I 
 
I 
 
A YEAR OF CONSOLATION 
 

 / 
 
 YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 BY MRS. BUTLER, 
 
 LATE FANNT KEKTBLE. 
 
 1 i 'i > 
 
 « > » » 
 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. L 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 WILEY & PUTNAM, 161 BROADWAY. 
 
 1847. 
 
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 •• « * * « t* « e' • 
 
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 ( c 1 
 
 ROBERT CRAIGHEAD, PRINTER, T. B. SMITH, STEREOTYPER, 
 
 112 FULTON STREET. 216 WILLIAM STREET. 
 
TO 
 
 EDWARD SARTORIS, Esq., 
 
 THIS BOOK 
 
 IB AFFECTIONATEIiY AND GRATEFUIiLY INSCRIBED. 
 
 Dear Edward, 
 
 A year's experience and observation of your fine taste 
 and critical judgment would hardly have encouraged me to place 
 your name on the title-page of my book ; but a sojourn of that 
 length under the shelter of your roof has enabled me to appeal, 
 with perfect confidence, to your kindness and indulgence. To 
 them, and the affectionate and generous interest you have ever 
 shown me, I venture to offer, as a most inadequate token of 
 gratitude, this record of the happy year I spent in Italy. 
 
 FANNY. 
 Lojnwif, Aprily 1847. 
 
 IviSM'lG 
 
» J J t •> ■> 
 ■> -i t t ■> 1 ■) 1 ■>> '1 
 
 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION 
 
 Saturday, 20th December. — Left Southampton per steamboat, 
 for Havre, at ten o'clock at night — the weather clear over head, 
 but blowing very hard — horrible little boat — where, objecting to 
 lie close to two old women, the only empty berths were, one into 
 which the water forced itself, or one in close proximity to the 
 boiler — in the latter I slept. The gale increased to a perfect 
 hurricane : luckily it was in the stern of the ship ; but what 
 with it and the thumping of the water, pursuing and overtaking 
 the little steamboat, I thought its poop would be driven in. I 
 have crossed the Atlantic six times, and have never spent a more 
 terrible night at sea. Came to the bar by eight o'clock in the 
 morning, but the tide was out — the inner harbor without suffi- 
 cient water to admit us ; we therefore lay till twelve o'clock, 
 beaten by a furious wind and frothing angry sea, as sick as 
 possible, and a great deal crosser. The landing, custom-house, 
 &;c., all went smoothly enough, to the great delight of my 
 inexperience, which had imagined to itself all manner of 
 horrors. 
 
 Put up at the Hotel de I'Amiraute — like an old French noble 
 house — the groat quaint room, with its grey hoiserie — innume- 
 rable doors of communication, and bed-rooms and dressing-rooms 
 running into each other in most ingenious intricacy. With 
 a roaring wood fire, and, pulling the chilly furniture all round 
 it, it got to look quite comfortable, but the doors, and cupboards, 
 
A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 and exits, and entrances, confound me — the place looks made 
 for playing al hide g.ncj ;s^ek all one's life. The charges high, 
 the ppoplp pivil, and the hou'sq .qomfortable enough. Horrible 
 (Jay,7^1'i'^ifi.y; ahel *.cold,J-j-th6' gM> over which our window looks, 
 yellow, bilious-looking, and full of foaming ridges as far as eye 
 can reach, the wind howling over it, and shaking up the loose 
 carpets on the brick floors under our feet, from the great gaps 
 below the shrunken doors. To-morrow towards Rome. 
 
 Monday, 22d. — It is a very great blessing to have a comfort- 
 able maid, and the next blessing to that is to have an entertaining 
 one — to expect both would be unreasonable, for the creature, 
 maid, cannot by possibility be both useful and amusing. This 
 morning, as I looked at the pale golden bars of light in the east, 
 flecked with dark copper-colored clouds that gradually grew 
 dusky red as the great fire of the day kindled behind them, ana 
 
 exclaimed, " How beautiful !" , with her innocent 
 
 mouth wide open, and her grey lack-lustre eyes steadily fixed 
 upon the glowing splendor, said, in a tone of philosophic sugges- 
 tion, " I suppose the sun is going to come up somewhere about 
 there." I suggested the moon, or a great fire, but, with a smile 
 infinitely more stupid than her seriousness even, she said, " No, 
 she knew better than that !" What a delicious thing pure 
 niaiserie is ! Shakspeare has done it like everything else — 
 better than any one else — the clown in Antony and Cleopatra, 
 Audrey, Sir Andrew Aguecheek — jewels of the first water all 
 of them. 
 
 In spite of my agonized entreaties to be allowed to get ofl* in 
 time, having still my passport to obtain, the cool and easy people 
 of the house kept me waiting for a coach any length of time, 
 assuring me with all their hideous shrugs and hateful grimaces 
 that I had plenty of time. To the Police-office I went for this 
 indispensable pass ; it was past the office hours, but the func- 
 tionary had not arrived, and when he did, he leisurely first took 
 
ROUTE TO ROUEN. 
 
 off his hat and drew on a warm fur cap, then stripped off his coat, 
 edifying us with his shirt-sleeves the while, and transferred him- 
 self to some more easy working jacket ; and finally having, I 
 sincerely hope, made himself quite comfortable, turned his 
 attention to our business. He merely returned my own passport, 
 bidding me walk into another room and get the passe provisoire. 
 The other room, though long after office hours, was not yet 
 open, and nobody had arrived to attend to Messieurs les voyageurs. 
 I stood perplexed ; the Diligence in which our places were taken 
 started at half-past nine. I was afraid I should lose them ; the 
 little gamin du Havre, who had thought fit to stick to me as my 
 Cicerone through this intricate passage of my life, assured me I 
 could go perfectly well wiihout further ceremonies ; but remem- 
 bering my father's injunctions about always having my passport 
 en regie, with the fear of the gensdarmes, the Commissaire de 
 Police, a march under military escort through the streets, and 
 the eventual prison Mr. Murray so obligingly hints at, I rushed 
 back into the den of the comfortable gentleman, and asked hint 
 if I really could proceed without having the necessary alteration 
 made in my passport, to which he very cheerfully replied, — 
 
 " Mais puisque ces messieurs ne sont pas la, je crois que vous 
 n'en mourrez pas," — whereupon, with a blessing on their loose 
 business habits, I departed. 
 
 We got into our coupe, and so off to Rouen. Before we were 
 well out of Havre, a heavy snow-storm came on, and the horses 
 of our grotesque equipage were the only part of the prospect 
 which the blinding storm left visible. As, however, I had never 
 travelled by diligence before, they furnished me with abundant 
 amusement — the variety of their equipment, size, and gait — the 
 obstinate little trot of some, and the unprevailing frantic canter 
 of others ; especially did I admire the ingenious twisting up 
 of their tails, which, with an eye to my own back hair, as 
 Dickens calls it, I should like mightily to have the recipe for, 
 
A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 because they all held up without any combs. At one pretty 
 steep hill we had an addition of another horse, and thus went 
 with seven, — four, and three abreast. At the hill of La Valette, 
 which is both long and steep, we took an addition of three horses, 
 and thus, with three file of three, proceeded to climb the ascent, 
 a postilion having mounted the near horse of the first file. Tt so 
 happened, however, that the middle horse of this rank had an 
 invincible repugnance to move, the consequence of which was, 
 that the second and third rank came close upon the haunches of 
 the first, and a scene of most ludicrous confusion ensued ; the 
 insane postilion exhausting himself in blows, oaths, and kicks, 
 ineffectually. The conducteur having come down (from heaven, 
 as it appeared), applied an equal amount of oaths on the opposite 
 side, and as many cuts with a whip as could be brought to bear 
 upon the obdurate middle-man under the bellies and over the 
 backs of his companions, whose liveliness increasing wonderfully 
 by this process, while his steadfastness remained unmoved, 
 I expected to see them and the diligence finally go bodily over 
 the consistent quadruped. Suddenly the postilion pulled up his 
 blue blouse, snatched a knife out of his pocket, and opening it 
 very emphatically, stabbed his horse twice. Whether this pro- 
 cess was medicinal or moral I know not — our exceedingly efficient 
 first file was then marched off, and by dint of their departure, we 
 achieved the ascent. 
 
 The railroad crosses a deep valley just here by a very lofly 
 viaduct of many arches, through which the landscape, even at 
 this season, and veiled in the cheerless covering of the new-fallen 
 snow, looked picturesque and pretty enough to make one wish one 
 had seen it in spring under the rosy mantle of its apple-blossoms. 
 Nothing can be flatter or duller than our route — through vast 
 uninclosed fields, at this season bare and dreary in the extreme, 
 and varied only by little inclosures, like mock fortifications, con- 
 sisting of an embankment three or four feet high, planted with 
 
ARRIVAL AT PARIS. 
 
 stiff trees, which curtain and conceal the dwellings of such of the 
 inhabitants as are not congregated in the villages we passed 
 through. Descending a steep hill into the suburbs of Rouen, one 
 of our wheel-horses fell ; no notice, however, was taken of the 
 accident, and — the carriage coming rapidly upon the poor brute 
 — he regained his legs, as a measure of personal safety, and no 
 one but himself was the wiser. I think, generally, the French 
 are more brutal in the treatment of their animals than we are ; 
 perhaps, however, the noisy demonstrations with which they 
 accompany everything they do, make them seem more ferocious 
 than our quieter people. 
 
 At Rouen we got a mouthful of dinner, and having resumed 
 our seats in the diligence, proceeded to the railroad, where we 
 stopped under a species of square gateway, the top of which was 
 occupied by some machinery, whence depended four powerful 
 iron bars, with hooks at their extremities; these having been 
 fastened to the diligence, the machinery at the top was set in 
 motion, and gradually the huge machine — baggage, passengers, 
 and all — was lifted bodily off its own wheels, and transferred to a 
 I set of railroad wheels, upon which it was lowered, and took its 
 place immediately in the train — the common road wheels being 
 dragged off, I should think with much self-gratulation, by the team 
 that brought the monstrous load upon them to the railroad. The 
 rest of our route was made in the dark, in rain, sleet, and bitter 
 cold wind, in spite of which a second class carriage immediately 
 before ours — without any roof or shelter to it whatever, — was 
 filled with poor people ; many of them women, without any pro- 
 tection for their heads but the cap which the lower order of 
 women habitually go out in. We reached Paris at 10 o'clock, 
 and were again craned up from the railroad cars, and let down 
 to a set of common wheels, wherewith we made our way to the 
 messageries. It is twenty years since I was last in Paris a 
 school -girl. 
 
6 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 If I had travelled more on the Continent before I went to 
 America, I should have been infinitely less surprised and amazed 
 than 1 was at the various unpleasant peculiarities of its inhabit- 
 ants. Since residing in the United States, I have returned to 
 Europe, and travelled in Germany, and have had some opportu- 
 nity of comparing smoking and spitting on the Rhine to the same 
 articles on the Hudson, and really hardly know to which to 
 award the preference ; and after raving at every inn I put up at 
 in America for insufficient ablutionary privileges, find myself 
 now in one of the best hotels in Paris, with a thing like a small 
 cream jug for a water vessel in my bedroom, and a basin as big 
 as a little pudding-bowl : moreover, when I asked for warm 
 water this morning for my toilet, they produced a little copper 
 pot, with an allowance such as the youngest gentleman shaving 
 the faintest hopes of a beard, might have found insufficient for 
 his purposes — in short, I believe England is the only place in 
 the world where people are not disgustingly dirty ; and I believe, 
 as a dear friend of mine once assured me, that exceedingly few 
 
 people are clean there. I sent a note to , and he called 
 
 upon me to-day. His account of Lord John Russell and Peel's 
 
 alternate rushings down to Windsor is very funny. 's 
 
 book interests me very much indeed : it is exceedingly well 
 written. 
 
 What a root that hatred between the Catholic and Protestant 
 Irish has struck into the very being of them, that even in Ame- 
 rica, — the wide common where every religious persuasion has 
 its right of way — the bitter burning feud lighted cities from one 
 end to the another with the blaze of Catholic churches, and 
 cannon were planted in the streets of Philadelphia round the 
 cathedral to protect it from destruction. I remember for two 
 whole days and nights the streets were alight with these hell fires 
 of hate and bigotry, and the air vibrated incessantly with the 
 alarm-bell sounding from one district to another of the city of 
 
ROUTE TO CHALONS. 
 
 brotherly Jove. A cab driver taking mc l:iome at night could 
 hardly be persuaded to drive me to the part of the town where I 
 lived, fur fear of outr&ge, because he was a Catliolic ; and I was 
 myself accosted in the street as a Papist, because of the little 
 iron crucifix, that badge of the universal religion of sorrow, 
 w.hich I wear round my neck. The Americans made use of 
 this in their party politics, as they would of facts in chemistry I 
 verily believe, if they could ; but the only feeling in the whole 
 business was that of Irish ao;ainst Irishman — of Orang-eman 
 against Papist, — and the proof of it is, that the ranks of the 
 Native American party, as it calls itself, are full of Irish Protest- 
 ants, while the Catholics are the only '■ imported foreigners," 
 rejected as such by the framers of that singular party. By the 
 
 by, writes me word that there has been an attempt to get 
 
 up a Native American Party in Massachusetts, which has sig- 
 nally failed. Those New England States, I do believe, will be 
 the noblest country in the world in a little while. They will be 
 the salvation of that very great body with a very little soul, the 
 rest of the United States ; they are the pith and marrow, heart 
 and core, head and spirit of that country. 
 
 Friday, 2dth December. — Having been assured by the host at 
 the Hotel de France, at Nevers, that we could get places in the 
 diligence to Chalons, and finding the suite of the Persian Ambas- 
 sador extremely anxious to possess our rooms, we took our way 
 to the Bureau, and there, upon inquiry for the coach, became 
 aware that these cross-road conveyances were altogether above 
 special hours, which occasioned me some slight misgiving. But, 
 however, the matter could not be helped ; we sat, therefore, 
 three-quarters of an hour, entertaining ourselves with impatience, 
 and finally a little cross-country coach, a diligence of an inferior 
 grade, and with its head and its tail cut off*, inasmuch as it had 
 only three horses, and no rotonde, made its appearance. Into 
 this exceedingly wretched vehicle we put ourselves, and it was 
 
8 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 some comfort to me to see the Chef de Bureau put a heavy sack 
 of money into the hands of the conducteur, inasmuch as it proved 
 that he was to be trusted to the extent of a thousand francs (the 
 sum he named), giving liim certain directions about the disposal 
 
 of it. 
 
 Our road lay for a while through a country reminding me very 
 much of England, — rolling slopes of ploughed fields, and green 
 meadows divided by hedges, and diversified by clumps of trees, 
 and scattered farm-houses, — an infinitely more agreeable style of 
 landscape than the flat uninclosed fields of Normandy, or the 
 wearisome withered vineyards, with their sheaves of sticks, 
 through which we travelled from Orleans to Nevers. By degrees, 
 however, the country lost its amenity, and assumed a wilder and 
 less cultivated aspect. The Pays Bas, as they call it, of the 
 Nivernois, was lying behind and beneath us as we gradually 
 ascended through withered stunted v/oodland to the Morvan, the 
 most picturesque, but wildest part of the Department, across 
 which I was venturing upon the faith of friends who had traversed 
 it in summer, — a very different undertaking, as I presently disco- 
 vered, from my present December trip. The road was now one 
 continuous ascent, and the unbroken dreary woodland that 
 stretched on either hand, chiefly composed of dwarf oak and 
 elms, with rubbishing underbrush, reminded me of parts of the 
 woods of New Jersey, in the United States ; with this difference, 
 that, whereas the scrub forests cover low swamp lands there — 
 here, the sides of the hills, gradually growing into mountains, 
 were bristling all over with this shabby dwarf forest. 
 
 As the short winter day died out, the wind became piercing 
 cold, and when we arrived at the wretched inn, where we were 
 let out to eat something, at Chatillon le Baxoir, it Avas as dark as 
 pitch, and a perfect hurricane howled over the dismal hill-tops. 
 At this filthy inn, crowded with men in blue blouses and with black 
 muzzles, we received the most discouraging accounts of the road 
 
ROUTE TO CHALONS. 
 
 further on, which we were assured was blocked up with snow ; 
 still, having received the assurance that the carriage I was in 
 would take me on to Chalons, I determined to proceed with it • 
 accordingly we sallied forth again, and I soon perceived by the 
 muffled sound of the horses' feet, and the increased slowness with 
 which we toiled up our still ascending way, that the report of the 
 snow was true. By the rapid glare thrown by the single lamp 
 of our wretched vehicle upon the fields as we passed them, I saw 
 that they were sheeted with white ; and at Moulins en Gilbert, a 
 forlorn congregation of rickety old houses, where the conducteur 
 took out his horses, and left us for half an hour in the middle of 
 the street, the peasants congregated round the carriage, talked 
 together of the impossibility of our getting on, and how the dili- 
 gences had none of them been able to come up into that district 
 for several days on account of the snow. Still, I remembered the 
 emphatical reply of the Chef de Bureau to my emphatical ques- 
 tion : — 
 
 " M. — cette voiture me conduit jusqu'a Chalons ?" 
 " Oui, Madame, cette voiture vous conduit jusqu'a Chalons," — 
 and sat resigned to my fate. 
 
 Nothing could exceed the discomfort of the carriacre itself in 
 
 which we were ; poor , worn out with fatigue, had stretched 
 
 herself at the bottom of the coupe, in the straw ; I did the same 
 upon the seat, upon which besides it was not possible to sit with- 
 out sliding off every five minutes. By and by, through the 
 dreary street, we heard the jingle of our horses, and presently, 
 with sundry foreboding M'arnings bawled after us by the popula- 
 tion of Moulins, we set off again, wearied out with cold and long 
 journeying. We were both at length fast asleep, when suddenly 
 the carriage stopped, and the conducteur opening the door against 
 
 which leaned, she very nearly fell out ; we now received 
 
 a summons to get out, and the agreeable intelligence, that here 
 
 we were to change coach, and that the coach not having arrived, 
 
 2* 
 
JO A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 we must alight, and wait for it at the inn of Chateau Chinon, 
 where we had arrived. 
 
 My dismay and indignation were intense ; the rain was pour- 
 ing, the wind roaring, and it was twelve o'clock at night. I'he 
 inn into which we were shown was the most horrible cut-throat- 
 looking hole I ever beheld ; all the members of the household 
 were gone to bed, except a dirty, sleepy, stupid serving girl, who 
 ushered us into a kitchen as black as darkness itself and a single 
 tallow-candle could make it, and then informed us that here we 
 must pass the night, for that the coaches which generally came 
 up to meet our conveyance, had not been able to come over the 
 mountains on account of the heavy snow for several days. I 
 was excessively frightened ; the look of the place was horrible, 
 that of the people not at all encouraging ; when the conducteur 
 demanded the price of the places, which I then recollected the 
 Chef de Bureau had most cautiously refused to receive, because 
 then I should have found out that I was not going to Chalons in 
 his coach, but to be shot out on the highest peak of the Morvan, 
 midway between Chalons and Nevers. I refused to pay until, 
 according to agreement, I was taken to Chalons ; he then refused 
 to deliver up my baggage, and I saw that all resistance was 
 vain, whereupon I paid the money and retreated again to the 
 
 black filthy kitchen, where I had left poor , bidding her 
 
 not stir from the side of the dressing-case and writing- box I had 
 left in her charge, with my precious letters of credit and money- 
 bag. 
 
 The fire of the kitchen was now invaded by a tall brawny- 
 looking man, in a sort of rough sporting costume ; his gun and 
 game-bags lay on the dresser ; two abominable dogs he had with 
 him went running in and out between our feet, pursuing each 
 other, and all but knocking us down. I was so terrified, dis- 
 gusted, and annoyed, that I literally shook from head to foot, and 
 could have found it in my heart to have cried for very coward- 
 
CHATEAU CHINON. H 
 
 ice. I asked this p(,'rson what was to be done ; he answered me 
 that lie was in the same predicament with myself, and that I 
 could do, if I liked, as he should, — walk over the mountain to 
 Autun the next day. 
 
 " What was the distance ?" 
 
 " Ten leagues." (Thirty miles.) 
 
 I smiled a sort of verjuice smile, and replied, — "Even if we 
 two women could walk thirty miles through the snow, what was 
 to become of my bafjeasre ?" 
 
 " Oh, he did not know ; perhaps if the snow was not higher 
 than the horses' bellies, or if the laborers of the district had 
 been out clearing the roads at all, the master of the house might 
 contrive some means of sending us on." 
 
 In the midst of the agony of perplexity and anxiety, which 
 all these perhapses occasioned me, I heard that the devilish con- 
 ductor and conveyance which had brought me to this horrid hole, 
 w^ould return to Nevers the next day at five o'clock, and making 
 up my mind, if the worst came to the worst, to return by it 
 thither, and having blown the perfidious Chef du Bureau of the 
 country diligence higher than he had sent me in his coach, take 
 the Paris diligence on its way through Nevers for Lyons straight, 
 — this of course at the cost of so much money and time wasted. 
 
 With this alternative, I had my luggage carried up to my room, 
 and followed it with my faithful and most invaluable , 
 
 who was neither discouraged, nor frightened, nor foolish, — nor 
 anything that I was, — but comported herself to admiration. The 
 room we were shown into was fearful looking ; the wind blew 
 down the huge black gaping chimney, and sent the poor fire, 
 we were endeavoring in vain to kindle, in eye-smarting clouds 
 into our faces. The fender and fire-irons were rusty and broken, 
 the ceiling cracked all over, the floor sunken, and an inch thick 
 with filth and dirt. I threw open the shutters of the w^indow, 
 and saw opposite against the black sky, the yet thicker outline 
 
12 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 of the wretched hovels opposite, and, satisfied that at any rate 
 we were in the vicinity of human beings of some description, 
 we piled our trunks up against a door that opened into some other 
 room, locked the one that gave entrance from the passage, and 
 with one lighted tallow candle, and one relay, and a box of 
 matches by my bed-side, I threw myself all dressed upon the 
 bed. did the same upon a sofa, and thus we resign- 
 ed ourselves to pass the night. 
 
 I did not close my eyes, however ; the nervous anxiety I was 
 suffering, the howling of the storm, beating the heavy wooden 
 shutters against the windows, the pattering of the rain which fell 
 through the roof of the house and the broken ceiling of the room, 
 on the floor by the bed-side ; all was so wretched and forlorn, 
 that I lay awake and exceedingly uncomfortable till daylight, 
 when I fell asleep. It was an extreme comfort to me to have 
 found that, besides the above mentioned Nimrod, a decent peace- 
 able looking soldier and a young peasant lad were among the 
 detenus, as well as ourselves, at this miserable hostelry. I had 
 some thoughts of hiring the soldier at double his daily pay, to 
 act as my body-guard to Chalons. I wonder how it is that I am 
 considered a brave woman, which I very generally am ; I cer- 
 tainly am one of the most cowardly ones I ever knew. The day- 
 light having a little quieted my nerves, I fell asleep, from which 
 
 state of beatitude awoke me, by informing me that 
 
 some one was at the door. 1 bade her open it, and a most ill- 
 looking man, with only one eye, extremely marked with the 
 small-pox, and with his white-brown face set in a thick frame of 
 bushy black hair, and clad in the everlasting coarse blue blouse, 
 made his appearance. He said he was the master of the house, 
 and post-master likewise, and that hearing that I wanted to go 
 on to Autun, he was come to tell me that he would take me on 
 in some conveyance of his own, but that he would not engage 
 to do it under sixty francs, because he must have four horses. 
 
CHATEAU CHINON. 13 
 
 and perhaps a yoke of oxen to get us over the mountain. This 
 appeared to me perfectly outrageous, and I declined the offer, 
 whereupon this ill-visaged host of ours withdrew. I found that 
 
 even the very steady nerves of were not proof against 
 
 the forbidding appearance of this man, and she advised me by 
 no means to trust myself with him, especially as he had said that, 
 on account of the depth of the drifts, it might be necessary to 
 turn off the road into the woods and across the fields. 
 
 I now determined to send for the chasseur of the night before. 
 I had ascertained from the people of the inn that he was a man 
 of some property in the district, and I thought I had better inquire 
 of him what my best course would be ; he came into my room 
 with his coat all tucked up to his waist, ready for his expedition. 
 He said the price the man asked was exorbitant, but that he 
 thought I could trust myself with him in perfect safety, and that 
 he would guarantee our arriving in all security at Autun. He 
 described the country we were going through as extremely pic- 
 turesque and well worth seeing in summer, but highly undesira- 
 ble for travelling in in winter ; said the roads were often impas- 
 sable for weeks together, and that during the winter the villages 
 scattered among the mountains were snowed up so as to be utterly 
 inaccessible. He still expressed his determination to walk, which 
 he said the soldier and the peasant boy were prepared to do also. 
 I entreated him to give me the protection of his company in the 
 carriage we were going in ; he laughed, and said that the sort of 
 carriage we were going in would very barely hold two persons, 
 but that he and the soldier would fasten their small luggage on 
 with ours and keep our conveyance in view the whole time. 
 Much comforted by this, we proceeded to dress, and sent word 
 to the Polypheme, our host, that we agreed to his terms. 
 
 The violent rain of the night had washed away the snow very 
 much, and word was brought that the cantonniers were out along 
 the road clearing the places where it had been blown into deep 
 
14 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 drifts. To my unspeakable satisfaction 1 saw it streaming from 
 the filthy and tattered thatch of the mud-colored houses, and the 
 blessed sun beckoned us on with an encouraging gleam. It was 
 in vain, however, that I urged our departure. 1 little knew the 
 preparations making for our comfort. Meantime the gentleman 
 campagnard, to whom I perceived my anxiety and alarm occa- 
 sioned some amusement, entertained me with some account of 
 the country, and of his own hunting exploits and adventures 
 therein. This district lies remote from any direct line of travel, 
 and the climate being severe, and the soil, in such patches as 
 are not clothed with forest, poor — the people are extremely mise- 
 rable and uncivilized. Some of the largest estates of some of 
 the oldest families of France lie however in the vicinity of the 
 Montague du Mowan, but are visited only rarely for short inter- 
 vals of time by the proprietors, whose brief and infrequent sojourn, 
 made chiefly, too, solely for the purpose of hunting excursions, 
 does not in any way much benefit the inhabitants of these moun- 
 tains. The forest with which they are covered, and which ex- 
 tends for many leagues, is the great wood reservoir of Paris, the 
 woods being partially reaped every few years, to supply Paris 
 with fuel. Foxes, wild goats, wild boars, and wolves, my 
 informant assured me, were abundant all through the district ; 
 and he wound up his catalogue of its rather savage recommenda- 
 tions by saying, that last year a band of robbers infested the 
 road through the mountains, sixty of whom had been secured, 
 which had broken up the speculation. I thought my sporting 
 friend was trying the extent of my anxiety, but defeated his own 
 purpose, for that story made me laugh, which was more than his 
 account of crossing the mountain once on horseback, and being 
 compelled to dismount and fray a passage for himself iind his 
 horse, breast high in the drifted snow did. This was rather 
 more the complexion of danger that I apprehended, and I 
 conjured him, together with the soldier and peasant-lad, who now 
 
DEPARTURE FROM CHATEAU CHINON. 15 
 
 made their appearance, to keep us in sight in case of any acci- 
 dent befalling our conveyance. This they promised to do ; and 
 from the time of our leaving the inn-door we saw no more of any 
 one of them. By the by, I think it not amiss to add, for the 
 : benefit of future ladies-errant, who may chance to be left at 
 ^ Chateau Chinon, and to the tender mercies of its post-master and 
 country gentlemen, that when I appealed to the latter on the 
 subject of the monstrous charge of the former, he coolly replied, 
 that it was rather exorbitant, but that such an occasion did not 
 ' often fall in mine host's way, and he naturally wished to profit 
 by it. 
 
 Remonstrance was vain. We were at length summoned to 
 proceed, and found a crazy, dirty, rickety sort of gig, or cabrio- 
 let, at the door, to which were harnessed, with chains, ropes, and 
 packthread, in equal proportions, and tandem fashion, a crazy, 
 dirty, rickety pair of miserable horses. The team of four horses 
 and oxen were nowhere apparent, for which I was going to pay 
 sixty francs ; but, as I wanted to go in any way and at any cost, 
 I said nothing, but climbed into the seat, which, partly from its 
 shape, and partly from the hay with which, for our protection 
 from the cold, it had been stufTed, seemed to me very like trying 
 to sit in a manger. Our trunks were chained, corded, and 
 packthreaded (Jicel/e) on behind, all but one large one, which 
 lay across our feet before, and served our one-eyed Jehu for a 
 seat. Thus we set forth, I confess, with most fearful misgivings 
 on my side, that such an equipage was likely to give out in more 
 than one of its parts on such a road. 
 
 Moving from the yellow, squalid-looking village, we immedi- 
 ately descended a deep valley, where patches of the vivid green 
 that is seen on the mountain sides of Switzerland appeared here 
 and there, where the rain had washed the snow thin, and the 
 sun had laid them bare ; between them ran gu.shmg brooks 
 of living water, and far below, in alternate basins and cones, 
 
16 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 rose and sank the deep gullies and steep ridges of the dreary fuel 
 district. The road itself across the mountain is admirable, 
 broad, and well made, and in summer I have no doubt that it 
 would be worth while to pass this way, for the mere wild beauty 
 of the scenery, which now reminded me forcibly of America, 
 and some of the wood and mountain wildernesses round Grey 
 Lock. The driver informed me that all the springs, of which 
 these mountains were full, and which rolled in sparkling abun- 
 dance through the snow on all sides of us, were tepid in winter, 
 and so cold in summer as to make it dangerous to drink of them. 
 In the emerald strip of valley between two snowy hills, he showed 
 me the head waters of the river Yonne, a rapid, turbulent, narrow 
 mountain stream, which, further down in its course, is tamed to 
 the subjection of carrying the timber felled in the forests to the 
 Seine in rafts. We now began to ascend, and continued to 
 strain up the snowy, dismal mountain-side for upwards of an 
 hour and a half; the ascent was, according to the driver, three 
 leagues — nine miles, and seemed to follow one half the ridge of 
 a huge bowl in the earth, the sides of which, bristling with 
 wintry woods, and skirted with snow, sank deeply and darkly 
 down into a circular valley, where at distant intervals we 
 descried, made visible by their black thatched roofs, huddled 
 together like clusters of dark fungi, the miserable villages of the 
 district. Far across this gulf, and right against the sky, on a 
 line level with the heights which we were slowly climbing to, 
 he pointed out the roof of a house, and saying, " the road passes 
 by that, and afterwards ascends for another mile, then keeps the 
 ridge of the mountains in the woods, for three leagues, and then 
 descends," gave us some faint idea of the expedition that lay 
 before us. The cold was bitter, and became momentarily more 
 intense. The mountain-tops, over which the skirts of the clouds 
 were trailing heavily, gradually drew them down in ominous 
 grey tatters across the sky, and the first flakes of a snow-storm 
 
ARLEAFF. n 
 
 really made me feel extremely uncomfortable as to the possible 
 termination of our journey : this anxiety passed ofF, however, as 
 we reached the point so long before indicated to us, and found 
 that we had accomplished within a mile the ascent of the moun- 
 tain. The blue sky smiled through the grey cobwebs of snow- 
 clouds floating about us, and sun-light suddenly struck the grim 
 mountain tops all round, and then darted midway into the wintry 
 valleys between them. At this point of the route we came upon 
 a church and a large scattered village of wretchedly poor houses, 
 the most considerable, as our driver informed us, of all the dis- 
 trict. ArleafF was the name of this pinnacle of savage poverty ; 
 and the church suggesting ideas of a priest and some secure 
 shelter, I comforted myself with thinking that, in case of acci- 
 dent, ArleafF would be a refuge nine miles nearer than our horrid 
 resting-place of last night. Still we went up, up, up, — and ridge 
 upon ridge of hills heaved like a brown sea in sight — mournful, 
 monotonous, and yet not without a wild grandeur ; through one 
 of the gaps in the mountain view, the driver pointed out Autun, 
 our destination, still upwards of twenty miles distant. 
 
 Thus far, the road, though savage enough in its surrounding 
 scenery, was by no means either as difficult or as dangerous as 
 he had reported it. In some places, where the snow had drifted 
 deep, the peasants had already cleared a passage through it, and 
 though long and tedious for the miserable beasts dragging us, there 
 was nothing whatever to justify the threat of four horses and oxen 
 with which my promise of sixty francs had been extorted. We 
 now began to descend, and the woods closing around us, hid the 
 mountain tops and the valleys, and all but their own bare and 
 dismal depth ; suddenly across the road, from a bank often feet 
 high, a sparkling little v/aterfill sprang down, and ran laughing 
 into the dark wood below. My passion for live water is irresisti- 
 ble ; with all sorts of irrational apprehensions and terrors, and 
 some ground for rational anxiety as to the possibility of our get- 
 
18 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 ting out of these snowy solitudes while the daylight still favored 
 us, I could have found in my heart to have jumped out of the 
 carriage, and, accepting the challenge of the little saucy Undine, 
 raced down with it into the black forest depths, where it had hid 
 itself. We now came to a narrow green gorge, where a whole 
 web of glittering brooklets ran twining like a company of silver 
 snakes through the glen. Here stood the stone boundary mark- 
 ing the line between the two departments of the Loire and Haute 
 Saone. And now, with the capriciousness of a mountain climate, 
 the rain began to distil gently upon us. It seemed to be the 
 head-quarters of the water-nymphs of the region. I thought 
 lamentably of my trunks covered only with a layer of straw and 
 some coarse sacking. Another anxiety presently, however, 
 superseded this — rising from this valley of fountains, we gradu- 
 ally approached a more dismal mountain wall than any we had yet 
 traversed ; and here, where a narrow wood path struck off from 
 the road into the forest, our driver descended from his seat, and 
 walking forward, said, that he should turn into this by-path, 
 because most likely the road beyond was impassable. I confess 
 to an unspeakably distressing pang of universal dismay at this 
 proposition. There we were to be murdered. How ? whether 
 with the stout wood-knife our guide carried in his pocket, or the 
 whip-cord of which he drew interminable supplies from beneath 
 his blouse, and of which I began to think he had an interior 
 manufactory ; whether he would finish us outright, or leave us 
 disabled and wounded, to starve in the woods ; what snow-drift 
 he would bury us in, or what rushing stream commit us to ; 
 whether he had gone on to ascertain that help for him or none 
 for us was at hand ; what my father would think of it ; and how 
 it would seem to my children, were all agreeable hypotheses 
 that rushed simultaneously into my bewildered brain. My 
 faithful and imperturbable here turned upon me a coun- 
 
RFLIEF FROM ANXIETY. 19 
 
 tenance stupider than ever with dismay, and it was very evident 
 that our panic was simultaneous. 
 
 " What is he going to do now ?" gasped she. 
 
 " Hold your tongue and don't utter a word," was my encourag- 
 ing reply, being always remarkably cross when I am frightened. 
 The one-eyed hideous man returned, reseated himself, drove a 
 few yards further, and suddenly a company of at least a dozen 
 countrymen, their ruddy coarse faces shining with labor, were 
 revealed, lustily shovelling the snow from the road — where pass- 
 ing at the foot of the bleak mountain wall I have mentioned, it 
 suddenly turned the broad shoulder of a lower eminence, and 
 went winding down into a most picturesque and beautiful glen, 
 upon whose side, and the little brown hovels dotting it all over, 
 the ruddy December afternoon sun was glowing. Cherubina 
 herself can never have been more exquisitely terrified or relieved 
 than I was by these very simple events ; and having traversed 
 safely the few rods where the wind had swept the snow to a 
 depth of three or four feet by the space cut by the cantonniers, 
 we now wound rapidly down a steep, broad, beautiful road, over- 
 hanging a most picturesque glen, at the bottom of which, over a 
 strip of fairy green sward, rushed a crystal clear trout stream, 
 full of limpid shallows and foaming sparkling reaches. The 
 steep precipitous bank on the opposite side rose covered with 
 skeleton woods to a vast height, and from their leafless trunks 
 bold masses of grey green rock jutted forth like wardens and 
 donjon keeps overlooking the glen. Our guide pointed out to me 
 a gorge running sharply up, as though a wedge had been driven 
 into the mountains, at the extremity of which he said there was 
 a cascade of upwards of a hundred feet. The scenery of this 
 region must certainly be exceedingly charming in summer. The 
 gentleman sportsman at the inn had spoken to me of the fine 
 trout in the streams here, and said that several gentlemen of that 
 neighborhood belonged to trouting clubs, and had actually gone 
 
20 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 to Norway and to Canada for the sole and simple pleasure of 
 trout fishing. I had no idea that Frenchmen were ever such 
 keen sportsmen. Reverting to this in my conversation with our 
 driver as we drove along the margin of this lovely brook (a tri- 
 butary of the Arroux), he informed me that the inhabitants who 
 did not profess to be sporting gentlemen often threw quick-lime 
 into these brooks, and by that means caught and destroyed a 
 quantity of fish. This was a method of poaching I never heard 
 of before. 
 
 As we neared the bottom of the glen where the road defiled 
 as through a rocky portal into the smiling friendly plain beyond 
 (how well 1 did now understand that word freundlich as perpe- 
 tually applied by the Germans in their wild legends to the plains 
 contrasted with the mountains), I gathered courage enough to 
 mention to my one-eyed charioteer Mr. Rochette's account of the 
 robbers in the mountain ; he laughed, and yet said it was by no 
 means absolutely false, for that there were at that time, a year 
 ago, two men escaped from justice, who had taken refuge in the 
 woods of the mountains, and who inspired the whole community 
 with terror; not that they attempted any outrages, for their ob- 
 ject was merely, he said, to hide themselves. But the whole 
 country, and the courageous gentlefolks of Autun especially, 
 were terrified beyond measure at them. One was retaken, the 
 other never heard of. 
 
 1 talked with him of the condition of the laboring population 
 about here, and he described it as exceedingly wretched ; the 
 poverty of the soil and severity of the climate combining to make 
 the means of existence both insufficient and precarious among 
 them. He said the oldest families in France owned property in 
 that region, and named some of the haute noblesse as among the 
 seigneurs of the environs. I was very willing to talk to the man, 
 and yet his revolting appearance, and something particularly low 
 and brutal in his manner, disgusted me extremely. He was a 
 
ARRIVAL AT AUTUN. 21 
 
 political malcontent, and though a placeman (postmaster) abused 
 the government in a coarse slang that was at once odious and 
 curious. I found he knew Paris very well, and when he began 
 discoursing of the changes taking place round Notre Dame, and 
 the old nests of squalid iniquity that were being removed about 
 there, I began to think of Eugene Sue and his Myst^res de Paris, 
 and what with the man's savage and grotesque addresses to his 
 horses, whom he alternately execrated and coaxed in the lowest 
 jargon, his brawny figure, horrible face, and wall eye, thought 
 he might have sat very well for the original of le Maitre d'Ecole, 
 or some of his choice associates. 
 
 About a league from Autun, which we now discovered scat- 
 tered about on a mountain side, surrounded with an amphitheatre 
 of hills, and glowing like a copper city in the setting sunlight, 
 we passed a curious moated old country house, round whose very 
 dead-looking walls and closed persiennes the gambolling little 
 trout-stream we had followed ran with all its might, and then 
 with all its might away, which, considering the lugubrious aspect 
 of the place, did not surprise me. 
 
 Opposite to the Chateau rose a forlorn-looking mountain, with 
 three crosses on its summit. 
 
 " That," said our driver, " was a Calvary, to which Madame de 
 , proprietress of the Chateau, had herself taken occasion- 
 ally in her carriage when she visited the estate, and from whence 
 with a telescope she enjoyed a most extensive and beautiful 
 view." 
 
 By the by, those dismal woods and dreary mountain tops we 
 traversed to-day, were all studded with black wooden crosses, 
 which, accordingly as f thought my driver meant to rob and 
 murder me, or only cheat me of sixty francs, assumed a most 
 melancholy or cheering aspect. They were all black, and as 
 like as sisters. Between four and five o'clock, we crossed the 
 bridge of the Arroux, and passed the ancient Roman ruin called 
 
22 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 the Temple of Janus, opposite to which the driver pointed out 
 the race-course, where, he said, one of their first and wealthiest 
 proprietaries, a Mr. Mac Mahon, had broken his neck by a fall 
 from his horse, and died on the spot. " It was very lucky," he 
 added, " it happened on the last day of the races. It would have 
 spoilt all the fun else." He drove to the Hotel de la Poste, 
 and there my worthy conducteur, in spite of the perfect ease 
 with which he had brought us in that light carriage, with only 
 two horses, persisted in demanding his sixty francs, which I gave 
 him, and he departed. 
 
 I had fasted all day, not caring to eat anything in that hole at 
 Chateau Chinon ; and, therefore, the clean good dinner and com- 
 fortable rooms at the Poste were a great satisfaction to me. 
 There is, however, no rest for the wicked. The diligence to 
 Chalons was expected at any hour from ten till five in the morn- 
 ing : going to bed was, therefore, out of the question, and alter- 
 nate naps on the sofa were all and myself could 
 
 indulge in. At half past one the huge nuisance arrived, and all 
 the places that we were able to obtain in it were two seats in the 
 interior, which was already possessed with four lumbering men. 
 The atmosphere of a snuffy German, a Frenchman reeking of 
 stale cigar smoke, one or two India-rubber cloaks, and all our 
 respirations, was really atrocious. I kept the window by my 
 face open, and so came alive, not dead, into Chalons, the dim 
 dawn and struggling starlight having revealed nothing of the 
 country we travelled through but the hazy outline of the hills 
 against the sky. At one time a loud-voiced, disputatious brook 
 ran arguing with us in the dark, close by the carriage side, and, 
 finally disgusted, jumped, with a white gleam, into the wood ; 
 but more of the accidens du paysage, as the French people call 
 them, I know not. Now, when we arrived at Chalons, at nine 
 o'clock in the morning, the river was too high, and the steam- 
 boats could not pass under the bridges. The traveller will per- 
 
DEPARTURE FROM CHALONS. 23 
 
 ceive, therefore, as the guide-books pay, that unless he wishes 
 especially to visit the black mountains and forests of the Mowan 
 for their own sake, and crosses the Channel and half France for 
 that purpose, it is hardly worth his while to leave the main road 
 from Paris to Lyons for the facilities and pleasures of a night at 
 Chateau Chinon, a drive in the fuel forests of the Nievre at six 
 francs a leaorue, and the eventual satisfaction of findinsr the Saone 
 too dry in summer and too wet in winter, and be compelled (as 
 we must now) to take the diligence, after all, for Lyons, if that 
 be his ultimate object. 
 
 The inn is comfortable, and I must especially celebrate it in 
 an admirable perch from the Saone I had for dinner, which must 
 have weighed nearly two pounds ; it was delicious to eat, nothing 
 could be better, but catching it. I shall sleep in a bed for the 
 first time to-night, since last Wednesday, 24th ; this is Monday, 
 the 29th. What a pity we make our luxuries things of every 
 day and night. I positively look forward to my bed. Who that 
 goes to bed every night ever does ? 
 
 We were hurriedly called up at five o'clock in the morning, 
 the diligence from Paris having arrived, which, failing the boat, 
 was our only hope for Lyons. We hurried on our clothes, and 
 ran down into the dark dirty street, where the hugh caravan was 
 waiting. The coupe was, alas ! already invaded by a fat elderly 
 gentleman, who, singularly enough, maintained his station by the 
 door, at which we were obliged to climb in over his legs and 
 knees, he all the time exclaiming, " c'est cela marcher moi sur 
 les pieds — allez, n'ayez pas peur, vous, n'etes pas lourde — vous 
 ne me ferez pas mal" — the wretch, as I afterwards discovered, 
 had had a threatening of gout, and was trembling under the 
 terror of a return of it ; he was a Frenchman, but muffled 
 in dreadnaughts, leggings, and with air-cushions under him, and 
 round his neck, after the fashion of one of our own self-preserv- 
 ine, comfortable gentry ; for a long time it puzzled me execs' 
 
24 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 sively to conceive what his motive could have been for allowing 
 us to climb across him to our places, to his and our own intense 
 inconvenience, rather than remove himself to the seat at the 
 other side of the carriage. Upon my letting down the glass next 
 me, however, he exclaimed, with sudden sensibility, " Ah ! mon 
 Dieu, Madame, vous allez vous enrhumer ; le vent vient pre 
 cisement de ce c6te la;" which explained his pertinacious avoid- 
 ance of it. 
 
 It was dark long after we set forth from Chalons, but the day 
 began to break brightly and beautifully as we reached the small 
 town of Sennecy, among the hills, and as we attained, after a 
 continuous ascent of some miles, the height above Tournus, we 
 had a beautiful view into the valley below, where lay sparkling, 
 like a vast lake, the overflowing waters of the Saone, stretching 
 over meadows and roads far beyond its native bed, overlooked 
 by the picturesque brown outline of the irregular little town, 
 and surrounded towards the horizon, on each hand, by mountain- 
 tops glowing in the red morning light. We have been most 
 particularly unlucky in our route, the overflowing of the Saone 
 has prevented our going down the river, giving us a wearisome 
 journey of sixteen hours in a coach instead of eight in the steam- 
 boat. Moreover, the waters were out all over the shortest coach 
 road, so that we were compelled to take the longest — and, as it 
 was expected that the river would be navigable, and, of course, 
 resorted to in preference to the road, no relays of horses were to 
 be had, and, on our arrival at Tournus, the conducteur most 
 obligingly informed us that the time of our stay there would 
 be uncertain, inasmuch as there were no horses to be had, and 
 we must wait until the diligence from Lyons arrived, when we 
 should take their tired horses, and they ours, with this difference 
 to our disadvantage, that their team would be taken immediately 
 from their coach, and transferred to ours, while ours would, at 
 least, have rested a short space of time before they were again 
 
CHURCH OF TOURNUS. 25 
 
 put into harness. Resignation is the virtue I recommend to tra- 
 vellers in all parts of the world, but England, where they have 
 comparatively no need of it. 
 
 Our companion of the coupe was a well-informed and intelli- 
 gent man, who had travelled a great deal all over Europe, and 
 was now engaged in some mission of observation concerning the 
 muslin manufactories in various parts of France, which are 
 undersold by the Swiss, who produce in great quantities an 
 inferior article, which is brought into France, and sold cheaper 
 than the native manufacture. My friend was chief inspector of 
 the Customs at Lyons, and had been sent on this muslin mission 
 by the Minister of the Home Department. He was a very 
 agreeable companion, and a great antiquarian and amateur in 
 matters of art and vertii, and having fortified his indisposition by 
 an early and abundant meal, proposed to me to employ our lei- 
 sure (which was likely to prolong itself indefinitely) by visiting 
 the curious old Romanesque church of Tournus, dedicated to St. 
 Philibert ; it once belonged to a very large and important abbey 
 of Benedictine monks, some remains of whose dwellings are to 
 be detected incorporated in the irregular buildings which sur- 
 round the church ; it is itself extremely picturesque and curious. 
 In observing attentively the square towers v.ith their elegant 
 round open arches, we were much puzzled to remark at the 
 angle of one of them a single figure standing caryatid fashion, 
 of extremely old workmanship, crowned, and representing proba- 
 bly some queen or royal saint whose legend must in some way 
 connect itself with the building : the figure, which is extremely 
 coarsely executed, is clad in a short garment, reaching only 
 half-way down the leg ; and the feet not resting on the cornice, 
 which is at some distance below them, it has the appearance of 
 being hung at the corner of the tower, rather than suj)porting it. 
 On entering the church, my antiquarian companion explained to 
 me that, in all probability, the narthex or vestibule had itg 
 
 3 
 
26 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 original pavement much below the one which we now stood 
 upon ; this he deduced from the evidently truncated appearance 
 of the thick round pillars which supported it, and which he said 
 he felt satisfied must be some ten or twelve inches below the 
 surface of the present pavement ; as the latter gradually sank 
 by a most perceptible inclination to that of the nave of the 
 church, there seemed some probability in his suggestion, and the 
 pillars themselves had a singular appearance of disproportionate 
 thickness, which gave it further force. He told me that all the 
 churches built at a very early period, of which this was evidently 
 one, descended by a step or two from the ground without ; the 
 action of thus stepping down into the sanctuary being considered 
 typical of the descent of Jesus into the water of the Jordan. 
 
 It is extremely painful to me to come from a mere motive of 
 curiosity into a temple dedicated to God ; my conscience rebukes 
 and troubles me the whole time, and all other considerations are 
 lost in the recollection that I am in the house of prayer, conse- 
 crated by the worship of thousands of souls for hundreds of 
 years. To gaze about, too, with idle, prying eyes, where sit 
 and kneel my fellow-Christians with theirs turned to the earth in 
 solemn contemplation or devotion, makes me feel sacrilegiously ; 
 and I do not know what will become of me in Italy, where every 
 church is a galantee show. I prayed as I stood before the altar 
 in this dear little old church, and presently we encountered M. 
 le Cur^, with whom my companion (an exceedingly companlo.n- 
 able soul) began a lively discussion about the repairs being car- 
 ried on in the church, wliich is a building belonging to the 
 Government, and is being restored with considerable care. 
 Some of the old capitals of the pillai's had grotesque figures of 
 animals on them, others elegant floral adornments, but they were 
 all of them various. The Cure, to whom my antiquary explained 
 the fact of the ancient floor of the narthex being in all probability 
 below the present one, seemed incredulous, but said there was a 
 
CHURCH OF TOURNUS. 27 
 
 —   — ■'■■     - ■■■■- ■- — »l— l---_.,B,.., _J 
 
 crypt below, with a painting in fresco of the ninth century, 
 whereof the antiquary, in his turn, seemed incredulous. He 
 pointed out to the Cure, with extreme warmth, the remains 
 demonstrating the existence of a jube, or rood loft, above the 
 high altar, and besought him pathetically to exert himself to have 
 it restored. The conversation, owing to the antiquary's general 
 enthusiasm for old churches, and the Cure's special enthusiasm 
 for his own old church, was extremely amusing and interesting 
 to me. The former objected vehemently to some wretched 
 engravings surrounding the walls, representing the seven sta- 
 tions, as the Catholics call them, of Jesus bearing his cross. 
 For me, after one glance cast at these abominations — I had for- 
 borne to look again — all representations of Christ being revolting 
 to me, all representations of his agony absolutely intolerable ; — 
 what will become of me in Italy ! In spite of the positive pain 
 and disquiet which these desecrations cause me, I could not help 
 smiling at the artistical point of view in which my travelling 
 companion regarded the matter. 
 
 " Le peuple ignorant," said M. le Cure, " a besoin d'objets 
 visibles qui lui frappent les sens " — 
 
 " Eh bien, eh bien," said the antiquary ; " donnez-lui en, de 
 par le diable mettez une croix a chacune de cos stations, et 
 6tez-moi ces affreuses gravures, car je vous demande un peu, si 
 le bon Dieu que voila ne fait pas une bien vilaine grimace ? Et 
 le peuple ignorant, il faut lui donner le bon gout, I'amour du 
 beau dans les arts, et la religion en meme temps." 
 
 He objected too, and with some allowance from M. le Cure, to 
 the engraving representing St. Veronica wiping the sweat from 
 our Saviour's brow, while he is dragging his cross on his hands 
 and knees, as a legend unauthorized by Scripture. 
 
 Supposing that the horses must have come, we took leave of 
 the curious old church and its modest Cure, and wended our 
 way through the crooked filthy streets, back to la Poste : on the 
 
28 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 way I met an old peasant woman, with the singular black beaver 
 hat with lace lappets that the peasants of a district not far from 
 Tournus wear — it is a mere ornament, for it covers no part of 
 the head, being set down upon the forehead and up behind, and 
 fastened round the head, which is covered with a cap, by a broad 
 black silk riband. Arrived at the Poste, we found the horses 
 were not yet come, and walked on to the suspension-bridge, over 
 the Saone, whose swollen rapid current had invaded its banks on 
 both sides far beyond its proper bed. Presently, the welcome 
 intelligence of the Lyons diligence — the wretched horses from 
 which being transferred to our vehicle, we immediately set off 
 to take them over the same ground. A little beyond Tournus, 
 as the diligence was slowly ascending a steep hill, a very pretty- 
 looking countrywoman hailed it, and asked for a seat ; there was 
 none inside, and the conductor, and even our companion in the 
 coup^, in vain endeavored to persuade her that there was neither 
 danger nor difficulty in climbing to the top, outside the huge moun- 
 tain of a carriage ; this, however, she declined. I think the self- 
 ishness of Frenchmen far more revolting than that of my own 
 countrymen, because it is accompanied by an everlasting gri- 
 mace of politeness and courtesy which means nothing whatever. 
 As we continued our road, it became alive with groups of men 
 and women, the latter all with the curious little black beaver hat, 
 and in a gay and singular costume not unlike that of some of the 
 Swiss cantons. They were all carrying baskets and leading or 
 driving cattle, and from groups of two and three at a time, pre- 
 sently increased almost to a continuous stream, till we reached a 
 little village, whose name, as far as I could distinguish what they 
 said to me, was Ste. Pivie. Here there was a fair, which had 
 already lasted two days, and was to end this evening by a dance ; 
 the streets were thronged, and we absolutely drove between two 
 dense walls of human beings — the men all in the coarse blue 
 blouse, which seems universal to French mankind : the women in 
 
FAIR OF STE. PIVIE. 29 
 
 a curious costume — dark petticoats, bright scarlet handkerchiefs 
 over their bosoms, caps on their heads, and the peculiar beaver 
 hat I have mentioned, stooping forward almost to their noses — 
 many of these were covered with an immense profusion of black 
 lace, and ornamented with gold cord and tassels, the whole effect 
 being striking and picturesque, though from the narrow form of 
 their dress across the bosom and shoulders, it was individually 
 unbecoming. My antiquarian friend and myself looked in vain 
 from each window for a pretty face to set off this peculiar attire; 
 in all the population of the district gathered together there for the 
 fair, we saw but one good-looking girl — a small allowance among 
 so many hundreds. We stopped in the market-place, and a man 
 issuing from one of the shops offered to sell me one of the hats 
 which the women wore. I was tempted to buy one, but declined 
 upon his demanding forty francs for it, nor would I renew the 
 treaty, though he immediately offered it to me for thirty, and 
 assured me that many of the peasant women bought them at a 
 hundred francs. They evidently take great pride and pleasure 
 in them, and in spite of the everlasting fitness of things, which 
 they offend outrageously, they are very pretty. 
 
 As we proceeded on our way, I began already to observe the 
 flattening roofs, with their gentle, gradual slope, like those of 
 Italian houses, so different from the high-peaked Norman roofs, 
 which seem kindred to the caps of the Normandy women. We 
 now began to see hanging under the projecting eaves of the houses 
 long strings of maize or Indian corn — the ears were strung to each 
 other like branches of bananas, and, covered over with nets, hung 
 their great golden clusters round the houses, upon whose walls 
 the withered brown tracery of the vines attested the milder 
 climate we were approaching. We did not reach Bourges till 
 night, so saw nothing of its fine cathedral, which is so curious and 
 so beautiful. A stage beyond that we remained from ten till 
 twelve at night, in the middle of the road, waiting for horses, as 
 
30 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 we had done at Tournus ; a more wretched night I never passed. 
 We did not reach Lyons till seven o'clock in the morning of 
 Tuesday, having started from Chalons at five o'clock on Monday, 
 a most horrible, tedious, and fatiguing journey, though the roads 
 were far from bad. 
 
 I went to the Hotel de I'Europe, where I would not advise any 
 one to go who is not inclined to be shamelessly fleeced : the rooms 
 we were shown into were surrounded with gods and goddesses, 
 the painted panels representing Venus presenting Cupid to 
 Vulcan, Juno suckling Hercules, Nessus attempting to carry off 
 Dejanira, and on the ceiling, the whole synod of the gods of 
 Greece ; en revanche, in our bed-rooms we had less than the 
 usual scanty allowance of washing apparatus, and as neither the 
 beds nor table were particularly good, 1 mention the decorations 
 that future travellers may know for what advantages they are 
 expected to pay more dearly than at the first hotels in Paris. In 
 driving to the banker's, and to make a few purchases, I had some 
 opportunity of seeing the city, which has some very fine streets 
 and buildings. The windows of our hotel overlook the market- 
 place, with its ruddy and golden fruit-stalls, and its peasant 
 women, in broad-brimmed straw hats over close caps, some of 
 whom became their picturesque head-dress extremely. Beyond 
 the turbid, swollen Saone, which threatens another inundation, 
 the old cathedral and a row of fine modern buildings skirt the 
 river, and rising abruptly behind them, the steep heights of 
 Fourvieres, with their girdle and crown of fortifications, draw an 
 irregular picturesque indented outline midway up the sky. 
 
 Lyons, however, with its fearful and bloody recollections of 
 early martyrdom and late insurrection, together with the horrible 
 memories of revolutionary butchery which have baptized the 
 streets, overflowing with human blood, with names which per- 
 petuate the butcheries of Collot d'Herbois and his barbarous 
 associates, is to me a very painful place even to sojourn in, and 
 
LYONS. 31 
 
 the knowledge of its swarming population, whose turbulent 
 viciousness and poverty are alone kept in check by the batteries 
 which grin down upon the city from every surrounding height, 
 made m3 glad to shake the dust of it off my shoes. During the 
 course of the day I had two visits from my travelling companion, 
 who, having reached his house, and shaved, and comforted him- 
 self, and ascertained the safety of certain valuable and beautiful 
 candelabra he was bringing with him from Paris, as an addition 
 to a colkction of objects of vertii, in wiiich he takes great pride 
 and delight, came to pay his respects to me. He retui'ned again 
 in the evening, bringing with him an extremely pretty and 
 ladylike person, his daughter, and followed by a servant, carry- 
 ing certain objects from bis collection, of which he had spoken to 
 me on our road, and wb.ich he v/as determined I should not leave 
 Lvons without seeinn;. These v/ere some extremely beautiful 
 miniature copies of the Marriage of St. Catharine and the 
 Madonna della Seggiola, by his eldest daughter ; they were 
 admirably executed, and certainly bespoke a yerj great talent, 
 both as copyist and miniature painter ; he next showed me a 
 very curious old casket enamelled upon gold, and representing 
 the twelve labors of Hercules. The hypothesis by which the 
 worthy owner of this veritable antique traced its original 
 possession to some royal Mary or Margaret of France, reminded 
 me a little of Mr. Old buck ; nevertheless it w^as undoubtedly very 
 old and very curious. The next treasure he showed me, — and 
 it was one,— was a steel spur vrhich had belonged to Francis I., 
 and was, he said, the undoubted work of Benvenuto Cellini ; it 
 v/as originally in the royal collection in Paris, and at the time of 
 the Revolution, when its valuable contents wxre abandoned to the 
 pillage of the public assassins, — for whom Garrat demanded the 
 salary of judges, inasmuch as their butcheries were, according 
 to him, the sacred ministry of justice, — fell into the hands of a 
 gentleman who subsequently sold it to my friend. The Govern- 
 
32 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 merit exerted itself after the Revolution to recover some of the 
 more valuable articles which had been removed from the garde 
 meuble royal, but an inimense number had been dispersed beyond 
 recovery, and such objects as were made of the more precious 
 metals melted and sold ; fortunately, this beautiful spur being in 
 steel, escaped all injury, and cam.e in,to the hands of a most 
 enthusiastic and worthy possessor ; there were no less than six- 
 teen figures, several of them spirited equestrian ones, upon the 
 sides of the spur, and it was altogether elegant and beautiful 
 enough to deserve the credit of being Benvenuto Cellini's work- 
 manship, and Francis the First's sign of knighthood. At ten 
 o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, 31st December, we left 
 Lyons by the boat for Valence, none, as ill-luck would have it, 
 going for Avignon to-day, so that we have another stoppage on 
 the road. The ticket-office where we secured our passages was 
 besieged with men and women, stinking of garlic, and otherwise 
 so utterly foul and offensive that I thought I should have fainted 
 while squeezing my way through them to obtain our tickets. 
 
 The Rhone is like a younger Rhine, with lower hills, a nar- 
 rower stream, and fewer castellated ruins. It is very beautiful, 
 however ; and even at this bleak and dreary season gives token 
 of what its glory must be when the earth is in her holiday 
 attire. Towards Valence it becomes exceedingly picturesque ; 
 and when we stopped for the night below the suspension-bridge, 
 the scene was very perfect with its I'omantic rocky outline scol- 
 loping the evening sky, the exulting and abounding river rush- 
 ing whirling and eddying away, and the old clay-colored towers 
 rising in irregular masses, backed by the distant mountains, 
 whose dark blue line melted into the cloud-curtain that drooped 
 over them. 
 
 I put up with a wretched double-bedded room on the second 
 floor, the only one we could obtain. It is curious enough that 
 in the most miserable and filthy inns in France, where the floors 
 
ARRIVAL AT VALENCE. 33 
 
 of the rooms are unconscious of brooms, scrubbing-brushes, or 
 even the despicable French succedaneum cirage, you are sure 
 to get good beds, clean bed and table linen, good coffee, com- 
 paratively good food, and almost elegant china. 
 
 On board the boat to-day, the filth of which was really all but 
 intolerable, food was being served to the passengers, the clean- 
 liness and nice appearance of which was really curious, con- 
 trasted with the disgusting dirt of the decks. Oh, my poor dear 
 American fellow-citizens ! how humbly, on my knees, I do beg 
 your pardon for all the reproaches I have levelled against your 
 national diversion of spitting, and the consequent filth which 
 you create around you. Here I sat, in the cabin of this boat, 
 surrounded with men hawking and spitting ; and, whereas spit- 
 toons have been hitherto the bane of my life in the United States, 
 a spittoon here to-day would have been the joy of my heart and 
 the delight of my eyes. How 1 thought, too, of the honor and 
 security in which a woman might traverse alone from Georgia 
 to Maine, that vast country, certain of assistance, attention, the 
 most respectful civility, the most humane protection, from every 
 man she meets, without the fear of injury or insult, screened by 
 the most sacred and universal care from even the appearance of 
 neglect or impertinence, — travelling alone with as much safety 
 and comfort as though she were the sister or the daughter of 
 every man she meets. 
 
 Sitting in the boat with my back to a cutting wind all day, I 
 was seized on my arrival at Valence with a violent chill. I got 
 to bed in all haste, but passed the night ih a high fever, and 
 began to fear I should be too ill to proceed in the morning. For- 
 tunately this passed off, and on rising I found myself considerably 
 better. A boat went by the wharf at about nine o'clock, but 
 not having been led to expect one so early, we were not ready. 
 As soon as I was dressed and had breakfasted, as the morning 
 
 was beautiful, I took a walk on the suspension-bridge. The 
 
 3* 
 
34 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 day was lovely, the old Chateau de Crussol sprang up from its 
 rocky pedestal into the morning blue ; and the river turned up 
 its eddies of chrysoprasus to the gleams of the sun, and glanced 
 away in huge swathes, like some bright molten metal. The 
 bridge is itself a beautiful object, with its classical arch in the 
 middle, the noble stream it spans, and the varied mountain out- 
 lines between which it swings like a delicate spider's web of 
 man's spinning, hanging mid-way between heaven and earth. 
 At twelve o'clock the boat came down to the wharf, and we 
 embarked. I did not dare stay on deck for fear of catching 
 cold, and came to the pavilion where I lay down. Here, again, 
 I had reason to think of my strictures on the Americans; here 
 was a room full of children, and every one of them stuffing. 
 I must, however, state in favor of the French system, that they 
 were not eating cakes or candy, but bread and chicken, — an 
 infinitely less deleterious process. I passed the day below. 
 
 Although the weather was beautifully fine, we had the annoy- 
 ance and disappointment of being informed by the captain of 
 the boat that he should stop at St. Esprit, thirty miles from 
 Avignon, because the daylight would not serve him beyond the 
 former place, and the current runs so very strong that the navi- 
 gation would not be safe. This is really too bad. Thus we 
 lose to-night's malle poste from Avignon, and must moreover lose 
 the whole day to-morrow, — the coaches only leaving Avignon in 
 the evening. At five o'clock, we came alongside the wharf at 
 St. Esprit, and between the rosy sunset and the pale uprising of 
 a young moon, with a bright star that seemed come out to look 
 
 after her, and I threaded our way through the narrow dark 
 
 streets, to the stone bridge over the river, and walked over to 
 the other side and back again. It is the longest stone bridge in 
 the world, and the passage of it is attended with some danger, 
 the current running furiously, and with some most sudden 
 sweeps and eddies through it. The view from it of the town 
 
HOTEL DE L'EUROPE. 35 
 
 and its back-ground of mountain points was very picturesque. 
 We came bacl<: to the boat to pass the night there, preferrino- 
 that to the beds and bugs of the best inn of St. Esprit. 
 
 Friday, 2d January. — Though our sofa-beds in the cabin were 
 narrow, cold, and hard, the report of our fellow-travellers, who 
 had gone on shore to sleep, confirmed me in the belief that we 
 had chosen the better part. As for the unhappy wretches, fe- 
 male and male, who had herded all together in the larger cabin 
 of the boat, because there was a fire there, their undone looks, 
 as the French say, proclaimed enough the nature of their sleep- 
 ing privileges. At about half-past six we started for Avignon : 
 a brilliant sun darted almost oppressively into the cabin, while 
 the wind on deck was so piercingly cold, tliat it was impossible 
 for anything that had not the hide of a rhinoceros to endure it. 
 
 No carriage being to be obtained at the wharf, we set out to 
 walk to the Hotel de I'Europe, and encountered in its full per- 
 fection the aerial pest of this part of the countr}^ — the horrible 
 mistral, and certainly Bolus has no more detestable progeny. 
 I do not think the sirocco can be more intolerable than this cruel, 
 keen blast, piercing one's very bones, and chilling one's mar- 
 row, and choking up eyes, mouth, and nose — the very doors and 
 windows of life, with dust, while a satirical scorching sun shines 
 mercilessly down on one, glaring, blinding, and yet giving not 
 a particle of warmth. A carriage met us halfway, and carried 
 us up to the Hotel de I'Europe. 
 
 Looking at the crumbling arches of the ruined stone bridge 
 across the Rhone, I said to our guide : — 
 
 " Ce sont les eaux qui ont fait cela ?" 
 
 " Pardon, Madame, c'est la revolution." Truly floods and 
 fires are fearful things, — the heart of man is far more fearful, 
 and the desolations of outward nature smile beside the abomina- 
 tion of desolation which human nature in its wickedness creates. 
 At the Hotel de I'Europe we were shown into a comfortablo 
 
36 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 room, with an equally comfortable bed-chamber adjoining. Our 
 breakfast, M'hich was excellent, was served without a moment's 
 delay ; and having ascertained, to my inexpressible delight, that 
 a diligence would be starting in half an hour for Marseilles, the 
 conscientious and obliging host took the utmost pains to facilitate 
 my departure by it, although, of course, himself the loser of 
 my day's sojourn in Avignon. The coach was one coming from 
 Lyons, and fortunately vacant places were to be obtained in it ; 
 we, therefore, prepared joyfully, instantly to depart, the hostess 
 of the inn coming, with the utmost kindness and civility, to take 
 leave of us, presented me with a beautiful bunch of flowers, 
 roses, violets, myrtle, and laurestinus. Murray speaks of this 
 as one of the most agreeable and comfortable inns in all France, 
 and especially celebrates the courtesy and attention of the land- 
 lord, and I am sure I have reason to do the same, for, during the 
 short stay I made there, nothing could exceed the civility I met 
 with ; the prices, too, appeared to me extremely moderate, and 
 everything that was furnished to us was good, with the exception 
 of the butter — which, however, can only be had of a very infe- 
 rior quality, because it is brought all the way from Lyons, the 
 neighborhood of Avignon furnishing no pasturage whatever. 
 
