I 1 s VALUABLE WORKS PUBLISHED BY KEY AND BIDDLE, 6 Minor Street, Philadelphia. IRISH ELOQUENCE The Speeches of the cele- brated Irish Orators, PHILLIPS, CURRAN, GRATTAN ; to which is added, the Powerful Appeal of ROBERT EM- MEI/T, at the close of his trial for high treason. In 1 vol. 8vo. SINGER'S OWN BOOK. A well selected Collec- tion of the most Popular, Sentimental, Amatory, Pa- triotic, Naval, and Comic Songs. Illustrated with beautiful Steel Engravings. No expense has been spared to render this collection of songs every way superior to any work of the kind that has hitherto been presented to the American pub- lic. No songs have been admitted that do not claim the title of merit, either in composition or in air. YOUNG MAN'S OWN BOOK : a Manual of Po- liteness, Intellectual Improvement, and Moral Deport- ment, calculated to form the character on a solid basis, and to insure respectability and success in life. YOUNG LADY'S OWN BOOK: a Manual of In- tellectual Improvement and Moral Deportment. By the Author of the Young Man's Own Book. THE SOLDIER'SJBRIDE, AND OTHER TALES. BY JAMES HALL, Author of lt Legends of the West," &,c. We have just risen from the perusal of the Soldier's Bride. The impression it leaves upon the mind is like that which we receive from the sight of a landscape of rural beauty and repose or from the sound of rich and sweet melody. Every part of this delightful tale is redolent of moral and natural loveliness. The writer belongs to the same class with Irving and Paulding ; and as in his descriptions, characters and incidents, he never loses sight of the true and legitimate purpose of fiction, the elevation of the taste and moral character of his readers, he will contribute his full share to the creation of sound and healthful literature. THE HUMOURIST'S OWN BOOK A collection of the latest Anecdotes, Bons Mots, Jests, &c., from which every thing has been excluded which is unfit for reading at the Family Fire Side. By the Author of the Young Man's Own Book. Of the size and in the style of the Young Man's Own Book. TALES OF MILITARY LIFE, Second Series. By the Author of the Subaltern. From the London Literary Gazette. " The writer of the Subaltern has an imagination to create, as well as an eye to see ; he flings off a picture with equal vivid- ness and effect, whether it be the mere creation of his fancy, or painted from the recollection of what he has seen ; on the whole, the work will greatly add to the reputation of the author. The companions of Bur- goyne in the campaign of 1777 (if any still survive) will recognise in the tale entitled Sarotaga, the best, per- haps the only readable narrative of that portion of military history." THE LIVES AND EXPLOITS OF BANDITTI AND ROBBERS. By C. Macfarlane, Esq. Author of " The Romance of Italian history.' Together with a Sketch of the Lives of Blackbeard and Captain Kid, by the American editor. " No species of narrative except that of Shipwrecks, produces a deeper impression on people of all ages and conditions, than Banditti and Robber Stories." London Monthly Magazine. " The great variety and interest of these narratives will be easily estimated from the specimen we have given. Better companions cannot be had than those amusing Robbers and Banditti." Monthly Review. " Mr. Macfarlane has collected and narrated his Robber Annals with equal industry, spirit and judg- ment." Literary Gazette. Works in Press by Key and Biddle. 1. THE HOME BOOK OE HEALTH AND MEDICINE, being a popular treatise on the means of Avoiding and Curing Diseases, and of Preserving the Health and Vigour of the Body to the latest period : including a full account of the Diseases of Women and Children. 2. THE YOUNG MAN'S SUNDAY BOOK In continuation of the Series commenced by the Young Man's Own Book. 3. THE RELIGIOUS SOUVENIR FOR 1834. Edited by the Rev. G. T. BEDELL, which will be published in a style much superior to that of the present year. 4. MEMOIRS OF HORTENSE BEAUHARNAIS, Dutchess of St. Leu, Ex-Queen of Holland Translated from the French. SEMI-SERIOUS OBSERVATIONS ITALIAN EXILE HIS RESIDENCE IN ENGLAND. BY COUNT PECCHIO. PHILADELPHIA: KEY AND BIDDLE, NO. 6 MINOR STREET. 1833. 1\*/ P3 ADVERTISEMENT, Giuseppe, Count Pecchio, the author of the following pages, is not altogether unknown to the English public. In the year 1823 he published some letters on the Spa- nish revolution; in 1824, a journal of military and political events in Spain during the preceding twelve- month ; and in 1825 (in the New Monthly Magazine) a narrative of a tour in Greece. A few years before he had fled his own country the north of Italy to escape the consequences of the share he had taken in the un- successful Piedmontese revolution. He had, in the first instance, taken refuge in England, but the climate being injurious to his health, he conceived the hope of finding a more congenial residence in Spain, where he was con- nected by friendship with some of the most distinguished public characters ; his expulsion from that country he terms a second exile. Since his return from Greece he has, we believe, uninterruptedly continued in England, has married an English lady, and now resides at Brighton. The observations contained in the volume before the reader will often be found particularly striking, from the contrast they present to those of other travellers. What- ever opinion may be formed of Count Pecchio's mode ot thinking, it cannot at any rate be denied that he thinks for himself. This translation presents a complete dupli- cate of all his statements and opinions ; faults, errors, 1* M280797 b ADVERTISEMENT. and omissions not excepted. It was at first intended to add a few notes, pointing out where the count had fallen into error, but it was soon found that if this plan were pursued, the work would have been, perhaps, more augmented than improved. Most of his mistakes are such as the reader will, with a smile, correct : we are in no danger of believing, on Count Pecchio's authority, that in England all the boys can ride, and none of the children ever cry. Besides, his slips, though they may throw no light on English character, very often give us an insight, the more valuable from being unconscious, into the Italian. We have however, ventured with some hesitation, to correct a few verbal errors. Thus, in his account of the Nottingham assizes, when the count in- forms us that he saw a man capitally convicted of the crime of abigealo, he adds, in a parenthesis, as the English equivalent, the word horsedeating : as we were not previously aware that this crime, however heinous, was visited with a punishment so severe as that of death, we have, on our own responsibility, changed the term to horse-stealing. With these few introductory remarks, we commend Count Pecchio, in his English dress, to the benevolence of his English readers. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. " Ah !" replied Sancho, weeping, " don't die, your honour, but follow my advice, and live many years ; because the silliest thing a man can do in this life is to die without any reason, without being killed by any body, or finished off by any other hands than melancholy's." This advice of the faithful Sancho Panza always appeared to me the plainest and best of all the recipes philosophers have prescribed for adversity. Putting it then into prac- tice, instead of pouring forth useless lamentations, or hanging down my head like a weeping willow, I have acquired the habit, in travelling, of throwing upon paper the observations that, from time to time, new objects awakened in me. In this way I have beguiled a good deal of the leisure of my exile ; and fortunate I am, if, by these sketches, I can beguile some moments of the leisure of my countrymen. My book cannot enter into competition with any other ; it is but a miscellany like the olla-podrida of the Spaniards, that favourite dish of my favourite Sancho Panza. Let him who wishes to become acquainted with English politics, read. M. de Pradt ; him who wishes to know the statistics of England, refer to the work of Baron Dupin. Let him who desires to understand the machinery of the admirable administra- tion of justice in England, consult the work of M. Cottu. Let him who wishes to become familiar with English 8 PREFACE. manners, read the elegant descriptions of the American, Washington Irving, in his "Sketch-Book." But let him who does not love science and information well enough to read these ; who admires profiles rather than full lengths ; who reads for reading sake, and in the way the journals of the fashions and the opera-books are read, skipping, singing, and yawning let him, I say, read the following observations of GIUSEPPE PECCHIO. CONTENTS. ARRIVAL IN LONDON. FIRST IMPRESSIONS. Travelling Climate Gas British Inventions Advantages of a London atmosphere Idleness and Industry Love of Domestic Life 13 LONDON HOUSES. Entry into London Architecture Economy of Building Independence Habits Crowded Streets Servants Punctuality and activity of Tradesmen Clocks Division of Time 25 TEA GARDENS. Sunday Amusement Parochial and other Schools Newspapers Taverns Politics Love of Flowers Tea Gardens Religion Swearing Mechanics Gymnastics Bravery of Artificers Division of Labour Libraries Knowledge among the People Domestic Comfort Steam Engines Competition with Manual Labour 33 SAILORS. Sailors ashore u Grog" Sea Songs Greenwich Hospital The Sea, a favourite subject of English poetry Courage and intrepidity of the English Sailor Cowper and Crabbe 46 10 CONTENTS. THE OPPOSITION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. The Houses of Lords and Commons The present Lord Chancellor's lengthy speech in 1828 Ora- tory of the English" The Opposition" Mr. Wilberforce Sir Robert Wilson England, the " Opposition" of the World 64 ENGLAND, THE REFUGE OF THE OPPRESSED. England, like Venice of old, the refuge of the per- secuted Emigration of the Lombards, and the French Hugonots Popularity of foreign exiles in England Mina Riego's Widow Arguelles Franco of Valencia; his love of country Count Santorne di Santa Rosa 73 ROADS. Good Roads an indication of a civilised country Those of Greece, South America, France, Ger- many, and Italy Verrie's comparison English Inns Highwaymen now rare Stage coaches 86 TIME. Indolence of the Spaniard Importance of Time in England The Funds Machinery for saving Time and Labour but imperfectly imitated on the Continent 99 ENGLISH MARKETS. Increased use of Horses Economy of Agriculture Market Costume Habits Merchandise Popular Literature Recruiting Market Places Markets for Servants 104 ENGLISH YOUNG LADIES. The Clergyman Village Inn Rectory The La- diesWhite Hands 117 CONTENTS. 1 1 PAGE SEQUEL. An English Villa Tete-a-Tete "The Better Class" 124 THE BETROTHED. Match-making in England " Breach of Promise" Female Confidence 129 EDUCATION. English and Italian Female Education Protection to Females travelling alone 136 SEQUEL. Children Their food Temperament of the En- glish" Affairs of Honour" Female Authors 140 A COUNTRY WAKE. Vulgar Superstitions Whitsuntide A Fine Day in England Plum Pudding Horse-Racing and Betting 158 THE SPRING ASSIZES. The Circuit Integrity of Juries A Seat on the Bench Contrast 169 UNITARIANS. Unitarian Worship Toleration Schools supported by Dissenters 186 METHODISTS, RANTERS, AND JUMPERS. The arithmetic of Sects" Love-feasts" A Visit to the Anabaptists 194 BAPTISTS. Doctrine of Baptism Immersion Hudibras Ri- ver Baptism 200 1 2 CONTENTS- QUAKERS. Mr. Fry Fowell Buxton Quaker Ladies Din- ner Table Indian '* Kings" -Mrs. Fry Dis- courtesy of George IV. Parliamentary Justice Domestic habits of Quakers Prison Preach- ing Female Convicts Benevolence 203 RETREAT, OR LUNATIC ASYLUM, NEAR YORK. Lunatic asylums of England compared with those of the Continent Madness of the English Lu- natics in confinement Physical and Moral Remedies General Observations 211 ITALIAN EXILE IN ENGLAND. ARRIVAL IN LONDON. FIRST IMPRESSIONS. When, on his first arrival in England, the foreigner is seated on the roof of a carriage which bears him to- wards London at the rate of eight miles an hour, he cannot help believing himself hurried along in the car of Pluto to the descent into the realms of darkness, es- pecially if he have just left Spain or Italy, the favourite regions of the sun. In the midst of wonder, he can hardly avoid, at first setting off, being struck with an impression of melancholy. An eternal cloud of smoke which involves and penetrates every thing ; a fog which, during the months of November and December, now grey, now red, now of a dirty yellow, always obscures, and sometimes completely extinguishes, the light of day, cannot fail to give a lugubrious and Dantesque air to this immeasurable and interminable capital. He, above 2 14 THE ITALIAN EXILE all, who is just arrived from a sunny country, experi- cnces, as I said before, the same effect as when, from the bright light of noon, he enters a half-closed cham- ber : at the first glance he sees nothing, but afterwards, by little and little, he discerns the harp, the lady, the sofa, and the other agreeable objects in the apartment. Caracciolo, the ambassador to George the Third, was not in the wrong when he said, that the moon of Naples was warmer than the sun of London. In fact, for seve- ral days the sun only appears in the midst of the dark- ness visible, like a great yellow spot. London is a " pa- norama of the sun," hi which he is often better seen than felt. On the 29th of November, 1826, there wa& an eclipse visible in England : the sky that day happen- ed to be clear, but nobody took the least notice of the phenomenon, because the fog produces in ojie year more eclipses in England than there ever were, from other causes, perhaps since the creation of the world. One day I was strolling in Hyde Park, in company with a Peruvian ; it was one of the fine days of London, but the sun was so obscured by the fog, that it had taken the form of a great globe of fire. " What do you think of the sun to-day?" said I to my companion. "I thought," replied the adorer of the true sun, " that the end of the world was come ! Was it not a singular ca- price of Fortune, that where there is the least light, the great Newton should have been born to analyse it ?" It appears to me like the other singularity, that Alfieri, who analysed liberty so well, should have been born in Italy, where they have less of it, perhaps, than any where else. After all, what of it ? The English, by force of industry, have contrived to manufacture for themselves even a sun. Is it not indeed a sun, that gas, which, running underground through all the island, illuminates the whole in a, fiat lux ? It is a sun, with- IN ENGLAND. 15 out twilight and without setting, that rises and disap- pears like a flash of lightning, and that too just when we want it. The gas illumination of London is so beautiful, that M. Sismondi had good reason to say, that in London, in order to see, you must wait till night. The place of St. Antonio, at Cadiz, on a starry summer's evening, the noisy Strado Toledo of Naples, silvered by the moon, the Parisian Tivoli, blazing with fire- works ; none of them can sustain a comparison with the Regent street of London, lighted by gas. Nor is this artificial sun an exclusive advantage of the capital ; it shines every where with the impartiality of the great planet, illuminating alike the palace and the hovel. Whoever travels in England by night, in the country around Leeds, Nottingham, Derby, or Manchester, ima- gines he sees on every side the enchanted palaces of the fairies, and shining in the light of a thousand torches : but they are in reality no other than very large and very lofty manufactories of cotton, woollen, or linen. The English nation is free from the defect of carping at new inventions. Accustomed, for more than a century, to see improvements of every sort at every turn, when a new discovery presents itself, they examine it, study it, adopt the good part of it, and reject the bad. Gas has many drawbacks. If it escapes into the atmosphere without burning, it stinks horribly ; if it spreads itself in a close chamber, it takes fire at the contact of a candle, and may occasion death ; the gasometer (or great receptable of gas) may explode, and do injury both to person and property. No matter ! The English carefully guard against these accidents, and finding, in the balance of their good sense, the advantages greater than the disadvantages, have adopted gas for the beauty, continuity, and celerity of its light. Every city of ten, twenty, forty, or fifty thousand inhabitants, has a gaso- 16 THE ITALIAN EXILE meter, which is singly sufficient to dispense light to all the streets and all the houses. Every shopkeeper pays so much (if he chooses) for this light, in proportion to the time and the quantity of flame, calculated according to the number of apertures from which it issues. A company conducts the business (for in England all great undertakings are conducted by an association of private resources, that is, by a company), and their shares are shifted from hand to hand, augment the mass of circu- lating capital, and rise or fall in price according to the annual profits. " Gas gives a finer light than tallow candles, at one half, and even one third, the expense. The cotton factory of Messrs. Philips and Lee, at Man- chester, perhaps the largest lighted by gas, was the first of all to make use of it, in the year 1808 ; including the wear and tear, and the interest of the capital employed in the pipes and apparatus, the annual expense amounts to 600Z. sterling ; if they were to burn tallow candles for two hours every evening, the expense would be 2000Z." Vide The History of the Origin and Progress of Gas Lighting, by MR. MATTHEWS. The English have made the great discovery, that use- ful inventions increase the conveniences and the wealth of nations. Thus, notwithstanding some accidents that now and then occur to the steam vessels, the English continue to avail themselves of them, because they have calculated that if they did not exist, shipwrecks would be more frequent, the conveniences of life would be fewer, and the ease and rapidity of travelling much re- duced. But the English have another remedy for the scarcity of sun. They follow the example of poets and philoso- phers, who, when they are deficient in riches, take to praising poverty; not being able to praise the sun, they sing the praises of the fireside, and the delights of IN ENGLAND. 17 winter. Ossian (or rather Macpherson, the author of Ossian), instead of the sun, apostrophises the moon. He takes pleasure in describing-, as if they were delight- ful, the whistling of the winds, and the roaring of the torrents. He compares the locks of a youthful beauty to mist gilded by the sun. Instead of depicting a valley enamelled with flowers, he spurns so soft and effemi- nate an image, to paint the aspect of a frozen lake, and the shaking thistles on its banks. Cowper, in his poem of " The Task," seems completely to enjoy himself in describing a winter's evening, when the rain rattles down, the wind whistles, and the wagoner growls and grumbles on his way ; whilst in-doors, the fire burns, the newspaper arrives, the exhilarating tea glows on the table, and the family are all collected round the hearth. Some poet, whose name I forget, (I think it is Byron,) even gives to darkness the epithet " lovely." Thomson, the bard of M The Seasons," was a better poet even than usual, when he sung of winter. He calls the horrors of winter ** congenial horrors ;" and after describing the mountains of snow, that, with the roar of thunder, dart from precipice to precipice, to the bottom of the Grison valleys, destroying and burying in the depth of night shepherds and their flocks, huts and villages, single tra- vellers and whole troops of marching soldiers, he ima- gines himself, with epicurean voluptuousness, in a soli- tary and well sheltered country-house, before a blazing fire, and lighted by splendid chandeliers, reading at his ease the finest works of the ancients. " Now, all amid the rigours of the year, In the wild depths of winter, while without The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat, Between the groaning forest and the shore 2* 18 THE ITALIAN EXILE Beat by the boundless multitude of waves ; A rural, shelter'd, solitary scene, Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit, And hold high converse with the mighty dead, Sages of ancient time, as gods revered, As gods beneficent who bless'd mankind With arts, with arms, and humanised a world." Thus all the poets have conspired to make their coun- trymen in love with their cloudy heavens, and induce them to believe themselves fortunate that they are born in a delightful climate. And what matters it that it is not true ? Are not the tricks and illusions of the imagi- nation, pleasures as substantial as actual realities ? Mon- tesquieu said, " If the English are not free, at least they believe they are, which is much the same." So we may say, if the English have not a fine climate, they believe they have, and that is as good. I was once praising, to a young English lady, the pure, lofty, mo- ther-of-pearl heavens of Madrid, of Naples, of Athens, of Smyrna. She replied, " I should be tired to death by such a perpetual sunshine : the variety and phantas- magoria of our clouds must surely be much more beau- tiful." I have quoted Montesquieu : I must quote him again, and still on the subject of the sun. In spite of Helvetius and Filangieri, who oppose his theory of the influence of climate, I could almost venture to believe, that if the English are active in business, profound thinkers, and good fathers of families, it is owing to their having so little sun. True, that with the false light by which they are almost always surrounded, the English have not been able to become celebrated painters ; that they are not, and perhaps never will be so. But, in re- IN ENGLAND. 19 compense for this, they can work at the spinning wheel and the loom many more hours than the countrymen of Murillo or Raphael. An English workman, some years ago (before parliament restricted the hours of labour to twelve), used to work about sixteen hours a day. Ortes, the Italian political economist, calculates the medium labour of an Italian at not more than eight hours a day. The difference is great, but I do not on that account be- lieve the statement erroneous ; the extremes of summer and winter (in some parts of Italy) ; very sensitive and irritable nerves ; the beautiful serene sky that is ever tempting to an out-door walk ; all these do not allow the Italian to give a long and steady application to labour. There is nothing of this kind to tempt the English wea- ver to abandon his loom. He is like one of those blind horses, which are continually turning round and round in a mill, without any thing being able to divert them from their unvarying occupation. Necessity is the goad of idleness, and the constant pa- tron of industry ; the Spaniard (and so with all the sons of the sun) who has no need of stockings, of a necker- chief, nor a coat ; who is content with his cigar and his gaspacho ;* who sleeps on the bare ground, and who feels no curiosity, because he believes himself the favourite child of God, placed in a terrestial paradise," He who says Spain, says every thing," (says the Spanish proverb), laughs at fashion, at books, at voyages and travels, at luxury, at elegance : he is a Diogenes in his tub, who wants nothing but the sun. The indolence, the natural laziness, of the southern nations, (which was once conquered, and may be conquered once again, by education and political in- stitutions,) is not a defect for which they ought to be blamed, any more than their sobriety is a virtue for which * Soup made of water, vinegar, bread, and a little scraped onion. 20 THE ITALIAN EXIfK they ought to be praised : the blame or the merit is all the sun's. The Englishman, on the contrary, receives from his climate a multitude of necessities, all so many spurs to industry and exertion. He has need of more substantial food, of constant firing, of cravats, double cra- vats, coats, great coats; tea, brandy, spirits; a larger wardrobe, on account of the increased consumption caused by the smoke and the wet, &c. &c. &c. Comfort is in the mouth of every Englishman at every moment; it is the half of his life. My own countryman make every effort, and with reason, to obtain the pleasures of the life to come : the English, with no less reason, to procure the pleasures of the present. The word " comfort" is the source of the riches and the power of England. Idleness, in this country, necessarily leads to suicide, because it is the privation of every thing. Nature has here, as it were, denied every thing to man, but in recompense has bestowed on him the power and the perseverance to pro- cure every thing for himself. " Either read, or walk, or play," said a good mother, in my hearing, to a little girl of nine years old, who happened to be standing idle. What the lady meant to imply was, that any thing was better than doing nothing. In Italy there is a proverb, that idleness is the parent of every vice: since vice pro- cures us a momentary pleasure, this proverb is adapted rather to induce than to deter. In England the case is altered, and idleness might be called the parent of every misery. "Lying a-bed and doing nothing at all," so sweet to Berni, would be frightful to an Englishman, who hates laziness as much as a Spaniard or a lazzarone hates work. It is a common opinion, in England, that there can be no happiness without occupation. I know not whether this opinion is a just one, because happiness depends so much on the imagination. The Fakeer, who rots in idleness IN ENGLAND. 21 with a yoke on his neck (a true picture of the idle and en- slaved nations), believes himself happy, and perhaps is so. But, that idleness is the companion of poverty and igno- rance, and that labour, on the contrary, is the companion of opulence and enlightenment, Spain and England are two living witnesses. That frequent absence of the sun which makes the ar- tisan more laborious, renders man also a more thinking animal. Who would not become a philosopher, if he was shut up in the house for so many hours by the incle- mencies of the weather, with a cheerful fire, quiet and obe- dient servants, a good humoured wife, and silence within doors and without ? The profundity of the English wri- ters is a product of the climate, as much as the iron, the tin, and the coal of the island. The sun disperses fami- lies, and scatters them abroad ; a good fire blazing up the chimney attracts and draws them together again. " The family," in cold countries, is an equivalent for our " socie- ty" and our theatres. It is one of the wants of the heart and the intellect. A national song, which is heard every where, from the splendid stage of the Covent-garden to the humblest hovel in Scotland, is called " Home, sweet Home," (Oh casa ! oh dolce casa !) and home is truly sweet in England. In the southern countries every thing gives way to public places, and public amusements. The houses, which, for the most part, are only used for sleep- ing in, are often in bad repair, and oftener very poorly furnished. Where, on the contrary, domestic life is all in all, it is natural to think of rendering it pleasant ; hence the reciprocal respect, the docility, the agreement of the members of a family, the punctuality of service, the uni- versal neatness, and the excellence of the furniture, con- venient, self-moving, and obedient, almost as though it were endowed with life, like the ancient manufactures of Vulcan. The families have a form similar to that of the 22 THE ITALIAN EXILE government ; they are neither republics nor absolute mo- narchies. There is a head, but there is no tyrant in them. Every father is like the King of England, limited in his powers by reason, by custom, and by the general interest. The families are not however patriarchal ; that is, a mix- ture of several generations, in which the head is " King, priest, and parent of his growing state." Here the head is only the father. The " homeborn hap- piness," so well defined by Cowper, is incompatible with the diversity of ages and dispositions. Every marriage forms a new family, and it is very rare to find under the same roof the implacable wives and their mothers in law, and the two placable husbands and their brothers in law : " Blest be that spot where cheerful guests retire, To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire : Blest that abode, where want and pain repair, And every stranger finds a ready chair ; Blest be those feasts, with simple plenty crown'd, Where all the ruddy family around Laugh at the jest, or pranks that never fail, Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale : Or press the bashful stranger to his food, And learn the luxury of doing good." Poetry is the painting of the English, and, instead of re- presenting, as the Flemings do in their pictures, the holi- day pleasures of their rustic fellow countrymen, the Eng- lish, in their poetry, vie with each other in describing the less sensual contentment of their families, which com" pensates and corrects the rigours of the climate ;- IN ENGLAND. 23 " Content can spread a charm, Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm." But the most beautiful sun of England is Liberty ; this is its cornucopia. What were Mexico or Peru in com- parison ! Warmed by a delicious sun, they were ren- dered barren and desolate by tyranny. England, less favoured by the great planet, is made fertile, and blessed with every good, by liberty. Addison wrote from Italy, to Lord Halifax, in 1701, in perhaps the most elegant verses he ever composed, "How has kind heaven adorn 'd the happy land, And scattered blessings with a wasteful hand ! But what avail her unexhausted stores, Her blooming mountains, and her sunny shores, With all the gifts that heav'n and earth impart, The smiles of nature, and the charms of art, While proud oppression in her valleys reigns, And tyranny usurps her happy plains ? Oh ! Liberty, thou goddess heav'nly bright, Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight ! Thee, goddess, thee, Britannia's isle adores, How has she oft exhausted all her stores, How oft in fields of death thy presence sought, Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly bought ! 'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, And makes her barren rocks, and her bleak mountains smile. Others with towering piles may please the sight, And in their proud aspiring domes delight ; 'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate, And hold in balance each contending state ; To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war, And answer her afflicted neighbour's pray'r !" 24 THE ITALIAN EXILE Almost all the divine race of poets divine, because always enamoured of liberty have endeavoured to con- sole their native country for the want of a constantly brilliant sun, by similar observations to these. Even Waller, who flattered equally both Cromwell and Charles the Second, in the panegyric he Composed upon the for- mer, says : " Angels and we have this prerogative, That none can at our happy seats arrive, While we descend at pleasure to invade The bad with vengeance, and the good to aid, Our little world, the image of the great, Like her amid the boundless ocean set, Of her own growth hath all that nature craves, And all that 's rare as tribute from the waves. As Egypt does not on the clouds rely, But to the Nile owes more than to the sky, So what our earth and what our heaven denies, Our ever constant friend the sea supplies. The taste of hot Arabia's spice we know, Free from the scorching sun that makes it grow, Without the worms in Persia's silks we shine, And, without planting, drink of every vine. To dig for wealth, we weary not our limbs, Gold, though the heaviest metal, hither swims, Ours is the harvest where the Indians mow, We plough the deep, and reap what others sow, Things of the noblest kind our own soil breeds, Stout are our men, and warlike are our steeds, Rome, though her eagle through the world had flown, Could never make this island all her own !" IN ENGLAND. 25 LONDON HOUSES. If the sky is dark, not less gloomy is the whole first appearance of London to him who enters it by the Dover road. The smoky colour of the houses gives it the appearance of a city that has been burnt. If to this be added the silence which prevails in the midst of a popu- lation of, perhaps, one million four hundred thousand persons, all in motion (so that one seems to be in a thea- tre of Chinese shades), and the wearisome uniformity of the houses, almost all built in the same style, like a city of the beavers, it will be easy to imagine, that on first entering this darksome hive, the smile of pleased surprise soon gives way to a gloomy wonder. This was the old English style of building, which still prevails in the country. But, since the English have substituted the blue pill for suicide, or, still better, a journey to Paris ; and, instead of Young's Night Thoughts, read the ro- mances of Walter Scott, they have cheered up their houses with a coat of white, and have recently rebuilt the western part of the capital " west end" in a gayer and more varied style of architecture. I do not mean to assert that the English have become a tribe of skippers and laughers, like the young Parisian of eighteen they still delight in ghosts, witches, haunted church-yards, and a whole host of monstrosities. Wo be to him who should a 26 THE ITALIAN EXILE venture to write a romance without some apparition fitted to make " each particular hair stand on end !" The houses are small and fragile. The first night I spent in a lodging-house, I seemed to myself still on board the vessel ; the walls were equally slender, and, in great part, of wood, the chambers small, and the staircase like a companion ladder ; the walls are generally so thin, that they allow the passage of sounds without interrup- tion. The lodgers would hear one another talking, but that they are accustomed to speak in an under tone. I could hear the murmur of the conversation of my neigh- bour overhead, my zenith, as well as that of the other neighbour beneath my feet, like the opposite point nadir; and I distinguished, at intervals, the words, " Very fine weather, indeed very fine comfort comfortable great comfort" words which occur as often in their conversation as stops and commas in a book. In a word, the houses are ventriloquous. As I said before, they are all uniform. In a three-story house, there are three bed- rooms, one over the other, and three parlours in the same situation, so that the population is as it were ware- housed in layers like merchandise like the cheese in the storehouses at Lodi and Codogno. The English have not chosen without design this (I will venture to call it) naval architecture. The advantages they derive from living in houses of small size and little durability are these : in general, a house is only built for 99 years; if it outlive this term, it belongs to the proprietor of the ground on which it is built. It seldom happens, therefore, that they attain to any great longevity ; on the contrary, they sometimes tumble to pieces before the natural period of their exist- ence. The English, who are better arithmeticians than architects, have discovered, that, by building in this slip- pery manner, they consume less capital, and that conse- quently the annual interest and the annual loss of prin- IN ENGLAND. 27 cipal are proportionately less. There is another advantage: by this method, posterity is not hampered or tyrannised over. Every generation can choose and build its own houses, according to its own caprices, and its own neces- sities; and, although in a great measure composed of wood, all the houses are as it were incombustible, by means of the insurance companies, which guarantee the value of the house, the furniture, and every thing else. A fire is no misfortune, but merely a temporary incon- venience to the inmates ; a something to look at for the passengers, and an entertaining paragraph for the news- papers. To an Englishman, his house is his Gibraltar ; he must not only be inviolable, but absolute, without dis- pute or fuss. He prefers living in a shell like an oyster, to living in a palace with all the annoyance of a hen- roost. Independence is the vital air of the Englishman. Hence as soon as a son is married, he leaves home, and like the polypi, which when cut in pieces make so many polypi more, goes to evolve elsewhere another family. Numerous and patriarchal families belong to agricultural communities. Among commercial nations, which have factories and colonies in all parts of the globe, when the son has received a suitable education, he abandons the parental nest, and like the birds, goes elsewhere to build one for himself. " Hail, independence, hail! heaven's next best gift To that of life and an immortal soul ; The life of life, that to the banquet high And sober meal gives taste, to the bow'd roof Fair dream'd repose, and to the cottage charms !" The love of independence, that " life of life," as Thom- son calls it in his poem on Liberty, manifests itself even in the churches, where every English family has a seat 28 THE ITALIAN EXILE of its own, surrounded by a fence. Whoever travels in England will observe, how, even in the smallest villages, the meanest habitations are separated from one another by a hedge, a wall, or a paling. No empire can have its boundaries better denned, or can guard its independence with more jealousy. Why are not the English good dancers ? Because they do not practise. The houses are so small and so weak, that he who would cut a caper in the third story must run the risk of thundering like a bombshell down into the kitchen, which is placed under ground. This is no mere hyperbole of mine. One of the stipulations on taking a house in London, is often that no dancing shall take place in it. Why is it that the English gesticulate so little, and have their arms almost always glued to their sides? For the same reason, I believe: the rooms are so small that it is impossible to wave one's arm with- out breaking something, or inconveniencing somebody. Some people are quite thunderstruck at the silence which prevails among the inhabitants of London. But how could one million four hundred thousand persons live together without silence? The torrent of men, women, and children, carts, carriages, and horses, from the Strand to the Exchange, is so strong, that it is said that in win- ter there are two degrees of Fahrenheit difference be- tween the atmosphere of this long line of street, and that of the West End. I have not ascertained the truth of this ; but from the many avenues there are to the Strand, it is very likely to be correct. From Charing Cross to the Royal Exchange is an encyclopedia of the world. An apparent anarchy prevails, but without confusion or disorder. The rules which the poet Gay lays down in his "Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London," for walking with safety along this tract of about three miles, appear to me unnecessary. The habit of travers- IN ENGLAND. 29 ing this whirlpool renders the passage easy to every one, without disputes, without accidents, without punctilio, as if there were no obstacle whatever. I suppose it is the same thing at Pekin. The silence then of the passengers is the consequence of the multiplicity of business. I do not say it by way of epigram, but, if Naples should ever have a population of a million and a half, it would be ne- cessary for even Neapolitan windpipes to put themselves under some restraint ! It is only in Spain that silence is the companion of idleness. This is perhaps the perfection of idleness ; idleness at its ne plus ultra. In London I have often risen early, in order to be pre- sent at the spectacle of the resurrection of a million and a half of people. This great monster of a capital, like an immense giant awaking, shows the first signs of life in the extremities. Motion begins at the circumference, and, by little and little, goes on getting strength, and pushing towards the centre, till at ten o'clock commences the full hubbub, which goes on continually increasing till four o'clock, the 'Change hour. It seems as if the popu- lation followed the laws of the tide until this hour ; it now continues flowing from the circumference to the Exchange : at half past four, when the Exchange is shut, the ebb begins ; and currents of people, coaches, and horses, rush from the Exchange to the circumference. Among an industrious nation, incessantly occupied, panting for riches, man, or physical force, is a valuable commodity. Man is dear, and it is therefore expedient to be very economical of him. It is not as in the coun- tries of indolence, where the man and the earth alike have little or no value. A Turkish effendi, or gen- tleman, always walks about with a train of useless ser- vants at his heels. In the same manner a Polish noble- man, or a grandee of Spain, consumes a great quantity of men, who are otherwise unproductive. I was told, 3* 30 THE ITALIAN EXILE that the Duke of Medini Cell has in his pay four hundred servants, and that he goes to the Prado in a carriage worse than a Parisian patache. It was the same in England when there was a foreign commerce, and no home manufactures. Not knowing in what way to con- sume their surplus revenues, the old English land owner used to maintain a hundred, and, in some cases, even a thousand followers. At the present day, the greatest houses have not more than ten or twelve servants ; and, setting aside the wealthy, who are always an exception in every nation, and taking the greatest number, it can- not be denied that in England, and especially in London, there is a very great saving, both of time and of servants. But how can this be reconciled with the loudly vaunted comfort of the English ? Thus : the milk, the bread, the butter, the beer, the fish, the meat, the newspaper, the letters, all are brought to the house every day, at the same hour, without fail, by the shopkeepers and the postmen. It is well known that all the street-doors are kept shut, as is the custom in Florence and the other cities of Tuscany. In order that the neighbourhood should not be disturbed, it has become an understood thing for these messengers to give a single rap on the knocker, or a single pull at the bell, which communicates with the underground kitchen, where the servants are. There is another conventual sign for visits, which consists in a rapid succession of knocks, the more loud and noisy ac- cording to the real or assumed consequence or fashion of the visiter. On this system, Parini makes his hero talk in public in a high and discordant voice, that every one may hear him, and pay the same respect to his accents as to those of " the great thunderer." Even in London, the magnanimous heroes of fashion announce themselves to the obtuse senses of the vulgar with "echoing blows," like those of the hammer of Bronte. IN ENGLAND. 31 This custom requires punctuality in servants, and an unfailing attendance at their posts. The price of every thing is fixed, so that there is no room for haggling-, dis- pute, or gossip. All this going and coming of buyers and sellers is noiseless. Many bakers ride about Lon- don in vehicles so rapid, elastic, and elegant, that an Italian dandy would not disdain to appear in one of them at the Corso. The butchers may be frequently met with, conveying the meat to their distant customers, mounted on fiery steeds, and dashing along at full gallop. A sys- tem like this requires inviolable order, and a scrupulous division of time. For this reason there are clocks and watches every where, on every steeple, and sometimes on all the four sides of a steeple ; in the pocket of every one ; in the kitchen of the lowest journeyman. This is a nation working to the stroke of the clock, like an orchestra playing to the "time" of the leader, or a regi- ment marching to the sound of the drum. Nothing can be more ingenious than the various ways in which the English contrive to mark the division of time. In some machines, for example, at every certain number of strokes, the machine rings a bell to inform the workmen of the fact. The tread-mill, introduced for a punishment and an employment in the houses of correction, also rings a bell every time it makes a certain number of revolutions. In the wool-carding manufactory at Manchester there is a species of clock to ascertain if the watchman, whose duty it is to guard against fire, has kept awake all the night. If, every quarter of an hour, he omits to pull a rope which hangs from the wall outside, the clock within notes down and reveals his negligence in the morning. One shopman, therefore, in London, supplies the place of forty or fifty servants : the shops may be distant, and remotely situated, without any inconvenience. The 32 THE ITALIAN EXILE shopkeepers themselves do not remain idle, and, instead of men, in some places lads or children are employed. The newspapers are circulated from house to house at a penny an hour ; the carrier is a boy of ten or twelve years old, active as a sprite, exact as time, who brings them and takes them away. By this system, the servants remain at home, with nothing to divert them from their occupations. The servant maids, especially, very seldom go out during all the week, until the arrival of Sunday sets them at liberty for three or four hours. It follows, also, that an English family has no need of keeping any great store of pro- visions in the house ; there is in consequence less occu- pation of room, and less occasion for capital, less care, less waste, less smell, and less wear and tear. IN ENGLAND. 