ki^t forty tons of mummy cloth had been recently sold to a paper-maker. We may take the stories for what they are worth (the story-teller was a countryman of Mark Twain's) ; but it surely needs no great Mummies. 267 calculation to tell us that if all the inhabitants of even a small country were embalmed for two or three thousand continuous years, the remains would represent a good many thousands of tons of matter. Since Mariette Bey has had charge of the Boulac Museum, this wholesale spoliation has been suppressed ; and even during the last year the Egyptian Eailway Companies have raised their fares to an extent of fifteen per cent, on account of the increased cost of TOMBS OF THE ilAMELUK.ES. fuel. Meanwhile M. Mariette is constantly bringing to light the most wonderful and beautiful remains of old Egyptian art — fine sculptured figures, terra-cottas exquisitely moulded, engraved stones, painted mummy-cases, jewels of gold, and mummies dressed in the height of Ptahian fashion. There is no Isidorus in this age to cry out, " Upon dust of this kind pour out tears." 2 P 2 268 Cairo. The cemeteries of Mahommeclans are very desolate places. Imnoediately outside the walls of Cairo you meet with the principal burying-place of the inhabitants. It is a complete desert, not a blade of grass or of anything green is to be seen ; the dust is three or four inches deep, and bare white walls divide oif the ground. The tombs are often mere little mounds of dust, sometimes a shapeless and unsightly mass of bricks and plaster raised over the grave ; while in the case of great people an obiong mass of white marble covers the grave, terminated by two small upright pillars, inscribed with verses from the Koran ; on the top of one of these pillars a turban or fez is often carved. The tombs of the Mamelukes are separate buildings, on the edge of the desert. The funeral takes place the same day as the death ; the body wrapped in many cloths is placed in an oblong wooden tray, which is carried on the shoulders of people, who rapidly push their way through the narrow bazaars, chanting verses from the Koran, in a manner which conveys no idea of music to European ears. On arriving at the place of burial, the body is removed from the wooden tray and buried a little beneath the surface of the ground ; fresh palm branches are sometimes laid over the grave. It is said that the dogs of the town, and the jackals of the desert, frequently disinter the bodies and eat them during the night. We certainly saw two dogs, in broad daylight, crouched beside a new grave, and probably waiting for the dark- ness. Although the burying-ground of Cairo is of this desolate description, the great feast of the Bairam is annually held among its tombs, and swarms of people go there to join the festivities. It is a kind of fair ; tents are pitched, swings and round-abouts set to work, jugglers perform, ballad-singers troll out their lays, and the universal story-teller finds a ready audience. We visited also Heliopolis, where one great obelisk — the most ancient in Egypt — marks the site of the priestly, learned city of the ancient Egyptians, in which all their wisdom was diligently studied. The city is much connected with sacred lore ; Moses Heliof)olis. 269 and Joseph and Jeremiah dwelt in it, as also did Eudoxus and Plato. Not far from the obelisk, which bears the name of Sesertasen I., a large sycamore tree of great antiquity is pointed out as the tree under which the holy family rested during the flight into Egypt. In the surrounding garden there is a sakieh for raismo; water. In Old Cairo we saw some very curious and ancient Coptic churches, containing carved work in wood and ivory, and pictures of a not very high style of art. Of the other sights of Cairo there are the Dancing Dervishes, the Khedive's Palaces, and the Boulac Museum. A ride to the petrified forest enabled us to realise more OBELISK AT HELIOPOLIS. completely than ever before the real nature of the desert ; mile after mile of dreary sandy waste, devoid of any vegetation — the most desolate landscape that one can possibly imagine. When we arrived at Alexandria, we were surprised to find that a violent gale had been raging in the Mediterranean, and we were told at the Custom-House that it was quite useless to go on board our boat, because it could not possibly leave the harbour. How- ever, we determined to go, and after a good deal of splashing and rough work in the boat we got on board, and were at once told that the vessel could not leave the harbour that night. The next 270 Cairo. morning the same unwelcome news was repeated, and for nearly five days we were kept prisoners in port. The Italian, Austrian, and French vessels were moored alongside of each other, waiting for the subsidence of the storm. Nothing could be more dreary than this imprisonment a few hundred yards from the shore. There was no help for it ; in Alexandria there was nothing to be seen or done, and the boat mig^ht start at an hour's notice ; thus it SAKIEH. was useless to go on shore, and there was nothing to be done but to wait patiently. When we were thoroughly tired of reading the available books, and had written letters to every one at home, we remembered a little incident which had lately happened in Cairo, and amused ourselves by recording it, in a slightly modified form, under the title of — The abrupt termination of an argument. The Abrupt Termination of an Argmnent. 271 THE ABEUPT TEEMINATION OF AN AEGUMENT. HE author or authors of the Homeric Poems ; the status of the Latin Patriarch of Constanti- nople ; the difference between the thing moved and the moving cause ; the number of angels capable of standing on the point of a needle ; the utility of definitions of Implied Notions ; the character and attributes of the Principle of Evil ; the doctrine of Transubstantiation ; the squaring of the circle ; the position and function of the Eolic digamma ; the date of the Eig-Veda Sanhita ; the founder of the pyramid of Sakkarah ; the nature of the Soul ; the generation of the metals ; the original of First Causes ; the respective merits of the assertions, '' Nihil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit, in sensu ;" " Cogito ergo Sum;" "Credo ut intelligam ;" the Infallibility of the Pope; the boundaries of a dominion ; the possibility of perpetual motion ; the nature of the heavens ; the habitability of the planets ; the respective merits of intellectus and voluntas, as first principles ; the most suitable form of Government for a particular people ; the doctrine of Evolution ; Nominalism