 On entering the diligence, I found only one place in the body 
 of the coach, and one in the cowpe vacant ; such, however, was 
 my desire to proceed, that I separated myself for the first time 
 
 from my beloved , and putting her into the interior, 
 
 ascended the coupe with two of our fellow-travellers down the 
 Rhone, from whom I learnt in the course of conversation, that 
 
 Mr. 's courier might have secured the whole coupe to 
 
 me, and only failed of it by some mistake, — by which, however, 
 they profited to pursue their journey without delay. I was not 
 quite selfish enough to regret this, although I was half squeezed 
 to death in the small portion of what ought to have been all my 
 coupe, which these gentlemen allowed me. I found in the 
 
UNITED STATES— PUBLIC SECURITIES. 37 
 
 course of conversation that they were Lyonese, having business 
 relations with Marseilles. Mention having been made of the 
 enormous quantity of lard and pork lately sent from America to 
 the port of Marseilles, the conversation turned upon the national 
 credit, perhaps I ought to say discredit, of the United States. It 
 is impossible to conceive anything more painful and mortifying 
 to one, either by birth or adoption an American, than the con- 
 temptuous and reproachful comments which any mention of the 
 United States is sure to elicit. The commercial and financial 
 delinquencies of some of the States, but principally of Pennsyl- 
 vania, have created an universal impression throughout Europe 
 of utter want of faith, honor, and integrity, on the part of the 
 whole nation. The Florentine millionaire, the Lyons antiquary, 
 and these Marseilles merchants, all within three days, have 
 uttered opinions respecting the character of the Americans^ 
 which, however mistaken and exaggerated in some respects, 
 have quite foundation enough, in fact, to occasion bitter annoy- 
 ance to any one loving America, and wishing to honor her. It 
 is the most difficult thing in the world to make these people com- 
 prehend the complex movement of the federal and state govern- 
 ments, or to explain to them, that while in certain of the states, 
 from real inability, and in others, perhaps, from positive dis- 
 honesty, the public securities have turned out no securities at 
 all, there exist others, again, whose credit, both financial and 
 moral, is as solid, whose investments are as safe, as any in the 
 world : — it is impossible to make them understand it ; the 
 general government appears to them responsible for the State 
 insolvencies. The United States Bank is, to their apprehension, 
 a government institution, instead of a private speculation ; and 
 President Polk and Nicholas Biddle, and Pennsylvania, Illinois, 
 Massachusetts, and South Carolina, are all involved together in 
 one broad sentence of national dishonesty and want of faith. 
 
3S A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 If there had been no dishonesty and no want of faith, of course 
 these sweeping judgments could not have gone forth. 
 
 The Americans console themselves for the strictures of Eng- 
 lishmen, by attributing them to national jealousy, envy, or preju- 
 dice ; but I have heard in France more severe animadversions 
 upon their delinquencies than any since the days of Sidney 
 Smith's indignant addresses to the Pennsylvanians. 
 
 While discoursing upon these matters we travelled along the 
 banks of the Durance. One of the earliest recollections of my 
 school-days is the old French romance of'"Aux Bords de la 
 Durance ; " and now, as Nell, in the Devil to Pay, says, " This 
 is it." But, oh ! for the imaginations of those days, and the re- 
 ality of this. The Durance races in three turbid yellowish 
 strings, along a huge dry bed of dusty pebbles, attesting indeed 
 what its width must be when, swollen with the melted snows and 
 rains of spring, it overflows this valley, now showing its bare 
 bones to the scorching sun and pitiless wind. I never saw so 
 bleak and forbidding a prospect in its intolerable glaring barren- 
 ness ; the hills rose sharp and hard into le beau del de la Pro- 
 vence — their stony craggy elbows coming through their thin tat- 
 tered cloak of rusty brown. The three threads of water left 
 of the river scampered over heaps of shingly pebbles ; thf> 
 road, like a huge chalk-mark across the arid land, was betrayed, 
 where the eye could no longer follow it, by the clouds of white 
 dust rising for miles along its dreary course, swept by the mistral. 
 The sun shining into the narrow cowpe. threatened to bake us. One 
 window opened let in a hurricane of ice-cold wind ; another a 
 suffocating mist of white powder. The sentence of " Dust thou 
 art, and unto dust shalt thou return," seemed literally accom- 
 plishing itself in us ; and before we had travelled an hour, I am 
 sure we might have presented ourselves en costume de Louis XV., 
 as far as powder was concerned, at any masquerade. What 
 struck me particularly was, that on each side of the road ran 
 
LA MONTAGNE DES TAILLANDES. 3* 
 
 full brooks of water ; and we passed frequently little fountains 
 and wells, small ponds, and springs, like sapphires set in ivory 
 in this white parched soil, which looks unconscious of a drop of 
 moisture, and crumbles by the side of these very rills and springs, 
 like the " remainder biscuit after a voyage." It is the thirstiest 
 looking soil I ever beheld ; and my throat became absolutely 
 parched with only looking at it. 
 
 Rising a long ascent, called La Montagne des Taillandes, we 
 came to some important works whicii are being carried on for 
 the formation of the great canal to transport the waters of the 
 Durance to Marseilles — an immense undertaking, and one which 
 will reflect the highest credit, and confer the utmost benefit upon 
 that town. Just as we reached the summit, I observed a mass 
 of buildings which had the appearance of some villa ; but so 
 singularly situated, that if they were indeed such, the owner 
 must have had the taste of a Trappist. Into the hollow cup of 
 an arid glaring valley, surrounded by arid glaring hills, one 
 single spur covered with dark pines ran like a green promontory, 
 on the top of which, overlooking this scene of desolation, rose 
 the dwelling in question. A more solitary abode or sadder pros- 
 pect I cannot well conceive, for the deep blue evergreen of the 
 fir is the most mournful of all nature's infinite varieties of green ; 
 and, except the barrenness around it, nothing could be less cheer- 
 ful than this forest of unchanging trees. After crossing this 
 mountain, the country assumed a somewhat more fertile appear- 
 ance : vineyards, olive, and almond orchards, diversified the 
 prospect ; and though the silver-grey foliage of the olive is far 
 from lively, it was a great relief to see anything with any leaves 
 at all after the desolate district we had just passed through. We 
 reached Aix by early moonlight, and driving just within the 
 barrier, alighted at a species of coffee-house to obtain some re- 
 freshment. 
 
 Having taken nothing since breakfast, we were glad to get a 
 
40 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 bowl of soup and some grapes, fortified with which we returned 
 to the diligence and pursued our way. The moonlight betrayed 
 but little of the scene through which we were passing, and the 
 chief incidents of the road were the interminable strings of huge, 
 heavy, lumbering wagons, journeying slowly along under their 
 wealthy loads of southern produce ; and the enormous barns 
 occurring at every quarter of a mile, whose vast open portals 
 invited the drivers of these ponderous equipages to repose them- 
 selves and their teams. Presently, as we reached the brow of a 
 steep ascent, my eyes, which were questioning the imperfectly 
 lighted landscape with the eager desire of a long cherished ex- 
 pectation about to be realized, rested on a broad expanse of 
 smooth brightness, reaching to the horizon — a silver shield set in 
 ebony — it was the Mediterranean, the sea of many memories. 
 Sahe ! salve ! salve ! I could hardly believe the first impression 
 that it must be so, when one of my companions, who had regret- 
 ted my losing the daylight view of the entrance to Marseilles, 
 confirmed it with, " Tenez, tenez, Madame. Voila la Mediter- 
 rannee !" 
 
 The long suburb through which we now passed appeared inter- 
 minable, but at a little after eight our journey was accomplished, 
 and we reached the diligence office, where my two travelling 
 companions left me running about the court-yard in quest of my 
 luggage, without a single offer of service, or word of civility — 
 not even the decent form of the traveller's leave-taking. It is 
 now twenty years since I was in France ; and the common 
 opinion of English people, and of the French themselves too, is, 
 that they have very much departed from the affable and courte- 
 ous manners which were once a sort of national characteristic 
 among them. If my present progress from one end of France 
 to another in every variety of public conveyance, aflr»rds any 
 opportunity of judging, I should certainly incline to that opinion ; 
 there appears a total absence of the reference to other people's 
 
TRAVELLING IN AMERICA. 41 
 
 convenience and pleasure, which certainly formerly did distin- 
 guish French people of every class. The desire of pleasing 
 which exhibited itself frequently drolly to a stranger, but often 
 in very graceful expressions of courtesy and kindness, appears 
 to have given way to a selfish disregard of others, which mani- 
 fests itself in a rudeness of deportment quite as offensive as the 
 sullen mixture of pride and shyness which so long distinguished 
 the travelling English, wherever they were met with. While 
 losing the graces of their (perhaps superficial) politeness, the 
 French have acquired none of the decorum and decency of 
 deportment, the absence of which was always severely felt in 
 the midst of their most courteous demonstrations ; and while 
 acquiring something of the morose selfish carriage of our own 
 people, they have failed to adopt one particle either of their 
 cleanliness or propriety of person, language, or manners. Thus, 
 a Frenchman hawks and spits close to your cheek, blows his 
 nose like a trumpet in your ear, and yawns and coughs under 
 your nose. Their language is frequently positively exceedingly 
 indecent, and the tone of it always more or less borders upon 
 what Englishmen would consider unwarrantable freedom. I 
 do not wonder Frenchwomen do not travel much, but I sincerely 
 hope that before long they may be induced to do so, as nothing 
 else, probably, will render Frenchmen tolerable travelling com- 
 panions to the women, who at present have the misfortune to be 
 thrown in public conveyances into their society. Englishmen 
 are the only men I know who, met thus accidentally on the road, 
 are generally perfectly inoffensive in their persons, manners, 
 language, and deportment : on the other hand, courtesy, civility, 
 or any species of assistance, is not to be expected from them ; 
 they will take care not to insult or annoy you, but as for assist- 
 ing or entertaining their chance companions, that is certainly not 
 their specialite. The very cheap rate of travelling in America, 
 which enables everybody, without exception, to travel, and the 
 
42 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 absence of all distinctions of place or price in the public con- 
 veyances, whicli compels everybody to travel together, of course 
 brings refined and fastidious pilgrims into most painful proximity 
 with their coarse and unpolished brethren ; and from the uncouth 
 deportment and strange manners of the lower classes of people 
 from half-civilized districts, infinite annoyance, as well as amuse- 
 ment, is derived by those whom the unrespecting providence of 
 American railroads and steamboats compels to consort with them 
 upon a footing of at least travelling equality ; but (and I have 
 said my say in my time upon the subject of American tobacco- 
 chewers, cigar-smokers, and question-askers) a woman cannot 
 possibly travel in any part of the world with equal security as 
 in America ; the law of the land — public opinion — secures to 
 women the first choice of accommodation on every road and at 
 every inn ; a look, word, or gesture of intentional impertinence 
 will not assail her, nor a single offensive expression reach her 
 ear in passing from one corner to another of that vast and half- 
 savage continent. So great and universal is the deference paid 
 to the weaker vessel, indeed, in the United States, that I think 
 the fair Americans rather presume upon their privileges ; and 1 
 have seen ladies come into crowded steamboats and railroad 
 cars, and instantly assume the seats that have been as instantly 
 resigned by gentlemen upon their entrance, without so much as 
 a gracious word or look of acknowledgment ; so certain is the 
 understanding that every accommodation is not only to be fur- 
 nished, but given up, to them, — and this not to young, pretty ladies 
 but to women old or young, pretty or ugly — of the highest or th( 
 lowest class. Though the virtue on the part of the America! 
 men is certainly very great, I think it has made their womei 
 quite saucy in their supremacy, and altogether unblushing h 
 their mode of claimino; and receiving it. In churches, concert 
 rooms, and theatres, no man keeps his seat when women appea 
 standing ; and on board the splendid steamboats of the Nort 
 
 Jin 
 
HOTEL D'ORIENT. 43 
 
 and East Rivers, state-rooms secured by gentlemen alone cannot 
 be retained if women come on board and desire to have them. 
 This, it must be allowed, is pushing courtesy to the very verge 
 of injustice, and though one of the profiting party, I think this 
 is more than the largest construction of the " rights of women " 
 requires. 
 
 The Hotel de Richelieu, to which my father had directed me 
 in Marseilles, having, it seems, failed at least two years ago, I was 
 taken to the Hotel d'Orient, a pretty long step from the place where 
 the diligence deposited us, and though only eight o'clock in the 
 evening, not a coach was to be had for love or money ; the 
 hackney coachmen of Marseilles being, as, indeed, the whole 
 native population of that place are, quite original, and very 
 independent in their proceedings ; never remaining on their 
 stands after dark ; never appearing on them when it rains ; and 
 never stirring from them for love or money during the heat of 
 the day, in the summer season. When all this is taken into 
 consideration, they must certainly be a very admirable public 
 convenience. 
 
 At the Hotel d'Orient, an immense house, we could procure 
 no sitting-room, only a very mediocre bedroom on the second- 
 floor, with another for my maid, the dimensions of which scarcely 
 entitle it to more than the name of a closet. For this accommo- 
 dation, however, I was made to pay six francs a day, and the 
 whole scale of charges appeared to me not only exorbitant, but 
 absolutely dishonest. There was a daily charge made for tea, 
 which I invariably carry with me, not choosing to depend upon 
 bI the detestable decoction with which travellers are poisoned in 
 France, under pretence of tea ; and though I remonstrated upon 
 the subject, 1 was assured that travellers at the Hotel d'Orient 
 paid for what they furnished themselves quite as dearly as for 
 what the house provided them. In short, I do not recommend 
 any one, who has not a special satisfaction in being fleeced, to try 
 
 m 
 
44 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 the hospitality of that house. The Hotel Beauveau and the 
 Hotel des Empereurs are both, according to the report of tra- 
 vellers who know them, equally good, much cheaper, and far 
 more civil. 
 
 Having sent my letters early to Mr. and his daughter- 
 in-law, he and his wife, together with Mme. , did me the 
 
 favor to call upon me on Saturday morning ; they were profuse 
 in their offers of kindness and civility, and as I wished to make a 
 few last purchases before leaving France, the younger lady was 
 kind enough to accompany me to several shops. J did not find the 
 things I saw either pretty or cheap, and incline to think that ihe 
 better provided travellers are when they come to Marseilles the 
 more advantageous they will find it, as it is about the dearest 
 place, in every respect, in France, — infinitely dearer than Paris. 
 
 At a few steps from the hotel, Mme. pointed out to me 
 
 the French Protestant Church. Upon asking her husband some 
 questions respecting the service and congregation here, he in- 
 formed me that it was the same as the church de L'Oratoire, the 
 French Calvinist service ; that there were not above twenty seats 
 permanently retained for the year, and that of these twenty it 
 was extremely rare that half should be occupied ; that the elders, 
 whose presence was in some sort expected as a matter of deco- 
 rum, appeared only as a pure ceremony, and one which, for the 
 most part, they were glad to escape as often as possible ; that the 
 service and preaching were utterly uninteresting to the people, 
 and the congregation meagre and indifferent in the extreme. 
 This was a sad account ; and yet, what is to be done when the 
 mere empty form of religion, a dead corpse, stands up alone, 
 beckoning with languid hands a people whose hearts are dead to 
 a dead worship ? Who can wonder that living men who think, 
 and women who feel, should find but little within them to answer 
 such a call ? Good God ! how wonderful it is that that religion, 
 whose very essence is immortal, the element of incessant acti- 
 
DESECRATION OF SUNDAY. 45 
 
 vity, of endless progress, strength, vitality, spirituality, should 
 become such a thing as, for the most part, througliout Christendom 
 it is ! Nevertheless, it cannot perish, and doubtless these people 
 will in good time reject these stones that are given them for the 
 bread of life, and these stagnant waters, so different from the 
 well of living waters that Christ has promised to those who be- 
 lieve in him. 
 
 Sunday, Uh January. — Things that I had ordered at shops were 
 brought home this morning, as well as my linen from the washer- 
 woman's. We have now been travelling three weeks in France, 
 and of course this desecration of Sunday is no surprise. I found 
 my washing-bill, like everything else, inordinately dear ; water 
 is among the scarcities of Marseilles, and of course, this being 
 the case, all cleansing processes must be both rare and costly. 
 Truly, the arrival of the Durance will be an inestimable bless- 
 ing to the residents of this driest of cities, and the ladies will not 
 only be able to keep their plants alive during the heat of the 
 summer, but indulge probably at a more reasonable rate in the 
 hardly lesser luxury of abundant clothes- washing and change of 
 linen. 
 
 I had a delightful visit from the younger Mr. , who, in 
 
 the absence of his father, gave me many details of extreme in- 
 terest with regard to his early establishment of their factory at 
 Marseilles, coming here a foreigner, having to contend with all 
 the national prejudices, jealousies, and interests of the people 
 among whom he established himself, assailed on all hands by 
 predictions of the equal impossibility of bringing with him a 
 colony of English workmen, or employing the violent and un- 
 tractable native material around him. He made no attempt to 
 import English workmen, but taking immediately such as he 
 found at hand, began with twenty men in his workshop ; the 
 number of his hands is now five hundred : peaceable, orderly, 
 humane towards each other, respectful and attached to their su- 
 
46 . A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 periors, tliey are noted in tlie whole community as a body apart 
 for their good conduct and irreproachable demeanor. The enter- 
 prise has gone on thriving, the works increasing, the buildings 
 and establishment growing, every year adding to the number of 
 workmen, and the importance of the undertaking ; the French 
 merchants and masters remaining amazed at this success, where 
 they had predicted the most signal failures ; the civil authorities 
 
 inquiring of Mr. the average amount of crime, and re- 
 
 ceivino; for answer that thev had had no instance of crime whatever 
 among them, — petty misdemeanors which were visited by the 
 universal indignation and reprobation of the workmen themselves, 
 but no crime ; Government enterprises of the same description 
 sending to request to see the rules by which the establishment was 
 governed, receiving for answer that there were no written or 
 printed rules or specific code of government ; that a feeling of 
 mutual confidence and respect, justice on both hands, honorable 
 dealings from master to man, ample compensation in the shape } 
 of high wages, and that which is a thousand times more efficient, 
 a consciousness on the part of the men of being treated with hu- 
 manity and with sympathy ; these were the only laws, rules, or 
 contracts existing between them and their dependants. Oh ! my 
 dear, dear countrymen, how truly I believe that you, and you 
 alone, could have achieved such a noble triumph. My heart 
 melted and my eyes filled with tears while listening to these most 
 interesting details, and 1 could not repress a feeling of patriotic 
 pride in the belief that none but Englishmen could thus have 
 undertaken and thus accomplished. 
 
 Mr. went on to tell me some details of the yearly cele- 
 bration of his father's birthday by his workmen, to whom on that 
 day they give a dinner, to which all the civil authorities and 
 principal people of the town, their ladies and friends, are invited, 
 when these five hundred men march in two by two, the appren- 
 tices carrying large baskets of nosegays, which they distribute 
 
DRIVE ON THE PRADO. 47 
 
 ___ _ ______ 
 
 to the lady guests — a tribute from the workmen themselves to 
 their master's friends. An abundant repast is furnished them — 
 wine a discretion ; and in the midst of the most unbounded 
 gaiety and enjoyment, not a single instance of intoxication is 
 seen, nor does the destruction of any sort amount to more than 
 
 the accidental breakage of a few plates and glasses. Mr. 
 
 opens on this occasion his own garden to his workmen, and not a 
 single flower is touched, not a box-border trodden on ; and Mr. 
 
 told me that on one of these occasions, hastening himself 
 
 to the place where he was going to superintend some fire-works 
 which were to be let oflf, he was jumping over one of the beds in 
 his father's garden, when one ^ the workmen, not recognising 
 him, seized him by the collar, exclaiming, " Ah, malheureux, tu 
 abuses de la confiance qu'on nous montre, en detruisant le jardin 
 
 de M. ." The mistake w^as soon discovered, and the 
 
 young master thanked his workman for the zeal with which he 
 defended his father's property. He said that few of the spec- 
 tators of this truly patriarchal fete remained unmoved at the 
 greeting between the father and the men ; and I can well believe 
 j it, for the mere description of it affected me profoundly. God 
 I prosper the work ! — these men are missionaries in the strictest 
 j sense of the term. Dismissal and his father's censure are the 
 only punishments among them. Towards three o'clock, Mrs. 
 
 called for me to drive with her on the Prado. 
 
 We set forth together, and drove under the golden light of a 
 most glorious afternoon along a fine avenue, planted with trees, 
 and bordered with houses of such various forms and fashions as 
 to redeem, by the agreeable variety of the whole, the slightly 
 fantastic appearance of many of them individually. On each 
 hand a noble range of hills, with clean sharp outline, scooped 
 the exquisite sky ; and at the end, the Mediterranean, in all its 
 glory, rolled a sea of molten gold almost to our carriage wheels. 
 The declining sun burnished the level ocean, so that its prover- 
 
48 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION 
 
 bial sapphire hue was lost in the blaze of light ; wave after 
 wave, as it curved to the shore, upheaved a crystal vault of 
 golden green, through which the sun shone as through a huge 
 wall of the delicate Bohemian glass. The sound, the sight, the 
 present beauty, the intense longing of many years fulfilled, all 
 combined to excite and touch me most deeply ; the rocky pro- 
 montories, with their deep-jagged outlines, stony and stern in 
 their unvarying beauty, contrasting with the curving, undulat- 
 ing, yielding, exquisite element at their feet, canopied with that 
 limpid sky, whose richness and softness lent tenderness and 
 brightness to the whole. It was only less beautiful than the 
 moral glory I had contemplated in my conversation in the morn- 
 ing, and I devoutly thanked God for both : oh, great and good 
 Father, all thy works praise thee ; especially doth the soul of 
 man, thy noblest work, praise thee, when it shows forth thy will, 
 and walks in thy way. As we were turning away for the last 
 time from this scene of enchantment, I could not resist the desire 
 to dip my hands in the clear waves ; and, stopping the carriage, 
 ran down to the shore. The golden waters with their silver 
 fringe rolled in gorgeous sheets up the sand. 1 gathered one 
 handful of the Nereid's crown that lay at my feet, and having 
 baptized them in one far-reaching wave, ran back with my trophy 
 to the carriage. 
 
 Monday, 5th. — I went early to the banker's to get my letter of 
 credit changed, and was much surprised, at one of the first bank- 
 ing-houses in Marseilles, to be made to pay eight francs discount 
 upon Coutts's bill. This, however, it seems, is the mode in 
 which business is carried on at Marseilles, and truly it cannot be 
 accused of liberality. Much, however, I suppose, is to be ex- 
 cused in a population without fresh water, without cows, whose 
 poultry comes from Nice, and whose butter is brought from Ly- 
 ons. Let us earnestly hope that with irrigation, and consequent 
 
DEPARTURE FROM MARSEILLES. 49 
 
 fertility, the waters of the Durance may bring an influx of libe- 
 rality to the dealings of the inhabitants of Marseilles. 
 
 We took boat at about two o'clock at the foot of the Canne- 
 hicre, the great r-treet of Marseilles, and main pride of its inha- 
 bitants, our trunks having been again opened, and examined by 
 a policeman, on the open wharf. We now traversed the magni- 
 ficent natural basin where lies the vast and various forest of ship- 
 ping, which attests the extensive commerce of the place ; flags 
 of every nation floated from the masts, and the picturesque lat- 
 teen sails of the Mediterranean coasting- vessels, minified in a 
 charming effect with the square rigging of the other vessels. 
 
 pointed out to me a boat full of huge oil-jars, the very 
 
 fellows, I should think, of those in which Morgiana boiled the 
 forty thieves. Magnificent as the extent of this natural dock is, 
 the absence of tide, and the abominable foulness of the port, ren- 
 ders it, even at this season of the year, one hufje sewer : and 
 when the intense heat of summer beats upon this never- re freshed 
 water, with its hourly tribute of every conceivable abomination, 
 it must really be a most pestilential reservoir of ill smells and 
 noxious exhalations. Three several proposals have been made 
 to the French Government for furnishing them with the means 
 of purifying this port ; but owing to the centralizing policy which 
 makes every measure of every sort emanate from Paris, so much 
 time is lost in trafficking with the authorities there, in pour et 
 contre with powers at a distance from the immediate scene of ac- 
 tion, that both money and opportunity are wasted, and nothing 
 but barren negotiations achieved, instead of active improvement. 
 How great is the virtue of freedom ! — how infinite the scope it 
 lends to human intelligence ! — how marvellous it seems that hu- 
 man beings, conscious that God has given free will, and not 
 imposed absolute laws of action upon his children, should not 
 have perceived that freedom m.ust be essential to goodness, since 
 God himself has not infringed upon it ! How much coming 
 
 4, 
 
50 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 abroad makes us love England ! — how much more the institu- 
 tions of America ! But whereas the spirit of Englishmen has 
 been often above their institutions — the spirit of Americans has 
 been, alas ! almost always below theirs ; to be sure, it is the 
 highest theory of all. Oh, what a people they would be if once 
 they apprehended the glory of their own political profession ! 
 
 Having seen me on board, and consigned me most kindly to 
 the caro and attention of the captain of the Leopoldo Secondo, 
 
 who, I was glad to find, was an Englishman, left me. 
 
 He had hardly done so, when his younger brother came on board 
 to take leave of me. I was extremely amused at the pathetic 
 address of a worthy Marseillois to him, who had evidently taken 
 a glass too much, and who, with his hat in his hand, kept follow- 
 ing my young friend about, beseeching him in the most moving 
 
 terms, to patronize his son, who, it seems, is one of 's 
 
 workmen. — " Tenez, M. Edouard," said the worthy man, " vous 
 voyez comme je vous parle de la maniere la plus humble et la 
 plus humiliante le chapeau a la main ; et s'il le fallait, ce serait 
 bien encore le genou en terre pour que vous vous interessiez au 
 
 sort de mons fils." Upon desiring him to put his hat on, 
 
 he replied with a crescendo of pathos and emphasis, — " Non, 
 Monsieur ; et ce ne serait point le temps le plus intrepide qui m'y 
 forcerait aupres de vous qui pouvez proteger mon fils." 
 
 While waiting our departure, I was amused with seeing the 
 arrival of my fellow-passengers. A cargo came on board of two 
 clean, cross-looking men, and four veiled women, who began 
 stumping up and down the deck, each on her own hook, betray- 
 ing in the very hang of their multitudinous shawls, the English 
 creature — how peculiar they are, to be sure ! I had imagined 
 that by taking a cabin on deck, I should be sure to secure 
 abundant fresh air and the absence of proximity. And so I did, 
 except the neighborhood of the wheel, the jerking and shaking 
 of which were all but intolerable, and rendered everything like 
 
SIGHTS IN GENOA. 51 
 
 sleep, or even rest, impossible. With a degree of liberal fore- 
 sight, which I cannot sufficiently commend, in whoever devised 
 the arrangement, the dinner was not served until the very mo- 
 ment when we were going out of port. The rough encounter 
 of the Mediterranean outside the harbor, saved the purveyors of 
 the Leopoldo Secondo a portion pour deux at any rate (and, as I 
 subsequently heard, much more), for nothing was left for it but 
 bed, so violent was the motion of the boat, and so rough the sea. 
 From my wretched bed my wretched body did not stir till Tues- 
 day evening the 6th, when we boiled by the pier of Genoa, and 
 came to moorings in the bay. I then jumped up, hurried on my 
 clothes, and went on deck ; a clear moonlight revealed enough 
 of the scene to show its admirable beauty ; and I remained gaz- 
 ing from the silver sea to the mountains, and the white masses of 
 buildings shining at their feet, till I got pinched with cold, and 
 retired, remembering that probably I, and certainly Genoa, would 
 be in that place to-morrow. 
 
 Wednesday, January 1th. — The sun came gloriously up out 
 of the blue waters, and as fast as I could I despatched dress- 
 ing and breakfast, and with my faithful made a descent 
 
 upon the coast. We hastened, under the escort of our boatman 
 Dominico, to the nearest coach-stand, and finding ourselves im- 
 mediately in front of the Church of the Annunciata, we went in. 
 The splendor of the interior was really something quite astonish- 
 ing. After walking as if on eggs all round the church — for I 
 have always a sort of feeling that I ought to be turned out, since 
 I don't come there to pray — we returned to the coach-stand, 
 where, having made a bargain with a charioteer to drive us hither 
 and thither for five hours, we proceeded in regular traveller's 
 fashion to do all the churches, palaces, gardens, and fountains, 
 that could be crammed into the time. The result of all which, 
 in my mind, was one huge hodge-podge of black, red, and white 
 marble, gilding, pictures, statues, pretty-colored floors, and ceil- 
 
52 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 ings. Fortunately the divine blue sky, and the pleasant hanging 
 gardens, with their dark-green leaves and golden fruit, gave me 
 some repose between each sight ; but I think, to look at a kalei- 
 doscope for an hour together is nearly as pleasant, and quite as 
 profitable as this sort of succession of sights. The time passed 
 quickly in this pious manner, and at half-past three I returned 
 on board. 
 
 The town is beautiful in itself, and most beautifully situated. 
 I should like to have stayed there for six months. The boat 
 kicked like an old rusty fowling-piece, and though the sea was 
 as smooth as glass, and there was very little wind, the intolerable 
 jerking and shaking of the wheel, close to which my cabin was, 
 prevented my closing my eyes all night. I lay on my elbow, 
 with my head on the sill of the little window in my berth, and 
 watched the gradual departure of the night. The moon, after 
 flooding the heavens and the waters with mellow light, dipped 
 like a golden goblet beneath the waves ; the stars grew pale, and 
 seemed to withdraw into the depths of the sky as into their sock- 
 ets, and gradually the victorious banners of the sun reddened 
 the east, and threw their ruddy shadow upon the waters. It was 
 a perfect pageant — the sky shows it every moment at day-break, 
 — and it does not dim, nor alter, nor faint, nor fade, nor wear 
 out — a daily resurrection — a miracle of wonder and of beauty. 
 
 Early in the morning of Thursday the 8th, we brought to, 
 within the harbor of Leghorn. Most of our passengers went on 
 shore, intending to take the railroad trip to Pisa, and return in 
 the afternoon. Being alone, I was afraid to undertake this expe- 
 dition, as the boatmen and lower class of people at Leghorn have 
 the character of being peculiarly coarse and savage. I do not 
 know what those saw who went ; but though the Campo Santo 
 would have been an object of extreme interest and pleasure to 
 me, I doubt anything surpassing the glory of the scene which 
 surrounded me on all sides as I walked up and down the deck 
 
EVENING SCENE AT SEA. 53 
 
 of our vessel. The English passengers on board, of course, 
 afforded infimense amusement to all the other passengers, the 
 women especially, by their extraordinary jargon, and still more 
 extraordinary manners. What very strange human beings we 
 are ! I saw in the cabin a splendid specimen of the peculiar 
 nosegays made in Genoa — for the Genoese are as famous for 
 their arrangement of real flowers as for their artificial imitations 
 of them. Indeed, the one craft has, to my mind, infected the 
 other, and the live flowers are put up in these singular nosegays 
 so as to look as little like real, and as much like artificial ones, 
 as possible. This bouquet, which had been brought from Genoa 
 to Leghorn for some wedding solemnity, looked exactly like a 
 piece of rich carpet pattern. A thick row of orange flowers 
 formed the outward edge of it, and regular circles of violets, 
 dark and pale, — roses, laurustinus, and myrtle, were wound 
 round and round to a camellia centre, the whole presenting a 
 smooth variegated surface, where no one leaf or sprig protruded 
 beyond the other — a sort of floral shield, with which the Spring 
 misht arm herself to drive out the Winter — fanciful and sweet, 
 but not half so beautiful as the same quantity of flowers thrown 
 into a basket without order, form, or system. There are some 
 things that art should touch with fearful hands — flowers are 
 among them. 
 
 The view of this bay and the surrounding scenery pleased me 
 better upon the whole even than that of Genoa ; but we had such 
 a splendid sky over the whole, that, perhaps, some of the charm 
 lay in the lighting up. I observed a great number of English 
 vessels at anchor round us, and the stars and stripes of the 
 United States fluttering in all directions too ; the sea gulls ca- 
 reered in and out like sea butterflies, through and round the 
 shipping ; the boats went gliding by our vessel's side with one 
 sharp white pointed sail, exactly like the wing of one of them. 
 The cold white line of the Maritime Alps lay like a mass of 
 
54 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 ^^■^— ^^^^M»W I M —   I   -1-1 1 .       I . .. , I   I I     I in ■— »— ■^IM^ 
 
 unburnished silver upon the blue sky, as evening came on, and 
 the clear golden moon and stars glittered upon the darkening 
 sea, while the outline of Gorgona and Corsica stood like a black 
 silhouette against a broad western streak of dazzling orange 
 light. I certainly thought I had never seen anything so beauti- 
 ful in all nature before : the coloring of the sky is the same as 
 that of America, the same transparent clearness, the same daz- 
 zling brilliancy, the same splendor and variety ; but oh the dif- 
 ference of all that the sky looks upon ! I remember that Chan- 
 ning once said to me, " The earth is yours (speaking of Eng- 
 land), but the heavens are ours." The thought of Shelley, his 
 great genius, and the premature end (if any end is premature, 
 by the by) he found in these lovely southern waters, haunted 
 me as 1 looked towards Spezzia. If he had lived England would 
 have had a dramatic poet again ; for the " Cenci " was a suffi- 
 cient pledge of power, even in spite of the weakness which the 
 choice of such a subject indicated. 
 
 The horrible vicinity of the wheel prevented my sleeping again 
 all night — I think, too, something of the anxiety and excitement 
 with which I began to look to the close of my winter pilgrimage. 
 The whole night I watched the black coast of Corsica and Elba, 
 and the phosphorescent waves that sparkled and shimmered all 
 round our ship's side, as the wheels beat them up into a foam of 
 stars. With daylight we arrived at Civita Vecchia ; and here I 
 must pay a just tribute to the extreme meanness and dirty spirit 
 of extortion in which all the transactions of the company to 
 which the Leopondo Secoldo belongs are carried on. On coming 
 on board the ship a charge of 32 francs was made for our meals 
 during the voyage ; to this very sufficient charge was now added 
 another for two breakfasts, which I had taken this morning and 
 yesterday, the understanding being, it seems, that the passengers 
 are only furnished with food while the ship is in motion, — and 
 they cannot eat it ; but as they spend the better part of one day 
 
  
 
 THE DILIGENCE. 55 
 
 in the harbor of Genoa, and of another in that of Leghorn, dur- 
 ing all that time, when it might be possible for one to eat some- 
 thing, whatever is furnished is immediately made into an extra 
 charge. There is sometliing in the excessive illiberality, not to 
 say dishonesty, of these proceedings wliich reflects extreme dis- 
 credit on the management of the whole concern, and dissfusts 
 travellers in the highest degree, who would have made no sort 
 of objection to paying 42 francs at starting, or anything else that 
 was required of them, as the understood price of their accommo- 
 dation. The same thing was done with regard to the stewards, 
 whose services were also charged for beforehand, and claimed 
 over again at landing. In the same way, on going on shore, the 
 mei'e conveyance of my luggage from the wharf to the diligence, 
 a distance of a few yards, together with a look that a gentleman 
 (one of the agents of this screwing company) gave my passport, 
 laid me under obligations to the tune of 12 francs more ; and I 
 was not surprised when I found this, that the captain of the boat, 
 who very good-naturedly volunteered to see me through all these 
 civilities, withdrew a little before the charge for them was pre- 
 sented to me. The whole thing is disgraceful, and reflects infi- 
 nite discredit upon this illiberal company, who, not content with 
 charging a very sufficient price for the accommodations they 
 afford travellers, fleece them in this petty manner, or permit 
 them to be so fleeced, by a parcel of needy catch-pennies, who 
 make their exactions under the plea of being the agents of the 
 said company. 
 
 I had now my choice of proceeding to Rome, eitJier in a small 
 carriage with post-horses by myself, or taking a place in the 
 diligence. Not wishing to encounter the further annoyance of 
 driving or bribing a parcel of thievish postilions, I preferred the 
 latter, supposing that a service done for and by the Government 
 would bo more efficient, and probably more comfortable than 
 that which single travellers, especially women, could procure for 
 
56 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 themselves. When, however, I saw the crazy, rickety, dusty, 
 dirty, ragged, filthy conveyance which carries the mails of his 
 Holiness the Pope, my mind did greatly misgive me ; however, 
 I had taken the places, and remembering how near 1 was now to 
 the end of my miseries, clomb by three liorrid hoes, that scraped 
 my shins to death, up into the iiorrid body of this horrid coach, 
 which looked like nothing under heaven but a mean kind of 
 omnibus, past all use. The middle division of this delectable 
 equipage — for it had a head, a body, and a tail — 1 had retained 
 entirely for the inconvenience of myself and my maid. Though 
 separated from the other two apartments, it communicated with 
 them compulsatorily by window frames, which could neither be 
 let down nor pulled up, and had no glasses besides, if they could. 
 And now, at starting, the sights and sounds by which I found 
 myself surrounded were too irresistibly droll ; immediately before 
 us sat a prim, precise, and extremely polite Belgian, who had 
 been our fellow-traveller on board the boat ; behind, in a narrow 
 space unequal to one and a half of them, sat three Germans ; 
 the Belgian spoke French, I and my maid English ; the Ger- 
 mans, of course, their own Teutonic tongue ; and a lively 
 expression of feeling went forward, in this leash of languages, 
 upon the abominable extortions we had just been subject to, and 
 the atrocious accommodations travellers were furnished with in 
 the Roman States. This movement had reached a climax, when 
 a simultaneous appeal from the porters of the custom house, at 
 the various doors of the diligence, caused a volley of French 
 execrations and German imprecations which literally sent me 
 into convulsions of laughter, the whole scene was so ludicrous. 
 At each stage where we changed horses, the postilions came up 
 and claimed a bounty to which they were not in the slightest 
 degree entitled, but which I paid in the hopes of accelerating 
 their extremely leisurely movements. 
 
 The day was brilliantly warm and fine, and the road, with the 
 
THE CAMPAGNA, 57 
 
 sparkling Mediterranean on one side, and that dry sea (as 
 
 calls the prairies) the Campagna on the other, delighted me ; the 
 myrtle and box bushes exhaled a bitter aromatic smell in the 
 warm air, and the short, thick, tawny grass was all starred over 
 with wide-eyed daisies ; the ilex here and there spread its heavy- 
 colored foliage over a stone gate all hung with ivy, and the whole 
 vegetation, together with the vast open expanse of yellow down, 
 reminded me of the Savannahs of Georgia, to which it all bore 
 an absolute resemblance. I cannot perceive any difference 
 whatever between the ilex and the live oak of the southern 
 United States, except the infinitely larger and more picturesque 
 growth of the latter, and the wild drapery of grey moss with 
 which it is covered, making some of the huge old trees look like 
 hoary Druids, transformed, all but their matted grisled hair and 
 beard, into the trees they worshipped. 
 
 The climate was precisely what that of Georgia is in Decem- 
 ber and January. I was agreeably surprised at the much 
 greater amount of agriculture and cultivation in the Campagna 
 during the first part of the route than I had expected to see ; the 
 soil was of the finest color, and seemed to indicate the m.ost ler- 
 tile properties ; troops of picturesque, black-eyed, golden-skinned 
 men, in goat-skin coats and breeches, and wild tangled coal-black 
 locks and beards, were laboring — for the most part, however, 
 as the slaves do, either with the spade, or hoe, or pick-axe. I 
 saw not a single plough ; large flocks of sheep, too, which at a 
 distance could hardly be discriminated from the brown woolly 
 pasture they were cropping ; and herds of beautiful iron-grey 
 oxen, with magnificent long horns, grazed over the vast plain, 
 and here and there a large deep stone basin full of fresh deli- 
 cious-looking water, sparkled like a sapphire, dropped on this 
 dry wilderness for the blessing of man and beast. 
 
 Far on the distant verge of the huge sunny plain — some ruins 
 rose upon a forlorn hillock, against the blue sky, and a dark ilex 
 
 4* 
 
-S8 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 wood, of apparently great extent, relieved the eye with its som- 
 bre colors, and the imagination with the idea of shade ; beyond 
 this, again, we presently saw the outline of the Sabine hills, 
 reflecting the rosy tints which the setting sun was beginning to 
 fuse his light in ; full, mellow, golden moonlight gradually 
 mingled with the last flush in the sky ; and as the evening closed 
 in, the aspect of the Campagna really did become desolate, as 
 the dreary interminable winding road led us over a grey waste 
 of hillocks like the leaden ripples of a measureless lake. My 
 weary spirits revived with the sight of the first vine enclosures ; 
 and as we presently began to travel between high walls, I remem- 
 bered all the descriptions of travellers that I had read, and knew 
 that we must be even at the gate of Rome ; suddenly against the 
 clear azure of the sky, a huge shadowy cupola rose up. I felt 
 a perfect tumult of doubt, fear, and hope — such as I experienced 
 when, through the overhanging thickets that fringe them, I first 
 saw the yeasty waters of Lake Erie rushing to their great 
 plunge. The great vision rose higher and higher as we drove 
 under its mighty mass ; and as we turned within the Porta de 
 Cavallegieri, and stopped again at the barrier, St. Peter's stood 
 over against us, towering into the violet- colored sky, — and it was 
 real, — and I really saw it ; I knew the whole form of the great, 
 wonderful structure ; I knew the huge pillars of the noble arcade, 
 and the pale ghost-like shining of the moonlit fountains through 
 the colonnade. I was in Rome, and it was the very Rome of my 
 imagination. 
 
 The dark, deep, dismal, stinking streets through which we now 
 rattled, however, were new experiences. I never looked up from 
 between houses, and saw the heavens at such an immense height 
 above me, as in these chasm-like streets, through which we 
 seemed making an interminable progress, stopping at infinite places, 
 till my impatience at these delays, on the very threshold of arrival, 
 became almost intolerable. Again to the custom-house, to stand 
 
LINES ON ITALY. 'o9 
 
 shivering on the cold stone pavement, under cold stone arches, 
 while my trunks and carpet-bags were again rummaged. What 
 an intolerable nuisance, to be sure, these disgraceful and vexa- 
 tious hindrances are ! My sister's servant met me here ; and at 
 length, transferred to an open carriage, we rolled through the 
 streets, where the houses looked, by contrast of moonlight and 
 shadow, like actual carvings of ivory and ebony — up steep and 
 slippery pavements to the Pincio, where, at a lighted upper win- 
 dow, I saw a woman's figure. I scrambled up three pairs of 
 stone stairs, and so into my sister's arms, worn out, and ready to 
 die with the fatigue of coming, and the emotion of being come. 
 
 Early in life, when hope seems prophecy. 
 And strong desire can sometimes mould a fate, 
 My dream was of thy shores, Oh, Italy ! 
 Of thy blue deep, that even for awhile 
 Will not forsake its spicy pine-girt beaches ; 
 Of the unutter'd glories of thy sky. 
 Of the unnumber'd beauties of thy earth, 
 And all the immortal memories, that rest 
 For ever like an atmosphere above thee. 
 Thus towards the south my spirit's flight was turn'd, 
 For ever with the yearning of one born there. 
 And nursed upon its warm and fragrant bosom : 
 Awhile the sunny dream shut out all else, 
 And fill'd the horizon of my contemplations. 
 Slowly, and by degrees, the toiling years, 
 Breathed o'er the bright illusion, dimming it, — 
 And gather'd close about me sterner things. 
 The graceful lines, the gorgeous hues, the forms 
 Of grandeur and of beauty that my thoughts 
 Had dwelt amidst, as in their proper home, 
 Melted and faded — broke, dissolved away, 
 
60 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Till the last, lovely, lingering trace had vanish'd, 
 
 And I forgot to hope it might return. 
 
 Across an ocean — not thy sapphire waves. 
 
 Oh, Mediterranean, sea of memories ! 
 
 But the dark marble ridges of th' Atlantic, 
 
 Destiny led me — not to thy bright shores, 
 
 Ausonia, but that wondrous wilderness. 
 
 That other world, where Hope supreme beholds 
 
 All things unshaped — one huge eventful promise, 
 
 Ah, not to thee, thou treasure-house of Art, 
 
 Thou trophy-loaded Temple of the Past, 
 
 Hung with triumphant spoils of all the ages ! 
 
 But to that land where Expectation stands, 
 
 All former things behind her — and before 
 
 The unfathom'd brightness of Futurity, 
 
 Rolling its broad waves to the feet of God. 
 
 Upon that distant shore, a dream more fair 
 
 Than the imaginations of my youth 
 
 Awhile entranced me ; lightning-like it fled, 
 
 And I remained utterly desolate. 
 
 Love had departed ; Youth, too, had departed ; 
 
 Hope had departed ; and my life before me 
 
 Lay cover'd with the ashes of the Past, — 
 
 Dark, barren, cold, drear, flinty, colorless. 
 
 As thro' the cheerless grey of waning night, 
 
 When its black veils wear thin and part like film, 
 
 Beautiful light, like life begins to glow. 
 
 And the great picture of the earth is sketched 
 
 Faintly upon the canvas of the dark. 
 
 Brighter and brighter growing, as the day 
 
 Holds its great torch against God's master-piece, 
 
 Till the whole work in perfect glory shines : 
 
 So rose once more that southern vision's splendor 
 
LINES ON ITALY. 61 
 
 Upon the cheerless twilight of my fate ; 
 
 The last grim pages of my book of life, 
 
 Fill'd with a mean and grinding martyrdom, 
 
 Washed with unceasing tears at length gave back 
 
 The glorious legend written on my youth. 
 
 Again, again, the glorious shapes returned ; 
 
 Again, the lovely lines like magic drew me ; 
 
 Again the splendor of the southern heavens 
 
 Shed rosy light and golden glories round me. 
 
 And Art and Nature, twins immortal, stood 
 
 Upon the threshold of earth's Paradise, 
 
 And waved me tow'rds it. And at last I came, — 
 
 But with a broken heart and tear-dimm'd eyes, 
 
 And such a woeful v/eight of misery laden. 
 
 As well might challenge the great ministry 
 
 Of the whole universe, to comfort it. 
 
 Thus did I seek thy shores, Oh, Italy ! 
 
 Land — not of promise — but of consolation ; 
 
 Not in that season of my life, when life 
 
 Itself was rich enough for all its need, 
 
 And I yet held its whole inheritance ; 
 
 But in the bankrupt days when all is spent, 
 
 Bestow'd, or stolen, wasted, given away, 
 
 To buy a store of bitter memories : 
 
 In the first hour of lengthening evening shadows. 
 
 When Resolution on life's summit stands, 
 
 Looks back on all its brightness, and looks forward 
 
 Thro' gathering downward darkness to the grave. 
 
 Hail, then, most fair, most glorious, long desired — 
 
 Long dreamed of — hoped for — Italy, hail ! hail ! 
 
 I kiss thy earth, weeping with joy, to think 
 
 That I, at last, stand on thy sacred soil. 
 
62 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Saturday, lOtli January. — I had seen my sister's children 
 asleep in their cribs last night ; their cooing and chirping woke 
 me in the morning. While I was still in my dressing-gown 
 
 called me out to see the view. We are on the very top 
 
 of the Pincio ; Rome lay like a map at our feet, bathed far and 
 near with glorious sunlight, against which on the opposite horizon 
 the stone pines of the Doria Pamfili spread out their dark roofs. 
 Our apartment reminds me extremely of all the houses I ever 
 was in in the southern states of America — large lofty rooms, 
 with not a window or door that can shut, and those that do, 
 giving one one's death by the imperfect manner in which they 
 close, — a great deal more than if they stood for ever wide open ; 
 coarse common carpets laid over a layer of straw ; in short, the 
 >vhole untidy discomfort which characterizes the dwellings of all 
 southern people, as far as my observation goes. 
 
 Now for the chapter of compensations : my bed-room door and 
 window open upon a terraced garden at least forty feet above the 
 street, full of orange and lemon trees, magnolias, myrtles, olean- 
 ders and camellias, roses and violets, in bloom ; a fountain of the 
 acqua felice trickles under the superintendence of a statue into 
 a marble shell, and thence escapes under, the garden. The view 
 from thence of the Eternal City and its beauteous girdle of hills 
 surpasses all description, and the twin towers of the Trinita rise 
 close to it up into the blue sky, which looks through the belfry 
 arches as through windows down into my sleeping-room. The 
 colored tiles of all our ante-rooms and passages enchant me ; so 
 do the gay painted ceilings. The little room where I bathe is a 
 perfect delight to me, with its Latin inscription on the lintel, its 
 marble bath, its walls covered with fresco Cupids and dolphins, 
 and altars with flames, and baskets with flowers, all strung to- 
 gether by waving patterns of wreaths and garlands. This after- 
 noon we drove through the streets of Rome, out to a place that 
 was once one of the innumerable Cenci possessions, but which is 
 
WATER TYPICAL OF TRUTH. 
 
 now a farm-house of the Borghese. In one corner of the . 
 stable-yard, where heaps of manure occupied most of the gi 
 sf.ood a stone sarcophagus, with spirited and graceful rilievi, 
 which fresh water was pouring itself in a glassy stream. As 
 went round the house, we came upon another stone basin, > 
 beautiful form and proportions, into which another gush of livin, 
 water was falling in the bright sunshine : further on, again, be- 
 neath a sombre avenue of ilex, another of these precious reser- 
 voirs sparkled and gleamed. I cannot describe my delight in 
 living water : these perpetually running fountains are a perpetual 
 baptism of refreshment to my mind and senses. The Sweden- 
 borgians consider water, when the mention of it occurs in the 
 Bible, as typical of truth. I love to think of that when I look at 
 it, so bright, so pure, so transparent, so temperate, so fit an em- 
 blem for that spiritual element in which our souls should bathe 
 and be strengthened, at which they should drink and be refresh- 
 ed. Fire purifies, but destroys ; water cleanses and revives. 
 Christ was baptized in water, and washed, himself, in the rege- 
 nerating element His disciples' feet. He promised living waters 
 to all those, who, thirsty, drew near to Him, and spoke of that 
 well of everlasting life, which those to whom He gave to drink 
 possessed for ever in their souls. I do not wonder at all the 
 marvellous wasser-cur reports. I believe the material element 
 to be as potent in regenerating and healing the body, as the 
 spiritual element its clearness dimly represents is to regenerate 
 and heal the mind. 
 
 It is impossible to describe the soft beauty of everything that 
 surrounded us here ; the ilex trees, the graceful stone pines, the 
 picturesque color and outline of the house itself, the sunny far- 
 stretching campagna, with its purple frame of mountains ; So- 
 racte, standing isolated like the vanguard of the chain ; the 
 sullen steeps of the Sabine ; the smiling slopes of the Alban 
 hills ; Frascati, Tivoli, glittering in the sunshine, on their skirts ; 
 
A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 the light over all radiant and tender ; the warmth and balmy 
 softness of the atmosphere — everything was perfect enchantment. 
 Everything was graceful, harmonious, and delightful to the eye, 
 and soothing beyond expression to the mind. Presently came 
 two of the beautiful mouse-colored oxen of the campagna, slowly, 
 through the arched gateway of the farm-yard, and, leaning their 
 serious-looking heads upon the stone basin, drank soberly, with 
 their great eyes fixed on us, who sat upon the hem of the foun- 
 tain ; I, for the first time in my life, almost comprehending the 
 delight of listless inactivity. As the water ran lullingly by my 
 side, and between the grey shafts of the tall pine trees, and 
 beneath the dark arches of their boughs, the distant landscape, 
 formed into separate and distinct pictures of incomparable beau- 
 ty, arrested my delighted eyes. Yes, I think I actually could be 
 content to sit on that fountain's edge, and do nothing but listen 
 and look for a whole summer's afternoon. But no more — " up, 
 and be doing," is the impulse for ever with me ; and when I ask 
 myself, both sadly and scornfully, what ? both my nature and 
 my convictions repeat the call, " up, and be doing ;" for surely 
 there is something to be done from morning till night, and to find 
 out what, is the appointed work of the onward-tending soul. 
 
 Returning home, the arches of the aqueducts were all gilt 
 within with the sunset. How beautiful they are, those great 
 chains, binding the mountains to the plain, with their veins of 
 .J living water ! The links are broken, and the graceful line inter- 
 rupted, and the flowing element within withdrawn to its heart in 
 the mountains, and now they are only the most beautiful ruins 
 in the whole world. Sometimes, when seen from a height 
 which commanded a long stretch of their course, they reminded 
 me of the vertebrse of some great serpent, whose marrow was 
 the living water, of which Rome drank for centuries. We re- 
 turned to the city by the beautiful Porta Maggiore, and just 
 within it met Mr. and Mr. , who challenged 
 
COLISEUM— ST. PETER'S. 05 
 
 to a walk. He accordingly left us, and we drove on to 
 
 the Coliseum. I was again surprised to find how absolutely cor- 
 rect the imagination I had formed of it was. How curious this 
 is ! or rather, indeed, it is not curious, that the face of Nature 
 and the human countenance can never be so described as to give 
 an absolute and positive image to the mind which shall be iden- 
 tical with the reality, — while, with these, the most stupendous 
 works of the hand of man, measurement, description, and imita- 
 tion, can make us perfectly and familiarly acquainted. I believe 
 the height of the Coliseum, as well as that of St. Peter's, was 
 rather greater than I had expected. We stopped for a while 
 looking from this great ruin to the beautiful Arch of Constan- 
 tine ; and then driving up the Via Sacra, through the Arch 
 of Titus, by the ruins of the Palace of the Csesars, the Forum, 
 and Trajan's Pillar, we returned home. I have seen all this ! It 
 is mine ! 
 
 Sunday, llih January. — We drove up the Monte Mario to a 
 beautiful villa, formerly the Villa Mellini, now called the Villa 
 Falconieri ; from this place the view of Rome, the Tiber, the 
 hills, the campagna, and the sea, was most glorious. The house 
 stands like a fortress, on the very top of a precipitous hill, which 
 is crowned with ramparts of ilex and cypress. Here (as every- 
 where) we were pursued by the shameless, wretched pauperism 
 that disgusts and pains one the whole time, and makes the ruined 
 aspect of the great outward things about one cheerful, compared 
 with the abject degradation of that which God has made in his 
 own image. Oh ! I would not live among these people for any- 
 thing in the world ; and when 1 think of England and of Ame- 
 rica, I thank God that I was born in the one, and shall live in 
 the other. Driving home we went to the Acqua Paola, the foun- 
 tain in Rome where the volume of water is most satisfoctory. 
 The very ornaments with which they adorn them, gods and god- 
 desses, dolphins, shells, &c., interfere with the effect of the 
 
.66 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 beautiful element itself; and though, of course, there is no com- 
 parison between the graceful forms of the basin of the Acqua 
 Paola, Trevi, &;c., and the simple turf bank that surrounds the 
 fountain in the park at New York, the volume of water thrown 
 to a height of nearly sixty feet, and falling back in a cataract, is 
 a finer thing in itself than a whole Olympus of carved stone di- 
 vinities. From this fine fountain, by the side of which.one enjoys 
 a noble view of Rome, we went to St. Peter's ; and here I was 
 only astonished at finding how perfectly I knew it — how abso- 
 lutely like what I had imagined it it was ; so that, except that 
 the roof was a little higher than I expected, I felt as if I had 
 been there a hundred times, and it in no way exceeded or differed 
 from my expectations. The four-post bed (the only idea those 
 horrid canopies over the high altars ever suggest to me) in the 
 middle arrested the sweep of the eye from end to end of this 
 majestic temple, and disfigured it painfully to me ; but, except that 
 there was nothing in the whole that was not simple, sublime, and 
 absolutely satisfactory in its huge, beautiful proportions. I was 
 not prepared, and was proportionately thankful, for the absence 
 of all the tawdry, tinselly, holy trumpery, so perpetually hang- 
 ing about the difTerent shrines in Catholic churches, making them 
 look like old curiosity shops, and disfiguring both their beautiful 
 forms and the beautiful materials they are built of. 
 
 Monday, I2th January. — We drove round the Pincio, from the 
 various sides of which Rome and its guardian hills are seen, 
 with all their infinite beauty of contrast and of harmony. We 
 went to several shops to make purchases. The quality of every- 
 thing I looked at was very indifTerent, the prices enormous ; and 
 the shop-keepers, with an audacity and dishonesty inconceivable 
 to a stranger, invariably take half the original price which they 
 demand for everything. The filth and stench of the streets give 
 one an imaginary fever as one drives through them. I wonder 
 these people don't have the plague every year in this city. The 
 
INQUISITIVENESS OF BANKERS. 67 
 
 great, wide, beautiful stairs leading up from the Piazza di Spagna 
 immediately to the door of our lodging are the favorite haunt of 
 all the painters' models ; old men with grizzled beards and hair, 
 and lads with blue-black locks falling all round the most won- 
 derful eyes ever beheld ; girls in the picturesque costume of the 
 lower orders here, with splendid heads and shoulders, and scarlet 
 jackets, and daggers thrust through the braids of their hair : 
 here they sit and stand, and lounge and loll in the sun, screaming, 
 shouting, laughing, gesticulating, or dozing like cats with half- 
 closed eyes upon the worn stone steps ; or with true brotherly 
 humanity exploring the animated nature of each other's elf-locks 
 — beautiful beastly creatures. With those specimens of all that 
 is finest in form and color, lie a rabble of hideous deformities, 
 whose sole occupation it is to extort money from every passenger 
 that walks, or carriage that drives by them ; women with huge 
 goitres, men with withered arms, hump-backed, blear-eyed, fever- 
 smitten, halting, squinting, idiots lolling out their tongues and 
 goggling their eyes, the blind, the maimed, babies in arms, and 
 old creatures on crutches, — all swarm round the wretched way- 
 farer, and with vociferous outcries persecute him for an alms. 
 Words fit only for dogs do not repel them, nor the threatened 
 arm and lifted hand ; they have lost all sense of shame, or of 
 injury ; they are triplecased in the impervious callousness of the 
 lowest degradation. We drove to the Capitol to-day, where the 
 Antinous pleased me better than anything else that I saw, even 
 than the Venus and the Dying Gladiator. The cold brick pave- 
 ments chill me through and through ; I don't understand why 
 everybody does not die in Rome. 
 
 Tuesday, ISth January. — Went to Torlonia's to get one of 
 my bills changed. The person who transacted this clerk's 
 business, and who, as I was afterwards informed, was a half- 
 brother of the banker, asked me such a string of impertinent 
 questions, that at first I supposed the interrogatory 1 was under- 
 
68 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 going was part of some police ceremonial, and that as one cannot 
 come from Civita Vecchia to Rome without having one's baggage 
 rummaged three times, so one could not get twenty pounds with- 
 out giving information of one's name, where one lives, who one 
 lives with, how long one means to stay, and a whole string of 
 questions, which if a clerk in an English banking-house were to 
 ask one, one should probably request him to hold his tongue and 
 mind his business. Here, however, the case is different, and 
 whoever banks at Torlonia's must, it seems, be prepared to 
 satisfy his clerk upon all matters concerning their own personal 
 history, which he may think proper to inquire into. I wonder 
 anybody chooses to bank with him, cela eiant. After this we 
 drove to a sort of house of refuge for poor girls. We passed 
 through some horrible court-yards, that looked as though they 
 were swarming with fleas, bugs, and lice ; dirty brooms and 
 brushes, filthy rags and nasty people, lay, hung, and stood all 
 about ; chickens and ducks cackled and gabbled in every direc- 
 tion, depositing their tribute of dirt all over broken capitals of 
 noble columns, corners of friezes, and bits of verd antique. We 
 ascended some steps, where one hardly dared tread without look- 
 ing, and after looking, felt as if one could not tread. At the top 
 of these lay a high wilderness of a garden full of orange trees 
 and artichokes, a singular union of the homely and, the poetical. 
 A ruinous-looking fountain sent up a thin stream of water a few 
 inches from its almost stagnant surface. It was a very desolate- 
 looking place. Having crossed it, we found ourselves on the 
 very top of the Basilica Maxentia, whose huge wondrous arches 
 rose beneath us, and seemed now as though they reared them- 
 selves so higii and vast into the sky only to carry the delicate 
 fantastical foxglove, that sprung out from their rifted brick-work, 
 and nodded its lilac bells at the tiny Roman people down below. 
 The view of Rome, and of the Coliseum especially, through a 
 high narrow niche, was very beautiful. The afternoon was sad 
 
THE COLISEUM. 69 
 
 and lead-colored, but just towards sunset a streak of light opened 
 itself like a crack in the western sky, and the effect upon the 
 Sabine hills was indescribable. A huge dark-blue, sulky-looking 
 mountain frowned in that direction, over -vhose shoulder peered 
 another, covered with snow, and all rosy with the reflection of 
 the crimson sunset : I never saw so beautiful and wonderful a 
 contrast. We descended from this place, and I went to the 
 
 Coliseum with . The coloring of the whole was what 
 
 pleased me most : the ruddy walls, the grey buttresses, the rich 
 tufts of tender ruin-haunting verdure, produced the most ex- 
 quisitely harmonious combination. While we stood silently 
 looking round, a bird sang loud and clear its evening song. 
 How strange and sweet it sounded, that voice of melody, here, in 
 this place of a thousand groans, and shrieks, and acclamations ! 
 It is marvellous to stand by the Cross, in the very middle of this 
 field of Christian martyrdom, and look at the hideous daubs of 
 Christ's passion which sanctify and disfigure it, and for whose 
 sake alone these great, graceful walls are not now level with the 
 dust. Oh, Truth triumphant, Love victorious, how surely shall 
 the whole earth belong to ye ! We drove home through the 
 vault-like streets, which seem to me to strike a deadly chill into 
 one's very soul after coming out of the genial sunshine. 
 
 Wednesday, 14//i January. — I rode out into the campagna with 
 , and saw the sun and the clouds, and the lights and sha- 
 dows, play at hide-and-seek all over the vast tawny wilderness, 
 and up the sides of the hills, till I was tired of exclaiming with 
 delight and wonder. Sometimes every wrinkle in the old hard- 
 featured mountains came out under the pearly light like the 
 lines on a deep-furrowed face ; and then a shadow fell all over 
 them, that looked as if you could have hewn great solid blocks 
 of blackness out of it — it was a marvellous pageant. Coming 
 home, we rode round the Villa Borghese. 
 
 Thursday, I5th January. — Took a delicious walk in the gar 
 
76 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 dens of the Villa Medici. Visited Mme. , who showed me 
 
 some \ery interesting and well-executed sketches of Etruscan 
 ruins in the campagna. Happy woman ! She can afford to 
 carry her architect and painter with her, to seize upon and bring 
 away for her the very aspect and countenances of all these 
 beautiful places. 
 
 In passing through the Vatican, Mme. pointed out to me 
 
 a painting on the wall, representing the raising of the Great 
 Obelisk before St. Peter's, and told me the following anecdote 
 about it : — After the proposal and adoption of an infinite variety 
 of plans for its erection, the trial of which had caused an enor- 
 mous outlay to the government, and always resulted in failure, 
 the Pope, Sixtus V., at length declared, that if another scheme 
 for the purpose was unsuccessfully attempted, the architect who 
 furnished it should be put to death. This determination on the 
 part of his Holiness, naturally put a stop, at least for a time, 
 to the suggestion of new experiments. At length, however, an 
 engineer more sure of his plan, or less afraid of death than his 
 predecessors, presented himself to the Pope, and laid a scheme 
 before him for the erection of the obelisk. His Holiness looked 
 over the proposal, and admitted that it appeared to promise 
 admirably well, but at the same time observed, that the carrying 
 it into effect would cost an enormous sum of money, and reminded 
 him of the penalty affixed to failure. The architect, Fontana, 
 agreed to run the risk, provided only that his Holiness would 
 publish a command, that during the process of raising the monu- 
 ment, the most perfect silence should be observed among the 
 workmen and assistants ; stating, that the main cause of the 
 hitherto failures of all his predecessors were the confused out- 
 cries, exclamations, and execrations of the multitude, engaged 
 in the work or standing by. The Pope immediately consented 
 to this condition, and on the appointed day, having caused four 
 gallows to be erected at the four corners of the great place of 
 
ANECDOTE. 71 
 
 St. Peter's, and proclaimed that the first person who was heard 
 to speak aloud should forthwith be hung, the experinnent went 
 forward in presence of his Holiness, his whole court, and an 
 innumerable assemblage of people, who, in wholesome terror 
 of the gibbets, preserved an universal silence. With infinite trou- 
 ble, labor, and anxiety, the great Egyptian needle was at length 
 raised from a horizontal to a perpendicular position. No accla- 
 mation hailed the success of the undertaking ! Thus far, it still 
 remained to raise the vast mass from the earth to a level with its 
 pedestal, by far the most arduous part of the task ; intense 
 anxiety was depicted on the upturned, eager faces of the breath- 
 less multitude. The obelisk was slowly raised, till, when its 
 base was within half an inch of the top of the pedestal, the ropes 
 by which it was being drawn up became so tense with the enor- 
 mous weight, that they were seen to smoke ; another moment, 
 and the monstrous mass would have fallen from their support. 
 The wretched Fontana, sweating blood, saw the impending 
 catastrophe of his all but successful attempt ; suddenly, one of 
 the workmen cried aloud, " Acqua !" The crowd rushed to the 
 fountains, the saving element was dashed over the strained and 
 tightened ropes, the final haul was given, and the obelisk lodged 
 upon its pedestal, when one universal shout that rent the sky, 
 broke forth, and hailed the accomplishment. The Pope, how- 
 ever, commanding silence again, called before him the artisan 
 who, in spite of his command, had ventured to speak. The poor 
 fellow acknowledged himself worthy of death for having spoken, 
 but pleaded that the salvation of the obelisk deserved some reward. 
 The Pope allowed the justice of the claim, and gave his forfeited 
 life, adding graciously, permission to choose any boon he might 
 name for the service he had rendered. The man besought for 
 himself and his family the monopoly of the sale of palm-branches 
 on Palm Sunday, in the square of St. Peter's ; and to this day 
 
72 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 his descendants exercise that traffic, and derive from it a very 
 considerable yearly profit. 
 
 Another story she told me was this. Speaking of the admira- 
 ble dexterity of the Jews of the Ghetto here, in repairing, in a 
 manner absolutely invisible, the most incurable rents in clothes, to 
 which industry the jealous tyranny of custom confines them, as 
 they are not permitted to exercise any trade or handicraft of any 
 kind in Rome ; she mentioned that they were famous for the same 
 proficiency in darning in the East. She said that a man at Con- 
 stantinople having left in the charge of a friend of his a purse 
 without seam or join, in which he had placed a certain number 
 of diamonds, complained, on his return from distant travel, that 
 his number of jewels was not correct. The friend maintained 
 the integrity of his trust, and adduced as proof the entire woof 
 of the purse, in which neither seam nor join appeared, and the 
 seal of the owner still remained untouched at the mouth of the 
 purse. The owner of the jewels was forced to admit both these 
 facts, but still persisted in asserting that the amount of diam.onds 
 was no longer what he had left. The case was brought before 
 more than one magistrate, but nothing could be elicited upon 
 the subject ; and the unaltered condition of the purse, which the 
 owner could not deny, was considered conclusive evidence against 
 his claim. In despair he applied to the Sultan himself, and the 
 strange persistency of his demand impressed the latter so much, 
 that, though compelled upon the face of the facts to dismiss his 
 claim as untenable, the subject remained impressed singularly 
 upon his mind, and induced him to try the following experi- 
 ment. At morning prayer the next day, when the slave who 
 usually brought the carpet upon which he knelt had withdrawn, 
 he made a long slit in it, and left it to be again withdrawn by the 
 slave. When the latter came to fulfil his duty of rolling up and 
 removing the precious carpet, he remained aghast at the injury 
 it had received, and immediately, apprehending the dreadful 
 
PRIORATE OF KNIGHTS. 73 
 
 effect of the Sultan's displeasure, hastened with the rug to the 
 quarter of the city where the Jews resided ; and seeking out one 
 peculiarly renowned for his skill, committed the costly carpet to 
 his best exercise of it, and carried it back so restored, that the 
 next morning it lay spread ready for the Sultan's use, without 
 the trace of either damage or reparation. The Sultan no sooner 
 perceived what had been done than he called the slave, who 
 tremblingly confessed what he had done. He was immediately 
 despatched in search of the pre-eminent cobbler, and the Jew 
 no sooner appeared before the Sultan than the latter, sending 
 for the sealed purse about which the controversy had been held, 
 charged him with having in like manner repaired a slit in the 
 woof of the apparently uninjured bag. The Jew instantly ad- 
 mitted the fact ; and thus the reclamation of the poor defrauded 
 friend and diamond owner was substantiated. 
 