33 TEA GARDENS. How to get through the supremely dull and wearisome English Sunday is always a puzzling problem. This country, all alive, all in motion, on other days, is, as it were, struck with a fit of apoplexy on the Sunday. In general, the foreigner, to make his escape from the "solemn sadness," climbs at ten in the morning upon one of the unfailing four-horse stages, at Charing Cross or Piccadilly, and contrives, at any rate, to get himself whirled away from London. He goes to Richmond, takes a quiet stroll in the beautiful park, admires the tortuous bend of the Thames, which will appear to* him a muddy or a golden stream, as he is in a poetic or pro- saic humour, and pays at an enormous rate for a dinner, seasoned with the formal bows of servants in silk stock- ings, who are dressed in black from toe to toe, like an advocate of Turin. Or he goes to Greenwich to admire another "beautiful park, the famous observatory, and the magnificent hospital for invalid seamen ; and takes his dinner in sight of the many vessels sailing past on their return from China or the Indies. Or, if he wishes for a more economical excursion, he goes to gape on the lovely hill of Hampstead, compassionating London, en- veloped in its cloud of smoke, and congratulating him- self on having made his escape from it. All these are good preservatives against the bore of Sunday, but it is not 34 THE ITALIAN EXILE in any of these beautiful, but, notwithstanding, melan- choly places, nor yet at the brilliant and serious pro- menade in Hyde-park, that a foreigner must seek to ac- quire a knowledge of the nation. John Bull does not go to show his paces in Hyde-park or Kensington gardens, nor to feed himself with poetical beauties, and compose romantic pastorals in Windsor-forest. If you wish to see that marvellous personage, who has been the admiration and the laughing-stock of Europe for more than a cen- tury ; who clothes almost all the world; who gains battles by sea and by land without much boasting about it ; who works as much as three, and eats and drinks enough for six ; who is the pawnbroker and moneylender to all the kings and all the republics on the face of the earth, and is yet, in a manner, bankruptcied at home, and is some- times like Midas, famishing with hunger in the midst of gold you must seek him elsewhere. In the winter you must descend into the subterranean taverns. There, round a blazing sea-coal fire, you will find seated the English working men, well dressed, well shod, smoking drinking, reading, and holding their tongues. The schools of mutual instruction, and the Sunday schools which are kept open gratuitously by all classes of dissenters, for the education of the poor children be- longing to their sect, have made the English people well acquainted with reading, writing, and arithmetic. In Scotland, even before the mutual instruction system there existed parochial schools, in which, besides reading and writing, the scholars were taught the rudiments of Latin grammar and psalmody. It is well known that these Scotch schools produced a great number of poets, among them, James Beattie, author of "The Minstrel ;" and Burns, a humble farmer, who became, without a rival, the Theocritus of modern times. For this class of readers there are published a number of Sunday newspapers IN ENGLAND* 35 which contain an abridgment of all the intelligence, anecdotes, and observations, which have appeared in the daily newspapers in the course of the week. Thus the blacksmith and the weaver are as well acquainted with the great events which are passing, as the first speakers in parliament. This is not a matter of trifling impor- tance : it is in these taverns, and amid the smoke of tobacco and the fumes of porter, that public opinion takes its rise, and its original form, that it reaches its first stage. It is here that the conduct of every citizen is weighed ; this is the road which leads to the capitol or the Tarpeian rock ; it is here that the love of country and the love of glory are kindled, that the services rendered to the public by zealous patriots are made known, that applause and disapprobation take their origin; it was here that arose the triumph of Burdett when he left the Tower, and the curses on Castlereagh when he descended into the tomb ; it is here that begins the censure or the approval of a new law ; and it is here that the rewards of desert, or the rebuffs of demerit, are prepared against the time of election. The tavern is the forum of the English, with this difference, that here there is no dispute or con- test Whether from the climate, temperament, or educa- tion, whatever may be the reason, certain it is, that in these taverns more quietness, order, and decorum, are observed, than in our churches : and these tavern states- men, after they have filled themselves full of beer and mixed liquors, instead of seeking for quarrels, fall directly on the pavement, " as falls a body dead." In the summer, John Bull likes after dinner to cheer his eyes with a glimpse of the country and the green. The nation altogether has a particular love for trees and flowers. The lord has, in his parks, oaks of a thousand years' growth, untouched by the axe, hot- houses full of exotic plants, exquisite fruits, and the 36 THE ITALIAN EXILE rarest flowers ; there is not a cottage in England which has not before it a little piece of ground for the cultiva- tion of flowers ; and even the poor town imprisoned artisan works at his loom in sight of pots of flowers, placed on the window sill (with a mind no less generous than my lord's,) in order that the passengers also may enjoy the sight of them. The love of flowers is in itself a great sign of civilisation. From time immemorial there have existed in England footpaths for general use across the fields belonging to private individuals. Some years ago the land owners, every where insatiable, endeavoured to close these foot- ways, and deprive the public of the healthful and inno- cent recreation of walking in them. What was the consequence ? In almost every county a society has been formed for defending the rights and recreations of the people. This will sufficiently show how nearly the people have their rights at heart, and how dearly they love their rural walks. In the neighbourhood of London there are a great many gardens, planted with large and shady trees, called Tea Gardens^ where the workmen with their fa- milies go to take tea after dinner, or to drink the " nut-brown ale." One of the most beautiful of these is Cumberland Garden, on the banks of the Thames, near Vauxhall. All over the gardens are scattered a number of clean little tables, around which are collected groups of four or six workmen, smoking with long white earthen pipes, (which are supplied by the landlord, filled with tobacco, for a penny,) leaning back, and throwing forth from time to time with the clouds of smoke, some imperfect sentence, just as we read Cor- poral Trim and the captain did, in Tristram Shandy. He who has not experienced the luxury of repose after five or six days' fatigue, cannot conceive how these IN ENGLAND. 37 men, speaking little and moving less, are nevertheless most happy in this living statue-like condition. Not an instrument is to be heard, not a single note of music, nothing meets the ear but the buzz of the talkers, who speak in an under tone; while the boats, full of people, keep coming and going by the Thames. On our lakes, we are accustomed to hear musical instruments, with their vocal accompaniments, and vintage songs. For the want of these the English, who are passionately devoted to music and poetry, are not to be blamed : the protestant religion does not admit of diversion on the Sunday, it demands the consecration of it to contempla- tion, to seriousness, to self-examination, without, how- ever, denying the consolations of the bottle. In Scot- land, where the religion of Calvin prevails, the Sunday is still more silent and gloomy ; with some a smile is almost thought a profanation. On this day of absolute inac- tion, the barbers are scarcely permitted to exercise their necessary trade after nine in the morning. On the continent there is great talk of the swearing of the English, of their tremendous "G d d n." I believe, for my part, that a Venetian gondolier or a Bolognese carrier, swears more than a thousand Eng- lishmen put together : besides, I have observed, in all the public houses, a notice from the magistrates hung up, threatening to punish with a fine any person who should make use of an oath. Whoever has formed an idea of the English from the finest poem of Voltaire (which I will not name, though every body has read it), would be surprised to find the rosy cheeks and robust athletic forms he talks of, changed into the pallid faces, and weak, unsteady frames, that characterise the mechanics who frequent these gardens. The spade improves a population, but the loom spoils it. What a difference between a 38 THE ITALIAN EXILE Scotch Highlander and a Glasgow weaver ! The 0110 still retains the well knit and athletic form of the war- riors described by Ossian : legs like the marble column of Lena, a breast high and ample as a cuirass, the colour of vigour in his cheeks, in all his deportment the fire and mettle of health and strength : the other, on the contrary, is lean, ill-made, old before his time, and feeble in his gait. What a contrast between an English coachman and a Manchester spinner ! The former is the very model of a lusty Bacchus, the latter of a prisoner for life. The deterioration of the population is a disadvantage of manufacturing states that has never yet been suffi- ciently considered. I made it my business to seek for some statistics of the manufacturing classes, in order to discover their maladies and usual length of life, but did not succeed in discovering any, and I believe none are to be found. It is difficult in fact, to procure any that can be relied on, from the continual removal of the workmen from place to place. Some physicians of Manchester have endeavoured to spread the belief, that the duration of life is the longest in those cities where manufactures have most increased. It is a pity Moliere is not alive! He would here have a fine subject for raising a laugh at the expense of quackery ! The as- sertion has not gained the slightest belief from those philanthropists who are exerting themselves to provide a remedy for the damage which, they are too well per- suaded, his recluse and sedentary life must do to the manufacturer. Some of these, for instance, Mr. Brougham and Mr. Hume, have encouraged the establishment of schools for gymnastics, where, in the hours of rest, the workmen may exercise their limbs in strengthening and diverting sports. The most persevering of them all, Mr. Owen, after having introduced even dancing into IN ENGLAND. 39 his stupendous manufactory of New Lanark, between Edinburgh and Glasgow, invented a new plan of labour, consisting of occupation alternately in agriculture and manufactures, and went to America to try the experi- ment. The classes of workmen are more or less ill- looking according to the character of their trades ; the population of Birmingham and Sheffield, employed prin- cipally in forges and iron works, present a much finer and stronger appearance than that of Manchester and Glasgow, which is almost entirely imprisoned in cotton factories. When 1 made some of these remarks at Liverpool, to one of the many intelligent and well-informed me- chanics of that city, he informed me that in the last war with France, the regiments recruited from that most industrious county Lancashire, were distin- guished above the rest for their bravery. This may very well be, since it is not the practice in the present day to fight hand to hand. There is no reason to be- lieve that artificers make bad soldiers, as the Romans believed them, and as the Florentines of the middle ages proved themselves. In Persia, where the strength of an army still lies in the cavalry, a service which requires strength and peculiar dexterity, the inhabitants of the manufacturing cities do not turn out to be good soldiers. But the war of modern times, in Europe, depends on bravery and discipline ; the English armies, who are in these respects exemplary, are, for a good third part, composed of artificers. The division of labour, so essential to the rapidity and the perfection of manufactures, and so much in use in England, is injurious to the development of the mental faculties of the artizan, or even, perhaps, is fatal to it. With what ideas can his mind be enriched by that shut- tle, that wheel, or that spindle, which moves incessantly 40 THE ITALIAN EXILE and unvaryingly before his eyes twelve hours in the day? " The result," says M. Say, " is a degeneracy in man, considered as an individual. It is a sad account to give of one's self, that one has never made any thing but the eighteenth part of a pin !" If the workmen did not enjoy the incalculable advantage of his companions' society, which in his hours of rest awakes him, electrifies him, and invigorates all his faculties, and had not always be- fore him the endless panoramas which are constantly presented from his living in a city, he would become, at the end of a few years, a perfect automaton. In fact, in- stead of saying that a master manufacturer employs such a number of workmen, it is commonly said, that he em- ploys such a number of hands ^ as if the journeymen had really no heads. The Broughams, the Humes, the Bur- detts, the Aliens, the protectors and protected of these classes, were well aware of this evil, and set themselves zealously to work to discover the remedy. They hit upon the idea of establishing libraries for mechanics in every city in the kingdom. These are only open for two hours in the evening ; they contain histories, voyages, and tra- vels, models of machines, &c. The subscription for a quarter is only eighteen-pence English. Not content with these, they founded in the most populous cities, professorships of mechanics and of chemistry applied to the arts. In London, more than 1500 operatives contri- bute each a guinea a-year for admission: this year a working shoemaker gained a prize of ten guineas for an essay on geometry. Some months ago a society was formed " for the diffusion of useful knowledge," which publishes and distributes every month a great number of elementary treatises on all the branches of the great tree of human knowledge. The Sunday papers, and the fre- quent public meetings which the mechanics attend, and where the most eloquent speakers address the multitude IN ENGLAND. '41 on public affairs, are an aliment and a stimulus to their minds. Mr. Hume, in the house of commons, on the 13th December, 1826, declared that the stamp-duty on newspapers was far too heavy in England. In the United States, the population of which is little more than half that of Great Britain, there are 590 newspapers ; while in Great Britain, on account of the weight of the taxes, there are no more than 484. He gave notice, after these details, that he should move for a reduction of the duty, at least on those weekly papers which are chiefly intend- ed for the working classes. Mr. Brougham, who is am- bitious of making that popular instruction he has so wonderfully promoted a durable monument to his name, with his accustomed eloquence, seconded the proposal. The influence that the press must exercise in a state where it is free, must (I would repeat it a thousand times) be incalculable. I will venture to say, that its in- fluence must be greater than that of religion itself! It is from these fountains that public opinion springs forth ; and this is alone sufficient to correct all the errors of legislation, and restrain all the abuses of power. It is a real panacea. The newspapers are the " daily bread" of morning and evening to every Englishman. So greedy is the public for its food, that the Times, not content with printing eleven hundred copies an hour, has improved their steam-press to such a degree, that now it prints no less than four thousand copies an hour, seventy in a minute, but that on one side only. Ortes, our too highly praised and too much depre- ciated political economist, maintains that commerce en- riches only the upper classes, accumulating wealth in the hands of a few, and leaving the mass of labourers always in the same state of misery. The tea gardens which I am describing are in themselves a complete refutation of this idea. The visiter observes with amazement the 4* 42 THE ITALIAN EXILE crowds of clean shaved artisans, dressed in good clothes, with boots on their feet, linen shirts on their backs, watches in their pockets, silk kerchiefs round their necks, lodging in comfortable houses, sleeping in clean feather beds, taking tea twice a day, and eating wheaten bread and butcher's meat every day in the year. Were they in so good a condition when the commerce of Eng- land was neither so flourishing nor so extensive as now ? The old men of the country, the current traditions, the ancient houses still standing, and many other irrefraga- ble testimonies, prove to the contrary, that houses, beds, furniture, clothing, food, every thing, were much inferior. The reason of this difference is manifest. When com- merce is in a prosperous state, the demand for goods always increasing, and consequently favourable to the workmen, they can keep up the price of their handicraft. It is now a demonstrated truth, that the wages of work- men are not only in proportion to the price of provisions, but also to the relation between the supply and demand of labour. Besides this, machinery and the division of labour having reduced the price of many articles hitherto consumed only by the higher and middle classes, they have come to be in general use ; the present wardrobe of a mechanic, although better than that which one of his class would have had sixty years ago, does not perhaps cost near so much. It is nevertheless true, that the introduction of steam engines has already taken away from some kinds of workmen this advantage as consumers, by competing with them as producers, and reducing them to that dis- tress which has been experienced for some years past. These vast machines, which do the work of several mil- lions of mechanics, are so many gigantic rivals of men. While the other classes of artisans, such as smiths, car- penters, dyers, glaziers, &c., earn from thirty to sixty IN ENGLAND. 43 shillings a week, or more, the weavers and spinners, working twelve hours a day, can hardly obtain fifteen or eighteen, even at the time that trade is briskest. They are not only physically inferior to the former classes of workmen, but are also most unhappy beings. At a meet- ing held in January, 1825, by the cotton-spinners of Manchester, to deliberate on the best method of improv- ing their condition, one of them rose to observe, that in the early days of cotton spinning the workmen were well paid, and quite at liberty ; but that during the last fifteen years, the masters, by the introduction of steam-engines, had heaped up riches, and increased their own comforts, while the journeymen had gradually descended lower and lower in the scale of society ; their wages had been diminished, and their labour increased. Then, after de- scribing the miserable life they lead in a hot suffocating atmosphere, and the various maladies to which they are subject, he exclaimed, " Look around and behold these squalid countenances, and thes"e emaciated bodies! Look at myself, not twenty-five years of age, yet already older than the man who stands at my side, a sailor of fifty. See to what a wretched lot we are condemned. From the age of six, most of us are buried in a cloud of cotton dust, in a suffocating and unwholesome air; exposed to the extremes of heat and cold, denied the needful repose for our weary limbs, oppressed with intolerable fatigue, and at thirty, we enter upon a miserable old age : our children are stinted in their growth, and our indepen- dence, sustained by untiring industry, is reduced, in some of us, to the sad necessity of asking charity, cap in hand, at the corners of the streets, of the poorest of the passers by !" This lamentable picture, in which there is much ex- aggeration, as in all the harangues of demagogues, an- cient and modern, over artisans dying of hunger in the 44 THE ITALIAN EXILE very centre of a nation wallowing in wealth, brought to my mind the naked Romans, who by the mouth of Grac- chus, complained that after so many provinces had been conquered by the republic, they had not a span of earth wherein to lay their bones. "And ye, O Romans! Ye who, with steel encumber'd, to grim death Your lives expose each day for country-sake, Ye masters of the world, who of the world Possess but that which can't be ta'en away, The air and light of heav'n roaming the fields, Till iron-hearted hunger pulls ye down Ye have, to bear ye fitting company, Your wretched wives, and naked, famish'd offspring, Crying for bread!" Monti, Gains Gracchus, Act 3. It would seem that eiripires are like men, who resem- ble each other in their virtues and their faults. Some English political economists, who pay attention more to the wealth than the happiness of a country, ob- serve, in reply to these complaints, that if it be true that these classes do not live comfortably, it is quite as true that without steam-engines they could not live at all. It is certain that Arkwright, by the invention of cotton- spinning machinery in 1765, and Watt, by the applica- tion of steam to it in 1779, gave their country a decisive superiority over the industry of other nations, although at the same time they deteriorated the condition of per- haps a million of mechanics, and gave rise to a production much greater than the demand : without these two won- derful discoveries, England would most likely have lost her superiority in manufactures, on account of the high IN ENGLAND. 45 rate of wages, which is partly an effect of the high price of food. If, then, some workmen, as I have already observed, injure their health in the spinning factories, there are many more who destroy themselves from an immoderate desire for gin, which induces them to labour harder than a due regard to their health would allow. Adam Smith, in his great work, observed, that, where prices are high, workmen are always found more diligent, active, and ex- pert, than where they are low ; in the neighbourhood of great cities, for instance, more than in remote parts of the country. Some men, indeed, when they can earn in four days enough to maintain themselves all the week, choose to remain idle on the other three. This, however, does not happen with the largest portion. On the contrary, the industrious, when they are liberally paid, in ready money, are generally disposed to labour excessively, and so un- dermine their health, and ruin their constitution in a few years. " It is calculated," says Smith, " that a London carpenter does not continue in his full vigour more than eight years." It is nearly the same with some other trades, in which it is the custom to pay the workman as soon as his work is finished, and even with farm labour, when the wages are higher than usual. I have endea- voured to procure, but could not succeed, the book which the Italian physician Ramuzzini wrote, in the last cen- tury, especially on the peculiar diseases produced by excessive application to one particular species of labour. 46 THE ITALIAN EXILE SAILORS. Whoever wishes to acquire a knowledge of another class of Englishmen, not less interesting than the me- chanics, must descend into one of those narrow by-streets near London Bridge, which lead to the Thames. The sailors, those sons of the ocean, are like the amphibious animals, which, even when on land, always keep close to the water. One day I took it into my head to walk into one of the numerous public houses which stand in these alleys, to see what metamorphoses those silent and se- rious beings undergo on land, in whose company I had, at various times, spent eight months on shipboard. How changed did I find friend Jack from what I had seen him at sea ! No longer serious, no longer quiet, no longer silent ; but joyous, noisy, and singing : the room on the ground floor, into which I entered, was involved in a thick cloud of tobacco smoke, which almost hindered me, at first, from distinguishing the dramatis persona. I had not yet taken my seat, when one of them, with a gait any thing but steady, and reeling like a ship in a storm, with a face the colour of mahogany, from the effect of the tobacco and liquors, offered me some of his " grog ;" that is, brandy mixed with water without sugar, which is the nectar of these heroes of the deep, I accepted it IN ENGLAND. 47 without hesitation, but the pewter pot, from which my generous friend had been drinking-, was empty, and the poor fellow had not perceived it. It had, in fact, so com- pletely slipped his memory, that he had already tossed off all this ambrosia, that he made a similar offer to every body that came in. He did not on that account lose his credit with me, because I know that sailors, who are hearts of oak when they are at sea, are hearts of butter when at a tavern, and generous as Caesar himself. The cheeks of the English sailor are not those sleek and florid cheeks which the climate naturally produces, nor are they of a tall and bulky make, like farmers of the island. Their faces are bronzed, or, to express it better with one of those enviable English epithets composed of two words braced together, they are weather-beaten* They are in general of the middle height, but large across the shoulders ; their limbs clean made and sinewy, and all their movements free and unconstrained. When they are walking, you observe in them a confidence in their own strength, and the audacity of a health proof against every thing. They traverse the streets with an indifference which is natural to them, as if cities were not made for them, or as if they were people who had seen things more wonderful than a city. Their large trowsers, their open jacket and shirt collar, their round hat, or plaid bonnet, all their dress, in fine, contributes to make them appear more active, more free and easy. It is well known that they never wear boots, because they use hands and feet indifferently; they are four- handed or four-footed just as they will. Their eyes are not sparkling, but they are intrepid, and express very well the heart of oak in their breasts. Their counte- nance generally denotes intelligence; frankness and generosity are stamped on it ; one would say, that none of these faces had ever told a lie. 48 THE ITALIAN EXILE In a corner of the room there was a group of these mariners, who were singing one of their sea songs, with the burden " Haul away, yeo ho, boys !" the cry with which they accompany any exertion made in concert: " British sailors have a knack, Haul away, yeo ho, boys ! Of pulling down a Frenchman's jack, 'Gainst any odds, you know, boys ! Come three to one, right sure am I, If we can't beat 'em, still we'll try To make old England's colours fly, Haul away, yeo ho, boys ! " British sailors when at sea, Haul away, yeo ho, boys ! Pipe all hands with merry glee, While up aloft they go, boys ; And when with pretty girls on shore, Their cash is gone, and not before, They wisely go to sea for more, Haul away, yeo ho, boys ! " British sailors love their king, Haul away, yeo ho, boys! And round the bowl they love to sing, And drink his health, you know, boys ! Then while his standard owns a rag, The world combined shall never brag They made us strike the British flag, Haul away, yeo ho, boys 1" When these had finished their song, which was duly knocked down by their leathern hands, a second group struck up another of their favourite songs, " Hearts of Oak." IN ENGLAND. 49 A fiddler, who had in the mean time entered with his creaking instrument, now struck up a ree/, a kind of Scotch dance, much in favour with the lower classes in England. Of all the English, the sailors are the most galvanic; above all, when they have emptied two or three cans of grog, " For if sailor ever took delight in Swigging, kissing, dancing, fighting, Damme, I'll be bold to say that Jack's the lad!" At this sound, as if it had been the signal for battle, all jumped on their legs, and began throwing their feet about, for I cannot say they danced. To get out of the way of this tempest of kicks, I mounted a small flight of stairs, and entered a second room, which pre sented another picture in the style of Teniers. It was exactly like that I had left, except that by the round hat of glazed leather, by the jacket and trowsers of blue cloth, in fine, by the uniformity and superior neatness of their dress, I perceived that the seamen belonged to the royal navy. In their faces, though flushed with liquor, the impression of discipline and obedience was still visible ; and although their deportment and gestures exhibited nothing of insolence, they betrayed neverthe- less more of arrogance and presumption than the others, although not so much as is generally exhibited on the continent (I know not why) by soldiers' of the line. They were singing the national anthem, composed by the poet Thomson, the author of " The Seasons," about a century ago, " Rule, Britannia." It was thus, perhaps, in the days of their glory and freedom, that the Venetians sung in the " holds" of their magic city, their victory over some Turkish fleet. At the present day they have substituted for those martial 5 50 THE ITALIAN EXILE songs " Visin di Nina," and " La Biondina in Gonrfo- letta;" "The Face of Nina," and "The Fair-haired; Girl of the Gondolet:" even songs are sufficient to mark the revolutions of the wheel of fortune. With this me- lancholy reflection I left these merry mariners, and quitted the tavern. It is to the seamen of the royal navy, well clothed, well fed, and of martial aspect, that England owes the inviolability of her coasts, her glory, and her trident. In the " Roderick Random" of Smollett (the best of his novels), where his hero is another Gil Bias, who passes through all conditions of life, some of the customs and characteristics of these sailors may be found described. The author draws from nature ; he had for a long time served on board a frigate, in the capacity of surgeon's mate. The visiters/to St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey are surprised at the prodigious number of monuments they find there to the memory of admirals, vice-admirals, and captains, who have gained naval victories. These magnificent mausoleums are testimonies of the national gratitude to the dead, as the superb hospital of Green- wich is the testimony of their gratitude to the living. It would have been impossible to select a more appropriate and comfortable situation for the invalided veteran. The building is on the banks of the Thames, and before it, in full sail, pass every moment the vessels which are arriv- ing from and departing for the different parts of the world. This sight nourishes in them the most pleasing illusions and recollections, and the park, which is an- nexed to the little town of Greenwich, affords them solitary walks, where they can call to mind, beneath the shade of aged trees, their past vicissitudes. English benevo- lence is ingenious in rendering the benefit bestowed complete, and even pleasing. The hospitals in England are, in general, placed on the most agreeable sites, as at IN ENGLAND. 51 one time used to be the case with our convents. The English poets have almost all contributed encomiums on the valour of their seamen. I look upon the English as highly favoured by fortune, in the possession of poets, who use the magic endowed upon their craft to make every one believe his own lot and his own station the most enviable. We reproach the English with being downcast and melancholy ; but we ought to add that they are not querulous. They labour indefatigably to better their condition, without whining and whimpering, and at the same time draw from their present condition all the profits and the pleasures it can afford. I say this in reference to those stanzas of Byron, in which he eulogises life on shipboard : " He that has saiPd upon the dark blue sea, Has view'd at times I ween a full fair sight, When the fresh breeze is fair as breeze may be, The white sail set :the gallant frigate tight!" This life, which to a cavalier servente, or a regular play goer, would appear more horrible than imprison- ment in the dungeons of the Inquisition, or of Spielberg, is described by Byron in his Childe Harold with the same sense of pleasure with which Tasso paints the gar- den of Armida. The " little warlike world" collected in a frigate, the " well-reeved cannon," the " hoarse com- mand," the " humming din," when at a word the " tops are manned on high," the " docile crew," guided by the shrill pipe of the "schoolboy midshipman," the white and " glassy deck, without a stain," " where on the watch the staid lieutenant walks," the part kept sacred for the lone captain, " silent and fear'd by all," to preserve " that strict restraint" which may not be broken without balking " conquest and fame," the swiftly 52 THE ITALIAN EXILE blowing " gale," the waves that " gaily curl" before the " dashing prow," the " convoy spread like wild swans in their flight," all these objects are dwelt upon with a great and partial fondness. This is not mere caprice or extravagance on the part of the poet. These stanzas of Byron are beautiful, be- cause they are also true. There is not an English cap- tain who is not in love with his vessel, his little world, which he. prefers to the Palais Royal. When, after ninety days' sail, we made the port of Dublin, our captain, in- stead of landing, as I did, to view the stupendous city, which he had never seen, remained on board for five or six days, with a more than philosophic indifference. What a loss to Italian glory that so many poets have thrown away their harmonious verses on so many Lau- ras and Phillises, who never existed and so many princes, who were never made to be the heroes or the themes of either verse or prose, instead of celebrating the daring naval enterprises of the ancient Genoese, or the many sea victories of the Venetians ! Tasso has indeed devoted two beautiful stanzas of his fifteenth canto to Columbus, but the discovery of a new world demands a national poem at least as loudly as the passage of the Cape of Good Hope, by Vasco de Gama, called for the Lusiad of Camoens ! Mr. Rogers, a living English poet, has writ- ten a poem of several cantos on the voyage of Columbus ; but partial as I am to English poetry, and highly as I esteem the poetical talents of that author, the flight of his muse appears to me beneath the loftiness, variety, and dignity of the subject. The poet who would sing the praises of " The naked pilot, promiser of thrones," should have his imagination filled and fired with the IN ENGLAND. 53 martial and romantic exploits of the Genoese, from the time of the Romans to the present, perhaps the only peo- ple whose inborn and indomitable courage has not become degenerate. He should roam through those Tillages of the Riviera di Ponente which lie on the shores of the Mediterranean; should study the ardent and enduring character of the countrymen of Columbus, at once citi- zens of the world and adorers of their native land ; should admire the sobriety of their lives, the tranquil resignation with which they support their extreme poverty, and the modesty of their manners ; should observe their active, full nerved, vigorous limbs, their daring and vivacious eyes, which express their readiness to take to the sea, whatever the weather, without asking to what part of the world they are to go : a daring which appears the more striking from their haughty and spirited glance, the red bonnet hanging over one ear, and their half naked, brawny, leather coloured limbs. The poet will perceive that the religious spirit of Columbus is a feeling common to his countrymen ; they fear none but God ; but their religious sentiments are perhaps pushed a little far, so that these new argonauts are like their fabled prototypes, bold indeed, but over superstitious. The sailors of the English men of war are as war- riors more glorious, but as mariners less interesting, than those of the merchant service. A vessel of war is always exposed to less danger of shipwreck than a mer. chantman, from the strength of its build, the abun- dance of its stores, and the greater number of hands to man the sails. It makes fewer voyages, and sees fewer countries, because in time of peace it is often in port, and in time of war it is often for several years on a cruise, continually ploughing the self-same space of sea before the blockaded port of an enemy. Finally, on board of these vessels there is a 5* 54 THE ITALIAN EXILE sort of division of labour ; the duty of every one is chalked out for him, or at least it is only seldom and by turns that the seamen are employed in different manoauvres. When the day of battle arrives, although to the English sailor it is always like the signal of death, he is nevertheless inspirited by the hope of glory, inflamed by the example of his messmates ; and, if he survives, mutilated by the bullet or the steel of the foe, he sees before his eyes the splendid hospital of Green- wich, which awaits him for his reward, like the palace of the Houris, promised by Mahomet to the brave who die in battle. Very different indeed is the fate of the seamen of the merchant service. A vessel of 300 tons goes to the end of the world, with a crew of nine or ten men. It is impossible to imagine the activity and cou- rage they must exhibit in a storm, the fatigue and peril they must undergo, sometimes for a whole day for two or three days together. Here is the glory, herein lies the superiority of the English seamen over all other European sailors. Others may have as much courage J the Greek is quicker, the Genoese more sober, but the Englishman is supreme in the terrible tempest of the sea : the rain, the hail, the wind, the whole fury of the waves, may rage and rave against him, but he resists and fulfils his duty : his strength seems multiplied a hundred fold, and he places his glory in conquering na- ture ! He seems made of the rock itself ! I was one day admiring the beautiful white biscuit, the juicy slices of salt beef, the unlimited number of potatoes, which, every day, with a little variation, form the din- ner of the sailors, who have, besides their tea morning and evening, a plate of salt meat: the captain, who saw my surprise, observed to me, " In a storm my crew pay me this again with interest." This class of mariners IN ENGLAND. 55 make more voyages than the others, and see a variety of different countries: " He travels and expatiates as the bee, From flower to flower ; so he from land to land ; The manners, customs, policy of all, Fay contribution to the store he gleans ; He seeks intelligence in every clime, And spreads the honey of his deep research At his return." Cowper. The craving for variety becomes such a habit in sea- men, that it is a rare thing for one of them to make two voyages in the same ship and under the same captain. When, in a few days, he has squandered in taverns all the hard earnings often, twelve, or fourteen months, he offers himself to some captain on the point of sailing, who throws a glance over his certificates, and examines his whole person most attentively, that he may not be deceived as to health, strength, and agility ; and the agreement, simple in its conditions, is signed. The wages, in time of peace, are from forty to fifty shillings a month, besides the victuals, to be paid altogether on the completion of the voyage, or in half or third por- tions at the place of the vessel's destination. Scarcely has the vessel returned to England, and discharged her cargo, before the sailor pockets his pay. From a poor man he suddenly finds himself a rich one, in the posses- sion of fifteen or twenty pounds sterling. His long pri- vation of pleasure changes the public-house, in his eyes, to an enchanted palace. This money seems to him an inexhaustible treasure, like that called forth by the lamp of Aladdin. He apparently renounces all his former virtues, he forgets all, he abandons himself to the most extravagant caprice, he buys every thing he 56 THE ITALIAN EXILE sees, a turnip, a watch, a warming pan, or a pair of spurs; and, ignorant of the snares which beset his every step upon land, unmindful of himself, of his rela- tions, of the future, of his most urgent necessities, he dissipates, in a few days, all the gains of a year of exer- tion. It was a saying of Charles the Second, which has become proverbial, that " Sailors get money like horses, and spend it like asses." At length the dream ceases, the illusions vanish, the fumes of the liquor dis- perse ; he looks around, he finds himself ill clad, with- out a friend or a relation ; [he presents himself to a new captain, and starts for another part of the world, under a new sky, amidst another sea, surrounded by new and unknown companions. The seaman is a sort of Robinson Crusoe; afloat, he practises almost every trade. Of all mechanical profes- sions, this is the one which affords the most instruction, and developes in the highest degree the moral and physical faculties. Besides the smattering of astro- nomy which he acquires, besides the foreign lan- guages and the foreign manners with which he becomes acquainted, the mariner learns how to mix paint for the boats and many articles on board, mends the ropes, sews the sails, and must, on occasion, play the part of carpenter, blacksmith, butcher, cook, and washerman. He is perpetually in motion, and exercises equally all parts of the body, arms as well as legs, feet as well as hands ; he is bent when he rows, or reefing and unreef- ing the sails ; he stands erect when he guides the helm ; he runs when the vessel is to be tacked ; he balances himself on the mast-head ; he ascends and descends the shrouds with the rapidity of a squirrel. There is no system of gymnastics which developes so impartially the powers of all parts of the human frame, the eye in- cluded, as the art of navigation. IN ENGLAND. 