and Realism, universalia ante res, or universalia in rebus, or universalia regarded as empty conceptions without real existence ; the State Religion ; the possibility of transmutation ; the existence of Spirits ; the nature "of an Imperial taxation ; — these are a few of the subjects which have from time to time furnished the matter for lengthy and profound argument. The mode of settling these arguments has varied almost as much as the subjects of the arguments themselves ; a not unusual method has been by the consumption of brain-tissue, time, paper, ink, sheep-skins, and the manual labour of printers and book- 272 Cairo. binders. Another method has been by destructive and long- continued wars involvinor the death of thousands of the human race. In more individual cases it has been settled by poison, strang- ling, roasting alive, banishment, incarceration in an oubliette, snick and snee, bowde knives and tomahawks, the eiserne Jung frau, the cauldron of boiling oil, a pistol-shot, the stroke of a dagger, the blow of a fist. More pacific means have been found in the decisions of kings, governors, rulers, khalifs, popes, cardinals, mitred abbots, canons of the Church ; secret councils of ten ; ostracism ; auditors of the Sacra Eota Komana, kadees, judges in the courts ecclesiasti- cal, civil, criminal, and consular ; courts martial, star-chambers, parliamentary committees, councils civil and ecclesiastical, imperial and ecumenical. We recently witnessed the termination of an argument by a means which, in spite of its simplicity, was certainly as convincing as any of the potent and elaborate processes mentioned above. In fact it was more convincing than most of them, for a man convinced against his will, will, as we all know, hold the same opinion still, even if the convincer be my Lord High Chancellor himself. We were watching one evening at sundown for the appear- ance of the mueddin to summon the Faithful to prayers. It was in the clear air of Cairo, and the thousand minarets of that picturesque city stood out sharply defined against the blue cloudless sky. Presently my companion, Mr. A , pointed to a mosque in our vicinity, remarking that he saw a man on the minaret. " Surely, A— — •," I replied, " that is a bird, not a man.'* ** Oh no," he replied, with the air of a confident man, perfectly correct in his opinion, " I am sure it is a man ; that minaret is really much further away than it looks ; this clear air is very deceptive, and it is most difiicult to judge correctly of distances and of the size of objects. In this case, however, there is not much difficulty ; you can trace the outline of the mueddin's head, The Abrupt Termination of ait Argument. 273 and the folds of his robe, and in a moment we shall hear his call to prayers. Besides," said A , " a bird would never remain so long in one place, or be in that position." " As to the distance," I replied, " the mosque is really very near to us ; besides, mueddins do not dress in black, or usually stand in one position on the minaret without moving or speaking. As to tracing the outhne of his head, I can distinctly see the bird's beak, and it is slightly fluttering its wings ; besides, whoever saw a mueddin or anybody else, except a paralytic, with the whole line of his body inclined forty degrees from the vertical?" "I don't care what you say," said A , who between ourselves was fast beginning to Jose temper, and to gain positiveness, " I am certain it is a man, the mosque is many hundred yards away from us, and the mueddin remains in one place simply because he is waiting for the precise moment of summoning the people, which is some minutes after sundown, and which is strictly defined by law. As to his looking black, it is simply an effect of contrast due to the bright background of sky. That which you declare to be the beak of the bird is the nose of the mueddin, and what you call the fluttering of its wings is the gentle movement of his robe by the evening breeze. Finally," said A , with the air of one who puts the finishing touch to a confutation, " as to the slope of the man's body being unnatural, why, my dear fellow, that is the precise attitude which the mueddin assumes when he leans on the parapet of the minaret so that his voice may be more easily heard in the street below. In fact, it is perfectly absurd to say that figure is like a bird ; anybody with half-an-eye can see at once that it is a man, and it is mere waste of time to stand arguing here, when "^^ "^'^ ■^'" ''' '"" At this moment the hirdjieiu away. Now A had been so confident in his opinion, so altogether convinced that the bird of the minaret was a man, that I fully expected that he would at least resort to a sophistry before abandoning his position ; that, for instance, he would say that the 274 Cairo. thing we saw was the matter of a man having the form of a bird, or the matter of a bird havino^ the form of a man ; or that he would say all men are living creatures, the bird of the minaret is a living creature, therefore the bird of the minaret is a man ; or, again, he might say it was a man trying to fly. Or he might adopt the plan of the ancient magister who loved to believe himself infallible, and who on a certain occasion was construing Greek with a pupil ; and as they construed they came to the word fBia^, and the master, who knew it was a bird, but did not remember wJiat bird, promptly said, " the nightingale." However, to make sure, he looked it out, and found that it signified an owl. So at the next pause he said, " Bms is not exactly a nightingale, it means a kind of nightingale — in fact, an owl." As a final chance, then, A might say, " Well, it is a kind of man — in fact, a bird." However, he was wise enough to accept defeat, and surely a more conclusive termina- tion to an argument can scarcely be conceived. We wish that all bitter arguments could be settled as con- clusively. May we fairly call this discussion about the bird-man, man- bird of the minaret an argumentum ad hominem ? BOOKS TO BE ISSUED SHORTLY. ♦'«<» THE SHORES OF THE POLAR SEA: A NARRATIVE OF THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION OF 1875-78. By Dr. Edward L. Moss, H.M.S. "Alert." With Sixteen large Chromo-Litho- graphs, and numerous Engravings, from Drawings made on the spot by the Author. Imperial Folio. Price Five Guineas. The "Challenger" Expedition. THALASSA: AN ESSAY ON THE DEPTH, TEMPERATURE, AND CURRENTS OF THE OCEAN. By John James Wild, Member of the Civilian Scientific Staff of H.M.S. " Challenger." 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