 Monday, February 9th. — Drove to the Aventine — to the old 
 Priorate of the Knights of Malta — strolled about the very old- 
 fashioned box-bordered garden, and looked down the turbid yel- 
 low course of the Tiber — went into the chapel of the Priory. 
 There are one or two monuments of members of the order, a 
 very old and roughly-carved" marble chest for the reception of 
 relics, and a curious sarcophagus, in which every one of the 
 figures in the bas-relief has something like a feather in its hat, 
 cap, or head, which, as the thing is very ancient, is a curious 
 
 circumstance. In the evening and < — called upon 
 
 us. The latter, in speaking of the records of the Cenci family, 
 which existed in the papal library, and to which Shelley mentions 
 having obtained access, told us, that, together with this story, 
 another was to be found of a tragical event, which occurred 
 about the same time — it related to the fate of an extremely beau- 
 tiful young woman, belonging to the mezzo ceto, or middling 
 class, at L'Arricia, for whom a prince of the Savelli family con- 
 ceived a violent passion ; which, however, the girl was so far 
 
 5 
 
74 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 from returning, that she was much attached and affianced to a 
 young man who, in some capacity or other, was a sort of depend- j 
 ant upon the Savelli. This circumstance increased the difficulty 
 of the young woman's position, and induced her family to hasten 
 her marriage, in order, if possible, to put a stop to the pursuit 
 of the nobleman : the remedy, however, proved ineffectual, and 
 the poor girl's troubles were only added to by the extreme jea- 
 lousy of her husband, who, soon after their marriage, sent a 
 message to the Prince Savelli, desiring an interview with him in 
 his wife's name. The unlucky lover fell into the snare, and | 
 coming to the appointed place, was received by the infuriated 
 husband with a phrensy of rage, and murdered on the very spot i 
 by him ; after which the murderer made his escape, leaving 
 his unfortunate wife to bear the brunt of the suspicions which j 
 immediately fell upon her. At the suit of the Savelli family, | 
 she was seized, imprisoned, and subjected to every species of tor- 
 ture practised in those torturing times, in vain protestmg her 
 innocence. She was finally rescued from further suffering by 
 the intercession of a German archduchess, who, passing through 
 Rome, and becoming acquainted with her history, interceded for 
 her, and obtained leave to take her in her suite with her to Par- 
 ma, where she remained until she died. The husband was; 
 heard of in Palestine some years after, but nothing positive wasi 
 known of the fate of either of them after her trial. 
 
 After this story, the conversation turned upon the serpents, 
 which, it seems, the warm weather is already tempting forth in 
 the Villa Pamfili gardens, and other warm and lonely places. 
 
 Mme. told us, that while at Genoa she made an exploring 
 
 excursion thirty miles off, to the ruins of a place called Libarna, 
 where some interesting antique remains had excited her curiosity. 
 While standing in the midst of the ruined foundations of some 
 ancient edifice, and directing her workmen, who were excavating 
 under her orders, endeavoring to trace the precise form of the 
 
MOUNTAIN TORRENT— SERPENT. 75 
 
 buildings, they uttered a simultaneous cry ; and she declares 
 that a serpent at least sixteen feet long, and as thick as a man's 
 thigh, absolutely leaped by where she stood, and plunged down 
 into the heaps of ruins beneath her. She told us also of a very 
 curious scene, which two workmen described to her, and which 
 took place at the time that a violent flood had swollen the waters 
 of a mountain stream, in the vicinity of Libarna. The waters 
 rose immensely above their usual level, and the swollen torrent 
 pouring down from the mountains, carried with it trees, and 
 houses, and land, and everything that it could sweep away in its 
 course ; the quantity of timber floated down from an extensive 
 forest, many of whose oldest trees were uprooted and carried 
 away, found fuel for several winters for the proprietors on the 
 banks of the stream, whose peasantry collected themselves at the 
 points where they could most advantageously arrest those masses 
 in their downward progress, and drew them to shore. While 
 'M thus employed, a body of them saw an enormous ilex, roots, 
 earth, branches and all, tumbling headlong down the swollen 
 torrent ; they prepared, with hooks and ropes and iron crooks, to 
 seize and draw it to the bank, when, to their horror, they per- 
 ceived that an enormous serpent lay coiled up among its branches. 
 At each attempt that they made to seize the tree, the hideous 
 creature raised itself, and appeared about to dart upon them ; 
 and so terrible was its aspect, and so threatening its attitude, that 
 for a long time it successfully defended its floating throne from 
 their attacks. At length, however, one of their number seized 
 a huge stone, and hurling it at the creature, the latter plunged 
 from the tree into the stream, and disappeared ; after which, 
 almost immediately, and by miracle, as the peasants assured 
 
 . , the turbid swollen waters began to subside into their 
 
 usual channel. 
 
 From this topic we passed to the less terrible but not much 
 more agreeable one of spiders and scorpions, and Mr.   
 
 Its, 
 Id 
 
 a, 
 
 in? 
 liie 
 
7« A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 amused us by describing his experiments upon a number of 
 tarantulas which he caught and confined in a tumbler together. 
 He said their first movement was to construct within that narrow 
 space eac-i a sort of fortress of its own, from which sallying 
 forth, they immediately fell upon, and with incredible fury and 
 rapidity, devoured each other, the conquerors increasing in size 
 as the process of victory and cannibalism proceeded, until there 
 remained at the bottom of the glass one huge hideous creature, who 
 was the universal conqueror, and whose bloated body had become 
 the sepulchre of his enemies as fast as he had demolished them. 
 Certainly a more disgusting or hateful spectacle cannot be con- 
 ceived. 
 
 Saturday, \Uh Fehruary. — St. Valentine's day, the first day 
 
 of the Carnival, soon after breakfast, and my sister and 
 
 I walked down and up, for it is both, several times to the Villa 
 Massimo, formerly the Villa Negroni. We sauntered through 
 the vineyards and gardens, under the intense warmth of the 
 unclouded sun ; the delicate blossoms of the almond trees stood 
 like silver branches against the deep azure ground of the sky, 
 the laurustinus bushes were in full bloom, the little green and 
 gold lizards glided, and darted, and rustled along the hot stone 
 walls, and among the spiked leaves of the cardoni. We sat 
 ourselves down, with our faces towards the purple hazy hills, and 
 listened to the jangling bells that came through the warm air, 
 across the vineyard, an hour of Italian enjoyment of mere being. 
 At about two o'clock, with our carriage duly lined with white 
 calico, and my green velvet bonnet covered with the same, we 
 set forth to observe the solemnities of the Carnival. On the seat 
 opposite to us was a large tray, heaped with small bunches of 
 fresh flowers and violets ; under the seat were two baskets filled 
 with sugar plums of every variety, some of them the size of very 
 large buUeLs, — formidable missiles, as we found when we re- 
 ceived a volley of them. At our feet was a deep large basket, 
 
THE CARNIVAL. 77 
 
 filled with the confetti as they are called ; a species of small 
 shot, made of dried peas covered with flour, and in throwing 
 handfuls of which consists the chief warfare of the Corso. A 
 coujile of wire masks, rounded to fit the face, colored pink to 
 become it, and furnished, screen fashion, with a handle, com- 
 pleted our equipment ; and thus we descended to the field of bat- 
 tle, our dresses being as nearly white as possible, and my sister 
 having a large white bournous, and I a large white shawl on, the 
 policy of which miller-like equipment we very soon discovered. 
 Passing through the Piazza di Spagna, we found it filled with 
 soldiers on horseback, and every street was sending up to the 
 great rout its string of carriages and stream of eager hurrying 
 pedestrians ; groups of masks went dancing and laughing by ; 
 Harlequins and Pantaloons, Turks, Albanians, Spanish Dons, and 
 girls in short white skirts and colored bodies, with blue or pink 
 silk boots, and very freely-shown legs. Most of these groups 
 had their faces covered either with grotesque masks or the clas- 
 sical black silk visor : in passing the carriage, they threw us 
 confetti or nosegays, or merry words. We were deposited at a 
 house in the Corso, where we had the privilege of occupying 
 
 Mrs. 's balcony. We had hardly taken our stations here, 
 
 when, from a neighboring balcony, a shower of sweetmeats and 
 flowers assailed us, and we found ourselves the mark of a little 
 man, who, with a most bright and delighted countenance, kept 
 exercising his skill upon us, and enjoying apparently equally our 
 awkwardness in missing him, and his own dexterity in hitting 
 us. While busily engaged with him, sundry treacherous shots 
 reached us from another direction ; and we found that we were 
 commanded by a balcony opposite to us, and higher than ours, 
 from which sundry demure gentlefolks— our own countrymen I 
 suspect — were pelting us sans faire semblant de nen, and with 
 certain peculiarly convenient tin horns overwhelmed the luckless 
 passengers in the street with perfect hail-storms of confetti, which 
 
78 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 rattled upon the men's hats and masks, and were received with 
 shouts of laughter both by the sufferers and the lookers-on. The 
 long irregular street presented the most singular and animated 
 scene ; every window was filled with spectators, every balcony 
 or jutting window from which a convenient view could be ob- 
 tained was adorned with hangings either of crimson and gold, or 
 gay rose color and white ; the little balcony in which we stood 
 was all festooned with the latter colors, and tapestry and curtains 
 and carpets were put in requisition to render commodious and 
 gay every point where a station could be obtained. The 
 entrances to many of the shops were turned, by dint of screens 
 and partitions and temporary wooden erections, into small apart- 
 ments, open to the street, and filled with women of the middle 
 class in gay and bright fancy dresses, where scarlet and gold, 
 and ribbons and flowers, and neck-chains and ear-rings, together 
 with their own beautiful faces and magnificent braided hair, 
 formed a most attractive and curious part of the show. The 
 beauty of the women of the middle and lower class of Rome is 
 something really wonderful ; the richest coloring, great purity 
 of features and nobility of form^ particularly in the outline of the 
 head, and its position on the shoulders. Their persons are gene- 
 rally clumsy, however, and their feet and ankles extremely ugly, 
 thick, and ill-shaped : their divinity comes no lower than their 
 shoulders. 
 
 While we were gazing up and down the Corso, with its lining 
 of bright human countenances, the military suddenly appeared 
 in the Piazza del Popolo, and came slowly down the street ; a 
 large body of cavalry and infantry, with trumpets blowing, and 
 drums beating, and alternate snatches of music from the shrill 
 fifes, and the fuller harmony of the brass band. During their 
 passage through the Corso, which every day opens the Carnival, 
 the irregular warfare which had preceded their arrival was 
 suspended. We remained with our hands full of menacing 
 
SCENE AT THE CORSO. 79 
 
 confetti, ready for the next occasion of returning to somebody the 
 pelting somebody else had given us. As we looked down in this 
 threatening attitude, the old general who rode at the head of the 
 troops looked up towards us, and, seeing our malicious purpose, 
 shook his sword smilingly at us, which warning we received 
 with infinite amusement. The soldiers had no sooner stationed 
 themselves at the various posts, where they were to maintain 
 order, and left the street again empty, than from every cross 
 street and alley debouched the pent-up stream of folly ; carriages 
 rushed from every direction into the Corso, and forming them- 
 selves into two compact lines, drove slovvly up and down, with 
 their cargoes of peltino^, screaminsf, lau^hinjr human beincrs : the 
 carriages skirmished with each other, and with the lower bal- 
 conies, and with the foot-passengers ; the lower balconies sent 
 confetti, nosegays, bonbons, and funny speeches to the carriages, 
 and through the stream of pedestrians, who divided their attention, 
 equally above, below, and around ; while from the higher 
 balconies the masqueraders fought with their opposite neighbors 
 across the street, their right and left hand neighbors in the 
 adjoining balconies, and every now and then showered down 
 on the devoted heads of the walkers and drivers, whole baskets 
 full of that hateful little hail ; with occasional gallantries to 
 objects of special admiration, in the shape of huge hard bonbons, 
 that struck one like so many small cricket-balls, leaving bruises 
 to attest their arrival, — nosegays so thick and heavy, that they 
 stove in one's bonnet, — or, finally, as the very climax of good 
 will and civility, lemons and oranges, which, being in a state of 
 unripeness, which protected one's clothes from injury, were also 
 so hard, that the compliment of receiving one was as much as 
 one's life was worth. The bright air resounded with the accla- 
 mations of joyful human voices, and was misty with the fine 
 flour, hail, and nosegays flying in all directions. We soon lefl 
 our balcony, and finding our carriage waiting in an adjoining 
 
80 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 street, got into it, and joined the stream of busy absurdity in the 
 Corso. It is well to see the coup d^ml from the shelter and 
 security of a window or balcony, but it is infinitely more amusing 
 to be among the people themselves, whose good humor, fantastic 
 and grotesque gaiety, droll fancies, and withal decent deport- 
 ment, no foreigner can form the least idea of without having 
 seen it ; whereas, in England, drunkenness, riot, and violence, 
 would have been the inevitable result of this universal license. 
 The only intoxication to be seen was the ludicrous assumption 
 of it by pantaloons reeling between the carriages, bottle in hand, 
 and with whitened faces ; and the only angry and disputatious 
 voices were those of pretended poets, lawyers, and improvisatori, 
 who, in full court costume, swords, powder and bag-wigs, 
 harangued at the full blast of their lungs, to the infinite ecstasy 
 of the crowd which gathered densely round them. The whole day 
 passed in this curious succession of picturesque and ludicrous 
 scenes ; our carriage was loaded with elegant and pretty bon 
 bons, which were generally deposited on our knees, or in our 
 hands, by masked pedestrians, with sundry sweet words thereto ; 
 and, as the daylight thickened in the deep defile of the Corso, we 
 regained our balcony to see the race of the Barberi. A cannon 
 fired gave the signal for clearing the Corso ; after which, the 
 guard on horseback dashed at full gallop down the street, and 
 sentinels were posted at a few yards distance from each other to 
 keep back the impatient crowd, who, in spite of these precautions, 
 kept breaking bounds and overflowing beyond this military cor- 
 don, in their extreme anxiety to catch the first glimpse of the 
 horses. 
 
 At length the shout of a thousand voices, rolling towards 
 us like a great wave of the sea, announced their having started, 
 and presently, full tear down the crowded, gaping street, rushed 
 eleven or twelve horses^ covered with ribbons, knots, artificial 
 flowers, streaks of bright red paint, and various other intended 
 
HORSE RACING. 81 
 
 decorations; to which were added appendages of a less harmless 
 and benevolent character : — piates of brass and wood, acting as 
 flappers by the rapid motion of the horses ; crackers and squibs, 
 igniting and going off as they ran ; and onions stuck full of pins 
 and needles, which, hanging by cords to their manes and upon 
 their flanks, performed the part of spurs, whose impulse became 
 more sharp and constant in proportion as the terrified creatures 
 increased their speed. This part of the ceremonies of the Carni- 
 val may be an improvement upon the former custom of making 
 the unfortunate Jews race through the Corso, for the edification 
 of their Christian fellow-creatures ; but it is still, in its present 
 less offensive form, the least agreeable part of the Carnival to 
 me. The terror and agony of the poor horses is most distressing, 
 as is also the risk incurred by the spectators, whose uncontrolla- 
 ble excitement renders it almost impossible for them to repress it 
 within safe bounds. 
 
 By some curious old privilege, dating many years back, the 
 head of the noble house of Piccolomini receives a small sum 
 upon every horse admitted to run. They start from an inclosure 
 in the Piazza del Popolo, and are caught between two large 
 cloths like sails let down before and behind them in the narrow 
 street at the end of the Piazza di Venezia, called, from that cir- 
 cumstance. Via della Ripresa dei Barberi. I did not see their 
 
 start on any day, but was assured by that it was a very 
 
 curious thing to see them brought to the bar, each held only by a 
 single man, who, together with the plunging, rearing, eager, terri- 
 fied horse, realized and repeated to the life some of the fine an- 
 tique statues. After the horse race, the tide of biped life again 
 poured into the Corso, and the universal pelting went on till 
 evening sent the carnivalisti home to dinner or to supper, accord- 
 ing as they were English or Italians. Nothing amused me more 
 than the perfect Babel of languages resounding on all sides ; as 
 for us, we held our laughing colloquies with the passengers, who 
 
 5* 
 
w 
 
 82 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 challenged us in a leash of tongues — English, French, and Ita- 
 lian ; and we were even called upon to respond to Russian and 
 Spanish, which, however, we were forced to decline. Our re- 
 turn home was anything but as triumphant as our going forth ; 
 and I am sure would have furnished an admirable subject for a 
 caricature. The white lining of the carriage half torn off; the 
 floor of it ankle-deep in confetti, sugar-plums, and nosegays, 
 which had been thrown to and fro till they formed one brown 
 agglomeration of dirty rubbish ; the seats under us heaped with 
 the same pervading trash. Heaven knows how it got there. 
 Hoarse with laughing ; our arms aching with hurling things at 
 our fellow-creatures ; our shawls awry ; our faces all smeared 
 with flour ; our bonnets battered and dented into cocked hats 
 with the thumps from nosegays thrown at us ; our very stays 
 filled with the horrid little confetti, that had fallen into our bo- 
 soms, and down our backs, and all over us. A more complete 
 sample of " After the Battle" I never saw. To be sure, we 
 brought home spolia opima, in the shape of sundry most elegant 
 and fanciful little boxes and baskets full of bonbons, that had 
 been thrown or given to us, and which we piled like a trophy 
 
 before , who, having done his Carnival thoroughly some 
 
 years ago, looks with eyes of superior wisdom upon our folly in 
 doing ours now. 
 
 After this fashion passed all the days of this strange Saturna- 
 lia. In the evening we went three times Mobile it lasted to the 
 masked ball at the theatre, which the Italians call indifferently 
 Veglioni or Festini. We took a box each time, and going pro- 
 vided with black dominoes, hoods, and masks, entertained our- 
 selves with mystifying some of our friends and being mystified 
 by them. The principal of these balls takes place on the Fri- 
 day night, or rather Saturday morning, of the Carnival. Friday 
 being the day which is rather kept holy, as we keep Sunday 
 here, there was a suspension of racket and rout all day. There 
 
MASQUERADE. 83 
 
 was no Corso, and nothing indicated that we were in the Carni- 
 val ; but to atone for this, no sooner had it struck midnight than 
 the whole population of Rome able to pay an entrance-fee rushed 
 to the Theatre of Apollo, where the Festino was held, and made 
 up by the busy folly of the whole night for the fast of the day. 
 Our box was filled with a perpetual stream of men and women, 
 who, in grotesque dominoes and those hideous black masks, 
 came and saluted us, and in the high falsetto squeak which is 
 the conventional tone of the Mascherata, held conversations with 
 us, which were not, I must say, up to the pitch of brilliant wit 
 and fanciful humor which the license of the occasion and our 
 old playwrights had led me to anticipate ; and we generally beat 
 our masked visitors very soon, not only out of their small stock 
 of ideas, but even out of their assumed voices, and reduced them 
 to grumble their flat common-place in the usual key of habitual 
 social dulness. Nor did I perceive any difference in this respect 
 between the natives and our own proverbially heavy unconver- 
 sational people. The Italians who visited us seemed quite as 
 dull as the English ; and I was surprised to find how little the 
 removal of the usual formalities and restraints of civilized soci- 
 ety added to the brilliancy or wit of conversation. 
 
 The pit and stage of the theatre were thronged with a dense 
 mass of people, swarming round and round like ants upon an 
 ant-hill — or, when we looked at the whole mass rather than its 
 individual particles, like some great black cauldron slowly boil- 
 ing up to the brim and subsiding again. The prevalence of the 
 dark modern man's dress, and of the black silk dominoes, made 
 the whole thing dark in spite of the brilliant chandeliers and 
 profusion of wax-lights which illuminated the house. The 
 squeaking masquerade voice rose in shrill chorus from this black 
 maelstrom, and the music of the orchestra could hardly be de- 
 tected by the ear in the midst of the huge hubbub, any more 
 than the small circle of dancers could by the eye, in the middle 
 
84 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION 
 
 of the rolling multitude that swayed and pressed and wavered to 
 and fro beneath us : it was a very strange sight. After a while, 
 we put on our dominoes and masks, and descended into this hu- 
 man sea : we stopped at the boxes of several of our friends which 
 were in the pit tier, and held conversations with them ; and I 
 was surprised to find how completely the disguise of the domino, 
 and the assumed voice, took in people whom I really had no idea 
 at the time that I had imposed on. After one turn through this 
 dense mass of foolish humanity, we were glad to return to our 
 box ; the crowd was all but impenetrable, and the suffocating 
 heat of the costume intolerable, so we regained our box and saw 
 out the sport from thence. 
 
 I believe I have nothing more to say of the Carnival, but to 
 notice the closing in of the last evening, when, as the daylight 
 grew thick, suddenly a thousand tapers from the street, the 
 carriages, the windows, the balconies, the housetops, shone out 
 upon the dusky twilight. The Corso looked like a whole street 
 full of fire-flies ; everybody carried in their hands a sheaf of 
 small wax tapers, and the swarming sparks in a burning piece 
 of paper, or an assembly-general of all the ignes fatui in the 
 world, or the Milky Way suddenly fallen from the sky into the 
 Corso, are the only things I can compare this wonderful and beau- 
 tiful spectacle to. Far down the thronged irregular thoroughfare 
 this magical illumination flickered and twinkled ; the street was 
 alive with light ; the carriages formed little clusters or constella- 
 tions of burning tapers ; from the projecting parts of every house 
 the little maccoli were held aloft ; sticks, with lights fastened to 
 them, were pushed far out from the very tops of the houses, like 
 strings of strange stars up against the violet-colored evening sky ; 
 little boats of green and red oiled silk, with burning tapers in 
 them, were set afloat in the air, and came flickering down like 
 showers of illuminated flowers into the street. No words can 
 convey any adequate idea of the brilliancy and singularity of 
 
SCENE AT THE CORSO. 85 
 
 the spectacle. In the meantime the sport consisted, not in the 
 beauty and strangeness of the sight, but in everybody's endeavor- 
 ing to extinguish everybody else's light, and keep his own from 
 being extinguished. This, which might be supposed a satirical 
 representation of society, was carried on with a frantic activity 
 irresistibly ludicrous to a looker-on. We had gone to our 
 balcony, the better to enjoy the coup d'ceil, and anything more 
 magical, more fairy-like, and more devilish at the same time, 
 cannot be conceived ; — pocket-handkerchiefs, sticks with little 
 flags tied to them, wisps of paper, and all imaginable weapons 
 were used to put out the little moccoli — extinguishers of oiled 
 paper or parchment, fastened to long sticks, were in great requisi- 
 tion, and everywhere the little tapers burnt and flamed, and were 
 blown out and re-lighted, while screams of laughter and shouts 
 of " Senza moccolo, senza moccolo !" resounded from one end 
 of the street to the other. For awhile I remained intent upon 
 preserving my light from extinction, but the blows and blasts 
 aimed at it from above, below, and all round, rendered it impossi- 
 ble ; and, finding that this individual care for my own luminary 
 was depriving me of the curious spectacle, I put mine out once 
 for all, and gave myself up to gazing at the comic rout all round. 
 At length we retreated from our stand, and threading our way 
 through the crowd, regained our carriage. Immediately on leav- 
 ing the Corso, all seemed dark and still, and though the blaze still 
 streamed partly up some of the side streets communicating with 
 it, and the confused uproar followed us like the sound of a distant 
 beach some way after we had turned homewards, when we 
 reached our own serene height on the Pincio, not a sound was to 
 be heard but our own carriage-wheels, nor a light seen but the 
 everlasting stars of heaven, which seemed to look down in quiet 
 supremacy and an easy consciousness that they were not soon 
 likely to be flapped out. 
 
 We dined hastily, and dressed and hurried to the theatre, to 
 
86 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 see the death of the Carnival and the grim entrance of Lent ; 
 with all our best haste, however, we did not reach the ball till 
 near eleven, and it was already over — the last day of the Carnival, 
 the ball beginning at eight or seven o'clock, and ending an hour 
 before midnight. The crowd now began to ebb from the boxes 
 and pit ; the military had already marched half down the stage, 
 driving before them the lingering revellers, and leaving the 
 space behind to the dominion of darkness and silence : a few peo- 
 ple like ourselves still hung over their boxes, contemplating the 
 gradual extinction of the poor Carnival ; on all sides resounded 
 the melancholy words " Tutto e finito" — " It's all over" — " Jetzt 
 ist das ende" — lamentable bows and shakes of the head, and 
 wavings of hands, were exchanged by sundry and various per- 
 sonages, who, during this season of universal acquaintance, had 
 exchanged nods and looks and smiles, and were thenceforth to 
 know each other no more. From the pit, a young man, who had 
 often met us in the Corso vv^ith flowers and pretty devices, held up 
 his hands, and whh mournful gestures signed his farewell to us. 
 The door of our box was vehemently thrown open, and a man in 
 mask and domino squeaked, in the last notes of the masquerade 
 and villanous English-accented Italian, " Tutto e finito," — and at 
 the same time, from the box above, a nosegay of gay artificial 
 flowers was thrown down to us with a doleful exclamation of 
 " Ah, the Carnival is over !" It was really quite affecting. The 
 wax-lights, blown out by an insensible candle-snuffer, gave forth 
 a most appropriate incense to the funeral of folly — the hot, blazing, 
 dusty atmosphere grew dark and chilly as the lights went out, 
 and the night-air rushed in. The depths of the stage were 
 already undiscernible — dancers, orchestra, all had vanished, and 
 twos and threes of lingering masks drained slowly away, like 
 last drops, from that floor so lately covered over with waves 
 of human absurdity. The great chandelier was slowly lowered 
 down, the lights were one by one extinguished, the very carcase 
 
BARBERINI PALACE. 87 
 
 of the carnival lay before us — dust, darkness, and foul smells ; 
 and so we rushed. off and home, and nothing remains but a harle- 
 quin-like vision of absurdity, and a nice little mountain of all sorts 
 of pretty things, bestowed on us by our many friends of those 
 nine days. 
 
 I have been to the Barberini palace, to see the picture of 
 Beatrice Cenci. It is in the room with several other paintings, 
 among which Raphael's Fornarina, and a female portrait ascribed 
 to Titian, are the most remarkable. The picture of the Cenci 
 itself does not appear to me either a very beautiful painting or 
 the portrait of a very beautiful woman. It seems that the learn- 
 ed in such matters are now entertaining doubts as to its being 
 either the work of the artist to whom it has hitherto been ascribed, 
 or the picture of the person whom it has hitherto been supposed 
 to represent. I looked at it, endeavoring only to free myself 
 from the power of association, so far as to be able to form some 
 independent judgment upon it. I have heard it asserted that it 
 was a picture of which no idea could possibly be conveyed by 
 any copy. With this opinion I differ entirely : I have seen 
 copies of it, which, upon a long contemplation of the original, 
 still appear to my memory to have been both faithful and satis- 
 factory. The painting does not appear to me eminently beautiful 
 as a work of art, and the smallness of the mouth — always a de- 
 fect in a face, and in this one, owing to its being half opened, a 
 defect not only destroying beauty, but absolutely giving a vague 
 and almost foolish expression to the countenance — makes it, in 
 spite of the lovely outline of the other features, and the soft tear- 
 wearied eyes, a human face almost without character or expres- 
 sion of any sort but that of sweetness and suffering. The mouth 
 has always appeared to me, in the copies of this picture, as if it 
 could not possibly be like that original, and now that I see the 
 original, I cannot persuade myself that the mouth was like 
 Beatrice Cenci's ; it expresses neither intelligence, sorrow, nor 
 
88 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 determination ; it is a pretty, round, silly, sensual, open mouth, 
 and that is all. Of the picture of the Fornarina it would be idle 
 for me to speak critically, were it not that there are certain pro- 
 vinces of criticism which belong even to those who know little 
 of the mechanical rules of art, or the technical terms by which 
 they are expressed. In the first place, a half naked woman with 
 a splendid turban on is a disagreeable object to me, because the 
 nakedness is conscious and for a purpose ; unconscious naked- 
 ness is the attire of innocence — partial nakedness, for the purpose 
 of revealing some special beauty in a woman, is indecent, and 
 therefore highly displeasing. The face of the Fornarina is also 
 extremely disagreeable to me ; without feeling or meaning, a 
 stupid-looking, staring, handsome creature, whose regular fea- 
 tures and rich coloring present, nevertheless, a most unattractive 
 and unlovely countenance ; most different, indeed, from that 
 beautiful picture in the Florence gallery, misnamed the Forna- 
 rina, and which is now by some supposed to be a portrait of 
 Vittoria Colonna. The forms of the bosom, arms, shoulders, 
 and hands, are perfect, and most perfectly painted ; nature could 
 not be more beautiful, nor art more wonderful, than they are here 
 shown. The third picture to which my attention was drawn, 
 and the only one on which I dwelt with unmixed pleasure, was 
 
 a female portrait, said to be by Titian, but thought it 
 
 rather the work of Palma Vecchio. The person of this woman 
 was enveloped in rich, but burly, ungraceful attire, even to one 
 of her hands, which was covered with a clumsy glove. This, 
 and something in the coloring, and in the soft thick-looking golden 
 hair, recalled to me the holy love of Titian in that beautiful pic- 
 ture which he has called — who can tell why ? — Holy and Profane 
 Love. The countenance of the lady was serene and sweet, the 
 mouth full of nobility, grace, and even wit. The eyes deep set, 
 and of a dark blue color, the form of the forehead and face full 
 of character — majestic and lovely, — ^the beautiful hair, together 
 
GOETHE'S WERTHER. 89 
 
 with the warm reflection it cast like a golden curtain on her 
 throat, seemed to me the very perfection of mere mechanical art. 
 She was a most fair and gracious lady ; and as we left the room, 
 turning to look at her again, my sister said she looked like Portia 
 grown to mid-womanhood — and so she did. 
 
 Mr. came and paid us a farewell visit the other morn- 
 ing ; among many things of much interest which he told us, he 
 
 mentioned that Mr. , the Hanoverian minister here, was 
 
 the son of Goethe's Charlotte, — for, he added, to my great sur- 
 prise, that Werther was not a creation, but an experience of 
 Goethe's ; that it was not, as I supposed, a satire upon others, 
 
 but a history of himself; that Mme. and her husband 
 
 were the originals of Charlotte and Albert, as he of Werther ; 
 that she was a handsome, accomplished woman, who received 
 his letters, full of adoration, passion, worship, and poetry, which 
 spent itself in expressions of idolatry, even about her ribands 
 and flowers, with the utmost equanimity : he wound up by say- 
 ing, that all Goethe's letters to this lady are now in existence, 
 
 and in the hands of her son, Mr. — , who entertained 
 
 strongly the purpose of publishing them : certainly Werther 
 itself would be infinitely less interesting than these records of a 
 passion that suggested it ; I hope he will do so. 
 
 Since our visit to the Barberini, we have been to the Sciarra 
 palace, and saw, among many others, three pictures worthy of 
 all praise ; the first was a landscape, by Poussin, — a view of the 
 banks of the Tiber, a most perfect picture, which made me ex- 
 claim with delight and admiration, as soon as I saw it : the yel- 
 low untidy shelving banks, the thick muddy water rolling its 
 dirty white eddies like a solution of putty, were objects that 
 could not in themselves be called beautiful ; but the purple light, 
 or rather darkness that enveloped the whole, the truth, the reali- 
 ty, and ideality at once of it, were marvellous. I greatly prefer 
 a fine landscape to a fine portrait ; the copy of the human coun- 
 
90 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 tenance, like the human countenance itself, suggests the nature 
 of man — unrest ; the copy of nature, like nature itself, suggests 
 God — repose. In the next room we found two lovely pictures, 
 full of thought and expression, and in proportion fatiguing to look 
 at — Titian's Belladonna, and Raphael's Suonatore ; the last is 
 ihe most wonderful picture I have ever seen, and 1 stood gazing 
 into that dark face till I was surprised that it did not smile at 
 being so steadily stared at. There were several copies of each 
 of these noble portraits exhibited by their side, if possible, I 
 suppose, to enhance their beauty and merit ; the pale unripe | 
 pink, with which the modern artists had copied the warm yel- 
 lowish ivory-white of the neck and shoulders in Titian's picture, 
 was certainly an admirable comment upon the art of painting 3 
 flesh, and the chalky folds that professed to imitate the exquisite j 
 color and texture of the white drawn round the bosom, an equally 
 lively illustration of how linen should not be colored. It is a 
 curious thing, which I have had very frequent occasion to ob- 
 serve, that when indifferent artists have to paint eyes, whose i 
 beauty consists in their expression, they invariably make them a 
 great deal too large ; this was the case in all the copies of these \ 
 admirable portraits, where the eyes are not large, but beautifully I 
 shaped, and of a most wonderful depth, and set in the head in a 
 manner which is at once full of expression in itself, and extremely 
 difficult to imitate. In the same room with these were the 
 Vanity and Modesty of Linardo da Vinci, a fine picture, that I 
 do not like ; the Gamblers of Caravaggio, a very expressive and 
 spirited picture, and two copies of a Magdalen, by Guido, in 
 which the sickly green coloring of the flesh suggested to me no ( 
 idea but that of a woman dying, or dead of cholera. After look- i 
 ing round the room, my eyes became again riveted on the 
 Suonatore, and I remained literally fascinated, unable to turn 
 them away till we departed. We have been since this to the 
 Villa Albani, to look at the collection begun by Winckelman, 
 
« THE EDUCATION OF BACCHUS." 91 
 
 whose great work upon ancient art is one of the remembered 
 delights of my childhood, with its interminable samples of iiel- 
 mets, and sandals, &c., and infinite illustrations of oncient art, 
 all which, to my fascinated gaze, appeared in the large books as 
 I pored over them, merely in the simple, but all comprehensive 
 light of " pictures." 
 
 The thing that particularly wished us to see was the 
 
 specimen of Archaic sculpture, known by the name of " The 
 Education of Bacchus," preserved there. It is altogether a less 
 interesting sample of the earliest Greek art than the Xantbian 
 Marbles, but resembles them in style and conception ; having at 
 the same time more of the angular stiffness of the very early 
 plastic art, which they also exhibit, and less variety in the forms 
 and freedom and grace in the draperies — these perfections which 
 were subsequently so magnificently developed in the statues of 
 the Parthenon. The only other objects in the collection which 
 I particularly examined were a noble Minerva, standing as 
 though about to utter — 
 
 " Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control. 
 Are the three hinges of the gates of life. 
 That open into power every way ;" 
 
 and the beautiful group of the Mercury, Eurydice, and Orpheus. 
 Tenderness and sorrow, grace and dignity, are so admirably 
 combined in this exquisite conception, that the longer one looks 
 at it the more charmed one is into a pleasure almost like that 
 derived from a perfect musical harmony ; it is withal exceed- 
 ingly sad as well as lovely. We stopped to look at the deformed 
 bust and pathetic intellectual face called ^Esop ; it looks just 
 like him, that is to say, if there ever was such a person he ought 
 to have looked like that. The strangest, though by no means 
 the loveliest object we encountered in the Villa Albani was Pro- 
 fessor , with a tail of German thirst- for-knowledge ladies, 
 
02 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 young, middle-aged, and old, who followed him from room to 
 room, and from statue to statue, while he expounded, in an audi- 
 ble lecture-pitch of voice, the history and merits of every parti- 
 cular object, directing the attention of his female class now to 
 the finely-turned thigh and leg, and now to the nobly proportioned 
 chest of some antique specimen of marble beauty. As the whole 
 thing looked ridiculous, I thought it very good-natured of him to 
 do it ; and as he is one of the most learned antiquarians and 
 critics in matters of art of the present day, if I could have un- 
 derstood his address, which being in German I could not, I should 
 most assuredly have joined myself to his class, and listened with 
 my eyes and mouth open too., instead of which I went out on the 
 balcony with my sister and spent the time there overlooking the 
 lordly gardens, with their broad stripes of greensward all frosted 
 with daisies ; the smooth box hedges, with their new pieces of 
 tender vivid green let into the dark verdant wall like the repairs 
 of the spring ; the fountains dancing up and down in the sun, 
 and the warm air just creeping round the rose-bushes and twitch- 
 ing their outer branches ; the red and white gilly-flowers smell- 
 ing so spicy and sweet; the statues, the columns, the busts, the 
 vases, the flights of steps below us, the noble mountains beyond, 
 the perfect blue above — it was enchanting and not German. 
 " There is neither sound nor speech," &c. 
 
 We went two days ago to the studio of Cornelius, to see the 
 cartoon which he has just finished for the Campo Santo at Ber- 
 lin. It is the first and only one he has executed, though the 
 whole series is already finished in designs of a small size, 
 which, I am happy to say, are about to be published and given 
 to the world. It is intended to cover the four walls of a square 
 building, with an equal number of fresco paintings of colossal 
 proportions. The subjects are all scriptural, and chiefly from 
 the New Testament. Between them are single figures, illus- 
 trating the beatitudes, from the " Sermon on the Mount ;" and 
 
CORNELIUS. 93 
 
 below and above each panel or compartment is a smaller design, 
 representing some passage of Holy Writ — the three subjects 
 illustrating each other by some moral or spiritual connexion in 
 the most beautiful manner ; the whole is connected and woven 
 together by ornamental designs of great elegance. Before all 
 other things, in speaking of this great work, which should confer 
 happiness in its conception as well as glory in its execution upon 
 its author, I must express the deep satisfaction which his mode of 
 treating his subject gave me. Mr. Cornelius is, as his friend Pro- 
 fessor , who accompanied us, informed us, a devout Roman 
 
 Catholic, yet, in his illustrations of the life of Christ, there was 
 nothing sectarian, nothing especially revealing his own peculiar 
 form of Christianity, nothing that was not the highest expression 
 of the religion of Christ ; not that of any particular body of his 
 followers. It would have been impossible to tell, from contem- 
 plating these designs, to what denomination their author belonged^ 
 and equally impossible not to feel assured that he was a devout 
 Christian. The enormous labor of the whole thin^ struck me 
 extremely; and the great variety of subjects, all illustrating and 
 commenting each other in the profoundest manner, the beauty 
 of the separate designs, the religious harmony of the whole, 
 seemed to me, like Milton's " Paradise Lost," a noble prayer — 
 the worthy offering of one of God's inspired to the Father of all 
 inspirations. In comparing the subjects which I had seen treated 
 before in the works of other masters, there appeared to me to be 
 a great superiority in grace and tenderness in the conceptions of 
 Cornelius. The Raising of Lazarus appeared to me more simple 
 and impressive than the famous Sebastian del Piombo. The 
 Woman taken in Adultery pleased me infinitely better than 
 Rembrandt's picture, the deep and gorgeous coloring of which 
 does not in any degree compensate to me for the ignoble and 
 vulgar forms of every figure in it, to which that of our Saviour 
 is no exception. In Cornelius's design he has treated the subject 
 
94 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 m a novel manner, by representing Jesus in the act of writing 
 with his finger upon the sand. The position and figure of the 
 Adulteress is perfectly exquisite. Another of the drawings, the 
 Raising to Life of the Young Man of Nain, afforded me an 
 opportunity for a comparison, which was again in favor of Cor- 
 nelius. I had seen quite lately an etching of the same subject 
 by Overbeck, which, in spite of great merits, appeared to me 
 crowded and confined, and wanting in the pathetic effect which 
 so eminently belongs to the subject. On the contrary, the 
 design of Cornelius was simple in the extreme, and the attitude 
 of the disconsolate mother full of expression and beauty, while 
 the attention was not diverted, as in the composition of Overbeck, 
 from the principal figures in the scene by the crowd of mourners, 
 spectators, and attendants. His treatment of that most hack- 
 neyed subject among Italian painters, the Pieta, was full of the 
 deepest pathos. In short, it would be impossible to enumerate 
 all the designs in this great work, which struck me as remark- 
 able for their dignity, grace, and simplicity, and which pleased 
 me better than any treatment of the same subjects I had ever 
 seen. The attitude of Adam and Eve after the fall was 
 extremely striking and beautiful ; the man absorbed in remorse 
 and utter wretchedness, apparently unconscious even of the 
 woman's presence ; while she, in the midst of her agony and 
 shame, still stretched one hand in sympathy and supplication to 
 him. Between each of these large panels is a figure, or group 
 of figures, illustrating one of the beatitudes from " Christ's Ser- 
 mon on the Mount." The majority of these figures were male ; 
 and at first I felt a little inclined to cavil at the illustration of 
 " Blessed are the Peacemakers," by an aged man, full of tender- 
 ness and dignity, parting two youths about to engage in fight. 
 It seemed to me that this subject might have found its more 
 fitting expression in some female representative. Upon reflec- 
 tion, however, I feel no longer sorry, but glad that Cornelius 
 
CARTOONS 95 
 
 has restored some of the virtues of Christianity to humanity at 
 large. ; for chastity, modesty, temperance, meekness, humility, 
 patience, and the forgiveness of injuries, have really been made 
 feminine instead of Christian attributes quite too long. " Blessed 
 are they that mourn" was most strikingly illustrated by a woman 
 whose whole attitude is that of perfect misery, while, beside her, 
 a child uplifts its hand and eyes to Heaven, with that appeal that 
 " findeth sure reply." 
 
 After looking over these designs, the very first of which is 
 connected with the very last by some fine link of spiritual asso- 
 ciation, we sat down before the one cartoon, the first which he 
 has finished. It represents the passage of Revelations where the 
 phials of God's wrath are poured out upon the earth, and the 
 destruction of the human species by Death, War, and Pestilence. 
 High in the middle of the picture, on a colossal horse, sits a co- 
 lossal figure, beautiful and terrible to behold ; the form of the 
 face is perfect, and the compressed lips, the dilated nostrils, the 
 knit dark brows and fatal flashing eyes ; the head with its iielmet ; 
 the bare body, with determination in every nerve and muscle of 
 it ; and the uplifted arms and hands clenching the fiery sword 
 that is about to fall like a meteor upon the tribes of the children 
 of men, form one of the finest and grandest conceptions of terror 
 and destruction that I ever saw. The countenance forcibly re- 
 minded me of Lawrence's picture of Satan calling his comrades 
 from the pool of Hell. Before this vision of dismay, right under 
 the upreared impending hoofs of his horse, kneels a woman, 
 whose might of mother's love seems almost as though it could 
 avert the fate that overwhelms the world ; her open lips utter the 
 cry of horror ; her dilated eye, outstretched throat, and uplifted, 
 deprecating arms, seem to keep suspended the trampling ruin 
 that covers her like a vault. Her child, with his limbs stitF with 
 terror, props himself against her breast, and upturns his face, 
 full of fear and agony, to the great doom above him. Another 
 
96 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 woman kneels beside her, the twin of her anguish and horror ; 
 across her knee lies the lifeless body of her child. The group 
 has but one fault, — the sameness in the faces, features, and ex- 
 pressions of the women. The similarity of action in the out- 
 stretched arm may be a defect, but seemed to me a beauty. 
 Beside this vision of doom sits an old and meagre, but malignant 
 fiend, — his gaunt, greedy-looking horse comes head and hoofs 
 downwards upon the heap of dead and dying beneath him. The 
 old man who represents Death sets his teeth hard, — the mouth 
 has a sinister grin of savage delight, and from beneath white 
 bushy eyebrows a fiendish light of hatred gleams like the shining 
 of a half-sheathed knife. A scythe is about to follow the down- 
 ward sweep of this remorseless figure, reaping the M'orld ; be- 
 neath him lies a noble pile of death, a man whose every limb is 
 dead, — a woman prone upon him, her hands buried with an action 
 of admirable despair in the thick tresses of hair at the back of 
 the head ; above her body a child survives, turning up its forlorn 
 countenance to the grim reaper ; here again the only defect of 
 this sublime composition makes itself felt in the resemblance of 
 this to the face of the other child. There are also two old men's 
 heads, which are very similar in their noble outline and expres- 
 sion. To the left of the fine middle figure on the rearing horse, 
 are two admirable representations of the third devastating curse 
 sent to depopulate the earth ; two lean, lithe, wiry figures, with 
 thick Ethiopian lips, low receding foreheads, and turbans sur- 
 mounting their hideous ghastly countenances, stretch themselves 
 eagerly over their horses, — the one sends the poisoned arrow from 
 his bow as he lies along the gaunt neck of his horse, that looks like 
 a bestial personification of the plague ; while the other, with scales 
 high uplifted in one bony hand, and the other raised, as though 
 in warning, seems uttering a cry from his swollen lips that might 
 sound across the deserts of the earth to its places of thickest 
 population, the coming of pestilence sweeping from the barren 
 
CARTOONS 97 
 
 regions of the east to cover the world with its livid blue and 
 green and yellow plague-spots. These two figures are admira- 
 ble, so are their horses : indeed, one of the finest things in the 
 composition appears to me the great variety and expression in 
 the figures and countenances of these ghastly steeds. The 
 group is unlike any other group of horses I ever saw, and is 
 really wonderful in its power, terror, and beauty. Above this 
 ghastly company of destroyers floats in the air the fearful band 
 of the spirits enfranchised by their dreadful ministry : they seem 
 to hover just above the death-strewn earth, in an atmosphere of 
 stillness ; they look with steadfast calmness to those about to 
 follow them ; they are not afar off, but near, yet the great gulf, 
 that parts the dead and the living, lies between them ; — perhaps, 
 indeed, only thus little removed are those who have put off mor- 
 tality from us, who yet wear it ; perhaps the cloud of witnesses 
 which encompasses us is but a little way beyond those visible 
 clouds through which we look towards what we call heaven. 
 Oh ! they are nearer at hand, and behold us with peaceful, so- 
 lemn steadfastness, for they know what we but guess; and the 
 great mysteries — sin and sorrow — are revealed to them in all 
 their sublime significance. Before ending this meagre remem- 
 brance of this noble work of Christian art, I must not omit to 
 mention the illustration its author has chosen for the coming of 
 Christ to judgment. The parable of the ten virgins has been 
 adopted by him for the subject of this cartoon, and nothing can 
 be more beautiful than the truth, variety, and expression of the 
 figures, in their various attitudes of slothful oblivion or dismay, 
 and graceful, joyful alacrity. 
 
 Riding out with and yesterday, we met a 
 
 couple of white mules drawing a cartload of mould. Our 
 Italian friend told us that these white mules belonged to the Pope, 
 to whose service they were especially dedicated, and added, with 
 something of a sneer, that they had the honor of carrying His 
 
 6 
 
98 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Holiness's dead body to be buried whenever it occurred to him 
 to die. From this we got into a conversation upon the govern- 
 ment and condition of the people, such as it is difficult enough 
 to have with any native here, who, as far as 1 have seen them, 
 or talked with them, keep their discourse innocent of any but the 
 most absolutely trivial matter. He said, which indeed is tolerably 
 apparent, that the mass of the common people were very well off, 
 and very contented. Labor is dear, and the wages, considering 
 especially the cheapness of food, are high. The Roman popu- 
 lation have however a decided objection to labor, as a degradation 
 as well as a bore ; and the greater proportion of the peasants 
 whom one sees working in the campagna and about the vineyards 
 and gardens come from the Neapolitan and Tuscan States. One 
 meets them in bands, carrying their implements with them, like 
 the Irish reapers in harvest-time in England ; and more than 
 once the great resemblance between the two races has struck me 
 most forcibly. The comfortable condition of the lower classes 
 in the Roman States is such, that when the last revolution at 
 Bologna broke out, the Government entertained little or no appre- 
 hension of any rising among the people at Rome ; and the Pope 
 even dismissed his guard, to express his confidence in their good 
 dispositions. The physical well-being of the great mass of the 
 population is of course decidedly inimical to any revolution, for 
 physical well-being is all that the unenlightened desire, and the 
 great mass of all societies must consist of the unenlightened for 
 yet a long space of years. The middle class here, the profes- 
 sional men, are the discontented leaven in the mass. Of course, 
 if they could depend upon the action of the whole population, 
 important changes might ensue ; but though revolutions require, 
 for the most part, heads as well as bodies, it is easier for the. 
 great bulk of a people to effect changes for themselves (though 
 without guiding spirits they can only be temporary outbreaks, 
 pausing temporary change), than for the most enlightened intelli- 
 
CONDITION OF THE LOWER CLASSES. 99 
 
 gences to force an unenlightened and physically contented popu- 
 lation into revolutionary action. To produce great and perma- 
 nent alterations in a government, great popular grievances must 
 exist, affecting with an equal desire of change the bulk of the 
 population and some portion of the more educated classes ; with- 
 out this union nothing can be achieved but fruitless outrages of 
 mobs, or the still more hopeless action of unripe conspiracies, 
 ending either in bloodshed in the street gutters, on scaffolds, or 
 the more modern retribution of a life-long penance in some fort- 
 ress, like the Spielberg — political prisons, where noble spirits 
 expiate the error of having undertaken single-handed national 
 causes against oppression, which required a national movement 
 to make them successful. The superstition, profligacy, insuffi- 
 ciency, and venality of the Government here, are nevertheless 
 so little the cause of physical suffering to the great bulk of the 
 people, that a very general spirit of easy contentment prevails, 
 and such abuses as are too manifest to escape the keen observa- 
 tion of a very quick-witted and naturally shrewd people, are dis- 
 cussed and ridiculed with a freedom which might seem at first 
 anomalous in such a state of things, but which, in fact, is another 
 safety-valve which the Government very prudently allows to 
 those, who, forbidden to speak, might possibly undertake to act. 
 There exists, therefore, in Rome generally a very great extent 
 of license in this respect, and public and political matters are 
 canvassed with a freedom that might seem, at first glance, quite 
 incompatible with the generally low mental condition of the peo- 
 ple and the absolutism of the Government. In the religious 
 institution of confession, the latter holds an enormous political 
 power, and it is the most frequent engine employed for the dis- 
 covery and defeat of conspiracies ; the party confessing to any 
 knowledge of such machinations being always scrupulously held 
 harmless in whatever retribution follows the revelation. 
 
 recited to us some highly satirical sonnets written upon the 
 
100 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Government by a man who is a clerk in one of the government 
 offices, and who, of course, that being the case, dares neither 
 publish nor otherwise make known his authorship. As always 
 happens, however, in such cases, the offensive matter finds circu- 
 lation, and it is impossible to calculate the amount of importance 
 of such expressions of public sentiment, to which secresy and the 
 fear of danger to those who originate and those who propagate 
 
 them add an infinite zest. The lines   repeated to us were 
 
 witty and pithy, and reminded me not a little of some of Be- 
 renger's sallies. He said the same man had written an enormous 
 number of these political sonnets, chiefly in the sort of dialect 
 in which the common people express themselves, many of them 
 extremely coarse, but all of them full of satirical power and wit. 
 He said that there was no career here for a gentleman of 
 family unless he chose to become a priest. He spoke with great 
 good sense, and at the same time much bitterness, of the ineffi- 
 cient education to which the sons of their noble families were 
 condemned ; of the miserable intellectual results of their college 
 and private tuition, from the prevalence of the priestly spirit 
 throughout all, which narrowed and reduced all mental training 
 here to the most pitiful products. He spoke of the invariable 
 custom which exists here, of giving young gentlemen of family 
 entirely into the charge of some priest or abbate, who, from 
 their earliest childhood, is by turns nursery governess, tutor, and 
 companion, till the attainment of majority at once enfranchises 
 the youth from this incessant supervision, and leaves him, as it 
 were, suddenly, and from one hour to another, the entire master 
 of his own actions, — in freedom a man ; in fact and truth, an 
 inexperienced child. The results of such an instantaneous 
 transition from absolute restraint to absolute liberty, at the age 
 of one-and-twenty, may be easily imagined. One of its most 
 
 deplorable consequences, according to , was the number of 
 
 unworthy marriages, which the utter inexperience of many of 
 
COMPULSORY CONFESSION. 101 
 
 these young noblemen had induced <hem to make with UAtful 
 and designing women of the lower' classes ; disgraceful and 
 wretched unions, entered into in the bliridMess'of ■& first youthful 
 passion, and entailing regret and )ntter ' fri6rtificaiiori as their 
 least miserable results. 
 
 As an illustration of this system, we meet daily in our drives 
 or walks on the Pincio, or in the Borghese gardens, one of the 
 
 sons of the Prince , a young man born to one of the noblest 
 
 names and greatest fortunes of Rome, and who daily takes his 
 airing, like a sick dowager (for girls in England have more 
 freedom), in an open carriage, accompanied by his inseparable 
 abbate, from whom, however, to judge by his appearance, a very 
 short time must divorce him, leaving him free to follow his 
 instructions, or to buy wisdom at its sole and costly price — expe- 
 rience. From this talk we fell into discussions of the approach- 
 ing Easter ceremonies, and I learned with amazement that con- 
 fession and attendance at the communion table and at certain 
 preparatory religious exercises were expected, and I may say 
 exacted, from everybody during the Holy Week — an enforced 
 observance worse than meaningless, and which induces a spirit 
 of bitter, secret ridicule in those who are compelled to it by a 
 species of social tyranny, which, with the great majority, must 
 necessarily degenerate into contempt and dislike to all religion — 
 this obligatory ceremonial being the only thing so called with 
 
 which they are acquainted. subsequently told me that 
 
 every member of every parish who did not confess and take the 
 sacrament some time during the Easter festivities was actually 
 posted up publicly. What further catastrophe ensued I do not 
 know, but few people brought up in a priest-ridden community 
 such as this would care to affront the obloquy of such a publica- 
 tion. I presume that to any one hardy enough to brave it, 
 however, admonition and eventual excommunication would be 
 the conseauence. After all, bigoted and illiberal as all this may 
 
102 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 appe|.ar;it is not by, any -means peculiar to this country or thia 
 sect. 'And when "I renr^cmber that in the heart of America, the 
 SGli-style.d l^np of political tTeedom and religious toleration, in 
 the city of brotherly iove (so called), I have seen the sky blood- 
 red with the light of burning Catholic churches ; when, in 
 Massachusetts, a priest can illustrate his discourse by designating 
 from his pulpit, as a warning to the rest of his congregation, 
 such among them as happen to differ from his orthodoxy in 
 opinion, the particular folly and tyranny of one set of sectarians 
 loses its miserable prominence, when brought into comparison 
 with similar exhibitions of the same spirit, under different names 
 and in different parts of the world ; there is through all, unfor- 
 tunately, a strong family likeness. Our landlord informed us, 
 to our great surprise, that the holiness of Easter extended through 
 the whole week following Easter Sunday, to that degree, that in 
 the Roman Catholic church no marriages were allowed during 
 that time. 
 
 I have seen to-day the first acacia blossoms of the spring. 
 
 UPON A BRANCH OF FLOWERING ACACIA. 
 
 The blossoms hang again upon the tree. 
 
 As when with their sweet breath they greeted me 
 
 Against my casement, on that sunny morn, 
 
 When thou, first blossom of my spring, wast bom 
 
 And as I lay, panting from the fierce strife 
 
 With death and agony that won thy life. 
 
 Their snowy clusters hung on their brown bough, 
 
 E'en as upon my breast, my May-bud, thou. 
 
 They seem to me thy sisters, Oh, my child ! 
 
 And now the air, full of their fragrance mild, 
 
 Recalls that hour ; a tenfold agony 
 
 Pulls at my heart-strings, as I think of thee. 
 
UPON A BRANCH OF FLOWERING ACACIA. 103 
 
 Was it in vain ! Oh, was it all in vain ! 
 
 Tiiat night of hope, of terror, and of pain, 
 
 When from the shadowy boundaries of death, 
 
 I brought thee safely, breathing living breath 
 
 Upon my heart — it was a holy shrine, 
 
 Full of God's praise — they laid thee, treasure mine ! 
 
 And from its tender depths the blue heaven smiled, 
 
 And the white blossoms bowed to thee, my child, 
 
 And solemn joy of a new life was spread. 
 
 Like a mysterious halo round that bed. 
 
 And now how is it, since eleven years 
 
 Have steeped that memory in bitterest tears ? 
 
 Alone, heart-broken, on a distant shore. 
 
 Thy childless mother sits lamenting o'er 
 
 Flowers, which the spring calls from this foreign earth, 
 
 Thy twins, that crowned the morning of thy birth. 
 
 How is it with thee — lost — lost — precious one ! 
 
 In thy fresh spring-time growing up alone ? 
 
 What warmth unfolds thee ? — what sweet dews are shed, 
 
 Like love and patience over thy young head ? 
 
 What holy springs feed thy deep inner life ? 
 
 What shelters thee from passion's deadly strife ? 
 
 What guards thy growth, straight, strong, and full and free. 
 
 Lovely and glorious, oh, my fair young tree ? 
 
 God — Father — thou — who by this awful fate 
 
 Hast lopp'd, and stripp'd, and left me desolate ! 
 
 In the dark bitter floods that o'er my soul 
 
 Their billows of despair triumphant roll, 
 
 Let me not be o'erwhelmed ! — Oh, they are thine 
 
 These jewels of my life — not mine — not mine ! 
 
 So keep them, that the blossoms of their youth 
 
 Shall, in a gracious growth of love and truth, 
 
104 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 With an abundant harvest honor Thee : 
 
 And bless the blight which Thou hast sent on me ; 
 
 Withering and blasting, tho' it seem to fall, 
 
 Let it not, oh, my Father ! drink up all 
 
 My spirit's sap — so from this fate shall grow 
 
 The palm branch for my hand and for my brow, 
 
 With which, a hopeful pilgrim, I may tread 
 
 The shadowy path where rest awhile the dead. 
 
 Ere they rise up, a glorious company. 
 
 To find their lost ones, and to worship Thee ! 
 
 I have been taking a series of beautiful rides in the campagna ; 
 I wish very much to preserve, if possible, some record of the 
 various features of that vast, wonderful plain, — but words multi- 
 plied to weariness can very hardly express one tithe of the love- 
 liness and sublimity that the eye sweeps over in a minute on that 
 enchanted ground ; and first, we come upon some point of it 
 where it spreads out before us a wide, flat expense, hazy and 
 unbroken as a summer sea, over whose level surface whole com- 
 panies of larks trill, and twitter, and twinkle, with a perfect cho- 
 rus of jubilant song, of which our lonely field-singer gives not 
 the faintest conception. It is very curious, by tlie by, the fuller 
 life to which all things seem ripened by this southern climate : 
 not only do the larks appear in perfect cohorts over these sunny 
 plains, and sing with a loud clearness, unequalled, certainly, by 
 our solitary morning bird ; but the same sort of difference mani- 
 fests itself in flowers common to both countries. The daisies here 
 have a wide-awake determined air, which would have made 
 Burns's address to them absolutely ironical ; their buds are of 
 the deepest crimson, their flowers are of the most unhesitating 
 white, with little . stiff'-necked stalks, and faces all turned up to 
 the sky with a degree of self-possession quite astonishing in a 
 mere daisy. The China roses have all a much deeper color, and 
 
RIDES THROUGH THE CAMPAGNA. 105 
 
 stronger perfume than with us. I saw one to-day, a bud sitting 
 under some fresh taper polished green leaves, beneath which a 
 single ray of the sun darted upon the passionate-colored crimson 
 flower, that sat beneath its canopy, in an atmosphere of living 
 light, and glowed in a sunshine all to itself, like a jewel : I never 
 saw such a magical effect of color in my life. Then, too, the 
 violets here could never, even by the most courteous device of 
 poetry, have been celebrated for their modesty ; from fresh vigor- 
 ous tufts of veined leaves they shoot long slender stalks, with 
 deep-colored red purple blossoms, in absolute sheaves — not low 
 down — not nestling under shade — not shrinking into moss and 
 retirement ; but looking as everything here seems to do — towards 
 the sun, and opening their sweet bosoms to the w^arm air, that 
 at noon in our little terrace garden was full of their perfume. 
 
 But to return to the campagna, after loosing our reins, and 
 giving our horses their heads in a swinging gallop over this 
 flowery ocean, it gradually seems to rise and fall around us, 
 and the level plain sinks and swells into billows and waves of 
 undulating green, flowing and melting into each other, like the 
 beautiful limbs of the gigantic statues of the Parthenon. Small 
 valleys open into each other between these swellings, all golden 
 with butter-cups, or powdered, as with the new-fallen snow, 
 with daisies ; gradually these gentle eminences rise into higher 
 mounds, with rocky precipitous sides and cliffs, and rugged walls 
 of warm yellow-colored earth or rock, with black mouths opening 
 into them, half curtained with long tangled tresses of wild briar 
 and ivy, and crested with gold fringes of broom and gorse, and 
 blue-black tufts of feathery verdure. At a distance, where the 
 plain opens again before us, clumps of wood, of insignificant 
 appearance, dot the level ground ; on nearer approach, they lose 
 the dwarf, stunted look which the wide field on which they stand 
 tends to give them, and presently we ride slowly between the 
 talon-like roots, and under the twisted gnarled boughs of cork and 
 
 6* 
 
106 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 ilex trees, warped into fantastic growth by the sweeping of the 
 winds, and covering with their dusky foliage a wild carpet of 
 underbrush, all strewed with flowers — violets, purple hyacinths, 
 with their honey-sweet smell and dark-blue blossoms, white spires 
 of delicate heaths, the clear azure stars of the periwinkle, and the 
 tall flower-fretted stalks of the silver rod — asphodel ; these, woven 
 into one cloak of beauty, spread themselves over the ragged sides 
 and rough gullies of these patches of forest, and every now and 
 then we reach an eminence from which a fine dark sea of hoary 
 woodland rolls down into the neighboring hollows, and crests 
 the rounded promontories all round us. Again we come to free 
 level ground, and cantering along, find ourselves on the brink of 
 sudden rifts in the smooth surface of the land — deep rents, torn 
 by the rain in the crumbling volcanic soil — tattered gullies, with 
 a sparkling thread of live water running through them, and 
 thickets of exquisite wild hedge-growth fringing them ; snow- 
 white drifts of hawthorn, and honeysuckle wreaths, send up 
 their mingled perfume towards the sun — a paradise of wild sweet- 
 ness, enchanting the senses of the wanderer through this wonder- 
 ful wilderness ; here and there we came to perfect rummages in 
 the banks by wind and weather — slides of rich brown earth, over 
 which scars in the earth's bosom Nature makes haste to draw the 
 edges of her flowery mantle ; and now our horses' hoofs spring 
 over long strips of emerald sward, flowing like broad, winding 
 rivers between level ranges of low hills. The close grain of the 
 thick grass is starred with the tiny blossoms of the wild geranium, 
 and every now and then we trample a patch of narcissus with 
 their cream-colored blossoms and blue stiff* leaves, and think how 
 preciously we should have gathered them from a northern gar- 
 den. On each side of these long narrow valleys young wood 
 growth stretches a light screen, fragrant with the freshness of the 
 spring, or vocal with its thousand melodies. Rounding the grassy 
 slope of a hill-side, we come upon one of the scattered habitations 
 
RIDES THROUGH THE CAMPAGNA. 107 
 
 of the campagna — hardly, however, a human habitation — a low- 
 thatched shed, scarcely large enough to permit one man or two 
 dogs to be curled up beneath its shelter from sun or rain. 
 Further on stands the untidy, stinking cottage, with its sheep- 
 pens of nets stretched over the neighboring pasture, within whose 
 bounds the brown sheep stray nibbling ; their undyed wool forms 
 the clothing of the friars, whose di'ess is a constant source of 
 delight to me, from its fine rich color, and ample folds. With- 
 out the net, and wandering on a sort of free guard, the white 
 wolfish dogs of the campagna prowl round the settlement, and 
 come yelling, and barking, and bounding furiously towards us, 
 while leaning lazily on his staff, as we go by, the shepherd him- 
 self completes the picture ; with his goat-skin breeches, and 
 sheep-skin cloak, and matted black mane of his own tangled 
 locks, out of which his eyes gleam like coals of fire. Far off we 
 see the grey fortress farms rising in masses from steep founda- 
 tions, and looking over the flowery, sunny waste for miles to their 
 distant fraternity, — the tombs of ancient Italy, the watch-towers 
 and castles of the middle ages, the peaceful, romantic dwellings 
 of the peasants and herdsmen and vine-dressers of modern Rome. 
 On some neighboring hill-side shines, like a sapphire in a white 
 stone setting, one of those long basins, wherein the fresh springs 
 of the campagna are treasured up — upon the hot margin of which 
 the golden, green, and black enamelled lizards run up and down, 
 sunning themselves, and rustle away through the grass as we 
 slowly pass along by the stone hem of the fountain. Here we 
 look down upon a glaring road winding far up to the mountains, 
 and betraying its course by the fine clouds of dust that tell where, 
 lazily along the blinding way, the mouse-colored oxen in sober 
 society draw the lumbering carts, wherein or whereon lie 
 stretched the sleeping hinds that should lead or guide them. 
 Long trains of rusty mules, fastened by the tail to each other's 
 heads, walk invisibly beneath a high, thorny, tottering mountain 
 
108 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 of brushwood, piled on each side and all over them like a brown 
 mist, now tipped here and there with vivid green, the young 
 twigs having been cut full of sap and buds and yellow golden 
 sprouts ; from beneath which curious canopy nothing is seen 
 but the head fastened to the tail of its predecessor, and the 
 tail tied to the head of its successor. Beside these jingle 
 merrily along those little carts laden with small wine-casks, 
 with their curious canopy formed out of the main branches 
 and boughs of some tree ; this is lodged somewhere in the 
 body of the vehicle, covered with skins and leather, stuffed 
 with straw, lined with coarse sackcloth, and so contrived as to 
 turn round and screen from either side the driver, who, half 
 lying, half sitting under this shelter, half opens his bead-like 
 eyes and pushes the pointed hat, with its bright bunch of crimson 
 stocks or orange-colored wall-flowers, half off his blue-black 
 hair to scratch his head, as lazily as if he grudged the trouble, 
 while his bronze face sparkles through all its sleepiness with the 
 brilliant coloring and vivid expression peculiar to this singularly 
 handsome race. Passing these at a more rapid pace comes the 
 mounted peasant or cattle-driver ; his short jacket, tight breeches, 
 and leather gaiters, buckled like armor round his legs, showing 
 admirably his straight and well-proportioned limbs ; his dark 
 green or brown cloak is strapped to the high-peaked saddle, and 
 in his hand he carries a long light lance headed with a goad, 
 which adds immensely to the picturesqueness of his appearance. 
 By the side of some of these roads, marking wherever they re- 
 main the lines of the old Roman ways, stand the ruined tombs, 
 that have not been converted into habitations for the living, — 
 nameless monuments of nameless existences, long since gone out 
 amid the perpetual extinguishment of life, whose mellow-tinted 
 walls yet raise above the sward of the campagna their crumbling 
 ivy-clasped fragments. Among these ruins, some are land- 
 marks and special features in the wide waste, as all know who 
 
RIDES THROUGH THE CAMPAGNA. 109 
 
 have directed their gallop across it by the round tower of Cecilia 
 Metella, the arch of the Torre de' Schiavi, or the congregation 
 of ruined walls at the Sette Bassi. The cnief glory of the whole 
 scene, however, its grandest and loveliest feature, are the broken 
 links of those thirteen chains that once bound the mountains to 
 Rome by streams of living water. The crown of the campagna, 
 the graceful and sad-looking aqueducts, — for nothing can be seen 
 of a more melancholy beauty than these broken arches and in- 
 terrupted channels, the flowers sown by many hundred springs, 
 waving from every crevice and cranny, the ivy climbing up 
 each pier and buttress, and the whole campagna, with its boun- 
 dary of glorious hills, seen through their arches, like a magnifi- 
 cent series of enchanting pictures, each more perfect than the 
 other. From these witnesses of the power of Rome's Csesars, 
 the eye passes naturally to the mountains, and the mind to Him, 
 the King of Kings, whose monuments they are. They stand 
 round this vast plain, which is the noble margin of Rome, — a 
 fitting frame to the great picture, — in pearly light that reveals 
 every fold and plait of fheir recesses in purple shadow, that 
 seems as though the hand could feel its thickness in every variety 
 of form and aspect, rugged, savage, wild, gentle, smiling, and 
 majestic ; they circle round half the wondrous plain, the silver 
 shining of the Mediterranean bounds the other half, and the un- 
 spotted arch of this proverbial sky bends its perfect azure over 
 all. To these things which the eye beholds, let the mind add (as 
 how can it forbear?) but one tithe of the recollections that 
 throng every part it dwells upon, and where can be found in all 
 the world a scene of equal interest and beauty. Beneath the 
 ruined arch below the holy wood, the fountain of Egeria still 
 pours on its legendary stream ; over the turbid waters of the 
 Tiber hover the heroic forms that history has but lately and re- 
 luctantly yielded to the domain of poetry. Upon the Monte 
 Sacro the shadowy host of a whole people stand, claiming from 
 
no A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 their oppressors those rights so slowly wrested from them through 
 the domestic strife of centuries. Along the banks of the Allia, 
 the Gaulish hordes rush, shaking the earth beneath their multitu- 
 dinous trampling feet, rending the sky with their barbaric war 
 shouts. Along the Appian Way Paul walks with steadfast feet 
 towards martyrdom ; and by the bridge of Milvius, the blinding 
 vision of the Cross smites Constantine with instantaneous faith. 
 Rome herself, as we looked long at her to-day, sits in a silver 
 mist of snowy blossoming trees, the focus towards which, as to- 
 wards their proper centre, all these glorious recollections tend — 
 crowned Queen of the world by reverential memory, as once 
 she ruled by absolute dominion and the great genius of the men 
 she bore. 
 
 VERSES ON ROME. 
 
 Oh ! Rome, tremendous, who, beholding thee, 
 
 Shall not forget the bitterest private grief 
 
 That e'er made havoc of one single life ? 
 