57 The order, the regularity, the discipline, which pre* vail in the narrow space of an English merchant brig, are wonderful. The face of the captain is always se- vere, the tone of his voice always sharp and imperious. No seaman may speak to the captain first, unless on a point of duty ; no seaman is allowed to make remon- strances or observations on the captain's orders. A smile never passes over his countenance; nor does a word of approbation or encouragement ever escape him. The men are confined to the forecastle, and woe be to them if they step on deck, except upon duty, it is the sanctum sanctorum of the captain and the passengers. The most profound silence always reigns among them, ex- cept that you occasionally catch a gentle whisper. With- out this inexorable severity, how could the captain, se- conded only by his mate, exact, in the very middle of the ocean, a prompt and blind obedience ? Even in spite of it, conspiracies and revolutions sometimes occur among the nine or ten individuals shut up in so confined a space, so impracticable is it to govern the human spe- cies ! An English captain always keeps his crew busy about something or other, even during a calm. This is also an expedient to prevent their taking a disgust to their occupation. Captain Parry, as soon as he had seen his vessel made snug for her winter station of five or six months, when on his voyage to attempt the dis- covery of a northwest passage, hit upon the idea of erecting a theatre, giving concerts, and setting up a school for teaching reading and writfng to his hardy mariners ; so anxious did he feel to provide remedies for weariness, and to keep the minds of his crew con- stantly occupied. It was not till after I had witnessed the effects of this strict order and discipline, and the continual handling of the sails r that I felt the full force of the maxim, that 58 THE ITALIAN EXILE without a merchant navy a maritime force cannot exist. It is universally admitted in England, that the best sailors on board the English fleet are those who have been bred up in merchant vessels. They have had a school of greater suffering, industry and experience, than those brought up on board a frigate. Between these two kinds of sailors there is the same difference as between a regi- ment of the line and a band of guerillas ; the soldiers of the line dazzle the most, because they often decide the fate of empires, the guerillas acquire less glory, al- though individually they possess more bravery, and are much more exposed to fatigue, to famine, and the sword. Sunday is, if possible, observed by the English wher- ever they may be. On that day, the silence even on board ship is still more gloomy than ever ; every one is shaved, every one puts on a clean shirt, every one en- deavours to display more neatness than usual in his dress. Some read a few pages in the Bible ; religion is a comfort to their minds, rather than a terror. The Englishman has no other intercessor with the Supreme Being than his own prayers. He hopes for no other mi- racles than those which spring from his own courage, and the discharge of his duty. In a storm, the Spaniard, and even the Greek, although a good sailor, throw them-* selves on their knees before some image, to which a light is continually burning, and in the mean time the sails and the vessel are under the control of the winds and waves ; the sighs and signs of contrition of the de- votees only serving to increase the confusion and dis- may. The Englishman, on the other hand, fulfils his duty, displays all his firmness of mind and strength of body, struggles with death even to the last moment, and only when he has exhausted in vain all the resources of his skill, and all the energies of his frame, gives him- self up to his fate, raises his eyes to heaven, and bows to IN ENGLAND. 59 the will of Providence. They are not indeed so thoroughly, devoid of prejudice as a philosopher of the eighteenth century ; some believe in ghosts, in hobgoblins, and pro- phetic voices which rise from the hollow of the deep, but in the hour of danger they no longer recollect these illusions, and see nothing but the reality before them, and see it without affright. I read in the " Mariners' Register" (which is a collection of official reports made to the Admiralty of shipwrecked vessels), miracles of constancy, patience, and intrepidity, displayed by sea- men to save their ships, and afterwards their own lives. One feels a proud complacency in seeing man in contest with the monstrous force of ocean, and generally tri- umphant over it ; in seeing him, when struck upon a rock in the middle of the deep, calculating on what day the frail bark will be entirely swallowed up, and in the mean time labouring at the construction of a boat ; and, when the hour of the total submersion of the vessel is arrived, descending into his fragile skiff, and, with a scanty supply of provisions, commencing a voyage of six hundred or a thousand, miles, and then arriving at some inhospitable land. Another time you behold him in the Pacific ocean, in a little boat, after having lost his vessel, steeping his cloak in the sea, to protect himself from the scorching rays of the sun; then, for want of water, extending his sails and collecting in them the rain which kind Heaven sends him. A poet of some reputation in England, but in my opinion of very mediocre talents, Falconer, has written a poem entitled "The Ship- wreck." It is a cold story of a vesel which, sailing from Cyprus to Candia, near Cape Colonna (the ancient Sce- nium), is thrown by a tempest on the rocks, and dashed to pieces. There is a minute description (in some de- gree the general defect of English poets, great and small) of all the manoeuvres and expedients employed by 60 THE ITALIAN EXILE the English captain, without any of those great strokes of the pencil such as Virgil gives, when he describes the sea storm which overtook the wandering JEneas, whose ships now rise to the summit of a mountain wave, now sink to the very bottom of the sea ; and without that in- terest which Homer excites for Ulysses, when alone on a raft he is thrown by the wind here and there, up and down by the raging sea, at one time cast on the waves, then catching hold of his raft again, till at last he com- mits himself to the waters, and, cleaving them with his breast and both his brawny arms, clutches at a rock with his outstretched hands, " And then Ulysses on the rock the skin Of his strong arms did leave;" and afterwards gets upon land breathless and speech- less, spouting water from his mouth and nostrils. There is much more poetry in the true statements of the Mariners' Register, than in the fiction of Falconer. This Register was to be found on board of every ship I ever sailed in ; at first it seemed strange that a sea cap- tain should like to read so funereal a chronicle, in which, as it were, his own fate is described ; but I have since reflected, that, just as land officers read with interest the accounts of battles and sieges, and instead of being cast down by them, are inspired with courage, and inflamed with emulation, so may a seamen learn from these nar- ratives not only to die with intrepidity, but to use all the various methods for his own preservation. On an occasion of some peril, I. had an opportunity of witnessing in my own person the bravery of this race of men. In coming from Smyrna, after three thousand miles of pleasant sailing, and seventy-three days of weariness and impatience, as we were entering the port IN ENGLAND. 61 of Carlingford, forty-five miles north of Dublin, (where the vessels are sent to undergo quarantine,) in the dusk of the evening we struck on a bank : at the shock of its striking, and the long grating screak that announced it, the nine English sailors who were on deck turned pale, but remained firm and collected. Not a cry, not a com- plaint was heard : all had their eyes fixed on the captain, whose orders they awaited ; he slapping his hands on his thighs exclaimed, " What a joke /" The first remedy was to spread all sail to the wind, to try if this would release us from the rock to which we seemed to be nailed down : in vain. The second expe- dient was to cast an anchor, and attempt by means of the capstan to move the vessel : still in vain. The third resource was, not to despair. As we did not yet know whether the banks were rocky or not, a trial was made with the pump to see if the vessel made any water. Fortunately, it did not. Our hopes were now placed on the next tide ; the hour of its rising was anxiously looked for : it comes ; every inch is observed, is measured, but the tide does not rise high enough. The ship, however, still continues tight and sound. The second tide is ex- pected with still greater anxiety ; a higher flow favours us, and wjth anchors and capstan we at last'work our- selves off this bank of evil augury, after forty hours of exertion. The captain, an excellent man and a skilful navigator/ was all this while indefatigable; but when we had got out of the danger, he fell ill of a fit of the gout, through the anxiety he had suffered, and several times bled at the nose. The vessel belonged to him, and, with his property, he would have lost his reputation also. Again we set sail, and went to take our post on quarantine. What a horrible thing is quarantine on board ship ! A dirty yellow flag warns others of the disease with which you are perhaps infected ; men fly 6 62 THE ITALIAN EXILE your breath, your touch ; they watch from what quar- ter the wind blows to speak to you ; instead of the friendly hand, the boatmen extends towards you an iron clasp to receive your letters ; in the night, a small light burns on the mainmast, to warn other ships to avoid you, like a rock or a whirlpool ; two sentinels come on board, to keep you in strict confinement ; three times a day the quarantine officer summons all on board before him, to ascertain that no disease is concealed. The quarantine is a temporary exile from the world and from mankind. It was in these fifteen days, of which every minute was counted, that I learnt from the captain many particulars of the life and manners of seamen. In time of war, among ten English sailors, it may be reckoned one is married, and in time of peace, one in eight. This proportion is much greater in all other nations, varying according to the extent and distance of the commerce they carry on. The Italian sailors of the Mediterranean, and the Greeks of the Archipelago, who very rarely leave behind them the pillars of Hercules, are for the most part married, because their voyages are of short duration, and they can often return to the bo- soms of their families : but the English, who by the immeasurability of their commerce are citizens of the world, would, if they were i.iarried, too seldom enjoy their home. Hence very few lay by for an event they do not think of, and in old age do not hope for. How could they feel affection for their families, whom from infancy they have abandoned? Besides, when they are on land " A girl and fiddle always make a sailor glad." Hence if through disease, or some other misfortune, one of them becomes invalided, he has no other resource than IN ENGLAND. 63 to beg through the streets, singing with a voice har- monious as thatof Boreas, " The Crippled Tar," or " The Lullaby," or some other of the countless naval ditties of which the English people are so fond. The poet Crabbe, still living, the truest painter of the manners of the English vulgar, has, in his tale in verse, " The Brothers," painted to the life the miserable end of a sailor, who, having in his best days improvidently squandered his gains, finds, when he has lost a leg, nothing but contempt and insult in the house of his own brother, who is married to a fury of a woman, and at last dies of anguish. This same painter-poet, in another little poem, " The Justice Hall," introduces a wretched street-walker as coming before the justice, with a baby in her arms ; she has been by turns the concubine of two sailors, father and son, and implores no other favour from the magistrate, than to listen to the series of her crimes and her misfortunes, which are in truth of such a nature that they make one shudder with horror. Crabbe is entirely the reverse of Cowper; they are like Heraclitus and Democritus, "Jean qui pleure, et Jean qui rit." Cowper sees every thing of the colour of roses ; all is virtue, all is happiness in England, ac- cording to him ; Crabbe sees every thing with a jaundiced eye, all is wickedness, misery, and vice. If, there- fore, the stranger lends an ear to each of them, he will find the truth more easily by their combined assistance. Crabbe is like the party of the opposition, for, to hear him, England has the worst laws, and administration of them ; Cowper is like the minister, when he speaks of the reign of George the Fourth, and paints it as though it were that of Saturn. Both are exaggerators ; but poetry, it must be remembered, is not history. 64 THE ITALIAN EXILE THE OPPOSITION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. Between the hall of the house of commons, and those of the representative bodies of the other nations which I have seen, there is the same difference as betwixt the house of a rich man of yesterday, and an old established gentleman of family. In the former, all is new and glittering ; in " good taste," and of the last fashion ; in the latter, every thing is antique, but solid and massive, of a piece with the walls and the age in which it was built. In the former, you discern the ostentatious showiness of that which is new and not customary ; in the latter, the negligence of riches, and the habitude of long possession. The chamber of deputies at Paris, the halls of the cortes at Madrid and at Lisbon, were new, like the institutions themselves ; the English house of commons is old, like the liberty that inhabits it. tlappy that country where liberty can boast of ages for its ancestors, and dwells from age to age in gothic edifices. If the house of commons were as old as the Druids, the members of parliament ought to dwell in the trunks oi: trees, like that ancient priesthood. He who enters the hall of the English parliament with the idea that he is about to see a Milanese or Neapolitan theatre, will be IN ENGLAND. 65 deceived in his expectations. There is not a choir or refectory of Franciscan friars which is not as elegant and majestic as this hall, or perhaps more so ; but if he enters it, on the contrary, with the idea that he is visit- ing one of the oldest of the temples of liberty, he will contemplate every object with that veneration with which we behold the heavy columns of the temple of Pa3stum, or the dreary catacombs of Rome. Fashion, luxury, pleasure, conventional beauty, are powerful in England, but they are not triumphant. Over elegance has not yet spoiled that taste for nature, which is the prevailing characteristic of the nation. Dress and manner, compliments and salutes, all, even to the conclusion of letters, is redolent of simplicity. The English are, perhaps, the best horsemen in the world ; that is, the firmest in the saddle ; yet they make no show of it. They are the lightest motioned of all in gymnastics ; almost all of them can, like their horses, leap hedges, ditches, and gates, yet when they dance, they scarcely raise their feet from the ground. They are, perhaps, or even without a perhaps, the best ex- temporaneous orators in the world ; yet they never study either gesture or declamation. In February, 1828, Mr. Brougham delivered a speech in parliament, on the re- form necessary in the civil laws of England, which lasted six hours and four minutes. Be it remembered, that four columns of an English newspaper are reckoned equal to one hour. There is no example, either among the ancients or moderns, of so long an extemporaneous speech of the deliberative kind. We all know that the Romans studied declamation as we study music, and that Caius Gracchus had a man with a pitch pipe behind him, who gave him notice when it was necessary to change the modulation of his voice. Our actors often 6* 66 THE ITALIAN EXILE go to study attitude and drapery in the statues of the ancient orators : Csesar, when he fell wounded to death, did not forget nobility of position. Although the Spaniards were not accustomed to public speaking, it was beautiful to see the noble gesticulations of the eloquent Martinez de la Rosa, and the movements of his large black eyes ; and to hear him change with exquisite art the tones of his strong and most sonorous voice. Galiano, too, another of the eloquent members of the Cortes, gesticulated so theatrically, that his enemies said he tried his speeches beforehand at a looking-glass. Why not ? Cicero took letters from Roscius, Roscius took lessons from his mirror, or the equivalent of a mirror, as all good actors do. There is none of this elegance or this affectation, which ever it may best be called, in England; they rise dressed just as it happens, gesticulate like a windmill, or perhaps not at all, like a phantom ; and for several hours change the modulation of the voice no more than a Scotch bagpipe. The minister, Canning, in the heat of speaking, used to thump with his right hand on a small wooden box which stood before him, like a blacksmith raising up and bring- ing down his hammer. His rival, Brougham, tall, thin, convulsed in the muscles of his face, crosses when he speaks both arms and legs, exactly like one of our bone- less fantoccini. Not even their actors, for example, the chief of them, Kean, employ those architectural attitudes which the actors of other nations make use of. Their artifice consists in following, not the dictates of art, but those of nature. I confess, however, that, in my opinion, the members of parliament ought sometimes to em- bellish nature a little. It is well known that in the English parliament an orator never reads, but always improvises. Every thing is spontaneous, every thing shows the man, every thing IN ENGLAND. 67 belongs to the speaker. But what, perhaps, is not so well known, is that the orators have not a ridiculous repugnance to retracting what may have escaped them, in spite of themselves, in the warmth of debate. An Englishman is not ashamed to unsay an injurious expression which he never had any intention to say. It is an act of justice which does him honour before both friend and enemy. The English regard duelling as the last and desperate remedy of inexorable honour. In the famous parliamentary debate on the 12th of December 1826, respecting the war between Spain and Portugal, Canning had allowed himself to be carried away by the torrent of his eloquence beyond the prescribed bounds. In a few days after he undertook the publication of his own speech, and omitted that part which in cold blood he, perhaps, would not have uttered. The retractation so surprised me at first, that I could not help saying, in the presence of an English gentleman, that " I had thought only philosophers and drunken men retracted what they had said :" the gentleman replied, with the national imperturbability. " These recantations are just and proper, because the extemporaneous speaker is in a state of excitement, which often carries him beyond himself." He who arrives for the first time in England, and goes to the house of parliament, runs the risk of forming a very erroneous idea of the opposition party, as occur- red in my own case. All the surrounding circum- stances conspire to lead him into error. In the first place, he sees a hundred or a hundred arid twenty oppo- sition members against four or five hundred. It appears therefore as if there were an insuperable arithmetical barrier. He hears an excellent speech, but it produces nothing but the sarcasms of the opposite party. Weak, and always overpowered by numbers, flie members of 68 THE ITALIAN EXILE the opposition are condemned to serve the nation with- out station and without public honours. The chorus which derides their efforts is that, too, which continually sings the praises of the ministers. It is, then, a useless martyrdom, voluntary and senseless as that which the Fakeers impose on themselves. For what does the op- position sit ? for the pleasure of saying " No !" It is at best a mere professorship of eloquence. This is what every one says to himself on his first view of the party in opposition. But he soon changes his opinion when he studies more profoundly the national organisation of England, and becomes familiar with the history of par- liament. In the first place, he perceives that if the op- position does not conquer, it at least hinders the enemy (whoever he may be, liberal or not,) from abusing his victory, or, consummating an unjust conquest. It is like the dike of a river, which cannot assist its current, but keeps it in, and compels it to follow its course. The advantage of the opposition does not consist so much in the good that it effects, as in the evil that it prevents. It keeps awake the attention, the patriotism, the distrust of the people ; it propagates in general the right opinions, it is the born protector of the injured and the oppressed, the harbinger of all improvements, of all liberal institutions. Suppose that, by accident, the opposition is composed of persons in favour of absolute power: to procure adherents, they will be obliged to mask their sentiments, to hold the language of justice and freedom, like those proud and tyrannic Roman patricians, such as the Appii and Opimii, who, to gain their suffrages for the consular dignity, descended to mix among and to flatter the common people ; or,, like Dionysius, who, when on the throne, crushed out thl very blood of the people, and, when he was hurled from* it, played the buffoon to the populace, and got drunk in IN ENGLAND. 69( the public taverns. But the action of the minority is not immediate. An opinion cannot be formed and pro- pagated and popularised in a few months, nor some- times in a few years. The abolition of the slave trade cost Wilberforce twenty years of persevering applica- tion. Every year repulsed, every year he returned to the assault, printing pamphlets, convening public meet- ings of philanthropists, collecting notices and docu- ments on the barbarous cruelties practised on board of the vessels engaged in the horrible traffic, and thus ex- citing the imaginations and melting the hearts of his fellow-citizens, he broke at length with the multitude into the temple of justice and triumph. At one period, Ireland could not carry on a direct commerce with the English colonies. How many strenuous and how many fruitless attempts were made before Grattan, in 1779, obtained the abolition of this unjust exclusion ! How many times, from the days of Adam Smith downwards, was the principle of freedom in commerce, now begun to be followed by the present ministry, brought forward by the opposition ! Thus, parliamentary reform, pro- posed originally by Pitt, in the first days of his career, when he found himself in the ranks of opposition, is now beginning to make proselytes within the walls of parliament, after having made many without. Thus catholic emancipation is probably on the point of being conceded, after so many unsuccessful endeavours to ob- tain it. Thus the abolition of colonial slavery is ano- ther laurel which the opposition sees at no great dis- tance, and will gather in no great length of time. The English opposition, in this point of view (let it be well observed), sets an example to all nations, all sects, all philosophers, and all authors, for without constancy, few of them can hope for success. When a cause is just at the beginning, we should 70 THE ITALIAN EXILE never despair, however often we may be repulsed* Under the blows of perseverance fell the Aristotelian philosophy of the scholastics, fell the torture and the inquisition : under the same blows tyrants will fall, in every nation, without exception. It is not true, either, that the opposition is always unrewarded ; the Irish made their countryman Grattan a present of fifty thousand pounds. Fox has statues, anniversaries, and a club, called after his name, which celebrates every year with a banquet and brilliant speeches the day of his birth. When Sir Robert Wil- son was deprived by the government of his rank of general, his party indemnified him with an annuity for his own life and that of his son. Sir Francis Burdett, when he quitted the Tower after six months' imprison- ment, found prepared for him by the people a triumph- ant procession more enviable than that of the ancient Romans. When Mr. Wilberforce passes through the crowd on the day of the opening of parliament, every one contemplates this little old man, worn with age, and his head sunk on his shoulders, as a sacred relic, as the Washington of humanity. This is a reward worthy of such a man, and far beyond all possible golden fleeces, or all the strange beasts that were ever set in brilliants. Often, too, (without any need of deserting, as Burke did,) the inarch of events carries into power the mem- bers of the opposition. When peace was to be made with the United States, in 1783, the ministry which had sustained and prolonged the war, was obliged to give place to those who had always opposed it. In the same manner, at the peace of Amiens, with the first consul of France, Pitt, the fortunate, the eloquent Pitt, had to yield the curule chair to his opponents. The resistance of the opposition is not useful to the nation IN ENGLAND. 71 ulone, but to the government itself. Without it, every administration would soon corrupt, and degenerate into infamy ; and its existence would be threatened, either with a slow-consuming, or a rapid and violent destruc- tion. Napoleon, at the time that every will bent before his, was compelled, in order to get at the truth, to take sometimes the advice of the opposition in his council of state, rather than that of his own ministers, as will ap- pear upon consulting the sittings of 1809 respecting the liberty of the press. In December, 1825, when Mr. Brougham informed the ministry, that he intended to propose a revision of the law of libel, a newspaper at- tached to the government, which was then opposed to him, expressed much pleasure at the circumstance, ob- serving, that between the two contrary opinions of two first-rate statesmen, such as Brougham and the secre- tary Peel, there would be found a third, which would reconcile the interests of the liberty of the press with the claims of justice for the repression of its licentious- ness. While the nation continues to prosper under the principles of the ministry, the opposition does nothing but prevent its wandering too far from the path ; but when it feels itself in a state of suffering and decline, under the existing management of affairs, the nation finds other principles at hand, other men and another party already matured, and prepared to guide the ves- sel of the state in a different direction. All republics, both ancient and modern, have been perpetually agitated by the two contrary winds of the aristocratic and demo- cratic factions, and although the former at every step passed from the hands of one of these parties into those of the other, they went on prospering for several centu- ries, in the midst of the oscillation produced by these changes. In a free government, the shock of two par- ties, and the apparent discord, are in reality only a con- 72 THE ITALIAN. EXILE test which shall render the country happy. Filangieri says that this emulation is at bottom nothing better than the love of power, but as this power can never be attained nor preserved except by promoting the general good, it can be no very great concession to call it pa- triotism. The two opposite forces, which oblige free governments to run along a middle line, are like those which regulate the motions of the celestial bodies : op- position produces the same good effects in the moral world. All governments deteriorate into tyranny with- out it: in the absence of criticism, which is their oppo- sition, what would literature and the arts become ? We should still be under the yoke of the commentators on Aristotle ; we should still have the atoms of Epicu- rus in physics, and the crystal heavens of Ptolemy in astronomy. If the Winklemanns, the Mengsies, and the Milizias, }iad not kept bad taste within its bounds, painting would have become a caricature, and architec- ture a heap of crudities. Except for criticism, the Gongoras would still hold the foremost rank in Spain, the Mariveaus in France, the Marinis in Italy : without Baretti's "literary scourge," the Arcadia of Rome would probably be still in higher esteem than the French academy, and the Italians would have become so many Arcadian shepherds, with their pipes hung round their necks. Without the struggle between duty and sacrifice, would there be any virtue or heroism in the world ? What is England itself with regard to the rest of Europe, but "the opposition," which always throws its weight into the scale on the side of the weak and oppressed, in order to preserve the equilibrium ? IN ENGLAND. 73 ENGLAND, THE REFUGE OF THE OPPRESSED. In London, as well as in almost all the country towns, there is a society which has for its object to pro- vide a lodging for the houseless. Where is the wonder, then, if England is herself the asylum of all the unfor- tunate ? Venice, in her days of glory, was the sanctuary of all the oppressed, whether by kings, by princes, by republics, by popes, or by antipopes. England, which, in the importance of its commerce, and its dominion over the sea, is the Venice of our times, displays the same universal hospitality. Either from justice or from policy, or from a sentiment of generosity and a feeling of her power, she collects under her vast sBgis all the con- quered and the wrecked whoever they may be. There is scarcely a single nation in Europe which is not her debtor for protection afforded, at one time or another, to a number of its people. When commerce decayed in Italy, and the usurping princes persecuted the wealthy merchants, many of these sought refuge in England ; and a street still remains called " Lombard street," be- cause they took up their residence on that spot. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes, (more fatal to France than the battle of Blenheim,) thousands of 7 74 THE ITALIAN EXILE French Hugonots took refuge in England, and carried thither, among many kinds of manufacture not known before, that of silk stuffs. He who does not disdain to study the history of human vicissitude in the dwellings of filth and poverty, should go to Spitalfields, where he will still find many French names among the weavers, and a street still called after the fleur-de-lys (flowers but too thorny for these poor emigrants.) In the more re- cent political storms of France, England afforded shelter to almost all the French nobility and princes ; and a few years after to the constitutionalists, the republicans, and- the adherents of Napoleon, in their turn exposed to perse- cution. And let it be observed, that an asylum like this, which is granted not by favour or caprice, but by a per- petual law of free states, to all the oppressed, is another beneficent gift of liberty, which, as the common mother of mankind, wipes, with an impartial hand, the tears from the eyes of all her children, and thus assuages the ferocity of man, which would become still more cruel by desperation. Among the Italian republics of the middle ages hospitality was so common a virtue as to draw from Machiavel the maxim, " Where banishments deprive the cities of men of wealth and industry, one state grows great by becoming the asylum of the ban- ished." In 1823, London was peopled with exiles of every kind and every country : constitutionalists who would have but one chamber, constitutionalists who wished for two ; constitutionalists after the French model, after the Spanish, the American ; generals, dismissed presidents of republics, presidents of parliaments dissolved at the point of the bayonet, presidents of cortes dispersed by the bomb-shell; the widow of the negro king Christophe, with the two princesses, her daughters, of the true royal blood, " black and all black ;" the dethroned emperor of IN ENGLAND. 76 Mexico; and whole swarms of journalists, poets and men of letters. London was the Elysium (a satirist would say, the Botany Bay) of illustrious men and would-be heroes. What must have been the astonishment of one who had seen the parliament of Naples, and the two cortes of Madrid and Lisbon, to find himself at the Italian Opera in London, with General Pepe, General Mina, the orators Arguelles and Galiano, with the presidents Isturiez, Moura, &c., jostled and jostling in the crowd with the ambassadors of their adverse governments ? It was, in truth, a sort of magic vision, worthy of the great necro- mancer Merlin himself. Often, in the course of that winter, did the London Opera house bring to my mind the enchanted palace in Ariosto, where so many paladins, friends and foes of each other, ran up and down the staircases, without being able either to get out or to fight. At their first arrival, some of these wandering cavaliers attracted a good deal of attention from the English public. The people is every where the people ; that is to say, boobies, ninnies. The newspaper writers ran to their lodgings to get the fag end of their lives at least, with seme anecdotes. The fashionables took a delight in exhibiting a new ** lion," which is the name given in England to any person of celebrity who is invited to an evening party, to be shown as the wonder of the day to two or three hundred persons, squeezed together like anchovies in a barrel, so that one can neither speak nor move. This diversion is called a rout; but some prefer to call them " living skeletons." How soon did this curiosity pass away ! The exiles, lions and all, were speedily buried in oblivion. There is no tomb so vast as London, which swallows up the most illustrious names for ever : it has an omnivorous maw. The celebrity of a man in London blazes and vanishes 76 THE ITALIAN EXILE away like a firework : there is a great noise, numberless invitations, endless flattery and exaggeration, for a few days, and then an eternal silence. Paoli and Dumourier, after having at their first appearance made a crash like thunder, when they died excited no more attention than a falling leaf. General Mina, when he landed at Ports- mouth, was carried to his hotel in triumph, and deafened with applause, for a month together, at the theatre in London. He was more famous than the Nemean lion. What then? He fell very soon into oblivion, and the grave closed over his name. The English people are greedy of novelty; childish in this alone, it makes no great distinction between good and bad, they want only what is new. They pay for the magic lantern, and pay well, but they always want fresh figures. To feed this in- satiable whale, that always pants with open jaws, " And after meals is hungrier than before," toil incessantly journalists, engravers, historians, travel- lers, philosophers, lawyers, men of letters, poets, min- isters with schemes for new enactments, the king with schemes for new palaces and buildings, and the liberals with schemes for parliamentary reform. One honour that none can refuse to the constitutional exiles, was the poverty hi which they were all plunged, not excepting those who had occupied posts of importance, and handled the public money ; Sefior Galiano, who had been minis- ter of finance at Cordova, and the organ of the govern- ment in the cortes for above a year, I often met in the streets on his return from a walk of four miles to give a lesson in Spanish ; to preserve the independence of his spirit, he had the national pride to decline the pension offered by the English government. A friend of mine one day surprised poor Arguelles in his room in IN ENGLAND. 77 the act of mending his trowsers, that Arguelles who had been thrice a member of the cortes, in 1812 and 1823, and had filled the high office of minister for foreign affairs ; on whose ' divine'* lips it may be said that Spain depended, so great was his political wisdom, and the fluency of his eloquence. I had seen these two repre- sentatives of the Spanish nation, on their leaving the cortes of Madrid, the day they answered the threatening notes of the Holy Alliance, borne in triumph to their carriages on the shoulders of a people, intoxicated with jey and admiration ! In the next spring the widow of General Riego died in London, consumed more by grief than by the English climate, which was nevertheless too severe for her weak state of health. All the emigrants were invited to her funeral, which took place at the catholic chapel in Moor- fields, within the city of London. I fulfilled with a sen- timent of pity this last sad office towards a family with which I had been connected in the bonds of friendship. I shall always remember with pleasure having been the bearer of some letters from Cadiz, written to this virtuous lady by her husband, the hero and martyr of the Spanish revolution. Four ministers of the constitutional ex-go- vernment held the pall; very few among the many hun- dred exiles had been able to provide themselves with mourning; and this in England, where the very poorest of the people are able to show this great mark of decency and respect. On this occasion, however, the poverty of the mourners, if its cause be taken into consideration, formed the most appropriate and affecting ornament of the ceremony. To bring about a revolution requires such sacrifices, such acts of courage, such enthusiasm, that those who * An epithet bestowed by the English who heard him speak in the cortee of Cadiz , in 1812. 7* 78 THE ITALIAN EXILE undertake it must be gifted with an imagination and with feelings far above the common level. Hence it is, that in those great events which present, as it were, a nation in convulsion, so many prominent and striking characters are produced. Without revolutions, the linea- ments of the great families called nations, would be more uniform, and less expressive. The strongest marked physiognomies of these families appear in violent tem- pests. The revolution called the reformation, in Ger- many ; that of the parliament in England, the last in France, &c., have formed entire galleries of characters perfectly new and original. I had an opportunity of verifying my observations among the brothers in exile with whom I was acquainted. In the composition of persons who have been engaged in a revolution may be discovered, in a greater or less degree, much imagination, a quick sensibility, a high ambition, vanity still higher than true ambition, and extreme inquietude and irrita- bility. It is no wonder, therefore, that where such ele- ments abound, we should find differences, quarrels, and disputes without end, excessive lamentations over dis- appointment, instances of heroism and extraordinary virtue, unheard-of crimes, and inexplicable changes from fidelity to the falsest treachery. I will here sketch some of the more remarkable characters, of whom I acquired a better knowledge, during their adversity in London, than I could have done when their passions were in full fervour. Senor Franco of Valencia is a Spanish patriot who, to be useful to his country, and to acquire that influence over his fellow-citizens which neither birth nor riches nor extraordinary talents conferred upon him, devoted his life to virtue, and, " Under the shield of conscious purity," IN ENGLAND. 79 carried about his poverty in triumph. Humble, indeed, though always decent in his dress ; sober, although some- times giving way to indulgence at the table of some opulent friend, or occasionally at another ; as a judge bold, decided, and inexorable. Six years of exile con- sumed in attempts and stratagems to prepare that mine which was destined in 1820 to spring, and demolish the absolute government of Ferdinand the Seventh, were remunerated by the cortes with a pension which was his only patrimony. Of strict honour in all his dealings, of inviolable secrecy, scrupulous to an extreme of injuring the reputation of others ; his testimony was often ad- mitted to be decisive even by his enemies. He was sometimes selected as the arbiter between two contend- ing factions, and when the good of his country was con- cerned, would, like a second Friar Savonarola, fulminate his wrath even against his bosom friends. Full to the brim of love of country, he harangued at dinners, in the theatre, in the streets, and in the shops, at once inex- haustible and indefatigable ; and, as his passion for liberty was the only spirit that could actuate him, as he was always free from interested views, from every kind of ambition, his speeches sparkled in every part with original, picturesque, and fiery expressions. Knowing at the time of the war of independence the obstinacy of the prince, he had advised his countrymen to offer the throne to the Duke of Wellington, adducing the example of Sweden, which at that very moment was placing the crown on the head of a marshal of France. To get rid, if possible, of Ferdinand, he went to Rome to offer, in. the name of his fellow-citizens, the sceptre of Spain once more to Charles the Fourth upon certain conditions. By the force of this Cato-like spirit alone, he had attained to an importance among his countrymen to which many others, with more ambition, and superior means, had not 80 THE ITALIAN EXILE been able to arrive. After the fall of the constitutional system in Spain, I saw him again in London, with the multitude of other emigrants, not in the slightest degree crest-fallen. Nothing in London took his attention ; it seemed as if his mind still remained in Spain. He ran through the streets of London as though he were still in the Calle de la Montera at Madrid. Beggared, but not begging, except sometimes a trifle to pay for his bed and a porringer of milk, almost his only nourishment, forced to lie a-bed in winter because he could not afford to pay for firing, this virtuous tribune of the people did not yet believe his mission ended; he harangued when he could, and as much as he could. His eloquence was heightened by the events and misfortunes that had oc- curred. But when, from these sublime raptures he re- turned to himself, and, retiring from the theatre of the world, to which his fancy carried him, cast his eyes on his dress, on the cold and naked walls of his chamber ; when he was constrained to extend his hand for the wretched pension of the English government, that he might eat and live, passionately then did he exclaim, " Thanks be to religion, that ordains every sacrifice, and rewards me for all. Without that, I should long ago have spurned virtue from me : see where this syren has for a second time conducted me, the shipwrecked sailor of revolution, without friends, without assistance, without even fame! in the midst of a foreign nation wallowing in wealth, and valuing only riches and pros- perity. Without religion, I should have faltered a thousand times in the path of duty, for virtue alone was not a sufficient compass to direct my course of action in the midst of a sea of contamination !" To feel the greater interest in this man, one should know that before the revolution he had been a friar. He left his cloistered prison because the gates were thrown IN ENGLAND, 81 open to him, but he preserved his fidelity to his vows, and to God. He lived amongst the disciples of Rousseau and Voltaire without restraint or mistrust, and, without reproving them, did not blush to avow to their faces the religious sentiments which he so deeply felt. He would have sounded the praises of religion before Diogoras, or Spinoza, or Diderot. I recollect another affecting re- flection being made one day in the midst of the pressure of poverty. " It is noble," said he, " to suffer on a great theatre where the applauses of spectators, the trumpet of fame, encourage you to endurance. Every torture then brings with it its consolation and its reward ; but the true, the most poignant, the purest sufferings, tempered by no relief, are not those of the hero, or the illustrious martyr, but of such obscure atoms as I, who suffer such heart- aches for liberty in obscurity, forgotten by all the world !" Those who are accustomed to behold with admiration the stoic impassibility which will bleed to death without even breathing a sigh, will perhaps think these lamenta- tions not consistent with philosophical decorum. Those on the other hand, who admire the heroes of Homer and the Greek tragedies, who now weep like children, now fight like Gods, will find these bursts of nature full of truth, and think him perhaps more interesting, who complains indeed amid the throes of grief, but still tri- umphantly pursues the path of duty. The first time I saw at Madrid the silver-tongued G , he was dressed in a green camlet cloak, a straw hat, a pair of dust coloured shoes, and I know not what else. He seemed as if he had copied the toilette of a parrot. I went to the hall of the cortes to hear him, and he appeared to me a second Cicero. He speaks extemporaneously with the same elegance and facility with which a member of the Spanish academy would write. I met him a second time, and examined him 82 THE ITALIAN EXILE more narrowly. I found him a little, lean, short-sighted man, unsteady on his legs, a very devil-on-two-stickg. I went that evening to hear him from the people's gal- lery, and he appeared to me a giant that with the thunder of his eloquence might have shaken Olympus. Two months afterwards I met him in London, uncorrupt, inaccessible to every kind of seduction, unchanged, and unchangeable ; he seemed then a Cato. This man is a species of Sphinx ; he is a mixture of beauties and de- fects : vainglorious in the extreme, but always ready to sa- crifice his self-love at the altar of his country ; given to pleasure, yet of a candid mind, and free from offence. The English government granted a pension to all the members of the cortes ; he was the first to refuse it. In the meanwhile, he honestly sold his pen to the literary journals. One of the great leaders of Spain was the first in London to bow to the yoke of fate, and became a teacher of languages rather than bow to the yoke of man. He is a boaster, but I never heard him boast of the sacrifices he had made to his country. To give one- self up to one's country, is in his eyes a bare duty, not a virtue. I never heard him either lament over, or sigh for, the comforts of this " life more overcast than 'tis serene, This mortal life, of direst envy full." He seems invulnerable either by fortune or by man. Another exile with whom I was long acquainted, was the Count Santorre di Santa Rosa. His name had been connected with the Piedmontese revolution, but the na- tion which admired the few acts of his ministry, had not time to appreciate his virtues as a citizen, and his talents as a statesman. Whoever lived under the same roof with him, could not avoid being the better for it. The IN ENGLAND. 83 very judges who pronounced sentence of death upon him, would have revoked it, if they had known the pu- rity of his heart. He was one of those men who are born to fascinate all around them, and to make follow- ers. Eloquent, of a cultivated mind, brought up in a camp during the first years of his youth, under the eye of the colonel his father; but a lover of solitude, that ho might give himself up to study and contemplation, he joined a military frankness to the holy enthusiasm of the hermit. A good companion, a warm friend, an ex- cellent host, he created around him more genial merri- ment, with no liquor but water, than others, assisted by all the inspiration of the bottle. Although he held no higher rank in the army than that of lieutenant-colonel, yet all eyes were fixed upon him as 9 man who would do unheard of things. His mind was as pure as his life. He loved liberty, not only for its effects, but also as a sublime and poetical state of existence. At the same time, nevertheless, he loved monarchy ; he wished, so to speak, to worship liberty in her temple, with a king for high priest. In Constantinople he would have adored liberty alone, as in Philadelphia he would have voted for a king; he loved a king, through his love of liberty, be- cause he believed a king to be the guarantee of liberty with order. He was enamoured of the history of his country, and a warm admirer of the military monarchy of Piedmont, not that he would not have corrected its Gothic defects; but he admired it as one admires an old suit of polished steel armour, which is no longer useful, but still dazzling. He felt for the diminutive kingdom in which he was born, the same affection which is shown by the citizens of small republics. Thus, although he could speak both French and Italian with singular ele- gance, he delighted to commune with his fellow country- men entirely in the Piedmontese dialect ; it was his 84 THE ITALIAN EXILE Ranz des Peaches. It will, therefore, excite no surprise that he was inclined to an aristocratic constitution. When I saw him for the first time in Turin before the revolution, he was in favour of two chambers of repre- sentatives ; I said to him, " Let us defer that question till after the triumph ; in the mean time, rest assured of this, that, till the talisman of the Spanish constitution is displayed, the majority of the Italians will riot stir." After a short pause, he replied in a resolute tone, u If it be so, let us defer this important question to a better op- portunity, and grasp the Spanish constitution only as a lever to raise degraded Italy from the wretched slavery in which she is plunged." There are few examples of so manly and generous a sacrifice of individual opinion to that of the many. England was for him an inexhaustible field of obser- vation ; he studied her institutions as the ancients stu- died the laws of Crete, and they pleased him the more, that the aristocratic principle being predominant in them, their success in practice was a splendid confirma- tion of his political speculations. Nor would he perhaps have abandoned this land of liberty, nor that fire which is never quenched, had not hearts, formed to strive for fame, awakened him from his life of repose at Notting- ham, to combat for the liberation of Greece, His intense love of liberty was inflamed by a tincture of religious enthusiasm : he went to Greece with the courage and the devotion of a true crusader. If he had been able to speak the language, he would have inoculated his fol- lowers with his enthusiasm ; he had a cross always hung round his neck, and he astonished the palicari with whom he went to Navarino, by flourishing his sabre with one hand, and displaying his cross in the other, while he translated for them the verse of Tasso " For country all is lawful, and for faith." IN ENGLAND. 85 He died as he had lived, a brave man^with arms in his hands, face to face with the Egyptians, as they landed in the island of Sphacteria. He could not have had a more honourable death nor a more honourable grave. The slaughter of the Turks and the Egyptians, soon after at the battle of Navarino, the 20th of October 1827, was a hecatomb which expiated his death, and the conflagration of that barbarian fleet the noblest funeral pile that could be reared to his unburied bones ! 86 THE ITALIAN EXILE ROADS. The prosperity and civilisation of a country may be estimated in a hundred different ways. Some measure it by the population, some by the quantity of money in circulation ; this by the state of its literature, and that by the state of its language. David Hume said, that where good broad-cloth is made, astronomy is sure to be known, and the sciences to be cultivated. Sterne, from the hy- berpole of the barber who dressed his wig, and the finery of the Parisian gloveress, deduced two qualities of the French nation, one amiable, and the other ridiculous. Pangloss, when he was shipwrecked on the coast of Por- tugal, drew the inference, from the sight of men hanging in chains, that he was in a civilised country. Why may we not also draw an inference of the civilisation of a coun- try from the condition of its roads ? Where there are no roads, or but few, however magnificent, we may take it for granted that there are few or no books, few or no manu- factures, many and unjust laws, few legislators or only one, a great many friars and very few learned men, many miracles and little money. Whoever has travelled in Europe, must have seen with his own eyes the truth of this doctrine. Russia, Poland, Turkey, Greece, Transyl- vania, Hungary, Croatia, Bukovinia, Spain, and Portugal, which are certainly the least civilised portions, are also those which have the fewest roads. In the Peloponnesus, IN ENGLAND. 87 where, when poems, tragedies, and histories, were writ- ten, there were so many roads and cart tracks, there is now no longer a carriageable road ; not in the whole kingdom of the king of men, Agamemnon : " Of countries vast the ruler sole-supreme, The best of kings, in war supremely brave !" who had Automedoii for his charioteer, the best coach- man in all Greece. From Velez-Malaga to Grenada, in the once wealthy kingdoms of the Arabian dynasties, there is no other road than a precipitous mule track. From the city of Mexico to Guatemala, there is nothing that can be called a road. To get over the twelve hun- dred miles of intervening distance, the deputies from Guatemala, when that republic was united to Mexico, were obliged to undertake four months' disastrous tra- velling. From Omoa to Guatemala it is the same : to traverse these three hundred and fifty miles, takes sometimes from six to seven months, in the case of the transportation of merchandise on the backs of mules. The other Spanish American colonies all alike had over- few roads, and over-much wretchedness, ignorance^ and superstition. On the contrary, France, Germany, and Italy, have more roads and more civilisation, and England has more roads and canals, than all the rest of Europe put toge- ther, and more civilisation. I remember seeing in M. Dupin's work on England, that the total length of its roads and canals, in proportion to its extent of surface, is very much greater than that of the roads and canals of France. Does not the comparative civilisation of the two countries stand perhaps in the same scale ? Let the same comparison be made between the roads and 88 THE ITALIAN EXILE canals of the north of Italy and those of the kingdom of Naples, and the same result will be obtained. This is not a mere casual coincidence, it is an un- failing- effect of an infallible cause. From the want of easy communication, men remain disjoined and isolated ; their minds grow cold, their spirit slumbers, they feel no emulation, they experience not the spur of the neces- sity for satisfying- new desires, have little moral develop- ment, energy, or activity. This is the reason why the republican, or the citizen of a free state, is of a fervid, animated, and enterprising- spirit, because he lives and moves in a multitude ; while the subject of an absolute monarchy, where the population is usually scanty, and scattered over a large surface, becomes dull and drowsy, not more from the terror than the isolation in which he lives. When men are brought nearer to each other, by means of roads, canals, steam vessels, suspension bridges, rail ways, and (would fate consent) air balloons, they will waken up, their ideas, their desires will mul- tiply, and their energy and intelligence in proportion. Why is a countryman necessarily less active and intelli- gent than a citizen ? Why the inhabitant of a small town less so than the inhabitant of a great capital ? Be- cause the mixing and rubbing together of men is less. It would appear that the development of the human mind is in the combined proportion of the mass of men, and the velocity of their intercourse. I will quote, in illustration of this, two beautiful similes of Verri in his Meditations on Political Economy (now at length known and esteemed by the English). " A blade of common grass mowed down in the meadow is a piece of inert matter, while it remains isolated, or only collected in a small mass ; but let a large heap of these blades of grass be piled up, and a fermentation will be observed to take place, heat will be unfolded, a motion propagated IN EXGLAND. 89 throughout the mass, which will at length take fire, and blaze up till it illumes the horizon." " A bunch of grapes, by itself, or with only a few others, discharges itself of a mere dreggy matter ; but when a large quan- tity is compressed, the mutual impinging of the infinite volatile particles agitates the whole mass, effervescence is every where produced, and a liquor distils from it which fills the atmosphere with fragrance, and the veins of him who drinks it with life and youth ! Such is the picture of mankind." For the lovers of similes, I will add another. Men, those pebbles of Deucalion, are ex- actly like flints, which never throw out fire until they are struck together. Straight roads and symmetrical cities, betray a des- potic power, caring little or nothing for the rights of property. An undeviating right line is like the sword of Alexander, with which he cut the Gordian knot, when he found it impossible to untie it. Turin and Berlin, the two most regularly built cities in Europe, rose under the word of command from two military monarchs ; and who does not discern in the interminable straight roads of France and Poland, the arbitrary hand which must have made them so ? On the contrary, in England, that ancient land of liberty, the streets are crooked, full of ins and outs, and most of the cities are mere heaps of habitations, built without a plan, as necessity or ca- price dictated, not composed of files of houses, drawn out in line with the regularity of so many battalions of soldiers. Yet the English love order, celerity, and eco- nomy : true, but it appears that hitherto he has above all these ever respected the rights of property. So nu- merous are the windings of the public roads in England, as to render a deduction necessary to be made, in strict justice, in favour of France, from the proportions laid down by M. Dupin, to which I have before adverted. 8* 90 THE ITALIAN EXILE The footpath that always runs along the sides of the streets in the towns, and many of the roads in the coun- try as well, shows that the people are respected and re- spectable. There are canals for merchandise, the mid- dle of the highway for those that ride, and the footpath for those who walk. The footway is the triumph of de- mocracy. The lower class is not, as in other countries, quite disinherited ; it has its own portion, small, indeed, but inviolable. On the continent, instead, the roads seem only made for the rich and for the horses. Which is the best method of obtaining good roads, that is, not only highways, but also cross-roads, that, like the veins of the human body, run in every direc- tion, and conjoin in one whole, the largest cities with the remotest villages ? Is the system of tolls, or that of a public superintendence supported by the taxes, the bet- ter ? Verri says, " Every payment imposed on the pas- sage of roads, or the transport of goods, such as tolls, taxes on carts and carriages, has the effect of rarefying the population, and rendering parts of it more isolated. Smith, on the other side, maintains the utility and the justice of turnpikes, observing that this tax, or toll, though it is advanced by the carrier, is finally paid by the consumer, to whom it must always be charged in the price of the goods. As the expense of carriage, however, is very much reduced by means of such public works, the goods, notwithstanding the toll, come cheaper to the consumer than they could otherwise have done ; their price not being so much raised by the toll, as it is lowered by the cheapness of the carriage. The person who finally pays this tax, therefore, gains by the appli- cation more than he loses by the payment of it. His payment is exactly in proportion to his gain. It is, in reality, no more than a part of that gain which he is obliged to give up in order to get the rest. It seems IN ENGLAND. 9 1 impossible to imagine a more equitable method of raising a tax." However discordant these two opinions may appear, they may both be correct in different cases. That of Verri is the just one in a country of little activity, and little commerce and resort. If the passage of carriages and merchandise be rare, how can the turnpikes pay the expenses of the construction and maintenance of the roads ? Instead of this, they would lessen, or perhaps completely annihilate the little intercourse already in existence. England itself in those few districts where transit is rare, does not follow the general system of turnpikes, but sets in motion that of parochial rates. The opinion of Smith also is just, in reference to a country like England, from a survey of whose condition he constructed most of his theories, where the internal communication is so vast, that in a few years it refunds, by means of the tolls, all the expenses of making the roads, and keeping them in repair. I am perfectly well aware that Lombardy has, since the reign of Joseph the Second, been in possession of a very provident code of laws for the formation of roads ; the English laws, nevertheless, are perhaps no less ex- cellent than our own in this particular, as may be ga- thered from M. Dupin's work, in which they are all given. As these do not come within my scope, this re- ference must suffice : I resume my former subject. I repeat that the whole of the English roads are not made and maintained by means of turnpikes. Those which serve only for communicating between village and village would not in some cases pay the gatekeeper for the trouble of taking the toll. These, therefore, are maintained as economically as possible. Those, how- ever, running between cities of large trade, and much frequented by travellers, are kept up by means of farm- 92 THE ITALIAN EXILE ing out the tolls. The erection of turnpikes is optional on the part of the municipal authorities, but it is not to be wondered at that they all adopt them, because by their operation a share of the expense of the roads is thrown upon the goods and passengers that make use of them. The consent of parliament is indispensable be- fore this tax can be imposed, and, when this consent is granted, it is always accompanied by the condition that it shall cease within a certain time after the proprietors have reimbursed their outlay, with interest. These tolls are consequently temporary, and liable to rise or fall as is found necessary. Why, it may be asked, does not the government main- tain the principal roads, and afterwards repay itself with the tolls ? Because, by this method, it is to be feared that the tolls would become a perpetual tax, and, instead of being only a transitory imposition to pay a debt, it would become a source of peculation. Where a govern- ment has no other direct interest than those of justice and impartiality, it takes care to set impassable bounds to its concessions. It fixes unalterably the toll, and the time it is to be kept up. All the great roads, bridges, and canals in England, were made and paid for by means of tolls. The government has done, as it were, nothing : but it has done the best it could do it has " let things alone." All the canals, which in England are innumerable, were constructed by companies, of which there have been more than fifteen within the last sixty years. These have dug and opened canals in every direction, on the faith of the toll they were to be allowed to take. The shareholders have gained almost double the usual rate of interest ; commerce an increas- ed facility, and a great saving of time ; the public a great convenience ; and the whole country incalculable wealth. It cannot be pretended, however, that the turn- IN ENGLAND. 93 pike system is altogether free from drawbacks. The greatest is the number of unproducing persons obliged to be employed in taking the tolls, and the inconvenience to which the passengers are put, in having to stop and pay at every turn (the stagecoaches, however, and the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, pay weekly, on Satur- day) ; there are also frequent embezzlements by the re- ceivers, and sometimes immoderate profits are made by the farmers of the toll, or the trustees of the road : but the advantages to be placed in the opposite scale over- balance the others most decidedly. In the first place, the expenses of the road are exactly distributed among those who make use of it, according to the extent of their traffic. The mountaineers of Wales, for example, who hardly ever leave their native province, do not contribute a farthing towards paying for the beautiful road from London to Liverpool, which they neither use nor wear out. This way is also steady, and independent of state favouritism or state events : if the expense be made to fall on the government, it may, perhaps, alter its policy, may be more partial to one province than another ; now it may be too active, now too indolent ; at one time too profuse, at another too sparing; or, which happens oftenest of all, it may injure by caprice, or devote to other purposes, the funds in- tended for this department. Even the best constituted governments may be forced, by an unforeseen war, or a thousand other accidents, to employ the money other- wise than it ought to be. Charles III. of Spain made some magnificent roads, his successors neglected them. When the roads are under the charge of the government, they get better and worse several times in a century ; when they are under the control of those who make use of them, there is no reason why they should be allowed to fall into decay. 94 THE ITALIAN EXILE When a government undertakes these matters, utility is too often sacrificed to display. What is the use of those ample roads in France, which, as M. Say wittily observes, * are twice as wide as they ought to be, and lead to a capital whose streets are not half so wide as they ought to be !" Charles III., with the money he spent on the great road from Irun to Madrid, and from Madrid to Seville, might, if he had spared something of their Castilian pomp, have opened a carriageable road to Corunna, which is still wanting, and levelled the pre- cipitous road that leads to Portugal. When the roads are made by the public, there is no tinsel, no flattery about the thing. Every one pays, every one is interested, every one points out what is wrong, every one is on the watch. When they are made by the government, they are baptized with the name of some prince, and what is, in reality, contributed by the nation, is spoken of as the free gift of " the powers that be." Many may complain, but few are heard, and rarely, indeed, is the matter looked to. The aid of government is necessary until the traffic on the roads is risen to a moderate height. Up to that moment, I agree with Verri, it can and ought to make the roads ; but as soon as things are in a proper train, and the traffic is sufficient to repay the expenses within a certain time, I agree with Smith, that the system of tolls is preferable. When they are once established, the benefits arising from roads will soon become immense. Scarcely have they become smooth and commodious before carts and coaches change their forms, and take ethers more airy and elegant; lighter and more handsome horses are used, because the roads do not fatigue them so much. More commodious inns are set up, and furnished con- stantly with fresh provisions, because intercourse is IN ENGLAND. 95 more frequent, and consumption quicker; better shel- tered stabling will be necessary, more skilful and atten- tive grooms. An English stagecoach, which carries eighteen passengers, skims along, drawn by four excel- lent horses, with a coachman dressed like a gentleman. It makes the spectator tremble and wonder at the same time, when he sees such a mountain of " men and things" rush by, on a very ticklish balance. If the roads were bad, instead of good, all must change ; the scene I have just described would disappear, because, on a bad road, a carriage so loaded would break down, or upset, before it could stir a step ; the friction would be much greater ; it would be necessary to have more arid heavier horses. All these ameliorations are a chain which depends on a single link, and that link is the road. All who travel in Spain fly into a passion at first, and afterwards cannot help laughing, at being jolted about in a vehicle with beams of timber for shafts, axle- tree, and springs ; and is drawn by six mules, after the fashion of a twenty -four pounder. The fashion of these carriages, which are built like ships, must not be attri- buted to the bad taste of the Spaniards, but to the steep- ness of the roads in Arragon, Estremadura, and Galicia. When the roads have become smooth and solid, and the other successive improvements are brought to bear, the intercourse between province and province, between re- lations and friends, becomes more frequent ; marriages, adventures, incidents, every thing multiplies, and a new world is created. In England, they go three hundred miles to hunt ; owing to the conveniences, friends pay each other visits, although at the distance of one or two hundred miles ; old men and young ladies, sucking babes* with their mothers, all travel without annoyance, * For whom a separate conveyance, it may be anticipated, will some time be contrived ! Translator. 96 THE ITALIAN EXILE inconvenience, or impediment. At every inri on the road, breakfast, dinner, or supper, is always ready, a fire is burning in every room, and water always boiling- for tea or coffee. Soft feather beds, with a fire blazing up the chimney, invite to repose ; and the tables are covered with newspapers, for the amusement of the passengers. The English inns would be real enchanted palaces, did not, at last, the bill of mine host appear, to dispel the illusion. Throughout the island, king, ministers, and members of parliament, are all in perpetual motion, on horseback, in gigs, or in carriages ; on their way to dinners or horseraces, assemblies, concerts, or balls. At the balls given three or four times in the year in each county (" the county balls,") ' families who live twenty, thirty, or forty miles off, make their appearance merely to pass away three or four hours. By means of these vehicles, this constant coming and going, com- fort wealth, and new inventions, are diffused equally over the whole surface of the country. It is not fluids alone which have a tendency to come to a level : let the dikes of the inquisition, the police, the spies, the custom houses, be thrown down; let human knowledge spread itself, and flow without obstruction, and it will soon be seen that philosophy, literature, constitutional liberty, will also tend to a level over the whole surface of Europe. In the midst of this concourse of travellers, thieves disappear, every body knows that, only sixty years ago, it was not uncommon, on a journey, to make up a purse for the highwayman, so much were the roads then in- fested with them. At the present day, the instances of such an occurrence are most rare : a highwayman must make as much haste about robbing a -coach, as a pick- pocket in stealing a watch. At every hour of the night, stagecoaches full of travellers arrive and depart, with IN ENGLAND. 97 horns blowing to announce their approach ; with lamps (sometimes of gas) that throw a light a hundred feet around, dashing along at a regular breakneck pace. It is impossible to calculate how much time England has saved, and how much it has shortened its distances, by means of improved roads, in the last forty years. To go from York to London, that is, two hundred miles, used to take six days : by the mail it now takes twenty hours, by the other coaches twenty-four. From Exeter, fifty years ago, they promised " a safe and expeditious journey to London in a fortnight." Private carriages now accomplish the hundred and seventy-five miles be- tween that city and the capital in eighteen hours. Before the invention of steam vessels indeed, the post from London to Dublin took at least six days : in a stormy winter, in one instance, no less than forty- two. Now, whatever the weather, it takes no more than three. A sailing vessel lately arrived at Liverpool in sixteen days from the United States, and brought some venison fresh from the other world ! When steam vessels cross the Atlantic, which they will do at no great distance of time, American game will be a dainty any thing but rare. All this quickness of communication would increase still faster, if England would adopt, in her roads, the des- potic straight line, which perforates, like a cannon-ball, houses, parks, gardens, and pleasure-grounds. A mathe- matician might find diversion in reducing the superficies of England to the proportion which the present velocity of travelling makes it bear to that of forty years since. The result would probably show, that England is reduced to a tenth of its size at that period. Exeter was once (in relation to time) sixteen times more distant from Lon- don than now. One thing compensates for another. The discovery of New Holland and the interior of Africa 9 98 THE ITALIAN EXILE makes the world grow larger and larger to the eye, in the same way that the velocity of communication, by drawing its parts nearer together, reduces its dimen- sions, and makes it grow little once more. I cannot help laughing at the efforts of despotism to arrest the progress of liberty, while liberty passes on, by the help of civilisa- tion, in a thousand ways. The despots put me in mind of the stupid peasant of Metastasio, who runs with ea- gerness to stop the torrent : " In vain he wastes upon the sands His labour and his care, For if in one place he withstands The torrent's force ; lo here ! lo there ! Lo ! in a hundred streams it breaks its way I" If the press be chained, the truth still penetrates through the universities"; if the professors there are persecuted and imprisoned, civilisation comes in along with com- merce : if, to obviate this, they adopt the prohibitive sys- tem, roads, roads alone are sufficient to bring the minds of men into contact and fermentation. There is no des- potism so consistent in its means and ends, or, if I may be allowed the expression, so enlightened, as that of the Turkish government, which permits neither printing nor universities, commerce nor roads; yet even the coffee- houses of Constantinople were by themselves sufficient to create an opposition to the Grand Seignior, notwith- standing he is own brother to the sun and moon! IN ENGLAND. 99 TIME. Idleness is the luxury of the Spaniards, and a great luxury it is, for it is all waste. It is a universal luxury, which is enjoyed by all, from the highest grandee to the most miserable water carrier. The luxury, however, consists in the spending of an article of little or no value in Spain. The Castilian, who keeps so religiously to his word when his honour is in question, is never punctual to an appointment ; because an hour more or less, in the life of a Spaniard, is only an hour less or more in eternity. If you propose to a Spaniard to set his hand to a thing at once, he answers you, however he may be interested in it, "To-morrow." Fatal to-morrow, which is repeated so often from day to day, till your patience is worn out ! Fatal to-morrow, that has reduced the kingdom, once seated on a throne of gold, and crowned with precious stones, to rags and a dung-hill ! The very mantle^in which the Spaniards wrap themselves up, and which impedes every motion but that of sleeping, displays their indolence, and the little value they set on time, as the laziness of the Turks is shown by their wide trowsers and loose slippers. When the Spaniards are better taught, more industrious, and less prejudiced, they will wear the mantle no longer. Superstition is usually the companion of sloth. An active people cannot afford to pray away whole days at church, or throw them away on processions and pilgrimages. 100 THE ITALIAN EXILE An industrious people prefer growing their " daily bread" with their own hands, to asking it thirty or forty times a day as alms from heaven. When I was first in Spain I was surprised to see, that none of the lower classes, and but few of the more respectable, had watches ; yet it is natural that it should be so. What has he who has no occasion for the division of time, to do with the measure of it ? Their noon is the same as that of the horses and dogs, the' emptiness of their bellies ; the siesta is, per- haps, the business of the greatest importance they have to do during the whole day. It is esteemed such an in- dispensable necessary of life, that a poet, I think the tender Garcilaso de la Vega, singing the delights of the Aranjuez, tells us that the nymphs of the Tagus, at a certain hour of the day, give themselves up to the siesta. The journey from Madrid to Seville, which is not ac- complished by a galley in less than sixteen days, would be got over in England in two. But what of that? In these sixteen days the Spaniard would not have produced a skein of thread. For this reason, in Spain, and in all countries where indolence is in vogue, there are no ma- chines for the abridgment of labour. Four years ago, the coaches of the King of Spain were in the same state as when coaches were first invented. In some provinces the carts have wheels which do not turn on their axle- trees, but with them, making all the while an infernal creaking. The Spanish people, formerly so great, and who might yet be so, are rendered by despotism like the inhabitants of the Castle of Indolence, described in Thom- son's poem, who, deceived by the perfidy of a tyrannical magician, slumbered on in the delusion that they were living in a terrestrial paradise, while they were in reality surrounded on all sides by desert wastes, and fetid marshes, and eaten up with wretchedness and misery. On the contrary, in England, time is a revenue, a IN ENGLAND. 101 treasure, an estimable commodity. The Englishman is not covetous of money, but he is supremely covetous of time. It is wonderful how exactly the English keep to their appointments. They take out their watch, regulate it by that of their friend, and are punctual at the place and hour. English pronunciation itself seems invented to save time ; they eat the letters and whistle the words. Thus Voltaire had some reason to say, " The English gain two hours a day more than we do, by eating their sylla- bles." The English use few compliments, because they are a loss of time, their salute is a nod, or at the utmost a corrosion of the four monosyllables "How d'ye do?" The ends of their letters always show more simplicity than ceremony : they have not " the honour to repeat the protestations of their distinguished regard and profound consideration " to his " most illustrious lordship," whose u most humble, most devoted, and most obsequious ser- vants" they " have the honour to be." Their very lan- guage seems to be in a hurry ; since it is in a great part composed of monosyllables, and two of them, again, are often run into one : the great quantity of monosyllables looks like an abridged way of writing, a kind of short hand. The English talk little, I suppose, that they may not lose time : it is natural, therefore, that a nation which sets the highest value upon time, should make the best chronometers, and that all, even among the poorer classes, should be provided with watches. The mail coach guards have chronometers worth eighty pounds sterling, because they must take care never to arrive five minutes past the hour appointed. At the place of their destination, rela- tions, friends, and servants, are already collected to re- ceive passengers and parcels. When a machine is so complicated as England is, it is essential for every thing to be exact, or the confusion would be ruinous. In England there is no bargaining. The price of every 9* 102 THE ITALIAN EXILE article is fixed. This custom is not the product solely of competition and confidence, but also of the necessity of saving- time. Thus a child may go to buy without being cheated ! how otherwise could the shopkeepers manage on market-days, when, from noonday till nine or ten at night, their shops are crowded with customers ? The greatest traffic in England, that is, that of the pub- lic funds at the Stock Exchange, is founded altogether on good faith. A broker effects sales of thousands and tens of thousands by means of a few figures in a little book he carries in his pocket. Without this laconism, or saving of time, how could it be possible to effect in a few hours so many transfers of the funds, and so many insurances ? Insurances to the amount of ten million pounds sterling may be procured at Lloyd's coffee-house, in a single quarter of an hour. Why does no one travel on foot in England ? Why do the meanest workmen travel with four horses, in the style of the proudest nobility on the continent ? Because the stagecoaches save time. The infinite number of machines, which, in manufac- tures, multiply a hundred fold the work of man, may be estimated according to the saving of time they occasion. When it is said that the cotton spinning machine does the work of two hundred spinners, it is the same as say- ing, that it does, in one day, the work of a spinner for two hundred. These machines have been imitated, or have been made known by means of drawings, on the con- tinent; but how many others remain unknown, which, in the farms, in the seaports, in the warehouses, and in the shops, are employed by the English to save time and trouble 1 The Englishman does not expect to make his fortune either by the lottery or by miracle. Luther has deprived him of the latter resource, and the government of the IN ENGLAND. 103 former, having recently suppressed it. Hence he places his hopes and confidence in nothing but time ; his wish is not that of Midas, to become possessed of mountains of gold at a stroke, but for an opportunity to work, and make money. Double an Englishman's time, and you double his riches. In conclusion, with respect to industry and labour, it is no flattery to say, that the Englishman is better than the Spaniard, since he is a man in the image of God, who is always doing. So thought Thomson, when he put into the mouth of Idleness this apostrophe to her fol- lowers " Ye helpless race, Dire labouring here to smother reason's ray, That lights our Maker's image in our face, And gives us o'er our earth unquestion'd sway ; What is the adored Supreme Perfection, say ? What but eternal never resting soul, Almighty power and all directing day, By whom each atom stirs the planets roll Who fills, surrounds, informs, and agitates the whole !" Castle of Indolence. 104 THE ITALIAN EXILE ENGLISH MARKETS. " Fairs and markets belong to a state as yet little ad- vanced in public prosperity, in the same manner that commerce by caravans belongs to a little advanced stage of commercial relations ; yet even this imperfect kind of relation is better than none at all." I do not know how M . Say, an author generally so judicious, came to forget, when he wrote this passage, that England, without ques- tion and in every respect the richest and most populous of states, has more fairs and markets than any other. It proves that political economy is not a cosmopolitical science, but something like that of medicine, in which the aphorisms that will apply to all cases are but few. There is no town in England which has not one or two markets every week, and two or three fairs for horses, cattle, cloth, cheese, &c. in the course of the year : the city of York alone has no less than fifteen horse and cattle fairs every year. Every English almanac con- tains the names of above three hundred market towns, as these are called. To these markets resort not only the peasantry, but all the farmers, great and small, of the country side, for at least ten miles round. It forms an interesting and animated scene : from earliest dawn to mid-day the roads leading to the town are covered with droves of cattle, flocks of sheep, foot passengers, tilted carts, and countless numbers of mounted rustics. The country IN ENGLAND. 105 folks use little covered carts, in which all the family, dressed in their best, sit at their ease. The dog, the most constant friend of man, follows the caravan, and takes charge of it, when the family leave it to do what they are come about. Most of these carts have no springs, because, if they had, they would have to pay the tax to which spring-carts are liable, according to the spirit of the English laws, which imposes taxes on an ascend- ing scale, from comfort to luxury, and from luxury to superfluity. The head of the family, however, if he is a farmer, goes to market on horseback. It is pleasant to see these English farmers, mounted on fine strong horses, in little troops of five or six, well clothed and fed, taking their way to the town at a brisk trot or full gallop, and in the evening, returning to the village, still rosier and jollier than in the morning. Their wives and daughters are often to be seen on horseback, riding with such ele- gance that they could not be distinguished from ladies, if they were not betrayed by their round anti-sentimental full moon faces. The farmers are in almost every coun- try the finest race of men, and in England this appears most strongly, from the contrast between them and the numbers of the population whose look is spoiled by the manufactures. There are as many races of men as there are different professions : what a difference between a sedentary watchmaker, in a heated atmosphere, peering through a microscope at a hair's breadth of gold, and a farmer of England (or Lodi), with plenty to eat and drink, and continually in exercise in the wholesome open air ! In Yorkshire, which produces the finest horses in Eng- land, I have often seen farmers mounted on animals that on the continent would be worth a hundred guineas. In some counties (and the custom used to be more general) the farmers carry their chaste better halves seated behind them on the crupper : the Englishman puts the lady in \ 106 THE ITALIAN EXILE the place of his portmanteau, while the Spaniard, more respectful, as well as more gallant, when he rides double, places the lady before him, supports her with the left arm, and in the attitude of a Roman at the rape of the Sabines, admires and talks to his Dulcinea. Enquiring within myself what could be the advantages of this general use of markets in England, it occurred to me that they might be as follows : in the first place, the English towns are open, and at none of them is there a tollage or impost to be paid at the gates (if there were any). Hence it arises that there are no stoppages, no petty peculations, no loss of time, no vexation. The Englishman would rather let his goods rot to pieces, than submit to be searched and pulled about every moment by a set of wretched hirelings, placed at every gate of the town, as inspectors of his breeches' pocket. The maxims of commerce are diffused through all classes in England ; even the farmers know that free "competition is advantageous to both buyer and seller. Instead, therefore, of waiting patiently in their village for the coming of the butcher or the recattone, to buy their chickens, their potatoes, their cows, and their cattle, or that of the pedlar to sell them the little articles necessary for their wardrobe, they prefer to go themselves to market, and thus escape the monopolists to whose grasp they would, in other countries, be subject. This custom arises also partly from another cause : cultivation being confined almost entirely to the meadow and the corn field, turnips and potatoes, leaves the farmer plenty of time to go to market. In France and Italy the cultivation of the vine, to say nothing of the rearing of grain, grass, mulberry and other fruit trees, and Indian corn, leaves him at liberty only a few days in the winter. This custom depends also in some degree on the use which is made of horses in most countries, instead of oxen. In Nottinghamshire, oxen are so rarely employed, IN ENGLAND. 107 that, when yoked, they become an object of curiosity. Lord Middleton keeps three pair of oxen for the labours of his park, " Wide-fronted and arch-horned," and beautiful as Homer's oxen of the sun : the inhabitants of Nottingham go to see them, by way of amusement, when they are ploughing, yoked in an elegant harness. The use of horses permits the farmer to go a good dis- tance to market without wasting much time. It should be added, that the breeding of horses is a branch of rural industry all over the country. Beccaria, in his " Lessons on Political Economy," de- monstrated, by comparing the strength and longevity of horses with those of oxen, that in many provinces it would be an improvement to substitute horses for oxen in rural labour. This calculation is corroborated by some other considerations : time would be saved, horses doing every thing quicker than oxen; there would be more ac- tivity and traffic, because, by the aid of horses, inter- course is accelerated ; the breed of both horses and oxen would improve, the first from the greater number that would be required, and their importance to the farmer ; the second, because they would scarcely ever be bred for any thing but consumption, as in England, where the beef is superior to any other in the world ; there would be better cavalry for the army ; men and horses, fit for the purposes of war, would easily be found. In the last struggle with France, England had a splendid mounted national guard of forty thousand strong. The young men of the Lodigians and Lumellina were the finest ca- valry soldiers of the ex-kingdom of Italy. This is not altogether a vision of my own ; Berra, a well informed and diligent observer, having, in his travels, 108 THE ITALIAN EXILE studied the advantages of the English artificial meadows, and explained and recommended the cultivation of them to his countrymen, in an excellently written little work. Does not his advice, which tends to the substitution of a more useful and constant crop for that of grain, which is always uncertain, and in Lombardy has been declining, year by year, from 1818 downwards, coincide with these thoughts of mine ? England, sixty years ago, was in the same condition as Lombardy at present: it produced more grain than was necessary. Finding no longer a con- venient vent for the surplus, the landholders diminished the culture of grain, and took more to increasing the pas- ture, and the rearing of horses and cattle ; and they find this more profitable than if they had kept the whole of the land arable. If the advocate Berra would imitate the perseverance of the senator Dandolo, and join prac- tice to precept, he would confer a distinguished service on his country ; by getting a greater produce from the land, by liberating the country from the obligation of importing horses from abroad, as it is now forced to do, not only for the luxury of the great, but for the necessi- ties of agriculture. In Lombardy itself, as appears from Verri's book on corn, 218,920 perches of arable were converted into meadow, in the country around Pavia and Lodi, from 1753 to 1768 ; at which, if I recollect right, Verri, zealous for the cultivation of grain, expresses his regret, without reason, in my opinion, for surely agricul- tural, as well as manufacturing, industry ought to follow and to second the vicissitudes of commerce and consump- tion. If Lombardy can no longer find an advantageous vent for its corn, why not plant vines (where they will thrive), why not make artificial meadows, since there is invariably an annual balance of trade against it in wines and foreign cattle ? England has, in all undertakings relating to mining, IN ENGLAND. 