 Oh ! triple crown'd, by glory, faith, and beauty, 
 
 Thine is the tiara which thy priest assumes, 
 
 By conquest of the nations of the earth, 
 
 By spiritual sovereignty o'er men's souls, — 
 
 By universal homage of all memory. 
 
 When at thy capitol's base I musing stand, 
 
 Thy ruined temple shafts rising all round me, 
 
 Masts of the goodliest wreck, 'neath Time's deep flood. 
 
 Whose tide shall ne'er rise high enough to cover them ; 
 
 Thou comest in thy early strength before me. 
 
 Fair — stern — thy rapid foot-prints stamp'd in blood ; 
 
 The iron sword clench'd in thy hand resistless, 
 
 And helmeted like Pallas, whose great thoughts 
 
 Still made thy counsels as thy deeds victorious. 
 
VERSES ON ROME. lH 
 
 Beautiful — terrible — looking o'er the earth 
 With eyes like shafts of fire^ and with a voice 
 That uttered doom, calling its ends thy border ; 
 Resolute, absolute, steadfast, and most noble ; 
 A mistress whom to love was to obey, 
 For whom to live was to be prompt to die 
 Whose favor was the call to sterner duty, 
 Whose frown was everlasting ignominy. 
 So stand 'st thou. Virgin Rome, before mine eyes, 
 Type of all heathen national strength and virtue. 
 
 When thro' the Vatican's sounding halls I stray, 
 
 Thy second sov'reignty comes sweeping towards me, 
 
 In gold and blood -red splendor borne aloft. 
 
 The color of thy garments still kept fresh, 
 
 With blood of thy confessors and deniers, 
 
 Pour'd for and by thee over the whole earth ; 
 
 So come those, carried in thy insolent meekness 
 
 Upon the shoulders of obedient Emperors, 
 
 Shrouded in clouds of mystic incense, voices 
 
 Of adoration in a thousand tongues. 
 
 Like mingling waters rolling round thy feet ; 
 
 The cross, the sword, the keys, — potent insignia 
 
 Of thy stupendous double majesty. 
 
 Shining amid the lightnings of those curses 
 
 Which gleam with ominous brightness round thy path ; 
 
 So sweeps thy second empire, Rome, before me. 
 
 And even now the pageant vanishes 
 
 Out from the portals of the palaces 
 
 Where it hath dwelt so long ; I see the last 
 
 Waving and glancing of its impotent splendor 
 
 And a dim twilight fills the place it filled. 
 
 Twilight of coming night or coming morning 
 
112 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Who shall decide, save Him who rules them both ? 
 
 And in the doubtful grey, one man alone 
 
 Stands in the place of that great mummery, 
 
 The throne borne on the backs of emperors 
 
 Lies at his feet ; and lo ! a ghastly bed. 
 
 Where, 'mid diseases and corruptions loathsome, 
 
 Infirm, decrepid, crippled, impotent, 
 
 Yet bright-eyed with vitality unconquerable, 
 
 At its great heart the ancient faith lies gasping ; 
 
 Beneath his hand a glorious shape springs up. 
 
 From whose bright veins a stream of healing youth 
 
 Is poured into the withered blood-conduits 
 
 Of the bed-ridden Church ; and she arises — 
 
 And they two stand together, and uplift 
 
 That song of praise whose first unearthly sound 
 
 Was the loud death-cry sent from Calvary ; 
 
 Whose sweetness yet shall sound thro' all the world, 
 
 And rise to heaven, whence it shall echo back 
 
 His praise whose service shall be perfect freedom. 
 
 Loveliest and dearest art thou to me, Rome, 
 
 When from the terrace of my sometime home, 
 
 At early morning I behold thee lying. 
 
 All bathed in sunshine far below my feet. 
 
 Upon the ancient, sacred Quirinal, 
 
 Gleam the white palaces and orange gardens. 
 
 Towards which are turned all eyes, are stretched all hands, 
 
 Where, guarded round by Faith, and Hope, and Love, 
 
 The expectation of the people dwells. 
 
 On the pale azure of the tender sky 
 
 Thy mighty outline lies like the huge features 
 
 Of some divine colossal type of beauty ; 
 
 Far to the left, beyond the Angel's tower. 
 
 Rises the temple of the world, and stretch 
 
VERSES ON ROME. .18 
 
 The Vatican's glorious arsenals of art, 
 
 Where still abide the immortal gods of Greece, 
 
 Where worship still the tribes of all the sarth ; 
 
 While from the blue and tufted Doria pines, 
 
 My eye delighted round the horizon wanders 
 
 To where the Falconieri cypress shafts 
 
 Pierce the transparent ether. Close at hand, 
 
 Over the nunnery wall, where, in sweet mockery, 
 
 The bridal flower its silver blossoms spreads. 
 
 Rises a chorus of clear virgin voices. 
 
 Chanting sweet salutations — ^greetings holy — 
 
 As once did Gabriel to the " blest 'mong women." 
 
 No other sound makes vibrate the still air. 
 
 Save the quick beating of the wings of doves. 
 
 That from the sanctuary come to drink 
 
 At the clear dropping fountain in our garden. 
 
 Upon its curving margin they alight, 
 
 And make alive the graceful image traced 
 
 In the stone painting of the antique artist. 
 
 To me they call a lovelier image up — 
 
 A fair young girl, with shining braided hair. 
 
 And graceful head divine, gently inclined 
 
 Towards her shoulder, where a dove has lighted. 
 
 That with quick glancing eye and beak familiar. 
 
 And soft round head, and swelling purple breast, 
 
 Stands friendly, while the child towards it turns 
 
 Eyes like two streams of liquid light, and lips 
 
 Parted in smiling rosy eagerness. 
 
 Oh, Rome ! I do not see thee any more ; 
 
 This do I see — this loveliest, dearest vision 
 
 But for a moment, and my tears have blotted 
 
 Thy glory and its sweetness out together. 
 
114 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 The holy week is over, the religious carnival of Rome— dur- 
 ing which the curiosity and ill manners of foreigners render 
 every Catholic place of worship a perfect bear-garden, and would 
 almost make it impossible to believe that the same seasons were 
 held equally sacred by all denominations of Christians. On Palm 
 Sunday we went to St. Peter's, to see the benediction of, and the 
 procession of palms. We made the best of our way to one of 
 the tribunes, for which we had tickets, through a crowd of frantic 
 women who certainly made all sorts of Amazonian legends cre- 
 dible ; the poor Italian gentleman who stood at the entrance of 
 the tribune seemed in imminent peril of being crushed to death 
 by this flood of feminine intrepidity. A woman before me who 
 had been separated from her friends by the throng, kept loudly 
 exhorting them to " push on and not to mind her, that she would 
 follow," — and follow she did undauntedly, by pushing between 
 my sister and myself, and forcibly separating us, though for 
 greater security we had hold of each other's hand. Upon my 
 beseeching her not to separate me from my companion, she 
 replied at the very top of her voice, " I might as well say the 
 same thing to you, ma'am ; besides, the place is not so large, 
 you'll find your party again, I dare say." This, uttered with a 
 face crimson with obstreperous struggles, and arms and legs 
 working like the wings of a windmill in every direction, accom- 
 panied by a loud exhortation to her party " to get on, that she 
 would make out," &c., were my sole consolation. 
 
 The chanting of High Mass was long and tedious, and I took 
 advantage of it to read the service for the day in my own prayer- 
 book ; the splendid church, with its motley crowd of gazers and 
 worshippers ; its priests, in purple robes and grey fur tippets ; 
 its brown bare-headed friars ; the servant and peasant girls in 
 their scarlet jackets and picturesque head gear ; the lady spec- 
 tators in their becoming Spanish costume ; and, above all, the 
 glorious and beautiful effects of light and shade upon the whole 
 
CHURCH OF ST. MARK. 115 
 
 pageant, delighted me extremely. The procession itself did not 
 strike or please me so much as that of Candlemas, and I was 
 much disappointed with the appearance of the palms themselves, 
 which, though indeed branches of trees, were peeled of their 
 green bark, stripped of their leaves, and curled and twisted into 
 an appearance so perfectly artificial, that it required absolute 
 knowledge, or absolute faith, to realize that they were not entirely 
 artificial products. I had imagined the whole throng of splen- 
 didly dressed priests and officers bearing real branches and palms 
 in their hands, like that multitude who, drunk with the excite- 
 ment of admirartion and awe, cast down their garments in the 
 way, and filled the air with Hosannas as Christ passed on into 
 Jerusalem, from which he was to go forth again so soon, dragging 
 his own cross amid the groans and insults of that very populace. 
 The form of worship, too, in the ceremonies of the Romish 
 Church disturbs me excessively, because it is ridiculous to me. 
 I hate to look at the holy things of my brethren with unsympa- 
 thizing eyes, and I cannot help it ; nor, when they set the Pope 
 down, and take him up, and cover his legs, and uncover them, 
 and kiss and bow and bend, and hand him here and there like a 
 poor precious little old doll, can I refrain from a feeling of dis- 
 gust and displeasure ; so that, upon the whole, these church 
 spectacles are very unsatisfactory to me. 
 
 The next morning early, in my daily walk of discovery, I 
 wandered into the little church of St. Mark, attached to the 
 Venetian palace, which is now the residence of the Austrian 
 Embassy. The chapel, for it was hardly larger than one, was 
 full of gorgeous colors, gilding, rich marbles, and profuse orna- 
 ments ; most of the funeral tablets bore Venetian names. Mass 
 was gomg on, and round a species of temporary enclosure, formed 
 by low square scarlet-covered benches, knelt a number of young 
 boys and girls ; the white dresses and veiled heads of the latter 
 announced that they were going through the ceremony of their 
 
116 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 first communion ; round them sat and stood, in various attitudes 
 of anxiety and sympathy, a company of mothers and female 
 friends. Mass was said, and some beautiful chanting enlivened 
 the pious mummery ; after which an aged priest, apparently, by 
 his dress, of high church rank, entered the enclosure, and kneel- 
 ing on a crimson-colored hassock, began a discourse in Italian, 
 upon the subject of the ceremony about to be performed by the 
 young communicants. This address, which he made in the per- 
 son of the children themselves, alternately to the Redeemer and 
 the Virgin Mary, became, by degrees, more and more passion- 
 ate, the preacher throwing his arms about, striking his breast, 
 wringing his hands, and uttering the most violent exclamations 
 of sorrow and repentance at the " tanti peccati " which the 
 children had committed, " tanti disgusti " they had given the 
 Saviour and his Divine Mother. During this discourse, or 
 rather series of ejaculations, the emotion of the children, espe- 
 cially the young girls, went gradually crescendo, until, when 
 the preacher arrived at the climax of mercy shown to these 
 poor sinning souls — in now being permitted to eat the very 
 body of this their offended and pardoning God, — there was 
 one response of sobs, wails, and hysterical cries, and for 
 awhile the prayer was interrupted by the explosion of excited 
 feeling it had occasioned. I do not wonder at such an effect 
 being produced upon young imaginations and young nerves ; 
 what with the thrilling music, the faint smell of the incense 
 which pervaded every part of the church, the infectious emotion 
 of their companions, and the passionate cries and appeals of the 
 priest addressing them — the dose of excitement was certainly 
 pretty strong for young southern girls of from twelve to fourteen 
 years old : what good result might spring from so much purely 
 physical emotion and so much overstrained imagination, I know 
 not. I prayed heartily, and with all my soul, for those young 
 creatures, for whom my sympathy was deeply excited, even by 
 what appeared to me the danger of the process they were under- 
 
i 
 
 YOUNG COMMUNICANTS. 117 
 
 going. Most of the girls had their faces buried in their handker- 
 chiefs ; one of them, a very pretty lassie, whose dress was rather 
 more elegant than the rest, removed hers to look at somebody 
 near her, and, to my astonishment, her eyes were perfectly tear- 
 less, and her face smiling rather maliciously — that girl's nerves 
 I must be incomparably strong : the impression of that laughing 
 young face, hidden again almost instantaneously in the handker- 
 chief, was like a sudden discord in sweet music. When the 
 tumult of religious fervor had a little subsided, another priest 
 entered the enclosure bearing the Sacrament, and it was given 
 to each of the children. It was curious to detect the mothers 
 and friends of each by the tender sympathy expressed in their 
 faces, and their gradual eager approach as their particular charge 
 deceived the sacred wafer ; another priest then gave to each of 
 them a small ticket — a species of voucher testifying that they had 
 gone through this holy ceremony — and so it all ended. As I 
 turned away I saw, kneeling in a confessional, a man who was 
 unburdening his conscience of its sins. He was not kneeling, as 
 is most customary, in one of the side compartments, and speak- 
 ing through the usual small opening, but the door of the confes- 
 sional was open, and he was kneeling between the feet of the 
 priest, whose hand, with a singular gesture of tenderness, was 
 placed round his shoulder, while his head inclined towards him, 
 so as to hear alone the revelation that was being made. This 
 group struck me, and I waited to see them move. The confes- 
 sion ended, the penitent rose, but turned from me, and I did not 
 see his face ; that of the priest, who was quite a young man, was 
 beautiful, sweet, and calm, and most benevolent ; the aifectionate 
 and commiserating attitude had not deceived me. How wonder- 
 fully expressive the whole body of an earnest human being is — 
 how eloquent of any pervading and habitual feeling the whole 
 carriage and deportment becomes. 
 
 On Thursday, in Passion Week, we went to St. Peter's, intend- 
 
lis A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 ing to proceed to the Sistine chapel, and hear Allegri's Miserere, 
 which we had been informed was to be chanted there. We 
 neglected^ however, to dress ourselves in black, and the want of 
 this proper formality prevented our being able to go to the Pope's 
 chapel, where, however, after all, the famous composition of 
 AUegri was not performed. There is a species of rivalry be- 
 tween the choir of St. Peter's and that of the Sistine chapel, and 
 the several priests belonging to each do not scruple to give the 
 most untrue accounts to foreigners who ask information of them, 
 always taking care to make it appear that whatever is best worth 
 hearing or seeing is going on at their own particular chapel or 
 church. They are like rival showmen or managers. Thus 
 disappointed of our intended afternoon's entertainment, or ediifi. 
 cation, as I suppose it would be more proper to say, we seated 
 ourselves in one of the chapels of St. Peter's, opposite to that 
 which is used as the choir, and resigned ourselves to listen to the 
 chanting which was being performed there, and which came 
 across the vast dome to us in wailing melodious snatches, the 
 effect of which was most melancholy, vague, and striking at 
 the same time. We sat here for a long time, the light gradually 
 dying out from the lower and further parts of the great build- 
 ing ; group after group of worshippers or gazers passed down 
 the nave, while priests and monks, and country men and women, 
 in picturesque dresses, came one after another, and kneeled near 
 where we sat, to say a prayer or two, sauntering off again in 
 the twilight, which began to thicken all round us. I presently 
 perceived that a man had placed himself on the bench by my 
 sister, and was whispering to her. He was well dressed, and 
 decent looking ; my surprise was all the greater when she in- 
 formed me that he was a beggar, who had thought proper to 
 address his reclamations to her in that familiar and peculiar 
 manner. After remaining here until, what with the dim light, 
 the distant chanting, the monotonous shuffling of feet upon the 
 
 j 
 
 'J 
 
 i 
 
CONFESSION OF A CRIMINAL. 119 
 
 pavement, and the faint smell of incense pervading the air, I 
 was fallinor into a sort of dream jf St. Peter's, we rose and 
 walked towards another chapel, where, as part of some of the 
 peculiar ceremonies of the day, some hundreds of tapers were 
 burnins. The effect of this illuminated altar, before which knelt 
 a large and most picturesque congregation of adorers, contrasted 
 with the gloom which was beginning to invade the rest of the 
 church, was very beautiful and striking. In coming hither we 
 had passed the confessional where, on this one day of the year, 
 a Cardinal appointed for the purpose receives in public the con- 
 fession of certain great criminals, who have committed offences 
 for which the ordinary priest's absolution is not sufficient. The 
 time for the Cardinal's entering the confessional had not arrived 
 when we passed it, but there was already kneeling there a poor 
 man, in the dress of a peasant, with his head buried in his 
 hands, in an attitude which might have been either that of intense 
 devotion or bitter self-reproach. On our return from the illu- 
 minated altar we found the crowd speedily gathering round this 
 part of the church in anxious expectation of the Cardinal's arri- 
 val — ^the penitent neither moved from his place nor altered his 
 attitude, while group after group of eager spectators joined them- 
 selves to the numbers waiting to witness his humiliation. The 
 confessional was raised considerably above the pavement of the 
 church — a species of enclosure was formed all round it, within 
 which as many privileged and intrepid people as could effect an 
 entrance placed themselves. At length the Cardinal entered the 
 enclosure, and seated himself; and the man who had been 
 awaiting his arrival took his place at his feet, and kneeling so 
 that the Cardinal by inclining his head brought his ear nearly on 
 a level with his mouth, the confession began. 
 
 I had always been very desirous of witnessing this singular 
 scene. I once saw a picture of it at the exhibition in the Na- 
 tional Gallery ; and had given me a description of it 
 
120 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 that had interested me deeply. For a length of time the two 
 actors in the strange scene preserved the same attitudes, and it 
 was difficult to tell from their deportment that anything so solemn 
 as the confession of a deadly crime was passing between them. 
 The crowd in the meantime remained silent and riveted, watch- 
 ing with intense interest and curiosity the effect of what he was 
 hearing upon the Cardinal's features ; at length they became 
 expressive of great disturbance. The crowd and the imperfect 
 light combined to make it difficult to see distinctly ; but as I ea- 
 gerly bent forward to watch what was passing, I saw his face 
 flushed, and his brow knit ; he clutched his fur tippet repeatedly 
 with a gesture of great nervous agitation, — wiped his forehead 
 hastily once or twice, and then spoke so low indeed that no syl- 
 lable transpired, but with an appearance of earnestness and ve- 
 hement solemnity that was very striking. After addressing the 
 penitent in this extremely emphatic manner for some time, he 
 signed the cross repeatedly and hurriedly over him ; and the 
 impression left on my mind by his manner was that of extreme 
 annoyance and moral disgust at the impartment he had received. 
 As the poor man who had thus purchased rest to his conscience 
 traversed the crowd to depart, we saw his face quite distinctly. 
 It was a common stolid countenance, with no peculiar indication 
 of passion or depravity upon it ; and, considering the scene in 
 which he had just borne so conspicuous and unenviable a part, 
 his deportment was singularly careless and unimpressed. The 
 remaining spectators now pressed forward in rapid succession to 
 be touched by a wand which had been placed in the Cardinal's 
 hand, and which he extended, I presume, in benediction over all 
 who, passing before him, made an obeisance. I never saw any- 
 thing more disgusting than the carriage of the various foreign 
 women who surrounded us this afternoon ; but principally, I am 
 sorry to say, Englishwomen. Their indecent curiosity, and 
 eagerness to satisfy it ; their total apparent forgetfulness of the 
 
GOOD FRIDAY. 131 
 
 sacred purposes to which the place where they were was dedi- 
 cated ; the coarse levity of their observations and comments upon 
 what was going on-; their determined perseverance in their own 
 ^ flirtations and absurd conversation in the midst of the devotions 
 of the people whose church they were invading ; their discus- 
 sions of their own plans of amusement, all really gave a most 
 painful impression of their want of good feeling, good sense, and 
 good manners. As we were passing round the church wc were 
 suddenly summoned to make way, and several of the Swiss guard 
 of the Pope pushed by, escorting a couple of ladies dressed in 
 black, and making way for them among the crowd ; we hurried 
 after them, and found that they were going to meet the procession 
 of female pilgrims, who come up yearly to the Easter festivals 
 to Rome, and who, on their arrival, are received by a charitable 
 sisterhood, the members of which are taken from all classes of 
 Roman women, many of whom are of the highest birth and rank ; 
 they meet these poor women at the gate of St. Peter's, and escort 
 them up the church to the illuminated altar, where they pay 
 their devotions, after which they are taken to the Hospital of the 
 Pilgrims, where they are lodged and entertained for tliree days 
 and ni^fhts. Just as we reached the entrance of the church the 
 procession was entering, and we stood to see them go down the 
 nave ; weary-looking, dirty, sickly, miserable creatures, in the 
 coarse peasant's dress of the poorest class of country people, 
 walking two and two ; between each couple, one of the Roman 
 sisterhood of Charity leading them by the hand. The procession 
 was extremely numerous, and filled the vast building from one 
 end to another. We did not stay to see them all pass in, but 
 weary of our traveller's business of looking and listening, left the 
 great church, while the swarm was still pouring in endless suc- 
 cession through its open gate into its dim depths, which were 
 now, at the furthest extremity, quite lost in darkness. 
 
 Good Friday, — We were determined not to lose the services at 
 
 7 
 
122 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 the Sistine Chapel to-day, so in good time, and duly equipped in 
 full ISpanish costume, we drove to St. Peter's ; but we were so 
 far from being the first, that it was impossible even to obtain en- 
 trance into the chapel ; at least we thought so, until we saw some 
 Russian ladies, who arrived after us, shoulder and elbow their 
 way through the dense mass of humanity that blocked up the 
 door, Vvith a moral courage and physical strength that excited 
 our admiration, without, however, inspiring us4o imitate it. A 
 poor priest, who, like ourselves, was content to listen to such of 
 the holy strains as escaped beyond the precincts of the chapel, 
 was literally so hustled by these ladies, that, au d^sespoir de 
 cause, he fairly retreated, leaving them, after the usual fashion 
 of the world, to enjoy the place out of which they had, by dint 
 of effrontery, ejected their betters. Thus, in the heat, suffoca- 
 tion, and intolerable stench of an Italian crowd (which those 
 who have experienced once will not have forgotten), I heard 
 through the door, blocked up with human figures, the few notes 
 of the miserere which oozed through the living wall, and saw 
 above their heads, for the first time, the visions of glory with 
 which the vault of the Sistine Chapel is clothed. It was not, 
 after all, we found, the famous miserere, but one by a modern 
 composer, who has a great reputation here, of the name of Baini. 
 After standing in this uneasy listening post till all was ended, we 
 descended to the church, where the Pope was expected to come 
 and worship certain relics ; among others, the pocket-handker- 
 chief with which St. Veronica wiped our Saviour's forehead, as 
 he carried his cross towards Calvary ; precious objects of Ro- 
 man Catholic veneration, which are only exposed to the adora- 
 tion of the faithful on this one day of the year. It was already 
 late in the afternoon, and the beautiful church was filled with 
 solemn shadows ; nothing could exceed the wonderful effect of 
 these great long aisles and sublime domes, under this soft and 
 awful light. The presence of the Pope's guard, and the long 
 
HOSPITAL OF THE PILGRIMS. 123 
 
 procession of Cardinals, gave splendor and infinite variety to the 
 scene, while in one of the side aisles, the Brethren of Mercy, in 
 their hideous black dominoes, looking like story-book pictures of 
 devils more than anything else, came on in slow march, bearing 
 banners, crucifixes, and lamps, — the most unearthly procession 
 conceivable. The Pope himself did not come to worship ths 
 relics after all ; the duties of the holy week are extremely ardu- 
 ous, and the poor old gentleman was too much exhausted to go 
 through this part of the ceremonies of the day. At a high sort 
 of balcony, looking down upon the baldacchino over the high 
 altar, some priests now appeared, and walking backwards and 
 forwards, paraded something in their hands to the eyes of tho 
 devout and edified crowd ; all went down on their knees, but as 
 the objects they professed to see were at a height of at least a 
 hundred feet above them, my eyes would not serve me, and hav- 
 ing thus neither sight nor faith, I cannot tell what was exhibited 
 at that exalted station. No sooner had the crowd dispersed after 
 this ceremonial, than we hurried to our carriage, and drove to 
 
 the house of Monsignore , who had obligingly promised 
 
 to obtain an entrance for us at the Hospital of the Pilgrims, to 
 see the ceremony of washing their feet ; we went thither ac- 
 cordingly, and, parting from our male companions at the door, 
 who were taken on one side to see the ceremony performed by 
 the Roman gentlemen upon the feet of the male pilgrims, we 
 were introduced into the female department of the Charity by 
 
 Monsignore , who, in a sort of geranium-colored calico 
 
 blouse, with a white apron over it, ushered us into an apartment, 
 where the door was kept by another church dignitary, similarly 
 accoutred. Here we found ourselves in the midst of the chari. 
 table sisterhood of which I spoke yesterday, whose members re- 
 ceived the pilgrims, and led them up the church of St. Peter's. 
 These ladies vv-ere attired all of them either in colored cotton 
 gowns, or black silk ; over their dresses they all had red aprons, 
 
124 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 with a large badge or device, probably that of the Charity they 
 belong to, fastened upon the breast. This association is extremely 
 numerous, and includes women of various ranks in society. One 
 
 of the principal members of it is the Princess , who was 
 
 pointed out to me with an air of great satisfaction by one of the 
 humbler members of the sisterhood. Upon our entrance we 
 were led down into a lower room, where two long tables were 
 being laid for the pilgrims, who were to eat the supper provided 
 for them there after their feet had been washed ; we were inclosed 
 in a sort of narrow alley between these two hospitable boards. 
 The space was crowded with visitors like ourselves, most of 
 them Englishwomen, and I again had to admire sorrowfully 
 the exquisite bad taste of their deportment, and the comments 
 they indulged in upon everything about them ; but especially the 
 dress, air, manner and looks of the gentlemen, who, in the livery 
 of the Charity, i. e., the red blouse and white apron, guarded the 
 outer door, through which we were to pass to the washing apart- 
 ment, and who, when all things were in a due state of prepara- 
 tion, removed a bar and permitted our egress, not without, how- 
 ever, repeated and most necessary entreaties to the lady visit- 
 ors that they would proceed gently and in order. We 
 descended a narrow stairs, lined with ladies in their charity 
 costume, and arrived at a low white-washed room with a 
 stone floor, around which ran a wooden bench, upon which, with 
 their shoes and stockings off, sat a number of the poor women for 
 whose supposed benefit the ceremony was about to take place. 
 I am compelled to say supposed, for I think that nobody, looking 
 at the whole scene with the eye of common sense, would have 
 seen anything but awkwardness, embarrassment, and a sort of 
 terrified surprise, fatigue, and shy dismay, depicted on the coun- 
 tenances of the poor creatures, as they sat with bare feet, the 
 gaze of the mob of chattering, giggling women, who filled the 
 room. It is a rule that each of these pilgrims must have walked 
 
HOSPITAL OF THE PILGRIMS. 125 
 
 a hundred miles to entitle them to the hospitality of this institu- 
 tion, which, besides the problematical comfort of this public feet- 
 washing, provides them with the less doubtful accommodation of 
 food and lodging for three days. Most of these poor creatures 
 were in the meanest and coarsest peasant's apparel : their filthy 
 shoes and stockings lay beside them, ready to cover again the 
 feet after the unwonted ablution ; many of them looked ill and 
 faint, all of them weary and stupified with the strangeness of the 
 scene, in which they appeared most confused and suffering 
 actors. Before each of them knelt the lady who was to wash 
 their feet, with hands crossed upon her breast in the attitude of 
 prayer. In the midst of the room swarmed and flitted, like a 
 parcel of flies, the foreign gazers, and to and fro, through the idle 
 crowd, like so many bees, buzzed and hummed, upon their busy 
 errand of charity, the red-apron'd ladies hospitallers. Presently 
 one of the gentlemen in a blouse (I presume of course a priest) 
 appeared ; he pronounced a sliort prayer, and the word of com- 
 mand, " Lavate," was given, when the process of cleansing 
 began, during which the same minister read aloud from an open 
 book, and by the light of the candle held b^/ one of the officiating 
 ladies, a sort of church service, which lasted while the washing 
 went on. When it was over with this set, — for the number being 
 more than the room could accommodate, they came down by 
 relays from the chamber above — we withdrew to the supper- 
 rooms to see the preparations for their refreshment. We were 
 informed that between two and three hundred pilgrims had 
 arrived the evening before — as many this evening ; and that a 
 still greater number might be expected to-morrow, — the last day 
 of the Holy Week, and of their hospitable reception. The scene 
 in the great supper-room was curious in the extreme, and must 
 have been extremely gratifying to those who, like , par- 
 ticularly desired to see a real princess perform the offices of a 
 servant-maid. The tables were set, knives and forks, plates. 
 
126 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 spoons, and glasses, all placed in order by ladies of various ranks 
 of nobility, and great trays full of dishes of food were brought in, 
 in apparently endless succession, and their contents deposited on 
 the long tables by the same noble and gentle personages. The 
 young girls, of whom there were a great number, who, in the 
 uniform of the Charity, bustled about, laughing, talking, and 
 apparently enjoying extremely their temporary transformation 
 into waiting- women, gave great liveliness and animation to the 
 scene ; while to the elder ladies it appeared a rather more 
 onerous duty, especially as the vast room was filled to suffoca- 
 tion with visitors, many of w^hom were their personal acquaint- 
 ance, to whom they had to do the honors of the sight, and 
 between whom and the pilgrims their attentions were divided 
 with infinite zeal and alacrity : they must have been most dread- 
 fully tired, I am sure ; for the din, and confusion, and hot air of 
 human breath, and steam of food, and smell of dirty fellow- 
 creatures (I I'egret to say it, pilgrims though they were), almost 
 made me faint. In one room the poor creatures who had gone 
 through their washing, were ail penned up together like so many 
 cattle ; and, indeed, they looked like nothing but frightened sheep 
 and cows, and so weary were they with their long foot-travel and 
 these prolonged ceremonies, that many of them fell together in 
 deep sleep, and could hardly be awakened when the numerous 
 preparations for their supper were at an end, and they were 
 called to take their places at the tables. Even then, with the 
 savory and smoking plate of soup under their noses, there 
 occurred a most tantalizins; delay of some time, occasioned by the 
 non-arrival of the Cardinal whose special office it M'as to pro- 
 nounce a benediction upon the food placed before them. This 
 dignitary having finally arrived, and the blessing being duly 
 uttered, we departed, leaving the hungry to the enjoyment of 
 their meal, and the charitable to the consciousness of their virtue. 
 Of the merit of charity and hospitality thus exercised I say 
 
I 
 
 CELEBRATION OF EASTER-DAY. 127 
 
 nothing. I went to see the ceren:iony as a sight, and a most 
 curious sight indeed it was, — illustrating in the most striking 
 manner the very different views of duty which the human mind 
 accepts ; but certainly not deriving much of its edification from 
 the fulfilment of that injunction which forbids that the left hand 
 should know the good that the right hand does. 
 
 Saturday Morning. — We were alarmed and astonished at a 
 perpetual and almost universal discharge of guns, and squibs, 
 and crackers. Upon inquiry I found that these demonstrations 
 were in honor of Easter-day — which, indeed, is only to-morrow ; 
 but the days of the Holy Week not sufficing for all the religious 
 ceremonies and celebrations which are performed in them, 
 many of them are shifted from the days to which they properly 
 belong, to other seasons when they can be more conveniently 
 accomplished. To-day, therefore, being the day before Easter- 
 day, those squibs and crackers were fired off in honor of the 
 Resurrection, the proper commemoration of which does not, of 
 course, occur till to-morrow. The fashion which prevails in 
 America of firing out the old, and in the New Year, with guns 
 and rockets, &c., always appeared to me singularly irreverent 
 and inappropriate ; but this mode of celebrating the day of 
 Christ's victory over the grave, struck me as ludicrous in the 
 extreme ; and when a whole fringe of squibs which our own 
 servants had affixed to the balustrade of our terrace-garden, 
 went off in detestable succession, the inappropriateness of this 
 homage to the solemnity of the occasion was most absurd and 
 annoying. To-day was a sort of climax to the religious carni- 
 val of the whole week, and the number of sights to be seen in 
 the shape of strange religious ceremonies was really quite em- 
 barrassing. The eagerness with which Monsignorc urged 
 
 upon us the curiosity and beauty of these various holy spectacles 
 struck me as very strange. I find it difficult to imagine that 
 frame of mind which rejoices in the unsympathizing presence 
 
12S A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 of crowds of strangers at the sacred services of one's religion ; 
 and it is always a marvel to me that the Catholic clergy, and 
 even the people themselves, do not object to the careless show 
 which foreigners make of their places of worship and religious 
 ceremonies. To be sure, foreigners are a very considerable item 
 of profit to the Roman people and Catholic places of worship, 
 and so the thina; resolves itself into natural elements. On the 
 day before Easter, every year, a Jew is converted to the Roman 
 Catholic faith, whose christening in the splendid Baptistry of 
 St. John Lateran, is one of the great spectacles of the day. 
 The invariable occurrence of the annual Jew, whose yearly 
 conversion happens so opportunely, might give cavillers ground 
 for objection ; but as it was determined that we should not attend 
 this performance, I had no opportunity of asking any of the 
 many questions that the mere account of the celebration sug- 
 gested. I thought of and the compassionate sorrow that 
 
 would have shaded her noble and beautiful face, at this instance 
 of faithlessness in one of her race. How strange a thing is the 
 human mind — how curious this love of conquest and of power, 
 extending even into the abstract regions of religious faith, and 
 imposing certain laws upon the thoughts and feelings of the 
 conquered ! I wonder in how many centuries of centuries 
 Christians will believe, and above all, and allow that the service 
 of God is perfect freedom. 
 
 Monsignore persuaded us to go to-day to the Arme- 
 nian Church, where, by his account, the celebrations and ser- 
 vices were remarkably beautiful and imposing. Thither accord- 
 ingly we went, and were conducted into a very small church or 
 chapel, formed in every respect like a theatre. In front of the 
 benches, which occupied the floor of the room, and which exactly 
 resembled the arrangement and furnishing of a pit, was a row 
 of arm-chairs, reserved seats or stalls, for certain high church 
 dignitaries ; immediately before these rose a sort of stage, with 
 
THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 129 
 
 two columns forming exactly a proscenium, between which was 
 hung a curtain of gaudy-colored flowered calico. In front of 
 this curtain was a small portable reading-desk ; to the right and 
 left of the walls were gaudy pictures and tawdry altars, and, 
 compared with th"^ splendid decorations of the Roman Catholic 
 churches, the whole thing appeared like one of the theatres on 
 the Boulevards at Paris, compared with the Academic Royale. 
 At the back of the pit was a low sort of wooden screen, and be- 
 tween this and the gate which opened upon the street, a nume- 
 rous, noisy, dirty crowd of gaping spectators pressed themselves 
 with unceremonious curiosity. After waiting a long while for 
 the service to begin, a priest, in an extremely gay dress of 
 pink and green satin, profusely embroidered with gold and silver, 
 came from behind the curtain, and opening a book on the desk — 
 the Scriptures, I believe — began reading, or rather chanting 
 aloud in a most monotonous nasal tone, which was as unpleasant 
 as ludicrous to ears unaccustomed to it. This chanting lasted a 
 very long time, and towards the end of it, five other priests came 
 also from behind the curtain and stationed themselves in front of 
 it, joining their voices in alternate responses to the performance 
 of their predecessor. At length the calico curtains were drawn 
 aside, and the high altar was revealed, with the primate or high 
 priest most gorgeously adorned, standing in front of it, supported 
 by two other priests in almost equally splendid dresses. This 
 priest had been pointed out to me in the gardens of the Villa 
 Borghese one day, and I had then been struck with his extremely 
 fine head and face, and the picturesque dignity of his whole 
 appearance ; to-day, therefore, in his shining gold and silver 
 robes, and peculiar-shaped rich mitre, the whole effect of his 
 person was most striking. The dresses of all the priests were 
 extremely gorgeous ; but it irked me excessively, under the 
 green, and pink, and yellow satin robes of the choristers and 
 assistants, to detect the dirty stockings and coarse boots ar 
 
130 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 shoes of common every-day modern attire ; the whole thing was 
 so like an indifferent theatrical spectacle, where the very same 
 show of dirty boots and shoes, and trowser legs, obtrudes itself 
 below the costumes of some splendid Eastern guard, or Roman 
 senator's red-striped toga. The service now performed by these 
 priests exceeded in the grotesqueness of the intonations in which 
 it was chanted anything I ever heard, or could have surmised ; 
 and in spite of the most serious annoyance at experiencing such 
 an effect from any worship, I found myself almost in convulsions 
 of suppressed laughter, which I in vain endeavored to control or 
 conceal, and which painfully seized and shook me from head to 
 foot, at each renewal, after a pause of these extraordinary 
 sounds. I have seen ihe uncouth and hideous religious gambols 
 of the Shaking Quakers, but even their most grotesque worship did 
 not affect me as the howlinof and whining; and nasal droning of 
 this extraordinary Armenian service. I dared not look either to 
 the right or the left, and was in terror lest, by some sudden ex- 
 plosion of laughter, I should disgrace myself among my compa- 
 nions, and desecrate the solemnity. How I did repent coming to 
 a church out of curiosity ! No description can give any cor- 
 rect idea ot these singular sounds, which began in a discordant 
 plaintive whine through the nose by one priest at a time, and 
 gradually swelled to a sort of howl or yell by the joining in of 
 the others, and then it died away in quavering uncertainty, and 
 then rose again in the same solitary disconsolate whine. How 
 they ever learn to do it, or having learnt remember how to do it 
 right, — if there is a right or a wrong, or if the whole be not one 
 grand nasal ad libitum, — were ideas which, in the interval of my 
 inward spasms of laughter, exercised my mind extremely ; it is 
 impossible to experience a greater sense of relief than I did when 
 
 the whole was ended. said the chantinj? bore a strons; 
 
 resemblance to certain musical performances of the Arabs. It 
 is curious that among the things borne round the altar in their 
 
THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 131 
 
 various processions by the priests, were some cymbals of an ex- 
 tremely ancient form, resembling very nearly certain Egyptian 
 instruments used in the sacred ceremonies of Isis. The windins: 
 up of this extraordinary exhibition was worthy of the whole. 
 . One of the priests came forward with a basket of consecrated 
 . wafers, of which he presented one to each of the personages in 
 the front row of the congregation ; an immediate rush of the 
 whole assembly followed ; the basket and priest were all but 
 annihilated ; people got upon chairs and benches, and pushed 
 each other, and thrust themselves, and struggled, and kicked, and 
 fought for these wafers ; one poor man was thrown down, and in 
 great danger of being converted into instantaneous dust under 
 the feet of the pious crowd, and it was not without considerable 
 difficulty, that, without venturing to make the slightest preten- 
 sions to the possession of a holy wafer, we extricated ourselves, 
 and made good our retreat with life and limb from the holy tu- 
 mult. I was extremely amused before the services began, and 
 while we were silently waiting for their commencement, at ob- 
 serving a furious dumb dispute going on between an impudent 
 brazen-looking Italian, and a spiteful sour-faced Englishwoman, 
 for a chair, which the former had seized upon, and though, not 
 using, chose to retain, and to which the latter kept giving a 
 series of persistive pertinacious twitches, in spite of the dragon 
 glances by which it was forbidden her to touch it. The counte- 
 nances of the two women, too, were comical ; the audacious 
 effrontery of the one, the bitter sharp insistive determination of 
 the other ; it was really a most curious scene ; the Italian had 
 the best of it. In the first place, she had original possession of 
 the chair, and so the Englishwoman's case was hopeless ; but 
 she comforted herself by keeping her fingers tight clenched upon 
 the back of it, and her curds-and-whey face, with its pale unripe 
 blue eyes, and thin compressed lips, fastened with a sort of spiteful 
 fascination upon the coarse bronzed features of her antagonist. 
 
132 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 did not dine at home to-day, having appointed to go 
 
 with his uncle to a certain church where the congregation, of 
 men only, perform on this evening of the year a holy flagella- 
 tion upon themselves. The lights at a given signal are extin- 
 guished, and, during a loud voiced exhortation from the pulpit, a 
 castigation of about ten minutes is zealously carried forward by 
 the devoutly-disposed, who are furnished with ropes'-ends or 
 leathern thongs for this purpose, to the considerable peril of 
 unparticipating assistants, v/ho occasionally receive some of the 
 blows intended for the self-edification of the performers. 
 . and his uncle protected their faces with their hats, 
 
 under this apprehension ; and, by his account, the ceremony 
 must have been a very curious one. 
 
 The moon being nearly full, we drove to the Coliseum, and 
 the change of associations and impressions from all these sense- 
 less observances, and the gaudy, and, at the same time, mean 
 church pageants we had been seeing, to the still solemnity 
 of beautiful night among those sublime ruins, was most impres- 
 sive. We wandered up and down the vast area, all flooded 
 with the soft light which had wooed forth numbers like our- 
 selves to the enjoyment of the beautiful scene. The gro ips 
 that passed and re-passed us spoke all the languages of Europe — 
 French, German, English, Russian — and it was a strange thing 
 to see them lingering round the Cross that marks the centre 
 of the great slaughter-ground where the barbarian forefathers 
 of their races made sport with their death agonies for the great 
 Roman people. I often think, if I were a modern Italian, but 
 especially one of those who live under the Austrian yoke, my 
 principal enjoyment would be looking at the statue of the Dying 
 Gladiator, in the Capitol, and remembering the time when the 
 hordes of Germanic tribes furnished the lives that were sacrificed 
 for " a Roman holiday." This is not very amiable ; but I am 
 aii'aid, if I were an Italian, I should rather incline to such senti- 
 
ASPIRATIONS AFTER PERFECTION. 133 
 
 ments, and yet the wiser among them may well take patience — 
 the great field of Roman glory is but lying fallow. For the full 
 . ipening of such a power as that colossal empire, how may hun- 
 dreds of years were needed ? — there must be a proportionate time 
 of rest before the people of those lands can re-produce the elements 
 of political greatness. The priest-ridden ignorance and supersti- 
 tion, the laziness, the imbecility of the present government, are 
 but like the dung spread over the soil ; the seeds ferment below 
 that shall again cover these glorious countries with the noblest 
 harvests of humanity ; for in the moral, as the physical 
 world, corruption is the cause of regeneration, just, unfortu- 
 nately, as in civilization, ripeness has hitherto preceded rotten- 
 ness but by a little space. It yet remains to be proved if 
 Christianity, when it shall have begun to actuate nations, as well 
 as individuals, cannot prevent this hitherto infallible progress. 
 
 To return to Rome : said, that drawing among the 
 
 ruins of the Palace of the CfRsars, made him sad to think 
 of the great glories past, the present shame. As a Roman 
 I too should feel sad, and I do pity those of her sons who 
 have a consciousness of her degradation ; for God may well 
 be patient with defect, whose absolute perfection surveys 
 time but as a part, while we, shut in within the limits of our 
 span-short life, would have the great world-picture complete be- 
 fore us, and every individual life about us perfect; because the 
 smallest particle of that part — Time — is all that we inherit here. 
 Nor is it impatience of incompleteness and defect alone that 
 makes our discontent — it is the dear desire of perfection, the 
 charter of our immortality, the title-deed and proof of our own 
 power of progress, that causes the discontent of the soul, that, 
 like a defeated heir, is condemned to toil upon a narrow corner 
 of its own wide and rich inheritance. As a pilgrim, however, 
 to this land of noble memories, I look with hopeful eyes upon the 
 mental and mortal torpor that brood over it. This swoon is but 
 
134 
 
 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 for a time ; it is a deep sleep, in which strength is gradually 
 gathered for a resurrection ; the smouldering fire of liberty lies 
 under the dust and ashes that cover it, and every now and then 
 the sparks escape, and lambent flames play here and there about 
 the embers, that give token of the light and heat within, and 
 foretell the ultimate blaze that shall break forth and irradiate 
 this garden of the earth. To return to the Coliseum : many 
 parties were wandering separately above and below through the 
 ruined arches of the building, and the contrasts of light produced 
 by the white moonlight, and the ruddy glow of the torches pass- 
 ing along the passages and up the flights of steps, together with 
 the shadowy figures preceding and following them, were won- 
 derfully beautiful. After wandering round, we sat down and 
 rested awhile on some fallen fragments of columns. How many 
 thoughts were suggested by the solemn scene and season, now at 
 this great rejoicing time of the followers of Christ ! How strange 
 it was for us to sit here, where his early confessors sealed their 
 despised faith with their lives ! How that triumphant cross, 
 whose sanctity now guards the grand heathen ruin crumbling 
 round it, carried back one's mind to the victims, whose blood was 
 poured out like water upon the very soil where it now stands ! 
 Imagination suggested the spirits of these holy martyrs now at 
 this sacred season hovering over this scene of their agony, and 
 the wondrous world-history unrolled itself back to that most 
 wondrous page in it, the crucifixion of the despised Nazarene, 
 whose worship, like the gradual growing of the light of day, is 
 spreading itself abroad over all the nations of the earth. After 
 leaving this wonderful place — thrice wonderful ! thrice beauti- 
 ful ! — we proceeded home through the Forum, and here we 
 stopped the carriage again, and paused to look round and remem- 
 ber. Visions of the old glorious Rome rose before us in the clear 
 moonlight — the joyful procession of those early conquerors, in 
 the fabulous times of her history — the white-robed Roman youths 
 
FASTER EVE. 135 
 
 marching from Veii, and bearmg the image of Juno Regina to 
 her new temple on the Capitol — the blue-eyed wondering Gauls, 
 wandering through the deserted streets and places, and gazing 
 up, even as we then did, at the fortress that then held within its 
 narrow precincts the future hopes and fortunes of Rome, and 
 folded, as within its kernel, the great future tree, that life of con- 
 quest and renown, whose rumor still fills the world — that Caesar 
 who was to subjugate their tribes with his sword, and chronicle 
 them with his pen. Then floating down the broader, brighter 
 stream of history, we thought of the tumult, the alarm, the rush- 
 ing of people, the stir of voices, and the tramp of hurrying feet, 
 when Brutus, waving his dagger above his head, red with that 
 very conqueror's blood, and followed by the mas-s of the whole 
 Senate, came down to quell the raging of the people, and justify 
 the murder of their idol. What place was ever yet so rich in 
 memory, so full of thought ! After leaving this consecrated 
 quarter of Rome — no offence to St. Peter's or the Vatican — it 
 was strange enough to drive along the streets full of holiday 
 j folks on Easter-eve errands. The cheese and bacon shops pre- 
 sented a most peculiar aspect ; they were hung with garlands, 
 frescoes were painted all down the sides of the flitches of bacon, 
 and between the rows of symmetrically-arranged cheese, little 
 flaring lamps were placed, giving to the whole shop a brilliancy 
 of illumination little short of a prophecy of the lighting up of St. 
 Peter's to-morrow. The pastrycooks' shops are full of holy 
 symbols done in comfits ; and lambs bearing crosses, and doves 
 and triangles surrounded with glories, and other mystical types 
 of the holiest things of the Christian faith, are exposed in sugar 
 and butter to tempt the appetites of the devoutly-disposed. 
 Great baskets full of the Easter eggs stand at the shop-doors, 
 and the pervading love of ornament of this most ornamental 
 people has even extended itself to the decking of these with little 
 bunches of artificial flowers and tufts of feathers. I cannot say, 
 
13Q A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 however, that they were by any means as beautiful as the 
 
 elegant and splendid Easter eggs which brought with 
 
 her from Russia. 
 
 END OF VOL. 
 
A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
YEAR OF CONSOLATION 
 
 BY MRS. BUTLER, 
 
 LATE FANNY KEMBLE. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. IL 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 WILEY & PUTNAM, 161 BROADWAY 
 
 1847. 
 
ROBERT CRAIGHEAD, PRINTKR, 
 112 rCLTON STREET. 
 
 T. B. SMITH, STERKOTYPER, 
 216 WILLIAM STREET. 
 
 I 
 
A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Easter Sunday. — I was not well, and missed the great climax 
 of the holy ceremonies — the Pope's blessing of the people. From 
 the terrace of the Villa Medici, I watched the sudden gleams 
 and slow curling clouds from the cannons of the castle of St. An- 
 gelo, which proclaimed the universal benediction. To be blessed 
 by sound of cannon, seemed to me strange, especially by Christ's 
 Vicar, and in Christ's name ; but to be blessed, at any rate, is 
 something, and that the city and the world have been by word 
 of Pope this day. Jn the evening we drove to St. Peter's, to see 
 the illumination, the stream of human life setting in from every 
 avenue, and street, and alley, and gathering as it rolled towards 
 one common point, the multitudinous voices of all these living 
 rills, as they poured down beside our carriage, — the flaring lights 
 of the windows, which were filled with people, whose bodies 
 were all eagerly stretched towards the quarter of St. Peter's, 
 and whose faces, as we drew nearer the great illumination, were 
 shining as with the light of day ; all presented a most curious 
 and exciting spectacle. At length we reached the end of the 
 street of the Borgio di San Spirito, and debouched together with 
 the crowds of pedestrians abreast of us in the great place of St. 
 Peter's ; the vast and noble church, and graceful colonnades, 
 with their outline defined in pale white fire ; the springing spray 
 of the beautiful fountains turned into showers of yellow light ; 
 the huge mass of compact blackness formed by the thousands of 
 spectators ; the confused jarring and rattling and hurtling of the 
 
6 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 crowded carriages ; the rearing and backing of the horses ; the 
 outcries and violent movements of the mounted police, whose 
 drawn sabres and accoutrements glittered in the pervading light ; 
 above all, the sea of upturned wondering human faces all flooded 
 with it, and the hoarse murmur, like the great voice of the ocean, 
 rising from this mass of people, that rolled its black billows to 
 and fro, as the sudden breaking of some carriage from the ranks, 
 or darting forward of some trooper to intercept it, caused them 
 to recede or advance, was all indescribably strange and striking. 
 We sat for some time gazing with undiminished wonder and ad- 
 miration, when the great bell of St. Peter's tolled the hour. 
 Suddenly the cornices, the friezes, the pediment, the dome, the 
 lantern, the very ball and cross, high up in the dizzy neighbor- 
 hood of the stars, became alive with human figures; men, reduc- 
 ed by their fearful height above us to the size of black pigmies, 
 ran like so many glow-worms, each carrying a light, all over the 
 huge fabric, and the hitherto pale illumination became fiery red 
 in the twinkling of an eye — it was marvellous ! Five hundred 
 men are thus employed twice every year, Easter-day and on the 
 Feast of St. Peter's : for three days previous they are not per- 
 mitted to touch wine, and they all confess and receive absolution 
 before ascending to their perilous task. After blunting the edge 
 of our amazement with gazing, — to have exhausted it would have 
 been impossible — we turned homewards. Our carriage rolled 
 slowly, or rather waded, through the crowded streets at a foot- 
 pace, and when we came to the Ponte Sisto we beheld another 
 illumination, which turned the pageant we had just seen into a 
 splendid tawdry toy. The full moon hung above the river in a 
 sea of mellow light, indescribably soft and powerful ; the purple 
 line of the Alban hills was distinctly visible against the pearly 
 horizon, while the roses in the gardens, near the bridge, showed 
 their colors as though by day, so potent was the moonlight, — with 
 us, so wan and colorless. Opposite this great and lovely glory, 
 
ROMAN FISH-MARKET. 
 
 St. Peter's flamed in the distance like a huge gold filigree thim- 
 ble. The pageant vouchsafed to us nightly is a fine thing ; it is 
 well to see it confronting the yearly pageant of the great church 
 of Rome, to be reminded how fine, — what an insensible, brutish, 
 dull, irreverend thing is custom. Coming home we found a per- 
 fect opera congregation of carriages on the Pincio, a sort of Hay- 
 market and King Street row. The view of St. Peter's is very 
 fine from here, and many people had driven up to enjoy it. I 
 went to my stand on the terrace of our charming little garden, 
 and here looked up at the moon and down at St. Peter's, till the 
 rolling wheels had all rattled away, and the shuffling feet all de- 
 parted, and the sound of the fountain in the Piazza di Spagna 
 came up to answer the tiny tinkle of the fountain in the garden, 
 whose roses and orange blossoms and thousand cups of incense 
 were sending up fragrance into the night air like prayer. 
 
 IMPROMPTU. 
 
 Sorrow and sin, and suffering and strife, 
 
 Have been cast in the waters of my life ; 
 
 And they have sunk deep down to the well-head, 
 
 And all that flows thence is embittered. 
 
 Yet still the fountain up towards Heaven springs, 
 
 And still tlie brook where'er it wanders sings ; 
 
 And still where'er it hath found leave to rest, 
 
 The blessed sun looks down into its breast ; 
 
 And it reflects, as in a mirror fair, 
 
 The image of all beauty shining there. 
 
 April I9th. — In my walk before breakfast, this morning, I 
 penetrated to the Roman fish-market, whither I advise no one 
 else *o penetrate who is not curious in foul sights and smells. I 
 think it is the only open space that I have yet seen in Rome 
 
8 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 without a fountain. As for the fisli itself, except a few monstrous 
 and vicious-looking conger eels, I saw none. A row of little 
 mean stalls, most of which, however, were shut up, entitled the 
 place, I presume, to its appellation ; but the only fish 1 saw for 
 sale, were heaps of little scaly nondescripts, lying in uncleanly 
 flat baskets, bought by filthy purchasers of filthy venders, and, 
 thinking upon Hungerford Market and Mr. Grove's, I made my 
 escape. Rome is certainly not famous for fish, although they 
 have some that are not despicable — sardines of excellent flavor, 
 very good mullet, and a species of fish of which I do not know 
 tlje English name (indeed I do not think we have it), but which 
 resembles very much the shad of the North American waters, 
 
 and is a very good creature. dined with us. We had 
 
 some talk about the state of politics here, as it affects personal 
 freedom, liberty of discussion, and so forth, and his account was 
 
 less favorable than that of , of the condition of the Romans 
 
 in this respect. To be sure the latter compares Rome with the 
 Austrian Italian governments, and I suppose the service of the 
 Pope is really perfect freedom compared with that of the Em- 
 peror. At dinner we had some interesting talk about art and 
 
 phrenology. still remains a believer in the latter; 
 
 is absolutely sceptical (as I think he is in most matters) ; and I 
 (as I do in most matters) remain suspended, like Mahomet's cof- 
 fin, between belief and incredulity : mention being made of the 
 fine skull which was found some years ago in Rome, and sup- 
 posed for a time to be Raphael's, and upon a cast from which, as 
 Raphael's, I remember gave me a long lecture, illus- 
 trative of the truths of phrenology ; it now appears that the skull 
 is not Raphael's, but that of his intimate friend, the learned, 
 
 amiable, and accomplished ^ — , founder of the Academy of 
 
 St. Luke. After dinner, we proceeded to the Vatican to see the 
 statues by torch-light ; I had not yet seen them by any light, and 
 felt a sort of nervous trepidation at the great pleasure I antici- 
 
VISIT TO THE VATICAN BY TORCH LIGHT. 9 
 
 pated. Arrived under the colonnade of St. Peter's, we sat down 
 on one of the benches appropriated to the Swiss guard, to wait 
 for the rest of our party. The middle-age dress of these soldiers 
 delights me, and has a double charm of association for me — that 
 of the days of the battle of the Spurs, and of the noble encoun- 
 ters of the Swiss with the French armies under Louis the Twelfth 
 and Francis the First ; and it also recalls a charming edition of 
 some military work of Vauban's in my father's library, full of 
 incomprehensible tactics and coarse wood cuts, with squares, and 
 rounds, and octagons, and pentagons, and every conceivable 
 figure made of little hallebardiers in this very dress ; and end- 
 less plans of fortifications, manned in every direction with this 
 
 identical cut of doublet and trunk-hose. By degrees and 
 
 her daughters , and a couple of French ladies, friends of 
 
 , joined us ; one of the latter was introduced as a stranger 
 
 to my sister, and made conversation with her till our party was 
 complete in a voix glapissante, and with an accent criard such as 
 I thought no woman of good society in France could be guilty 
 of; the presence of this lady was, I presume, the inevitable 
 earthly alloy to the delight of seeing the statues of the Vatican 
 for the first time : those that principally charmed me, were a 
 
 noble Minerva, who was extremely like , and it is curious 
 
 enough that all the antique heads of Minerva are more or less 
 like her ; there is the same fineness of features and sternness of 
 expression ; the moral suitability of the resemblance pleases me 
 amazingly ; the beautiful little head of Augustus, which is beau- 
 tiful in itself, beautiful as art, and exceedingly like Napoleon ; 
 the Mercury called Antinous, which however I do not admire 
 as much as that of the Capitol ; the sleeping Ariadne ; the Eros, 
 or, as they now call it, the Genius of the Vatican, that exquisitely 
 ideal head ; the brother of my Goddess, the Neapolitan Psyche ; 
 and' last the Apollo ; as for this, from the moment I set my feet in 
 the Vatican I was possessed with a sort of nervous terror lest I 
 
 1* 
 
10 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 should be utterly disappointed in it ; this feeling increased with 
 every chamber I entered, to such a degree as to cause me to feel 
 absolutely sick with excitement ; I feared to look round each 
 new room lest I should confront this great divinity, and remain 
 unmoved ; each time I experienced a sense of absolute relief 
 when I found we had not yet reached that shrine, and I believe 
 if it had been proposed to me to leave the Vatican without see- 
 ing the Apollo at all I should have been well pleased to have 
 done so ; and yet for all future time I shall know better. AH 
 that has been written, all that has been said, all that has been 
 copied in drawing, painting, or sculpture, of this wonderful sta- 
 tue, has left the marvel of its beauty unimpaired ; no foreknow- 
 ledge can prepare one for it, nor any description give one an 
 idea of its grace and lightness, nor any number of ecstasies rub 
 off the bloom of its divinity. I could believe the legend of the 
 girl who died for love of it ; for myself, my eyes swam in tears 
 and my knees knocked together, and I could hardly draw my 
 breath while I stood before it ; the guides held up torches to 
 show the light through the marble drapery, while I was dazzled 
 with the light shining through the marble face ; — and the French 
 lady emitted opinions in a voice as sharp as needle-points. Hea- 
 ven ! what a witness to the glory of the human soul is such a 
 conception as this ! Man's thought devised, man's fingers 
 wrought this god ! This perfect creation had its origin in the 
 yet fairer idea of a man's brain, for who yet ever worked as he 
 imagined ! There was a lovelier and a grander shape in the 
 mind of him who made this, than even this, that he has made I 
 Oh, well, well may we thank the only true God for being formed 
 capable of such things. I have no words to speak my sense of 
 gratitude for these new revelations of beauty and of grace, 
 vouchsafed to me in this the very mourning-time of my life — 
 angels have ministered, do minister, to me incessantly, and this 
 enchanting presence, this divinity of the beauty-worshipping 
 
ABUNDANCE OF VEGETABLES. 
 
 heathens, is to me a very messenger of my God bidding me 
 bless him who hath permitted me to behold it ! 
 
 Sunday, 20th April. — Seduced by a sweet-sounding name, 
 Campo de Fiori, I set out before breakfasi to seek, as I supposed, 
 a flower-market. I found an open squa.'e, with certainly one 
 very fine geranium, covered with jets of flame-colored flowers, 
 blooming over a sort of cobbler's stall ; the rest of the square was 
 filled with dirty shops, dirty people, dirty smells, and nothing 
 else. I perceived in passing through the streets, that the mar- 
 keting, usually done with us on Saturday evening among the 
 lower classes, was being busily carried forward to-day among 
 the same order in Rome. The abundance of capital, fine, fresh 
 vegetables in Rome is a source of great satisfaction to me ; I 
 do not mean to my taste merely, but to my eyes, and above all, 
 my humanity. These beneficent products of the earth exist 
 here in a plenteousness and variety quite unknown to our poor 
 English. The supply of the midland States of America 
 is very much the same ; there appears to be no special mar- 
 ket for vegetables here, like Covent-garden with us, but what 
 we should call the green-grocers' shops, present a beautiful array 
 of clean and fresh-looking vegetables ; and abounding, unforced, 
 and above all, not paid for at the price of gold, the bounteous 
 season has already produced here strawberries, and new pota- 
 toes, cheap enough for the use of all classes, not to be looked at 
 and longed for, by those who fast, and feasted on by those who 
 surfeit. 
 
 Among the vegetables which load the stalls at the street cor- 
 ners, I perceive one here with which I am unacquainted ; it is 
 the root of the fennel, whose green delicate foliage is for some 
 reason inseparably associated in one's stomach, and therefore 
 one's mind, with boiled mackerel. We had some at dinner the 
 other day ; it was stewed like celery, and was not otherwise than 
 very good. The stalls, where the frying of fish is carried on in 
 
12 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 the streets, amuse me excessively. The whole process has, 
 strange to say, a cleanly and inviting appearance, and the groups 
 occupied in cooking and in eating at these booths, with their 
 green bowers of branches, and colored paper lamps, would make 
 most capital and spirited sketches if they could be faithfully co- 
 pied. In a country where fruit and vegetables are abundant and 
 cheap, I know nothing prettier or more pleasant than the sight 
 of a fine market ; the beautiful colors, graceful forms, and 
 sweet smells, are most agreeable ; and the beneficence that pro- 
 vides this plenty is naturally suggested to a thankful mind, where 
 there does not exist, as with us, such a cruel disparity in the 
 means of the purchasers. The market in Philadelphia is one 
 of the cheapest and most abundant I have ever seen, and I 
 know few more satisfactory sights than that which it presents at 
 Midsummer, with its great baskets of precious-looking tomatoes ; 
 piles of Indian corn, like strings of Roman pearl ; heaps of the 
 finest purple polished egg plant ; huge water melons, cut to 
 show the firmness and freshness of their quality, with that beau- 
 tiful combination of colors, the dark-green rind, the rosy pulp, 
 and shining jet-black seeds ; and then the mountains of downy 
 peaches, of every conceivable tint, from a sort of purple pink, to 
 a warm gold color ; these interspersed with huge fan-like nose- 
 gays of dahlias, bunches of jasmine, and heavy-leaved magnolias, 
 and fragrant tube-roses, have often caused me mentally to ex«- 
 claim : — " Thou openest Thine hand, and fillest all things living 
 with plenteousness !" It is very pleasant to live in a country 
 where there is great abundance, and little poverty, though the 
 one does not by any means make the other, and that this fertile 
 land of Italy testifies, where, in the midst of their olive and vine- 
 yards, and golden harvests, and smiling orchards, the people go 
 ragged, and squalid, and miserable-loc'dng — working, and beg- 
 ging too — a most degraded race, whose lovely country seems 
 accursed because of men ; to those who have lived where hu- 
 
 i 
 
PROCESSION or THE HOST. 13 
 
 manity is nobler, though nature is less rich — an admirable sam- 
 ple of the fact that prosperity is a moral and not a physical 
 growth. A less agreeable, but very necessary article of con- 
 sumption attracted my attention this morning. The butchers' 
 shops were full of people, and the price of lamb, which they 
 were selling at four bajocchi (2d.) a pound, made me think of 
 our people's food in London, and of some of those agreeable de- 
 tails of ways and means suggested by the ingenuity of charity (?) 
 such as one sees in poor-house reports, and the accounts of com- 
 mittees for the relief of the starving, and finds occasionally in 
 the speeches of gentlemen and noblemen anxious to exert them- 
 selves, and devise help for that awful innumerable host of un- 
 helpables — the poor of the wealthiest nation in the world. In 
 the course of my walk this morning I met the procession of 
 the Host twice. I was at a loss to account for its being each 
 time preceded by men dressed in servants' liveries of the rich- 
 est description. T thought there must be a noble epidemic 
 afoot ; but upon inquiring, found that these men whom I had 
 supposed servants of great houses, were merely hired and dressed 
 in that manner for the occasion — I had begun to fear there was 
 a mortality amonij tlie Cardinals. The extreme devotion of the 
 people in the street struck me very much, all kneeling down in 
 the mud upon the passage of the Holy Sacrament, and those at a 
 considerable distance up other streets, merely because it was in 
 sight, remaining uncovered and bowed in an attitude of reverence 
 and devotion. I ended my morning's expedition by going into 
 the church of the Trinita dc4 Monti — the only church in Rome 
 where female voices are to be heard chanting the religious ser- 
 vices. It belongs, together with the adjoining convent, to the 
 French nuns of the Sacre Coeur ; it is charming to hear the 
 fresh, shrill, sweet tones of the young girls who are being edu- 
 cated here, risins: to the church roof — the songstress invisible the 
 while, — imagination left to match the voice of the young wor 
 
14 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 shipper with such a form and face as may best seem to belong to 
 it. I was very much struck v/ith the serene and winning coun- 
 tenance of one of the nuns, from whom I obtained a chair ; it 
 was a living argument in favor of a nunnery life, that is to say, 
 if it had anything to do with any peculiar form of life, and not 
 rather with that which is the only M'holesome spirit of all life. 
 They have a fine picture of the Descent from the Cross in this 
 church, and while looking round, I found my feet were on the 
 funeral tablet of Claude Lorraine. 
 
 I went this morning before breakfast to the pavilion of the 
 Rospigliosi Palace, to see Guido's Aurora. It is a picture for 
 which, from dear and pleasant association with a fine engraving 
 of it that hangs in a room of a house that I love, I have an espe- 
 cial affection, and the consequence was, that it took me some 
 time to recover from the dislocation of neck occasioned by the 
 long devotion of my regards to it. The whole collection of pic- 
 tures is contained in three rooms, and among many performances 
 ascribed to great names, I was particularly struck with the heads 
 of the twelve Apostles by Rubens, and a picture which, though 
 said to be by Giorgione, seemed more like a production of the 
 Flemish school, by the want of grace and dignity in the figures 
 and faces ; in spite of which it seized upon my attention, and 
 riveted me and delighted me extremely. The coloring was 
 very rich and fine, and there was an intense expression in the 
 attitude and look of the two people, a man and woman sitting 
 beside each other, with their hands joined, that made a very 
 strong impression upon me. To me it was a very good picture ; 
 but I know nothing whatever of art. After leaving the gallery, 
 I loitered in the garden while the gardener collected a nosegay 
 for me : and certainly, if Heaven could come to one through 
 one's eyes and nose, I might have imagined myself there during 
 that half-hour. The fine mass of the Rospigliosi Palace rose up 
 against the brilliant blue sky ; the little terrace-garden, lifted 
 
THE GALATEA. 15 
 
 high up, as though to meet the sun, basked in the vivid light and 
 potent warmth of its rays ; fountains, some springing up like jets 
 of moonlight, under cool black, sheltering arches ; others pour- 
 ing out a whole gush of diamonds into a large basin glittering 
 in the sunshine, made delicious conversation to each other ; and 
 while I walked to and fro, screened from the intense heat by the 
 broad, dark, polished leaves of a covered walk of lemon-trees, 
 whose fruit and flowers hung above my head and perfumed 
 the air, whiffs of warm fragrance were wafted to me from low 
 beds of mignonette and bushes literally bending under their freight 
 of delicate pink and straw-colored tea-roses. Such exquisite 
 sensual enjoyment can neither be described nor imagined, nor, I 
 think, out of Italy, enjoyed ; for, joined to all this, the vision 
 of the beautiful works of art 1 had just seen, filled my fancy, and 
 I really admired at the combination of pleasure comprised in 
 one short hour in this pre-eminent home of all beautiful things. 
 This was the morninor. In the afternoon we drove to the Far- 
 nesina to see the room where Raphael's friend and patron feasted 
 the Pope when the great painter had finished adorning it with 
 his immortal frescoes. I was already, of course, familiar with 
 those through engravings, and also some copies of them I remem- 
 ber delighting in at Bowood. They are not susceptible of 
 description further than as the guide-books describe them. I 
 believe, upon the whole, they gave me more pleasure than any 
 work of Raphael I have seen, — always excepting the Suonatore. 
 From the empty and deserted banqueting-hall, from whose 
 walls this glorious work still seems to shed down splendor and 
 gaiety, we went to see the Galatea, in a room still more bare, 
 forlorn, and desolate looking ; surrounded with artists' dusty 
 scaffoldings, and what was far worse, with glaring impudent 
 copies, we contrived to see the beautiful creation, whose elegant 
 forms and light lovely composition, preserved in Morghen's 
 engravings, is also one of the earliest impressions of art of my 
 
16 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 youth. It is really piteous to see these exquisite things so sur- 
 rounded with desolation and apparent neglect. The palace 
 belongs to the Neapolitan government ; it really seems as though 
 some decent care of repairs and preservation was due to the 
 shrine containing these treasures ; but the whole place, inside 
 and out, with its dilapidated, empty, dusty, resounding chambers, 
 and its rough orchard of fruit-trees and artichokes, is the very 
 pattern of a noble forsaken house. What a pity that these 
 divinities must needs stay here ! 
 