109 manufactures, commerce, and agriculture, a considerable advantage over the other countries of Europe, in the pe- cuniary assistance of the country banks. These, either on mortgage, or simply on personal security, advance capital for every sort of enterprise, in notes which circu- late throughout their own county. There is hardly a farmer in England who takes an estate on lease, who does not assure himself beforehand, that, in case of de- ficiency in his own funds, a neighbouring banker will assist him with a loan, to be repaid when the fruits of his improvements are gathered. One of these banks alone had at one time one million pounds sterling lent to the farmers and tradesmen of a single county. It must not be thought, however, that England is El Dorado ; all these portentous sums are paper. An English market or fair would not be a good sub- ject for the picture of the Flemish school, like most of the country markets in Italy. In vain would a painter seek for the capricious dresses of the Alpine women, who descend to the market of Varallo, those little hats, carelessly thrown on ; those ear rings, those coral neck- laces, and bright gold buttons ; in vain would he look for the women of Fobello, their wild goats in their arms, with short petticoats, and dresses of the most sympathetic colours in the world, white, red, and blue ; in vain would he wish to delineate the bacchanals of the fair of Imbevera, the jumping, tooth-(and-gum)-drawing quacksi the groups of speechifying country topers about a barrel set abroach, the singing, the quarrelling, the dancing of the villagers to the sound of the pipes. In vain would the poet, like a Lorenzo de Medici, seek for a Mencia da Barberino: " And two such eyes she has 'tis quite a feast, When she uplifts them and toward you glances, 10 1 10 THE ITALIAN EXILE And in the midst, just to a hair between A lovely nose the loveliest ever seen, It seems bored with a wimble at the least, And then, oh, how she dances! She darts just like a goat from clift to clift, And turns no mill-whesl ever turn'd so swift ! And pops her hand into her very shoe, And when the dance is done, curtsies so free, And turns and makes a skip or two, There's not a Florence dame could do't so well as she !'* There is nothing of all this in England. The country people are hardly distinguishable by their dresses from the inhabitants of cities. Besides, in this most serious and formal country, every things proceeds with due gra- vity and order. If the election times be excepted, when it appears as if the English people changed their nature, and became seized with a periodical frenzy ; the English- man always even rebels, gets drunk, and kills himself, with an air of decorum. A greater silence prevails at an English market than in St. Peter's at Rome. But this noiseless scene presents to the eye of the philosopher a consoling spectacle : he sees those country folks who, on the continent, are every where the laughing-stock of the inhabitants of cities, respected here as equals : he sees a population well shod and completely clothed, coming to provide objects of comfort for their families ; and sitting down, when the clock strikes the hour of one, to a good and substantial dinner. These markets are not supplied with so great a variety of eatables, especially fruit and vegetables, as ours. The hair of a French cook would stand on end with horror to see these markets, furnished with only three things, potatoes, meat, and cheeses. In this country there is a wonderful uniformity in every thing, in salutations, in IN ENGLAND. 1 1 1 gestures, in tones of voice, in dress, in houses, and even in victuals. Elegance, pomp, imagination, or rather caprice, all these have their dominion in France : here reign only good sense, the love of the useful, of the good, of the better. Fashion is here not the device of change, but of improvement. The uniformity of customs and tastes is one source of the improvements which are made at every step in England ; because, owing to this, there is always an extended sale to reward and encourage the inventor ; and the attention of a great number of con- sumers is fixed on the same article, which, by the expe- riments of many, goes on continually getting better and better. In these markets, however, a commodity is to be met with, which is very rarely found in the markets of the continent books. How often have I seen two or three hundred volumes exposed for sale on a stall, and disap- pear in a couple of hours ! Scarcely have I been able to make my way to the bench, such a crowd of farmers has been standing looking over the books, reading, selecting, purchasing. What a favourable idea must not the tra- veller form of the enlightenment of a people who read and buy books and what books? Not interpretations of dreams, legends, nor such nonsense, but Bibles, the works of Addison, Spectators, Milton's Milton, the English Homer. I do not call him by this appellation in mere wantonness of words, but because, in the same manner that Homer was known by heart to all the Greeks, Milton is the guest of every family in the coun- try. Education is become so common in England that, by way of economy, ladies are now employed to make the calculations for the Nautical Almanac. The markets are the preserves of the English army, which is mostly filled up by recruiting, as there is no conscription. Conscription, it is true, is a tax of blood 112 THE ITALIAN EXILE and sinews, so much the more burdensome when it is paid to a tyrannical or a foreign government, which op- presses the vanquished by means of the vanquished themselves; but I prefer conscription to recruiting at all hazards. Even under a usurping government it is not so vile to serve by force as by choice : besides, re- cruiting is a bargain between a scoundrel and a fool. About three o'clock in the afternoon, when the market is more crowded than ever, you hear the noise of four or five drums and fifes, and see a handful of soldiers, with gaudy watch ribbons, and cockades in their hats, with round, plump faces (as if war were a mere fool's paradise), better dressed and better looking altogether than other soldiers, the better to entice and deceive : you see, I say, this recruiting party advance into the thickest of the market, to show, in triumph to the multi- tude, two or three young men, who for three or four guineas have sold their lives, I know not whether to their country, their king, or their love of laziness. Their hats are decorated with silk ribands, exactly as they were wont, in ancient times, to garland the horns of the rams destined for sacrifice. This simulated pomp, this lying merriment, brings to my mind the festival that used to accompany the vow of chastity and perpetual imprisonment, pronounced by the young women who be- came nuns. And yet we wonder that the Germans of old used to set their liberty on the cast of the die ! Mon- tesquieu proved that man has no right to sell himself. The English speak with horror of the slave trade : yet what difference is there between the African, who, cheated and deceived, sold himself to a slave dealer (as was often the case), and the man, who heated with wine, and allured by false promises, sells himself for a few guineas to a lying sergeant ? I am pleased to find that, on this point, IN ENGLAND. 113 the divine Ariostp thought as I do : speaking of the levy made by Charlemagne throughout his empire, he says : " Non si sentiva allor questo romore," &c. " Not then was heard the sound so common now, Of noisy drums, parading round and round, Inviting all the boldest from the plough, Or rather those of pates the most unsound, For three crown pieces, or for less, to go, To where each moment brings a mortal wound. Yes, foolish will I rather call than bold, Whoe'er so cheaply hath his life-blood sold. " Honour should ever be preferred to life, But nothing else but honour ever should ; Rather than lose thy honour, in the strife, To lose a life, a thousand lives, were good ; But who lays bare his breast to fortune's knife, For gold or abject gain, he, if he could But find a buyer, I to think incline Would cheaper than his own life, sell him mine !" Of late years, covered market places have been built in the principal towns ; for instance, Leeds, Manchester, Liv- erpool, &c., where, regularly arranged, and judiciously divided from each other, all the meat stalls may be seen at a glance, ranged in one line, those of fish in another, those of vegetables in a third, and so on. In the evening they are all lighted with gas till eleven o'clock, as bril- liantly as a theatre. Henri Quatre, the king of peasants and not of courtiers, would have shouted for joy to see these markets crowded with servant maids, and work- ing men's wives, neatly dressed, with nice little baskets on their arms, providing some good joint of beef and 10* 114 THE ITALIAN EXILE mutton, which makes its appearance,, smoking hot and glorious, on the Sunday, and afterwards, diminished in size, but never disfigured, appears and disappears at meals for several days. I must here inform my coun- trymen (certainly to their supreme amazement) that there is no set price in England for meat : each part of the ox has a different and arbitrary price, according to its quality. The finer parts, the rump steak and the roast beef (del rumpstake, del roslbeef,) have the highest value set upon them, the other parts a lower, and the coarse pieces a very low price. In many and many of the populous towns, for example in Manchester, there is no assize of bread ; yet this does not occasion frauds or disputes. In London every joint of meat has its price fixed on it, the same with bread. But how is it that monopoly does not come into play? Because there is liberty. Verri said, " I venture to predict that the time will come, when no set price will be fixed on any com- modity, and the number of sellers will no longer be limited, when every one will be freely permitted to bake bread, and to sell it ; when meat, butter, &c. will be sold at the price freely offered and taken." This prophecy has not yet come to pass in Lombardy, and perhaps never will until the year 2240, that Mercia dreamt of! The market in manufacturing towns is held on the Saturday. About five in the afternoon, all the factories stop work, and the men soon after receive their wages. Then an enormous crowd begins to pour into the streets, and invade the markets and the public houses, all, however, in most orderly disorder, without any quarrelling, fighting, or uproar. It is a torrent of wants and passions, bursting forth after a six days' imprisonment, and over- flowing its banks on all sides, yet without doing any mischief. These workmen are like sailors, when they get on shore after a long voyage. IN ENGLAND. 115 Who would believe that in England there is a market for men and women ? Not indeed a market like those of Smyrna and Constantinople, but, I shall explain myself better by giving- a description. On the 23d of November, it is an old custom in some counties to hold a fair for servants. All the farm servants, male and female, who have been discharged, betake themselves on this important day to some open space in the county town. Both men and women are dressed in their best clothes, in order to appear to the greatest advantage. They range themselves in two lines, exactly like horses at a fair : laughter and good humour tinge the glow of health in their cheeks still deeper than before. The farmers who are in want of fresh servants come hither, walk down between the files, observe well from top to toe, examine and select : every servant has his or her certificate of good character, or would not easily find em- ployment. Although the first idea awakened by such a market as this is one of slavery, or at least of human degrada- tion, the custom itself has nothing of the kind about it. All the servants go readily and gaily to the statute, for at this time, that is, in passing from one master to another^ they are accustomed to enjoy a few days' rest and holiday at their own homes; to express myself classically, I should say that now they have their Saturnalia. I always saw them merry and without the slightest air of dejec- tion. Indeed, if it be well considered, the custom is advantageous to both parties, servants and masters, from the variety and choice that are offered. Reciprocal com- petition is not of less utility in a market of men than of goods : there is, however, one inconvenience : through the facility of obtaining new places by this means, ser- vants are inclined to change too often, merely from curiosity, and the pleasure of seeing new houses, new 1 16 THE ITALIAN EXILE faces, and new manners, for the genius of Gil Bias ap~ pears to be that of mankind. Such servants resemble those soldiers who like to often change their flag, or those inconstant beauties who love to change their sul- tans. The number of servants who present themselves at the York statute is about three hundred. It lasts two days* and the wind-up, as usual, is always the public house. IN ENGLAND. 1 1 7 ENGLISH YOUNG LADIES. When, after having lost property and country, I car- ried on the same trade as Dionysius after he lost the crown, and was consoling myself in this troublesome profession, and trying to ennoble it in my own eyes by the example of Milton, who before he came one of Cromwell's secre- taries had played the part of the schoolmaster, and by the example also of M achiavel, who after having been secretary to the Florentine republic, and many times ambassador, found himself almost reduced to the neces- sity of practising this profession in some Tuscan vil- lage,* I received a polite note from a clergyman of the English church, requesting me to give lessons in Italian to his three daughters : I complied without hesitation. And now behold me, one fine morning, mounted on a hired horse (which might compete with an Italian brig- * " I must remain then in my rags, without being able to find any man to remember my services, or think me good for anything. But it is impossible that I can do so long, because I am daily grow- ing poorer, and I foresee, that if God does not show himself more favourable to me, I shall be forced to forsake my house, and hire myself for a teacher or clerk to some magistrate, since I can do no otherwise, or establish myself in some remote corner of the land, and teach children to read and write, leaving my party here to be- lieve me dead." So wrote this great and good Italian to Francisco Vettori, on the 3d August, 1514. 1 18 THE ITALIAN EXILE liadoro), riding off at a smart trot to a village (which the English rather emphatically call a town), where the clergyman's family resided. This town by hyperbole is inhabited solely by small farmers. The houses are of the natural red colour of brick, so disagreeable to the eye, yet nevertheless so general in England, except the inns, which are whitewashed, and the clergyman's house, which might be termed the sun of the village. I alight- ed at an inn, which was neat, and furnished with every convenience ; such as would not be found in one of the most superb cities in Italy. When English houses are to be mentioned, it is impossible not to follow the exam- ple of Homer, and constantly repeat the same epithet " neat." The fire had already long been burning in the stranger's room, the newspapers on the table promised a compensation for the rigid silence that stagecoach pas- sengers observe : on one shelf were brushes, that a spot- less purity might be preserved, on another a book of religious morals, and writing materials, clean and un- stained. I rested myself at my ease, gazing at the en- gravings of thirty or forty years old, which, unhappy elves ! from great cities and elegant apartments, gene- rally descend in their latter days to embellish the hum- ble dwellings of some rustic village. My repose was not in the least disturbed by those inhospitable offers the landlords make every moment in Italy, by way of get- ting off their old stale provisions ; seasoned with pane- gyrics just about as true as panegyrics usually are. I rang the bell when it pleased me ; a servant girl in- stantly appeared ; I ordered breakfast breakfast in- stantly appeared : I rang again when I had done, and the girl again appeared : I ordered her to clear away, and every thing vanished in the twinkling of an eye ; the whole was done by a few magic monosyllables. Eleven o'clock struck ; it was the hour appointed for IN ENGLAND. 1 1 9 the lesson : in England, time is all distributed, there is no margin, punctuality is more than a duty. Even I, therefore, exact as the church clock, entered at the in- stant the garden in front of the clergyman's house, fill- ed with shrubs and flowers, with pathways unsoiled by the smallest litter, thick-planted with shady trees in front, not so much to protect the house from the sun and wind, as to screen it from the impertinent gaze of the passengers. In this country, modesty every where holds dominion; neither houses nor inhabitants thrust them- selves forward with that boldness and confidence which seem natural to Italians and Italian dwellings, the latter of a glaring white, and on the very verge of the public road. All was quiet, as in the hour of the siesta in Spain, but in English families it is not Morpheus that reigns, but his brother deity, Harpocrates, the god of silence : they go up and down stairs as noiselessly as ghosts could do, if there were any. If it be true that silence is a contra-stimulus, depressing the spirits and the tem- perament, I am inclined to believe that this may be one of the causes why the passions are weak and compress- ed in England. I knocked at the door with a rat-tat-tat, to give the servants to understand that I was a visiter, and not some working man or tradesman, who may not an- nounce themselves other wise than by a gentle single knock. A footman in velvet breeches, with white cotton stock- ings (not clocked however), opened the door, and show- ed me the way to the dining room, leaving me there by myself, while he went to announce me to the master of the house. A fire fit for an auto-da-fe shone in the grate, every thing was in its place, as if there were go- ing to be a general review. A japanned basket, painted green, lay in front of one of the long windows, full of gera- niums in bloom, grown in the hot-house, surrounded by 120 THE ITALIAN EXILE several other little vases of beautiful flowers, brought also from thence in turn to adorn the room dedicated to the reception of visiters. After a few minutes' pause, behold the Reverend entering the room with an affable smile. I had no difficulty in discovering that the master of the house stood before me, having seen a portrait of him hanging from one of the walls, extreme- ly like. " Beautiful weather, very fine day" (although it had rained two or three times in the morning), this eternal daily ceremony of England, was the exordium. The Rev. was a man of about forty-five years of age, in florid health. The felicity of his condition was painted on his cheerful and vivacious countenance : his forehead was not darkened by any of those wrinkles or clouds which are imprinted there either by misfortune or assiduous study. His white teeth and his good humour showed that his digestion was also good. I afterwards learned, that the secret of all this, his elixir of life, and fountain of perpetual youth, was the exercise he took in fox-hunting, shooting, and fishing, with a sequel and ap- pendix of good dinners and good wines. His coat, made in the fashion of the English riding-coat, was of velvet, a stuff which excites in all, from king to mule- teer, more respect than any other. Except this, there was not the most remote indication of his profession about him. A few moments afterwards entered the wife of the Rev. , who, without stirring from the fire, where he was now standing, with his back towards it in the con- tinental mode, intimated to me that I saw the lady of the house. While I, with my riding whip in my hand, twisting myself like a French dancing-master, bending my head a little on one side, and drawing my lips toge- ther, muttered a compliment in French, flavoured with the usual charme and enchante, ]^s. , with a IN ENGLAND. 121 cold repelling mien, and an indifferent air, took her way towards the fire-place, turning her head meanwhile to- wards me. She was tall, well made, and, without being haughty, showed an esteem for herself which was cer- tainly merited. I was told that she had been a very beautiful woman, and this time I found that the frequent English exaggerations on the beautiful and the wonder- ful did not far exceed the truth. After a few moments she left us, and went up stairs to warn her daughters to have every thing in readiness. Meantime, the Rev. made a digression to me on the ancient histo- rians, gave me to understand that he was connected by friendship with Lord Byron, asked me to stay to dinner, and paid me a thousand other civilities. I perceived from this checkered discourse, that he was familiar with the higher classes, that he was rich, and that, in spite of fox-hunting, he was well versed in the classics. These few indications were to me the armorial bearings of the family. In an easy and good-mannered tone, he shortly after subjoined that I might walk up stairs, and he himself preceded me to show the way. I found the drawing room, as usual, occupied by several tables, with a piano, with books, and ladies' work. My scholars were stand- ing upright, with the accustomed cold and modest Eng- lish air, enough to freeze a compliment stiff on the lips of a Parisian. The eldest was a young lady of nineteen, slender, and even rather thin, of a brunette complexion, with black hair, black eyes, and very white and regular teeth, an ornament rather rare in England, among gentlemen as well as ladies. Her smile was sweet, and the expression of her countenance angelico-Italian. She had all the requisites to make me a Saint-Preux. The second was a lusus natura, an Albino, well made, of a very bright complexion, with hair, eyebrows, and eye- 11 122 THE ITALIAN EXILE lashes, completely white, and eyes approaching to red. Every word, every motion, was a zephyr, she was all sweetness. Although very short-sighted, she seemed to me more advanced in her studies than her elder sister, which is always a compensation for a little less beauty. The third was a girl of thirteen, pretty, like her elder sister, very vivacious in her glances, which she threw, now stealthily at me while I was reading, now at her elder sister, when she had to answer me something. Their mother, during the lesson, kept on working, talk- ing at times in an under tone to some one of her daugh- ters when they happened to be at rest, and answering for them, when, on my asking them what they knew of French and Italian, they cast down their eyes, and did not presume to utter their own praises. The fact was, that they were well instructed, knew French exceeding- ly well, and with all imaginable candour showed me the difficulties they met with in reading Metastasio, whom they delighted in. My amphibious situation, as I may call it, was a diversion to me. Now I seemed to myself born to play the master, and hired to dissertate on arti- cles and concordances ; now I seemed to take the part of Count Almaviva, in the " Barber of Seville," espe- cially when the milkwhite hand of the first of these dam- sels (the very hand described by Ariosto) followed with the finger the lines of the book. Now, all the ticklish allusions to which the grammatical terminations give rise in Italian coming to my mind, I was ready to burst with laughter when it fell to me to speak of the preterite, &c. The hands of the English and Irish ladies are so beautiful, that Ossian often apostrophises the Irish mai- dens as " the white hands of Erin." It is a pity that in this country kissing of hands is not the fashion. The Italians often call their beloved " beautiful .eyes of my IN ENGLAND. 123 happiness ;" the French might apostrophise theirs with " dearly beloved feet." In the most indifferent matters, and even in families of less than celestial blood, primogeniture is always re- spected ; my fair pupils, therefore, always came to their lessons in the order of age. When the lessons were ended, we descended to the dining-room, where a most noble luncheon (a substantial refection between breakfast and dinner) was prepared. The lady of the house repeatedly offered me some cold beef, some rice- milk, custards, &c., but as there is no pleasure in a re- past not seasoned with intimate friendship, and uncheck- ed merriment, I declined, and returned to the inn. While my horse was being saddled, I cast a glance at the village church, an ancient structure, and in appear- ance older still, from the Gothic form in which the churches of the Anglican religion are almost uniformly built, and after receiving a bow from the landlord, that seemed to smack of feudal vassalage, put spurs to my horse, and set off at a gallop through the solitary country. This family, which I have described with English fidelity and minuteness, this family, of a cold and reserved demeanour, under which, however, in England a warm and affectionate heart is often hidden, belongs to that class of gentry which has all the luxury and refinement of the opulent nobility, without their vices and defects. Whoever wishes to become acquainted with an educa- tion still more refined, and in a higher grade of the landed aristocracy, approaching to high life, must follow me in another narration. 124 THE ITALIAN EXILE SEQUEL, < was a visit in debt to a widow lady, mother of two beautiftil girls, through an invitation to dinner I had re- ceived. This lady's villa is situated in a delicious spot, at the foot of a hill crowned by an old and noble wood, approached by a winding, gently sloping path across meadows and plantations within the same enclosure. The house is protected from the wind, and from excessive heat ; it is not large, in comparison with the immense and useless Italian palaces, but is sufficiently spacious for an English villa, and enjoys a view of a range of hills, irregular in form, clad with trees, and within the space that can be taken in by the eye. The quiet, the mystery of the neighbouring wood, the song of the birds, the flocks feeding in the meadows, all seem to say, " Here reigns love !" What then if I add that the two young ladies of the mansion are beautiful, graceful, and courteous, with rosy cheeks, and copious ringlets of flowing hair " Whose large blue eyes, fair locks and snowy hands," Might shake the saintship of an anchorite ?' Byron. AJmost every day did they ride out alone with their groom, on excursions over the neighbouring country, and are sometimes present for a few moments at a foxchase, IN ENGLAND. 125 when, at Reynard's first breaking cover, the shrill horn and the cry of a hundred panting hounds are heard to- gether, and the red-coated horsemen, leaping hedge and ditch, scour the country at a headlong gallop. They have passsed two or three months at Paris, speak of it with enthusiasm, and are eager to return. They speak French, and stammer a little Italian. The piano, the harp, drawing, light reading, the conservatory, and a little flower garden cultivated with their own hands, divide the time that riding, visiting, balls, invitations, and the annual two months' visit to London, leave them. I had selected a rainy day, that I might be sure of find- ing the family at home ; but the English ladies pay little regard to the weather. I had not got half across the garden before I perceived the carriage, which was just on the point of setting out. I approach the door, I am welcomed with a courtesy more than polite. The mother was in the coach, along with the younger daugh- ter, who is also the handsomer of the two. On seeing this I went through a thousand antics, professed myself au desespoir, desalt, &c., and gave in to all the carica- ture we practise on the continent. The graceful F , by way of consoling me, informed me that her sister was at home, and would be very glad to see me. This inti- mation recalled me to life. I should never have looked for the good fortune of such a passport ; I devoured at a stride the piece of road between me arid the house, I knock and re-knock impatiently. A maid servant opens the door, and invites me to walk into a room on the right. As I had always seen the mistress of the house on the left hand, I did not understand her directions, and en- tered another room ; but the beautiful C soon came in, and courteously saluting me, invited me to her own room, her parlour. Severe Italian matrons ought here to reflect that the colloquy was between a beautiful 11* 126 THE ITALIAN EXILE young woman, and a wandering- exile, who leayes no trace of actions, as official persons must do wherever they pass ; that I had not concealed the impression made upon me by the lively and sparkling eyes of the beautiful C at other times ; that in the room " Alone we were, and all without suspicion ;" that no guardian, no authorised Cerberus of that garden of the Hesperides, was in the house, that no one would have dared to enter that sanctum sanctorum unless sum- moned by the bell, that a good fire was burning, that a beautiful silk sofa received an exciting warmth from the chimney ; yet, instead of the downcast eyes, the mutilated words, the burning blushes in the face, the embarrassment that would accompany such a situation in Italy, there began between us a cheerful and unre- strained conversation, with frank and sparkling eyes, with smiles and merriment. Hunting, the exhibition of pictures, the last new novel, the Parisian opera, and the eternal and inevitable subject of the English ladies, Lord Byron, passed away two hours time very pleasantly. Many times did the prohibited fruit (guarded by the dra- gon of her own virtue and modesty,) I mean my lovely hostess, offer me something with which I might refresh myself, and many times also entice me to repeat my visits. We were talking before a portrait of his lord- ship, which she had copied. She was dressed in green silk, with a border of yellow riband : my mention that the colour was green, will spare me the trouble of telling Italians that C had a complexion of perfect whiteness, without which a green dress would have injured her beauty ; but where is the lady who does not understand the effect of colour in dress' better than Titian himself? I gaily took my leave, my horse IN ENGLAND. 1 27 awaited me at the door, and thus I left this most inno- cent tete-a-tete. These two young ladies were sisters in blood, but not in taste. The younger loved travelling on the continent, and the theatres and balls of Paris ; the elder loved her country and its fogs, above all the romantic scenery of Switzerland, above all the enchantments of Italy. The one played on the piano and the harp ; the other gave up music, as she said, with amiable frankness, for want of ear. She told me one day, by way of compliment, that she cultivated Italian as a compensation for music. The elder, instead, contented herself with French. She in her mien was the more reserved and stately; the other, in her motions, and her conversation, more win- ning. Drawing and riding were accomplishments com- mon to both. It seemed as if, like the Roman emperors, who divided the empire between them, they had divided the provinces of amiability ; perhaps it was a tacit con- vention, not to be rivals in matrimony, and to leave to those who should offer, some variety in their choice. The second seemed modelled for an Englishman who had travelled on the continent, the first for one who had never left old England. Both however are amiable, each in her own way, but if I were condemned to re- nounce one of them, I would select her who loves the continent the most. I have traced these sketches to give an idea of that class of society which in England is the best informed, the most hospitable, the most beneficent, and the most virtuous of all; and which, being there immeasurably more numerous than in any other country, forms, so to speak, the heart of the nation. I ought now to ascend to that sphere which Parini delineates in his poem; but I draw myself back, not so much because the higher classes almost every where have a strong resemblance to 128 THE ITALIAN EXILE each other, and model themselves on the same code of caprice, etiquette, prejudice, and nothingness, as because my object is rather to display the base of the national pyramid than the apex. This is the error reprobated in several modern historians, who have given us merely the history of kings and courts, as if a nation consisted only of a monarch and a few hundred noblemen, and all the rest were only an anonymous something not worthy of a glance : the same error, I repeat, may be imputed to many modern travellers, who, instead of becoming ac- quainted with a nation, are contented with knowing a few individuals. Besides, whoever wishes to know the manners of the higher classes, may consult truer and bet- ter painters than I am ; such as Pope, in " The Rape of the Lock;" Lord Byron, in " Don Juan;" the fashionable newspaper, "The Morning Post;" and, above all, the novel under the title of " Almack's :" this spirited novel is a magic lantern of the most ridiculous characters in the fashionable world, painted in the liveliest colours. The author is a sort of Devil-on-two-sticks, who lays bare all the cabals and littlenesses of the earthly demigods. But if the author should be a lady, as I have some suspi- cion, I beg to withdraw the comparison of the Devil-on- two-sticks, and to say, that she is an angel who writes like an angel! IN ENGLAND. 129 THE BETROTHED. I was thinking of dedicating- this chapter to the cava- lieri serventi, to the eternally hysterical, to the tyrants of families, and to those mothers who believe that a glance contaminates their daughters, and who, anxious to dis- pose of their wares, aspire only to get their daughters once fairly married, whoever the husband, whether an idiot, a baboon, or a worn out libertine ; but I have since reflected that it is better to be tolerant, and let every one live on in his way. Miss K was a young lady of nineteen, tall, hand- some, good mannered, lively, without being too gay or impertinent, of a fair complexion, with a soft and sub- dued but not a languishing look, and large ringlets of fine dark brown hair ; such a one, in short, as would be highly admired by the double file of young men between which the fair Italians have to pass when they go to the theatre of La Scala at Milan. On a visit she was paying to a family of her acquaintance, at a good hundred miles distance from the city she resided in, she captivated a young man of the family. He asked her in marriage, and obtained the consent of the young lady and her relations; but as the gentleman was not yet well advanced in his profession, that of a barrister, it was agreed to defer the ceremony for two years. In the mean time, the betrothed 130 THE ITALIAN EXILE husband came every now and then to visit his affianced wife, was welcomed by all the family with a more than friendly warmth, and looked upon and treated by her friends as the future husband of the young- lady. Thus the two betrothed, instead of going to the altar blindfold, had an opportunity (and an enviable patience) to study each other's character, to accustom themselves to mutual respect in the presence of others, and to correct whatever blemishes they might find they had. To draw still closer the bonds of acquaintance and friendship between the two families, a sister of the husband staid for several months at the home of his intended wife, rather as a rela- tion than a friend; thus, instead of having one day a censo- rious sister-in-law, the bride was acquiring for herself a friend in her new family, a bridemaid for her nuptials, and, from the gratitude that a friendly hospitality pro- duces, a supporter and defender on every occasion. This young lady, who was known to me before the contract of marriage, did not alter in the least her man- ners or behaviour towards me. She was often beforehand in inviting me to take a walk with her as a guest, and I had some times the honour of giving her my arm. Our walk was always a Petrarchesque one, on solitary banks, amid deserted fields, as the English taste will have it. Two or three times she came to pay me a visit at my own home, accompanied, however, by a dear lively little sister of hers. She entered gaily, chatted good humouredly, and soon unfolded the object of her visit, generally a polite invitation to dinner or tea : such visits are in this country neither an irregularity nor a phenomenon. Only be a bachelor, and young (but not licentious, at least openly), and if you fall ill, you will have the visits of all the married and marriageable ladies of your acquaintance. More than all this, she knew that my linen was ne- IN ENGLAND. 131 glected, being that of an orphan, destitute of country, and wandering over the face of the earth, and she offered, and with gentle violence took upon herself to set every thing to rights : then, with the same care and at- tention which a tender wife or a lovesick damsel would show in latitude 44, she mended up my lacerated equip- ments, and marked my name on my handkerchiefs and shirts. If, in latitude 44, a young woman had only knit- ted a purse for me, my blind vanity would have made me believe that purse contained her heart. But the heart of Miss K was already given to another, and she would have died a thousand deaths rather than be guilty of an indiscretion of that sort. The sacred promise she had given, did not, however, forbid her from being, according to the laudable custom of her nation, kind and courteous to me and others. She had a way of always making ap- propriate and tasteful presents. When I set out for Greece, she presented me with a handsome edition of Lord Byron's " Childe Harold," and, when I returned, it having transpired that, in my new lodging, I had neither paper nor an inkstand, she stole into my study when I was from home, with a cousin, who was her accomplice in the magic freak, and set upon my table an elegant portfolio, an inkstand, and some very fine writing paper : afterwards, to conceal her generous gift, she pretended that it must have been conferred upon me by two of those fairies who for so many ages have lived in Eng- land, and danced at night in the woods and on the green sward. I, (and any body born under a burning sun,) I, who in Italy, or in France, should have conceived the hope of a culpable love from any single kind glance that a girl might let fall upon me, have never had the slightest unbecoming thought of that young lady, on the word of a man of honour. No ! far different is the effect of the 132 THE ITALIAN EXILE confidence placed in the man, and of the consciousness of virtue in the lady. Promises of marriage long before their celebration are here of frequent occurrence in the middle classes : if ever the young man breaks his word, the relations of the young woman bring him before the tribunals, and, unless he can justify his change of mind, he is condemned to pay a fine proportioned to his cir- cumstances : some of them as high as five and even ten thousand pounds sterling. It is true that this system may favour the perfidious snares of a Lovelace ; but how few Lovelaces are to be feared, when the satisfaction of a caprice must cost so much time, so many plots, so many falsehoods and dangers ! I believe most young men would rather make the tour of the world on foot, than go through all the trouble of Richardson's libertine hero to obtain a Clarissa by treachery. Besides, he who betrays a young female in England is visited with the public abhorrence to such a degree, that Mr. Wakefield, who endeavoured to deceive Miss Turner, was more detested on all hands than if he had assassinated George the Fourth. I will relate another instance of this innocent liberty. A young Scotch lady, large, well made, robust as the heroes of Ossian, with rosy cheeks, as fresh as honey, had come from Edinburgh, a distance of two hundred miles, in order to weary herself by way of making less wearisome the life of an aged grandmother, who resided alone, in a lone house, in the lonely town of Tadcaster. To a Spanish or Italian woman this house would have been a tomb ; she would have thought herself buried alive ; the sacrifice she was making to relationship would have made a great noise among her friends, and the two months would have seemed to her two ages. The Scot- tish lady, on the contrary, discharged her pious duty IN ENGLAND. 133 with the most unaffected cheerfulness. I paid her two visits, both unexpected ; and found her, on both occasions, fully attired, and with her hair dressed, as if she had been going to receive the visits of an envious rival. This, and many other examples, have convinced me that the English do not dress so much for others as for them- selves, and hence they are always well dressed. There are generally no large mirrors in their rooms, so that they have not even the sweet gratification of stealing a furtive glance at their own reflection, when passing be- fore it on any pretext, or none. There are no balconies; no custom of putting the head out of window, to see what weather it is, and who is going by ; and in the streets there are neither impertinents nor cicisbeos. John Bull works, gets on in the world, and amasses money ; and then he gets married, without any manoeu- vres of handkerchiefs, windows ajar, and telegraphic I generally found my heroine at her little table, read- ing or writing, the desk, inkstead, paper, pens, all of a shining neatness ; the books well bound and well printed, and still better written. The young ladies in England, as there is no embarrassment in conversation, are in the habit of seeing company, and their reading supplies them with interesting themes of conversation: our mutual friends, literature, and the differences of manners, were the subjects we usually talked of. There are few thieves among servants in proportion to their numbers : they are checked by the confidence placed in them : so even Marshal Richelieu would have acted with strict propriety in our tete-a-tete ; yet probably a man of spirit, a conqueror, a Tamerlane of the fair sex, like Richelieu, would have renounced the conquest, from its facility, if she had invited him, as she did me, to take a walk with 12 134 THE ITALIAN EXILE her along the bank of the river, near the house, by an almost solitary path, leading to a knoll covered with venerable oaks, and embowered with thick and leafy bushes ; yet the marquis would have been deceived ; he would have despised, as defenceless, a fortress worthy of Vauban himself. We passed near the remains of an ancient camp, where the mounds of earth by which the Roman legions were protected were still visible. She acted as my cice- rone ; and, by a great stretch of courtesy, talked to me as if the ancient Romans had been the ancestors of the modern Italians ; and I, in return, talked to her of Sir Walter Scott as if he were the Scottish Ariosto. The conversation never languished ; and took my attention so entirely, that I should have passed a fine country house on the opposite bank of the river without noticing it, had she not pointed it out to me. When we returned to the house dinner was ready, and she invited me to take refreshment. The grandmother was still invisible, being confined to her chamber by a cold. When dinner was over, at an inclination of her head, which is the signal for a toast, we drank together a glass of wine, composed of extract of flowers, sugar, and a little brandy : it is called " British wine," an agreeable beverage, which young ladies are permitted to drink. She then showed me Bohl de Faber's collection of Spanish romances and poetry. She had already observed to me that religion was the comfort of the soul, and the happiness of families; she pointed out to me, therefore, some religious odes of Ponce de Leon, favourites with her, and truly sublime. She made me read a portion of the ode on Holy Solitude (Santa Soledad}, in which the passages most beautiful, and most congenial to the sentiments of her soul, were already marked with a pencil. It was now high time to IN ENGLAND. 135 take leave, after a visit of four hours, which had passed as swiftly as the happiest hours of love. I rode back the ten miles I had come, at a gallop, not disordered, but tranquillised with a pleasure resembling- that experienced at ihe sight of a fine picture of Poussin, filled with beau- tiful nymphs and pleasant snatches of scenery. 136 THE ITALIAN EXILE EDUCATION, The young women of England, under a stormy and inconstant sky, have hearts and minds peaceful and se- rene, always equable, and always docile. My amiable countrywomen, under a heaven perpetually smiling, have minds and hearts always in a tempest. The former are educated for quiet and domestic felicity; every thing con- duces to this end, the order and system of their lives, the simplicity of their food, the climate, compelling them to live in-doors, the silence that reigns within and without their homes, their long residences in the country, all tend to soften or set to sleep their passions. While the latter, animated by the continual sight of the world, stimulated by a thousand objects, now treated tyranni- cally, now over-caressed, and then unreasonably contra- dicted, carried to the theatres and crowded streets, seem educated to give vent to their passions, brought up only to be haughty and spirited. Hence they are impassioned, greedy of distinction, made more beautiful by the very desire of pleasing, but tormented with a restless rivalry ; unhappy themselves, they too often make all around them so. A true and excellent comparison of the Eng- lish women and the Italian may be found in the " Co- rinna" of Madame de Stael. Corinna, all fancy, all im- pulse, all love of glory, all passion, was unhappy, and IN ENGLAND. 137 would have made her English lover unhappy, had she married him. Lucia, instead, all good sense, sweetness, modesty, and filial affection, was happy in her obscurity, and promised happiness to her husband. Lucia, after spending two hours of the morning in painting a beau- tiful rose, satisfied and contented, shuts it up in her port- folio : Corinna is dissatisfied and discontented with her talent, unless she declaims a hymn, and receives thunders of applause from thousands of auditors. Instead of producing extempore poetesses, such as the Bandettinis, the Mazzeis, and the Gorillas, is it not better to produce affectionate wives and sensible mothers of families ? Is not the picture of a happy family (Pamela with her children) more touching than that of the coro- nation of Corinna in the capitol ? Italy boasts Nina, Senti, Stampa, Julia Aragona, and many other modern improvisatrici ; but would it not have tended more to the happiness of its families to have hadnsuch women as Miss Edgeworth, Miss Aikin, and Mrs. Hamilton, who have written works for the education of children ? Is it better to enjoy a brief youth of tumultuary pleasures, or an en- tire life full of sweet affections ; the first like a torrent that dashes triumphantly over the rocks for a space, and then leaves its bed dry and arid; the second like a river that flows between humble banks, but flows for ever. To this preachifying of mine, a witty Frenchwo- man would reply, that she preferred a life courte et bonne (short and good, that is brilliant) a sober Englishwoman would wish it long and comfortable, (that is, serene). The young women are accustomed to travelling alone, sometimes in the public carriages, for one or two hundred miles together. The general education of the travellers, the respect professed by the men towards the fair sex, the protection that every Englishman is ready to afford them, and, let it be added, their frozen demeanour and 12* 138 THE ITALIAN EXILE immovable eyes, secure them from the slightest insult of equivocal expression. The fact which the Irish legend relates, that, in the olden time, a girl, ornamented with precious jewels, and a beauty still more precious, walked with a gem-decked wand in her hand through all the island, without experiencing either interruption or insult, is an experiment that might be made, or rather is daily made, in England. Travelling in Ireland, it happened that one of the pas- sengers, who had drunk a little more than he should have done, and could hardly see for the wine he had had, addressed some equivocal words to a lady who sat op- posite, who, in reality, was ugly enough to cool the rap- tures of a Don Juan. Our Lucretia set up a cry of alarm, and the coachman instantly stopped the horses, got down, told the drunken man to get out, and, like a true knight, challenged him to combat, with the fists. To return, the young ladies, therefore, in the course of the year, often go to spend some time with their friends or relations in distant parts of the country. By these re- ciprocal visits, their lives are in no degree changed. As in England they live every where in the same way, and time is every where equally distributed, the young lady who travels, merely makes a change of place, not of habits or occupations ; she resumes her work, her read- ing, in the house of her hosts, as if she were still in the bosom of her own family: not a year passes without one or two of these excursions, and, when they are of mar- riageable age, their relations take them to pass some weeks in London or Edinburgh. Thus, until the era of marriage, which happens between twenty-two and twenty-five years of age, their life passes in quiet studies and amusements ; and, after marriage, in " pleasing du- ties," as an amiable English lady told me. It ought not, therefore, to excite surprise that there is in England a IN ENGLAND. 139 prodigious number of old maids. As their youth is not a state of slavery, as in other countries, and they enjoy, when marriageable, a liberty of choice, it happens that they are not at all anxious to shake off the maternal yoke, to burden themselves with that of a husband, and that they often prefer a state of life a little insipid, and sometimes exposed to derision, to the miseries of an ill- assorted union. 140 THE ITALIAN EXILE SEQUEL,. There are no children in all the world more lovely than the English, except perhaps those of Correggio or Albani. They are fair and fresh, true flowers of spring; exactly like the flowers nature creates them, but care and attention make them still more beautiful. The extreme cleanliness in which they are kept, their healthy, regu- lar, and abundant food, the invariable mildness and placability of their parents, and the total absence of un- pleasing objects, all contribute to render them serene in countenance and healthy in body. If in England the quadrupeds have laws for their protection, and orators to speak for them in parliament, how much care and ten- derness must be the portion of the children ! They are washed two or three times a day ; every day they change their clothes at least once, and their hair is combed twice. Who ever saw more radiant heads than those of the English babies ? They are golden heads. Elegance is not a vanity in them, it is a habit. I never heard a mother praising a new dress to her son, or promising a new cap as a reward. Hence I have never seen a boy proud of himself on account of his dress, or pointing with vanity to his shoes. Their food is simple, milk, pre- served fruits, bread and butter, and fresh meat, which is never allowanced out to them. They sit at table like IN ENGLAND. 141 others. I have been present many times where only children were dining together : they carve, help them- selves, behave orderly, and acquire the same demeanour and the same ease and polish of manner as adults, with- out trouble, scolding, or tears. The large English loaves, piles of potatoes, and mountains of meat, seem made on purpose to prevent greediness, and to satiate little glut- tons with the sight of them alone. All this abundance leaves no room for quarrelling and disputing. The children abstain from wine, and, until ten or twelve, even from tea and coffee. The having no wine is not felt as privation, because they see their mothers and sisters dispense with it voluntarily every day : but certainly when they grow up they repay themselves for it with usury. Beautiful as are the English children, they are still more happy; they are neither slaves nor tyrants, hence neither indolent nor querulous. As I had never heard long lamentations and fits of crying in genteel houses, I wished to ascertain if this were an advantage peculiar to the respectable classes, and for that purpose traversed the meanest and dirtiest streets, and visited the poorest and most wretched habitations of the city, yet I found every where, that the children, not treated with tyranny or contempt, not irritated, and, above all, never mocked, jeered, or laughed at, passed " Their tender days of youth, Joyful and pleasant." Tasso. How often have I compassionated the fate of my coun- trymen, who, tormented, irritated, tortured by the laws and the government, yielding to an invincible instinct of human nature, break out and revenge themselves on the weak within their power, becoming in their turn the tyrants of their families ! Here the father does not inter- 142 THE ITALIAN EXILE fere at all in the education of his sons : he is absorbed in business, and abandons them therefore to the care of the mother, who very seldom leaves home, and executes this sacred duty with a sweet and constant equanimity. Pun- ishment is excluded from domestic education, as well as reward, the stimulus of rivalry. The children have not such an abhorrence of reading, because, always desirous of imitating, and always seeing the table covered with books, and their elders reading, at least, the immeasur- able newspaper, or some new novel of the deluge, they also willingly read some little book of their own library. The number of books composed within the last forty years in England, for the instruction of the youth of both sexes, is immense. I would give a list of some of them, which might be translated and adopted with ad- vantage by other nations, at the foot of the page, but that the catalogue would take up too much space. Order and the distribution of time in a family make every thing easy. An inflexible order once established, it becomes like a law of nature, which every one obeys without thinking of opposition. When the day is divided into stated portions, there is no need of exhortation or reprimand, every one submits without complaint to his duty, as he submits to the vicissitudes of day and night. In this respect the English day is modelled on the celes- tial system ; the family rises, breakfasts, dines, &c., always at the same minute. It is a planet which pro- ceeds in its orbit without need of an exterior impulse. The taciturnity and respectful awe of the servants also prevent them from communicating their passions or vices to the children. Three things struck me above all the rest in English education : the respect which the parents show to their children; their care not to foment anger and resentment, IN ENGLAND. 143 and the bodily exercises by which the waste of strength caused by those of the mind is compensated. The respect of the father towards his sons begins early, and never ceases. This concession establishes the right of reciprocity in favour of the father, an expres- sion of contumely he never suffers to fall from his lips : the honour of the son must go into society inviolate, and when it is inviolate, the courage to defend it is al- ways in existence. I do not here speak of the mothers, because they can do as they please, theirs is always lovers' anger. When he receives letters, unless they are on business, the father often reads them aloud, or passes them to all the family. He generally avoids making use of nicknames, for there are some diminutives which seem at least to imply a diminutiveness of merit. They are rather inclined to fall into the opposite affectation, of calling the son by the family name, 11 signoie Tizio^ for the same reason which made Madame de Sotenville wish George Dandin to call his wife not " My wife," but " Madame Dandin." One English gentleman, a friend of mine, listened with attention and interest to a course of lectures on hydrostatics, delivered by his son before a public auditory : another, who had himself taught his daughter Latin, took lessons in Italian in her presence, after they had breakfasted together. Even in the uni- versities, the students are always treated as equals by their instructers, and esteemed and received as men. The result of this most rational etiquette is, that the Englishman (not born, perhaps, with faculties so ready as those of an Italian) becomes a man much sooner. They do not dazzle with brilliant sayings, they are never prodigal of wit, but they are always sensible, and never talk sheer nonsense. They cannot turn a sonnet, but they can transact business. The English nation has made time a species of capital, so that the life of a man 144 THE ITALIAN EXILE is the more productive the sooner he begins to make returns. Those who admire as well as those who ridicule the coldness of the English, believe that it is the effect of cli- mate and temperament. It is often said that they have no blood in their veins. But had they no blood in their veins when they spilt so much in the civil wars of the red and white roses? when, under the reign of Mary, they persecuted and cruelly used so many thousands of their fellow citizens for their religious opinions? and when, in the war between the Parliament and Charles the First, they continued for years slaughtering each other, on the scaffold or the field ? If the English of our day are so tranquil, and so cold that they seem to us men of ice, it is, perhaps, because they have repented of their ancient follies ; perhaps because they have no occasion for heat ; but, most probably of all, because their educa- tion represses in them those will-o'-the-wisp fires that we always take to be the signs of a volcano, and so often de- ceive us. The truth is, that in their education the soul is never disturbed by the passions, " winds adverse to serenity of life ;" there exists not amongst them that cus- tom of mockery and satire in families, which so highly exasperates the minds of children. The mother avoids all occasions of exciting the wrath of her children; if they ever kindle into rage and bend their brows, she soon disarms them with a caress. To be master of oneself " to keep the temper,*' is so essential a law of education, that it almost appears to be the fundamental law of the state. It is not allowed to " go off the hinges" (as the Tuscans have it), either when in contact with the servants or the dirtiest scoundrel in ex- istence. A strong resentment, expressed in decorous terms, is the mark of the gentleman in England. In the parliament itself, those speakers who cannot restrain IN ENGLAND. 145 themselves are generally censured, and deemed incapa- ble of the management of great affairs. A duel entered into precipitately is thought as ignominious as to avoid one in a cowardly manner. Mr. Hamilton Rowan (fa- ther of Commodore Rowan), lately, thought himself in- jured by some expressions of a speech delivered in par- liament, and, although loaded with the weight of seventy- five years, immediately set out from Dublin to demand an explanation from the orator in London. Notes were exchanged, and each party selected a friend to act for him in the aifair. Mr. Rowan did not know how to put up with the insult, nor how to draw back with propriety. At last he submitted the case to an ex-judge, a man de- licate in affairs of honour. As soon as this referee had pronounced that if he insisted on more he would be in the wrong, and forfeit the esteem of his friends, the courageous old man returned to Dublin, to continue his labours in the fine arts. If the offence really exists, a duel becomes the legitimate and inevitable resource ; this was the case many years ago, when the Duke of York, the second son of the king, addressed a too sting- ing reproof to a colonel of the Guards at a review. The colonel, before demanding satisfaction of the duke, asked his friends if they thought him injured ; they replied in the affirmative, the challenge was sent, and the duel took place. English education is not like the system of Pythago- ras, who, by five years of constant silence and restric- tion to vegetable food, made his disciples so many monks of La Trappe. Neither does it resemble stoicism, ac- cording to which a man should continue imperturbable as a statue though the world should be falling to pieces around him. English education is an English system, like no other, born in England, produced by a variety of circumstances, partly perhaps from their being at one 13 146 THE ITALIAN EXILE and the same time a warlike and a commercial nation, which tend to repress the passions on frivolous occasions, and to give them the rein on those of importance. In family matters, in social intercourse, in everyday dis- cussions, it demands calmness, coolness, deliberation. In great enterprises, in war, in the perils of the country, it calls for courage and enthusiasm. That same Eng- lishman who hardly returns your salute, and who sits at table with you like a Chinese pagoda, would, did you see him in the day of battle, or in the heat of a contest- ed election, give himself up to unbounded enthusiasm. Where is the enterprise by which glory may be gained that the Englishman does not engage in heart and soul? Mungo Park plunges alone into the deserts of Africa ; un- intimidated by the mistake of his first journey, he risks a second, and perishes. Captain Cochrane returns on foot from Kamtschatka to St. Petersburg!!, a distance of six thousand miles, alone and unfriended, as if it had been a walk in Hyde Park ; he goes to America to take another stroll, across the Cordilleras, and there he dies. Lord Byron abandons the sweet converse of the Muses, the yet dearer smiles of the Italian fair, to die on a foreign soil, in the defence of the freedom of a foreign land. Lord Coch- rane, after having fought both in the Atlantic and the Pa- cific for the independence of the new states of America, flies to the Archipelago to share the glory of a handful of Greeks, who for six years had been struggling with the monstrous tyranny that oppressed them. Read the life of Sir Robert Wilson, and you will see how many perils he has voluntarily incurred, always in favour of the oppressed, whether kings (in the end ungrateful) or nations (too little grateful) or individuals (most grateful of all) ; very well, any of these men, who showed, in these cases, an enthusiasm worthy of a knight-errant, IN ENGLAND. 147 would have disdained, in social life, to have been guilty of an act of impatience, even towards a servant. It would seem as if Rousseau, who once lived for some time among the English, took from them the principal ideas of the physical education of his Emilius. The gymnastics of the English are almost all applied to practical uses. In the same manner that they do not study the laws of nations, nor the lapidary style, because they believe them useless acquisitions, they do not learn fencing, nor the grand leap, nor the somersets of clowns, nor the caperings of ballet dancers ; but they learn, in- stead, to ride on horseback at full gallop, to leap hedges and ditches, to swim, to leap with the feet together, and to climb trees. We learn with great labour the art of fencing, so useless, except to a man who wants to kill or be killed according to rule, in war even it is of lit- tle advantage. The English, instead, learn the art of boxing, which (laugh as you will) is useful in every mo- ment of life. We are dexterous at billiards, a dexterity which admits of no other application, like, in some de- gree, the Indian game at ball. The English, instead, from infancy even to old age, delight to play at cricket, a game in the open air, which requires strength, dexterity, quickness, and some little intrepidity, to await without flinching the heavy ball which one of the players throws with all his force at some wooden stakes, and another beats back with a kind of club. Fox-hunting, shooting, horse-racing, swimming, rowing, driving, cricket, skating, are exercises which keep almost all ages in perpetual motion. Like the Greeks, the English think gymnastics unbecoming to no age whatever, and to no profession. In hunting, at cricket, and at skating, I have often found myself in company with boys, with clergymen, and men advanced in years, all mixed toge- ther. In all these exercises, the object is not to beautify, 148 THE ITALIAN EXILE but to fortify, to steel, as they call it, the body. There are few Tartars who would be able to support the fatigue, which is sometimes borne with cheerfulness by the young- Englishman in a hard day's fox-hunting. On the first day of the present year there was a hunt near York, in which the horsemen in following a very strong and wary fox, rode fifty-two miles in six hours and a half, without a check except for about ten minutes. Nobody can ever frighten the boys with the idea of danger. The Spartans used to say, when they threw a weak born infant over the cliff, that it was better a child should die, than a citizen should grow up useless to his country. When the English let their children slide on thinly frozen rivers, it seems as if they thought, and wisely too, that it is better to run the risk of losing a son, than have him timid and pusillanimous all his life long. Not softened then by immoderate caresses, nor terrified by scowling eyebrows or terrible menaces, the English boy is free in his movements ; he sits on the ground or jumps to his feet at his own will ; he lies on the sofa or the grass as he pleases : provided only he do not disturb others, he may gratify any innocent ca- price of his own. In this way he is continually making trials of himself, becomes accustomed to observe and judge, compares his means with the difficulties to be overcome, sounds the depth of dangers, and acquires vi- gour, and confidence in his own strength. At the age of six or seven, the child is already able to go alone to school through the crowded streets of London, amidst that stupendous medley of carts, carriages, and horses. It is true, indeed, that the inviolable and unviolated foot- ways of the English cities are a guide and protection for boys ; but, giving due weight to this, the instances of their being run over or injured by carriages are so very rare, that they should not be defrauded of the merit of IN ENGLAND. 149 their precious good sense. The fear natural to man is itself a sufficient Mentor against danger, without the need of increasing it by an excess of caution. I remem- ber (and with a sigh I remember it) having seen on the lake of Como the children of the fishermen and the mountaineers, both equally abandoned to their own care, frolic on the banks of the lake, entrust themselve s in little boats to the wanton waves, play on the very edge of deep wells, climb up precipices, and hang like wild goats from the lofty rocks, without ever falling, or doing themselves the least injury : and we must confess that the population of our lakes are the most richly en- dowed with courage and with talent. All the boys in the island can ride, because they are accustomed to it from the tenderest age. No one ac- companies them ; they go, they rove, they wander by themselves ; they treat their pony as a companion, they feed him and clean him themselves, they let him take his needful rest, they do not abuse his docility, because he is the comrade of their adventures. On this head, Miss Edgeworth's pretty little novel of " Lightfoot " may be consulted with advantage. Liberty is the mistress of every thing in England. In imitation of the government, which imposes as few laws as it can, there are in every thing but few and indispen- sable restrictions. The trees are not maimed, or contort- ed, or sheared, but grow gnarled and branchy at their will, in the parks and the fields. The houses are not architecturised and symmetrised out of all bounds, at the expense of internal convenience, but are sometimes cor- pulent, and sometimes awry, but always well divided and convenient within. The horses are not irritated or crip- pled by useless exercises and mimic movements, but are strong, sinewy, and the swiftest of the swift. Here, in short, education is rather a pattern, a guide, than a vio- 13* 150 THE ITALIAN EXILE lent compression. Of all civilised people, the English are the least removed from nature. I am not, however, a blind admirer of every thing done in this country. There are two things in the present system of education I can- not approve. First, the excess of reading. When Rousseau wrote his Emilius, there was much less reading in England, perhaps too little : now there is too much. There is now such an inundation of poetry, novels, romances, and lite- rary journals, that many minds must be stifled under it. At three years of age, intellectual education commences : at the infant schools, the baby has already before his eyes the elements of several sciences. Then come fable and little histories ; then Latin, Greek, and history, mingled with voyages and travels, romances and magazines with- out end. The mind has no time to digest this incessant food ; a new novel drives from the recollection that of the preceding week, as a new wave presses upon and de- stroys its predecessor. Several times I chanced to ask some youth the plot of a romance he had read a few months before, he had no more than a slight indistinct recollection of it, as one has of a dream. A more cer- tain inconvenience of this ceaseless reading is weakness of sight, which is very common in England. I cannot prove that my judgment on the subject is correct, because English education, in all its parts, especially the intellec- tual, underwent a thorough alteration about twenty years ago, and the effects of this assiduous and inordinate read- ing have not yet had time to show themselves. Twenty years more must elapse before it can be determined with certainty, whether, in respect to solidity of judgment, and vigour of body, there has been gain or loss. My second objection is to the stays worn by the ladies. After having read the eloquent reprobation of this de- structive breastwork in Beccaria's Lessons of Political IN ENGLAND. 151 Economy, after hearing the opinions of the Italian phy- sicians who succeeded in banishing it from the Orphan Schools, after having listened a thousand times to the just remarks of the good Italian mothers on the dreadful consequences of this barbarous ligature, I little expected to find it still in use in sober and sensible England. It is but too true. The English ladies are imprisoned in stays, and in stays so stiff, that to embrace them is like embracing an oak. They stand as bolt upright in this cuirass, as our mulberry trees in the wooden fences put round them, when they are still tender. Many English ladies, to whom I hinted my surprise, told me that they believed one of the causes of the many consumptive ma- ladies to which young Englishwomen are subject, is the use of stays, with busks of bone or steel, and this is very likely the case. I will confine myself to observing further, that this cuirass renders them as stiff and unbend- ing as a hedge-stake, while our ladies are as soft and flexible as a silken cord. Now then to proceed in my reflections. The physical education of the present day is, with very little variation, the same as that of the past. It is perhaps more the effect of accident than system, unlike that of Lycurgus and those of Pestalozzi and Fellenberg in our time. It is the effect of the climate, of the commercial institutions, and the maritime situation of England, and the ancient custom of its inhabitants. Moral education, on the other hand, has undergone extensive changes since Locke and Lord Chesterfield wrote upon the subject, and these changes too are the effect of the reflection and recom- mendation of men of learning and wisdom. Two men, of most extraordinary patience and perse- verance, Mr. Lancaster and Dr. Boll, made it the business of their lives to diffuse instruction universally among the lower classes. Without here discussing the merits of 152 THE ITALIAN EXILE Rousseau's Emilius, it is certainly a book for the education of an individual, not a multitude. The Emiliari system might make one hero carpenter, but not a whole nation of carpenter heroes. A nation calls for easy methods, suited more for a multitude than an individual; in this point of view, Bell and Lancaster were of greater use to society than Rousseau. Many of the most illustrious members of parliament, at the same time that they watch the balance of Europe, the wars of the Indies, and the commerce of the world, are occupied also in founding infant schools and mecha- nics' institutions, in the composition and^diffusion of a popular encyclopaedia. Many of the best poets did not disdain to lower their flight, and adapt their productions to the fancy and capacity of children, as Gay, Words- worth, Mrs. Barbauld, and others; and many prose authors have likewise contributed to enrich the library of the young, as Paley, Aikin, Watts, Blair, Priestley, Baldwin, &c. But in recent times the fair sex has supplied the juve- nile library with numbers of useful works. I do not al- lude to Lady Morgan, nor Lady Dacre, nor Lady Char- lotte Bury, nor Mrs. Radcliffe, nor any of the other Eng- lish ladies who have favoured the world of letters with either poem or romance ; I speak, of those who, without departing from the ordinary sphere of the attributes of their sex, have desired to contribute to the ornamenting and developement of the minds of those beings whose lives are made and modified by them up to the age of twelve or fourteen years. Even those severe and invidi- ous censors who would condemn the fair sex to the needle and the distaff, cannot deny that woman, who rears and suckles the child, who teaches him to run alone, to stam- mer out words and sentences, and finally to read and write, ought best to know the progress of the human IN ENGLAND. 153 mind, and must have, on this first period of existence, more experience than a Bacon or a Plato. The English, who read more than any other nation, and admire highly the originality of the Greek and Roman writers, are not to be led astray by prejudices or customary modes of thinking no longer adapted to our situation, but reward with applause and gratitude those ladies who, instead of wasting their time at whist, in feminine fripperies, or in knitting a pair of stockings that might be bought at a shop for half the cost, have cultivated their minds suffi- ciently to enable them to compose tales or poetry, or ele- mentary scientific works, for the use of youth. Where are the heads of a family in the three kingdoms of Great Britain, who do not speak with grateful respect of Miss Eedgeworth, as the instructress of their children ? 154 THE ITALIAN EXILE ISOLATED OBSERVATIONS. It is here necessary that I should say a few words on the English novels which are now printed in shoals, and read by every body, not excepting either the king or the lord chancellor.* Among us, and over almost all the continent, there is a feeling against novels, almost amount- ing to horror: how happens it then that the English, who sets so high a value on their intellect and morals, should put themselves in such mortal hazard of losing both ? There appear to me to be two strong reasons in favour of the English novels. Far from sapping and un- dermining the imagination and the heart, none of the in- finity of novels now published, venture even to agitate them, or at most only to go so far as to gently touch them. In all of them there is not a page in the style of Faublas, or the Liaisons Dangereuses, the free novels of Boccac- cio, or the still freer of Abbate Casti : in these respects, the modern novels are even more unexceptionable than the English novels of the last century, such as Clarissa, * The king lately sent a handsome present to 'he authoress of a novel called "Flirtation;" and when a judge or a counsellor tra- vels, his wife or daughter never fails to put into his carriage the last new novel, by way of giving him a companion for his journey more agreeable than a Blackstone. IN ENGLAND. 155 % Tom Jones, Joseph Andrews, the first part of Pamela, and Roderick Random ; which neither were nor are read commonly, at least by the young-. There are no novels of the present day that steep the soul in sentiment, like the Nouvelle Eloise of Rousseau, which it is impossible to read without handkerchief in hand, and " sighing like furnace;" nor, finally, in reading any of them, is there any risk of becoming such goggle-eyed, maggot-headed, asthmatic sinners as the German romance of Werter, and its double, Jacopo Ortis, would tend to make us. The modern English novels (till now at least) have been only innocent pictures of the manners, customs, and prejudi- ces, of the many classes, sects, and sets, and individual originals, that are to be met with in England more than elsewhere, from the liberty which leaves a latitude and a vent for the character of every one. They are rather comedies in three or four volumes (instead of three acts,) than collections of adventures, made "thick and slab" with martyrising passions. Speaking of the English novels, an American writer exclaims, " Thrice blest be he who first imagined those pleasant fictions which so sweetly beguile the weight of weariness, cheer up the drooping spirits with a * cup that cheers, but not ine- briates J lighten the horrors of a rainy day, break the te- dium of a long winter's evening, and impart some life and vigour to the dullest of all human formalities a family conversation." Another consideration in favour of these novels is, that if there were none, many people would not read at all : they are like newspapers, the reading of those who do not read. Most people read only to pass away the time. Is it not better, then, to read an amusing novel, written in good language, than to go stalking about with the hands crossed behind, in the piazza of St. Mark ? or yawning in a coffee-room, disputing on the 156 THE ITALIAN EXILE merit of opera dancers and prima donnas, killing-, mean- while, the flies that are stinging- the hands and face ? or planting- oneself in the village apothecary's shop, to hold sweet converse amidst the effluvia of cataplasms, about the loves of the curate and his servant maid ? List of English authoresses and their works, compiled at my request by some very obliging young ladies. Those having this mark * have been republished in America. MARIA EDGEWORTH, AN IRISH LADY. *Early Lessons, Continuation of Early Lessons, ^Parents' Assistant, ^Popular Tales, *Tales of Fashionable Life, *Patron- age, ^Belinda, *Readings in Poetry, ^Practical Educa- tion. MRS. BARBAULD, OF LONDON. *Early Lessons, *Hymns in Prose for Children, *Part of Evenings at Home. MRS. PRISCILLA WAKEFIELD. *Mental Improvement, * Juvenile Travellers, *Family Tour through the British Empire, Travels in North America, *Instinct Displayed, ^Sketches of Human Manners. MRS. MARIA HACK. Winter Evenings, *Harry Beaufoy, Grecian Stories, Stories from English History. MRS. CAPPE, OF YORK. Memoirs of Herself. MRS. HOFLAND. *Son of a Genius, *Blind Farmer, *Good Grandmother, *The Officer's Widow, *The Clergyman's Widow, *The Merchant's Widow. Miss JANE TAYLOR, OF ONGAR. ^Original Poems, *Sun- day-School Hymns, *Hymns for Infant Minds, *Dis- play, a Tale. IN ENGLAND. 157 Miss AIKIN, OP LONDON. *Juvenile Correspondence, *Selection of Poetry, Essays and Poems, Female Speaker. MRS. HANNAH MORE, NEAR BRISTOL. *On Education, *Sacred Dramas, ^Practical Piety, *Spirit of Prayer, *Tracts. Miss HARRIET MARTINEAU, OF NORWICH. Devotional Exercises, Christmas Day, or, The Friends. MRS. ELIZABETH HAMILTON, OF EDINBURGH. ^Letters on Education, *Memoirs of Agrippina, *The Cottagers of Glenburnie. MRS. MARCET, OF LONDON. ^Conversations on Chemis- try, Conversations on Natural Philosophy, *Conver- sations on Political Economy. MRS. TRIMMER. ^Fabulous Histories, ^Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature, ^Scripture Histories. AN ANONYMOUS LADY. *Memoirs of Lady Rachel Rus- sell. 14 1 58 THE ITALIAN EXILE A COUNTRY WAKE. Although Catholicism has been renounced in England for three centuries, some customs, prejudices, and festi- vals, that the church of Rome or the friars introduced, are nevertheless not yet extirpated. In the same manner, many of the rites and ceremonies of Paganism still sub- sisted, even after the Christian religion had planted its standard on its ruins. To destroy a moral edifice, of whatever kind, and however absurd it may be, is much more difficult than to annihilate works entirely con- structed by the hand of man. The revolutions of em- pires, of governments, of religions, and of languages, supply illustrations of this position in abundance ; but, without wandering too far, without ever quitting England, I need only proceed to say, that I have before me a book printed a century ago, by a clergyman of Newcastle, entitled " Antiquitates Vulgares," in which this good minister mentions all the ceremonies, superstitions, and popular prejudices, to be extinguished by means of the instruction of the lower orders. It appears that at that time the lower orders of English believed in apparitions that walked abroad in the night, in ghosts that haunted the churchyards, in hobgoblins, witches, and fairies, in the magic virtues of certain wells and fountains, in a devil with cloven feet, in haunted houses, in the evil augury of a hare's crossing the path, of a IN ENGLAND. 159 rook's cawing, of an owl's hooting, and a hundred other nonsenses of that sort, which the heroes of antiquity and the knights of the round table once believed in, and our nurses and children believe in still. There is not an English poet, from Shakspeare to Walter Scott, who has not availed himself of these popular prejudices, as a my- thology or poetic machinery, to increase wonder and terror, the two passions they handle most sublimely. But what is beautiful in poetry, is often very different in practice. Hence the good curate, Bourne of New- castle, generously spurning the gain which some of his function exact from similar bug-bears, dedicated his book to the municipal authorities of the town, and earnestly exhorted them to establish schools for the people, as a means more efficacious than holy water, to send all de- vilries packing to the devil again. His prayers were heard ; for in the century since, popular instruction has gone on increasing, dispersing phantoms by its light, and freeing houses, woods, and heaths, from flying dragons and dancing witches. Let it be well noted, that instead of religious sentiments growing weaker in con- sequence, it can be proved that in England they have acquired strength by their being purified from puerile prejudices. The atmosphere, however, is not yet quite clear ; those who read the romances of Walter Scott (and who does not?) will see that nocturnal spectres, elves, and fairies, still maintain some dominion in the mountains of Scotland. Among the feasts that the catholic religion observes from precept, and that the lower orders of the English still keep in some counties as holidays, is that of Whit- suntide. In Yorkshire, many villages, in the week fol- lowing Whit-Sunday, celebrate in turns a rural festival, and I will now relate how I happened to find myself present at one of these. 160 THE ITALIAN EXILE It was the beginning of June, and sunset, which in England is always finer than sunrise. There was not that mistiness afloat which so often obscures and conceals all the beauties of the landscape. The heaven was of a lovely azure, studded here and there with fleecy clouds which only concealed now and then the face of the sun, to make his splendour seem more brilliant and more grateful when he re-appeared from behind them. A fresh wind rustled the boughs, and gave an agreeable change and variety to the surface of the beautiful English meadows. I give these few pencil touches, that it may be perceived what a difference there always is between a fine Italian and a fine English day, and to be able to wind up, in all sincerity and frankness, with the declaration, that when the sun in England shines with all his lustre, and with sufficient power to light up all the objects around (which happens a very few times in a year,) England is not only the most beautiful country in the world, but a day of really fine weather in England, together with its liberty, is worth ten years of life spent under the azure skies of enslaved and enervated coun- tries : " A day, an hour of virtuous liberty, Is worth a whole eternity of bondage !" Addisorts Cato. Taking a stroll on the skirts of the city, without any fixed object, I perceived that a good many persons were taking their way along a fine road, bordered with lofty and branching trees, as well as with a uniform hedge, well trimmed, and altogether in as complete order as that of an Italian garden, when cultivated with care and good will. Such are almost all the hedges which sur- round the fields in England. The greater leisure of the IN ENGLAND. 161 English country people, the excellence of their cutting- implements, their care in protecting themselves from the thorns with mittens and thick leather aprons, and their love of order and neatness, altogether operate to make the commonest hedges as well kept as those in the vicinity of our greatest cities. I determined to follow the track, and was well content that I had done so, because this string of people, which resembled a swarm of ants, led me to a village called Heslington, three miles from York; and one of those festivals I have been talking about was celebrating there. It is a village inhabited entirely by peasantry and farmers ; the houses, therefore, are almost all built in the same form, and with the same arrange- ment. These village mansions are in general covered with a roof formed of long straw, well bound together, and so thick that it not only preserves the house from rain and snow, but also from the cold, and, in summer, from excessive heat. Thus this cottage roof is often imitated by the English in their summer houses by the seaside, especially in the pleasant Isle of Wight, where they for that reason bear the name of cottages, a name that awakens so many sweet emotions, when affluence instead of poverty dwells within. All the windows are glazed; there was not one pane broken or wanting throughout the village. Seventy years ago paper held the place of glass ; the peasant is altogether improved with the improvement of agriculture ; another fact in opposition to the discouraging theory of Ortes, that the wealth of a state can never increase but in appearance, in favour of the few, and to the injury of the many. It is most true, as is asserted by some writers on politi- cal economy, that the system of leases, and the large farms (a consequence of this, and of the substitution of meadow for arable land), have not only diminished the agricultural population of England, in comparison 14* 162 THE ITALIAN EXILE with what it might have been, but have divided it into two classes : the first, a small one, of farmers, and the other, a most numerous one, of labourers, or peasants, with no land of their own, in the service of the farmers. It is, however, not true that these peasants, although merely the hired servants of the farmers, and often as- sisted by the parish with from two to three shillings per week, according to the number of their children, are poor and wretched. I will venture to say, that they are hap- pier than a great portion of our small farmers. If the happiness of men is to be estimated by their dress, food, and lodging, it may be broadly said, that the state of these English labourers is much better than that of our small farmers, who eat only brown bread made of coarse flour, drink water, scarcely ever have meat, and in winter warm themselves at fetid ox-stalls. To the farm houses of England there are not such spacious thrashing floors attached as in Italy, on which may be seen broods of ducks, the hen surrounded by her chickens, the turkeys swelling with rage, and challenging one another to satisfy their jealousy. Here the ground is principally employed in pasture ; grain is not so abun- dant as with us, and, besides, the climate does not allow them to thrash in our manner, on open floors. Here covered over thrashing machines are used, moved by steam or horses, and that cost 100Z. or 120/. sterling to set up. The farm yard therefore is more confined, and serves only for the horses and cows, which, when they are not in the open fields, wander about and lie down in these farm yards, which are covered with straw an arm's length deep, by way of providing them a soft and ample bed. The uniformity of these houses is pleasantly varied" by a conspicuous house, built in the style of the castle palaces of Queen Elizabeth's days. With its high towers, which once expressed the necessity of defence against IN ENGLAND. 