 My friend has given me a charming little Sicilian 
 
 song, of which the following is a free translation. The pathetic 
 and graceful idea is, however, a thousand times more appro- 
 priately clothed in the soft dialect from which I have transferred 
 it:— 
 
 I planted in my heart one seed of love, 
 
 Water'd with tears, and watched with sleepless care ; 
 It grew — and when I look'd that it should prove 
 
 A gracious tree, and blessed harvests bear. 
 Blossom nor fruit was there to crown my pain, 
 Tears, cares, and labor, all had been in vain ; 
 And yet I dare not pluck it from my heart, 
 Lest with the deep-struck root my life depart. 
 
 A'pril SOth. — To-day was holden the annual celebration of the 
 artists' ye^e at Cervara, about ten miles from Rome. Not feeling 
 ourselves equal to the fatigue of the whole day, we determined 
 to go out early in the morning, and see their muster at Torre de 
 Schiavi ; and then returning to Rome during the heat of the day, 
 drive again out towards evening to their final place of assembly at 
 Cervara. We started, therefore, at seven, and found the roads 
 already alive with early masqueraders, proceeding to the place 
 of rendezvous, some on foot and some on asses and some on sorry 
 
THE TOR DI SCHIAVI. 17 
 
 hacks, and some on showy horses, caparisoned according to the 
 costume of their riders, and apparently to the full as pleased with 
 their finery. The trees were all in blossom and in fragrance, 
 and as we drove along between the envious stone walls of the 
 suburban villas, blooming bushes of white and crimson stocks, 
 and delicate China roses, peeped over the terrace walls, like 
 boarding-school beauties, at us ; green pendant tresses of the 
 golden willow drooped over the enclosures, and every now and 
 then a noble iron gate, set in massive stone pillars, gave us 
 glimpses into the paradise of dark evergreens and long walks, 
 between walls of roses, which they defended ; along the road- 
 side the acacia swung a thousand silver censers in the morning 
 air, and the whole aspect of Nature was that of a brilliant spring 
 holiday in the garden of the world. Group after group passed 
 us of grotesque and ludicrous figures, singing, laughing, jesting, 
 and all hurrying forward to the meeting ground. Not one was 
 so sober or so poor but his hat had its flower or its bunch of feath- 
 ers, his waist its bright colored scarf, and his arm its gay ribbon 
 badge ; some were accoutred point de vice in brilliant middle-age 
 or eastern costume ; and in a narrow lane vre came upon a Si- 
 cilian noble of the sixteenth century, v.hose crimson velvet tunic 
 and cap, with their border of ermine and snow-white plume, 
 presented really a most elegant and tasteful picture, especially 
 as the wearer was handsome and young ; a little further on the 
 
 triumphal chariot of the great ruler of the feast (Mr. ) 
 
 passed us, slowly wending its way to the Tor de Schiavi ; the 
 gilt and garlanded wheels and sides sufficiently disguised the ra- 
 ther rude form of the vehicle, which was drawn by two splendid 
 silver-grey oxen, from whose vast foreheads and wide-spread 
 horns, great bunches and wreaths of roses hung heavily, as they 
 solemnly proceeded along the road. Arrived at the open space 
 at the Tor de Schiavi, the spectacle was really a most singular 
 one. Hundreds of artists, all in various eccentric and pictu- 
 
18 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 resque dresses, scoured about the campagna or mustered gradually 
 in bands, whose badges and banners belonged to their several 
 nations. Carriages, in crowds, were drawn up round the pic- 
 turesque ruin. A long line of dust, through which flashed every 
 now and then the harness and wheels of other vehicles, or the 
 brilliant colors of some belated masquerader, marked the way 
 back to Rome. Donkeys brayed, horses neighed, human beings 
 laughed loud and merrily ; Cossacks, Turks, Albanians, Knights 
 of the Middle Ages, Generals in powder and pig-tails, and gens 
 d'armes, with paper helmets and wooden swords, pranced here 
 and there between the carriages ; the golden morning light 
 touched the whole world with glory ; the grand and melancholy 
 campagna spread itself all around, and the purple line of the 
 Alban and Sabine hills framed in the splendid view and singular 
 daylight masquerade. The concourse of artists had hardly 
 ranged themselves, each about their national banner, and a species 
 of disorderly order, such as is most common among volunteers, 
 been obtained, when the great chief of the celebration and master 
 
 of the revels, Mr. , the head of the German school of 
 
 artists at Rome, appeared in full costume of Henri Quatre mount- 
 ed on his triumphal car. His arrival was hailed with universal 
 applause ; and a speech which he made, and of which we were 
 too far off to hear anything but the sound, appeared by the bursts 
 of laughter and the acclamations which interrupted it, to give 
 very universal satisfaction. The next move was an adjournment 
 of a certain number of the artists to the Tor de Schiavi. Climb- 
 ing the ruined wall, they congregated beneath the remaining 
 vault of the building, and here sang a very vehement and ap- 
 parently satisfactory concert, in the burden of which an ac- 
 companiment ad libitum of sticks, and drums, and innumerable 
 human voices, utterly incapable of a tune, joined with most 
 exemplary zeal. Something of the freedom of the Carnival 
 appeared to prevail during this singular celebration ; for we 
 
ANECDOTE. 19 
 
 were bowed to more than once by persons whom we did not 
 know ; and while making my way through the rather tre- 
 mendous crowd of carriages and horses to the scene of the 
 chorus singing, a German, whose horse we had been admiring 
 very much as it stood beside our carriage, very good-naturedly 
 made way for me, and led me to a good place for seeing and 
 hearing. The words were composed for the occasion by Mr. 
 
 , and were quite as good as the occasion required ; the 
 
 music was a popular theme from some modern Italian opera. I 
 regretted this, and asked my companion why they did not sing 
 some of the beautiful Volkslied of his own country. He said, 
 because in these the French and Italian artists could not join, 
 and what they wanted to obtain was unanimity rather than beauty 
 in the performance. When it was concluded, the whole motley 
 army defiled out of the ruin and off the ground, and taking the 
 road, escorted by most of the carriages and infinite amateurs on 
 horseback, proceeded to Cervara, while we wended our way back 
 
 to Rome. On our way to town , who is extremely lively 
 
 and entertaining, told us the following anecdote of Madame 
 
 , which very nearly killed me with laughing. It seems 
 
 that she has enjoyed a prolonged youth, unknown to all but god- 
 desses and ambassadresses ; dressing herself with juvenile sim- 
 plicity and airiness, being made love to with juvenile ardor, and 
 dancing with juvenile industry and application, till hard upon the 
 age of seventy. After a ball, at which it is to be supposed she 
 had been unwontedly artless, amorous, and active, she had a 
 very severe indisposition, and the great Roman physician   
 
 was sent for. In the room adjoining the lady's bed-chamber, he 
 
 was met by the young M. de , her devoted and afflicted 
 
 lover, who, with eyes suffused with tears, and a frame agitated 
 with the most anxious apprehension, led him to the bed-side of 
 the interesting invalid. Summoning at once her remaining 
 strength and charms, she raised herself languidly : — " Ah, M. le 
 
20 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Docteur, je suis bien mal, mais ce ne sera rien, n'est-ce-pas ? 
 Le fait est, que j'ai trop danse au bal hier soir ; mais cela se 
 passera." " Madame !" interrogated the worthy doctor, at a loss 
 to reconcile the testimony of his eyes and ears : — " Eh oui, mon 
 Dieii, c'est cela, j'ai trop danse a ce bal hier au soir — voila 
 tout." " Ah, mon Dieu !" cried the doctor, turning to the lover ; 
 
 " Prenez bien garde a Madame votre mere, M. , car elle 
 
 perd la tete ; elle deraisonne ; elle aura de la fi^vre, sans doute 
 du delire." The indignant beauty's pillow at his head inter- 
 rupted the unfortunate doctor, who was thenceforth ignominiously 
 dismissed, as utterly ignorant of the manners of decent society, 
 the relations of polite life, or the long juvenility of ambassa- 
 dresses. 
 
 In the afternoon, we returned again to the fete, and this time 
 proceeded the whole way to Cervara, where the artists, having 
 dined in the large curious tufo caves that there open themselves 
 in the middle of the campagna, like great holes in its volcanic crust, 
 were finishing the afternoon in a variety of games, rather riotous 
 than classical. The whole scene reminded me excessively of a 
 race-ground in England ; the carriages laden with spectators, 
 chiefly ladies, the horses taken out, and picketted on the outskirts 
 of the crowd. The most beautiful part of that species of show, 
 however, was wanting — the noble horses and capital riding of the 
 gentlemen spectators. The Cervara worthies had had mystical 
 celebrations in the caverns, apparitions of the ancient Sybil, and 
 prognostications of future destinies ; honors and badges, too, had 
 been delivered to various members of the fraternity, and when 
 we arrived, foot races, donkey races, and horse races, were to- 
 ward. There was more merriment than merit of any sort in 
 these performances ; the assembly was not the most orderly in 
 the world, and the demeanor of some of the parties very cle.arly 
 indicated that it was after dinner with them. Among the ether 
 pastimes, a large caricature was brought forward, intended to 
 
MYSTICAL CELEBRATIONS. 21 
 
 represent the spirit of hostile criticism in general, but which, to 
 the initiated, bore, moreover, considerable resemblance to a cer- 
 tain well-known German essayist, whose strictures upon the art 
 and artists of the present day have not, it seems, made him 
 popular among the latter. This very odious portrait, with its 
 owl's nose and eyes, and hand like a claw, clutching the critic's 
 dagger — the goose quill — was set up at one end of the ground, 
 and the artists exercised themselves in throwing small light 
 pointed reeds, with little rose-colored flags attached to them, at 
 it ; every blow that hit the nose, eyes, or much offending hand, 
 was hailed with rapture ; and when the obnoxious image resem- 
 bled nothing but a very much abused colander, a general rush 
 was made at it, and it was battered to pieces and trampled under 
 foot with yells of detestation and vengeance, such as could only 
 become savages, or artists who had been severely criticised. 
 
 Our drive back to Rome was extremely disagreeable ; many 
 were returning to the city, like ourselves ; still more were on 
 their way out to Cervara ; a double file of vehicles of every des- 
 cription encumbered the road ; we were compelled to go at a foot 
 pace ; the heat of the sun was fearful ; the clouds of dust all but 
 intolerable ; and, having turned our back upon the whole mas- 
 querade, nothing broke the very unpleasant monotony of this 
 slow, hot, suffocating progress, except when every now and then 
 a Saracen would scour by us over the plain, or a Knight of the 
 Middle Ages halt above the dusty defile we were engaged in — 
 recalling the festivity of Cervara, and suggesting the romantic 
 recollections of the times they represented. I was a little sur- 
 prised at the appearance of young and Mr. de on 
 
 the ground, the one in the dress of a Hungarian peasant, the other 
 in a correct and beautiful French costume of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury — black velvet and crimson, with trappings and housings for 
 his horse to match. That the artists, joining all together to keep 
 up this annual celebration, which, doubtless, has many pleasant 
 
22 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 and wholesome uses in the sympathies and spirit of artistical 
 brotherhood it engenders and preserves, should go out in these 
 quaint dresses, and divert themselves and others by so doing, 
 seems not at all amiss ; but that young gentlemen, having no 
 pretensions to the distinction of being artists, should, simply for 
 the sake of exhibiting themselves and their dresses, do the same, 
 seems to me singular. My heart really bled for the beautiful 
 
 ball-room costume of Mr. de , dragging about under the 
 
 heat, and through the dust of such an expedition. 
 
 This morning I walked before breakfast to Trajan's Forum, 
 and ascended the pillar. The view of Rome itself, and the sur- 
 rounding country, is not finer than that obtained from many other 
 heights ; but the whole of the Coliseum is seen from this particu- 
 lar point to very grand advantage. I then went into the church 
 of Santa Maria de Loreto, where I remarked what had already 
 struck me so extremely in several of the churches, a notice put 
 up to the effect, that whoever was buried in that church, might, 
 through the agency of certain masses, deliver their souls from so 
 many years of purgatory. There is something in these particu- 
 lar exhibitions of Catholicism that invariably suggests to me the 
 idea of the necessary and inevitable knavery of those who are at 
 the head of such a spiritual machinery ; to be sure Gregory the 
 Great invented purgatory, and perhaps, that being the case, his 
 heirs have a right to dispose of it. Such propositions, however, 
 do not cease to amaze me. How much that is excellent must 
 there have been and still be ! how much of the immortal vitality 
 of true Christianity, in the religion which survives this overlay- 
 ing mass of absurdity, superstition, and disbelief ! I feel in Rome 
 like nothing but Boccaccio's Jew. Returning home, I called at 
 the shoemaker's about some boots I had ordered, and which were 
 not finished at the appointed time — now, considerably after the 
 time, they were finished, and produced ; a pair of black, double- 
 soled, thick, heavy, half-leather, stuff boots. I had myself given 
 
CHARACTERS OF TRADES-PEOPLE. 23 
 
 the order for a pair of light-colored holland ones, with mere toes 
 of patent leather, and the thinnest soles that could be made. The 
 shopman shrugged his shoulders, smiled, said it was a mistake, 
 and would I take the ones I did not want, and wait till such as I 
 did want could be made. I walked out of the shop, and did 
 neither. English people are the only honest tradespeople that I 
 am acquainted with, and I say it advisedly ; for Americans are 
 unpunctual, and an appointment is a contract with time for its 
 object, and they are as regardless, for the most part, of that 
 species of contract as of some others of a different kind. I 
 have now been six months in Rome, and have had leisure and 
 opportunity to see something of the morals of retail trade ; at any 
 rate in matters of female traffic, among the shopkeepers here. In 
 the first place, the most flagrant dishonesty exists with regard to 
 the value of the merchandise, and the prices they ask for it of all 
 strangers, but more particularly of the English, whose wealth, 
 ignorance, and insolence, are taxed by these worthy industriels 
 without conscience or compassion. Every article purchased in 
 a Roman shop by an English person is rated at very nearly double 
 its value ; and the universal custom here, even among the peo- 
 ple themselves, is to carry on a haggling market of aggression on 
 the part of the purchaser and defence on that of the vendor, which 
 is often as comical as it is disgusting. In Nataletti's shop in 
 Rome, the other day, I saw a scene between the salesman and a 
 lady-purchaser, an Italian, that would have amazed as well as 
 amused the parties behind and before the counters of Howell and 
 James, Harding's, &c. The lady, after choosing her stuff and 
 the quantity she required, began a regular attack upon the shop- 
 man ; it was mezza voce, indeed, but continuous, eager, vehement, 
 pressing, overpowering, to a degree indescribable ; and the luck- 
 less man having come for a moment from behind the shelter of 
 his long table, the lady eagerly seized him by the arm, and hold- 
 ing him fast, argued her point with increasing warmth. She 
 
24 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 next caught hold of the breast of his coat, her face within 
 a few inches of his, her husband meanwhile standing by and 
 smiling approvingly at the thrift and eloquence of his wife ; 
 I think, however, she did not succeed. The shopman looked 
 disgusted, which I am afraid is a consequence of their having 
 adopted the English mode of dealing in that house, as they them- 
 selves informed me, to signify that they did not cheat, lie, or 
 steal, but dealt like honest people. I felt proud of his manner of 
 speech : " Madame, nous avons adopte la maniere Anglaise ; nous 
 vendons au prix juste, nous ne surfaisons pas, et nous ne change- 
 ons pas nos prix," so that to deal in the English fashion is syno- 
 nymous to dealing justly. It pleases me greatly, and it is true, 
 for in France too they have abandoned the abominable system of 
 prices for the English ; and it delights me to think that integrity, 
 justice, truth, cleanliness, and comfort, follow in the footsteps of 
 my own people wherever their wandering spirit leads them through 
 the world. It is very fit and just that they should bring such 
 compensations to the foreign people, among whom they so often 
 introduce, also, habits of luxury, of ostentation, and that basest 
 habit of bartering for money the common courtesies and amenities 
 of life, the civilities and the serviceableness which are priceless, 
 which the continental people have, and our own have not, and 
 which we should have learnt to imitate rather than taught them 
 to sell. I may as well mention here, that I have found Nataletti's 
 shop the best in Rome, in every respect. In one morning's shop- 
 ping, the other day, we had two or three curious instances of the 
 shopkeeping morality here : going into Gagiati's, in the Corso, 
 the great omnium gatherum, or, as the Americans would call it, 
 variety store, they first attempted to cheat my sister upon the 
 change due to her for some gold she gave them ; I was looking 
 at some fans which were being shown to an Italian purchaser, at 
 the same time ; I had taken up one which the shopman told me 
 was worth eighteen scudi ; the Roman buyer took up another 
 
SHOPKEEPING MORALITY. 25 
 
 which had been shown me at the same price, and with sundry 
 " nods and becks and wreathed smiles" at the shopkeeper, said 
 in an under tone, " Dunque quindici ?" the latter nodded, return- 
 ing the significant pantomime, and adding " Eh ! capite." I 
 capited too, and, perceiving that I was attentively observing what 
 was going on, the salesman took the fan I had in my hand, and 
 without uttering a syllable said, " Ebbene, Signora, seidici scudi;" 
 " but," said I, " a moment ago you told me the price was eight- 
 een." " Oh !" exclaimed he, with the most dauntless impudence, 
 " se piace a lei di pagar dieci otto va bene e padrona." I was so 
 utterly disgusted that I laid the commodity down without another 
 word. Further on w^e bought some tin pails and water buckets 
 for our bed-rooms in the country. At one shop I was made to 
 pay nearly three scudi for that w'hich my sister purchased im- 
 mediately after for a scudo and a half a little distance further on, 
 and she no doubt paid, as an Englishwoman, much more than the 
 goods were worth. We then proceeded to a perfumer's for some 
 hair pomatum — we had already repeatedly purchased the same 
 thing repeatedly at the same place. On this occasion, however, 
 we were charged an additional paul upon each small article, and 
 upon remonstrating, and stating that we had repeatedly bought 
 the same thing at the same place, and always paid such a sum 
 for it, the shopman replied, " Yes, that was true, but now they 
 had altered the price " — a sort of ad-lihitmn mode of dealing 
 which may be pleasant and mournful to the souls of the vendors, 
 but is mournful alone to those who buy. Of truth and its invio- 
 lable sacredness the Italians generally seem to have as little per- 
 ception as the French, and dishonesty and falsehood are so little 
 matters of shame, that detection in either of them only excites a 
 shrug and a grin on the part of the offender. The watering-place 
 sort of character of Rome — which in the winter swarms with 
 foreigners, and in summer is utterly deserted by them — makes 
 of course the trade of certain shopkeepers a mere matter of tem^ 
 
 VOL. II. 2 
 
25 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 porary speculation. During the Roman season they therefore 
 make all the money they can, because when that is over they 
 make little or none. This is always unfavorable to steady and 
 honest dealing, and the innate indolence of the people, and little 
 competition, compelling foreigners to put up with inferior goods 
 and superior prices, or go altogether without what they want, 
 leave but a remote hope of improvement in these respects. Nor 
 have we found what Lafontaine calls "I'innocence des champs" 
 one whit behind the craft of the city in these matters — let the 
 object of treaty be what it will, purchase or employment, the 
 same desperate and universal want of honesty prevails in the 
 country as in town ; the same audacious and incessant endeavor 
 to cheat and defraud ; and the same facetious admission of the 
 fact whenever it is charged home to them. It matters not how 
 explicit you have been in making the terms of your agreement or 
 bargain ; how distinctly the conditions have been laid down ; how 
 absolutely embraced, how just, or how generous they may have 
 been, — whenever the moment of payment arrives, more is inva- 
 riably claimed than is due by the stipulations. Misunderstandings 
 are pleaded, misrepresentations made, misstatements given ; no 
 effort of ingenuity is left unattempted to depart from and evade 
 the bargain they have themselves made. If all this fails, and 
 that lying, cheating, cajolery, and endless floods of furious words 
 avail nothing, they then instantly assume the deportment of the 
 most abject beggary, and hold out their hands for more, in the 
 shape of a gift, a charity, an alms, without shame or hesitation. 
 I do not know anything that fills one with a more painful sense 
 of human degradation than the utter and deplorable want of self- 
 respect these people exhibit. The beggary in Rome is incessant, 
 and sometimes most insolent ; and the swarm of importunate objects, 
 from the mere torso, who, armless and legless, nevertheless pursues 
 you like Briareus or a centipede, to the authorized vagabonds, who 
 come and show you their medal, — the permit given by the police 
 
ITALIAN DISHONESTY. 27 
 
 authorities, and licensing their preying on the public, — embitter 
 one's daily walks there till one becomes callous to them. Still, 
 beggary is a usual inhabitant of cities, and the mendicant life in 
 Rome is for the most part chosen deliberately, like any other 
 trade or profession, and exercised rather as a luxury than other- 
 wise, it being well understood that those who beg do not work ; 
 but in the country, those who work, and work hard, beg too. 
 No laborer passes you on the road with his scythe and water- 
 barrel, without entreating your charity ; and from the light- 
 hearted groups, who sing at the vine-dressing, one universal 
 whine of " Dammi qualche cosa" rises as one goes by. Their 
 wages are very small ; the men earn twenty bajocchi — ten-pence 
 a day ; the women not more than half that sum. Perhaps a 
 man can hardly be expected to value himself very highly whom 
 others rate so low ; but it is a comfort to think that food is abun- 
 dant and cheap, and that cover and shelter, whether of roof or 
 of clothes, may be in a great measure dispensed with under this 
 benignant sky. I cannot say that I have been very favorably 
 impressed with the honesty of the Italians, in any capacity 
 whatever ; indolence and recklessness, if not absolute dishonesty, 
 appear to pervade all walks of business, as well public as pri- 
 vate. Our letters from Frascati, if paid, and they must be so 
 to go at all, are pretty sure not to go at all ; and my sister, hav- 
 ing lately sent her watch to have a glass put into it, the watch- 
 maker departed with it to Rome, and there kept it, refusing to 
 give it up, and either pawning it or otherwise making it subser- 
 vient to his own uses ; the Governor or Mayor of Frascati being 
 applied to upon the subject by the servant who had himself 
 given my sister's watch into this man's charge, said he would 
 attend to the business, and even professed to write immediately 
 to the Chief of Police at Rome about it ; but it was not until a 
 
 fortnight had elapsed, and Mr. himself waited upon him, 
 
 that he really did do anything about the matter. A different 
 
28 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 species of honesty, but one that, nevertheless, is most deeply 
 influential upon national morality and prosperity, is involved in 
 the answer made to an observation of mine, by a lady who has 
 now lived here for several years, and had abundant opportunities 
 of observation. I complained, that in the apartment we had 
 taken for the summer at Frascati, our rooms were in one respect 
 very uncomfortable, for that our ladies' maids were all shut up 
 within our rooms, and were constrained to pass through them to 
 
 get to the offices or out of doors. '• Oh," said Miss , " that 
 
 would just suit the Italians, and they would consider it quite a 
 recommendation, for they always lock up their women servants 
 at night, and all the windows of their rooms are barred and 
 barricaded." The Italian theory about women is, that they are 
 not to be trusted on any one occasion. A friend of mine, walk- 
 ing in the streets of Milan, followed by her two young nieces, 
 was known, by the fact of her not making the young ladies walk 
 before her, so that she could see them, not to be an Italian. 
 And a Roman, speaking of English wives, said : " Well, let 
 them do what they will, and have what faults they will, and 
 plague their husbands as they will, at least they are faithful." 
 The commendation, however less generally deserved than the 
 worthy man may have supposed, was still, doubtless, by com- 
 parison, tolerably just. Another instance of petty dishonesty 
 has just occurred to me, which I will mention in conclusion of 
 this disagreeable part of my observations : a man, bringing 
 me this morning change for a gold piece of ten scudi, kept back 
 two pauls, taking it for granted, perhaps, that I should not count 
 my returns. On finding the deficit, I spoke to him about it, and 
 proceeded to demonstrate it by counting the money before him. 
 This time, however, it appeared that he had brought me, instead 
 of too little, too much j and, a good deal perplexed at finding 
 that, instead of two pauls minus, I had more than a scudo over 
 the right change, I was proceeding to put this surplus into the 
 
WALKS THROUGH ROME. 29 
 
 man's hands, who had stood watching me, and acquiesced en- 
 tirely in this new view of the transaction, when suddenly I 
 became aware that in reckoning it over again, he had permitted 
 me to count three paul pieces for five paul pieces, and was very 
 quietly proceeding to pocket this result of my ignorance of the 
 smaller silver coins. Aware of my mistake, I asked him how 
 he could stand by and permit me to defraud myself so ; he 
 laughed, and shrugged, and said, " You counted it yourself." 
 Of such experiences one day in Italy is full, and not all the 
 glory of the past can atone to me for the present shame of the 
 people, nor all the loveliness of external things make up for the 
 ugliness of human souls without truth or honor ; women without 
 chastity, and men without integrity, and a whole country without 
 religion, make a poor residence, in my humble judgment, unless 
 one could be turned into eyes, and all one's perceptions be 
 limited to the faculty of seeing the divine beauty which all this 
 baseness mars. 
 
 I walked out this morning, — passed that beautiful fountain of 
 Trevi, which I contrive to take in or out of my way every day 
 for the love I bear it, it is so wonderfully beautiful ; the images 
 of the Virgin at the corners of the streets please me, not that 
 they are by any means lovely in themselves, but there is some- 
 thing in the constant repetition of this type of the purest earthly 
 love that touches those who are unhardened by use to it ; some- 
 times these medallion pictures or bas-reliefs have rather ambi- 
 tious addresses inscribed beneath them, such as the one at the 
 Palazzo Muti : sometimes a short and touching ejaculation, like 
 the " Maria rifugio dei tribulati, ora pro nobis !" under the quaint 
 little effigy of the Holy Mother which hangs upon the ruined 
 wall of the picturesque bridge over the Anio, on the Via Nomen- 
 tana ; sometimes nothing but a poor little bunch of flowers, such 
 as the nosegay of sweet-williams I stopped to look at this morn- 
 ing, piously stuck beneath the gracious image, — a poor offering, 
 
;30 A YEAR OF CONSOLATIOJN. 
 
 that may nevertheless have brought rich blessings to the donor. 
 Walking early in the morning through Rome, I find the streets 
 encumbered by numerous flocks of goats, directed the way they 
 should go by a peculiarly shrill whistle of their driver, and stop- 
 ping before almost every house to leave a supply of milk, which 
 seems infinitely more generally used than that of cows, at least 
 among the Italians themselves. I passed this morning through 
 the Forum, that place for meditation where, having once arrived, 
 it almost seems impossible to go beyond it ; I did, however, 
 having but a shallow and easily exhausted fund of reflections. 
 I walked along the Campo Vaccino, under nature's triumphal 
 arch of flowering acacia-trees, to the great Jewish heart-burn, 
 the arch of Titus, and thence down the Via Sacra, to the Coli- 
 seum, where I sat down at the foot of the cross to rest and 
 ruminate. The sun searched with a delicious warmth the 
 recesses of the great ruin — the blue sky roofed it in with tender 
 glory, and looked with limpid clearness through the beautiful 
 arches, as they rose tier above tier into the morning air, and 
 from every rift and crevice, and stony receptacle, where an 
 inch of soil could lodge, curtains of exquisite wild spring flowers 
 fell over the brown rich masses of masonry — delicate garlands 
 wound themselves round the bases of huge fallen columns — full 
 tufted bushes of dark green verdure rocked and swayed in the 
 spring breath along the ranges where the heroic Roman people 
 had thronged the seats of their great slaughter-house, — and high 
 up against the transparent sky, light feathery wands of blossom 
 sprang from the huge wall, crowning the grim battlement with 
 their most fragile beauty. There are no words and no color for 
 all this ; poetry or painting shall not copy it ; the noble eye— 
 the mirror of God's universe alone — shall be capable of reflect- 
 ing it ; but let all who may, come hither and see, for none that 
 have not, shall ever know how these things look. The ruins of 
 Rome, at least, so says an intelligent observer, have each their 
 
WALKS THROUGH ROME. 31 
 
 peculiar Flora, and are adorned with wild plants especially 
 belonging to them ; — this, if true, is very curious, and it might 
 be matter of amusing speculation to trace the affinity between 
 these lovely creatures and the special places where they incline 
 to grow. After a while I went on my way to St. John Lateran's, 
 and after worshipping the mountains from its threshold, turned 
 into the church, and thence to the Baptistery, with which I wa.s 
 amazingly delighted. Coming home, I passed through the Santa 
 Maria Maggiore, for which, in spite of my late experience in 
 churches, I retain the predilection it first inspired me with. An 
 unusual ceremony was going on, — a high catafalque was raised 
 in the middle of the church ; it was like a very enormous bed, 
 covered all over w-itTi a splendid gold cloth, with a deep border 
 of black velvet, embroidered with skeletons. Upon this funeral 
 couch, as upon a soldier's coffin, lay the hat and badges of the 
 office and dignity of the dead prelate. Upwards of thirty lamps 
 upon immensely high stands were burning all round it, and the 
 chapter was all assembled in the choir, chanting the service for 
 the dead. Presently they all marshalled themselves in proces- 
 sion, and marched towards the catafalque ; on leaving the 
 tribune, however, they had to perform a series of genuflexions 
 the most embarrassing and awkward conceivable — first to the 
 high altar, and then to the chapel on the right, and then to the 
 chapel on the left, and finally to the catafalque itself. As they 
 succeeded each other pretty rapidly in their procession, I really 
 was afraid they would push each other down in their complicated 
 performance. Tapers were placed in all their hands, and a sort 
 of ballet-master having arranged them in order, they surrounded 
 the dead bed in the middle of the church. Two high dignitaries 
 in magnificent rob^s of state then came forward, the one appa- 
 rently merely supporting the other, and holding up the heavy 
 folds oT his gold-embroidered mantle while he performed the 
 office of sprinkling the catafalque with holy water and swinging 
 
32 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 a censer round it. During these ceremonies the choir began a 
 very fine chant, which they performed, musically speaking, 
 admirably, though their deportment and demeanor was by no 
 means edifying; they all had an air of as perfect indifference as 
 the provoking disinterestedness of the chorus in a pathetic opera; 
 some were taking snuff with each other, while some were rapidly 
 and mechanically crossing themselves ; they talked, laughed, 
 pushed, and jostled each other during the whole chant ; and the 
 beautiful church, fine music, and careless mummery of the 
 ceremony formed a most curious jumble as I sat at the base of a 
 pillar, receiving the combined impressions of the whole. 
 
 LINES. 
 
 Upon the altar of my life there lies 
 
 A costly offering : its great price I know ; 
 
 Its power, its wealth, its splendor, and its beauty ; 
 
 Yet it lies there, and darkness covers it. 
 
 It has not burn'd towards Heaven in holy flames, 
 
 Worshipping God, warming and lighting man ; 
 
 No fire has quicken'd it. — Love, like a torch 
 
 Quench'd in foul mist, pass'd over it in vain : 
 
 A flickering ray of pale uncertain happiness 
 
 Play'd round it once, too weak to kindle it. 
 
 Strike, strike then now, ye lightning fires of sorrow ! 
 
 Devouring flames ! ye that have all consumed 
 
 Love, Hope, and Happiness, do your whole work I 
 
 Light up the gifts that lie on my life's altar, 
 
 Kindle the precious sacrifice my soul 
 
 Has heap'd in vain : so shall it burn towards Heaven, 
 
 And glorify the Giver of all gifts, 
 
 The Sender of all earthly destinies. 
 
LIZARDS, VIPERS, SERPENTS, &c. 33 
 
 We had a very interesting visit from to-day, who 
 
 gravely asserted the truth of the story, that the lizards, in the 
 campagna, fly to meet men when pursued by the vipers that 
 abound there ; and, moreover, that the sleeping shepherds are 
 apprised of the approach of serpents by lizards, who come and 
 walk over their faces to awaken them, and warn them of the 
 danger. It is not wise to be in haste to disbelieve ; and igno- 
 rance, which is said to be the parent of credulity, in my humble 
 judgment, seems to me to be the mother of twins, abject faith 
 and presumptuous denial. This may be true ; she is very acute 
 and observing, and, moreover, cites the universal belief of the 
 Italian country-people in these facts. They are very strange, if 
 they are true. These statements were corroborated by the asser- 
 tions of the country-people round Frascati. She diverted us 
 excessively during a conversation, which turned on the national 
 peculiarities of the English, by an account of a conversation she 
 once had with a large and respectable silk-manufacturer at Turin, 
 who informed her, that for French and Italian purchasers he had 
 one and the same price (a fair and reasonable one), while from 
 English and Russian ladies he invariably demanded more, 
 because, he said, the Russians, if he asked as moderate a price 
 as possible, would still beat him down at least a third of what he 
 asked ; therefore, allowing for this peculiarity, he always asked 
 them a third more than the value of the article ; while the Eng- 
 lish would not purchase anything whatever, unless the price 
 demanded for it was exorbitant, and full a third more than any 
 one else would choose to give. His mode of accommodating the 
 various tastes of his customers was quite sensible, I thought. 
 
 went on to tell of a certain glove-manufacturer in Cologne, 
 
 who, being required by an English lady to show her some gloves, 
 found that she would not purchase them because they 'were 
 cheaper than she imagined them to be : he told her they were 
 identically the same gloves as those she had bought of him some 
 
 2* 
 
m A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 time before at a higher price, and that their value, from some 
 cause or another, had diminished. She refused to buy them, and 
 the poor manufacturer was much puzzled what to do, when his 
 wife, less conscientious than himself, brought from an inner 
 store-room some that she said were at the old price ; and the 
 English lady, delighted, purchased an article identical with the 
 one she had rejected, for a third more money. The glove-maker, 
 
 whom knew personally to be an extremely honest man, 
 
 was so annoyed at what he considered the injustice of his profit, 
 that he sent the money to a poor's-box. 
 
 We went in the aflernoon, to a fete, given by , at the 
 
 Villa Albani ; everything was very pretty, and the whole was 
 a failure, which will happen sometimes : some said it was the 
 weather, which was gusty and uncertain ; some, that it was the 
 cold dinner, which should have been hot ; some, that it was the 
 division of men and women at the dinner, who should have been 
 together ; but the greater number of reasonable people attributed 
 the want of entrain and dullness of the whole thing to the pre- 
 
 *sence of Monsignore . I was shown, in the refreshment 
 
 room, a little antique female fawn, a great curiosity, as it is sup- 
 .posed to be the only specimen of the kind extant ; it is quite 
 enough, of course, however, to establish the existence of the two 
 sexes in the race, and therefore to make the habitual deportment 
 of the satyrs towards the nymphs inexcusable. I walked to the 
 Santa Maria Maggiore this morning, and found the streets lined 
 with little extemporaneous altars to the Virgin Mary : they con- 
 sisted, for the most part, of an old rush-bottomed chair, covered 
 with a cloth or handkerchief; a coarse picture or engraving of 
 the Virgin was leaned against the back of the chair, and before 
 it a bunch of flowers, and a little lamp. Ragged boys and girls 
 were the officiating clergy of these strange little shrines, and 
 pursued us down the street, shrilly shouting their " Dami un 
 bajoc" in the name of the Holy Virgin. It reminded me of the 
 
GARDENS AND VINEYARDS OF ROME. 35 
 
 " Please remember the grotto" of our street urchins, but has a 
 more classical and ancient origin, for it is a special celebration 
 in honor of the first Sunday in May, and the Beata Vergine re- 
 ceives the worship of the heathen Flora. I returned home 
 through the Villa Negroni. Most fit and natural it is, that either 
 with or without intermediation, men should praise and worship 
 God at this most holy season, and that the most exquisite elo- 
 quence of the material creation should find its crowning utterance 
 in the soul and tongue of man : — 
 
 " Hail, bounteous May," &c. 
 
 The vegetable gardens that cover the sunny slopes all round 
 Rome, are a source of infinite pleasure to me ; they are extreme- 
 ly well tended and kept, and the bright green files of lettuce upon 
 the rich soft brown mould have a special beauty of their own, 
 combined of positive elements of symmetry, regularity, and the 
 association of ideas of peaceful industry, plenty, and physical 
 well-being : these modest patches of lowly labor look especially 
 well below the ruined arches of the aqueducts, and the crum- 
 bling masses of the palace of the Ccesars. It is peculiar, I think, 
 to this wonderful place, that nothing most common and common- 
 place, but becomes, from juxta-position with its heroic and grace- 
 ful elements, a new charm of contrast, making of the whole 
 something unmatched in harmony and in variety. As I walked 
 through the lovely vineyard, with its green arches and little 
 stacks of cane, all wreathed with the downy vine leaves and 
 fragrant blossoms, the path I followed was like a flowery belt — a 
 broad, undulating, many-colored ribbon, — thrown across the 
 estate ; poppies, with the sunlight shining through them, rocked 
 and nodded to each other ; blue and v/hite and purple blossoms, 
 gold and silver grasses, formed the most exquisite combinations 
 of form and color to carpet the vine-dresser's way — up to that 
 hill with its dark diadem of cypresses, between whose shafts the 
 
36 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 campagna and the mountains, and Rome, are seen framed in 
 separate pictures : then I descended through the lowly demure- 
 looking salad beds, to the old tower of the baths of Diocletian, 
 and a broad avenue, lined with rich dark orange trees, in full 
 blossom, — a wonderful mass of fragrance, — to the gate of the 
 Palazzo, and this was shut. I did not want to turn back ; the 
 path through the vineyard had been lovely, but my soul abhors 
 turning back, and so I startled the lonely echoes of the lonely 
 garden and villa with every species of invocation that I thought 
 might bring human help and a key. I never so completely re- 
 alized and execrated the nature of the national Italian employ- 
 ment, the Dolce far niente, as on seeing through this inexorable 
 and heaven-high iron gate, a cat and dog lying in the sun, within 
 a yard of each other, both with their eyes and head turned to me, 
 but quite too lazy either to mew or bark, which I vainly tried, 
 by my outcries and exclamations, to induce them to do, and by 
 that means arouse the dwellers of the house, into whom the spirit 
 of the Seven Sleepers seemed to have passed. "There is a 
 blessing for those who wait," says the proverb, to which proverb 
 the wise man or woman will always add "long enough." My 
 blessing came in the shape of a pretty young girl, who opened 
 the gate, and ushered me into the desolate garden of the villa, 
 where I sat in a wilderness of blossoms, in the midst of which 
 sprung up a silver-fringed fountain, and rested while she robbed 
 the orange trees of their bridal garland for me. 
 
 May Ath. — This morning I went to the Santa Maria degli An- 
 gioli — a splendid church — part of the baths of Diocletian con- 
 verted to Christianity by Michael Angelo. Unfortunately most 
 of the altars in it are like little cabinets at a French restaurant, 
 with vile painted marble pillars ; but the proportions of the 
 church are most splendid. From thence I went to the Santa 
 Maria della Vittoria, a gaudy rich little church, like some 
 wealthy private chapel, full of costly marbles, gilding, and paint- 
 
VISIT TO TIVOLI. 37 
 
 ings, and the most extraordinary sculpture ; consisting of what 
 one might call marble pictures, by Bernini, of sundry Cardinals 
 and ecclesiastical dignitaries, and a statue of St. Theresa, which 
 represents her in a sort of ecstatical trance, while an angel, as- 
 tonishingly like a Cupid, both in appearance and occupation, is 
 about to pierce her heart with the arrow of (divine) love. This 
 is a very curious performance and conception ; the mechanical 
 merit of it is very great, I believe ; I thought it was a pity it was 
 not done in wax ; the " moral suitability " of such a work in 
 marble is none. After this, crossing over by the Acqua Felice, 
 I walked by mistake into the cloisters of the Benedictine monks, 
 whence I was recalled in horror by some one passing by, who 
 indicated to me the proper entrance of their small church, which 
 1 was in search of. 
 
 We have just made an expedition to Tivoli, which was highly 
 
 prosperous till its very close. Directed by to one inn in 
 
 preference to the rival establishment, we repaired to the Queen 
 of England, and found her most gracious majesty dark, dingy, 
 dirty, — in short, indescribably dreadful ; but, however, thanks to 
 
 some omnipotent charm, which we alas had not ! had 
 
 found sweet smells and savory food, and sunny sights, while our 
 experience was — of dirt to eat, dirt to drink, and dirt to sleep in. 
 Travellers sent to that inn by our friend should at least be fur- 
 nished too with his talisman (a good conscience and a cont(^ited 
 spirit, I presume), which made him careless of all the usual ne- 
 cessities of life. Soon after our arrival, donkeys were procured, 
 and we started on the usual giro of the valley, beginning our 
 pilgrimage at the Villa D'Este, where we sat by fountains fall- 
 ing in this lovely solitude, and gathered branches thick with 
 orange blossoms, and looked from crumbling princely terraces 
 over the glorious campagna, and heard, — in a sort of dark cham- 
 ber of cypress trees with the red buds of delicate China roses 
 blooming at their feet, — the loud sweet singing of a fearless 
 
3S A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 nightingale. Tiience we proceeded to what is called, by those 
 who know, Msecenas' villa ; and by those who know better, the 
 temple of Hercules. I, who neither know, nor know better, saw 
 a fine collection of extensive iron forges, a species of place that 
 I have the greatest delight in, because of their picturesque black 
 chambers, and fiery furnaces, and sooty population, all which we 
 had in great perfection here ; for after walking out on the huge 
 noble roof that juts like a promontory over the glen, its sides all 
 garlanded with young verdure, amidst which the milk-white cas- 
 catelle went rolling in round fleecy ropes down the steep cliff, 
 we descended to visit the valley, passing through the iron works 
 — through dark passages, where the sound of rushing waters 
 rolled above our heads — and where some sudden furnace gleam 
 betrayed them hurrying fast beneath the planks under our feet. 
 Huge bellows and hammers, wielded by the subject elements, 
 resounded with deafening clangor through the black vaults. Pre- 
 sently we passed deep glowing furnaces, from one of which a long 
 bar of iron that had writhed itself crooked in the intense heat, 
 was drawn out, and thrown like a red snake upon the ground ; 
 close to those toiling fires sprang up white sheets of toiling water, 
 wrestling with powerful wheels that they lashed till they turned 
 the appointed way ; and sweating, begrimed, sooty, — smaller 
 than the smallest part of this vast machinery, and weaker than 
 its weakest, — stood in the midst of these, his bright powerful 
 slaves, the mighty task-master — man. Leaving these vulcanic 
 regions, we descended a steep path, through vineyards, where the 
 vines, instead of being cut short and fastened in little stacks to 
 reeds a few feet high, are spread all over trellises — a mode of 
 training them, disadvantageous, it is said, to the grapes, but 
 which produces a very pleasant appearance, and, looked down 
 upon from above, has the effect of a sort of false-bottom to the 
 whole country — that which seems the verdant ground being 
 nothing but the vine-covered trellis that hides it. The whole 
 
VISIT TO TIVOLI. 39 
 
 valley, as we wound round it, was exquisitely beautiful, and we 
 paused by some golden tufts of broom opposite the cascatelle to 
 enjoy the view. Our montures were not of the choicest descrip- 
 tion, and their gear was judiciously on a par with their personal 
 virtues. I rode on a man's saddle, to which a pair of horns, 
 copied certainly from those of some " curst cow," were affixed 
 by means of a sort of swivel, so that for my greater convenience 
 they incessantly turned round, and I on my "jack-i^s" might 
 have performed a series of sedentary ronds de jambes. Presently, 
 however, I was called upon to execute no less peculiar a feat, 
 for the whole saddle turning at the moment the quadruped re- 
 ceived a sudden and rather violent encouragement from the 
 guide, I found myself with one leg stuck over the pummel, hop- 
 ping with great alacrity on the other by the side of the donkey, 
 who was then performing a lively piece of trot. In spite of all 
 this, the whole expedition was lovely — the great fall disap- 
 pointed me from the extremely artificial appearance given to it 
 by the tunnel through which it now passes previous to pouring 
 itself into the glen. It is true that to sacrifice half a town and 
 its inhabitants every spring or autumn to the picturesque beauty 
 of a waterfall is making rather a grim goddess of the nymph of 
 these bright waters ; but certainly she has lost some of her 
 charms, as well as her terrors, since she has been led through 
 these artificial channels instead of tearing her way through the 
 grotto of Neptune, and the houses that surrounded it. Arrived 
 at the entrance of the tunnel through which the river is led in 
 two channels for a space of (as nearly as I con guess) a quarter 
 of a mile, I turned under the vault, wishing to go through the 
 passage ; a footpath by the side of the canal is provided for this 
 purpose, and the rushing of the waters in the contrary direction 
 from that in which I was running, together with the imperfect 
 light, which towards the middle of the tunnel was a good deal 
 obscured, produced rather a nervou?; sensation in me, which was 
 
4d A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 suddenly and most disagreeably increased by a diabolical noise 
 of shouting and howling, which the hollow vault rendered super- 
 naturally sonorous, and which proceeded from a man who was 
 rapidly following me. My first impression was that he might be 
 drunk, and the issue of a contested passage seemed doubtful ; 
 while this pleasant contingency rapidly passed though my mind, 
 the howling individual joined me, and proved to be our guide, 
 who in anxious solicitude lest I should fall into the water, had 
 pursued me with this terrific noise, which very nearly caused me 
 to do so. He apprised me that a young English girl had fallen 
 into the water under this tunnel, and showed me a tablet in the 
 wall testifying the same ; she was fortunately not drowned, and 
 indeed I should not think there was much danger of such a 
 catastrophe ; for though the current is extremely rapid and the 
 channel perfectly smooth, it is by no means deep. On emerging 
 from this passage one comes upon a very pretty peaceful land- 
 scape, where the remaining waters of the river flow winding 
 beneath willow trees through some garden grounds to the town. 
 To return to my party I had to retrace my steps, and took the 
 second tunnel, parallel to the one I had before come through — 
 for the passage consists of two. This channel is deeper than 
 the other, and less agreeable to pass through, inasmuch as the 
 footpath is made slippery and uncomfortable by water dropping 
 from the roof. At the end of the passage, a great number of 
 tablets inserted in the wall testify to the fact of various royal and 
 illustrious personages having made the same expedition. As I 
 shall surely not be tableted, I think it fit here to record the 
 interesting fact of my having passed through the tunnel of the 
 Anio. I regret very much for the sake of my readers, who, I 
 am sure, would be interested by the circumstance, that I did not 
 look at my watch to ascertain the precise hour of the day. Va- 
 rious marks on the side of the arch show how high its majesty 
 txie river rises during the period of sudden and violent rains ; 
 
LINES ON THE ANIO AT TIVOLI. 41 
 
 and some testify that the waters must very nearly at one time 
 have filled up the whole channel, and that the smooth back 
 of the swollen current must have all but grazed itself against 
 the high roof of the arch above it. When it thus comes brim- 
 ming up to the very top of the portals made for it, and pouring 
 over the rocky battlements of the glen, it must be a fine sight to 
 see ; to-day it was a well-bred waterfall, and as we threw light 
 branches and boughs down on the glassy sheet that ran so 
 smoothly to the foaming leap below, I thought of the white wreath 
 of immortelles that I had watched churning round and round in 
 the wild waters of the Nixie's glen in the deep mountain cham- 
 bers of Taconach. From this point we descended to the empty 
 hollow of Neptune's Grotto, where the waters formerly poured 
 themselves, but where now only a small portion of them finds a 
 vent ; the basin in the rocks is splendid and beautiful, and the 
 cavern below, called the Syren's Cave, into which the waters 
 disappear with a frightful leap, is vastly the most picturesque 
 thing of the whole. When the whole river came thundering 
 down into this abyss, it must have been a magnificent spectacle. 
 As. it is, the dark depth belov/ one, the rocky well through 
 which one looks up to the sky, with its sides all garlanded with 
 exquisite verdure, and high against the distant blue, on the very 
 rim of this grim bowl, the graceful, perfect form of the Temple 
 of Vesta, constitute a most striking and beautiful scene. 
 
 LINES ON THE ANIO AT TIVOLI. 
 
 One river from the mountain springs was born, 
 
 Into three several streams its course was torn. 
 
 One had a royal pathway made, and ran, 
 
 Sheltered and screened, through channels paved by nan : 
 
 A noble flood, a bounteous, beauteous river, 
 
 In light and glory rolling forth for ever. 
 
42 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 One, to the children of the earth became 
 
 A slave unwilling, bound, but never tame. 
 
 Round lashing wheels its silver foam was spread. 
 
 Thro' murky chambers its bright waves were led, 
 
 Dread clangor of huge engines drown'd its voice, 
 
 At its dark work forbidden to rejoice ; 
 
 Close by its fiery foe its white waves boil. 
 
 Fierce ruddy flames beside it glow and toil. 
 
 Striving and laboring, panting, rushing past. 
 
 All stained and sullied it leaps free at last. 
 
 And down the huge cliff's with one shouting bound 
 
 Joins its lair sister on the level ground 
 
 Of a green valley. One sad stream was led 
 
 By God, not man, thro' chasms dark, drear, and dread : 
 
 Horrible depths ne'er visited by light. 
 
 Caves of despair, dismay, and thickest night ; 
 
 There in an agony the lonely river 
 
 Leapt down, and turned, and writhed, and plunged for ever ; 
 
 Seeking escape from out the hideous deep. 
 
 Where its wild waters were condemned to weep ; 
 
 But this tormented stream too found its way, 
 
 At length to the sweet air of upper day ; 
 
 And altogether they flow down to rest 
 
 One with the other in the Ocean's breast. 
 
 So ends all life that is but mortal breath, — 
 
 All fates are equal in the lap of Death. 
 
 We returned to the inn for rest and refreshment ; of the latter 
 we got little, except what we derived from laughing at our food, 
 the only alternative, as we did not wish to cry, and our spirits at 
 least being refreshed by the process, we set out with sundry 
 guides, bundles of tapers, and trusses of hay and straw, to scare 
 the syren in her lair by torch-light. It had rained, for as we re- 
 
RAMBLE BY TORCHLIGHT. 43 
 
 turned home in the morning we were overtaken by a sharp 
 shower, and the evening was wild and gusty. It was very dark, 
 and as we passed through the steep streets of the little town, the 
 sudden flares of the wind blew the cloaks of the gentlemen, and 
 the petticoats of the women, and the red streams of torch-licrht, 
 in wild confusion before them. As we wound down the steep 
 paths to the cavern, the trees through which we passed glittered all 
 in the rain that still rested on them, and added much to the beau- 
 tiful effect of the shadowy procession moving in torch-light 
 through the surrounding gloom, and descending apparently, into 
 the very bowels of the earth. Arrived at the bottom of Nep- 
 tune's Cave, which is the top of the Syren's Grotto, all sorts of 
 illuminations took place. Bundles of hay were piled beneath 
 the rocky arch, below which the waters disappeared, and being 
 set fire to, the sudden light sent a blood-red flare deep down 
 into the gulf and upon the foaming waters. Wreaths of burn- 
 ing straw were floated down into the abyss, whose darkness 
 swallowed them instantly ; the rocky roof and eager forms and 
 faces of the assistants, and terrified leaping wild waters, all being 
 suddenly illuminated by the strong light only for a few seconds. 
 Then fires were lighted half way up the glen in a sort of rocky 
 gallery, with open arches looking down into the deep. Here, as 
 we stood below and opposite, we saw the men who were em- 
 ployed in lighting these fires run to and fro through the ruddy 
 rock passage : the effect was perfectly infernal ; and nothing 
 but demons, or some religious rites, such as men have devised 
 for themselves, and which are fit only for devils, were suggested 
 by this strange spectacle. Then the red fiaring fires were ex- 
 tinguished, and a pale white chemical light was made to pour its 
 radiance into the rocky cup, at the bottom of which we stood. 
 The mild, but powerful light, like brightest moonlight intensified, 
 searched every nook of tha cavern, and falling full on the white 
 robe of the waterfall, made it appear like some gigantic ghost. 
 
4^ A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Iq short, there was no end to the tricks played, and the exhibi- 
 tions made of those beautiful and awful scenes ; and as the mas- 
 ter of the inn, like an expert showman, made us stand first in 
 one place and then in another, while he produced his effects of 
 red lights, and white lights, and hay light, and straw light, and 
 torch light, I was seized with disgust at the whole process, and 
 heartily wished he might fall into the cataract, while he was 
 showing it off in that familiar and theatrical style. I am sorry 
 for this ill feeling, but I do not like liberties taken with nature. 
 Coming to see the scenery by torch-light, I should not have ob- 
 jected to ; but these buffooneries displeased me, in spite of the 
 striking effect produced by some of them. I have always a 
 spiteful feeling at people who make vulgar exhibitions of grand 
 and fearful natural objects, and never yet saw a menagerie, and 
 heard the impertinent observations of the keepers upon elephants, 
 lions, tigers, and such small gear, and saw the intolerable jokes 
 they practise upon these very superior animals, that I did not 
 wish the bars of the cage might break, and the two beasts be 
 brought into a more natural confronting of each other. If we 
 must have collections of noble savage beasts, and keep them in 
 cages, let them be treated with proper respect ; and if we may 
 go and peep shuddering over the brink of such secrets as those 
 of the Syren's Grotto at Tivoli, let us do it devoutly, and not in 
 a spirit of impertinent levity, with all sorts of mountebank illus- 
 trations of our own devising. Sitting in the night beside that 
 fearful subterranean waterfall would, after all, have been a finer 
 thing than all the things we did. 
 
 THE SYREN'S CAVE AT TIVOLI. 
 
 As o'er the chasm I breathless hung, 
 Thus from the depths the Syren sung : 
 " Down, down into the womb 
 Of earth, the daylight's tomb, 
 
LINES ON THE SYREN'S CAVE. 45 
 
 "Where the sun's eyes 
 
 Never may shine, 
 
 Nor fair moon rise 
 
 With smile divine ; 
 
 Where caverns yawn 
   Black as despair, 
 
 Fatally drawn 
 
 I plunge down there ; 
 
 And with the bound 
 
 The rocks resound, 
 
 And round and round 
 
 My v/aves are wound 
 Into the gaping rifts of the mid earth : 
 Oh, for the sunny springs where I took birth ! 
 
 The gentle rills, 
 
 The tiny brimming fountain. 
 
 That, scoop'd in the warm bosom of the mountain, 
 
 Each May shower over-fills ! 
 Whence I and my fair sister came ; and she 
 Rolls her smooth silver flood along the way, 
 That princes made for her, so royally. 
 Piercing the rock to give her ample way. 
 
 Down the bright sunny steep 
 
 Her waters leap. 
 Myrtle, and bay, and laurel, and wild vine, 
 A garland for her flowing tresses twine ! 
 The green moss stars the rocks whereon she leaps, 
 Over her breast the fragrant locust weeps ; 
 The air resounds with her wild shouts of laughter, 
 The echoes of the hills in chorus after 
 Repeat the sound, and in her silvery spray 
 Rainbows are woven by the light of day ! 
 
4$ A YEAR OF ^CONSOLATION. 
 
 Down in the valley she springs 
 
 And sings, 
 And the sky bends over 
 Her, like a lover ; 
 And glittering and sparkling her waters run, 
 A bright sea of snow in the summer sun ! 
 
 Darkness broods over me the while ; 
 Grim rocks that sweat 
 With my cold clammy spray, 
 As down the hopeless way 
 In one wild jet 
 My tortur'd billows lash, and leap, and boil ; 
 So deep my bed of darkness lies, 
 That scarce the voice of my great agony 
 Reaches the skies, 
 And all ye see 
 With fearful eyes 
 Who question me, 
 Is the grey whirling mist that covers all 
 As with a pall. 
 
 Light ! light upon the rocks ! sudden and fierce 
 The sharp flames pierce ; 
 Glaring upon my water 
 Like the blood-hue of slaughter 
 A red torch flashes ; 
 As down my wild flood dashes 
 
 Wide flaring brightness streams upon my foam, 
 And flaming fire-wreaths come 
 Hissing into my waves, to find their doom 
 In the same blackness that devours me. 
 The huge rocks grin, as with a sudden glee. 
 
 i 
 
 l( 
 
THE TEMPLE OF VESTA. 47 
 
 At this strange visitation of the light, 
 
 And they are made not beautiful, but bright, 
 
 As all their horrid piles and masses show, 
 
 Hanging above, and heaped below, 
 
 Searched by the ruddy glow. 
 Oh, let me still in darkness dwell ! 
 
 And not in this hell 
 
 Of lurid light, 
 
 That scares the night. 
 
 Hence with the leaping glare, 
 
 Whose fiery stare 
 Reveals the secrets of my dismal bed ; 
 Hence with the voices that profane the dread 
 Of my dark chambers !" — thus the Syren cried. 
 As o'er the rocky chasm's black hideous side 
 I hung entranc'd with terror and dismay, — 
 And at that piteous cry I fled away. 
 
 The next morning we took a walk to the Temple of Vesta, and 
 bade farewell to this enchanting place. The hills and waterfalls 
 delight me ; but the carefully cut paths, and steps, and civilized 
 facilities for sight-seeing irk me too, when I think of the exqui- 
 site scenery hidden in the wild recesses of the mountains in 
 America ; of the long, laborious, uncertain wandering through 
 the forests ; of the adventurous exploring half up the bright 
 waters of some wild mountain stream (an easier path often than 
 may be found along its rocky precipitous banks) ; of the delight 
 of finding, at last, through much difficulty and some danger, the 
 hidden cataract, whose voice had called us on through the thick 
 veil of interposing wood ; of the noon-day plunge in the cold 
 sparkling waters, curtained round with the dark folds of the 
 bemlock pines, below whose screen the delicate birch-trees wave 
 their golden tapestry ; the blue sky, purer and mgre brilliant than 
 
48 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 even that of Italy, roofing in the paradise, encircled by the 
 primeval forest, and secure from even thought of human proxi- 
 mity. There is something tame in all this tourist-haunted nature 
 compared with the lovely wild scenery buried in the unvisited 
 and hardly known regions of that most beautiful western conti- 
 nent. As we drove out of Tivoli on our return to Rome, we met 
 three girls walking with intertwined arms and bare heads, whose 
 beauty was extremely remarkable ; as they went singing and 
 laughing down the street, they would have formed a splendid 
 study for a painter, with their fine heads and full figures and free 
 reckless bearing ; they looked dirty and saucy, but most emi- 
 nently picturesque. Our next adventure was less agreeable. 
 At the very beginning of the long steep hill which leads from 
 Tivoli to the level campagna, the horses of the carriage in which 
 
 and Mr. were became restive, and after kicking 
 
 and plunging in a most frightful manner, set off full gallop down 
 
 the hill. and Mr. fortunately had time to get 
 
 out, and the coachman and servant had also dismounted. The 
 infuriated creatures came tearing down the hill, with the car- 
 riage tossing like a ship behind them. They struck it violently 
 against a tree, which broke it, and set them free, and they then 
 pursued their frantic career, followed by the despairing coach- 
 man and our very efficient and steady man, Pietro. We had 
 hardly received the ship-wrecked travellers into our carriage, 
 and stowed their carpet-bags, guide-books, and all the endless 
 lumber of a trip, and were proceeding leisurely towards the 
 bottom of the long hill, when we met the forlorn procession re- 
 turning ; Pietro pale and with quivering lips ; the horses with their 
 tails all covered with blood whisking against their bleeding legs, 
 which they had cut and mangled shockingly in kicking against 
 the carriage : the coachman brought up the train like Niobe, all 
 tears. No sooner did he perceive us, than he broke out into a 
 southern tempest of lamentations, wringing his hands, beating his 
 
LINES ON HADRIAN'S VILLA. 49 
 
 breast, tearing his hair, rolling his eyes up to heaven, sobbing, 
 snivelling, and finally falling in a demi-syncope upon a bank ; 
 while, in the deep abandonment of his grief, he let go the horses' 
 reins again, thereby giving them an opportunity of renewing 
 their late successful scappata. How an Englishman would have 
 scowled at the howling Roman as he reclined weeping and woe- 
 begone by the road-side ! We comforted him all we could, and 
 
 proceeded to Hadrian's Villa, where , who had sprained 
 
 his foot in jumping from the carriage, having procured a horse, 
 we spent some beatific time amid the grand, graceful ruins round 
 which the spring had twined a thousand fresh garlands, making 
 glad the wrecks of man's greatness with the never-fading great- 
 ness of God. It was a great, beautiful, and sublime scene, and 
 for a moment I was seized with the Lotos Eater's phrensy, and 
 felt inclined to remain there the rest of my natural life. 
 
 HADRIAN'S VILLA 
 
 Let us stay here : nor ever more depart 
 
 From this sweet wilderness Nature and Art 
 
 Have made, not for light wandering feet to stray, 
 
 Through their fair chaos half one sunny day ; 
 
 But for th' abiding place of those whose spirit 
 
 Is worthy all this beauty to inherit. 
 
 Pervading sunlight vivifies the earth. 
 
 The fresh green thickets rock, as though in mirth, 
 
 Under its warmth, and shaken by the breeze, 
 
 That springs down into them from waving trees, 
 
 Whose dark blue branches spread themselves on high, 
 
 On granite shafts, that seem to prop the sky. 
 
 Around, a rocky screen the mountains spread, 
 
 Wood-mantled to their middle, but each head 
 
 VOL. II. 3 
 
60 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Grey, bare, and bald, save where a passing veil, 
 Vaporous, and silv'ry soft, the low clouds trail 
 Over their craggy brows : — down their steep sides 
 The light procession of fleet shadow glides, 
 Garlands of melting gloom, that join and sever, 
 And climb, and then run down the hills for ever. 
 Like rapid outspread wings, flying away 
 Before the golden shafts of the bright day. 
 Turn from the rocky wall, and lo ! a sea 
 Of level land, like an eternity. 
 Spreads its vast plain beneath the hazy light, 
 Till far, far, on th' horizon's edge, one bright 
 And blinding streak betrays the distant verge, 
 Where earth and ocean in each other merge. 
 Look from this promontory made of ruin. 
 Thro' whose brown broken arches the soft wooing 
 Of the Spring air in murmurs low is heard, 
 Answering the voice of that triumphant bird. 
 Who, hid 'mid fragrant wreaths of hawthorn bloom, 
 Sings loud and sweet, here, in this wondrous tomb 
 Of the earth's greatness : — look below, around. 
 Above, — survey this magic sky and ground ; 
 These crumbling arches, that blue vault of Heaven, 
 These pillars, and these friezes, fall'n or riv'n 
 From their stone sockets ; those fair cypress trees. 
 Those vine and ivy garlands. Nature's frieze ; 
 These graceful fragments, over which she flings 
 The still fresh mantle of a thousand Springs ; 
 Hear from it all the strange and solemn story. 
 Decay and Death reaping all human glory. 
 Ho, Adrian ! Emperor, Conqueror, Priest, and Lord ? 
 Who the great Roman world swayedst with a word I 
 
ROAD TO OSTIA. fit 
 
 Thou who didst cast off power without measure, 
 
 To dwell in joy, possessing only pleasure ! 
 
 The wild bee hums in the wild wreaths of thyme 
 
 That carpet o'er thy halls and courts sublime ; 
 
 The nightingale, sweet single chorister, 
 
 Fills the void circle of thy theatre. 
 
 And northern pilgrims, with slow lingering feet, 
 
 Stray round each vestige of thy lov'd retreat, 
 
 And spend in homage half one sunny day 
 
 Before they pass upon their wandering way. 
 
 Leaving thy royal ruin of delight 
 
 Lordly and lonely, lovely, sad, and bright. 
 
 We have made another expedition in the opposite direction, 
 which has enchanted us extremely. Leaving Rome by the San 
 Paolo fuor le Mura, we took the road to Ostia ; and, following the 
 windings of the Tiber, with our backs to the beautiful mountain 
 screen that stands round Rome, we drove towards the sea. The 
 spring was in all its beautiful southern glory : as long as we 
 drove through the suburbs, every wall was crowned with profuse 
 bushes of roses, and every path shaded with the silver bunches 
 of the acacia blossom ; the great long lordly sweeping meadows 
 of the campagna were all carpeted with soft green and a thousand 
 blossoms ; and the very edges of the ditches by the road-side 
 were gay with gorgeous colors — now an army of scarlet poppies 
 that " made the rash gazer wipe his eye," and then a heaven- 
 blue cloud of delicate azure-tinted burridge, with its red-brown 
 stalks and downy leaves ; while above, wild hawthorn and 
 honeysuckle hung fragrant draperies over every hedge. Spring 
 is the season for Italy — Italy is the place to see the spring, and 
 know how triumphant a thing this resurrection of the year may 
 be. Midway to Ostia, and just beyond a bit of the ancient Via 
 Severiana, stands the Osteria of Malafede ; and here begins the 
 
Sd A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 vast extent of alternate marsh and forest that stretches along the 
 coast as far as Nettuno. From a rise in the road just at this 
 point, the view is very striking ; the wide tract of dwarf forest, 
 scrub hawthorn, and oak, stretches down over the skirts of the 
 campagna, like a dark shadow, to the salt marshes, and desolate 
 lonely town of Ostia. Fever and ague have scared away all 
 human inhabitants from this wild district, which has a peculiar 
 forlorn grandeur and picturesqueness of its own. The people 
 employed at the salt works are pretty much the only residents in 
 Ostia, where there is a church and inn, and the fine old middle- 
 age castle, in which Csesar Borgia was confined for a time. 
 Leaving this uninviting place, we drove about half a mile over 
 short sea-grass, in a parallel direction with the coast, and crossing 
 a small bridge over a widish brook that flows from the forest 
 marshes to the sea, we entered the domain of Castel Fusano, the 
 property of the Chigi family, and found ourselves in a sort of 
 sylvan temple, of the noblest and grandest proportions : all 
 round the old weather-stained mansion a semi-circle of glorious 
 stone pines formed a natural hall, more beautiful than ever yet 
 rose, propped on granite or marble — it was impossible not to be 
 struck with delight and almost awe, standing in the midst of this 
 ring of forest giants ; behind them stretched the various wood of 
 beech and oak, with their gnarled fantastic forms, and new fresh 
 verdure, and far-winding wooing avenues, forming the most 
 delicious contrast to the solemn grandeur of this fine colonnade. 
 All round the house reigned a sunny open space, girt every- 
 where with exquisite woodland scenery ; and towards the sea, 
 the great pine forest stretched its dark-blue vault over the earth, 
 fragrant with its aromatic warm colored sheddings, on which we 
 walked, rejoicing in all things. A broad avenue, paved with the 
 large stones of the Roman road, and extending for nearly a mile 
 and a half, led through this strange paradise. On either hand, 
 the shafts of the stone pines rose shining like porphyry columns ; 
 
THE AUTUMN CYCLAMEN. 53 
 
 ilex and oak, and brilliant evergreen growth, filled up, as with 
 green curtains, the spaces between ; the feathery snow-white 
 heather darted its elegant spires up against this dark back-ground ; 
 profuse branches of rose-blossomed daphne, and fragrant pale-blue 
 rosemary, swelled in rounded tufts below, and close upon the 
 dark cone-strewed earth, like jewels scattered upon the pavement 
 of these magical woods ; the glowing blossoms of the sweet cycla- 
 men shone ruby red in the gleams of sunlight that crept beneath 
 the boughs to make them bright. A more wonderful and beauti- 
 ful woodland scene I never saw ; and when, towards the end of 
 this triumphant way, the dazzling white sand and sapphire blue 
 waters of the Mediterranean rose up against the horizon, we all 
 cried out with delight and amazement at the beauty of the scene. 
 The day passed rapidly away — it is one of those filled only with 
 beautiful things, which I remember separately in my life. 
 
 THE AUTUMN CYCLAMEN. 
 
 These beautiful little flowers, whose most appropriate title 
 among the Italian country people is Viole pazze (mad violets), 
 early in spring fill these southern woods with their amaranth- 
 colored blossoms, and exquisite fragrance. They disappear 
 before the increasing heat of summer, but when the autumn 
 comes return and cover every mossy bank and sheltered copse 
 with profuse blossoms, which, however, look like the flowery 
 spectres of their sweet spring existence ; colorless and scentless, 
 ihey haunt the woods and meadows till the fall of the year ; 
 when even these floral apparitions vanish, their petals dropping 
 off, the slight stems, generally two or three inches long, roll 
 themselves tightly up, and either lie thus curled up under the 
 earth's surface, or perhaps merely beneath its warm winter 
 covering of fallen leaves, until the spring restores to them their 
 amaranthine vests and fragrant breath. 
 
54 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 We are the ghosts of those small flow'rs, 
 That in the opening of the year, 
 
 'Neath rosemary and myrtle bow'rs, 
 In crimson vests appear. 
 
 Far, underneath the blue pine wood, 
 Between its massive porphyry stems, 
 
 The mossy ground we overstrewed 
 With ruby-colored gems. 
 
 The slender heath spires o'er us wav'd 
 Their lordly snow-white feathers fine, 
 
 And round our feet the earth was pav'd 
 With sheddings of the pine. 
 