163 sudden assault, and with its large, high, and numerous windows, that display more confidence and security, it forms an agreeable contrast with the simple and humble habitations that surround it, and seems, like a feudal ba- ron of tjie sixteenth century, armed and accoutred, in full array, in the midst of his obedient vassals. This fantas- tic but handsome style of architecture would have pleased Milizia, who so warmly recommended variety in country houses. All the inhabitants were grouped here and there in the middle of the wide and spacious street; in the houses there was nobody but the old housewives, dressed in their best, and ten years younger in their faces, from the light heartedness which animated them, and the praises they received for the well made plum pudding of the day. [The plum pudding is a sweet compound of flour, eggs, milk, sugar, raisins, brandy, and beef suet, which is easily digested by means of a ride of twenty miles on a high- trotting horse!] At a rustic festival in Italy, the shouts and cries would have been heard a mile off, the burst of that Italian merriment which kindles of itself, even without the aid of wine, from the mere contact of per- sons. I should have met in the village bands of young men, singing in chorus, with bold and confident looks, their caps mounted with a peacock's feather, dangling down over one eye, and somewhat of an assuming air, as if to avenge themselves for the contempt which the- citizen showers without reason on the countryman : tiut; in Heslington, all (up to that moment) was order, quiet,^ and mutual respect. But I must confess the scene would haye been somewhat more animating, if there had been a little of that itinerant music, so enlivening to the spirit, which is met with at every step in Italy. There was not even one of those inexorable and most annoying hand- organs that infest our streets at every hour. All at once, 164 THE ITALIAN EXILE however, I heard some cheering raised, the crowd divided into two ranks; and I perceived, advancing from a dis- tance, eight or nine countrymen, each driving a wheel- barrow before him at full speed, and trying his utmost to be first at the goal: this was the first race in these Olym- pic games. Shortly after succeeded a ducking match. This game is played by placing a large tub of water in the middle of the road, with some money at the bottom : a crowd of boys, stripped to the skin, stand around, awaiting the signal to dip their heads in, with their hands crossed behind their backs, to bring up the money in their mouths. The grimaces of the boys, when they drew their heads out of the water half stifled, without getting any thing for their pains, invariably excited the laughter of the by-standers. When this ducks' game was over, happening to raise my eyes, I saw, hung up before a public-house, a new saddle and bridle, and a couple of hats. From this I conceived a hope that there was going to be a tilt or a tournay, or some similar heroic contest ; and I was not deceived in my expecta- tion: a horse race was, in fact, approaching; and I saw, without having long to wait, four large farmers' horses, mounted by four stout boys, taking their way to the spot fixed upon for the starting post. Although, to say the truth, steeds, harness, and riders, were a thousand miles behind those I had seen, a day or two before, at the county races, they were, nevertheless, not so totally bad that I could call it a complete parody : I could not, there- fore, help taking an interest in the thing, in common with the rest, and preparing to admire the victor. In the end, after ten minutes' hard galloping, the horses got back to the goal; and the winner was conducted, with the same acclamation as at the regular races, to the spot where the judges sat: IN ENGLAND. 165 " When ends the game of hazard all its turns, The one that lost remains behind in wo, Goes o'er the game again, and sadly learns, While all the people with the others go." Dante. In London there is the jockey club, at which, months before the Doncaster or Newmarket races are run, bets are laid to a frightful amount, which are duly recorded in the papers :* these are the ruin of many English gentlemen of fortune. In this village the bets certainly were not so high, but the warmth with which they were made was not only as great, but perhaps even greater. The English in general do not play at cards, but are in the habit, instead, of laying wagers ; they bet on every thing, on sailing and rowing matches on the rivers, on games at cricket, on boxing matches, on foot races and horse races; nay, is not the Exchange itself, in a great measure, merely a great betting stand? It is the same passion for gaming (that innate desire in man of improving his condition), opening for itself a different and perhaps a less injurious vent, since it tends to give new animation to gymnastic exercises, and to perfection- ate the important breed of horses. I entered a public house, where the crowd was closer. Fifteen or twenty farmers were seated with their clay- pipes of perfect whiteness in their mouths, and pewter pots full of gin and water before them. I took a seat in their circle, and whether from the interest they one and all took in the races, which they were talking over, or that they took me for a veteran frequenter of the house, * One of the most famous pugilists in England recently aspired to purchase an elegant villa, with the sums he had amassed by boxing and betting, amounting to forty thousand pounds sterling. 166 THE ITALIAN EXILE the truth is, that none of them cast a single glance of curiosity or surprise on my person. A butcher came in lamenting the misfortune of a young mare of his, that in running had broken her leg. He used much action with his mournful recital, to excite the more compas- sion, but finding his hearers inclined rather to laugh than cry, he also took to comforting himself with a brim- ming glass of gin, and then assuming a noble and heroic air (with the hypocrisy of the Roman gladiator, who " died with decency,") protested that it was not the value of the colt he took to heart, but the colt herself, which was his favourite. This tragic occurrence, the betting, and the brandy, which would make even the dumb speak, had now rendered these farmers so talka- tive, that I found myself in the midst of a sea of words ; I say a sea of words, because I could understand nothing of their conversation beyond a few isolated expressions. Although I have a passable knowledge of English, I could not contrive to make out the Yorkshire dialect, which is one of the strangest and most corrupt in Eng- land. It produced a curious effect on me; not being able to catch more than a few unconnected words here and there, I seemed to be reading a dictionary. Hardly any of the interlocutors could preserve a perpendicular; when they stood on their feet, they all began to hang, now to the left, now to the right ; like the Asses' Towers at Bo- logna, though bending and always threatening to fall, they never fell. A circumstance that still more increased my wonder was, that though their bodies tottered this way and that, their reason, their talking, never wavered in the least such is the force of habit ! While the races were going on, there suddenly arose behind my back a dispute on some point of betting, which in any other country would have given me some apprehension, but in England did not even make rne turn IN ENGLAND. 167 my head, knowing that these quarrels end by a fight with the naked fists in the fields, on equal terms, and be- fore a hundred eyes, which impartially decide whether the blows are fair or foul. At last, finding that this com- bat of abuse, after the manner of the heroes of Homer, did not come to a conclusion, I looked behind me for curiosity sake, and found that the strife was between a tall, thin, but sinewy young man, who had drunk more than the clothes he had on would pay for, and a huge, heavy, stupid farmer, who seemed to have lost the use of his joints through fat. If a fight had taken place, I cannot conceive how he would have found the elasticity to give a blow, or avoid the danger of being upset by his adversary, and rolling no one knows where, for he was as round as the map of the world. At length, behold, an Iris appeared to put an end to the increasing strife, in the shape of the hostess, a tall, slender, and not ill look- ing daughter of Eve, who, with a silvery voice (as most Englishwomen have), and that voice made still softer by her tone of entreaty, acted as peace-maker between them. Every moment one of these altercations burst forth from some corner or other of the village, but that sweet sex? which elsewhere so often has sabres, knives, and daggers bared for its sake, was here always the pacificator ; and that John Bull, who is accused of so much boorishness towards the ladies, becomes almond paste itself at her voice, as might have been seen. He must be seen at home, honouring and indulging his " mistress," (wife,) and in good truth, making her mistress of every thing. I had here an opportunity of observing, that even in the heat of a quarrel, the English do not gesticulate much ; I remember the witty Mr. Sydney Smith saying to me one day, "Why do not my countrymen use their arms like other nations? There is no doctor and no law to pro- hibit it!" 168 THE ITALIAN EXILE Thus I passed the evening till eleven o'clock: the company then beginning to separate, I resolved to return to York. How delightful is a pedestrian stroll by moon- light in England, without the slightest fear of encounter- ing a highwayman to ease one of one's watch and purse ! Gone are the times of the equestrian robbers, of the Robin Hoods and the Rob Roys ; they are now no more than characters of romance, and, after having frightened their contemporaries with their thieving feats, now serve for a diversion to children, like the Blue Beards, the Ez- zelino da Romanes, the Bernabs Viscontis, and the rest of the tyrants, once abominable and always ridiculous. Cows, cattle, horses, feed through almost all the nights of the year loose in the fields, without even so much as a child to guard them. It might be thought the golden age of innocence ; but this security is the effect of the law, which punishes horse and cattle stealing with inevitable death. In other cases the sentence of death is often commuted for that of transportation, but for offences of this nature this favour is seldom obtained. Another pleasure for one with a mind a little exalted by poetry or romance, is to be able to abandon the high road, and tread the paths through the midst of the soft and verdant meadows, perhaps the only and most an- cient right of landed property which has remained to the lower classes of the people. Finally, another pleasure, not less valuable to one overcome with fatigue, is to get home, and find in a little lodging, consisting of a bed- room and a parlour, all the comforts and the quiet that in their times neither the Marquis of Carabas enjoyed in his fief, nor the good King of Yuetot of Berenger, in his palace. IN ENGLAND. 169 THE SPRING ASSIZES, Those who have never read the fine observations of Filangieri on the English modes of procedure, or, better still, the valuable work of M. Cottu on the institution of juries, and the publicity of the courts in England, may do well to read the few lines which follow. It was the 10th of March, and the very eve of the arri- val of two of the twelve judges, who, twice a year, in March and August, travel from London, followed by a numerous band of the most celebrated barristers, to the circuit assigned them, to judge all the criminal causes pending, and the civil causes which come within their jurisdiction. That lively interest, those lessons of wis- dom, that useful amusement, which the Romans extract- ed from their forum, are also drawn by the English from these courts, called the assizes. It is an era of motion, of merriment, and, at the same time, of intense and painful anxiety. The gentlemen of the country betake them- selves on these days to the assize town, either to be jury- men or mere spectators of the trials, to meet their friends from London, or to enjoy those diversions the town always presents on these occasions. On every side arrive the witnesses and parties interested; from London come some of the most eloquent barristers, or in general two antagonists, who in almost every cause find them- 15 170 THE ITALIAN EXILE selves pitted against each other, and with them a nume- rous train of young lawyers, who are entering on their career, and desirous of making themselves known to the public. At each of these epochs the jails are delivered, that is, the prisons are emptied ; all must be brought to trial; innocent or guilty, this is the issue, and an English- man who should have plotted a universal deluge, must not have to await his trial longer than six months. How different is this rejoicing of the English people at their assizes, from that which has sometimes been exhibited by a thoughtless nation at an auto-da-fe ! But we will pass over the comparison with a tribunal that exists no longer, and will revive no more. Let us rather draw a parallel with other continental tribunals, which are become more horrible and unjust than the inquisition. What a difference, I mean to say, between those senti- ments of confidence and hilarity which precede the sittings of the English courts, and the horror and affright which " Special Commissions," in other countries, scatter all around the spot on which they plant the bloody axe ! And with what good reason too ! for no one believes him- self in safety under judges retained to discover crime even where it is not in existence, and who, after torment- ing their victim with a torture slowerthan that of an- cient days, with threats, with fastings, with insidious promises, w r ith a long continued imprisonment, at last pronounce their sentence with all the mystery of assassi- nation. The English assizes, on the contrary, do not quicken the pulse of him who is conscious of his innocence, a single beat. In all hearts, on all faces, is the conviction of the integrity, mildness, and impartiality, with which justice will be administered. I have often mixed with the crowd, immersed myself in the groups of people, on pur- pose to ascertain the sentiments prevailing among the IN ENGLAND. 171 lower classes ; and not one suspicion did I discover, not one word did I hear that indicated distrust of, or aver- sion to, the administrators of justice. Besides, they know the judgment of the fact, the most important of all, is not in the hands of the judges of the crown, but of the jury, their equals. " By the law of the land, and the judg- ment of his peers," is one of the most ancient privileges consecrated by Magna Charta, and of which every Eng- lishman is justly proud. The king of England can make many of the monarchs of the earth tremble, but not any one of his subjects. He must be judged by his peers, according to the law of the land, " By the law of the land, and the judgment of our peers." So scrupulously is this privilege observed, that when Baretti (author of the Literary Scourge) was brought to trial for a homicide committed by him at night in a street of London, in self-defence, it was offered to him if he wished it, that six of the jury should be Italians. He renounced this right, and was acquitted. I was my- self present at the trial of a German, who was also ask- ed if he wished half the jury to be composed of his own countrymen ; and he also declined. Such is the confi- dence that trial by jury inspires. To return : A great part of the population of Notting- ham, therefore, had taken its way on the morning of the 10th of March, along the road by which the two judges, named by the crown, for the Nottingham (Mid- land) circuit, were to arrive. All is to a T, as I have already said, in this most punctual England ; eleven o'clock was announced as the hour of their arrival, and precisely at eleven, a fine coach, with four horses, with the postilion in his tight and handsome jacket, the coach- man in a three cornered hat, like that of our priests, the arms of the city on the panels, and two footmen,- in a flaring new livery, behind, heralded the coming of the 172 THE ITALIAN EXILE judges. The carriage was preceded by a score of men on horseback, with the city banner waving from a jave- lin, and swords by their sides. All this parade was at the expense of the high sheriff of the county, who repre- sents, on the bench, by the side of the judges, the sove- reign, or executive power, mute, motionless, and passive, present only to execute the sentences : it was followed by a great number of the gentlemen of the city, who had gone out on horseback to meet the judges. This awaiting, this welcome, these honours, all this pomp not only tends to increase in the people their reverence for justice, but to strengthen, in the judges themselves, the feeling of their own dignity, and the high import- ance of their duties. Without loss of time, in about an hour, the court was installed, and the civil and criminal trials began in two separate halls. In England, the prejudice that it is in- human and unbecoming to be present at the sitting of the tribunals, does not exist ; it is thought, on the con- trary, to be a school of experience, penetration, and elo- quence. The Roman youth became robust and hardy in the field of Mars, wise and enlightened in the forum. In the same way, persons of every age, sex, and rank in society, meet here at the assizes. The courts or halls of justice, which within the last sixty years have been rebuilt almost all throughout England, in a grander and more appropriate style than before, are suitable to the increase in the population and riches of the island. Be- sides the district compartments for the judges, for the witnesses, for the accused, and for the barristers, there is an open space for the common people, and a gallery a little more commodious, for the more elevated classes. The people are never treated as a rabble in England ; they -are always respected, but never confounded with the middle and higher classes. The courts are always IN ENGLAND. 173 filled with ladies and gentlemen, all polite towards each other, all attentive, arid anxious for the fate of the pri- soner. In the beautiful court house of the city of York, I sometimes saw the gallery adorned with numbers of lovely Englishwomen, who had left their elegant villas to see and to be seen, and worthy of being seen they were indeed. These galleries looked like conservatories of flowers ; I certainly would not have given the sight of them for the magnificent theatrical spectacle of the Roman forum. It is needless to say, that all who occupy the open seats are decently dressed ; it is riot, however superfluous to re- mark, that even the prisoners appear at the bar with the same neatness and cleanliness as if they were going to be married. In this the English usage is very different from that of the ancient Romans, who sought, with torn and dark coloured clothes, with dishevelled hair, and floods of tears, to excite the pity of their judges. In the English procedure, there is no room for excitements, neither the arts of the accused nor the rhetorical flou- rishes of the advocate are admitted, nor would produce any effect if they were. If the large and comical wigs worn by the judges and counsellors be excepted, all is extremely simple in these tribunals ; the sanctity of the laws, and the majesty of the people, that we so often read of in Cicero, are seen here in reality. Judge Best made to the grand and petty juries a short address, in which he made particular mention of a man who had killed his own wife, and who was to be put upon his trial. He pointed out to the petty jury the difference between a murder committed simply on the provocation of abusive words, and one committed in consequence of provocation by blows : he touched on this distinction without making any allusion to the case in question. His address was simple, destitute of any 15* 1 74 THE ITALIAN EXILE over elegance, and delivered in a natural tone, and with that self-possession which a judge acquires by the habit of constantly speaking in public. By the side of this venerable be-gowned, be-wigged, and be-spectacled Minos, was seated a young lady, through favour that the ladies sometimes enjoy of sitting on the bench, a privilege of which they do not fail to take advantage, bashful as they are. This young lady was fair haired, somewhat stout, with a most ample bon- net of black velvet, trimmed with ribands of various co- lours : dressed in scarlet, she seemed a-blaze with youth and beauty. She was not only beautiful, but dangerous : she made, perhaps unconsciously, all those motions that the seducing owl makes use of at a barn door when the little birds are passing by. The Athenian Areopagus would have made her veil her face. By good fortune, however, age rendered the English magistrate invulner- able to the shafts of her eyes, her smiles, her gestures. It was a fine contrast between that small well dressed head, and the full curly wig of the judge, which de- scended on his shoulders like a lion's mane, between the laughing, sparkling eyes of the young lady, and the severe eyebrows and the spectacles of the sexagenarian judge ! She seemed placed there by a painter for the felicity of the contrast, as they always place the Virgin Mary near the old Saint Joseph. In relation to this, I have often heard my dear countrywomen (who know well the effect of contrast) take pleasure in being sur- rounded by a sanhedrim of aged Simeons : there is not perhaps a finer contrast than a Susanna between two Elders. One of the prisoners was convicted of horse-stealing, a crime punished with death in England, on account of the facility of its commission ; the farmers, as I observ- ed before, turning out their horses to feed in the open IN ENGLAND. 175 fields, without any keeper. The judge informed him that the punishment he had incurred was that of death, but apprised him that it would be commuted to transpor- tation for life. This humane apprisal called to my mind the cruel clemency of certain rulers, who suffer the con- demned to remain in ignorance of the mitigation of their punishment, to the very moment of execution, on the scaffold itself: the greater part of the Austrian soldiers to whom their pardon is communicated only at the moment when, on their knees, and blindfolded, they await the four balls in the forehead, remain all the rest of their lives feeble minded, or absolute idiots. Another of the prisoners, thinking to avoid part of his punishment by confessing his crime, when asked if he wished to plead " guilty" or " not guilty" ; replied " guilty." The judge made him observe, that this would not do him the least service, and that it was still time to retract his plea. Another lesson for those tribunals on the continent, where, among the other iniquities com- mitted with closed doors, it is customary to tempt the accused with insidious snares of pretended evidence, false confessions, accomplices, &c. When I observed the frank and earnest manner in which the witnesses deposed to what they had heard and seen, when I saw gentlemen and gentlewomen appear in the box without repugnance, or shame, when I read in the public journals that the Duke of Wellington and many other lords were cited, or voluntarily pre- sented themselves to give evidence in favour of a pri- soner, I called to mind a passage in the 16th volume of Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics, in which, as a proof of the effects of the degraded, mercenary, and arbitrary administration of the laws in some of the Italian governments of the eighteenth century, M. Sis- mondi adduces the horror the very name of a tribunal 1 76 THE ITALIAN EXILE carried with it, the inevitable infamy of whoever was merely accused, the disgust which the lower officers of justice inspired, and the shame, the scruples, and the terror experienced by every one at appearing to bear witness before a judge. The admirable observations of M. Sismondi are still applicable to many of the tribunals in the north of Italy. Here I only speak of the English mode of procedure, because it is known to all that the penal laws are mon- strously disproportioned to the heaviness of the offences,* so that the jury, not being able to acquit the prisoner of the fact, often correct the excess of the law, by classify- ing the crime a degree lower in the scale. Of this I was myself a witness ; a pickpocket would have been sen- tenced to a very severe punishment for a theft he had committed of a handkerchief, which the owner valued at five shillings. The jury found the accused guilty of the theft, and, being obliged to declare what was the value of the stolen property, decided that the handkerchief was only worth one shilling. The pickpocket conducted his own defence, and interrogated the prosecutor with the ingenuity and dexterity his trade would lead one to look for. The delinquents of other descriptions are generally not so artful in their defence. Eloquence is almost totally excluded from criminal trials. The counsel for the prisoner may make as many ob- servations and examine as many witnesses as he chooses ; but he is forbidden to excite the passions, or to address * Nor do I intend to speak of the English civil laws, which would be a burden for a hundred camels, nor of the enormous expenses of legal proceedings, to which the fable of the oyster is so closely ap- plicable, A shell for thee and a shell for me, The oyster is the lawyer's fee ! IN ENGLAND. 177 the jury on the fact. In cases, however, of theft and ho- micide (I do not know why, and it would be difficult to say), the prisoner's counsel cannot deliver any speech, but may cross-examine witnesses, and supply his client with a defence in writing. The prisoner may speak as often as he wishes, and may also read his own defence, but very rarely avails himself of his right ; in fact, what need is there of specious eloquence, when the procedure itself, carried on with open doors, in presence of the public, and with the most delicate precautions in favour of the criminals, is itself a defence worthy of Cicero ? Eloquence has a fairer field in the civil causes. It was in one of these I saw, in opposition, at York, the two celebrated counsellors, Brougham and Scarlett. The cause was of a rather singular nature, and such as there certainly is no example of in the annals of Athens and Rome. The question was, who were the rightful owners of a whale, which was mortally wounded by a party of sailors, and dragged ashore out of the sea by some fisher- men : the subject was sufficiently heavy to employ all the abilities of the two gowned rivals. The rhetorical weapons, the various artifices, the different motions and looks made use of by them in the contest, diverted me excessively. Both are members of parliament, but Brough- am is far superior in the eloquence of the senate to his opponent. Scarlett, a more profound and expert lawyer, avenges himself in the court of this superiority of the other, although Brougham is not the man to yield pre- eminence to any man on earth. Scarlett, grave, confi- dent in his knowledge, with swelling breast, seems like a cuirassier well steeled against assault, and wishing to conquer by the weight of his arms ; Brougham, strong in his quickness of mind, and the flexibility of his wit, resembles an Arab cavalier, who, flying round and round, at once avoids and assails an enemy. Scarlett, when he 178 THE ITALIAN EXILE addressed himself to the jury, while he maintained the steady dignity of an experienced jurisconsult, fixed his penetrating eyes on the faces of the jurymen, to discover the emotions of their minds, and turn them to profit. Brougham, on the other hand, sought to distract their attention from the points dangerous to his client by sub- tleties, and sallies of wit and sarcasm, of which his store is inexhaustible. Scarlett is the admiration of the legal profession ; Brougham the favourite of the fair sex, and of the public, for his witty sallies. The fatigue which the counsellors go through for the few days the assizes last is incredible: but they are amply recompensed, I do not mean merely by their large fees, but by the admiration and respect of the people, who contemplate them, when they are on their feet in court delivering their speeches, with the same avidity that we gaze on the Apollo Belvidere.* He who has felt the love * James Hall, the author of Legends of the West, &c. in his Western Monthly Magazine of last month, has the following ju- dicious remarks on the same subject. Ed. " In some of the eastern states, few persons go into a court of law, unless they have business. It is not so here. Court week is a general holiday. Not only suitors, jurors, and witnesses, but all who can spare the time, brush up their coats, and brush down their horses, and go to court. A stranger is struck with the silence, the eagerness, and deep attention, with which these rough sons of the forest listen to the arguments of the lawyers, evincing a lively inte- rest in these proceedings, and thorough understanding of the ques- tions discussed. Besides those alluded to, there are a variety of other public meetings. Every thing is done in this country in popu- lar assemblies, all questions are debated in popular speeches, and decided by popular vote. These facts speak for themselves. Not only must a vast deal of information be disseminated throughout a society thus organised, but the taste for popular assemblies and , public harangues, which forms so striking a trait in the western character, is, in itself, a conclusive proof of a high degree of intel- ligence. Ignorant people would neither relish nor understand the oratory, which our people receive with enthusiastic applause. Tg- IN ENGLAND. 179 of glory knows that one hour of public esteem is worth ten years of a soft epicurean life. The rapidity with which the trials were despatched is not less incredible. In ten or twelve days every year, two judges get through from 100 to 120 criminal, and, perhaps, as many civil cases. In the criminal causes there are never those skeins of interrogatories which I once saw, in Italy, mount up, in a case of assassination, to at least 30 volumes in folio, of 300 pages each. The English, luckily for them, have not that race of notaries, whose trade consists in exhausting the patience and the lungs of prisoners and witnesses, and driving them into confusion and fainting fits, with interminable costituti and redarguizioni (settled points, and points to be cleared up). This is the fruit we have gathered from the im- mortal works of Beccaria, Filangieri, and Marco Pagano : England, on the contrary, without having had the glory of producing those luminaries of criminal science,* dis- covered, by the help of good sense alone, two principles, publicity, and the jury, by means of which she enjoys a rapid, liberal, and impartial administration of justice. When the trial commences, there is no document but a piece of paper, the bill of indictment, found by the grand jury, whose business it is previously to decide, by ex- amining into the broad points of the affair, on the admis- sibility of the accusation. As soon as this is read, the interrogatories commence. In the meanwhile, the judge notes down the answers, and draws up a succinct narra- tive of the case, with the most remarkable circumstances. When the questions are ended, and they cannot last norant people would not attend such meetings, week after week, and day after day, with unabated interest; nor could they thus go, and remain ignorant." * Blackstone, although a great writer, is only the commentator on a legislation which preceded him. 180 THE ITALIAN EXILE long where the presence of an auditory impedes the in- sidious arts of malignity, the judge reads over a reca- pitulation of the case to the jury, who are to decide whether the accused is guilty or not of the fact laid to his charge. It is impossible that there should be the slightest alteration in this narrative ; because the public, which has heard all, is, so to speak, the judge of the judge. Besides, the jury, who have also heard all, can rectify any error or omission he may fall into. The jury take, in general, two or three minutes to ascertain their unanimity, and declare their judgment. If the ac- cused be found guilty, the judge has only to apportion the punishment to the quality of the offence. This done, the tragedy is over ; there is no longer room for appeals, for " cassations," or for open processes, as if a man could be guilty and not guilty of an act. Where did we go to find the labyrinth of our criminal procedure ? I may be deceived, but certainly the English system has, if nothing else, the advantage of simplicity and celerity ; and, in the same manner that the liberty of the press, true and un- injured, corrects all the detects of a government, it ap- pears to me that the publicity of trials, united to the institution of an independent jury, obviates all the incon- veniences that a metaphysical legislator, with his laws that turn molehills into mountains, would discern in such a kind of procedure. We have books, and the English have institutions. Without the boast of having given to Europe the Filan- gieries, the Beccarias, the Matteis, the Servins, the Mon- tesquieus, they possess an excellent procedure. We be- lieve that the profession of a judge requires the most profound study, a mind the most acute, incessant labour, in fine, we believe it a profession reserved for a few pri- vileged beings. On the contrary, they, by applying the great rnaxim of the division of labour, have rendered the IN ENGLAND. 181 business of a judge most easy, at least a good half of it. Having separated the judges of the fact from those of the punishment, they have by this means effected this great end, that the positive knowledge of the laws is re- quisite only for the latter, while for the others rectitude and common sense are sufficient. The judges, in their ermined scarlet gowns, and large wigs, with the title of " My Lord," are, and ought to be, real adepts in the law ; while the members of the grand jury are simply gentlemen and men of property, ignorant of every kind of law ; and those of the petty jury are mere shopkeepers, shoemakers, or tailors, provided only with the great science of common sense. The institution of the jury is so public an exercise of rights and equity, that it cannot but contribute to mend the morals, and influence the good conduct, of the lower orders of the people. It causes sur- prise and pleasure at once, to find, in the midst of cities full of luxury and vice, that same integrity and sense of right in the people, that are scarcely to be found even among the simple and unsophisticated inhabitants of the mountains of Switzerland. I resume my narration : On the Sunday that succeeded two sittings of the assize, the two judges went with the juries and magistrates, to the largest church, with so- lemnity. It is a custom at the assize, for a sermon to be preached before the constituent members of the court; the admirers of Sterne will find in his works a most ex- cellent one, delivered on a similar occasion. This so- lemn alliance of religion with justice, communicates to the latter a sacredness which is very useful to society. Mr. Bentham has observed, that all the ceremonies, and certain imposing formalities, in the administration of criminal justice, make as deep an impression on the minds of the people, as the pains and punishments them- selves. A criminal trial is a real tragedy for the people, 16 182 THE ITALIAN EXILE The ancient Gothic architecture of the church, the psalms sung to the pealing of the organ, the sincere contrition of all present, affected me to the soul, and induced me to venerate those religious rites which else might have moved my laughter. Slavery produces a nausea of every thing; and, when we know no longer how sufficiently to vent our anger at our condition, we turn it against reli- gion, against letters, against operatic spectacles, we see in every thing a producer of our slavery. In a free coun- try, England for example, the mind always satisfied, sweetened by liberty, alive to the benefits the maternal protection of the laws, the mind is in peage with all, loves every institution, every custom, because it believes them the authors of its happiness, and endures abuses and inconveniences with untiring patience. The following day came on early the trial of a car- penter, who had, through jealousy, killed his wife by repeated blows of a hammer. The court was crammed full of people ; if I must speak the truth, it displeased me to see a great number of well educated young ladies among the spectators, I should have liked, at least, to whisper in their ears, that they should remember never more to blame the Spanish girls for taking pleasure in a bull-fight. The culprit appeared at the bar with a tran- quil mien. This brutal Othello seemed determined to bear his sentence of death with intrepidity. All eyes were fixed upon him, the unfortunate hero of the day. All are anxious in such moments to watch the efforts of the struggle, that a single man is then obliged to sustain against the whole body of society, which, armed against him, yet leaves him the privilege of defending himself. None of the spectators, however, I believe, experienced emotion greater than mine. I remembered at that moment, that, some years before, I was to have been placed in a similar conflict, from which only the favour IN ENGLAND. 183 of fortune enabled me to escape, and I pictured to my- self the bar, before which, without witnesses, without counsel, without the presence of the public, my friends were condemned to death : " And as the man that scap'd with failing breath From forth the sea upon the desert shore, Turns back and gazes on the flood of death, So too, my soul, still flying " turned back at that moment to contemplate the iniqui- tous sentence which then awaited me ! But let us get on. When the judge was about to commence his ques- tions, a great noise was heard, and it was found to arise from the prisoner, who, abandoned by his courage, fell backwards " as falls a lifeless corse." The jailer, and two surgeons, ran to his assistance ; every means was tried to restore him to sensation. He, meanwhile seized with violent convulsions, contorted his body in a thousand ways. After some time, he came to himself again, wiped his face, and stood up again at the bar ; but, as soon as the judge, in a benignant voice, asked him if he was in a condition to take his trial, the pri- soner answered " Yes," and swooned anew in the very act. I was all pity at this, when one of the counsel- lors, who, by the habit of their profession, are apt to become too sharp-sighted and insensible, told me that he did not deserve our compassion. He had noticed that, in swooning, his countenance had not at all changed colour, and that the fire of his eyes was not at all darkened, far from being entirely extinguish- ed, as is usually the case in faintings. " Therefore," subjoined he, " this is all art and hypocrisy in the pri- soner, to soften his judges to pity, or gain a day of life." 184 THE ITALIAN EXILE So much trouble and dissimulation to gain a day of life ! said I at first to myself, stoically ; but I afterwards recollected that those Romans who were prodigal of their lives, and died like heroes for their country, when they presented themselves in the forum, dishevelled their hair, rent their garments, rolled themselves in the dust, and left nothing untried to move the pity of the judges, and avert the scythe of death from " dear life !" Dear indeed it is, and Homer had good reason to call it so often by this epithet. The judge postponed the trial to the following day, and announced this delay to the prisoner. The next day the accused re-appeared ; he no longer lost himself, he gave answers, he proposed questions ; and, at length, after a five hours' trial, the jury found him " Guilty." The evidence was so clear and com- plete that the jury only deliberated a few minutes before they became unanimous. The judge then covered his head with a black cap of most antique cut, and pro- nounced sentence of death, which was received by the criminal with unassuming firmness. The sentence in- cluded the formula of the English law, that his body should be given to the surgeons for dissection : hence it may be said that the surgeons are the heirs of the hanged, nor is the inheritance to be despised ; bodies for dissection are very scarce and expensive in Eng- land, so much so, that the surgeons have sometimes had grave disputes for the possession of a dead body, and have even gone to law on that account. Two days after, the condemned criminal was hanged, a barbarous mode of putting a man to death, which the English palliate by the use of a constant poetical ex- pression, " He was launched into eternity." The prisoner, an hour before going to the gallows, told the mayor that he died happy and contented, being IN ENGLAND. 185 persuaded that in another hour he should be in Paradise: and he was in fact quite resigned. He had been in- spired with this hope by the minister of the methodist sect, to which he belonged : this sect, of which I shall speak elsewhere, holds the dangerous doctrine, u The greater the sinner the greater the saint ;" and accord- ing to a methodist, faith in the Lord's grace is sufficient to procure his pardon for all the sins he ever committed, without the necessity of repentance. This doctrine is a-kin to that which Ariosto puts into the mouth of Ruggiero, when, in the whale's throat, he comforts Adolpho, who is grieving at his heinous and infamous sins, with this stanza : " To all men sin is common, and we read That seven full times a day the just man falls ; Mercy divine hath ever, too, decreed To pardon him who on that mercy calls ; Nay, o'er a sinner who of grace hath need, Who strays, and then returns, when conscience galls,- More joys there are o'er him in realms of heaven, Than ninety-nine who need not be forgiven !" Thus man, in all ages, and all times, goes about seek- ing an antidote for the fear of death. The Epicurean admitted no responsibility for actions beyond the tomb ; the Stoic held that the goal of life is death, and that we live but to learn to die; the Pythagorean consoled him- self with the idea of transmigration ; and the methodists, not content with the philosophical systems, have found out a still more eligible way of getting into Paradise. 