 The flow'r Apollo lov'd, its bloom 
 In rosy bunches o'er us spread. 
 
 And heavy hanging golden broom 
 Deep golden shadows shed. 
 
 Above, around, and underneath. 
 The aromatic air was filled 
 
 With the wild sweetness of our breath, 
 Like honey-combs distilled. 
 
 The spring breeze flying towards the sea 
 Entranced, remain'd, and o'er us hung ; 
 
 And in our cups the soft brown bee 
 Bending our blossoms swung. 
 
 The blue sea sang to us a deep, 
 
 Sonorous, solemn, melody ; 
 The sun stoop'd 'neath the boughs to peep 
 
 At our fair company. 
 
THE AUTUMN CYCLAMEN. 55 
 
 And you went by ; in your white hand 
 Was many a slender, brittle stem, 
 
 That you had gather'd from our band ; 
 We wished we were with them. 
 
 Now, here we are a ghostly tram ; 
 
 Who, in the closing of the year, 
 From the dark earth-cells rise again. 
 
 And sadly do appear. 
 
 The red hues of our coronal. 
 
 All pale and wintry white have grown ; 
 Our leaves, in wild disorder, all. 
 
 By the rough winds are blown. 
 
 The sun-beams faint, and thin, and chill, 
 Look at us thro' dark walls of cloud, 
 
 And o'er the grey ridge of the hill, 
 The storm howls fierce and loud. 
 
 'Neath many a black green ivy wreath, 
 Steep'd in the cold and glittering showers, 
 
 We send a faint and scentless breath, 
 Thro' gloomy laurel bow'rs. 
 
 The hard pine-cones come shaken down. 
 Bruising us, wherQwe clustered grow. 
 
 Brown, thorny, wild briar arms are thrown 
 Across our breasts of snow. 
 
 The threatening thunder heavily 
 
 Rolls thro' the darkening realms of space ; 
 And in the lightning glares we see 
 
 Each other's wet, wan face. 
 
56 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 We are the ghosts of those gay flow'rs, 
 That in your soft white hand you bore ; 
 
 And soon the cheerless wintry bow'rs 
 Will see e'en us no more. 
 
 This morning we went to the Sistine Chapel ; our last expedi- 
 tion to it had ended in quasi suffocation among the crowd outside 
 the door, listening to Pacini's Miserere, which we could not hear, 
 and supposing it was Allegri's ; to-day we entered without let or 
 hindrance, and found all silent and empty — two diligent German 
 sight-seers, book in hand, alone wandered round with us ; and 
 we remained for a length of time admiring the grandest pictorial 
 conceptions in the whole world. It is impossible to describe 
 them ; but I have never been impressed by any pictures as by 
 these colossal figures of the sybils and prophets — grand and 
 natural, simple and sublime, beyond any pictures I ever beheld. 
 The great picture of the Last Judgment, which stands behind 
 the altar, did nothing, however, but horrify me. Drawing, 
 grouping, anatomy, may all triumph in this vast composi- 
 tion ; but the conception of it is so gross, so coarse, so 
 earthly, and withal so childish, that it displeased me utterly. 
 As for the Judge Supreme, the Christ, the Son of God, I was 
 more shocked with the brutal form and expression lent to Him, 
 than with any other representation of that Divine Humanity I 
 ever beheld — though I involuntarily turn away my ej'^es from all 
 of them. This was indeed horrible, — the subject of the whole 
 thus treated is exceedingly displeasing, and I turned from it to 
 gaze with still increasing wonder and delight at the miracles on 
 the vault. A rather comical piece of consideration was shown, 
 it seems to me, on the occasion of the death of the late Pope. 
 While his body lay in state in the chapel, a curtain was drawn 
 across the picture of the Last Judgment, with a view, I suppose, 
 to avoid the suggestion of any ideas upon that subject in which 
 
A VISIT TO THE CATACOMBS. 57 
 
 the dead Pontiff might be disrespectfully implicated : in spite of 
 which precaution shrewd guesses were not avoided ; and a letter 
 was taken from the post-office a short time ago, directed " To 
 Gregory the Sixteenth, hi Hell /" and containing a copy of the 
 amnesty promulgated immediately after his accession by his 
 successor. As we left the Vatican, a most beautiful effect of 
 light struck me ; the staircase we descended was in a sort of 
 mellow twilight ; the long gallery, beyond where stood and sat 
 the Swiss Guard, was perfect salmon-color, with the sunlight 
 pouring through the open windows towards the great court ; and 
 at the end of all, between the large pillars of the colonnade, the 
 place of St. Peter's Fountain, people, and the long Via del Borgo 
 were one blaze of sunlight. It was wonderful ; but could hardly 
 have been painted any more than described. We walked out at 
 the Porta Angelica, and went home across the meadows behind 
 St. Angelo, along a lane filled with acacias and honeysuckle ; 
 we crossed the Tiber by a most primitive rope ferry in a most 
 filthy ferry-boat, and landing in the Via Ripetta went up to our 
 home on the Pincio, which seems to me one of the very choice 
 positions in all Rome. 
 
 In the afternoon we drove out to the Via Nomentana, beyond 
 St. Agnes, intending to visit the catacombs ; walking through 
 some ground, part meadow, part vineyard, to a tumble-down 
 cottage, a man issued from it armed with a proper proportion of 
 tapers, who guided us to a sort of cellar door, opening into the 
 
 ground. First went our guide, next Mr. , down the steep 
 
 narrow stone steps ; I was about to follow, followed myself by 
 
 my sister and Mrs. , when happening to look upwards, I 
 
 perceived that the vault, on which the torchlight and daylight 
 played together, was literally lined with huge hairy spiders, a 
 perfect net-work of running legs and round black bodies. This 
 was enough for me ; I would have gone down there to have 
 saved a person's life, perhaps ; as it was, I forthwith wheeled 
 
 3* 
 
58 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 about and fled. Mrs. and my sister followed my exam- 
 ple ; the latter, indeed, for pure conformity's sake, for she does 
 
 not mind spiders. Mr. remained at the bottom of the 
 
 stairs, adjuring, imploring, exhorting — " Caroline ! Adelaide ! 
 Mrs. Butler ! There are no more spiders as soon as you're down 
 the stairs ; they're only old men — not real spiders, what d'ye 
 call them, daddy-long-legs. Oh, come here ! see ! — the early 
 Christians ! Here they are !" But the latest Christians fled 
 amain, and we saw no catacombs ; in spite of which, my con- 
 ception of, and admiration for, all that these saints and martyrs 
 of our faith endured, is, I am persuaded, infinitely greater than 
 if I had seen the catacombs, and not the spiders. To divert the 
 
 time while Mr. pursued his spidery way, my sister and 
 
 myself went into the curious old church of St. Agnes, which is 
 quite at a considerable depth below ground, — a most picturesque 
 old church, sunny and lonely and still : it struck us both 
 extremely. There was a beautiful marble head of Christ, attri- 
 buted to Michael Angelo, on a small side altar ; the whole church, 
 empty of all but the still sunlight, seemed to me full of devotion. 
 The priest who showed it to us led us from thence to the adjoin- 
 ing baptistery or church of Sta. Costanza, an exquisite round 
 building, with a double colonnade of marble pillars ; a roof covered 
 with various and most curious mosaic, and a little side door, 
 which standing half opened, showed a rich foreground of golden 
 green foliage, and the sunny campagna beyond. The whole 
 was most magnificent in its effect, and I regretted neither the 
 spiders nor the catacombs. This was our last day in Rome ; the 
 spring beckoned us to our villeggiatura at Frascati, and the next 
 morning we departed for the Alban hills, and the green woody 
 slopes of Tusculum. 
 
 It is a certain fact that descriptions describe nothing ; that is to 
 say, they do not convey any distinct idea whatever of either 
 places or people to those wh o are not acquainted with them ; 
 
PAULINE BORGHESE'S PALACE. 59 
 
 their use, I take it, is to recall vividly, if they are good, places or 
 people, to those who are acquainted with them. Thus, while 
 reading such descriptions, as while looking at a picture of a loved 
 face, or a familiar haunt, we bear testimony to the merit of the 
 copy by forgetting it, and exclaiming, with our minds full of the 
 original, " Ah, how lovely it was !" To that happy company of 
 friends gathered during the bright hours of that summer (of 1846) 
 under one roof, and from whose national and individual dissimi- 
 larities no element of discord arose, but only variety of harmony, 
 during an uninterrupted season of delightful intercourse, — I de- 
 dicate these remembrances of that beautiful residence, and those 
 fortunate hours, during which memories were planted that will 
 outbloom all seasons, and spirits joined together in bonds that will 
 survive all time. The house we resided in was one of the many 
 Borghese palaces, and had been a favorite residence of the Bor- 
 ghese (not par exceUence) Pauline, the Venere Vincitrice — no 
 longer inhabited by its owners, it had been let in several apart- 
 ments to different families, and this vear we were fortunate 
 enough to secure one of them. The large and rather dilapidated 
 rooms were but scantily provided with furniture, more various 
 than well-assorted, and tending to unsatisfactory splendor rather 
 than to solid comfort. Few of the tables or chairs stood fairly 
 on their legs ; but then in almost every room was some precious 
 slab of beautifully veined marble. The sofas were repulsive 
 and not inviting, but the walls and ceil in "fs were variegated with 
 that profusion of graceful ornament which makes us wonder at 
 the bare whitewashing and monotonous one-patterned papers of 
 our northern abodes ; and if the brick floors and doors loath to 
 shut, threatened a little to the rheumatic apprehensions of Eng- 
 lish people, what sunlight, incessant, brilliant, glorious, blessed, 
 poured from those cloudless heavens through the open windows 
 day after day ! and how in the panting summer afternoons we 
 looked through the cheerful vista of the long gallery, where we 
 
60 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 sat, to the pleasant vine-covered trellis, with its hanging bunches 
 of grapes; the dark-leaved gigantic growth of the hydrangea, 
 with its heavy tufts of cool, pale-blue blossoms, and the sparkling 
 fringes of the fountain that fell down beyond into the stone basin, 
 in the midst of its smooth clipped shining screen of polished 
 laurel ! What moonlight nights lured us forth upon the broad 
 terraces with their graceful urns and slender cypress spires, like 
 delicate shadows piercing the violet sky ! What delicious hours 
 of mere breathing that pleasant summer residence afforded, with 
 its infinite combinations of natural and artificial beauty ! My own 
 special apartment was most charming. 
 
 Three windows cheerfully poured in the light : 
 One from the east, where o'er the Sabine hills 
 The sun first rose on the great Roman plain^ 
 And shining o'er the garden, with its fountains, 
 Vine-trellises, and heaps of rosy bloom. 
 Struck on the glittering laurel trees, that shone 
 With burnished golden leaves against my lattice. 
 One towards the north, close screened with a dark wall 
 Of bay and ilex, with tall cypress shafts. 
 Piercing with graceful spires the limpid air, 
 Like delicate shadows in transparent water. 
 One towards the west — above a sunny green, 
 Where merry black-eyed Tusculan maidens laid 
 The tawny woof to bleach between the rays 
 Of morning light and the bright morning dew. 
 There spread the graceful balustrade, and down 
 Swept the twin flights of steps, with their stone vases, 
 And thick-leav'd aloes, like a growth of bronze. 
 To the broad court, wliere, from a twilight cell, 
 A Naiad, crowned with tufts of trembling green. 
 Sang towards the sunny palace all day long. 
 
ITALIAN SCENERY. 61 
 
 How charming the life was, too, with its monotony and variety, 
 like that of beautiful nature itself. The early morning walk, 
 through dewy vineyards, where I forestalled my breakfast, pick- 
 ing from the purple and amber bunches, like a greedy bird, the 
 finest grapes, all bathed in bloom and freshness, or breaking from 
 the branches over my head the heavy-hanging luscious figs, 
 while my eyes slowly wandered from the Sabine hills to the 
 Alban mountain, and from the shining glorious campagna to the 
 glittering Mediterranean. Then the noon-day plunge in the cool 
 fountain, with those beautiful children, their round rosy limbs 
 shining through the clear water, and their bead-like, glancing 
 eyes bright with delight. Then the readings, and the music ; 
 that exquisite voice, and learned lovely art, enchanting the hours 
 with the songs of every land ; the earnest, silent, hegrimed, 
 absorbed, drawing hours ; the quiet enthusiasm of our artist 
 friend, the infinite anecdote, varied learning, marvellous memory, 
 and eloquent outpourings of our traveller; the graceful universal 
 accomplishment and most gentle chivalrous benevolence of our 
 dear Excellency. How many, many elements of pleasure and 
 of happiness were there ! How perfectly all the elements were 
 united and tempered and attuned ! The evening rides, when 
 the sun began to withdraw his potent presence ; the merry 
 meeting of the numerous cavalcade, in front of the fine mansion ; 
 the salutations from balcony and terrace from those who stayed, 
 alas ! behind, to those who, blessed with health and strength, 
 went forth to increase them both by pleasure. The sober pro- 
 cession at starting up the broad ilex avenue, the unfailing excla- 
 mations of delight and admiration as we stood on the royal 
 terrace of the Dragon's mount, and then the sweeping gallops 
 over the wide campagna to the Lake Regillis, Gabii, Pentana, 
 Lunghezza, or through the chestnut-woods below Rocco di Papa, 
 and at the base of Monte Cavo, or along the smooth verdant 
 sward (smoother and greener in the spring and autumn than 
 
62 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 green Ireland ever saw) of the long Latin valley, and then the 
 return, by rosy sunset or pearly moonlight, through the filbert- 
 woods of Tusculum, by the Camaldoli, and down the fragrant, 
 warm, mysterious cypress avenue. It was a perfect life, and to 
 have led it for several months is a miracle. 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 * 
 
 At morn — a mountain ne'er to be climbed o'er, 
 
 A horn of plenty, lengthening evermore ; 
 
 At noon — the countless hour-sands pouring fast. 
 
 Waves that we scarce can see as they run past ; 
 
 At night — a pageant over ere begun, 
 
 A course not even measured and yet run, 
 
 A short mysterious tale — suddenly done. 
 
 At first — a heap of treasure, heaven-high ; 
 
 At last — a failing purse, shrunk lean and beggarly. 
 
 Established at the Villa Taverna, one of our first expeditions 
 was to the ancient Latin city, the birth-place of the Catos — the 
 summer resort of Cicero. At the back of our house a noble 
 avenue of ilex leads up for nearly a quarter of a mile of gradual 
 ascent to the Villa Mondragone, the noblest of all the princely 
 houses that cluster above Frascati — a huge block of building 
 through whose long ranges of empty windows the bright sky 
 looks like some sparkling blue eye through the sockets of a 
 skeleton, covering, I should suppose, upwards of two acres of 
 ground. The princely mansion commands the whole near and 
 far country most royally — in front, a spacious terrace, all grass- 
 grown and desolate, overlooks the splendid prospect ; a broken, 
 tottering stone balustrade still ornaments it, but the visitor, gaz- 
 ing on the varied and lovelv scene, had better beware of the 
 treacherous support of its tottering pillars, — here and there great 
 gaps are broken in its graceful line, and the irregular tufts of 
 
THE MONKS OF CAMALDOLI. «S 
 
 ivy, clematis, and wild briar, have climbed from the green depths 
 below, and hung their tapestry over the ruin ; four pillars, with 
 dragons' heads for capitals, and surmounted by iron crosses, 
 mark the corners of this terrace — land-marks seen for miles 
 from below ; and a dry fountain, full of weeds and nettles, 
 stands in the midst of it, whence looking at sunset, the world 
 cannot show a grander or more melancholy scene. To the right, 
 the irregular buildings of Monte Porzio, perched on their vine- 
 clad hills ; and above and beyond, the whole line of the Sabine 
 mountains. To the left, the waving oak and chestnut woods of 
 Tusculum, the stone pines of the Rufinella, the cypress spires 
 of the Falconieri ; — in the middle distance, the campagna, one 
 sea of light ; with St. Peter's, like a huge shadowy buoy, float- 
 ing on the sunny vapor ; — along the horizon, the bright blue line 
 of the Mediterranean ; and immediately below our feet, leading 
 up to the palace, a broad grassy avenue, with two compact walls 
 of noble cypress trees, whose black spires against the red glow 
 of sunset, or the violet star-sown evening sky, produce one of the 
 most solemn and beautiful efl^ects I ever saw. We left this royal 
 stand unwillingly, and passing through the gate, still guarded by 
 the remains of the dragon and eagle, both crowned, pursued our 
 road towards Tusculum, passing on our way the picturesque 
 convent of the Camaldoli, a sort of Trappist institution, where 
 the monks have entirely separate residences, and never associate 
 with each other but on some special occasions, once or twice in 
 the year. The late Pope, Gregory XVI., was one of these 
 monks, and habitually wore their dress when not in his papal 
 robes. They own a good deal of land in the neighborhood, and 
 must have been, at any rate, supposed to possess some property, 
 for in the days of Gasperoni, his band carried off a number of 
 them into the mountains, for the sake of a ransom of some hun- 
 dred scudi, which, I believe, the good fathers paid. At some 
 distance from the convent gate are two iron crosses on stone pe- 
 
64 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 destals. I read on one of them, that any woman passing beyond 
 that spot was excommunicated and anathematized, in every sense 
 of the term. We climbed, just here, a breezy knoll, covered 
 with wild thyme, purple bell blossoms, and bushes of golden 
 broom, whose color looked as though one might have warmed 
 one's hands at them ; over this splendid carpet, spread upon the 
 hills, we looked down into the campagna, which affects me 
 always with the same sense of vast melancholy grandeur as the 
 sea. 
 
 After resting here, we went on through steep shady walks, all 
 vaulted over with hazel boughs, to Tusculum. On the very top 
 of the hill rises, or, more properly speaking, sinks, the graceful 
 stone circle of the ancient theatre; its proportions are small, but 
 the whole structure is still entire in form : the stage and orches- 
 tra, and the perfectly defined stone seats, unbroken, rise one 
 above another, with nodding scarlet poppies growing between 
 their crevices, the brown rocky mass of the ancient citadel of 
 Tusculum rising behind like a screen ; and above, the blue sky 
 spreads its transparent canopy ; and all below, the land falls in 
 gradual various lovely slopes and breaks, to the level seat of 
 Rome the victorious. From a ridge just beyond this gem of a 
 ruin, we looked into the Latin valley, along the ancient Via 
 Latina, to the blue ridges of the Algidus, and the Volscian sum- 
 mits ; beyond, whole slopes of golden broom blossoms spread 
 themselves along the valley, and waving tracts of beautiful dark 
 green woodland rising above these amber fields led the eye up- 
 wards, to where the grey, harmonious heap of buildings, formed 
 by Rocca di Papa, crowns one steep acclivity ; and above, rising 
 higher into the sky, the convent-crested summit of Monte Cavo. 
 It was a warm, sunny, windy, delicious spring day, when we 
 first saw Tusculum, a day whose very atmosphere I remember. 
 Descending from the little theatre, we passed what is shown as 
 the site of Cicero's villa, and came down gradually along a sort 
 
THE LANDGRAFF OF THURINGIA. 65 
 
 of mountain ridge, by a smooth garden walk, through plantations 
 of chestnut, oak, and flowering acacia, through whose branches, 
 as from a heaven-high balcony, we every now and then had deep 
 views down into the Roman campagna, between sweeping woody 
 promontories, all fringed with flowering shrubs, sinking splen- 
 didly to the level plain, bounded far beyond again by the blue wall 
 of the Sabine mountains. We sat down to rest close by a knot 
 of dark stone pine trees, with a golden carpet of broom at their 
 feet ; the effect of coloring was magical. Our path home lay 
 through the vineyards of the Villa Rufinella, and so we concluded 
 
 our first day's walk on the Alban hills. Our friend told 
 
 me this evening the following anecdote, which I have amused 
 myself with putting into rhyme. 
 
 THE LANDGRAFF. 
 
 Thro' Thuringia's forest green. 
 
 The Landgraff" rode at close of e'en, 
 
 Huntsmen and hounds were left behind, 
 
 While following fierce a dappled hind ; 
 
 And tho' the day grew thick apace. 
 
 The brave steed distanc'd in the chase, 
 
 Still by his rider urg'd amain, 
 
 While daylight served, to reach the plain, 
 
 Sped thro' the mazes of the wood ; 
 
 The crimson light like drops of blood 
 
 Sprinkled upon the foliage lay ; 
 
 And thro' green arches far away, 
 
 Some sudden gaps let in the light. 
 
 And made the rough old tree trunks bright. 
 
 Fast sped the steed, but still more fast 
 
 The fiery steeds of heav'n sped on ; 
 Oak, glade, and hazel copse flew past, 
 
 But the red sunlight all was gone : 
 
'^6 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Twilight's dim shadows gather'd round, 
 With light departed every sound ; 
 The sudden strain of some late bird 
 From the high boughs no more was heard ; 
 And save the thundering hoofs that ring 
 Along the path, and fluttering wing 
 Of bats low flying thro' the grey, 
 Deep solemn silence sealed the day : 
 One after one, the twisted form 
 
 Of each huge chestnut tree grew dim, 
 And with the blackness of a storm, 
 
 The coming night look'd wild and grim. 
 With slower step, and head bent low, 
 The gallant steed went forward now ; 
 Quoth the good Landgraff', in his mind, 
 " To-night we shall no shelter find, 
 But thou and I, old horse, shall lie 
 
 Beneath the oak tent of the wood ; 
 Keen hunter, ev'n of lineage high. 
 
 Finds red-brown moss a pillow good." 
 Just then, a sudden ruddy glare, 
 
 Streamed from the forest depths of green ; 
 The LandgrafTgave a lusty cheer, 
 
 Well pleased the light to see, I ween ; 
 And with a hopeful snort, the steed 
 Sprang on with fresh-awaken 'd speed. 
 From a low smithy lined with light. 
 The red glow pour'd upon the night ; 
 And that which, when beheld afar, 
 Shone like a friendly twinkling star, 
 Search'd every nook and cranny round ; 
 Show'd each brown leaf upon the ground ; 
 Each ivy snake's fine hairy feet. 
 
THE LANDGRAFF OF THURINGIA. 67 
 
         "I — ^^^^M^^M 
 
 Climbing the pine-shafts grey and stern- 
 Great golden oak boughs spread and meet 
 
 Above a sea of golden fern; 
 The foaming brook all glancing bright, 
 
 In golden waves went rolling by ; 
 From the low roof a jet of light 
 
 Sprang upwards to the murky sky : 
 The fierce flames roar'd, the bellows blew, 
 Round a red rain of fire-sparks flew ; 
 The sweat fell from the stout smith's brow, 
 And ever with each stalwart blow, 
 He cried, " Oh, Landgrafl*, grow thou hard !" — 
 Amaz'd, the wondering Landgraflf heard ; 
 And stepping forth out of the night 
 Into the smithy's ruddy light. 
 He and his horse together stood. 
 Like shadowy demons of the wood. 
 " Good friend," quoth he, " I've lost my way, 
 Here in the forest, and I pray 
 That thou wilt sufler me to rest, 
 Till by the sky I guess the east ?" 
 The toil-worn workman wiped his brow ; 
 He pointed to a settle low. 
 And to his humble pallet bed : — 
 " To all I have, welcome !" he said — 
 " Thy horse must stable in the wood ; 
 The water of the brook is good ; 
 Here is the black loaf that I eat, 
 To work and weariness 'tis sweet." 
 And then, without another word. 
 He cried, " Oh, Landgrafl", grow thou hard !" — 
 And struck the iron bar amain — 
 The furious sparks flew forth again ; 
 
68 A YEAR riF CONSOLATION. 
 
 And thus he wrought, and thus he pray'd, 
 Till the stout bar of iron made ; 
 He paused awhile, with panting breast, 
 And sat him down beside his guest. 
 Who cried, " Good friend, I prithee say, 
 Wherefore thus strangely thou dost pray ?" 
 
 " Oh, sir," replied the brawny man, 
 
 " To pray and pray is all we can ; 
 Our Earl is good, may God reward 
 His gentleness, and make him hard ; 
 He loves the poor, he grinds us not ; 
 He leaves us all a peaceful lot. 
 And were there none between his grace 
 And the poor vassal's down-trod race. 
 His people's were a blessed case : 
 But between us poor men and him, 
 A tribe of barons, hard and grim, 
 Harrow and drive, and strip and spoil, 
 The wretched tillers of the soil ; 
 And the great God, who out of heaven 
 The charge of us, his poor, hath given 
 To princes, who our rights should guard. 
 Make towards these fiends our Landgraffhard ; 
 And save us through his mighty hand 
 From these destroyers of the land : 
 Because our Earl is mild and good, 
 This greedy, bloody, wolfish brood 
 Make us a people most ill-starred. 
 So, great God, make our Landgraff hard !" 
 They both sat silent, while the brook 
 With rippling voice the burden took. 
 And seemed to echo back me word, 
 
 " Oh, great God, make our Landgraff hard I" — - 
 
THE LANDGRAFF OF THURINGIA. 69 
 
 " Hast thou no wife, hast thou no child 
 To cheer thee in this forest wild ?" — 
 " I had two children and a wife," 
 The smith replied, " to cheer my life — 
 I saw my boy borne past my door 
 Bound to a stag all streaming gore, 
 Followed by devilish men and hounds. 
 Because within the forest bounds 
 Of Ravenstein a fawn he found, 
 And lifted dying from the ground. 
 A forester of Ravenstein 
 
 Strove with him once, and fared the worse, 
 And sware that luckless boy of mine 
 
 Should live that fatal fray to curse. 
 I saw him hunted through the wood, 
 And track'd him by the streaks of blood, 
 To where the fern banks hide the river ; 
 But after that I saw him — never. 
 I had a daughter, — God be praised ! 
 
 She to a distant town is gone, 
 A fair, fair girl !" — His head he raised 
 
 And wiped the big tears, one by one, 
 From his brown face — " To let her go 
 I was right glad — 'twas better so. 
 The wicked Lord of Falconsheight 
 
 Met her one morning by the brook ; 
 
 She told her mother of his look 
 And loathsome words, as wild with fright 
 She fled away ; that very night. 
 Like God's good angel, through the glade 
 A young companion of my trade 
 Came travelling by — short time he stayed, 
 And when he went, took hence the maid. 
 
70 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 We gave our darling child to him, 
 
 And sav'd her so from shame." — The dim 
 
 Red embers on the anvil show'd 
 
 The fierce and fiery flush that glow'd 
 
 Over the swart smith's knotted brow : ^ 
 
 " Their mother pined away — and now, 
 
 I am alone ;" he said, and rose — 
 
 Fast flew the sparks, fast fell the blows, 
 
 But neither said another word. 
 
 Save as the hammer fell with might, 
 
 From time to time, through the whole night 
 
 The prayer : " Oh, make our Landgraff hard !" 
 
 The daylight dawn'd ; the Landgraff rode 
 
 From the smith's cottage in the wood, 
 
 And through Thuringia, far and wide, 
 
 From that day forth was checked the pride 
 
 Of the fierce barons, — while the poor, 
 
 From wrong and cruelty secure. 
 
 Praised the good Earl, whose just command 
 
 With might and mercy ruled the land. 
 
 Among the events of this sweet summer life has been the 
 pleasure we have enjoyed in hearing the original correspondence 
 between Goethe, then a young man of four-and-twenty, and M. 
 
 and Mme , the father and mother of our charming and 
 
 excellent friend, and the originals of the Albert and Charlotte of 
 his Werther. Several mornings have been enchantingly spent in 
 listening to these interesting letters, which I sincerely hope he 
 will ere long give to the world. They contain the germ, — ^the 
 kernel of reality, which Goethe afterwards unfolded in the fiction 
 of Werther. I had just, for the first time, read his celebrated 
 romance, and was therefore doubly delighted at thus becoming 
 acquainted with the real ground-work of it. In reading these 
 
GOETHE AND WERTHER. 71 
 
 letters it is most curious to observe how wonderfully the hand of 
 genius has wrought with the elements of reality, occasionally 
 transcribing verbatim the sensations and experience of his own 
 heart and mind ; occasionally the minuter events, and fine 
 unimaginable details, of his passionate and yet uneventful inti- 
 macy with Mme ; and occasionally, again, interweaving 
 
 with this web of truth such threads of fiction as the artist's taste 
 and perception suggested ; or mixing with the real personages of 
 his drama, himself, M. and Mme , circumstances true in 
 
 themselves, but belonging to distinct and different persons : such, 
 for instance, as the melancholy death of poor young Jerusalem, 
 who, partly from disappointed affection, and partly from difficulty 
 in his affairs, and, mostly of all, from the morbid influence of a 
 disordered imagination, committed suicide with a pistol which he 
 
 borrowed for the express purpose, from M. . The latter, 
 
 much shocked by the occurrence, and his own involuntary parti- 
 cipation in it, wrote a detailed and most interesting account of the 
 circumstance to Goethe, who was then winding up the thread of 
 his romance and seized upon this event as its conclusion, and 
 literally transcribed verbatim, in the description of the death of 
 
 Werther, M. 's letter to him containing the details of 
 
 Jerusalem's unfortunate suicide. The charming description of 
 his first meeting with Charlotte, and their first ball together, was 
 taken from reality ; but the publication of these letters, interest- 
 ing in every possible respect, and creditable to the great genius 
 himself and the friends so worthy of his esteem and affection, 
 
 would be but an act of absolute justice towards Mme , 
 
 whose character has certainly lost by its fusion into that of 
 Goethe's heroine ; who, for the necessary purposes of his ro- 
 mance, is represented as indifferently attractive, and by no means 
 so estimable as the charming original from which some of her 
 features were drawn. It is almost hard that through Germany, 
 
 • 
 
 universally, Mme should have been entirely confounded 
 
72 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 with her ideal namesake, round whom the author has thrown 
 every charm, which nevertheless cannot atone for her silent 
 encouragement of a man's love whom she could not marry ; for 
 her toleration of its incessant manifestations after marriage with 
 another ; and for that closing scene of passion which leaves us to 
 pity more than to admire the wife of poor Albert, and to consider 
 that, upon the whole, the wretched death of Werther probably 
 averted consequences only more wretched, of ill-governed affec- 
 tions on the part of the lover and unprincipled indulgence on that 
 of the heroine. Most different, indeed, was all this from the 
 
 truth. Admitted by himself to the intimate intercourse 
 
 of his betrothed, Goethe became most passionately enamored of 
 her ; but with that indiscriminating loyalty of love which mea- 
 sures no difference, Charlotte remained perfectly true to her 
 plighted allegiance ; and, in daily communion with a man whose 
 mind was one of the most powerful and extraordinary that has in- 
 fluenced humanity in modern times — one of the great exceptional 
 intellects of all times — retamed her perfect truth and undiminished 
 affection for the manly and excellent person to whom she was affi- 
 anced, whose noble generosity and trust, both in her and his friend, 
 was fitly rewarded by the faith of both ; for his Charlotte, untainted 
 hy vanity or inconstancy, remained, under the strong temptation of 
 such a passion, devoted to her worthy lover ; and Goethe, after 
 four months of uninterrupted enjoyment of her society, resolutely 
 tore himself away, parting both from her and his friend, rather 
 than run the risk of disturbing their peace by useless demonstra- 
 tions of a hopeless passion. The style of Werther, which is its 
 great charm and merit, appeared to me incomparable in its 
 tenderness and truth to nature — its exquisite pathos and simpli- 
 city ; indeed, the wonder is not that such writing was the result 
 of a real passion ; as the expression of a merely imaginary one, 
 it would have been impossible. Till I read the real correspond- 
 ence, from many of which passages are transcribed into the let- 
 
GOETHE AND WERTHER. 73 
 
 ters of the romance, I thought nothing could exceed the charm 
 of sentiment and passion in the latter ; but truth here, as every, 
 where, is alone most beautiful ; and there is one passage in one 
 
 of Goethe's letters to Mnie more touching than anything 
 
 in Werther. Writing to her his farewell, on the night before 
 his departure, and referring to his daily delight of seeing and 
 being with her, he says : — " And so to-morrow I shall not see 
 you ! Oh, not to-morrow is never !" Among this collection of 
 letters is one, if I mistake not, of Herder's, giving a most 
 
 interesting description of Madame , from the time when, 
 
 at an unusually early age, she became, in consequence of her 
 mother's death, the head of her father's family, the mistress of 
 his house, and the guide and support of her younger brothers 
 and sisters, to the period when, herself the mother of a large 
 family, she still retained much of the charm which had belonged 
 to her in early years, and was the pride and blessing of her 
 husband's, as she had been of her father's house. Of an exqui- 
 sitely gentle and cheerful temper, of admirably sound judgment, 
 and a most winning and gracious deportment, she was then what 
 my American fellow-citizens would call a " lovely old lady;" 
 using the term " lovely" in a moral rather than physical sense, 
 and yet conveying by it something more than the loveable, which 
 might belong simply to a person's mind and disposition ; some- 
 thing of manner, and the charm of personal appearance, but 
 more still of that inward and spiritual grace, of which they are 
 but the outward and visible sign. This letter alone, it appears 
 to me, ought to offer a strong inducement to M. to pub- 
 lish the collection of which it forms a part — such a picture of 
 one's mother is a precious inheritance. By far the most re- 
 markable and striking part of this history of a friendship is the 
 first publication of Werther, and its effect upon the relation 
 
 between Goethe and M. and Mme . While the constant 
 
 and enthusiastic letters of the genius to his less gifted friends 
 
 VOL. II. 4 
 
74 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 were to them but a source of affectionate delight, the expression 
 of a love and sympathy to which his wonderful gifts appeared in 
 truth to add but little value in their heart-estimation ; theirs to 
 him — all his intercourse with Charlotte and her husband, all hi.s 
 own passionate delight in her society, and passionate sorrow for 
 her loss — the enchantment of first acquaintance, the growing 
 charm of unblamed intimate intercourse — the difficult and dark 
 season when to him this intercourse became impossible, except 
 as a daily torment — the separation bitterer than death — the 
 sweet and tender memories — all this truth, this life, this 
 deepest reality was becoming gradually the property of Goethe's 
 mind, afler being the experience of his heart ; and with that 
 marvellous spirit of appropriation, that royal claim which genius 
 lays upon everything it comes in contact with — the innermost 
 workings of its own nature, as well as all other things — he was 
 about to reproduce, moulded into the form of the gracefullest and 
 most pathetic fiction — the love and friendship which had filled 
 his heart and life, and been to him, for a while, the dearest of 
 realities. Delighted himself with the utterance he had thus 
 found for his feelings (a world-wide utterance such as not love 
 or friendship, but only genius, needs), he worked with enthusi- 
 asm at this picture of the past, and could not even refrain from 
 repeatedly alluding to the tribute he was about to pay his friend 
 
 and Mme , in his letters to them, with a sort of childish 
 
 delight, and impatience of his own secret, most remarkable and 
 interesting. At length Werther appeared, Germany wept, and 
 went into romantic ecstasies over the love-lorn hero's destiny. 
 The author was overwhelmed with admiration, praise, and 
 wonder ; young ladies declined bearing their name of Charlotte, 
 because his heroine's surpassing loveliness made them ashamed 
 of their own unworthiness of being her namesake ; and in the 
 midst of this sudden flood of glory, he laid his work at the feet of 
 his friends, and received in reply the mournfullest coniiplaint of 
 
GOETHE AND WERTHER. t9 
 
 wounded delicacy — of desecrated privacy — of a noble, trusting, 
 and beloved husband, represented as a cold, and, above all, an 
 unloved one ; — of the most blameless and perfect womanly 
 purity, distorted, for the purpose of a romance, into something 
 resembling the character of a sentimental coquette, trifling with 
 the most dangerous feelings in another, till she only escapes 
 falling herself a victim to their violence by her lover's death. 
 
 M. rejected with indignation his representation as Albert, 
 
 with fourfold indignation his wife's misrepresentation as Char- 
 lotte ; and Goethe, amazed, confounded, and most bitterly 
 grieved at the irreparable injury he had inflicted on his friends, 
 writes, in the midst of his newly-blown honors, and the intoxi- 
 cating praise and admiration that was lavished on him from 
 all sides, the most pathetic entreaties for forgiveness 
 — nothing more. There is one letter of his, written at this 
 time, which literally, I think, contains nothing but the 
 humblest and most tender and touching entreaty for pardon for 
 the offence he had so unwittingly given those to whom he would 
 most have delighted to give honor, and to direct the world's honor. 
 This, however, could not last — Genius, like Wisdom, is justified of 
 all her children ; he fell back, gradually and involuntarily, upon 
 the beauty of the work he had produced, and its immense success 
 
 and popularity ; M. and Mme gradually recovered from 
 
 the first shock of the unwelcome halo thus thrown round their 
 intercourse with Goethe : but in one of his letters to a third 
 friend, he says — " After all, Werther had to be written ;" and 
 
 in one of 's to another friend he says, that he " is on his 
 
 guard for the rest of his life with genius friends." And though 
 the aflTectionate intercourse of their correspondence continued for 
 many years after this, the vitality of their love had received a 
 wound, from this moment, from which it never recovered. 
 Goethe in vain strove to make them comprehend the right of art 
 over reality ; they in vain represented to him a reality, over 
 
76 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 which art had no claims. The unutterable difference between 
 genius and its less gifted fellows, made itself felt most keenly to 
 both parties ; and the bleeding and suffering of the tender human 
 sympathies that bound them, is one of the saddest illustrations of 
 the kind that I ever met with. Goethe promised to write another 
 
 Charlotte, that should in very deed be his Charlotte, 's 
 
 Charlotte ; but he never kept his word. His intellect needed no 
 second production of the kind ; the world would have believed 
 in no other Charlotte ; the truth he wanted, he had taken, — that 
 which he did not want, he had rejected ; his work was complete, 
 and the affectionate desire of his heart in vain solicited his inven- 
 tion for a second creation, which should supersede the past. Nor 
 can anything remove from the mind of the German public the 
 impression that Werther's Charlotte is, in every particular, Mme 
 
 -, but the publication of these very letters, which can 
 
 alone do ample justice to her and her husband, at the same time 
 that they display Goethe himself in the most amiable and at- 
 tractive light, in spite of what he considered his glorification of 
 his friends, and they his pillorizing of them. 
 
 THE FELLOWSHIP OF GENIUS. 
 
 Oh, hearts of flesh ! Oh, beating hearts of love ! 
 
 Oh, twining hands of human dear desire ! — 
 How, when your glorious mate begins to move, 
 
 How shall ye follow those wide wings of fire 
 That bear him up ? Ah ! to the chariot wheels, 
 
 That wrap the child of genius to the sky. 
 Breathless ye cling till round the great world reels, 
 
 And ye fall fainting down despairingly ! . 
 Bleeding and blind ye fall, and still his flight, 
 Serene and strong, is upward to the light, 
 Nearer the sun and further yet from ye. 
 Kindred alone of his mortality. 
 
THE FELLOWSHIP OF GENIUS. W 
 
 Awhile he stood beside ye, and awhile 
 
 His tender eyes, and lovely loving smile, 
 
 Made you believe he was indeed your brother : 
 
 But deep within that being lay another 
 
 Fearful as fair, no simple son of earth, 
 
 Of all created things the wondrous birth ; 
 
 Immortal, Infinite, born to inherit 
 
 Matter, and mind, and sense, and subtlest spirit. 
 
 Lo ! ye have called this King of all creation 
 
 Your fellow, and forgot the Heaven-high station 
 
 Whence he must gather his great revenue : 
 
 Past, Present, Future, all things old and new, 
 
 All things in earth and heaven to him belong ; 
 
 And in the pseans of his conquering song 
 
 Love is but one sweet sound, one single verse, 
 
 In the great chorus of the universe ; 
 
 Which, with a voice resounding and sublime, 
 
 He utters forth unto all space and time. 
 
 Oh, piteous, precious, hapless, human love I 
 
 Thou shalt be reap'd by this bright son of Jove. 
 
 One flow'r 'mid the whole harvest of the world — 
 
 And when his mighty wings are gently furl'd, 
 
 Upon his heart thou shalt lie tenderly ; 
 
 But when the summons of his destiny 
 
 Calls to him through the ages to awake. 
 
 One heavenward spring the drooping bud shall shake 
 
 Back to the earth, where it shall withering lie 
 
 In the broad light of Immortality. 
 
78 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 GENIUS AND LOVE. 
 
 Genius and Love together stood 
 
 At break of day beside clear fountains, 
 In gardens hedg'd with laurel wood, 
 
 Screen'd by a wall of purple mountains ; 
 As hand in hand they smiling stray'd, 
 
 Love twin'd a wreath of perfect roses 
 On Genius's brow, " And thus," he said, 
 " My soul on thy bright soul repose." 
 And round and round they joyous flew, 
 
 On rapid now, now lingering pinion. 
 And blissful Love ne'er weary grew 
 
 Of measuring o'er his bright dominion. 
 Anon they rested from their flight. 
 
 And thro' the fringes of clear water. 
 All rainbow-touch'd Love chased a sprite, 
 
 The silver Naiad's snowy daughter, 
 While Genius lay with flashing eyes, 
 Looking into the distant skies. 
 Love paused and said, " What dost thou see ? " 
 " The far-ofl* shining of the sea — 
 
 Say, wilt thou thither fly with me ? " 
 " Is there a home by the wild flood ? 
 Ah, leave we not our pleasant wood ! " 
 But suddenly, with eager wings. 
 Towards his desire Genius springs ; 
 So strong his flight, the rosy crown 
 At Love's sad feet fell broken down, 
 And lay beside him where he sate, 
 Waiting the coming of his mate : 
 And he return'd all gloriously. 
 
GENIUS AND LOVE. 79 
 
 From the foam-caverns of the sea, 
 
 And brought strange heaps of shining treasure 
 
 To Love, who priz'd beyond all measure 
 
 His mere return : — And now his sight. 
 
 Swift as the eagle's sunward flight. 
 
 Rested upon the mountain's height — 
 
 " Look ! wilt thou thither with me fly. 
 Dear Love ?" — he cried ; and rapidly 
 Beat with his golden wings the air. 
 
 " Is there a home for us up there ? 
 What seek'st thou on the mountain's brow ?" 
 
 " To see the wide world lie below." 
 So he swept thither like the wind. 
 And Love remained dismay'd behind : 
 And now a spirit of the air 
 Garlands of noble amaranth bare 
 To the Love god beside the fountain, 
 And spake — " Lo ! Genius from the mountain 
 Sends thee, dear Love, eternal flowers, 
 To deck thy pleasant myrtle bowers." 
 
 " Ah !" answered Love, despondingly, 
 
 " Sweet roses would have done for me ; 
 Look, they grow here upon the ground. 
 Close to our very home, all round. 
 And morn and even may be found- 
 When comes he back ?" " Into the sky 
 I saw him from the mountain fly 
 Higher and higher towards the sun." 
 Love sighed, " The day must soon be done, 
 And evening shall the wanderer bring, 
 With sated soul and weary wing." 
 Love knew not that bold Genius' flight 
 Had passed the realms of day and night, 
 
 round, -. 
 H — J 
 
80 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Till, from the blue, a glorious crown 
 
 Of starry light was towards him thrown ; 
 
 He saw th' immortal circlet burn, 
 
 And knew his mate would ne'er return : 
 
 He gather'd up the rosy wreath, 
 
 With wither'd leaves, and faint sweet breath, 
 
 And turning to the dark'ning skies 
 
 The tender longing of his eyes. 
 
 He bitterly began to weep. 
 
 And wept himself at last to sleep. 
 
 THE IDEAL. 
 
 Thou shalt behold it once, and once believe 
 
 Thou may'st possess it — Love shall make the dream, 
 
 Impossible and glorious, palpable seem. 
 
 And with the bliss thy soul awhile deceive — 
 
 When from that trance thou wakest, never more 
 
 On earth hope for it, or thy life is o'er ; 
 
 That one approach of the Divinity 
 
 Is but the pledge of thy affinity. 
 
 That lovely vision shall not be renew'd. 
 
 Though thro' all forms of being close pursued ; 
 
 The light must pass into the heavens above thee, 
 
 Thy polar star, to warn and lead and move thee. 
 
 If thou seek lower for it thou shalt follow 
 
 A fatal marsh-fire, fleeting, false, and hollow ; 
 
 Unto the glorious truth thou shalt not soar, 
 
 But sink in darkness down for evermore. 
 
 Not to behold it once, is not to live. 
 
 But to possess it, is not life's to give. 
 
 We have just returned from an expedition to Monte Cave. 
 We drove out of Frascati, and took to our donkeys about a mile 
 
ITALIAN CHARACTER. 81 
 
 out of the town. We made a slow asinine progress through 
 some vineyards up to a splendid chestnut wood, where each 
 tree was a perfect study, as fine, I think, in their own kind, as 
 the huge twisted grey forest pillars at Birnham Beeches. The 
 rich undergrowth of broom and fern, and blessed " accidents," 
 as the painters call them (providences, I think they are), of light 
 and shade, made the whole a most admirable specimen of wood- 
 land scenery. Our donkey guides are a source of infinite 
 amusement to me ; my sister's pompous, conceited, jabbering 
 cicerone, who, with a crimson rose that looked and smelled as if it 
 had been dipped in Burgundy, the very type of the coming summer 
 stuck in his bonnet, swaggered beside her, discoursing in French, 
 English, German, and Italian, by morsels, and mixing up his 
 local lore and guide-book advertisements with stupendous pieces 
 of his own biography, and certain howls which made the woods 
 resound, which he had cauglit from some jodelning French ar- 
 tists. My protector was a little Flibbertigibbet of about four- 
 teen, slight, slender as a greyhound, and as graceful too, with 
 one of those indescribable southern faces, full of brilliancy, 
 sweetness, and melancholy — a most beautiful countenance, with 
 beautiful features ; such a face as one never sees in England or 
 America, or, I suppose, indeed, out of Italy — combining as it 
 does with all this loveliness a capacity for sudden savage expres- 
 sions of hatred and fierce passion, wonderful and terrible to be- 
 hold. Hardly anywhere else I suppose, either, would a little 
 ragged donkey boy utter poetical ecstasies about the features of 
 the landscape, or the colors of the sky ; or, pointing to the sun 
 and moon, which on a rosy summer's sunset stood at opposite 
 sides of the heavens, say, " The sun and moon greet each other ; 
 she says ' Good night' to him, for he is going ; and he ' Good 
 day to her, for she is coming !" Another time he bade me, 
 when I returned to my own country, greet it for him : — " Che 
 I'ltalia saluta I'lnghilterra," he added. Thus poetically escorted, 
 
 4* 
 

 82 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 we wound our way up to Rocca di Papa ; at every turn in the 
 road we had splendid views of the campagna, the Sabine hills, 
 and all the beautiful forest scenery that was gradually sinking 
 far below us ; the village, perched like an eagle's eyrie upon a 
 rocky cone, was swarming with people in holiday attire. We 
 made our way up the steep slippery streets through the throng of 
 women in scarlet spencers and head-kerchiefs, and men in black 
 or brown velvet jackets, all with some bright-colored scarf round 
 their waist, or brilliant flowers in their hat : the perfect pictu- 
 resqueness of them all is not to be described, old and ugly quite 
 as much as young and handsome. I was almost startled by the 
 wonderful effect produced by a hard-featured bronze-colored wo- 
 man, with a splendid colored red head-gear, standing a little back 
 from the black aperture of a window without glass, framed in a 
 brown stone house : the whole thing was a perfect Rembrandt. 
 We proceeded, still climbing, to a high table land called Hanni- 
 bal's camp, from the tradition that the Carthaginian halted there 
 on his way down to Rome : the hills rose abruptly round this 
 small level plain, lifted up itself upon the steep summits of the 
 lower range ; in the middle of it was a long low building, appro- 
 priated to keeping the supplies of snow gathered during the win- 
 ter for summer refreshment. Ascending again from this mid 
 mountain plain, we found ourselves upon the broad slabs of the 
 Via Triumphalis, the best preserved of all the ancient Roman 
 roads : here the Roman consuls came to triumph when the Latin 
 states became merged in the Roman commonwealth, — to the 
 great temple of the Latian Jupiter, whose colossal statue, standing 
 on the summit of Monte Cavo, could be descried from Rome. 
 Truly a triumphal way this was to-day to us, with downward 
 revelations of forest and town, the lakes of Albano and Nemi, 
 the great sunny plain and Rome the glorious, and the wide forest 
 on the coast like a dark cloud shadow, and the bright shining of 
 the sea half-way up the summer sky, the sweep of the distant 
 
 i 
 
MONTE CAVO. 83 
 
 shore, the yellow margin of the sand along the blue waters, the 
 dark shape of the Circeian promontory, and a purple spot on the 
 
 silver shield of the Mediterranean, which said was Nisi- 
 
 da, or Procida. Still we went up the Via Triumphalis, under 
 chestnut boughs of freshest green, delicate branches of pale yel- 
 low laburnums, drooping over on the banks on either side, 
 wrought like a thick carpet with wild thyme and count- 
 less blossoms of every lovely shape and color, and under our 
 feet the great smooth broad stones, that the Roman consuls 
 and their trains had marched over, going to sacrifice upon 
 assuming their office to the great temple of the Alban Moun- 
 tain. In the full tide of these heroic memories, my mind 
 was suddenly recalled to that Christian republic to which, if it is 
 but wise and virtuous, God seems to have appointed the greatest 
 Empire of the earth in the coming centuries. A turn in the road 
 shut out Rome, and Albano, and Castel Gandolfo, and the vol- 
 canic lakes ; while the wood-screen through which we looked, 
 showed a bold, lonely sweep of forest scenery, mountain side 
 rolling down upon mountain side, all clothed with waving woods ; 
 great bare and desolate patches all scarred with stumps of noble 
 felled trees ; the black mounds of the charcoal-burners, sending 
 their blue and silver smoke up against the hill sides in exquisite 
 wreaths of grace and brightness ; the dark purple ridges beyond, 
 the clear brilliancy of the sky, and for once utter loneliness ; no 
 sight of human habitation, village, monastery, palace, or wayside 
 chapel, — it was really like America ; and as I gazed at it from 
 the heart of this land of great past things, how deeply my spirit 
 was stirred with the thought of the probable fortunes of that land 
 of futurity, that land without memory, that land of hope ! I can- 
 not express the solemnity and emotion with which all that I see 
 in these countries of Europe impresses my mind with regard to 
 America. Here, on these great hearths heaped with the ashes 
 of many civilizations ; — here, where one national existence after 
 
84 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 another has been kindled, burned brightly, and been extinguish- 
 ed ; — here, where the fine Etruscan race was ground out beneath 
 the iron heel of Rome ; — here, where the deluge of northern 
 barbarism swept the degenerate Roman empire down ; — here, 
 where the huge conception of spiritual dominion took body in that 
 great church supremacy, which is vanishing like the ghost of a 
 giant before the breath of the almighty Truth, the immortal, 
 universal conqueror of these later days of the earth ; — here, 
 amid these stupendous memories and thoughts, how often do I 
 muse upon that wonderful world beyond the Atlantic ! Dowered 
 with a natural wealth unparalleled ; the latest born of Time ; 
 peopled by the descendants of the freest and wisest nation now 
 on earth ; not led through doubtful twilight ages of barbarous 
 savageness and feudal semi-civilization, but born like Pallas from 
 the head of Jove, inheriting the knowledge of all previous times ; 
 endowed with the experience of all former nations ; whose heroic 
 age boasts of but one victory, the victory of Freedom — but of one 
 demigod, Washington. Oh ! if wisdom and virtue should yet by 
 times govern the counsels of that people ; if the consciousness of 
 their unexampled position, betokening a ministry of infinite im- 
 portance in the world, should ever appear to them in all its most 
 majestic significance ; if the spirit of that nation should ever fit 
 the gigantic material proportions and incalculable physical re- 
 sources of their country ; then, indeed, a glorious Christian com- 
 monwealth may arise, and that kingdom of God, for whose coming 
 all Christ's followers daily pray, begin to manifest itself in the 
 holy national existence of a people who have made Christianity 
 a government. How much these speculations on the possible 
 glorious future destinies of that wonderful country are darkened 
 by the mean and miserable manifestations of the present spirit of 
 its people, I can hardly say ; my perception of the one is equal 
 to my anticipation of the other. And when I remember the God- 
 gifted earth and sky, the huge expanse of territory, the variety 
 
CONVENT OF PASSIONIOTI. 85 
 
 of climate and soil and produce, the free and noble theory of go- 
 vernment, the free and wholesome action of the spirits of men, 
 the marvellous rapidity of progress, the portentous mental and 
 physical activity at work among all these mighty elements — ad- 
 miration, astonishment, disgust, dismay, and fear and hope, alter- 
 nate in my mind, till all resolves itself in earnest prayer that God 
 will save that people from becoming, by the light of their own 
 great gifts and greater promises, the despair instead of the hope 
 of the world. 
 
 At length we reached the summit of Monte Cavo and the con- 
 vent of Passionioti, whose foundations are the stones of the temple 
 of the great Latian Jupiter. We went into the church ; it was 
 the feast of the Ascension ; the little rustic place of worship was 
 all decked out with flowers and misty with incense ; and three 
 priests, in festival robes, were performing mass. One of them, a 
 huge hulk of a man, with a dark powerful complexion, bushy 
 black eyebrows, and blue-black lumps of hair, a sort of model 
 for Samson, every now and then came forward towards the con- 
 gregation, and, with eyes meekly downcast, and hands mildly 
 folded on his breast, uttered a series of bellowings which became 
 his physical appearance better than the spiritual office he was 
 discharging, and very nearly threw us into convulsions of 
 laughter. At the conclusion of the mass there were a series of 
 embraces between the priests that marvellously resembled simi- 
 lar performances on the stage ; the hands resting on each other's 
 shoulders, and the head turned discreetly away so as to ensure 
 the least possible cordiality and reality in the affectionate demon- 
 stration ; moreover, there was a gradual declension in the 
 warmth of this very formal accolade as it passed through four 
 degrees, from the chief dignitary officiating at the high altar, to 
 the poor serving brother who brought in the various holy imple- 
 ments, whose kiss of peace, delivered to him by the above-men- 
 tioned burly superior officer, was quite the poorest allowance of 
 
86 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Christian equality that I ever saw conveyed in a kiss. Outside 
 the church, and ahnost dividing with the convent the small table 
 land at the top of the mountain, was a splendid beech-tree, that 
 reminded me of the noble forest-pillars, with their twisted Saxon 
 architecture, at Birnham. I got up into it, and sat remembering 
 
 our friend Mrs. 's leafy arm-chair, on the edge of that 
 
 beautiful wood, while a bird sang sweetly over my head, and 
 the monks chanted far below my feet. We rested a pleasant 
 half-hour on the mountain, my sister and myself singing, while 
 
 Mr. sketched the beautiful view below our forest balcony. 
 
 Our way home lay through some splendid woodland scenery, 
 that again reminded me of America. We passed close along 
 the lake of Albano, whose melancholy, cheerless-looking water 
 goes deep down from the very banks — drowning, dismal-looking 
 water, like a smooth polished floor of solid dark-green marble — 
 it made me shudder. The water has taken the place of the fires 
 of a volcano ; and the gloomy stillness that broods over the whole 
 resembles the repose of exhausted convulsion, and filled me with 
 a sort of awe in spite of its smiling walls of vivid chestnut, and 
 moonlight-looking patches of silvery olive-trees, and green gar- 
 lands of the vineyards on its banks. How much less beautiful I 
 thought it, because so much less friendly and humane, than the 
 lovely little lake between Lenox and Stockbridge, with its shal- 
 low sunny shores, where the transparent water plays over broad 
 slabs of glittering granite — its middle depths of darkest sapphire, 
 and the mysterious bower of pine trees whence the springs that 
 feed it come, under which the white fragrant water-lilies, like a 
 company of nymphs, float and rock in the shade. At mid-day 
 we rested and eat our lunch under a noble tree high above the 
 lake ; thence passing along the upper gallery, as it is called, a 
 winding road with splendid single trees leaning over it, produc- 
 ing the most enchanting effect of light and shade. At Albano 
 we resumed our carriage and returned home through Castel 
 
SYMPHONY OF BEETHOVEN. 87 
 
 Gandolfo and along the side of the lake, where the great Roman 
 emissary was made, when, in the twilight times of the conquest 
 of Veii, it overflowed its banks. The whole drive was admira- 
 bly beautiful : on one side of us the deep-lying, verd antique 
 lake — the campagna, bounded by the glittering Mediterranean, 
 on the other. There are no words for the splendor and beauty 
 of the scene. Behind Marino we passed a beautiful glen, a fine 
 wood, and the grey buildings of the village hemming it in on 
 either side ; while, in the deep rocky ravine, a large stone foun- 
 tain, a rushing brook, and an ivy-mantled ruined tower, formed 
 a perfect and most romantic picture. Our day was faultless in 
 its elements of pleasure, and our Russian companion, and his 
 conversation about his own country, very agreeable and inte- 
 resting. 
 
 ON A SYMPHONY OF BEETHOVEN. 
 
 Terrible music, whose strange utterance 
 
 Seem'd like the spell of some dread conscious trance j 
 
 Impotent misery, helpless despair. 
 
 With far-off visions of things dear and fair ; 
 
 Restless desire, sharp poignant agonies ; 
 
 Soft, thrilling, melting, tender memories; 
 
 Struggle and tempest, and around it all, 
 
 The heavy muffling folds of some black pall 
 
 Stifling it slowly ; a wild wail for life, 
 
 Sinking in darkness — a short passionate strife 
 
 With hideous fate, crushing the soul to earth ; 
 
 Sweet snatches of some melancholy mirth ; 
 
 A creeping fear, a shuddering dismay, 
 
 Like the cold dawning of some fatal day : 
 
 Dim faces growing pale in distant lands ; 
 
 Departing feet, and slowly severing hands ; 
 
88 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Voices of love, speaking the words of hate, — 
 The mockery of a blessing come too late ; 
 Loveless and hopeless life, with memory, — 
 This curse that music seem'd to speak to me. 
 
 Our quiet villeggiatura is becoming much excited and dis- 
 turbed by the news our friends bring us daily of all that is 
 going on in Rome, and the perpetual solicitations we receive to 
 go in and see the ceremonies attending the Pope's funeral, and 
 the election of his successor. Hitherto, however, we have con- 
 tented ourselves with the details we receive from more zealous 
 sight-seers than ourselves, and the singular accounts we have 
 
 from our friends, the , who still remain in Rome, in 
 
 spite of the advanced season. The circumstances gradually 
 beginning to transpire of the details of the Pope's death are 
 really most curious, and certainly, if true, form a most 
 extraordinary comment upon the absolute and positive, not 
 philosophic and abstract, vanity of earthly greatness. It is now 
 pretty openly stated, that the Pope literally died for want of 
 assistance, and partly, if not absolutely, for want of food. His 
 favorite and inseparable attendant, the brother of his barber, a 
 man whom he had raised from the condition of a servant to that 
 of his confidential adviser, and through whom alone he was ap- 
 proached, having amassed an enormous fortune by every species 
 of iniquity, began, it is conjectured, to be weary of a service of 
 which he was more desirous of enjoying the fruits than prolong 
 ing the duties, such as they were. The feeble old Pope's illness 
 appeared to offer an approaching term to his obligations ; and it 
 is now universally reported that he was the undoubted means of 
 hastening the catastrophe of his sovereign's death, which might 
 have been averted at least for some months. During the last 
 two days of his illness, stationed in his antechamber, he denied 
 
POPE LIES IN STATE. 89 
 
 admittance to every one who endeavored to approach the Pope ; 
 declaring that His Holiness had strictly enjoined him to allow 
 ingress to no one, and adding that whoever, under those circum- 
 stances, intruded himself within the dying Pope's chamber, did 
 so at his own peril. Thus deterred, the cardinals, his friends 
 and counsellors, turned from the forbidden door ; and the condi- 
 tion of the poor old Pope's body, when it was subjected to the 
 process of embalming, proved that he must have been 
 without nourishment for a considerable space of time, and that 
 there is every probability that he died absolutely of exhaustion 
 and inanition. His infamous favorite withdrew immediately upon 
 his death from the Papal States and the universal execration with 
 which he was regarded, and went into some part of Italy where 
 he was less known, to enjoy the harvest of iniquity he had 
 reaped under the late Pope. As soon as it is ascertained that 
 the Pope is really dead, a procession, consisting of his principal 
 counsellors, the cardinals, and certain other eminent personages, 
 enter the chamber where he is lying, when one of them, whose espe- 
 cial office this is, proceeds to strike him upon the forehead with a 
 small golden hammer, exclaiming, " Santo Padre, rispondete." 
 This is repeated three times, when, the Holy Father not answering, 
 the officiating dignitary turns about and deliberately proclaims 
 to the assembly that " II Santo Padre ^ morto." The office of 
 the Guardia Nobile, during these dreadfully hot days, has been 
 something intolerable ; in the first place, their enforced presence 
 at the ceremony of embalmment, and then their constant guard, 
 relieving each other only every four hours round the bier, upon 
 which the Pope's body lies in state in the Sistine Chapel, where 
 the incessant thronging of the curious and the pious, combined 
 with the distressing and nauseous effluvium proceeding from the 
 corpse itself, and the horrible heat of the weather, have really 
 made their duty most onerous. From lying in state in the Sistine 
 Chapel, the Pope's body was removed to one of the chapels in 
 
90 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 St. Peter's, where, with the feet passed through the grating of 
 the gate, it remained for some time, to receive the adorations of 
 its former subjects, who came to pay their last homage by kiss- 
 ing the feet thus placed to receive their salutations. From 
 thence the corpse was again removed to a sort of hanging station 
 above the door of the chapel used as the choir in St. Peter's ; 
 and its raising thither in a coarse deal box, by men in shirt 
 sleeves, who performed the whole operation with the most care- 
 less and gross indifference, was described to me as one of the 
 most disgusting and shocking spectacles imaginable. The rough 
 coffin in which the body was hitched up to its niche above the 
 chapel gate, not being swung straight, was drawn up with one 
 end much below the other, when one of the carpenters delibe- 
 rately jumped upon the upper end, and thus brought the coffin 
 into a state of equilibrium. We went into Rome at the conclu- 
 sion of all these ceremonies, to see what we supposed would 
 repay the trouble of doing so — the catafalque raised to the dead 
 Pope in the middle of St. Peter's, and which was represented to 
 us as remarkably beautiful and splendid. Our disappointment 
 was extreme at finding the noble church disfigured by the erec- 
 tion, in the middle of the nave, of an enormous pasteboard sort 
 of temple, in the most indifferent taste possible, within which lay 
 the imaginary sarcophagus of the late Pope Gregory the XVIth, 
 covered with crimson velvet draperies, lighted with funeral 
 lamps. The edifice was surmounted by various emblematic 
 figures ; among others, a colossal pasteboard Religion, which, 
 happening to fall from its pre-eminent station on the top of it, 
 occasioned a great many bad jokes and impertinent prophecies. 
 The whole thing was mean and tawdry, and reminded me of no- 
 thing so much as the operatical representations of the tomb of 
 Ninus in the Semiramide ; some theatrical exhibitions of which 
 that I have seen, indeed, have been vastly more impressive, and 
 
CURIOUS ANECDOTE. 91 
 
 in better taste, than this funeral decoration — to use the only 
 appropriate phrase — of St. Peter's. 
 
 The ceremonies of the assembling of the conclave, and of the 
 proclamation of the new Pope, are too well known to require any 
 description, especially from one who did not personally witness 
 them. One curious custom, however, was told me, with which 
 1 was not before acquainted. The carriages of all the cardinals 
 assembled in conclave are all daily drawn up on the open space 
 before the Quirinal. As soon as the breaking down of the 
 walled-up window, and the public announcement of the new 
 Pope's election through it, takes place, his coachman breaks his 
 whip, and, driving to his own house, takes possession of the car- 
 riage, horses, harness, &;c., of his former master, who is thence- 
 forth of course only conveyed about in the papal equipage. A 
 comical story was told of the coachman of Cardinal Gizzi, who, 
 it was said, entertained such a profound conviction of the cer- 
 tainty of his master's election, that returning home from his first 
 day of expectation on the Monte Cavallo, he gave himself up to 
 such ecstasies of anticipated glory as to break and demolish 
 almost everything he laid his hands upon in the offices — an 
 unfortunate demonstration of fallacious delight for his eminence, 
 Cardinal Gizzi, who, on his return from the conclave, was not 
 Pope, and probably found his hatterie de cuisine much injured by 
 his too sanguine charioteer's hopeful demonstrations. Almost 
 immediately upon the death of the Pope, innumerable political 
 jibes and pasquinades were afloat, both with regard to his past 
 government and the proceedings of the conclave. A curious 
 anecdote was told of Cardinal Micala, who, going into the con- 
 clave with Lambruschini, said to him, " Now, we shall see 
 whether the Holy Spirit or the devil presides at our delibera- 
 tions : if the former, Mai or Mastai will be elected ; if the latter, 
 it will be you or me." A ridiculous caricature was circulated 
 during the sitting of the conclave, representing the Holy Dove 
 
92 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 hovering above the assembled cardinals, who were all zealously 
 employed in driving it off with their pocket-handkerchiefs. 
 
 Cardinal Micala was chiefly noted for the rigorous asceticism 
 of his religious life, his hatred of all foreigners and their influence 
 in Rome, and the noble and striking venerableness of his appear- 
 ance ; wearing habitually the dress of the fraternity to which he 
 belonged, his long white flowing beard and grave majestic coun- 
 tenance rendered him an object of interest and curiosity wherever 
 he was seen. Cardinal Lambruschini enjoyed during the deli- 
 berations of the conclave, and has continued to enjoy since the 
 election of Pius IX., the unenviable notoriety of extreme unpopu- 
 larity. The representative of the Austrian policy in the Roman 
 councils, the dread of his becoming Pope at the death of Gregory 
 XVI. was one of the main motives that determined the votes of 
 many members of the conclave in favor of Cardinal Mastai. His 
 known illiberality and devotion to the narrow and imbecile govern- 
 ment of the late Pope had earned him unenviable distinction in 
 popular opinion, and as soon as the election of Cardinal Mastai 
 appeared to promise comparative impunity to the utterance of the 
 feeling against him, it displayed hself openly, — repeatedly in the 
 groans and hisses with which his carriage was followed in the 
 streets, and one or two exhibitions of public feeling of even a 
 broader nature, such as fastening a tin kettle to his carriage ; a 
 distinction generally awarded to obnoxious animals rather than 
 Roman Catholic eminences. Cardinal Mai is best known out of 
 Rome, as the guardian of the precious collections of the Vatican, 
 and the learned discoverer and interpreter of the famous palimpsest 
 Republic of Cicero. 
 
 We have just had a visit from Monsignor , who has 
 
 been talking for about an hour incessantly of the Pope. He 
 belonged to the household of the late Gregory XVI., and always 
 appeared, when we saw him, to be in a state of perfect loyalty 
 as regarded his temporal and spiritual sovereign. Now, how- 
 
PAPAL SPIES. 93 
 
 ever, he confesses that the torment of living in a state of per- 
 petual fear and falsehood, to which he was condemned, is not to 
 be described ; that under the late Pope it was impossible ever to 
 be for a moment off one's guard, for that society itself was made 
 up of spies, and a man could not speak with safety to his 
 most intimate acquaintance upon any matter touching the 
 government ; that Roman princesses and countesses were paid 
 spies in the papal service, and that it was dangerous in the 
 extreme to utter any opinion upon any but the most indifferent 
 subjects, for that ruin might have been the consequence of an 
 unguarded word to persons whom one would have supposed least 
 likely to betray one. This is certainly an agreeable state of 
 things to exist in. The matter however now, it seems, is quite 
 otherwise. Monsignor says, the enthusiasm of the peo- 
 ple for their new sovereign is not to be described. Immediately 
 after the amnesty the men who had recovered their liberty 
 flocked to the churches and received the sacrament, without 
 exception, with extreme devotion. Moreover, he added that 
 Heaven had certainly appointed this man to the exigency of the 
 times, for that the whole papal government was tottering to its 
 foundations. If anything can save it, as a government, I suppose 
 this may ; but it is far more likely to prove the preparatory pro- 
 cess for entire change ; and in this respect most fitly may the 
 present Pope be considered God's messenger, and the appointed 
 
 instrument of the appointed time. Monsignor — told us 
 
 several admirable anecdotes of his benevolence and activity. 
 The day of the procession of St. John Lateran, a poor old beg- 
 gar woman, stretched by the wayside, called out to Christ's suc- 
 cessor upon earth for help, " Santo Padre, ajutatemi che sto qui 
 povera vecchia abbandonata sopra la paglia e muojo di fame." 
 The Pope sent her immediately a gold piece, and passed on in 
 the procession. At night, in the dress of an Abbate, having 
 perfectly remembered the house indicated to him as that where 
 
94 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 the woman lived, he went to seek her, and found her absolutely 
 lying upon straw, and in a state of miserable destitution. He 
 immediately proceeded to the house of the curate of the parish ; 
 the latter, called up not without considerable demur and difficul- 
 ty (not knowing from whom the summons came) from his com- 
 fortable bed, was lost in amazement and dismay at the sight of 
 the Pope, who, reprimanding him severely for his neglect 
 of the poor under his charge, bade him send immediately money, 
 food, bed and bedding to the poor old beggar, whom he had just 
 visited. His Holiness, it seems, has a box at the post-office, of 
 which he himself keeps the key ; and whereas no letter whatever 
 was ever allowed to reach the late Gregory the Sixteenth, it is 
 an understood thing that this box, with everything put into it, 
 is delivered immediately into the Pope's hands. A certain 
 sum of money having been charitably appropriated, I do not pre- 
 cisely remember by whom now, in dower-money, for a certain 
 number of poor young Roman girls in one of the parishes in 
 Rome, one among the number, a poor deformed girl, was de- 
 frauded by the priest in whose hands the money was lodged, and 
 who retained hers. The girl ventured herself to address a letter 
 to the Pope, stating how her portion had been withheld from her. 
 Without loss of time the defaulter was summoned and condemned 
 by the Pope to pay the poor crippled girl fifty scudi out of his 
 own pocket, besides the twenty-five which were the portion due 
 to her. Some evenings after this, in his usual incognito dress of 
 an Abbate, he knocked at the door of an asylum for poor chil- 
 dren, the management of which was not supposed to be alto- 
 gether conscientiously conducted. The porter refused to open 
 the door, alleging that the children were at supper, and just 
 going to bed, and that nobody could be let in. At last, the 
 magical " Aprite che sono il Papa," threw the door wide, and 
 the porter, in an ecstasy of fright, was running to rouse the whole 
 establishment with the news, which, however, His Holiness for- 
 
POPULARITY OF PIUS IX. 99 
 
 bade ; and, merely desiring the dismayed superior to conduct 
 him to the children's eating-room, he proceeded to taste the bread 
 and wine set before them for their supper. He then turned to 
 the superior, and said : — " To-morrow, sir, let the bread and 
 wine put before these poor children be such as it ought to 
 be ; and remember that I have my eye upon you :" with which 
 salutary warning he departed. There is something rather 
 Haroun Alraschid in these nocturnal expeditions of His Holiness. 
 On fixed days in the week, for a certain number of hours, 
 he receives indiscriminately all persons who wish to see 
 and speak with him. They are admitted without any distinc- 
 tion, one by one, according to number ; and the Pope, permit- 
 ting them to seat themselves, hears their grievances, receives their 
 petitions, and, warning them that any attempt to impose upon 
 him, or in any way alter the truth, will be detected and pun- 
 ished, takes their name and address, and has their business in- 
 quired into and put to rights. As for the women, said Monsignor, 
 they perfectly adore him, for nothing can exceed his graciousness 
 and kindness to them : — "e davero," added he with Christianly 
 humanity ; " bisogna pensarlo che sono poverette anche lei crea- 
 ture di Dio !" for which allowance we heretical females were 
 
 duly grateful. Since Monsignor's visit, we have seen , 
 
 who, like the rest of the Romans, is open-mouthed in his enthusi- 
 asm for the Pope. He has been composing a popular patriotic 
 chant, in honor of His Holiness, which he hopes to get sung in 
 the Piazza del Popolo, on the eighth of September, on the occa- 
 sion of the Pope's going to the Santa Maria del Popolo. He said 
 that people were coming daily from Bologna and Ancona, and 
 various of the hitherto most disaffected districts of the papal 
 territory, with enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty, fidelity, 
 patriotism, and devotion to the Pope. Perhaps the most touching 
 and remarkable effect of the new disposition of men's minds in- 
 duced by the popularity of the new Government is, that instead 
 
96 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 of the spirit of distrust, jealousy, and suspicion, which existed 
 between the people of Rome and those of the provinces, a kindly 
 feeling of free brotherhood seems now to animate them all towards 
 
 each other. spoke with delight and astonishment of the 
 
 almost miraculous change wrought in the public mind and feel- 
 ing in the space of two months ; adding, that had Pope Gregory 
 XVI. lived, the last two months would hardly have passed over 
 without some demonstration of popular discontent against the 
 besotted tyranny of the Government. It is a curious fact, if it 
 be true, but I know not upon what authority the anecdote rests, that 
 Pius IX. had been for some years past engaged in writing a book 
 upon the political condition of the Roman states, upon the necessary 
 and inevitable changes in the administration, and in short all the 
 questions of vital import that concern the national existence of the 
 people. This work, it is said, he had intended at his death to be- 
 queathe to whoever should be the reigning Pope, little imagining that 
 so much labor and thought were to find their result in the measures 
 of his own government, and that God would call him who intended 
 thus to serve his country after his death to serve it yet more eifec- 
 tually by his life. Among many others, " told us two 
 beautiful anecdotes of his humanity and wisdom. While he was 
 archbishop of Spoleto, a list of persons suspected of political 
 liberalism was brought to him, and he was earnestly recom- 
 mended to forward it to Rome, as an exhibition of zeal that would 
 be highly serviceable to himself; he said he would take care of 
 it, and immediately tore it up, and threw it into the fire. Since 
 the proclamation of his act of amnesty, a subscription was set 
 on foot in Rome to raise a sum of money for the poor men whose 
 long detention in the papal prisons had, of course, not sent them 
 back into the world with very full pockets. A list of the sub- 
 scribers' names was brought to the Pope by the governor of Rome, 
 Marini, who suggested that it would be very desirable to keep 
 it, as a future means of ascertaining who were tainted with sym- 
 
SONNET. 97 
 
 pathy for liberal opinions. The Pope said he thought it was 
 highly desirable to make that use of it, immediately wrote down 
 his own name, with a donation of a hundred scudi, and engaged 
 Monsignor Marini to follow his example, and record himself as a 
 friend of those who had suffered for liberal opinions. There is 
 a touch of humor about this anecdote that makes it perfectly en- 
 chanting. 
 
 While archbishop of Imola, he was already known to have 
 exhibited his sympathy for those suffering in the cause of politi- 
 cal reform, by furnishing many of the exiled patriots with 
 money. A beautiful anecdote is related of his merciful and hu- 
 mane disposition while he was in tliis situation. Among 
 the other duties of the archbishop is that of a periodical 
 survey of the prisons, in the course of which, visits of greater 
 or less length may be paid by him to the cells of each or 
 any of the criminals. An unfortunate woman, whose husband 
 had been confined for upwards of a year, and who had in vain 
 solicited permission to see him, at length, in despair, applied 
 to the archbishop, whose office, however, gave him no power 
 of furnishing her with the required permission. Much moved, 
 however, by the poor creature's misery, the humane man remem- 
 bered her petition, and on the occasion of his next official visit 
 to the prison, sent word to her to join the train which usually 
 attended his progress on these occasions. Arrived at the cell 
 where her husband was incarcerated, he bade tra, woman enter 
 it, and sat himself at the dungeon-door for an hour, during which 
 space of time the unfortunate couple enjoy ea once more the 
 blessing of being reunited. 
 
 SONNET 
 If there were any power in human love, 
 Or in th' intensest longing of the heart, 
 Then should the oceans and the lands that part 
 Ye from my sight all unprevailing prove, 
 vou n. ^ 
 
9S A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Then should the yearning of my bosom bnng 
 
 Ye here, thro' space and distance infinite ; 
 And life 'gainst love should be a baffled thing, 
 
 And circumstance 'gainst will lose all its might. 
 Shall not a childless mother's misery 
 
 Conjure the earth with such a potent spell — 
 
 A charm so desperate — as to compel 
 Nature to yield to her great agony ? 
 
 Can I not think of ye till ye arise, 
 
 Alive, alive, before my very eyes ? 
 
 Livy, Horace, Nibby, and Arnold, having excited an mtense 
 curiosity in my mind upon the subject of Mount Algidus,— « 
 the historians, from their incessant reference to it as the favorite 
 encampment of all the early enemies of Rome ; and the poe< 
 and antiquarian, from their description of its savage and romantic 
 wildness, — it was determined that we should make an expeditioi 
 thither; and, accordingly, having ordered on the donkeys, we se* 
 forth in the carriage as far as the road was held to be carozzabile. 
 We drove along the Latian valley, between the heights of Monte 
 Cavo and Tusculum ; the way, sandy and level, was divided 
 into parallel strips of road by lovely islands of flowering broom, 
 hawthorn, and sweet-briar. At the distance of about eight miles 
 from Frascati, we reached the end of our journey on wheels, 
 arriving at one of the most beautiful scenes I ever beheld — a 
 wide, circular plain, surrounded with an amphitheatre of hills ; 
 in the midst, a shallow, sparkling lake — numerous herds of the 
 noble grey oxen of the campagna grazing about, or standing knee- 
 deep in the bright pool — a long stone fountain, with about twenty 
 shepherds grouped around it — and between the sunny hills, where 
 their sloping lines intersected each other, glimpses into purple 
 mountain distances beyond. It was a perfectly ideal landscape, 
 such as I have only seen once before in my life, at the twin lakes 
 
MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 99 
 
 of Salisbury, in Connecticut. We began our progress up the 
 mountain under the guidance of an old herdsman, who, though 
 between sixty and seventy years old, stumped fast and firm before 
 us ; his keen eyes glittering under white eyebi'ows, his ruddy 
 cheeks glowing like winter apples, and his open shirt showing a 
 brown brawny breast covered with curling silver hairs, — a most 
 robust specimen of hale old age. He was armed and supported 
 by a stout long staff, with a heavy knob at one end, such as they 
 use to drive the cattle with, and followed by a sort of black 
 lurcher. We presently entered a fine forest of chestnut trees ; 
 some felled trunks lay here and there, of monstrous girth ; others 
 doomed to the same fate still stood erect, all charred and black, 
 their vitals burnt out, and yet still wearing their fresh and vigor- 
 ous coronal of green. We came frequently upon charcoal pits, 
 the only human token in this savage place, which reminded me 
 exceedingly of the forest scenery in America ; with this differ- 
 ence, that there was less variety in the wood, and none of those 
 exquisite mountain torrents, which I have always found in simi- 
 lar scenes among the mountains in America. The single chest- 
 nut trees, that reared themselves amid the tangled wilderness of 
 undergrowth, were, I think, the finest I ever saw. We now 
 began to perceive decided symptoms of fright and excessive ill- 
 humor in our donkey guides, who seemed unwilling to adventure 
 themselves in the savage solitudes of the Algidus. They had 
 read, I believe, neither Horace nor Nibby, but tradition of much 
 later date gave this mountain forest to Gasperoni and his banditti 
 as their chief stronghold, and the intimate acquaintance our old 
 guide professed with the former haunts, persons, and practices of 
 these worthies did not seem at all to re-assure our valiant pro- 
 tectors, who, nevertheless, impelled by our rashness, were fain 
 to follow our guide, who, with sturdy determination, plunged into 
 the green billows of the forest, leading the way through paths 
 utterly invisible, for the upward-springing and downward-hang- 
 
100 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 ing vegetation, and where the movement he made as he waded 
 through the thickets was all the indication we had of our way. 
 
 , on his invaluable little campagna pony, followed close 
 
 on his heels, my sister on her donkey, with Antonio next, and I 
 brought up the rear with my little Flibbertigibbet, whose bright 
 eyes peering up from among the bushes, where he walked invisi- 
 ble, was all that I could discern of him while he led my donkey. 
 The verdant curtains of the wood, thrust aside as we passed, closed 
 immediately behind each of us, leaving those who followed to 
 divine the course of those before, by the disturbed waving of the 
 boughs, and their voices calling through the thick foliage. But for 
 the bird-nets here and there spread between the summits of the 
 high trees, we might have imagined that no human creature but our- 
 selves ever traversed this labyrinth, where, more than once, our old 
 guide himself mistook the way, to the infinite dismay and discom- 
 fort of the others. Suddenly, in the midst of most appropriate dis- 
 courses touching the bandit who formerly infested this mountain, 
 Antonio hailed, in a voice of stupendous terror, sometliing that 
 he saw moving among the boughs. A boy's voice responded 
 shrill and clear through the leafy screen, and our donkey hero 
 resuming his blustering, bullying demeanor, transferred his fright 
 to the more becoming expression of indignant astonishment at the 
 boy's lonely presence in that solitude, where he could not possibly 
 have any particular business or pleasure, according to his think- 
 ing. Our guide told us, that some years ago, when Lucien Bo- 
 naparte was passing the summer at the Villa Rufinella, the bandits 
 made a descent upon the house, and carried off a French paintei 
 who was staying there, supposing that they had secured the 
 prince, who, having had the alarm, escaped through a window, 
 while his less illustrious fellow-countryman was conveyed by the 
 brigands to the recesses of the Algidus ; here they kept him until 
 Lucien Bonaparte relieved his very unwilling proxy by paying 
 a ransom of three hundred scudi for him. Our way was becom- 
 
THE ALGIDUS. 101 
 
 ing, in the meantime, more and more intricate, and we were 
 really not sorry when we reached an open space near the top of 
 the mountain. We here left our beasts with Augusto Flibberti- 
 gibbet, and climbed, and crept, and clung our way up by ten 
 thousand impossible turns and scramblings, to some huge blocks 
 of ancient wall, amid which we seated ourselves ; and — — — 
 and our guides left us to explore more fully the ruinous remains. 
 While we sat there alone, two men came by, armed, the one with 
 a gun, and the other with a hatchet ; they looked at us, naturally 
 enough, and we were rather frightened — I think naturally enough 
 too ; but either " they were not the men we took them for," or 
 we did not look worth ransoming, so they went on : and presently 
 
 and our guides returned, and we descended, not without 
 
 repeatedly missing our way, to the place where we had left the 
 boy and the donkeys. Here, high throned above a mountain of 
 most noble forest, we looked over the deep valleys below, and the 
 great hill shoulders with their mantles of green ; and having 
 rested and lunched, we set forth to descend the mountaii; on the 
 other side. For a while we followed a path that, though really 
 not two feet wide, and with branches and roots intersecting it 
 every two yards, might have been called a turnpike, in compari- 
 son with that by which we had come. Presently, however, our 
 neatherd made demonstrations of replunging into the twilight 
 vaults of the forest, whereat the heroic Antonio fell into another 
 agony of apprehension. We passed through a glen, where the 
 
 chestnut trees were the finest I ever saw. said, it was 
 
 no wonder Diana loved the Algidus ; and it seemed to me as if 
 the silver sandals of the huntress must shine presently upon the 
 path, and the rustling of her quiver be heard in the awful solitude. 
 Our guide now struck fairly again in the deep wood, and Antonio 
 broke out into open rebellion, whereupon the old bandit's com- 
 panion told him, that unless he intended to spend the night in 
 the woods, which he would leave him to do if he preferred it, he 
 
102 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 must follow the path he was taking. This suggestion silenced 
 ParoUes, and we proceeded, and finally achieved our exit from 
 the forest, our descent from the mountain, and our return to the 
 open plain, with its sandy roads all overarched with golden ca- 
 nopies of broom, the broad daylight and level land comforting 
 more or less all our spirits. Infinite discourse went forward 
 touching Gasperoni and his band — their exploits and daring 
 — their good dealings, at least according to our guide, with the 
 poor peasantry, from whom they never took anything in the 
 shape of provisions, without liberally paying for it — their 
 final betrayal through the means of a priest. And when it came 
 to this clerical climax, it was really most curious to hear the 
 men, and even the lad leading my donkey, break into one hearty 
 and simultaneous execration of the priesthood, under whose do- 
 minion they live ; their hardness and indifference to the poor ; 
 their avarice, their rapacity, their profligacy, their hypocrisy. 
 God knows, it was enough to make one ask how long a govern- 
 ment, thus esteemed by its subjects, could possibly endure ; be- 
 cause, with all due allowance made for the character of the 
 authority from which we were receiving these details, there was 
 obvious truth enough in what they said, to make the vehement 
 accordance with which they all bore witness to it most striking. 
 Our guide wound up by assuring us, that, contrary to the com- 
 mon opinion, Gasperoni himself had never been taken alive ; 
 he rejected the imputation even, I thought, with rather a touch 
 of indignation ; spoke of his intimate personal acquaintance with 
 Gasperoni, whom he described as eminently striking looking and 
 handsome ; said he had seen him himself after he was shot, with a 
 number of his comrades, at the time of the destruction of the 
 band ; and ended with adding, that the robber confined in the 
 prison at Civita Vecchia {where he himself had passed some time 
 in his company), and always shown to visitors as Gasperoni, was 
 one Salvatore, the principal companion and friend of the brigand- 
 
INHABITANTS OF FRASCATI. 103 
 
 chief. We listened with considerable interest to these very au- 
 thentic details, and remembered them with still more, when we 
 afterwards heard that our sturdy old guide to the Algidus had 
 
 been himself one of Gasperoni's famous band. had 
 
 loitered behind, and after regaining the carriage we drove on 
 at a brisk rate, leaving him to follow ; and for some time after 
 we reached home, as he did not appear, we were rather anxious 
 about him : but he finally rejoined us, and related how, having 
 found our old guide after we had parted from him at the shep- 
 herd's fountain, and offered to pay him for his trouble in escort- 
 ing us, the latter had most conscientiously informed him that we 
 had already paid him — a worthy member of Gasperoni's band, 
 truly ! 
 
 In my early walks about the neighborhood of our beautiful 
 villa, I have made numerous acquaintances among the country 
 people, whom I meet at work in the vineyards, and have been 
 able to form some notion of the general condition of those inha- 
 biting Frascati and its vicinity. They are for the most part 
 good-natured, friendly folk, who generally commence our inter- 
 course by asking me if I was not afraid to walk alone, which 
 gives me an indifferent opinion either of their honesty or their 
 courage ; but I believe the latter is chiefly in fault. One morn- 
 ing lately I met a young peasant girl, who, although in the same 
 predicament herself, exclaimed, w^ith much apparent astonish- 
 ment, " Ma come, siete sola !" to which, or rather to my own 
 thoughts, I answered " Si ; sola, sola ;" to which, or perhaps to 
 her own thoughts, the girl replied, " E meglio sola che mal ac- 
 compagnata." — God keep her in that mind ! 
 
 The peasantry of this district find their chief occupation in 
 tending the vines with which the hills are principally covered, 
 and which form the agricultural wealth of the small communi- 
 ties gathered in their fortress-like looking villages, on the summit 
 of the eminences that are, as it were, a sort of intermediate step 
 
104 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 between the level plain of the campagna and the summits of the 
 Alban and Sabine hills. In the spring, the raising the plants, 
 and restoring them to the support of the canes that for the most 
 part prop them, and which the snows, which sometimes lie \ieavy 
 on these mountain sides, beat down, is the earliest process. 
 Towards the end of May, the enclosures are filled with compa- 
 nies of peasants, chiefly girls and women, busied in rem.oving the 
 tendrils from the vines, by breaking off which, the surplus vigor, 
 diverted into those twining and profuse offshoots, is restored to 
 the fruitbearing parts of the plant, which are now in full blos- 
 som. Towards the beginning of September, the same female 
 troops spread themselves over the vineyards, removing almost all 
 the graceful and beautiful foliage from the vines, so as at once 
 to give the fruit the full benefit of its last month's genial sun- 
 ning, and to render the work of stripping the branches oflT for 
 the vintage quicker and easier. The end of September and 
 the beginning of October is the season of the grape gathering 
 and wine making, when the entire population seems poured 
 into the vineyards : the whole country resounds with the loud 
 monotonous nasal howl which, I am sorry to say, is the national 
 music of this part, at any rate, of the land of song ; and the warm 
 warm air is tipsy with the smell of the grapes, borne in tubs 
 on the backs of mules, in incessant procession up every steep 
 winding village path, to the huge vats, where the process of tread- 
 ing them is performed. 
 
 From the glory and the grace of the fragrant vine-bunches, 
 hanging like precious grapes of amethyst and amber, with their 
 exquisite bloom on them, under their fresh glittering leaves, to 
 the half-smashed dirty amalgamation of bruised discolored ber- 
 ries, and stocks jolted to a sort of ill-looking jmree aux pois, in 
 nasty high narrow tubs on a mule's back ; and then again from 
 even that to the hideous-looking red-brown scum, in which a 
 hairy, sweating, brawny peasant prances, with his breeches 
 
MODE OF SPINNING. 105 
 
 rolled more than half-way up his thighs, and his limbs besmeared 
 as though with blood, with the revolting-looking contents of the 
 huge vat, in which he takes his exercise, there is a declension 
 in beauty and poetry not to be described. The vintage over, 
 the agricultural labors of the women of this neighborhood end. 
 The gathering of the olives is principally performed by the men, 
 and is often protracted far into the winter, when the cold, even 
 on the lower slopes of these hills, is sometimes very severe. As 
 soon as they have done busying themselves with the vines, the 
 women take up a life of spinning, as incessant as the German 
 female knitting existence. I asked several of the vine-laborers 
 the amount of their wages, and the answer was the same 
 throughout the neighborhood — two pauls, or twenty bajocchi, 
 about ten pence a day for the men, and for the women half as 
 much. I never can refrain from contrasting the price of labor 
 in Europe with its value in America ; and used often and often 
 both to smile and sigh when I heard this, and remembered the 
 dollar (four and sixpence) a day, which is the lowest pay of 
 the lowest day laborer in America ; that such a thing as 
 a woman laboring in the fields is not known from one end to 
 another of the free States. Of course, as might be naturally 
 expected, they are among the hardest- worked of the miserable 
 slave population of the South ; the pay of a sort of garde cham- 
 petre (gamekeepers they cannot be called, because there is no 
 game), of which each of the estates adjoining ours has one or 
 more, is six scudi a month, and some sort of residence for him- 
 self and family — often some half ruined portion of a dismantled 
 farm-house, or even tumble-town palazzo. The flax of which 
 their women spin and weave themselves all the coarse linen 
 garments that they wear, grows in the flat-lands of the cam- 
 pagna, where they pay, for the privilege of planting it, a sort of 
 ground-rent to the land-owner ; they cut, and carry, and hackle 
 t all themselves, and spin it without the more modern invention 
 
 5* 
 
106 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 even of,the spinning-wheel, but with nothing but that most primi- 
 tive and elegant implement — the spindle. I could not discover 
 such a thing as a fly-loom in all Frascati ; but women working 
 at exceedingly clumsy and wretched old hand-looms told me, 
 that one paul a day, that is about five pence, was the most that 
 they could earn with their utmost diligence. So antiquated a 
 machine as a hand-loom, I suppose, could hardly be found now 
 in Philadelphia ; but a worker there at the fly-loom earns, with- 
 out the slightest difficulty, a dollar and a half, or between six 
 and seven shillings a day ; the wages of handicraftsmen and 
 artisans, such as carpenters, bricklayers, and masons, in these 
 small villages in the vicinity of Rome, are very fair, amounting 
 to about a scudo a day ; not, indeed, equal to the nine dollars a 
 week of an industrious American journeyman, but still, com- 
 pared with the agricultural wages, excellent. 
 
 In speaking, as I perpetually do, of the extraordinary advan- 
 tage workmen in America enjoy over the same class in England, 
 and other countries in Europe, 1 do not wish at all to be under- 
 stood to state, that they can live more cheaply on the other side of 
 the Atlantic ; for directly the reverse is the case, as I have been 
 repeatedly assured by members of the working classes who had 
 emigrated from England to America, and who found living there 
 much dearer than in the old country. The only item of expendi- 
 ture that is really cheap in Philadelphia and its neighborhood, is 
 food. Provisions are infinitely cheaper than in England ; and if 
 men could live by bread alone, the difference between the costli- 
 ness of existence in the New and Old World would indeed be 
 immense. But almost everything else necessary for physical 
 existence is either as dear or dearer than in England ; — all 
 materials for and articles of clothing infinitely dearer and by no 
 means so good ; all implements of industry, whether mechanical 
 or agricultural, infinitely dearer and not so good ; fuel as dear, 
 or dearer ; and house-rent for the poorer classes much upon the 
 same scale in both countries. With regard to the advantage that 
 
DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 107 
 
 might be derived from the great abundance and cheapness of 
 food, a lav/ of apparently universal application in human affairs 
 holds good, and that which is cheaply and easily procured is 
 lavishly used and most frequently wasted. The Americans are, 
 in almost every respect, the most extravagant people I have ever 
 seen : among the wealthier classes an inordinate ostentation and 
 love of display, and among the poorer ones a reckless disregard 
 of economy in the details of daily expenditure, are, perhaps, a 
 very natural I'esult of the ease with which money is earned, and 
 the rapidity with which fortunes are made in that country of 
 hitherto miexhausted resources and unexampled activity. But 
 anything like the carefulness and scrupulous management in the 
 adjustment of means and expenditure practised in England, not 
 only by the poorer, but by the middling classes, is unknown in 
 any class in America. The perfect proportions kept between 
 the income and the outlay by the majority of English people of 
 moderate means, is a thing unknown to the same class of people 
 on the other side of the w^ater. There is one very sad reason for 
 this : the frightful fever for speculation ; the gambling propensi- 
 ty prevalent to a most extraordinary extent in America ; the 
 thirst for excitement, so keen, that nothing but perpetual political 
 contest, and incessant suspension of fortune, between sudden 
 wealth or as sudden destitution, can sufficiently minister to it. 
 This extraordinary national characteristic, arising, doubtless, in 
 great part from the natural, but withal unexampled, impulse 
 given by free institutions in a new world to a young and energetic 
 society, is one of the most remarkable, and 1 should almost say 
 almost appalling, peculiarities of the present American people. 
 When it can be said that not stock-jobbers and brokers ; bankers 
 and men of financial speculation ; and merchants, men of com- 
 mercial speculation, alone, but almost every professional man in 
 Philadelphia, at one time — lawyer, physician, and, I believe I might 
 almost add, clergyman — was engaged in some scheme, some ha- 
 zard, some speculation, for the rapid, or rather sudden increase of 
 
108 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 his fortune ; a chance which of course involved its opposite 
 chance of sudden ruin ; it will easily be conceived how 
 absolutely destructive such a state of things must be of 
 everything like habits of economy or the regular management 
 and careful administration of certain means. I have heard 
 American women repeatedly say, that their husbands never 
 informed them of anything relating to their affairs ; that they had 
 not the remotest idea of the amount of their income ; and that it 
 was the most unusual thing among them for a woman to be at 
 all aware of the extent of her husband's means. To English 
 laM^yers', physicians', clergymen's, or professional men's wives, 
 whose task it is invariably to hold the proportion between their 
 husbands' income and the necessary outlay of their families, this 
 state of things appears incredible ; but it ceases to be so singu- 
 lar, when one reflects that a man engaged in wild speculations, 
 which may at any moment double or treble his fortune or sweep 
 from him the bare means of existence, cannot very well consider 
 himself possessed of any fixed income, or reckon his certain 
 means at any specific sum. Nor is it very likely that any man 
 would care to burden the heart and mind of his wife, in the 
 midst of her domestic duties and anxieties, with the intense ner- 
 vous expectation — the incessant tension of acute apprehension — 
 of a condition hovering perpetually between such reverses of 
 fortune. That uncertainty v/hich necessarily belongs alone to 
 the results of certain peculiar callings, and the extreme of which 
 wisdom and foresight in those exercising them endeavor as much 
 as possible to guard against, a whole nation by choice and deli- 
 beration (if such madness can be so called) incurs. This will 
 sufficiently account for the absence of anything like a judicious 
 regulation of expenditure and practice of economy among the 
 wealthier portions of the community in America ; as it accounts 
 too, sufficiently enough, for the innumerable failures, ruins, bank- 
 ruptciesj sudden uprisings of sudden large fortunes, sudden fall- 
 ings in of equally large ones, — banishment of well-educated, 
 
DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 109 
 
 luxuriously bred families, to the "wild regions of the west, and all 
 the extraordinary fluctuations in the social character of American 
 cities — mutations unexampled in their number and rapidity, and 
 which deprive society there of all stability, consistency, and dignity, 
 and do away with half the advantages of wealth, by its perpetual 
 shifting from reckless and careless hand to hand. To these 
 causes too, doubtless, may be attributed the frightful prevalence 
 of insanity, that most awful of human liabilities, that most fre- 
 quent result of turning life into a desperate game of chance, and 
 the instances of which so far outnumber in America those known 
 in Europe. But, to return to the poorer classes, English labor- 
 ers and artisans going to America, find food amazingly cheap, 
 and gradually and naturally relax in the strict and penurious 
 economy they are obliged to practise with regard to it in their 
 own country, where it is very dear. A step further, however, 
 leads to an almost inevitable transition in human affairs, from use 
 to abuse : the American laborers and artisans squander food; 
 they have rather a contempt for economy in this particular, and 
 ignorance in many places is as fruitful of extravagance as reck- 
 lessness itself For instance, I know a part of New England, 
 where the good housewives are in the habit of throwing away 
 their calves'' heads andybe/ as useless and unprofitable portions of 
 the animal. To the English poor, therefore, the benefits of the 
 abundant cheap provisions of the AVestern world are soon neu- 
 tralized by this change of domestic economy ; the ease with 
 which employment is obtained, and its ample compensation, still 
 remain as sufficient inducements for emigration ; to which must 
 never be forgotten to be added, the wide field open to every 
 species of industry, which, by affording ample means of subsist- 
 ence to all who will labor, relieves the heart of the poor man 
 from the dire pressure of anxiety for his children, and converts 
 into the blessing it was intended to be, that offspring, which in 
 England becomes to the unfortunate laborer or artisan his 
 
110 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 heaviest burden and the bitterest curse of his existence, — 
 throwing over a present, made tolerably prosperous only by 
 incessant efforts, the dismal shadow of an uncertain future, 
 and the haunting apprehension for the fate of those whose sole 
 dependence in life is a desperate struggle with innumerable com- 
 petitors, whose poverty and industry choke up with ceaseless 
 and unavailing efforts every channel of employment ; where the 
 most strenuous endeavor barely wards off immediate misery, 
 and never protects from heart-sickening uncertainty. 
 
 These inducements America still holds forth to the harassed 
 poor of Europe ; these, and the privilege not only of present 
 existence, but of progress in the social scale. A few years of 
 industry and economy may convert the poorest emigrant into a 
 lord of the soil in the great fertile wilderness, into whose ample 
 bosom the crowded populations of ancient lands are daily pouring 
 themselves, and where the unfettered action of human activity 
 and energy resembles the healthful coursing of the blood through 
 the veins of a child, unimpeded by ligaments and compressions, 
 and left to move and grow as God has ordained. 
 
 The terrible malaria infesting the Roman campagna, and 
 extending its pestilential influence considerably up the hill sides, 
 accounts sufficiently for the absence of scattered dwellings and 
 isolated habitations among the vineyards, that drop their green 
 folds to the mountain's feet. Security, too, in earlier and more 
 savage times, probably induced the laborers to huddle together in 
 villages, under the doubtful protection of some feudal lord, as at 
 Colonna, rather than live scattered in separate farms and cot- 
 tages ; and the combination of both motives caused the gathering 
 of swarming populations into the rock-perched hamlets that are 
 planted on every tolerably accessible eminence all round the 
 great curtain of hills that — except towards the sea — bound the 
 Roman horizon. These villages, many of them springing up from 
 such pinnacles as to be most difficult of access, form one of the 
 
ITALIAN VILLAGES. Ill 
 
 most picturesque features of that landscape of unequalled variety 
 and beauty ; and from a certain distance, raising their time- 
 stained and irregular buildings high up against the admirable 
 purity and brilliancy of the sky — their steep rocky foundations 
 giving them almost the appearance of fortresses, — they delight 
 the eye and invite the approach of the beholder ; but let 
 him be satisfied with their distant aspect ; it is infinitely their 
 best, and a nearer approach will only produce, in recompense 
 for toiling up steep, stinking, slippery streets, lined with squalid 
 habitations, and thronged with filthy inhabitants, the com- 
 monest of all earthly experiences — disappointment. The pea- 
 sants, thus perched above their land of labor, go forth at early 
 morning and return in the evening to their pinnacles. A general 
 attendance at mass precedes their descent to the plain, and the 
 Ave Maria calls them home again from field and vineyard in 
 multitudinous streams of toil-weary life, climbing the steep paths 
 back towards their rocky abodes. It is a dreadful pity that it is 
 utterly impossible to reverse the order of nature, so that they 
 could go down in the evening and up in the morning before their 
 day's work ; with the utmost exercise of ingenuity, however, I 
 never could discover any mode of so adjusting it. 
 
 The exalted station of their homes appeared to be a double 
 hardship to the women ; for the fountains where they wash, and 
 where they procure all the water for their household purposes, 
 are generally at a considerable distance below the villages, — at 
 Monte Porzio, nearly half a mile ; at the beautiful village of 
 Rocca Priori, much further down the precipitous mountain road' 
 and, admirable as the groups often are at these picturesque 
 watering-places, and beautiful the antique form of the copper 
 vessels which the women bear on their heads retu minor from 
 them, it grieves my heart to meet them, as we do perpetually m 
 our rides, toiling thus burdened up the steep ascent. Their 
 houses and lodgings are wretchedly dirty and miserable, often 
 
112 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 half ruinous and dismantled tenements, without glazing to the 
 windows ; and yet, it seems to me, more wretched, from want of 
 cleanliness and care, than they need be ; but, alas ! for the law 
 " to those who have shall be given," &c. It is one of the most 
 deplorable effects of poverty, that those afflicted with it have less 
 of the conservative principle than those who have more to lose, 
 and waste what their betters-off would save. The Italian pea- 
 sants live literally out of doors ; they eat at morning and even- 
 ing in huge dingy sort of cellars, where they congregate for that 
 purpose, in places like vaults, with earthen floors, and the coarsest 
 wooden tables and settles. The idea of preparing or eating food 
 in their own houses or lodgings, is, I believe, a thing undreamt of 
 among them ; and in this respect, indeed, they do but follow the 
 demoralizing practice of the best classes of Roman workmen 
 and artisans, who invariably, and without exception, take their 
 meals — wives, children, and all — at the trattoria or osteria 
 cuccinante, where the unemployed portion of the family loiter 
 and lounge through the greater part of the day, retiring to what 
 in England would be called their home, but which here really 
 cannot be so entitled, merely to sleep. Not the total want of 
 domesticity in their habits, or the absence of decent cleanliness 
 and comfort in their abodes, however, can amaze the English 
 traveller half as much, especially if he have, like myself, resided 
 long in America, as the universal spirit of shameless pauperism 
 which the inhabitants of this most beautiful and fertile region exhibit. 
 The idea of degradation attached to that of beggary never 
 seemed to enter their heads ; nor, at the end of infinite appeals 
 and remonstrances to them upon the subject during my summer 
 residence among them, have I ever been able to produce any 
 impression other than expressed itself in the air of ludicrous 
 perplexity. Once, and once alone, at the end oi' an eloquent 
 discourse to a woman who accosted me in the street of Frascati, 
 and who was sitting very comfortably at her door spinning, 
 
PAUPERISM. 113 
 
 while her children, very well clothed and munching very sub- 
 stantial lumps of bread, rolled round her in the disgusting 
 street, an old woman, who listened to what I was addressing to 
 her neighbor, said, that it was just enough ; for that they who 
 were healthy could work, and that those only ought to beg who 
 could not. This was the only convert I am conscious of having 
 made ; the rest of my auditory grinned round me in uncon- 
 vinced good humor. The truth is, they beg not at all from 
 absolute want and destitution, but as an easy way of earning 
 money. They hate trouble, how right they are ! (and how 
 wrong !) and find the half paul thrown them by the forestieri, 
 in reply to their sometimes most indolent " Dammi qualche 
 cosa," better pay than the whole one wrought out of their whole 
 day's labor in the vines. Food is abundant and cheap in this 
 land of corn, wine, and oil ; and, judging from the generally 
 comfortable clothing of even the poorest classes here, and the 
 absence of rags and tatters among them, I should suppose 
 clothing was not dear ; but they need but little under their 
 beneficent heavens. Italians of all classes seem to abhor the 
 proximity of fire ; and the crazy shelters whither they retire 
 for the night suffice for protection against the short-lived incle- 
 mency of their winter season. I think, therefore, upon the whole, 
 that the incessant clamor for alms set up by the whole population 
 in these districts, not being really the result of what one would 
 at first suppose it — absolute starvation, should rather be con- 
 sidered in the light of industry ; it is the only form of it which 
 I ever saw any of them zealous in. There are in these villages 
 nothing resembling public poor-houses or regular provision made 
 for the poor by the public ; in all the churches there are poor- 
 boxes, and contributions or quetes are levied frequently on the 
 religious festivals and saint-days. The curates are obliged, as 
 part of their parochial duty, to look after and assist the poor ; 
 and a surgeon and physician, of very tolerable ability, are paid 
 
114 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 by most of these small communities for the gratuitous relief of 
 the sick, whose means are too small to admit of their procuring 
 such succor for themselves. Their salary, however, is extremely 
 miserable. At Monte Porzio, which is a very populous village, 
 about two miles from Frascati, the public Esculapius receives 
 but fifteen scudi a month for the healing of the commonwealth. 
 In Frascati there exists a society of charitable women calling 
 themselves Sisters of Charity, without, however, peculiar vovvs 
 or dresses — twenty-four of them being more properly soeurs 
 visitandines, — while they admit into their ranks an unlimited 
 number of merely subscribing members. This society, as some 
 of its members who called upon us for money in aid of their 
 benevolent efforts informed us, was chiefly, however, for the 
 relief of the bed-ridden, infirm, and incapable of work. As for 
 the able-bodied, stout, and only disinclined to work, they come 
 up, day after day, to claim our charitable assistance, and the 
 claims put forth by some of them are really irresistibly ludi- 
 crous sometimes. Thus, my sister had a visit some days ago 
 from a strapping damsel, who brought a petition written for her, 
 and setting forth, that, wishing to enter the holy estate of wed- 
 lock, and being without means, money, or friends, she implored 
 the succor of the charitably disposed to enable her " di far 
 decente il letto matrimoniale." My sister ventured to suggest, 
 that marrying under circumstances which might with propriety 
 be called so uneasy, did not appear to her a very prudential 
 measure ; the devotee to Hymen, however, merely responded, 
 "eh, come si ha da far?" with a grin and a shrug, and that 
 really was so unanswerable a suggestion, that it put an end to 
 further representations of expediency. 
 
 The schools for the poor in these villages are under the direc- 
 tion of the priests of course, and the course of instruction to 
 which they are subjected bears witness thereto. I have fre- 
 quently looked over the small library of school-books, which the 
 
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS. 
 
 peasant lads of the neighborhood were carrying with them thi- 
 ther, and among as many as five class books have never found 
 more than one that was not a religious book, and that one was 
 always — ponder, oh ye utilitarians ! — a grammar. The rest 
 were always catechisms, mass books, and collections of Bible 
 stories — not taken verbatim from the Scripture, but paraphrased 
 by some better master. The chief, indeed the only, diversions 
 of the people are their religious festivals, which occur so fre- 
 quently as effectually to break up all habits of industry : no 
 work is done on a festa, and I should say every third day in the 
 week, on an average, was sacred to some saint, or rather to the 
 great god of the Italians — Idleness. These religious celebrations 
 have less of a devotional character than could be imagined by 
 any one not assisting at them. They are enlivened by an inces- 
 sant firing of guns and crackers ; horse-races, donkey-races, and 
 foot-races, generally go forward during some part of the day, and 
 the holy evening closes with some display of fire-works. At the 
 festival of San Salvatore, a species of religious play-bill was sent 
 all round this neighborhood, setting forth the various amusements 
 to which, as well as to the saint, the day was consecrated. The 
 dresses of the peasants, who on these occasions assemble on the 
 town piazza, before the principal church, are extremely pictu- 
 resque ; and the uncommon beauty of many of the figures and 
 faces, both of men and women, makes such gatherings still more 
 striking. The great superiority of these southern people in phy- 
 sical comeliness over our northern races is wonderful. It is 
 not only positive beauty of form and brilliancy of coloring, but 
 a noble carriage, an ease, a grace, a dignity in all their move- 
 ments, and, above all, the grand style of their heads, that makes 
 them pre-eminently subjects for artistical illustration. It is only 
 in Italy that I have seen men's faces as positively beautiful as 
 women's, and that frequently — in England, I remember but one 
 instance of the sort. 
 
116 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 The inhabitants of these small villages appear to participate 
 heartily in the Roman passion for lotteries, and these mischie- 
 vous institutions take up large portions of their slender means, 
 encouraging amongst them the demoralizing spirit of gambling, 
 and the most unbounded superstition ; not one of them who 
 can read but has his book of lottery numbers always about him, 
 and no event of the four-and-twenty hours occurs without (if he 
 has the means) his referring it to its appointed figure, and imme- 
 diately risking some portion of his earnings on the hazard. M. 
 
 gave us a most amusing account of a servant of his, at 
 
 whose feet a man suddenly fell dead in the street. He instantly 
 seized his lottery book, took the number of the accident, the 
 number of the house, and the hour of the day, and the numbers 
 corresponding to the word " steeple," one being in sight ; and 
 then ran off to the lottery, to embark as much as he could, or 
 could not, afford, upon these various ventures. These abomina- 
 ble institutions are government speculations ; and in these little 
 villages Sunday is a favorite day for drawing the lottery, round 
 the door and window of which an eager crowd, many of whom 
 are often priests, is gathered on the day of declaring the results. 
 
 I was surprised to find a great deal of inebriety, amounting, in 
 some instances that came to our personal knowledge, to habitual 
 drunkenness, among the peasantry here. I had thought that a 
 vice confined to our colder climates and more stagnant blood ; 
 but I think the " spaccio di acqua vitae" is almost as frequent 
 here as are our gin-palaces in London ; and, though the same 
 amount of habitual intoxication among the lower orders does not 
 exist, habits of intemperance are infinitely more common, espe- 
 cially here in the country, than I had any idea of; boys of twelve 
 and fourteen years old not unfrequently getting drunk upon 
 spirits at an early hour in the day. God knows they need no 
 such stimulants to increase the fiery temper of their blood — 
 their sober gusts of passion are something appalling, and the 
 
CHARACTER OF THE FRASCATANI. 117 
 
 fatal eottellata is the most frequent umpire of their furious con- 
 troversies. 
 
 The general disposition of the people in Frascati and our 
 neighborhood appears indolent, vivacious, intelligent, dishonest, 
 lying, bragging, passionate, and withal good-natured, and mon- 
 strous cowardly. I say their disposition in this neighborhood, 
 for a very small geographical distance here (it is averred by the 
 people themselves) makes, for some cause or another, an amazing 
 difference in the character of whole villages. Thus, the Fras- 
 catani are considered " buona gente," " buono sangue" — the 
 inhabitants of Tivoli, about eighteen miles off, quite the con- 
 trary — and there is a little village about five miles from here 
 called Marino, where the people are " cattivissimo sangue," 
 notorious for their savage and lawless disposition. This is very 
 curious — lying in the same folds of these beautiful mountains, 
 enriched by the same benignant vegetation, smiled upon by the 
 same still gracious heavens, with neither difference of soil nor cli- 
 mate to account for it, it seems hardly credible that any original 
 difference of race can have existed, or at any rate have per- 
 petuated itself in communities so little distant, and whose habits 
 
 and mode of life appear so similar ; yet I remember said 
 
 that he believed that one reason why the people of Tivoli were 
 " cattivo sangue" was, that in all the inroads of the Germans 
 into these parts of Italy from the earliest times, dregs of their 
 tribes had settled like bad lees here, and that he attributed to this 
 fact the less purely Italian character of the people : this greater, 
 or perhaps I should say different, savageness of the northern 
 savage, grafted on the southern savage, makes a most brutal and 
 hateful admixture ; and the saying among the Italians them- 
 selves is, " che un tedesco italianizato e il diavolo incarnate." 
 By the bye, in a notch of the Sabine hills, on a peak to which 
 the bright finger of the sun sometimes points dazzlingly amid 
 their purple masses, stands a most curious and wild village called 
 
lis A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Saracenesco. The people here, it is averred, are really a rem- 
 nant of the Saracenic invasions of Italy, part of some tribe of the 
 eastern barbarians having remained and settled on this single 
 point. The inhabitants of this poor and miserable hamlet are 
 darker, and of a different physiognomy, from the Italian dwellers 
 in the Sabine range, and the name of their village perpetuates 
 the tradition of their different blood. 
 
 Riding round the convent of Grotta Ferrata the other day, 
 
 gave me a most curious account of the Monks there, which 
 
 confirmed since by a similar narration ; and which, I think, 
 
 fully entitles the brethren of the convent, if not the rest of the 
 inhabitants of Grotta Ferrata, to the qualification of eminently 
 " cativo sangue." For some years past, it seems that the disorders 
 of this fraternity had been an absolute scandal, calling loudly, 
 but in vain, for reform. The idle dissoluteness of the priests 
 surpassed even the large license given them here for both lazi- 
 ness and profligacy ; and among other agreeable distractions to 
 the monotony of their monastic life had finally been the intro- 
 duction of women into the convent, and getting up of private 
 theatricals with their assistance. While matters were thus 
 prospering, and the holy fathers cultivating the drama, and 
 devoting themselves to the Muses and Graces, their abbot 
 died, and a new abbot, of a different temper, replaced him. A 
 reform was immediately set on foot by him, which, however, 
 the godly community vehemently resisted. A man of deter- 
 mined spirit, and resolute in his purpose of suppressing the 
 scandalous abuses of the community over which he had been 
 called to preside, he found himself engaged in absolute 
 warfare with his refractory " sons," which warfare speedily 
 became more than moral, inasmuch as one fine night, having 
 purposely fired a blank cartridge at his window in order to attract 
 him to it, some of the worthy brotherhood followed up the alarm 
 by directing a well-aimed bullet at their abbot : on his guard, 
 
SONNET. 119 
 
 however, against this infamous attempt, the incensed superior im- 
 mediately proceeded to Rome, to complain to the Pope, and demand 
 enforcement of his rights, and the punishment of the rebellious 
 members of his community. The monastery, however, is a very 
 rich and influential one, and contrived so well to deafen the ears 
 to which this appeal was made, that every effort was used in 
 Rome to dissuade the superior from pursuing his purpose of 
 bringing his convent into subjection ; higher and more advan- 
 tageous positions were proffered him, which he indignantly 
 rejected, desiring to be empowered to fulfil his duty in the station 
 to which he had been appointed. The venal and abominable 
 authorities to whom, however, he thus appealed, were entirely 
 sold to the party of the monastery, and the man was allowed 
 actually to die of mortification and sorrow under the entire fail- 
 ure of his incessant attempts to obtain justice from the depraved 
 tribunal to which he appealed. What manner of superior suc- 
 ceeded him I did not hear, nor whether the worthy friars were 
 still busy getting up Goldoni in the sacred precincts of the clois- 
 ter. Their ignorance is such, assured me, that though 
 
 professing to be Greek Catholics, their mass books had need to 
 be put into Latin for them, as they had even lost the comprehen- 
 sion of the Greek character. Their convent, besides being most 
 beautifully situated at the green foot of Monte Cavo, boasts of 
 treasures of art, in the shape of some fine frescoes by Domeni- 
 chino, and their library contains some precious samples of 
 palimpsest manuscript. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Thy mother's name fills thy young eyes with tears, 
 Oh, my belov'd ! they have not taught thee yet 
 That hapless mother's image to forget. 
 
 Ah ! they may trust the cruel coming years, 
 
120 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Whose wings shall brush that waning form away, 
 While, trooping by, the pageant grand and gay 
 
 Of life shall fill the mirror of thy sight ; 
 
 Its last faint lineaments effacing quite. 
 So must it be, while from my aching heart 
 
 Thy blessed, lovely vision day by day 
 
 All other images shall chase away, 
 Till one by one all other forms depart. 
 
 And I am left haunted by the dear sadness 
 
 Of that one presence into longing madness. 
 
 I have been reading with much interest a small volume, 
 published, I think, in Paris, of very pestilent matter, as it is 
 considered here, being a collection of forbidden treatises upon 
 political subjects — Azeglia's Ultime Case della Romagna, a 
 striking report upon the late trials (!!!) of the insurrectionists 
 at Bologna, Foligno, &c., by Capponi ; the whole collection 
 closing with a most curious address to the last Pope, Gregory 
 XVI., by an American clergyman, of the New England States, 
 which very forcible statement of the evils of His Holiness's 
 government will, I am afraid, never have come under his cogni- 
 sance. These pamphlets, for they are none of them, not even 
 Azeglia's publication, anything more in bulk, are full of interest, 
 and appeal most pathetically by their mere statement of facts to 
 the whole heart of humanity, in behalf of this beautiful, but most 
 oppressed country. Since I have read them, however, a mar- 
 vellous sequel has transpired to the episode of Renzi, the Roman 
 patriot, whose peculiar and pre-eminent share in the last liberal 
 movements under Gregory XVI., made him individually an 
 object of so much interest to those who sympathized with it. 
 
 When such of the unfortunate men implicated in these ill- 
 fated attempts as escaped the tremendous inquisition of the espe- 
 cial tribunals, immediately organized to punish the past and 
 
RENZI. 131 
 
 suppress the future efforts of the reformers, had made their way 
 out of the Roman states, and, escaping through Tuscany, saved 
 themselves, by an exile of utter destitution and misery, from the 
 rieadly vengeance of the papal government, Renzi mysteriously, 
 unaccountably, indeed, returned, and being demanded of the 
 Tuscan authorities, into whose hands he fell, was delivered over 
 to the Roman government, and thrust into prison. Many were 
 the stories and conjectures afloat to account for his lingering, 
 conspicuously odious as he was to the Pope and his ministers, 
 within peril of again falling into their hands. A touching and 
 passionate love story was wrought up with the interest inspired 
 by his devoted patriotism, to add to the sympathy all felt, but 
 none dared express, for his noble misfortunes ; and it was said 
 that his return to Tuscany, and consequent delivery to the Ro- 
 man government, was the result of an attachment he had formed, 
 and from the object of which he found it impossible to separate 
 himself. 
 
 When the act of amnesty, promulgated by Pius IX. immedi- 
 ately on his accession, opened the political dungeons of the Roman 
 states, and set free thousands of wretched men wlio were expa- 
 tiating in their gloomy chambers their aspirations for their coun- 
 try's good, it was stated that the Pope himself had had a personal 
 interview with Renzi, who, generally looked upon as a sort of 
 chief and leader of the patriots, made a species of personal act 
 of future homage and loyalty to his sovereign and liberator. It 
 now appears, monstrous as it may seem, that this very man, the 
 seeming patriot, the devoted reformer, the ardent and enthusiastic 
 leader of the unfortunate Italian revolutionists, was, in fact, a 
 spy in the pay of the late Pope's government ; as such had been 
 the means of inveigling and betraying hundreds of his country- 
 men, of whose political tendencies his apparent sympathy had 
 made him aware ; as such, and not led by the irresistible impulse 
 of an invincible attachment, he had returned to Tuscany, where 
 
 VOL. II. 6 
 
122 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 his being detained and delivered to tiie Roman government was a 
 mere continuation of the farce, by which he was to pursue his 
 detestable career of treachery. I think he, rather than Brutus 
 or Cassius, ought to be in company with Judas Iscariot between 
 the teeth of Dante's great devil. It is remarkable, that, for so 
 long a space of time, this wretch, whose fees from the Roman 
 government were enormous, contrived to deceive the numerous 
 individuals who were given up chiefly through his agency, with- 
 out exciting the smallest suspicion. One man only is known to 
 have said upon being seized, " Renzi is the only man who can 
 have betrayed me, for he alone was aware of such and such cir- 
 cumstances." This single voice, however, of detection was soon 
 interred in the depths of some political dungeon, and Renzi con- 
 tinued to receive and betray the confidence of hundreds of his 
 wretched compatriots. 
 
 It is a curious thing that a rumor was in circulation just before 
 I left Rome that there had been a disturbance in the prisons, and 
 that a spy had been detected and nearly torn to pieces among 
 the prisoners ; moreover, it was supposed that fifty of the political 
 offenders included in the amnesty were still detained — of course 
 without the knowledge of the Pope — for fear they should make 
 disclosures as to the barbarous treatment they had been subjected 
 to. The late report of the Legate of Spoleto upon the state of 
 the prisons there, represents the condition of persons committed 
 and merely awaiting their trial as something too dreadful if it 
 were the punishment of convicted criminals, instead of persons 
 who may be innocent of any offence : many of them have been 
 kept for months chained to the ground, fed upon bread and water, 
 and repeatedly flogged, at the Avill either of their jailor or still 
 higher authorities ; and in spite of these detestable iniquities, a 
 commission appointed to visit the prisons and examine the condi- 
 tion of the prisoners, reported most favorably of the whole ad- 
 ministration. 
 
AMARI'S HISTORY OF SICILY. 123 
 
 Another proscribed book, which I have read with extreme 
 interest, is Amari's History of Sicily during the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries, embracing the period of the national revolution 
 against the French supremacy, of which the Sicilian vespers was 
 the first outbreak, and which throws some very curious and new 
 light upon the events of that period. As in Niebuhr's Roman 
 History, the romance of tlie story suffers not a little from the 
 clear and vigorous demonstration of facts with which he encoun- 
 ters the long prevalent traditions respecting Giovanni di Procida's 
 conspiracy. The style, through an affectation of terseness, is 
 occasionally obscure, and the history itself, from the amazing 
 number of authorities, documents, and references collected by 
 the author to establish the positions he assumes, rather laborious 
 reading ; but it is nevertheless highly interesting, and an ex- 
 tremely valuable work, from the immense research and care 
 with which it is compiled. The story of its publication is curi- 
 ous enough. Amari submitted it to the censure at Palermo, 
 where he was living, and received its sanction for the publication. 
 The work, however, was hardly through the press, and ready to 
 be issued, than a revocation of the license to publish it was sent 
 to the author, with further injunctions to place the whole edition 
 about to be issued in the hands of the police. Amari, unwilling 
 to see the fruit of so much labor and time, and his just claim to 
 fame and the gratitude of his countrymen, thus arbitrarily sacri- 
 ficed, rapidly made all preparations for leaving Sicily, packed 
 his precious history in one case, which he put on board a French 
 vessel, sent a carefully closed box of carrots and other rubbish 
 to personate it to the office of the censorship ; and himself in 
 disguise, with the passport of a friend, embarked immediately for 
 Marseilles. Thither his work safely followed him, and having 
 made his way to Paris, he there issued it, bearing the stamp of 
 Palermo upon its title-page ; and has since republished a second 
 edition in Paris, the work having excited great interest and curi- 
 
124 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 osity, both from its own intrinsic merits, and the circumstances 
 of persecution under which its author gave it to the world. 
 
 After going through these various prohibited publications, I 
 have been entertaining myself with a number of tracts, sent me 
 by my friend , all bearing the permission of the censor- 
 ship upon them, and giving, on the other hand, an excellent idea 
 of the literature that is allowed and encouraged through the 
 Roman States, for the edification of their population. These 
 little pamphlets, each costing a few bajocchi, and containing from 
 six to twenty coarsely printed pages, are all metrical, and but for 
 their length might perhaps be called ballads. They consist of 
 some clumsy fable, generally opening with an invocation to the 
 Virgin or some of the saints, and closing with a similar apo- 
 strophe. Some are legends of incredible conversions, and mira- 
 culous performances of saints, rescued from obscurity, I should 
 think, chiefly by these illustrious records of their deeds, — some 
 are accounts of the crimes, atrocities, adventures, and retribution 
 of notorious criminals, bandits, and assassins — some are extra- 
 ordinary rifaccimentoes of portions of ancient history, such as 
 the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii. The opening address of 
 one of these, to St. Joseph, is the most ludicrous piece of blas- 
 phemy I ever read ; the language and details of every one of 
 these productions (of which I have read upwards of twenty) are 
 low and common in the extreme. There is nothing indecent or 
 immoral in them, though occasionally great coarseness and vul- 
 garity — but upon the last leaf of almost every one, opposite to 
 the pious ejaculations which close the poems, are lottery numbers, 
 and directions for successfully putting into the lottery, and nu- 
 merous details of tricks of sleight-of-hand, &;c. : this is the popular 
 literature printed and disseminated by the Roman clergy, in 
 whose hands the censorship as well as every other branch of the 
 government lodges, among the people, whose minds and souls are 
 committed to their care. One only in the whole number I read 
 
DESPAIR. 135 
 
 was not absolutely and revoltingly stupid, and that was a rambling 
 story of a certain princess Olive, the tissue of whose adventures, 
 in their variety, improbability, and wildness, reminded me of the 
 subjects of some of our old play-wrights — a more improbable and 
 less interesting web of events, than the Winter's Tale, or Pericles, 
 Prince of Tyre, but that style of recital. 
 
 DESPAIR. 
 
 Whene'er those forms arise before my sight. 
 
 E'en as from hideous visions of the night, 
 
 I cover up my eyes, I veil my head, 
 
 I shrink in terror, and dismay, and dread. 
 
 And wave them from me ; and in agony 
 
 Unto the saving feet of God I fly. 
 
 Lest I be scared to madness with the dream 
 
 Of all that I have lost — so that I seem 
 
 To loathe that which I love beyond all measure : 
 
 Like to a miser robbed of his dear treasure. 
 
 Clutching for ever a distracting vision 
 
 Of gold and jewels, 'twixt the apparition 
 
 And his real beggary lash'd to utter madness. 
 
 If on the midnight void of my deep sadness. 
 
 The dear delusion of your presence shine, 
 
 I fear to look upon ye, treasures mine. 
 
 Lest the tormented heart and failing brain 
 
 Rest in delirium from too fierce a pain ; 
 
 Change hopeless sorrow for insanity. 
 
 And mental ruin end this misery. 
 
 And it were better — better thus to dwell 
 
 In a mad Heav'n, than in a conscious Hell ; 
 
 Better to lose this lurid light of reason, 
 
 Which shows me but a dark and empty prison. 
 
126 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Oh, come, I will not fly ye any more, 
 Come, come, dear fatal visions, and before 
 This light of truth, that shows ye are not here, 
 Spread sweet delusions ! Come, I will not fear ; 
 Let reason, faith, and fortitude forbear 
 Their ministry of torture — hail, despair ! 
 And welcome ye, ye long-departed dreams, 
 In which,''once more, my life a blessing seems ; 
 Oh, gracious shapes ! oh, silver ringing voices ! 
 At whose dear sound my heart once more rejoices ; 
 Oh, floating, glorious braids of sunny hair ! 
 Oh, eyes of morning light, keen, soft, and fair ! 
 Oh, sinless brows of holy innocence ! 
 Stay, stay with me, depart not ever hence ; 
 Shut out all forms of dire reality. 
 Beloved phantoms, speak — oh, speak to me 
 Sweet words of love — walk ever by my side, 
 The hateful witness of all sense denied ; 
 Nothing will I behold, naught feel, naught hear, 
 Save ye, most precious ! ye alone, most dear ! 
 Oh, ye pale ghosts of love and joy, to ye 
 I dedicate all that remains of me ! 
 I can no more endure, no longer strive. 
 Madness from sin shall save my soul alive. 
 
 Our beautiful summer, hitherto brilliant and splendid, without 
 shadow by day or cloud by night to dim its uninterrupted bright 
 ness, is breaking up ; every day, now, the weather becomes less 
 and less certain ; to mornings of serene glory succeed afternoons 
 of scowling storms ; our blue sky is wrapped, day after day, in 
 livid leaden clouds, which shut out our glorious prospects, and 
 surround as with walls of almost palpable darkness, down which 
 the zig-zags of the lightning run like sudden cracks letting 
 
SUMMER ON THE WANE. 127 
 
 through the light ; the mountains are shrouded in perpetual mist, 
 and all around the horizon wedges or blocks of solid-looking rain 
 are seen pouring upon the distant landscape. We have not seen 
 my paragon of mountains, Soracte, for a whole day together, for 
 I do not know how long — that beautiful form, that stands like the 
 advanced guard of the Sabine range, isolated from the rest, and 
 rising so symmetrically in the transparent atmosphere, that it 
 looks like some island of the air, more than a mere elevation from 
 the earth's surface ; furious winds howl round our abode, and 
 not an afternoon passes without wild gusts of tempestuous rain 
 and heavy thunder storms ; it is true, that to these succeed, 
 sometimes, evenings all lighted with a pale golden splendor, 
 illuminating the wide campagna even to the Mediterranean. — 
 gorgeous processions of resplendent clouds, — rainbow arches 
 spanning the glittering landscape, all steeped in mingled rain and 
 sunlight, and flushes of rosy brightness suddenly sufl^using the 
 whole heavens, and reflecting a glow of unutterable richness, 
 softness, and beauty, over the whole earth ; but the stability of our 
 sweet summer season is shaken ; we look doubtfully up to the 
 morning sky, and the promise of its brilliancy no longer satisfies 
 our faith from hour to hour as it has hitherto done, through a suc- 
 cession of perfect days and weeks. Our charming and excellent 
 
 friend is summoned away by the duties of his station to 
 
 Naples, and a sad breaking up of our serene social atmosphere 
 is the consequence of his departure ; he carries away much of 
 the genial warmth and brightness we have lived in all together. 
 
 's seasons of sojourn among us are becoming necessarily 
 
 less frequent. , after vainly conjuring the heavens to 
 
 restore to him his beloved " teintes chaudes," has departed for 
 Paris, and our moral summer, as well as that of the earth, is gra- 
 dually losing its rays, one by one. 
 
128 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 CLOSE OF OUR SUMMER AT FRASCATI. 
 
 The end is come : in thunder and wild rain 
 
 Autumn has stormed the golden house of Summer. 
 
 She going — lingers yet — sweet glances throwing 
 
 Of kind farewell upon the land she loves 
 
 And leaves. No more the sunny landscape glows 
 
 In the intense, uninterrupted light 
 
 And splendor of transparent, cloudless skies ; 
 
 No more the yellow plain its tawny hue 
 
 Of sunburnt I'ipeness wears ; even at noon 
 
 Thick watery veils fall on the mountain ranges, 
 
 And the white sun-rays, with pale slanting brushes, 
 
 Paint rainbows on the leaden-colored storms. 
 
 Thro' milky, opal clouds the lightning plays. 
 
 Visible presence of that hidden power — 
 
 Mysterious soul of the great universe. 
 
 Whose secret force runs in red, human veins, 
 
 And in the glaring, white veins of the tempest, 
 
 Uplifts the hollow earth, the shifting sea ; 
 
 Makes stormy reformations in the sky. 
 
 Sweeping, with searching besoms of sharp winds, 
 
 The foul and stagnant chambers of the air. 
 
 Where the thick, heavy, summer vapors slumber ; 
 
 And, working in the sap of all still-growth, 
 
 In moonlight nights, unfolding leaves and blossoms ; 
 
 Of all created life the vital element. 
 
 Appearing still in fire — whether in the sea. 
 
 When its blue waves turn up great swathes of stais; 
 
 Or in the glittering, sparkling, winter ice world ; 
 
 Or in the flickering white and crimson flames, 
 
 That leap in the northerr sky ; or in the sparks 
 
 Of love or hate, that flash in human eyes. 
 
CLOSE OF OUR SUMMER AT FRASCATI. 129 
 
 Lo, now, from day to day, and hour to hour, 
 
 Broad verdant shadows grow upon the land, 
 
 Cooling the burning landscape ; while the clouds, 
 
 Disputing with the sun his heaven-dominion, 
 
 Chequer the hill-sides with fantastic shadows. 
 
 The glorious unity of light is gone, 
 
 The triumph of those bright and boundless skies ; 
 
 Where, thro' all visible space, the eye met nothing 
 
 Save infinite brightness — glory infinite. 
 
 No more at evening does the sun dissolve 
 
 Into a heaving sea of molten gold ; 
 
 While over it a heaven of molten gold 
 
 Panted, with light and heat intensely glowing, 
 
 While to the middle height of the pure ether, 
 
 One deepening sapphire from the amber spreads. 
 
 Now trains of melancholy, gorgeous clouds. 
 
 Like mourners at an Emperor's funeral, 
 
 Gather roimd the down-going of the sun ; 
 
 Dark splendid curtains, with great golden fringes, 
 
 Shut up the day ; masses of crimson glory. 
 
 Pale lakes of blue, studded with fiery islands, 
 
 Bright golden bars, cold peaks of slaty rock. 
 
 Mountains of fused amethyst and copper. 
 
 Fierce flaming eyes, with black o'erhanging brows, 
 
 Light floating curls of brown and golden hair. 
 
 And rosy flushes, like warm dreams of love. 
 
 Make rich and wonderful the dying day. 
 
 That, like a wounded dolphin, on the shore 
 
 Of night's black waves, dies in a thousand glories. 
 
 These are the very clouds that now put out 
 
 The serene beauty of the summer heavens. 
 
 The autumn sun hath virtue yet, to make 
 
 Right royal hangings for his sky-tent of them ; 
 
 2* 
 
130 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 But, as the days wear on, and he grows faint, 
 And pale, and colorless, these are the clouds 
 That, like cold shrouds, shall muffle up the year, 
 Shut out the lovely blue, and draw round all — 
 Plain, hill, and sky — one still, chill, wintry grey. 
 
 The end is come ; the golden links are parting, 
 
 That in one chain of happy circumstance, 
 
 And gentle, friendly, human fellowship. 
 
 Bound many hearts for many a day together. 
 
 The precious bond dissolves ; one friend departs 
 
 With the departing summer, and the end. 
 
 Ominous of the loss of all, begins : 
 
 Here it begins ; with these first feet, that turn 
 
 From walking in the paths of daily life. 
 
 Where hand in hand, with peace and joy, all walked. 
 
 And now, from day to day, and hour to hour, 
 
 The brightness of our summer-life grows dim ; 
 
 The voice that speaks to us from far already, 
 
 Soon in the distance shall be heard no more. 
 
 The perfect circle of this pleasant life 
 
 Hath lost its form — type of eternity — 
 
 And lies upon the earth a broken ring, 
 
 Token and type of every earthly thing. 
 
 Our sun of pleasure hastens towards the west, 
 
 But the green freshness of fair memories 
 
 Lives over these bright days for evermore ; 
 
 The chequered lights, the storms of circumstance, 
 
 Shall sweep between us and their happy hours, 
 
 But not to efface them. Oh, thou wealthy Past, 
 
 Thine are our treasures ! — thine and ours alone 
 
 Thro' thee ; the Present doth in fear rejoice ; 
 
 The Future, but in fantasy : but thou 
 
FRIGHTFUL STORMS. 131 
 
 Holdest secure for ever and for ever, 
 The bliss that has been ours ; nor present woe, 
 Nor future dread, can touch that heritage 
 Of joy gone by — the only joy we own. 
 
 Some of our nights lately have been terrific ; the oppression 
 of atmosphere absolutely indescribable, such as to wake me from 
 my sleep with a sensation of immediate suffocation ; the wind, in 
 the meanwhile, raging round the house, and the thunder rolling 
 without intermission from mountain ridge to mountain ridge — the 
 whole air seemed filled with howling, and moaning, and raving 
 fiends ; and though I have witnessed frightful storms — indeed, 
 more violent thunder and lightning a good deal in America, — I 
 never experienced such intolerable atmospheric effects, or saw 
 such a protracted succession of tempests of rain and wind. 
 
 It strikes me as quite peculiar to this country, or, at any rate, 
 to this part of it, that after a most tremendous storm, such as 
 elsewhere would effectually clear, and refresh, and lighten the 
 air, and render the atmosphere at once cooler and lighter, the 
 very same oppressive closeness returns almost immediately ; 
 the atmosphere is as hot and hazy, the clouds as low, the whole 
 air as like lead in color and weight, and portentously close, as if 
 there had been no sfogo of the elements. The physical oppres- 
 sion and mental dejection of this sort of never-ending thunder- 
 storm is not to be described ; there is something positively ma- 
 lignant both in the look and feeling of this weather. The sea- 
 son, however, has been unusual in the intensity of the heat, and 
 the breaking up of the summer is, I suppose, proportionally vio- 
 lent. Yesterday, for a wonder (now), the day was uninterrupt- 
 edly clear and bright, the morning still and glorious, as was the 
 wont of our former mornings ; and towards the afternoon no 
 storm arose, contrary to the later practice of the weather, to 
 sweep over the sweet and lovely face of nature. My sister and 
 
132 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 were ou on horseback ; I had remained at home, and 
 
 was reading in my own room, occasionally raising my eyes to 
 the spectacle of unequalled beauty which my window com- 
 manded. There was not a breath of air stirring, and the world 
 seemed fallen into a deep trance of sunny splendor ; suddenly 
 all the windows of my room rattled, a sound like a gust of wind 
 (though there was none) rushed round the house, the floor gave a 
 very slight jog beneath my feet, and I turned excessively sick. 
 Very much astonished at this peculiar process, I went to the next 
 room, to ask if any one had let any heavy thing fall, or had run 
 violently across the floor ; the answers, however, were unsatis- 
 factory, and, after a moment's consideration, I became convinced 
 that I had made my first acquaintance with earthquakes. Later 
 in the day, our other friends in the house, who have experienced 
 these shocks before, spoke of it, and confirmed my surmise ; and 
 I suppose we have been enjoying the benefit of some sympathetic 
 communication between the earth's interior economy here and 
 at Leghorn and Pisa, where the late fearful earthquakes have 
 caused such terror and damage to the dwellers upon its surface. 
 
 In these volcanic regions, says, one always feels nearer 
 
 to nature than in our nebulous, chilly, northern climates ; but I 
 do not know that a nearness revealed by such experiences is alto- 
 gether agreeable. Some years ago Frascati and all this neigh- 
 borhood was visited by very severe shocks of an earthquake ; in 
 the grounds of the Villa Rufinella are several cottages, or huts 
 rather, built entirely of thatch and the lightest materials, to 
 which Louis Bonaparte and his family betook themselves during 
 the convulsions ; and at Larriccia, where great injury was sus- 
 tained in conseqaence of them — houses thrown down and lives 
 lost, — the inhabitants protected themselves, more devoutly per- 
 haps, but less practical, y, by writing on their doors, " Viva il 
 sangue di Jesu .'" as a preservative against the dreaded shocks of 
 the terremoto. After all, this is an amazingly beautiful country, 
 
 M 
 
A NEW VOLCANO. 333 
 
 no doubt ; but there is something rather " uncannie," as the 
 Scotch say, in looking into the depths of a smooth lake, and 
 knowing that it fills the place of a boiling fire-pit ; or upon the 
 sunny surface of a gently scooped meadow, which was once 
 covered with the crystal waters of a lake — these transformations, 
 and the lava soil on which you stand to admire them, are sug- 
 gestive of insecurity, and the " sure and firm-set earth" ceases 
 to be to you by any means as comfortable (however much more 
 beautiful) as it is in some of its less pictui'esque regions. It seems 
 that we are threatened with, or promised, I know not which to 
 say, a new volcano in our immediate vicinity ; the Solfatara, the 
 little infernal lake at the foot of the Sabine hills, which one 
 passes on the road from Rome to Tivoli, and whose suffocating 
 sulphureous waters are said to be unsoundable, has, it seems, 
 been sending up slight wreaths of smoke. Similar vapors have 
 been observed issuing from the sulphuric soil all round it ; and 
 a very lively expectation has been excited of the re-opening of 
 one of the earth's chimneys in this spot, where such a vent for 
 the central fires indubitably existed, although no record of its 
 being in active operation within human memory remains. I 
 should like very well to see the uprising of a volcano from those 
 bituminous waters, though the distance, or rather proximity, to 
 our abode might render the process more interesting than safe to 
 the lookers-on at the Villa Taverna. 
 
 Meantime autumn is gradually conquering the year ; our 
 mornings are chilly, our evenings rainy. We have abandoned 
 our beautiful long gallery, opening upon the garden, and have 
 taken refuge in a sunny room of less magnificent dimension. 
 The earth is drenched with incessant torrents of rain, and the 
 day before yesterday, one of our few bright days of late, riding 
 along our favorite and beautiful road through the chestnut woods 
 up to Rocca Priori, we saw one of the distant peaks of the Sa- 
 bine Range covered with snow. Around us all was enchantingly 
 
134 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 bright and warm ; the whole land was alive with the gay and 
 graceful labors of the vintage ; the steep rocks above us, and the 
 deep chestnut forests that rolled far below us again, basked in 
 the rays of the unclouded heavens ; but that snow mountain 
 struck a chill to my heart, and I felt the first kiss of the northern 
 ice-god across the sunny valley, that stretched shining and 
 sparkling for miles between me and that ominous vision. 
 
 A SUMMONS. 
 
 THE FIRST SNOW MOUNTAIN SEEN FROM A SUNNY HILL-SIDE, NEAR 
 ROCCA PRIORI, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1846. 
 
 Look, love, to yonder mountain's brow : 
 Seest thou that beckoning hand of snow ? 
 Stern Winter dares no further come, 
 But waves me towards his northern home. 
 The sun upon this glad earth pours 
 His blessing, in warm golden show'rs ; 
 Down the steep path, with busy hum, 
 The black-eyed sturdy peasants come ; 
 Patches of colors bright and gay 
 Hang o'er their cheeks of ruddy brown, 
 Loud laugh and jest make light their way, 
 From rock-perch'd hamlets winding down. 
 The jogging mule goes clattering light. 
 His wooden tubs to seek their freight ; 
 While others, with their vintage load, 
 Strain up the steep and stony road, 
 And, all the sunny paths along, 
 Snatches of loud monotonous song 
 Come down from hill and up from glade, 
 And through the broad-leav'd chestnut shade ; 
 
A SUMMONS. 135 
 
 From vineyards where a merry band 
 Pile the ripe treasure of the land, 
 Amber and amethyst shining through 
 Soft purple bloom and sparkling dew. 
 Dark white-veined glittering ivy, wed 
 To wreaths of vine-leaves touch'd with red, 
 Hang from the brown brows of the rocks, — 
 A garland meet for Bacchus' locks. 
 The fields, the woods, the air, the ground, 
 Smell of the vintage all around, 
 And from the sunny earth and sea 
 Rises a shout of jubilee. 
 
 From this steep road look down, where grow 
 
 The chestnut forests deep below ; 
 
 Behold how far beneath our feet 
 
 The huge wood billows spread and meet — 
 
 A waving sea of noble trees. 
 
 Rolling their green crests in the breeze ; 
 
 Mark the bright vale, the mountain chain, 
 
 The distant lines of that great plain, 
 
 Where Rome, eternal Empress, sits 
 
 Beneath the cloudless light, that fits 
 
 The lordliest and the loveliest scene 
 
 Time e'er shall see — Time yet hath seen ! 
 
 Oh, land of glorious memories, 
 
 Oh, land as fair as Paradise, 
 
 Oh, thou belov'd, by whom I stand. 
 
 Straining in mine thy kindred hand. 
 
 Farewell ! — on yonder mountain's brow 
 
 I see a beckoning hand of snow ; 
 
 Stern winter dares no nearer come. 
 
 But waves me towards his northern home. 
 
136 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 We have made one more expedition, the longest and most 
 interesting we have hitherto undertaken, to the top of Monte 
 Gennaro, the highest peak of the Sabine range. We drove to 
 Tivoli in the afternoon ; and the next day, the 9th October, 
 starting about ten o'clock, proceeded to ascend the mountain. 
 It was a fatiguing expedition of several hours ; and when we 
 arrived near the top, two only of the ladies of the party had 
 courage and strength sufficient left to proceed to the very sum- 
 mit, and enjoy the reward of seeing so large (or small) a portion 
 of the world beneath them. While they energetically accom- 
 plished their purpose, my sister and myself (who had sprained 
 my foot from a fall from my horse, in the ascent,) proceeded 
 
 leisurely towards the resting-place, where our friends , 
 
 who had already made an expedition hither, bade us wait for 
 them. After scaling, for so long a space of time, the stony and 
 precipitous ribs of the bleak-looking barren mountain ; after 
 scrambling slowly, and with the utmost difficulty, up all but 
 vertical paths, which were indeed nothing but the bare bed of 
 winter torrents, which had torn for themselves a way down the 
 rocky descent, and had shrunk under the scorching rays of the 
 sun back to their springs on the mountain summits, leaving an 
 irregular channel of loose tumbling stones — the only road for 
 adventurous explorers to follow them up thither — the scene 
 which burst upon us at the end of our ascent was as unexpected 
 as it was enchanting. 
 
 Upon the very summit of the mountain, above its precipices, 
 its huge sloping shoulders, the dwarf stunted shrubbery clinging 
 to its skirts, and the stony rifts opening in its ample sides, lifted 
 up close, as it seemed, to the blue sky and silver clouds, and 
 propped upon the everlasting foundation of the hills, — a long, 
 soft, sunny meadow spread itself; the turf was more elastic, 
 closer and finer grained, than that of the most carefully kept 
 lawn — its color fresh, tender, and vivid. On either side, rising 
 from it with a regular symmetry, that proclaimed beyond mis- 
 
MONTE GENNARO. 137 
 
 take their ancient office of banks to the fair lake which once 
 spread itself over this magical carpet of verdure, swelled the 
 softly-rounded mountain crests, which here were covered with 
 a lordly growth of magnificent forest trees. Over this bright 
 and lovely wilderness, thus high uplifted above the earth's 
 common level, herds of cattle strayed, who, with their keepers, 
 are the only inhabitants of these beautiful solitudes, which 
 during the summer afford them abundant pasturage ; the winter 
 drives them downwards towards the neighborhood of man, and 
 leaves these scenes of summer loveliness to the stern dominion 
 of the deep snows that cover them, over whose glittering and 
 forbidding surface the eagle sweeping through the heavens alone 
 throws a living shadow. 
 
 We proceeded leisurely with our guide and the faithful 
 Vincenzo along this beautiful vast meadow, and, descending 
 again by some rocky, broken, dry water-courses, arrived at 
 another, if possible, more beautiful scene of the same descrip- 
 tion. Here, for the first time, I observed upon one of the ilex 
 trees, hanging in profuse masses, the same kind of grey moss 
 with which the evergreen oaks of Georgia are sometimes 
 smothered alive, — it is the only instance I have, seen of it in 
 Italy, but confirms me in the belief that the live oak and ilex 
 must be in reality the same tree, however altered in some of its 
 conditions by the different climates and soils to whose influences 
 it is exposed. Passing again through the second meadow, we 
 arrived at the Fontanone, our appointed resting-place, where we 
 sat down to wait for our more adventurous companions. At the 
 foot of a steep eminence, clothed with beautiful trees, an enormous 
 stone fountain, of graceful form and proportions, receives the 
 liquid treasures of the mountain springs. The volume of water 
 poured from a still bright well, sheltered from all pollution by an 
 arch of stone, into two immense stone troughs, whence its bright 
 brimming current flowed down again into lesser stone conduits, and 
 
138 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 thence into a thousand sparkling rills down to the deep valleys 
 that fell on all sides of us, was something wonderful. Nor, after 
 a long and most fatiguing march under a fierce unmitigated sun, 
 can anything be conceived more welcome and more enchanting 
 than the sight of this exquisite fountain. A fine oak tree, whose 
 huge roots clasped the rocky mountain side whence poured these 
 living streams, spread its twisted boughs far out over their 
 source, and we, throwing down our shawls, bournous, and 
 provision baskets, lay down beneath its shelter, and looked with 
 unutterable delight over the perfect Arcadia that surrounded us. 
 We were so high upon the mountain tops that their highest peaks 
 only rose like gentle hills above us. To our right, bathed in 
 sunshine and curtained round with beautiful woodland, lay the 
 verdant pasturages through which we had just passed, and in front 
 of us a tangled, picturesque glen received the glittering threads 
 that streamed across the path from the over-brimming fountains. 
 To the left, sank down the deep valleys through which lay our 
 gradual descent from heaven, and far, far between the moun- 
 tain summits all round us therpurple peaks of distant ranges rose 
 above one another, luring the imagination to fancied scenes of 
 wilder beauty amid their distant dim recesses, while the eye per- 
 petually reverted to, and the heart reposed again upon, the love- 
 liness that immediately surrounded us. Over all spread the 
 orange light of approaching sunset, — the glory and the beauty of 
 an Italian afternoon. Claude Lorraine alone has ever painted 
 such a sky, Poussin such an earth, — and both of them would 
 have despaired of representing the combined beauties of earth and 
 sky, as we then saw them. 
 
 Our friends from the mountain-top soon rejoined us, and a 
 season of less romantic, but most necessary refreshment followed. 
 One or two herdsmen, whose flocks were grazing near, gathered 
 round the fountains as we departed, and having secured among 
 them a guide (for the professional ciceroni who had attached 
 
EVENING. 139 
 
 themselves to our expedition at starting from Tivoli, proved 
 absolutely incompetent), we began our descent from our most 
 beautiful resting-place. As the evening came on, the wildness 
 and loveliness of our steep downward path through the narrow 
 winding staircases of the mountains was increased by its soft 
 lights and softer shadows ; the clear glittering stars began to look 
 through the violet dome of the upper heavens, while just as we 
 
 reached Rocca Giovane, so called, surmised, from the 
 
 impregnable position of its former castle, — one deep rosy flush 
 pervaded the lower portion of the sky, reflected a maidenly blush 
 over the maiden fortress, and threw a warm and delicate atmo- 
 sphere of tenderest light down into the valley of the Licenza. 
 The rapidly Vaning daylight, and the dreadful condition of all 
 the mountain paths, obliged us to relinquish our design of visiting 
 Horace's Farm ; and, indeed, purple twilight deepened to abso- 
 lute darkness before we emerged from the long winding valley, 
 the outline of whose mountain walls, together with the bright 
 course of its rapid stream, were the only objects that remained 
 distinguishable, long before we reached the convent of San 
 Cosimato, which closes and commands the defile, and where we 
 found our carriage waiting to receive us. 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 Now in the west is spread 
 
 A golden bed ; 
 
 Great purple curtains hang around, 
 
 With fiery fringes bound, 
 
 And cushions, crimson red, 
 
 For Phoebus' lovely head ; 
 
 And as he sinks thro' waves of amber light, 
 
 Down to the crystal halls of Amphitrite, 
 
 Hesper leads forth his starry legions bright 
 
 Into the violet fields of air — Good night ! 
 
140 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 The next morning we drove by brilliant sunlight along that 
 part of the road which we traversed the previous night in dark- 
 ness. I did not accomplish the object of my chief desire, to look 
 once more by daylight along that enchanting valley whose twilight 
 aspect had so fastened upon my imagination ; but the drive along 
 the banks of the Anio, in between the folds of the mountains, and 
 especially the view of the rocks of St. Cosimato, raising their 
 rose-tinted masses from the deep glen where the river foamed and 
 roared, were almost compensations. In the afternoon we drove 
 back to Frascati, through brooks whose bridges had been swept 
 away by the late torrents, and over roads whose surfaces — for 
 they were various — compelled us to hold each other and the sides 
 of the carriage fast ; in spite of which we laughed incessantly, to 
 the evident horror of our poor coachman, v^ho, pale with terror, 
 looked at us as we emerged, by dint of Heaven and him, out of 
 each malpasso, with an expression of reprobation which increased 
 rather than checked our levity. 
 
 This was our last mountain expedition ; a few days after, laden 
 with the spoils of our charming garden, with heavy hearts and 
 tearful eyes, we departed from the house where we had lived so 
 happily — the beautiful home of our most beautiful summer. 
 
 PAST HOURS. 
 
 Two angels have them in eternal keeping. 
 
 He that beside the deep vaults of the past 
 Stands to receive the treasures, that with weeping 
 
 And lamentation into them men cast. 
 Forgetting that alone they hold that fast 
 
 Which to his marble store-house they commit ; 
 And He, that spirit bright and terrible, 
 
 Who at the feet of God doth thoughtful sit, 
 
 Upon whose scroll, in lines of flame are writ 
 
REQUISITES FOR CRITICAL COMPETENCY. 141 
 
 Each hour of every day of those who dwell 
 
 Upon this earth : He hath those days and hours, 
 Which, as they smiled on us, we counted ours ; 
 And who, when that great history appears. 
 Shall make us answer, as if we were theirs. 
 
 Since my return to Rome, my principal anxiety has been to 
 see so as to know some of the beautiful works of art gathered in 
 its innumerable treasure-houses. There is nothing of which the 
 impression has become deeper in my mind than the necessity of 
 an absolute education for anything like a due appreciation of that 
 which is most beautiful in art. In those alone possessed of the 
 intuitive perceptions and exceptional organization of genius, the 
 process of appreciation may be rapid ; to the majority it must be 
 like all their accomplishments — most gradual. There is something 
 absolutely piteous in watching the procession of thronging sight- 
 seers who visit these wonderfnl shrines, and knowing how little 
 pleasure and less profit, they bear away from their cursory and 
 yet laborious pilgrimages. It is the work of years, to one not 
 especially gifted, to learn to discriminate (in all art, but in paint- 
 ing, I should say, especially) bad from good, and good from what 
 is best. Perfect senses, vivid sensibilities, imagination for the 
 ideal, judgment for the real, knowledge of what is technical in 
 the execution, critical competency to apprehend the merits and 
 the claims of that which is purely intellectual, the concep- 
 tion ; knowledge to furnish comparisons with what is prescriptive 
 in art, reflection to suggest that which is paramount in nature, 
 long habits of observation exercised on various and numerous 
 works, and that which most hardly preserves itself through all 
 this, and yet without which all this makes but a common-place 
 perceiver of faults and beauties, — freshness of mind and depth 
 of feeling, from which alone (combined with the rest) can spring 
 the faculties of an appreciator — these, it appears to me, are the 
 
142 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 absolutely indispensable qualifications for those who would not 
 only see but comprehend art. 
 
 Arrived within a short period of my departure from Rome and 
 all its precious collections, I have in some degree, I think, the 
 feeling they must experience who have arrived at the term of 
 their earthly existence : — an overwhelming sense of what is to 
 be done for which no adequate space of time remains — an un- 
 speakable regret for invaluable opportunities neglected — eager 
 desire to snatch at such occasions as yet remain to be profited 
 by — the bitter pain of parting with such scenes of delight — the 
 clinging affection which at such a time makes the days and hours 
 appear as though they devoured each other in our despite — all 
 this haunts me as day by day I visit some one or other of Rome's 
 glorious things, or gaze at its whole beautiful aspect from the 
 terrace of our home ; that which I have seen, however, in these 
 my last Roman days, I have seen well — my memory has taken 
 hold of it — my soul possesses it. 
 
 TORRE NUOVO. 
 
 The water has flowed forth a year, 
 
 Since, sitting by the fountain's side, 
 We look'd into the basin clear. 
 
 Where sparkles still the gushing tide, 
 And watch'd the crystal current pour, 
 During one bright enchanting hour. 
 
 The sun slop'd low upon the plain — 
 
 The mellow southern winter sun — 
 And purple rose the mountain chain, 
 
 Which then I first did look upon ; 
 While o'er its shadowy crests were seen 
 Bright, dazzling peaks of snowy sheen. 
 
THE CAPITOL. 143 
 
 The limpid heavens o'er our head 
 
 Were clear as truth, and soft as love ; 
 
 The dark-blue tufted pine-trees spread 
 Their solemn shade our rest above. 
 
 And, framed between their pillars grey, 
 
 The landscape's magic pictures lay. 
 
 A year that water hath flowed forth ; 
 
 A year my golden hours have flowed; 
 And towards the regions of the north 
 
 I turn, to leave this blest abode. 
 Where I have dwelt in constant joy, 
 In peace and rest, without alloy. 
 
 Pain has been far from me, and pleasure 
 
 Has kept the record of my days ; 
 Glory and beauty, without measure, 
 
 Have haunted my familiar ways, 
 And made a year's existence seem 
 Bright, brief, and wondrous as a dream. 
 
 Now I depart, and bear with me 
 
 The gather'd riches of these days ; 
 No shade the stern'st futurity 
 
 Upon their perfect brightness lays ; 
 Life shall possess them to the last : 
 The blackest fate must spare the past. 
 
 I have visited the Capitol every morning now for a week, 
 and here note down those things in it which principally charm 
 
 me : — 
 
 The Centaur ; 
 
 The Wounded Amazon ; 
 
144 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 The Mercury (commonly called Antinous) ; 
 
 The Dying Gladiator ; 
 
 And especially the noble head of Ariadne. 
 
 For the beautiful Venus I do not entertain so great an admira- 
 tion as is usually expressed ; but this is perhaps owing to the 
 very tyro-like tendency of which I cannot divest myself, of lik- 
 ing or disliking works of art chiefly for their subject or senti- 
 ment. The Venus of the Capitol, exquisite in workmanship, 
 and of most admirable preservation, is pervaded in all her beau- 
 tiful person (to my judgment) with a species of voluptuous refine- 
 ment, which is disagreeable to me ; there is no intellect in the 
 face, such as makes divine the countenance of the Neapolitan 
 Psyche ; and compared with the chaste, noble, and beautiful 
 Venus of Milo, she is like a fine lady to a goddess. 
 
 I went the other day with and the to the Cor- 
 
 sini Palace, to see the pictures, of which there is a very fine 
 collection. The house itself, a noble mansion on the Lungara, 
 opposite the beautiful Farnesina, struck me very much with its 
 fine spacious colonnade and princely staircase. Of the pictures 
 I cannot speak, because they were so very numerous, and our time 
 so short, that I really had not leisure to look at one-tenth of them. 
 
 My dear had requested me especially to look at one, an 
 
 Ecce Homo of Guide's, which she said had impressed her more 
 than any picture she had ever seen. In order to obey her in- 
 junction, I conquered my almost invincible repugnance to pic- 
 tures of this subject, and carefully contemplated it ; but there 
 was nothing in the habitually sickly coloring and feeble expression 
 of Guide's painting to counteract the intolerable effect of horror 
 and disgust always produced upon me by representations of the 
 physical agony of Christ ; and it appeared to me, upon the whole, 
 far less meritorious as a picture, than the same subject immediate- 
 ly below it, by Guercino, and one opposite it, by Correggio ; 
 beneath which was again another by some great master, whose 
 
SCRAPS. 145 
 
 name I have forgotten.. The position of these four dreadful re- 
 presentations of mortal agony {that mortal agony), would, I think, 
 effectually deter me from ever entering this gallery, at the en- 
 trance of which they hang ; although towards the end of it there 
 is a splendid portrait, by Titian, of Philip the Second — a picture, 
 where the artist has made a prince out of one of the meanest and 
 most ill-looking men imaginable. In the next room to this was 
 Guide's famous picture of Herodias' daughter, the engraving from 
 which had been one of my earliest and most delightful impressions 
 of art. Having now seen both, I prefer it to the painting, where, 
 as in all Guide's pictures, I find something affected and weak. 
 The one picture of this often-treated subject that surpasses all 
 others that I have ever seen, is the glorious Titian in Lord Ash- 
 burton's collection. 
 
 An accident met with curtailed our visit to the Corsini, 
 
 from which, however, I have brought away few distinct impres- 
 sions, owing to the nature of the collection and our limited leisure. 
 I have been ag-ain to the Palazzo Sciarra, and seen the most 
 wonderful picture I ever saw, the Suonatore, for the last time. 
 How fortunate are they, who, looking at it, may hope to do so 
 again ! 
 
 SCRAPS. 
 
 Raise it to Heaven, when thine eye fills with tears, 
 For only in a watery sky appears 
 The bow of light ; and from th' invisible skies 
 Hope's glory shines not, save thro' weeping eyes. 
 
 Youth with swift feet walks onward in the way, 
 
 The land of joy lies all before his eyes ; 
 Age, stumbling, lingers slower day by day. 
 
 Still looking back, for it behind him lies. 
 
146 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Thursday, \Qih November. — To me a memorable date. We 
 went in the afternoon, my sister, , the , and my- 
 self, to the Villa Ludovisi, to see the sculpture gallery and 
 Guercino's Aurora. It is made rather a matter of difficulty and 
 favor to obtain admittance to this collection, yet I would advise 
 no one to neglect visiting it who would not depart from Rome 
 without seeing one of its greatest wonders. The collection of 
 statues is not by any means large, but contains several beautiful, 
 and one surpassing work. I admired extremely two statues of 
 exquisite grace and beauty, called Mars, and representing the 
 God of War in different attitudes of repose. The ease and na- 
 ture of the position, the lightness and beauty of the limbs and 
 figure, and the charming expression of perfect quietude thrown 
 Dver the whole countenance and person, render them certainly 
 the most attractive representations of this divinity that I ever saw. 
 I incline to think the likeness must have been taken during his 
 liaison with Venus ; there is a softness and almost tenderness 
 about them otherwise unaccountable. A noble veiled semi-colos- 
 sal head of Juno detained my sister and myself long in charmed 
 contemplation, and for a moment I supposed I stood before that 
 which we had come expressly to see, and which Goethe proclaim- 
 ed the grandest thing that he had seen in Rome. Presentl); 
 however, we turned away, and walking towards the other end of 
 the gallery, the words I was speaking died away on my lips, 
 and my feet were riveted to the ground, as I suddenly perceived 
 the colossal head of Juno, of which he thus spoke. I think it 
 must have been nearly a quarter of an hour before I spoke or 
 moved, and the first idea I was conscious of — beholding having 
 absorbed my existence during that time — was the cata.ract of 
 Niagara. I cannot conceive how or why that stupendous volume 
 of sound and motion should have been suggested by the awful 
 grandeur, the sublime stillness, and incomparable sweetness and 
 majesty of this gre^t work of art — as there were no words given 
 
OVERBECH'S STUDIO. 147 
 
 to me then to express what I felt, so have I none now to describe 
 what I saw. In the garden I met with an accident which caused 
 me severe pain, at the price of which I was very thankful to 
 escape seeing anything else after that divine head. 
 
 Sunday, 22d November. — I went with by appoint- 
 ment to visit Overbech's studio. He received us himself most 
 kindly and courteously, and for some time I was more interested 
 by his demeanor and countenance, than by anything else I saw 
 in his room. I had been much impressed by various accounts I 
 had received of Overbech's character, from persons who know 
 him and admire him extremely, and I regretted deeply not being 
 able to hear some of his conversation as well as look at his works. 
 We found here the original drawing from which his great picture 
 at Frankfort, of the influence of religion upon art, was executed. 
 Having seen the picture itself, the drawing of course interested 
 me less, although I had not to encounter in it that which dis- 
 pleases so much in the picture, its raw and inharmonious coloring. 
 The composition is very elaborate, and in several of its groups 
 very beautiful and graceful ; it appears to me, however, to 
 divide itself too distinctly into separate parts, and the charm- 
 ing group to the right of the picture recalls, too forcibly for 
 any one to escape the association who has seen the two com- 
 positions, the famous mathematical group in Raphael's School of 
 Athens. There were no pictures in the studio, and only one 
 drawing for one, of which I shall speak presently ; the rest of 
 what we saw consisted of very beautiful drawings for engraving, 
 all upon subjects taken from our Saviour's life, and for the most 
 part, therefore, painful and distressing to me. Two of the sub- 
 jects, however, representing Jesus in his childhood, being merely 
 ideal, did not affect me so unpleasantly, and my admiration of 
 their grave simplicity and devotional character was undisturbed 
 by the overwhelming associations which all representations of 
 Christ, drawn from the records of his life, invariably suggest to 
 
us A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 me. One of these drawings represented the infant Saviour sleep- 
 ing — his arms thrown open in an attitude of the most graceful 
 and natural repose — representing, nevertheless, the type of his 
 bitter death, in the form of the cross, which they describe ; an 
 idea which Overbech has produced with exquisite effect in 
 another work : and there is something in this unconscious pro- 
 phecy combined with the wrapt and tender contemplation of the 
 Holy Mother, into whose soul the iron was to enter so deeply, 
 which makes the whole inexpressibly touching. 
 
 The next drawing we saw was one of Jesus surrounded by his 
 Mother, St. Joseph, and St. Anna, and I am not sure whether 
 there is not another male figure in the group : they are all at- 
 tentively observing the child, who, represented at about the age 
 of six or seven years old, is endeavoring, with the implements of 
 his father's trade, to saw the form of a cross. There is some- 
 thing striking in the conception (whether borrowed or not from 
 any of the innumerable legends of our Saviour's childhood, I do 
 not know), and the expressions of all the countenances are 
 remarkably beautiful and appropriate — like everything which 
 Overbech does, there is a deep piety in the whole composition. 
 After this followed scenes from the Gospel ; a Last Supper, 
 where the artist has very judiciously made an overturned seat 
 the sole representative of the troubled soul of that unfortunate 
 one who betrayed the Just. Another drawing, representing the 
 " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me !" excited the utmost 
 enthusiasm of some Russian ladies, who, like ourselves, were 
 admitted to the privilege of seeing these beautiful things ; but, 
 for me, I ceased very soon to distinguish it through the blinding 
 tears that filled my eyes. Oh ! how can people bear to see 
 representations of these things — ideal representations of that 
 reality ? If we had a friend, a benefactor, a deliverer, to whom 
 we owed more than life ; for whom, though we had never seen 
 him, our love was greater than any human being whom we ever 
 
OVERBECH'S STUDIO. 149 
 
 had seen ; and that imaginary representations were brought to 
 us, of this our most precious friend, what should we say ? Should 
 we not turn with almost a feeling of insult, from a pretended 
 likeness of what was to us so dear and venerable ? It seems to 
 me that just in proportion as any real record or representation of 
 Jesus Christ would be inestimable to us (so inestimable, that I 
 think in denying us any such vestige Almighty God has merci- 
 fully saved us from the danger of an almost rational idolatry), so 
 worthless and even offensive appear to me all these invented 
 images of Him — so inadequate, when they merely seek to repre- 
 sent that face and form, the like of which was never seen here 
 on earth — so intolerable, when they repeat the closing scenes of 
 that unparalleled life, through which the world was redeemed. 
 For all these reasons I was most especially struck and affected 
 by a large design Overbech showed us for a picture, which, I 
 think, he had executed for some church, representing our Sa- 
 viour's agony in the garden of Gethsemane. The subject, 
 indeed, is one from which I always shrink, but the mode in 
 which the artist had treated it was free at least from all the ob- 
 jections I have made to such pictures in general ; in the fore- 
 ground of the lower part of the picture lay those whose poor 
 exhausted humanity had taken refuge from sorrow and dismay 
 in sleep, which even love was too weak to drive from their 
 heavy eye-lids. Above, upon a projecting piece of rock, knelt 
 the figure of Christ ; his back is turned to the picture ; there is 
 no audacious representation of that countenance stamped with 
 the agony of that supreme hour. Before him, confronting, there- 
 fore, those who look at the picture, kneels an angel of the Lord, 
 who, with an incomparable expression of love and sorrow, pre- 
 sents to him the inevitable cross ; light streams from the ignomi- 
 nious engine of torture over the whole picture, and seems to con- 
 centrate its reflection upon the Christ, who, with his head bowed, 
 and his arms extended, so as almost to meet the form of the cf u- 
 
150 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION 
 
 cifix presented to him, seems uttering that watchword of our 
 salvation, " Thy will be done." This picture affected me most 
 deeply ; the conception of it appeared to me most original, pa- 
 thetic, and sublime. But I still wonder at those whose pencil 
 does not fall from their hands at the contemplation of such a 
 subject, especially when they are, as in Overbech's instance, 
 even more devout and holy Christian men than inspired artists. 
 In the representations of these especial agonies, I have stated my 
 various objections ; I have, however, an unconquerable aversion 
 to all representations of physical pain in works of art ; the 
 sufferings of the nobler part of our nature, our heart and mind, 
 appear to me the only ones to be portrayed by those ministers, 
 whose medium should always be positive beauty. And, how- 
 ever small the element of physical pain may be compared with 
 the nobler sorrow, to which its expression is allied, I should 
 always like to banish that portion of them from all works of art, 
 where their presence usurps the slightest degree of that attention 
 due to nobler considerations. I always feel affronted at having 
 my sympathies appealed to by so obvious and irresistible a 
 method, and give but little credit to an artist who (as even that 
 admirable painter, Poussin, has done) turns me sick, and sets me 
 shivering from head to foot, by a representation of a man whose 
 bowels are being dragged from him by ropes and a windlass ; a 
 nervous band of iron seems to knot itself round my brows when 
 I look at the blood-distilling crown of thorns on the forehead of 
 those dreadful Ecce Homos — the beautiful and pathetic repre- 
 sentations of St. Sebastian by Guido, Domenichino and Titian, 
 make me quiver with those dreadful arrows sticking in him, and 
 even the world-renowned Laocoon is to me an intolerably pain- 
 ful miracle of art. The Dying Gladiator, or more properly the 
 dying Gaulish chief, and the piteous wounded Amazon of the 
 Capitol, in whose pathetic gesture it is difficult to say whether 
 shame, sorrow, or pain predominates, are about the only works 
 
OVERBECH'S STUDIO. 151 
 
 of art I am acquainted with, where the admixture of physical 
 suffering is so admirably treated as to be endurable. 
 
 The principal defect of Overbecli's works is something at 
 once feeble and stiff in the drawing, a consequence, it appears to 
 me, of his very close imitation of the manner of the earlier 
 Italian devotional paintings — Pinturiccio, the first manner of 
 Raphael, and more especially, perhaps, Perugino, the peculiari- 
 ties of whose style seemed revived again in the drawings of 
 Overbech. I was particularly struck with this one morning, 
 when visiting the Gallery of Paintings at the Vatican. I found 
 an artist making a drawing from Perugino's picture of the 
 Resurrection — but for the original before me I should have 
 thought it belonged to the charming series of drawings I had 
 seen a few days before at Overbech's studio, so perfect was the 
 resemblance between the quaint simplicity and stiffness of the 
 old Italian and its imitation by the modern German painter. 
 This is a great pity ; the reproduction of the defects of great 
 masters is certainly the easiest way of imitating their works — but 
 to affect the meagre and formal drawing, and raw inharmonious 
 coloring of those great early masters, in the present day, is like 
 returning to the language of Chaucer, or even the peculiar but 
 more intelligible style of our early playwrights, in search of this 
 fresh simplicity and manly vigor. Quaintness is a mere virtue 
 of association ; there is nothing charming in itself, but merely 
 in the more simple and earnest spirit of the times to which it 
 appears peculiar ; although, being in fact a mere quality of 
 time, we may hope to appear quaint in all our various manifes- 
 tations, from petticoats to poetry, to our great-great-grandchildren, 
 without throwing ourselves back to the forms of art and litera- 
 ture in the sixteejith century, for the sake of being prematurely 
 so. Overbech's works, however, have not alone the defect of 
 those which he has made his model — they have their merit also ; 
 tenderness, grace, purity, and a depth of devotional spirit, drawn 
 
152 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 from the fountain of his own soul, and most touching and beau- 
 tiful is their expression in all his works. 
 
 The house to which we went to visit Overbech was no other 
 than the old palace of the Cenci, and over the very stairs which 
 we ascended, poor Beatrice's feet have passed to and fro. The 
 associations with this place are horrible — I wonder Overbech can 
 bear to live there. 
 
 I have seen the Vatican for the last time — for a month now I 
 have gone thither daily for nearly two hours early in the morn- 
 ing. The custodi, apprised by my kind friend , have 
 
 admitted me at a time when the doors are not open to the public, 
 and for a whole month these galleries, these halls, these splendid 
 chambers, these vast marble staircases, and all the glorious com- 
 pany of divine creations, assembled within them, have been 
 mine. I have walked, and stood, and sat among them, in earnest, 
 blissful, lonely contemplation. I have lived, as it were, in 
 Olympus. I do not know how I shall ever live among mere 
 mortals again. Daily, passing through the outer gallery of the 
 Swiss guard, and emerging from the vaulted passage which leads 
 to the court of San Dalmasio, have I stood to look at the beauti- 
 ful building rising round me, all golden with the sunlight against 
 the deep-blue sky. Daily have I walked with slow feet, un- 
 willing almost to-. pass from one image of beauty to another, 
 along the Loggie of Raphael, worshipping as I went the creations 
 of his most graceful spirit. I have looked daily over the lonely 
 sunny gardens, open like the palace halls to me, v,'here the wide 
 sweeping orange walks end in some distant view of the sad and 
 noble campagna — where silver fountains call to each other through 
 the silent over-arching cloisters of dark and fragrant green, and 
 where the huge bronze pine, by which Dante measured his 
 great giant, yet stands in the midst of graceful vases and bas- 
 reliefs, wrought in former ages, and the more graceful blossoms 
 blown within that very hour. Daily have I wandered, as in 
 
DECAY OF FRESCOES. 153 
 
 some wonderful trance, from form to form of perfect beauty. 
 Daily departing have I stood upon the threshold of the great 
 gallery of inscriptions, and, leaving behind me the ancient mira- 
 cles of art, looked over the whole expanse of Rome to the purple 
 Alban mountains, and the morning sky, full of the glory of a 
 new day, and blesed God for the ever new miracle of nature. 
 Daily, descending from these glorious things, have I turned 
 homewards with a spirit so raised with their contemplation, and 
 thoughts so wrapped in their remembrance, that I have not felt 
 the ground on which I trod, and immortality seemed for a short 
 time to possess me rather than life ; and now all this is past. I 
 have crossed for the last time those glorious thresholds. I shall 
 stand beneath those lordly domes no more : as I passed to-day 
 the iron gates, which the keeper opened with his usual, " A 
 rivederla, Signora," I answered, like one despairing, " Ah ! no, 
 non torno piu," and went weeping away, like one overtaken by 
 some dire calamity. 
 
 Sculpture is to me more impressive than painting ; it appears 
 to me to need far less qualifications to appreciate its beauties. 
 In the picture gallery, the Madonna di Foligno was beyond 
 everything else — even than the glorious transfiguration itself — 
 enchanting to me. I spent many hours in the Camere, where 
 the deplorably injured condition of Raphael's grandest concep- 
 tions was about as great a grief as their beauty was a delight to 
 me. How infinitely lamentable it is that these precious things 
 were not originally upon canvas, for thus the modern method 
 of transferring might have saved the world from their loss, as 
 well as that of all the beautiful decorations of the Farnesina, 
 and that most lovely Galatea. The Sybils, too, at the Santa 
 Maria della Pace are stained and defaced, and so miserably situ- 
 ated, that they can hardly be seen distinctly ; and, unless some 
 hitherto unknot n method of preserving frescoes is devised, these 
 beautiful and noble works must perish more and more ; but 
 
 7* 
 
J 54 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 while one figure, I had almost said one line of them remains, it 
 will testify to the perfection with which their great author de- 
 vised and wrought. 
 
 My last visit to the Vatican was to the curious and interesting 
 little chapel, whose walls are covered with frescoes, by Fra An- 
 gelico da Fiesole. This small oratory, for it is really nothing 
 more, was closed up during some repairs of the Vatican, and for 
 a long time, although its existence was perfectly well known, 
 the entrance to it remained blocked up and undiscovered. It 
 is curious to a lover of art, as containing figures and paintings of 
 an unusually large size for this painter ; in which, in spite of 
 much stiffness and quaint awkwardness, the composition is good, 
 and the faces have that peculiar earnestness and devotional 
 expression, remarkable in all his smaller pictures. From this 
 small beautiful chapel we descended to the Sistine chapel, 
 which contains what are, to me, the finest paintings in the world 
 — always excepting the Suonatore — between which, and Michael 
 Angelo's giant frescoes, of course, no comparison is intended ; 
 but which I merely mention thus, because it is to me an excep- 
 tion in the whole world of art. 
 
 The prophets and sybils on the walls, the awful representa- 
 tions of the Divinity, and his first human creatures, on the roof 
 of the Sistine Chapel — these stupendous conceptions and perfect 
 works of Michael Angelo were my last vision of the Vatican ! 
 
 A VISION OF THE VATICAN. 
 
 In the great palace halls, where dwell the gods, 
 I heard a voice filling the vaulted roof; 
 The heart that uttered it seem'd sorrow proof, 
 
 And, clarion-like, it might have made the clods 
 Of the dead valley start to sudden life, 
 With such a vigor and a joy 'twas rife. 
 
POPE PIUS IX. 155 
 
 And, coming towards me, lo ! a woman past. 
 Her face was shining as the morning bright. 
 And her feet fell in steps so strong and light, 
 
 I scarce could tell if she trode slow or fast : 
 
 She seem'd instinct w^ith beauty and with power, 
 And what she sang, dwells with me to this hour. 
 
 " Transfigur'd from the gods' abode I come, 
 I have been tarrying in their awful home ; 
 Stand from my path, and give me passage free, 
 For yet I breathe of their divinity. 
 Jove have I knelt to, solemn and serene. 
 And stately Here, heaven's transcendent queen ; 
 Apollo's light is on my brow, and fleet. 
 As silver-sandall'd Dian's, are my feet; 
 Graciously smiling, heavenly Aphrodite 
 Hath filled my senses with a vague delight ; 
 And Pallas, steadfastly beholding me. 
 Hath sent me forth in wisdom to be free." 
 
 When at the portal, smiling she did turn. 
 
 And, looking back thro' the vast halls profound, 
 Re-echoing with her song's triumphant sound, 
 
 She bow'd her head, and said — " I shall return !" 
 Then raised her face, all radiant with delight. 
 And vanished, like a vision from my sight. 
 
 The extreme interest, which we, in common with all the inha- 
 bitants of Rome, whether native or foreign, have felt in the cha- 
 racter and measures of the new Pope, has induced me to gather 
 together all the information, and every anecdote which I have 
 been able to obtain relating to him. Of the latter, it may be, 
 that some have no other foundation than the general character 
 
156 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 and known disposition of the individual to whom they are attri- 
 buted ; but, even in this point of view, they are valuable, as 
 indicating clearly the opinions entertained of him, the esteem 
 in which he is held, that which is generally believed, and that 
 which is expected of him. 
 
 The youngest of the Cardinals in the Conclave, it became his 
 duty to collect the votes and proclaim who had obtained the 
 suflrages of the majority ; having reached the number at which 
 his own election became the evident result, he paused, and re- 
 minding the Conclave that it was yet time to alter their proceed- 
 ings, solemnly adjured them to take heed to what they were about 
 to do. This conscientious appeal probably only affected more 
 favorably an assembly, bent principally, at all hazards, upon 
 defeating the election of a most unpopular member, the Cardinal 
 Lambruschini, to achieve whose election no effort of intrigue and 
 intimidation had been spared ; and Cardinal Mastai, proceeding 
 in his ofHce, proclaimed himself the object of the preponderating 
 votes. On his first interview with one of his devoted friends, and 
 now one of his most efficient officers, Monsignor Pentini, his first 
 exclamation was: " Vedete, che cosa hanno fatto ;" and it was 
 some little time before he became reconciled to the exchange of 
 his habitual cardinal's costume for the Papal habiliments, or his 
 more private apartments for those usually inhabited by the Pope. 
 In one respect, Pius IX. and the people he is called to govern, 
 enjoy a great good fortune in the circumstance of his not belonging 
 to any monkish fraternity, like the last Pope, and most indeed of 
 his predecessors, or having even been bred to the priesthood. 
 His training and education was liberal and general, and his first 
 choice of a career was in favor of a military one, having applied 
 for admission into the Guardia Nobile, which, however, Cardinal 
 Barberini, on whose acceptance it is alone obtained, refused. On 
 the late occasion of the homage of the cardinals to their new 
 sovereign, the Pope reminded his Eminence of this circumstance, 
 
POPE PIUS IX. 157 
 
 when the cardinal, with a happiness that caused some surprise 
 (as he is not generally suspected of much ready wit), replied, that 
 he had refused the admission to the Guardia Nobile, persuaded 
 that the applicant for it was reserved for infinitely higher things. 
 One of the earliest proceedings of the new Pope, which obtain- 
 ed currency by public report, was his reformation of his own 
 household, and his unsparing curtailment of its most useless 
 expenses. He immediately suppressed the confectioner's depart- 
 ment — an enormous item of expenditure in the former Pope's 
 establishment ; and having observed in the accounts which he 
 demanded, and of which he examined himself the details, a most 
 exorbitant daily charge for lemonade, remarked that when he 
 was a private individual, he used to refresh himself at a cafe 
 with lemonade at so much per glass, and requested that he might 
 be furnished with it thenceforward upon the same terms ; indeed, 
 he added, that the increase in the value of his sustenance as Pope, 
 compared to what it was as an abbate, appeared to him entirely 
 disproportionate ; and that, allowing that a Monsignore required 
 a more costly dinner than an abbate, a cardinal than a Monsig- 
 nore, and a Pope than a cardinal, he still could not bring the gra- 
 dually ascending scale to anything like the estimate made for 
 him, and which he therefore requested might be lowered to a 
 more rational one. He has once or twice invited some of his 
 cardinals to dine with him, a thing unknown during the late 
 Pope's reign ; who, according indeed to the usual pontifical 
 etiquette, invariably ate alone. Some persons have suggested 
 that this innovation may be merely a measure of security against 
 poison ; but it is better accounted for by the liberal and rational 
 character of the Pope, and the corresponding changes both of a 
 lesser, as well as a greater nature, which may be expected from 
 him. He has given, too, a splendid dinner to his Guardia Nobile, 
 during which he presented himself in the room where they were 
 assembled, to greet and bid them welcome. 
 
158 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 The measures of public improvement most urgently needed, 
 both for the city and the country, and which were in vain peti- 
 tioned from the late Pope's timid and tyrannical policy, have ob- 
 tained the ready sanction of his successor ; and gas in the streets 
 of Rome, and railroads in the Roman States, will soon bear wit- 
 ness to a more enlightened spirit ; and while the one will tend to 
 the increase of order, comfort, and security in the city, the other 
 will awaken the dormant energies of the inhabitants of the 
 country — affording them means of easy transport for their agri- 
 cultural produce, bringing markets within reach of supplies, and 
 quickening all the commercial energies of the various cities, 
 hitherto so deplorably stagnant, by opening lines of rapid com- 
 munication between the inland territory and the coast, from Ci- 
 vita Vecchia to Ancona. On the occasion of the Pope's act of 
 amnesty, his council consisted of six cardinals, of whom one 
 only was in favor of it. Fortunately the Pope's prerogative 
 could, and did, dispense with their concurrence. His mode 
 of receiving the popular enthusiasm on the occasion of that 
 great act of wisdom and mercy was eminently characteristic ; 
 he said that the political offenders had in no way sinned 
 against him ; that their attempts were directed against the go- 
 vernment of Gregory XVI., who might indeed have deserved 
 praise and thanks for pardoning them, whereas he could claim 
 none for forgiving people who had done nothing against him. 
 This modest and magnanimous disclaimer on his part, did not, 
 as may well be imagined, check the enthusiasm of the people. 
 On the occasion of his first driving out, they took the horses from 
 his carriage, and drew him home to the Quirinal — a demonstra- 
 tion, against the repetition of which he, however, entered his 
 most solemn and positive protest. Anagrams of his name are 
 ingeniously made to discover in it the titles of liberator and 
 father, and the very colors on his coat of arms — the tricolor — are 
 
POPE PIUS IX. 159 
 
 held significant of his political tendencies. A curious anecdote 
 was told me the other day, exhibiting the impatient temper of 
 the times and people, and suggesting, as indeed everything else 
 abundantly does, the enormous difficulty of the present Pope's 
 position, between the excited and exaggerated expectation of im- 
 possible changes entertained by his people, and the narrow and 
 shallow scope of his power and possibilities. His arms contain 
 two lions, and an anonymous letter was forwarded to him lately, 
 in which his shield was painted with two tortoises substituted in 
 their stead, a suggestion that he did not proceed rapidly enough 
 with the expected reforms of government. The Pope, it is said, 
 smiled at this illustration, and showing it to somebody, observed, 
 that the tortoise, though very slow, was very sure in its progress. 
 To supply the immediate and pressing necessities of his go- 
 vernment, he levied, soon after his accession, a tax of three scudi 
 upon all monasteries, and borrowed a very considerable sum of 
 money from the Jesuits ; a measure of very popular economy, 
 which he adopted at the same time, was the entire suppression 
 of all moneys for the purpose of paying spies, surveillance, &;c. 
 The rather compulsory nature of the loan thus contracted with 
 the Jesuits is not supposed to have by any means rendered that 
 powerful body more propitious, either to Pius IX. personally, or 
 the policy of his government, and a ludicrous instance was given 
 of the people's apprehension of the ilj-will borne their sovereign 
 by the whole order, when, on the occasion of his first visit to the 
 Jesuits, the crowd in the streets ran by the side of his carriage, 
 calling to him, " Santo Padre non prendcr la cioccolata." 
 
 told us too of a curious conversation be had overheard 
 
 among some workmen, employed in some repairs at the Hano- 
 verian minister's house. These men were dilating upon the ad- 
 mirable qualities of their new Pope, and the consequent ill-will 
 borne him by certain of the cardinals, and more especially by all 
 the Jesuits, who are themselves objects of extreme dislike to the 
 
160 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 Roman people generally. One of the number, alluding to the 
 malignity of the Pope's enemies, said he must take good care, or 
 they would be giving him the " Boccone " (literally, " the mouth- 
 ful " — i. e., poison), to which the others responded, that if they 
 did so, he would be the last Pope in Rome, as in the event of 
 his so perishing, the people would rise and have no successor to 
 him. So violent, indeed, is the feeling of the people, at present, 
 in favor of the Pope and against all who are supposed to be ini- 
 mical to him, that the latter are bound to pray day and night for 
 his safety ; for if he were to die from a fall from his carriage, 
 or the most undeniably natural death in the world, his end would 
 not fail to be attributed to the machinations of his enemies, who, 
 in any popular outbreak, sure to follow upon such a catastrophe, 
 would inevitably be made the first victims of the violence of the 
 people. The enthusiasm of all classes (except, indeed, the 
 
 higher ones) is not confined to Rome ; in Ancona, told 
 
 us he did not think there was a single house without a bust or 
 engraving of him ; in Bologna, the very hearth hitherto of dis- 
 affection and disturbance, the same spirit prevails. An unfortu- 
 nate priest very narrowly escaped annihilation there, who ventured 
 to suggest a doubt as to the wisdom of the act of amnesty. Silk 
 cravats, of alternate stripes of yellow and white (the papal 
 colors), with " Viva, Pio Nono," embroidered in gold upon their 
 ends, are worn by all the men, and the women fasten their waists 
 with long sashes of the same colors similarly adorned. In Rome, 
 the rejoicing over the act of amnesty gave rise to some touching 
 expressions of public feeling, and more than one house, to which 
 father, sons, or brothers returned, whose untimely burial in poli- 
 tical dungeons had covered them with gloom, were hailed and 
 cheered by the assembled multitude, who sbared in the joy of 
 their restoration to their homes and families. A ludicrous anec- 
 dote was told us, for the truth of which, however, I do not vouch, 
 that Cardinal Lambruschini, finding no other vent for his dis- 
 
POPE PIUS IX. 181 
 
 pleasure at all that was going forward, had caused prayers to be 
 put up in some church under his especial charge, for the enlight- 
 ening of the Pope by the Holy Spirit ; of which rather insolent 
 interest in his well-doing, Pius IX. being apprised, he expressed 
 his entire approval of it, and his own extreme need of the as- 
 sistance of God's directing and enlightening grace. 
 
 A rumor has been current for some time, that he intends to 
 organize something approximating to a representative govern- 
 ment, by permitting the various states and towns in his dominion 
 to send up deputies to Rome, properly instructed to represent the 
 grievances and wants of the people. This would, indeed, be an 
 amazing stride forward. It is, moreover, added, that being warn- 
 ed that this and similar innovations would probably induce the 
 people to demand a constitution, the Pope replied, with much tran- 
 quillity, that he did not know that it might not be a very good thing 
 A: to give them one. In the meantime, the hearts of the hitherto most 
 disaffected are all turned towards him, and in all the processions 
 ' in his honor which succeeded the promulgation of his amnesty, 
 the most prominent personages were the very young men whom 
 the police had especial charge to watch under the former govern- 
 ment. He receives, as I have before stated, all petitions present- 
 ed to him, and an anecdote is told of his having torn a small piece 
 from the cover of one, which particularly attracted his attention, 
 and which, delivering over to the functionary appointed to receive 
 them, until His Holiness had leisure to examine them, was not 
 presented among the rest ; he immediately perceived its absence, 
 and demanded it ; and it is said to have contained a revelation of 
 malpractices affecting Cardinal Lambruschini, and various other 
 eminent personages. The access which he permits to his pre- 
 sence, on certain days in the week, to all supplicants, has given 
 rise to innumerable stories of his benevolence and kindness, 
 v/hich are eagerly seized on by, and disseminated among, the 
 people. Thus it is told, that he ordered one of his state horses 
 
162 A YEAB OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 to be given to a poor man, whose sole wealth consisted in his, 
 which had just died. He is, moreover, said to have appointed a 
 small room in the Quirinal, as lodging to a poor old woman, who 
 had been turned out of her own by Cardinal Patrizi, because she 
 was unable to pay the rent. A pretty and I believe authentic 
 anecdote is told of a young lad of about twelve years, the only 
 son of his mother, who was a poor widow, and who had strained 
 every nerve to procure for him a good education. The boy, re- 
 markably intelligent and industrious, was about to forfeit a chance 
 of advancement into some higher school for want of means to 
 purchase the class books required for his studies there. He pre- 
 sented a petition to the Pope, and in due time, to his mother's 
 amazement, received an official summons to the presence of His 
 Holiness, who, having heard his story, put his hand into his pocket, 
 and gave the lad a gold piece, worth something between two and 
 three scudi ; the boy, however, returned it, saying, that it was 
 of no use to him, as it was not sufficient to purchase the books 
 he wanted, the cost of which amounted to something more than 
 three scudi. The Pope, much amused and pleased with the boy's 
 intelligence, gave him the requisite sum, and sent assistance to his 
 mother, and his commendation for the training she was bestowing 
 on her child. In the meantime, demonstrations of loyalty and of 
 political activity of an unwonted nature in Rome are betokening 
 imminent change, and filling the souls of all faint-hearted wor- 
 shippers of present things with dismay. 
 
 On the 8th of September, the day of the Pope's triumphant 
 procession to the Santa Maria del Popolo, not only were the in- 
 scriptions condemned by the police as of a dangerous and too 
 liberal tendency, merely covered over with silver paper, so that 
 they were distinctly legible through it ; but in the evening the 
 crowd, which had poured abroad to see the illumination, actually 
 compelled the carriages to turn out of the Corso, and make a 
 giro, instead of pursuing this way through the narrow thorough- 
 
POPE PIUS IX. 163 
 
 fare, choked up with a dense mass of human beings, who must 
 have run a considerable risk of being crushed under the horses' 
 hoofs and wheels had they persisted in their progress. This un. 
 wonted demonstration of popular will struck terror, at the time, 
 to the hearts of all Conservatives ; and the groans and hisses by 
 which the dangerous vehicles were alone repelled in their ad- 
 vance, sounded to them as ominous of the downfall of order, and 
 the ruin of society, as the cheers and acclamations with which 
 the people greeted their sovereign on the same morning ; the like 
 of which had, it was averred, never been heard in Rome. To an 
 Englishwoman, accustomed to hear the voice of her countrymen 
 expressing heartily and feelingly their public discontent and joy, 
 both sounded faint enough ; the Roman people of these days 
 know neither how to groan nor cheer ; but if matters do not alter, 
 it will not be long before they learn both from Pius IX. and his 
 faithless opposers. 
 
 Another still more portentous event has just taken place in 
 Rome ; a public political dinner in honor of the Pope. It was 
 an unfortunate accident, if not an act of deliberate folly, that 
 there was a great ball given the same night at the Palazzo 
 Borghese ; some said with a view of withdrawing any of the 
 young men of the higher classes, who might have felt disposed 
 to join the liberalist festival, and others considered it merely as 
 an expression of total indifference on the part of those classes, 
 and especially of the noble house where they met, and which is 
 known to be little friendly to the present government, and com- 
 pletely devoted to the influence of the Jesuits. At the close of 
 the dinner, when the utmost enthusiasm and the utmost order 
 also prevailed, a number of those who had assisted at it, repaired 
 to the piazza in front of the Borghese Palace, and there de- 
 manded that lights should be placed in the windows in honor of 
 the Pope. This, however, was not only not complied with, but 
 the blinds were immediately closed, so as to exhibit the most 
 
 I 
 
164 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 perfect disregard to the popular request — a proceeding which 
 elicited no further mark of displeasure on the part of the 
 crowd than some angry groans and hisses, after which they dis- 
 persed. My friend , who was among them, reported to 
 
 me that their behavior was in no respect violent or disorderly, 
 and their demonstrations of resentment such as would have been 
 thought nothing of in any constitutional country ; while, to show 
 how differently conclusions are drawn, according to people's 
 
 prejudices, Mr. de went home to his wife as pale as a 
 
 ghost, and assured her that Metternich would have to interfere 
 immediately to put down the frightful revolutionary spirit of the 
 rabid Roman patriots. Upon the whole, it seems to me a pity 
 that the small token of sympathy demanded on this occasion was 
 withheld ; the stream of popular opinion and feeling may be 
 resisted and withstood successfully only to a certain point ; and 
 beyond that, those, who would not be overwhelmed by it, must 
 throw themselves upon its surface, and by a timely consent to 
 its direction, in time, perhaps, obtain the direction of it. It 
 is a thousand pities that those whose interests are most at 
 stake in perceiving this, so seldom do, before it is too 
 late. The refusal to illuminate the windows, and the closing 
 of the blinds, at the Palazzo Borghese, are said to have been 
 instigated by the governer of Rome, Monsignor Marini, whose 
 unpopularity was already quite great enough, without this 
 additional score against him in the public memory. 
 
 Without, of course, understanding the detail of the political 
 questions which render the measures of the present Papal 
 government so deeply interesting, in one way or other, to the 
 whole of Europe, there is something in the unbounded expecta- 
 tions of Pius the IX. 's own subjects, mixing up, as they undoubt- 
 edly do, the idea of his pre-eminent religious sovereignty with 
 that of his political power and capacity, extremely touching to 
 one who perceives the fcnormous disparity between the two. 
 
POPE PIUS IX. 165 
 
 Surrounded by governments hostile to all liberal reform, and 
 watching with a jealous eye the faintest expression of that spirit 
 in the population of their neighbors' territories, of which they so 
 dread and detest the manifestations in their own — unsupported by 
 the nobles, whose sympathies (as when, except in rare individual 
 cases, were they otherwise? and the instinct is just, for their 
 conservatism is but self-preservation) are all against progress — 
 feared and disliked in his more liberal policy by the generality 
 of his priesthood — mortally hated by that powerful body, the 
 Jesuits, and the vast multitudes who directly or indirectly are 
 [^influenced by them — unsupported by the more ardent and ex- 
 treme reformers, whose abhorrence of former tyrannies has led 
 them to adopt republican theories of government, and who, 
 therefore, fear his partial reforms as likely to satisfy the people 
 whom they would fain see carried towards the issues they em- 
 brace, and which, of course, the Pope cannot adopt — blindly 
 and enthusiastically worshipped by the middling and lower 
 classes, whose eager desire for change will be as ready to accuse 
 him in their impatience of a moderate and gradual course, as 
 they now are to admire him for the mere promise of reform they 
 find in his first measures — with only one minister of ability, 
 integrity, and personal devotion to him (the liberal and enlight- 
 ened Cardinal Gizzi, unfortunately a man of nearly ninety years 
 old) — with an empty exchequer, and finances crippled by de- 
 plorable mismanagement of the last administration — such is the 
 present position of Pius IX., upon whose most benevolent and 
 refined countenance few traces are discernible of a spirit capa- 
 ble of engaging single-handed with such difficulties. 
 
 The anomaly, as well as the difficulty, of this position strikes 
 me forcibly. I have seen the Roman Catholic religion in the 
 United States, the faith of implicit obedience, and absolute sub- 
 serviency, encountering the political spirit of unbridled demo- 
 cracy — perhaps the most remarkable of all the social phenomena 
 
166 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 that wonderful country presents ; and the Roman Catholic 
 religion thrives, and spreads, and flourishes, because it is sepa- 
 rate from the political government, and lends itself with that 
 admirable faculty of adaptation — one of its vital merits and 
 chief security for its duration — to the paramount spirit of the 
 institutions, and universal direction of the public mind. The 
 Roman Catholic religion can subsist, and greatly prosper, even 
 in republican America, but it is because it is there a religion and 
 not a government : as religion it is the most pliant, malleable, 
 insinuating, pervading, and powerful that has yet existed; as 
 government, it is rigid, uncompromising, despotic, and incapable 
 of either receiving or accepting the impulse towards universal 
 freedom, which the world in these latter times seems to obey. 
 The Bishop of Rome may yet be the powerful head of the most 
 powerful sect of Christendom ; I doubt if he can ever be the 
 enliglitened sovereign of a people with free institutions ; there- 
 fore it is that the acclamations which precede and follow the 
 present Pope's footsteps seem sad to me, for they seem to me 
 to demand impossibilities, and to foretell disappointments. It 
 may be that his apparent sympathy with the people may grow 
 cold, for Gregory XVI. began his reign too with an amnesty ; 
 it may be that, appointed by God to the especial ministry of 
 these times, he may only have opened the flood-gates whence 
 the torrent issuing shall bear him to the ground : if, however, no 
 subsequent acts of his own belie the promise of his present mea- 
 sures, even if the spirit that he evokes is too powerful for him, 
 and he should fall a sacrifice to the results of his own actions, he 
 has earned the love of his people and the sympathy and admira- 
 tion of the world already, and built himself, with one great act 
 of wisdom and of mercy, a monument of noble memories, round 
 which the blessings of the Roman people will never cease 
 to rise. 
 
THE POPE GOING TO THE LATERAN. i67 
 
 TO PIUS IX. 
 
 It may be that the stone which thou art heaving 
 
 From off thy people's neck shall fall and crush thee ; 
 It may be that the sudden flood shall pu&h thee 
 
 From off the rock, whence, prophet-like, believing 
 
 In God's great future, thou dost set it free ; 
 Yet heave it, heave it, Heaven high, nor fear 
 To be o'erwhelm'd in the first wild career 
 
 Of those long-prison'd tides of liberty. 
 
 That stone which thou hast lifted from the heart 
 Of a whole nation shall become to thee 
 
 A glorious monument, such as no art 
 E'er piled above a mortal memory : 
 
 Falling beneath it, thou shalt have a tomb 
 
 That shall make low the loftiest dome in Rome. 
 
 We went on Sunday to see the Pope take possession of the 
 Lateran, — a ceremony of particular interest, from all the pecu- 
 liar circumstances connected with the new reign. The church 
 of the Lateran is held in even higher veneration than that of St. 
 Peter's, being built upon the site of the first Christian church 
 founded by Constantine the Great. From the windows of the 
 
 Palazetto Torlonia, the lodgings of the , who most kindly 
 
 invited us to them, we saw to perfection the procession debouch 
 from the Via San Romualdo, on its descent from the Quirinal 
 into the Piazza del Gesu. The Pope alone being in his carriage, 
 and everybody else on horseback, the reverend body (or bodies) 
 of cardinals were exempted from this part of the day's duty, 
 which would have been, to many of them, all but impossible. 
 The thronged and tapestried streets, the crowded windows and 
 balconies, the wreaths and branches of flowers and evergreens, 
 
168 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION 
 
 the universal enthusiasm and " allegria," recalled the days of 
 the Carnival. A very different procession, however, presently 
 filled the many-colored avenue, and suggested memories of a 
 far more serious nature ; the Crucifero, in his splendid purple 
 robes, bare-headed, his black hair falling on his shoulders, and 
 his grave and handsome countenance, admirably becoming the 
 solemnity of his costume and office, riding on a snow-white mule, 
 and bearing a huge golden crucifix ; then the Guardia Nobile, 
 surrounding the Pope ; the Captain of the Swiss Guard, clad in 
 complete sheath armor ; the secretaries in middle-age costumes, 
 of the richest and most picturesque black velvet and gold ; and 
 then the numerous train of Prelati, some in scarlet and point 
 lace, — others attired in purple robes, with short over-skirts of 
 fine lawn and lace, with a hood or wimple of the same sur- 
 mounted by a round black hat, precisely the costume with which 
 all Petrarch's representations have rendered us so familiar ; all 
 of them mounted, their horses led at a foot's-pace by serving 
 men on foot. It is impossible to conceive anything more beau- 
 tiful in point of color, or more picturesque in every respect, 
 than this fine procession passing along by the Doria and Alfieri 
 palaces, and all that noble range of buildings which fronts the 
 Piazza di Venezia and the Piazza del Gesu. At one moment 
 particularly the coup d^ceil was splendid ; a few drops of rain 
 fell, and all the prelates in scarlet dresses drew over their heads 
 the scarlet silk hoods, which were hanging on their shoulders, a 
 measure of prudence for which a painter would have offered up 
 infinite thanks to the weather. We have had tickets of admis- 
 sion given us for the Coliseum, but, fearful of losing the bene- 
 diction, we omitted going there, and proceeded straight to the 
 Lateran. We might have done both very well, and I regret ex- 
 tremely that we did not, for 1 am sure, from 's account, 
 
 nothing could have been finer than the view obtained by those 
 (and they were thousands) who, filling once more with eager ex- 
 
THE POPE GOING TO THE LATERAN. 169 
 
 pectation the arches and galleries of the Coliseum, and looking 
 towards the Capitol, beheld the scarlet and purple procession 
 wind down from it, traverse the forum, and, passing underneath 
 the arch of Titus, unroll itself along the Via Sacra. At the 
 time in which we might have seen this and did not, we were, 
 however, unconscious of our loss, and very happy in the excel- 
 lent position where we obtained seats nearly opposite the Church 
 of St. John Lateran. As the Papal procession approached, the 
 vacant space before the church, and almost half way to San Pie- 
 tro in Vinculii, became thronged with a dense mass of people, 
 through which the pageant slowly made its way. We watched 
 the Pope's entrance into the Basilica, by the movement of the 
 white peacock's fans, and the canopy borne over him ; and after 
 the scarlet priests and purple monsignori had all disappeared un- 
 der the sacred portals, we directed our a^tfention to the crowd, 
 rolling round us, where the variety and picturesqueness of cos- 
 tume, and the great beauty of the men and women of the lower 
 classes, and the peasants who had come into Rome for the cele- 
 bration, kept our attention perpetually alive and interested ; from 
 time to time we looked to the great window above the middle 
 portal of the church, but the dark crimson balcony and alcove 
 were filled only with choristers, and every now and then a cardinal 
 appeared and looked down on the vast assembly which was every 
 moment growing more numerous. At length the clerical subal- 
 terns were seen to arrange themselves in ceremonious order ; 
 huge wax tapers, carried by white-robed priests, came slanting 
 forwards in the dark recess ; presently the white peacock fans 
 were seen, and the Pope was borne to the front of the balcony : 
 immediately profound silence filled the whole wide expanse ; the 
 crowd suddenly ceased to move, to speak, it almost seemed, to 
 breathe ; and the choristers began chanting a few bars, during 
 which the stillness became absolutely perfect ; then the Pope 
 rose up, robed all in white, under that crimson dome, and thus 
 
170 A YEAR OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 lifted above all heads, looking like some colossal statue, he 
 chanted with a loud sonorous voice, that resounded over the 
 kneeling crowd, his invocation of the Trinity, and spreading 
 wide his arms showered down his benediction upon the city and 
 the world, to which the people responded with an amen of accla- 
 mations, amid which their sovereign was borne back from their 
 sight. I am persuaded that this must be a finer thing than even 
 the benediction from St. Peter ; for St. John Lateran is a beau- 
 tiful church, and standing close to the walls of Rome — looks 
 over them, the broken arches of the aqueducts, the campagna, 
 and the Sabine and Alban mountains. 
 
 On Monday, the 7th of December, I went to the fountain of 
 Trevi — for those who drink of its sweet waters return, it is said, 
 to Rome. It was a dark and gloomy day, and raining fast ; but 
 I knelt, nevertheless, upon the edge of the beautiful founf^in to 
 drink to my return. 
 
 DEPARTING. 
 
 Pour we libations to the father, Jove, 
 
 And bid him watch propitious o'er our way ; 
 
 Pile on the household altar fragrant wreaths, 
 
 And to th' auspicious Lares bid farewell. 
 
 Beneath whose guardianship we have abode. 
 
 Blest be the threshold over which we pass, 
 
 Turning again, with hands devout uplifted ; 
 
 Blest be the roof-tree, and the hearth it shelters ; 
 
 Blest be the going forth and coming home 
 
 Of those who dwell here ; blest their rising up, 
 
 And blest their lying down to holy slumber ; 
 
 Blest be the married love, sacred and chaste ; 
 
 Blest be the children's head, the mother's heart. 
 
 The father's hope. Reaclj down the wanderer's stal*,— 
 
DEPARTING 171 
 
 Tie on the sandals on the traveller's feet : 
 The wan-eyed morn weeps in the watery east 
 Gird up the loins, and let us now depart. 
 
 On Thursday, the 8th of December, I left Rome. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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