16* 186 THE ITALIAN EXILE UNITARIANS. In England I found that more than thirty thousand persons profess this doctrine, and openly call themselves Unitarians, having 1 for the last forty years abandoned their ancient denomination of "Presbyterians." I visited one of their places of worship, when I heard the whole congregation singing, to a sweet melody, ac- companied by the organ, the following verses of a sacred hymn by Scott, in which universal toleration is recom- mended, " Who among men, high Lord of all, Thy servant to his bar shall call, For modes of faith judge him a foe, And doom him to the realms of woe ! When shall our happy eyes behold Thy people fashioned in thy mould, And Charity our lineage prove Derived from Thee, the God of Love ?" The chapel had neither paintings, nor gold nor silver, nor ornaments of any kind: it was plain but decent. The congregation neatly dressed, were collected and com- posed, they were not making grimaces or ejaculations, squeezing their hands or rolling their eyes, but appeared attentive, and penetrated with the divine service which IN ENGLAND. 187 was then performing. The priest had no tonsure, nor any other distinctive mark than a black outer vestment, like a gown. lie was a young man of thirty, genteelly dressed in black, with a shirt collar and cravat of the nicest white- ness. With simple and serious gestures, in a natural tone of voice, he delivered a discourse, which lasted three quarters of an hour, on the abolition of slavery, a subject which often comes under discussion in the house of com- mons, the slavery of the negroes in the English West India Colonies not being yet put an end to. He laid poli- tics aside, and treated his subject exclusively in a reli- gious point of view. I could not help approving this kind of preaching, which, in place of affrighting the mind, or irritating the passions, accustoms the mind to reason, and prepares it for receiving new impressions, and for the progress of civilisation. Two other hymns were sung, the minister read some verses of the Bible, and de- livered a fervent prayer in English, and the congregation, after about an hour and a half's devotional exercise, broke up. I may as well inform those who come to visit this island, well stored and well pleased with the good sayings of the continent, that the English are intolerant of all atheists, all deists and all infidels. Not that they im- prison and burn them (for they would not burn even the giants who warred against Jove,) but they feel a horror, or at least affect to feel it, at scepticism, which they call by a term we apply only to a very profane thing infidel- ity, and display the same horror at the slightest jest on religion. That which might pass for a joke before an archbishop in Italy, or a father inquisitor in Spain, would not be tolerated in England, even after the emptying of a couple of bottles of Port. It is true, indeed, that since the persecutions of 1793, the house of no dissenter has been burnt or plundered ; opinions, thanks to education, have 188 THE ITALIAN EXILE become milder and less acrimonious ; but such is the bad odour in which the English hold an unbeliever, that it is almost equivalent to the Roman punishment of interdic- tion from fire and water, it is more than a Papal excom- munication, because public opinion supports it; the greater part of the English fly his society. What Burke says in his " Observations on the French Revolution," about the veneration the English nobility always profess for religion, is quite true. From Bolingbroke downwards it was perhaps only Lord Byron (among the nobles) who dared to direct sarcasms against religion, and he encoun- tered censure on every side. Bentham and Godwin, both of them commoners, have suffered it to transpire in their works that they are deists, and for that reason do not enjoy that popular esteem in their own country which their works deserve. There are many more who think like Bentham, but they are as cautious as Cicero's augurs when they met in the streets of Rome ; I would wager that Voltaire is more read in Spain alone than in the three kingdoms of Great Britain ; but not to mention Voltaire, Diderot, or Helvetius, I have never heard even D'Alem- bert once named, or any other of the philosophical deists of the last century, not even Rousseau. The works of the French philosophers are only read, or at any rate quoted, by the writer sin the literary journals, who, like the Egyptian priests of old, possess, exclusively, the secret of this occult philosophy, and now and then condescend to quote the proscribed authors, only by way of showing that they can masticate the deadly poison without danger, as empirics in Asia eat serpents without injury. In short, this aversion is so strong, (and, it may be said, so universally sincere,) that in spite of the liberty of the press, no one thinks of printing irreligious publications, because he would be sure to find few or no readers, and to gain nothing but contempt. If there IN ENGLAND. 189 were readers of this kind, speculators on the taste would not long be wanting-. Three years ago, an ordained priest of the church of England, Taylor by name, con- trived to collect together in London a society of fifty persons, whose object was to discuss the existence or non-existence of Revelation : one evening the subject for discussion was, " The falsehood of all religions, except that of his majesty the king of England." But schisms soon arose, and disputes were decided by raps on the head with bibles or benches, and the society was broken up by the magistrates. Mr. Taylor is under prosecu- tion on a charge of blasphemy. If the founder and the audience had been more respectable, the society would not have kept together for the two years it did : but its own absurdity rendered it harmless. The Unitarians have not long had a legal existence, or a public worship under that title, in England. In the time of William and Mary, unitarianism was still more abhorred by the dominant church than now, and was more decidedly held to be profanity and atheism : but by little and little this hatred has grown cool, and unitarianism, after the occurrences and the last burst of intolerance in 1791, became so much respected, that the people are continually electing professors of that creed to represent them in the house of commons, for instance, Messrs. Smith, Marshall, Wood, &c. The sect is ancient, and traces its descent from the puritans, who first began to make a noise in the reign of Mary ; but the first chapel the Unitarians had (under this new name, which of itself shows the increase of courage in the sect, and tolerance in the government and people) was in Essex-street, London, in 1774. What principally contributed to the public establishment of their worship, was the learning, the intrepidity, the fame of a man who is better known to us by his discoveries 190 THE ITALIAN EXILE in physics, Dr. Joseph Priestley, of whom the Unita- rians are with reason proud, as one of their warmest partisans. I read, with much pleasure, the memoirs of this dis- senting minister, erudite theologian, celebrated chemist, and ardent friend of liberty and Franklin, written by himself, in a stile exceedingly simple. He was born in 1733, at Fieldhead, six miles from Leeds, in the county of York. He was one of the warmest champions of the Unitarian sect and of freedom ; for both these reasons he suffered, in his native country, the bitterest persecu- tion. Many writers attacked him, with all the gall that is ever manifested in theological discussions. Although he wrote against scepticism, although he printed works on the evidences of the Christian religion, he was abused and maltreated as an atheist. While some of his friends were celebrating the anniversary of the French Revolu- tion, at Birmingham (the 14th of July 1791,) a handful of rabble, incited by some of the persons in power, burnt the unitarian chapel in which he used to preach, another Unitarian meeting in the town, and his house, together with his library and chemical apparatus. The same mob destroyed the houses of many other dissenters, his friends. To moderate the joy which the father inquisi- tors might feel on hearing the narrative of these confla- grations, it is necessary to add, that they were kindled more by the political fury which was at that time excited by the government, than by any spirit of intolerance. Priestley was forced to take refuge in London, in dis- guise, and remained for some time concealed in the house of a friend. For the same reasons he was obliged to withdraw from the Royal Society of London, of which he was a member, to avoid an ill reception from many of his colleagues. Finally on the 8th of April 1794, at the age of sixty-two, in order to escape, once for all, IN ENGLAND. 191 from persecution, he abandoned England, and went, with his family, to settle in the town of Northumberland, Pennsylvania, in the United States of America. Foreign- ers, by their esteem diid affection, repaid him for the in- justice of his countrymen : the national assembly of France constituted him a French citizen ; and several departments of the republic, when the convention was established, invited him to become their representative. The convention, in the sequel, conferred the honour of citizenship on his son, and offered him the same ; but it was declined by both. Arrived in America, he was visited and honoured by persons of high distinction, the professorship of chemistry in the University of Pennsyl- vania was offered him, numbers became followers of his religious doctrines, and he could freely, openly, and tranquilly make his profession of unitarianism. This sect in England generously assisted him with money in all his vicissitudes. It is worthy of observation, that while Sheridan, many years afterwards conspicuous for political eloquence and his comic genius, was abandoned, by his friends and his party, in extreme indigence and misery two days before his death, Priestley was always affluent, through the liberality of his fellow-sectarians; such is the difference between political and religious fanaticism ! From the persecution endured by Dr. Priestley (which I have given an account of for that purpose,) and from those which the catholics continually suffer in Ireland from the Orangemen, it may safely be inferred, that in England religious liberty is not so solid and inviolable as in Holland, or the United States of America. Dr. Priestley held the doctrine of necessity ; that is, that every thing is for the best. This Panglossian philosophy kept him firm, ready, and intrepid, through all the trials of life. He died in America, in 1804, at the age of 72. 192 THE ITALIAN EXILE From the emigration of Dr. Priestley the sect has gone on augmenting in numbers to such a degree, that now, whether from the mildness of the times, or its greater importance, it is no longer persecuted, except from the pulpit. It numbers between thirty and forty thousand followers. The church of England is an ally of mo- narchy, and preaches from time to time the doctrine of passive obedience and divine right, (which the king of England himself does not pretend to,) as in the reign of the Stuarts, its adulation towards the king and the min- isters goes sometimes to an extreme, while the unita- rian ministers are in favour of a liberal mixed government of king, lords, and commons; and, without desiring a re- public, are for the maximum of liberty compatible with the order and dignity of the government. All the uni- tarian members of parliament speak and act according to this way of thinking. This sect is not anxious to make proselytes, and it makes few among the poor, because they are ignorant, and few among the rich, because they are in general servile to the powers that be, or negligent in the exami- nation of the doctrine they profess. The chapels of the Unitarians are generally to be found in towns, and especially manufacturing towns. The rural production almost entirely follow the church of England. They have neither the time nor opportunity to examine, nor the resolution to separate from, the re- ligion of their masters. Freedom of thought is cherished, animated, and protected in the towns : they swarm with dissenters of every creed, while in the country the tapering spires or gothic towers of the churches are seen rising every where without a rival, in the commercial towns the dissenting chapels (which cannot have steeples) are met at every step. The English towns are now the IN ENGLAND. J 93 native land of every species of liberty, political, religious, or commercial. In the town of Birmingham, fourteen thousand boys and girls of the lowest orders are taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, in gratuitous schools; 2400 of these belong to the church of England, and the remaining 11,600 to various sects of dissenters. There are more than eighty Unitarian chapels in Eng- land and Wales : let it be added, that in the United States of America they are still more numerous, and that they begin even to scatter themselves over the East In- dies, where one of the rich Brahmins, (Rammohun Roy,) by the mere perusal of the Old and New Testament, hav- ing, by himself alone, become converted to the Unitarian faith, is now, by his writings and influence, making pro- selytes in Calcutta, among the idolaters : to which end he still preserves the title and habit of a Brahmin. As to the opinion of Voltaire, that our times are no longer favoura- ble to new religions, of the twenty other sects which have arisen since Voltaire wrote his treatise on Socinus, I will here only make mention of the methodists, who now amount, in England, to more than a million, and are still more numerous in America. 17 194 THE ITALIAN EXILE METHODISTS, RANTERS, AND JUMPERS. When Voltaire hazarded that opinion of his, he had not reflected that the free inquiry which is the foundation of the Protestant religion, will be a perennial fountain of new opinions, to which piety and ambition will give chiefs and followers. Man is an ape; when he is a slave, he does nothing- but imitate ; but when his mind is free, it is not content with copying, but goes in search of variety, of novelty, nay, even of extravagance; and delights in ar- riving at the same end, by a hundred different ways. In politics, how many kinds of government have nations in- vented when they were masters of the selection ! How many different republics were there in Magna Grecia, and in Greece, before the time of Aristotle ! How many different forms still were there in Italy, in the middle ages ! How many different constitutions are there every day in Switzerland ! All had liberty for their aim, but each chose a different way of obtaining it. Thus, in literature, the aim is the beautiful and the pleasing, but by how many different paths does it arrive at them ! Uni- formity, unanimity, is, in general, only the effect of op- pression and despotism, which draws up, modifies, and arranges, all brains into one mould, in the same manner as bricks and tiles. To make oneself the founder of a sect, is not an enter- IN ENGLAND. 195 prise so very arduous. Three or four students unite to- gether at the University of Oxford, to read the Old and New Testament methodically : they draw from them some interpretations likely to captivate the mind of the rude multitude, such as "instantaneous conversion," " sudden reconciliation of the sinner with God," a sono- rous voice, a little eloquence, insinuating manners, some charity, some virtues, and in the beginning, some exag- geration and some quackery, to catch the weak minded, these are the means of very soon drawing together a crowd of proselytes. The new principles are first broached in the churches, if they encounter some oppo- sition there, the preachers go out into the fields, in the open air, and expound with all their might and main : the rudest and most uncultivated parts of the population are selected, such as the coal, tin, and iron miners, &c. This is an abridgment of the history ofWhitfield and the two brothers Wesley, founders of the sect now called Methodists, from the strict method they pursued in their studies at the University of Oxford, about the year 1740. Scarcely, however, was the new sect of methodists founded, before it divided into several sects, into New Methodists, Ranters, and Jumpers. The arithmetic of sects, says an English theologian, proceeds from multi- plication to division. The methodists, properly so called , and the new methodists, who compose the greater part of these sectarians, differ little, or not at all, in their car- dinal maxims, from the church of England. The ran- ters and jumpers are, however, to say the truth, a little extravagant in their ceremonies. I wished to see the jumpers ; they are accustomed to jump, at the same time singing, " Glory, Glory," until their strength failing, they fall on the ground. The most robust are the most meri- torious. This new kind of Pantomimists I should have liked to see, but their congregations are in Wales, which 196 THE ITALIAN EXILE I have not yet visited. I was therefore obliged to con- tent myself with the sight of a religious festival of another branch of the extravagant methodists called Ranters. It was the month of May, the love feast was celebrating, that is, the communion of the Lord's Supper, or the cor- responding communion of the sect. The ranters have no priests, those among them who are the least clownish, and the boldest in public speaking, take the part of min- isters. The form of the communion consists in the handing of pieces of bun to every one, by a servant of the chapel. On this day the ranters relate in a loud voice the me- thod of their conversion, which they call " new birth ;" one after another they get up as if influenced by the spi- rit to tell the day, the month, the year, the hour in which their conversion was effected. They begin softly, and in their natural voice, then, as if some unseen spirit had en- tered into [them, go on rolling their eyes and elevating their voice in such a crescendo, that it rather affrights than edifies. If the reign of the devil inpropria persona were not at an end, I should have thought them possessed. I had one near me with a voice like a cathedral bell, and who moved his arms about as much as a wind-mill. Even the ladies displayed their eloquence, and their inspiration : this cackling and howling continued for two hours. I went out confounded, but thought nevertheless that all this bellowing might be sincere, because, their imagina- tions being predisposed, the examples of the others, and the presence of the public, may operate to inflame their enthusiasm to this pitch. The following day the congre- gation went singing hymns by the way, to an open field, and here the orators had an oportunity of satiating their mania for eloquence. One of them preached on his return in Nottingham market-place for three hours, sur- rounded by an immense multitude : the others mean- while did what they wanted, as if he were preaching in IN ENGLAND. 197 the desert. By good luck this love-feast recurs only once a year. But is not all this miscellany of religious creeds an evil, a scandal, at least a disorder ? " No," one day said to me a polished and handsome lady, who was devout through conviction, " I believe that this diversity of opinions is not an evil ; that it stimulates emulation, and keeps up the flame of love for religion, and that without it we should probably relapse into indifference. It is evident, that even in this the liberty of thinking is conformable to the ends of Providence." " I concede it, but does it not pro- duce theological disputes and wars ?" " Discussions it does," rejoined she, " but not wars. And discussions, when they are learnedly and liberally sustained, on both sides, keep minds in activity, and promote the spirit of search and analysis." " I concede even this, but at least you will agree, madam, that this variety of sects tends to render them divided, and odious to each other." " I cannot en- tirely deny what you advance, but if, in one point of view, it promotes division, in the other it makes each of them more circumspect in conduct, and induces those of the same sect to assist one another with greater warmth, and to keep up a rivalry in well informed ministers, and above all, in gratuitous schools for poor children, and col- leges for the youth of the respectable classes. For exam- ple, when the Quaker Lancaster had discovered and dif- fused his method of mutual instruction, the church of England was constrained to invent and adopt a system almost similar to that of Bell, and vice versa, the Sunday schools for poor children being first established in the church, the dissenters, not to be behind hand in the work of charitable instruction, eagerly set up Sunday schools for the children of their own persuasion. Thus you see, the good effects of this rivalry are much greater than the bad." " It appears to me, madam, that you are very well 17* 198 THE ITALIAN EXILE prepared for these discussions; but pray does not govern- ment lose some of its power by this multiplicity of discor- dant opinions ?" Here the lady cast down her eyes, and went on with the landscape she was drawing 1 as a keep- sake for a female friend, suspending* the argument on her side, because the English ladies never enter into political disputes. In her place, a gentleman, who, while reading the newspaper, had heard our discussion, took up the conversation by observing, " If the hand of government is not so strong, the danger of its despotism is the less : you must be aware that the dissenters were the champi- ons of the revolution under Charles the First. But we will leave those strong times to themselves, and speak of other advantages procured by them, without fanaticism and without bloodshed. To the multiplication of sects we are indebted for many changes favourable to liberty, both religious and political. It is to their perseverance and the increase of their number, that we owe the almost total destruction of the doctrine of the divine right of kings and bishops, which, one hundred and fifty years ago, under Charles the Second and James the Second, was stoutly maintained by the greater part of the members of the church of England. It is also a consequence of the sects having become powerful, in numbers, in learned men, in wealth, and in illustrious examples, that the low- er orders of the people are no longer the close allies of the church they were in the reigns of the two first Georges, when they were always ready, at the slightest signal from the clergy and the country justices, to throw themselves on the nonconformists, and level their conventicles with the ground. The people is no longer the leviathan, the ferocious beast in whose form Hobbes personified it, ready for violence, and furious when its master gave the signal. Now the lower classes ask for reason before they act. Many ecclesiastical abuses have been exposed to their IN ENGLAND. 1 99 view, and many religious errors of the church trium- phantly confuted, and now they are ashamed of being, as they once were, held in vassalage by the church, and obliged to take the field at the cry l The church is in danger !' This is the point of view in which the sects ought to be regarded, and not in that of the theological disputations between them and the church, or the cere- monies and ridiculous rites of some of them." Here the lady, leaving off her sketching, and holding the pencil with infinite grace between her fingers, asked me if I had never seen the baptismal ceremony of the sect called " Baptists." I told her, no ; and then she added, " If you go to morrow at eleven o'clock to the Baptist meeting- house, you will see the baptism of several young persons, which is then to be celebrated ; go, but be serious." The next morning I failed not to follow the advice of my lovely devotee, and, exactly at eleven o'clock, entered a little, neat, and commodious chapel, holding not more than four or five hundred persons, which was that belong- ing to the Baptists, who do not like to be called Anabap- tists. 200 THE ITALIAN EXILE BAPTISTS. The service commenced with the singing of some hymns, appropriate to the ceremony : then the minister made, or at any rate, recited impromptu a comment on the passage of the New Testament relating to the baptism of Christ in the river Jordan. He insisted principally on the point, that the words of Jesus, and the example set by him, and followed by others in the gospel, were much to be preferred to human inventions (by which he meant the common form of baptism). If the premises were admitted, the inference would be just. So con- vincing did the reasons he gave appear to the preacher, that he could not help advancing and pressing on in his discourse, as a general vigorously presses on the rear of a flying enemy. I was not so much astonished at his persuasion that he had decided, without appeal, the question, whether a man ought to have his head only immersed in the water, or enter altogether into it, as in some degree mortified, at hearing myself told, by im- plication, that I was " ill baptized." No matter I re- membered I was in a land of toleration, and within my- self forgave the preacher the involuntary affront. After the sermon, and after some more hymns had been sung, the proselytes who were to receive the ordinance, filed off into the adjoining rooms to strip. It is, of course, IN ENGLAND. 201 necessary that the baptist chapels should be built like bathing houses. In fact, there was an ample cistern of water in front of the pulpit, about four feet deep, with steps to ascend and descend. Adjoining the chapel, be- hind the pulpit, are two rooms for dressing and undress- ing, one for the women, and one for the men. There were five young women to be baptized, between the ages of eighteen and twenty. They came out dressed in a-white habit, tied round the neck, with a large white coif on their heads. These descended the steps one at a time, and placed themselves before the priest, who stood immersed to above the knee in the water, in this representative of the Jordan, enveloped in a large black gown. The minister pronounced in English, before the young woman also immersed in the water, the words, " I baptize thee in the name," &c. &c.; and, as soon as he had uttered these words, plunged the poor young woman entirely into the water. After some splashing, she was quickly lifted up again, and immediately taken away to be dried and dressed. Some of them, choked by the water, set up a shriek in the very act of being ducked. Not so a young man, who was baptized in the same style : of the age, perhaps, of about twenty-five, black bearded, with none of his clothes off, but in his coat, trowsers, waistcoat, and shoes, he entered as he was into the cistern ; and, as one accustomed to swim across a river, underwent the ceremony as if it were a mere wash. For myself, I can only say that it was terribly hot in this crowded little chapel, being the first of June ; and that the heat, more than anything else, convinced me that the baptists have special good reason on their side in the summer. I was told, however, that many mem- bers of the sect, not liking the ceremony either in sum- mer or winter, neglect receiving baptism altogether; 202 THE ITALIAN EXILE which, with these sectaries, is not a sacrament, or an essential right, but merely an explicit declaration (made at the age when a man knows what he is doing) that he enters into the communion of Christians. From the book of Dr. Evans it appears that some of the baptists, in order to be more consistent, and to follow the gospel with the utmost possible exactness, instead of celebrating baptism in the artificial Jordan, go to the banks of a real and actual river, and there dip themselves with all the precision imaginable. IN ENGLAND. 203 QUAKERS. The banker, Fry, a rich quaker of London, and a man extremely courteous to all the foreigners who have recommendations to him, the first day I made his ac- quaintance, invited me to dine with him at his brother in law's, Mr. Buxton, the member of parliament, and told me to ask for him, in order that he might present me to our host. At six o'clock precisely, I give a sono- rous knock at the door of Mr. Buxton's house ; the ser- vant, thinking me one of the guests, opens the door, and shows me the way to the dining room, and I, believing it so arranged by Mr. Fry, enter with all confidence and intrepidity ; when, behold ! I find myself in the midst of a great number of guests at table, with no Mr. Fry to be seen. Such a mishap might disconcert any body, and especially one who spoke English rather ill, and yet ought by rights to justify, by the finest phrases of the Galateo, his extemporaneous appearance among unknown and astonished individuals. But what would not his surprise have been at finding himself, as I did, in the midst of the smoke of the viands, and several blazing candles, in the presence of a number of ladies, uniform- ly dressed, after the fashion of nuns, with handkerchiefs like the tuckers they wear, with countenances smooth as mirrors, untouched by the passions, and of four men, with their faces covered with paint, great rings dangling 204 THE ITALIAN EXILE from their ears, others still larger from their noses, and a dress of many colours, covered all over with chains and Spanish dollars ? But there was no time to turn an absolute statue for astonishment, for these gentle ladies, with a smile still more sweet than that which is usually seen on the countenances of Englishwomen, and man- ner still more familiar, invited me, each more pressingly than another, to seat myself at table. Had I been in Italy, I should have believed the party some pleasant masquerade ; but in England, truly I could not guess what it could possibly be. While I was guessing where I could have got to, acknowledging the many kind offers of the ladies, and eyeing those four kings of cards sort of faces, Mr. Fry arrived and explained the mistake which the guests might believe I had committed : and it is now my turn to explain the enigma of those four ex- traordinary table companions. The gentlemen who had so many things dangling from their ears and noses, were four chiefs of Indian tribes in Canada, assuming to themselves the title of kings, who had arrived a short time before in London, to complain before their brother the king of England, of some unjust proceedings of the governor of Canada ; the ladies were quakeresses, and among them was the celebrated Mrs. Fry, who, to bene- volence and information, unites a solemn, peaceful, and majestic aspect. This is the somewhat singular manner in which I made the acquaintance of this lady-friend,* who, as is well known, has, by her example, established a society of missionaries, who preach in the prisons of the women in confinement. Every mystery cleared up, and legally installed at the * The quakers call their sect u The Society of Friends." I should not have made use of the name quaker, which in English is a term of little respect, were it not the name by which these sectaries are known in Italy. IN ENGLAND. 205 table, I took part, without reserve, in the general good humour, and, having discovered that the four kings talked French well enough, having been educated by the French Jesuits, of whom they spoke with little of either respect or gratitude, I diverted myself exceedingly by asking them no fewer questions on their country than the syndic of the city did Voltaire's Huron. When din- ner was ended, when the procession of bottles round the tables commences, each with his baptismal name in sil- ver round his neck, the master of the house requested one of their painted majesties to explain in their own language (the better to divert us) the complaints they were to carry before the English government. The most advanced in age rose up with much complaisance, and delivered a discourse, which an interpreter, who travel- led along with them, afterwards translated for us. The most remarkable thing in this savage harangue was, that they were very much surprised that, although they had been a month in London, their brother, the king of England, had not yet given them audience. Mr. Bux- ton then took up the discourse in English (that they in their turn might not understand a word), and vindicated the honour of his government by saying, that perhaps the multiplicity of affairs had till now hindered it from hearing their complaints, but that it would not delay doing them justice. Let not this formality of speech- making appear ridiculous, because it is the national cus- tom at every dinner of any importance to follow the forms of parliament. As almost all great affairs are carried on at dinner, it was necessary, to avoid the con- fusion and uproar that would otherwise arise during the circulation of the bottles, to adopt parliamentary usages. This has so penetrated into their most familiar habits, that the English never talk all together in chorus (as they do in certain countries) ; but, amongst them, talk- 18 206 THE ITALIAN EXILE ing one after another is a thing as natural in a discus- sion as putting out one leg after the other in a walk. I must here observe, by the by, that among the other re- semblances (and I could point out many, were this the proper place) between the British empire and the an- cient Roman, is that of the protection which the mem- bers of the house of commons or English senate offer, with a laudable pride, to individuals, provinces, and kings of all the world, who think themselves aggrieved. Thus Mr. Buxton had engaged, with the assistance of his friends in parliament, to procure the reparation of the wrongs of these four Indian caciques, if their charges should prove well founded. Justice is not always done, nor can it always be done, in the English parliament ; but injustice is at least published to all the world, by the sound of the trumpet. How many kings and emperors, who flattered themselves with the hope of concealing their crimes beneath the mantle of justice, have been there unmasked and shown to all their contemporaries, with the dagger in their hand with which they assassi- nated their subjects ! The politeness of these caciques was extreme. After tea, without waiting for much asking, they sung and danced according to their Indian manner. Although the quakers approve of neither music nor dancing, it seemed to me as if the friends and friendesses, who were there present, took the song and dance of these royal personages in excellent part, though the former was horrible and the latter frightful. But such is the sorcery of the very name of king, that had there been quakers at the court of Leo the Second,* even they, per- haps, would have found the howlings of his Leonine majesty most harmonious. * See the fable of the Speaking Animals (Gli Animali Parlanti). IN ENGLAND. 207 At eleven the party broke up. Mr. Fry politely invit- ing me to pass the night at his country house, about ten miles distant from London : I entered his carriage with much pleasure, and, after having missed the road two or three times (for the coachman, not being a quaker, did not observe the sobriety of quakers), at two o'clock in the morning we arrived at a villa which, as I saw next day, had all the cleanliness, neatness, and order (without any useless pomp or ornament), which are the charac- teristics of the sect. The next morning I had an opportunity of making the acquaintance of all the family, servants and servant maids included ; for, according to the custom of the sect, before breakfast, we all assembled in a room to hear read a passage from the Bible. One of the sons accord- ingly read to us some part of Scripture, I now forget what, without any ceremony or prayer, because this sect uses no prayers of any kind, even at their meeting on Sunday, where every one passes two hours seated in meditation (I do not know on what subject). As acci- dent would have it, this was the day on which Mrs. Fry was accustomed to preach in the great prison of London (Newgate); I asked of her a ticket of admission, with her signature, and, after taking leave of the family, flew along to London, with a colt in a stanhope, at the rate of fourteen miles an hour, and soon found myself at the entrance of the gloomy prison of Newgate. After pass- ing through five or six well ironed doors, I was intro- duced into a room on the second floor, where several English and foreign travellers were already assembled, in some distinct seats on the right hand side. The fame of Mrs. Fry, the novelty of the institution, and the curi- osity felt by Englishmen to see in London what they have already read magnified in the newspapers, always draw many spectators together on this day. The most 208 THE ITALIAN EXILE numerous audience, however, is composed of from forty to fifty uniformly and decently dressed women, who are under sentence of transportation. Of these I will speak presently. Meanwhile Mrs. Fry made her entrance, with a coun- tenance of serenity, and a mien naturally majestic, ac- companied by two other quaker females as aides-de-camp, and took her seat at a little table in the midst of the room, on which lay a large Bible, with the gravity of an arch- bishop. After reading some verses aloud with a clear voice and distinct pronunciation, she delivered a com- ment or rather a sermon upon them, which from its sim- plicity contrasted strongly with the figurative and orien- tal style of the text, and lasted a good half hour. I looked to see if this preaching produced any effect on the coun- tenances of the prisoners. But whether it was that the discourse was not very moving (for the quakers guard themselves from inflaming the passions, even the virtuous ones, and their countenances bear witness of it), or that the hearts of these prisoners were harder than the bars of their prison, I did not discover in them the slightest sign of contrition nay, I detected some who were throwing about malicious glances in an almost ironical smile. A disciple of Lavater would not have let the ob- servation escape him that the greater part of these had rather puffed up faces, round and prominent eyes and little eyebrows, which aspect in young persons usually denotes heedlessness or impudence. A great number of these women have been guilty of repeated thefts, and are transported to Botany Bay for seven or fourteen years, and some even for life. They go to populate that im- mense island, from which perhaps will spring up one day another valorous race of Romans, who will boast of their nobility when they can trace their descent, without interruption in the quarterings, to this lofty origin. All *IN ENGLAND. 209 the time up to their embarkation they are under the charge of some of the quakeresses, who attend to cor- recting their morals, accustoming them to work, and preventing quarrels and abuse among them. Those who conduct themselves best are recommended to the cle- mency of the king, and the product of their labours, joined to the alms left them by visiters, serve to provide them with articles of dress and equipments for their voyage. When the prisoners were gone, Mrs. Fry came to con- verse with us, and told us that she had received letters from Mexico and St. Petersburgh, which informed her that some ladies of those two capitals had followed her example with good success. In England other quaker ladies, imitating the example of Mrs. Fry, discharge the same pious mission in various of the prisons. Many, however, doubt if such proceedings, instead of improving and correcting the prisoners, will make any thing of them but hypocrites. I myself took the trouble to ask the opinion of several sensible jailers, and found they also believed they would lead to nothing but hypocrisy. But is not even feigned repentance (supposing it feigned) always better than the impudent triumph of crime ? And if the good are preached to that they may become better, is it not still more natural that the bad should be preached to that they may become good ? In fact the minister Peel, who understands these matters very well, and has super- intended for many years the discipline of the prisons, has always, instead of opposing obstacles to the practice as prejudicial, been liberal of his patronage to Mrs. Fry. This then is the way in which Mrs. Fry, disdaining the idleness her riches offered for her acceptance, has succeeded in discovering an occupation which does hon- our to her heart, and has for its object the amelioration of the condition of individuals and of society. This is 210 THE ITALIAN EXft,E the way that the quakers, in spite of their dark coats without metal buttons, of their broad brimmed hats, and of some customs in speaking, which are, to say the truth, a little strange, have supported themselves against the ridicule which overwhelms so many, by searching for every method of becoming useful to their fellow crea- tures. They united, they spoke, they acted with the philanthropists who procured the abolition of the slave trade. At the present day, they never cease striving for the entire abolition of the slavery in the English colonies in America. Many of them use East Indian sugar in their families, though much dearer than the other, to discredit and cheapen the West Indian sugar, bathed with the sweat and blood of negroes. They signed the petitions to parliament to put a stop to the barbarous custom, in use at Malabar and other provinces subject to the English government in India, of the widows burn- ing themselves to death on the funeral piles of their hus- bands. When the Greeks in the first years of their revo- lution were in want of powder, of bread, and even of salt, the quakers were the first to collect for their assistance nine thousand pounds sterling. They form the (unarmed) vanguard of every philanthropic enterprise. The best English grammar was composed by a quaker, Mr. Mur- ray. The schools of mutual instruction were invented by Mr. Lancaster, and Mr. Allen made the discovery known, thus spreading through all Europe as it were a vaccination against ignorance. The infant schools are now kept in life by the quakers. The discipline of the prisons continually occupies the attention of the sect. But I wish to point out another improvement originating in them, and which has not perhaps yet been sufficiently talked of in Europe, although it forms the admiration of all the travellers in England. IN ENGLAND. 2 1 1 THE RETREAT, OR LUNATIC ASYLUM, NEAR YORK. I shall never be weary of repeating that England is a country rather to make observations, than to seek amuse- ment in; it is a great scientific treatise. Its theatres are the arsenals of Deptford and Portsmouth, or the East and West India docks ; its paintings are the manufac- tures of Glasgow, of Manchester, of Leeds, of Halifax ; its coliseums, arches, and arenas, are its smoky shops and factories, with which whole provinces are covered ; its ctiamps-elysees are the iron mines of Wales, the tin mines of Cornwall, the coal mines of Newcastle. Eng- land is not the island of Alcina, where the inhabitants pass their days in song and careless laughter, to become afterwards plants and beasts. Let us remember, that the English are the men of Europe. They laugh little (per- haps too little), but they study instead how to render life as little unhappy as possible, and to tame and educate the great beast, mankind. I have often found it useful to confront the opinion of some writer on public economy, with the example on a grand scale, which England presents on almost every point of the science. I remember, for instance, that Ricci says, in a passage of his valuable work on " Cha- ritable Establishments," that there is no country in the world, where on an equal area there are so many insti- 212 THE ITALIAN EXILE tutions of public beneficence as in the city of Modena. Now I am at this very time in a city of England, York, so full of pious institutions, hospitals, gratuitous dis- pensaries, and especially orphan houses and free schools, that I should be very much surprised, if, comparing the small area of this city of twenty thousand inhabitants with that of Modena, it did not, on this merit, far surpass it. But, setting aside this partial comparison, and extend- ing it, instead, between the whole of the island and an equal superficies of Italy, I am certain that the last would be transferred to England. [I do not mean to speak of Ireland, which is now unjustly paying back a part of the evils and persecutions the catholics once made the protestants suffer.] It swarms with hospitals, retreats, infirmaries, asylums, colleges, and schools, maintained at private expense, and conducted according to the direc- tion of the benefactors. I have visited numbers, but I shall not attempt to describe them. An estimable friend of mine, Count Arrivabene, of Mantua, has already for two years given himself up with ardour to this under- taking. I could never hope to equal, much less to sur- pass, the diligence and the fervour he has expended on a work, in which his intellect is seconded and strengthened by his heart. As, however, I had opportunities, in the course of my long residence at York, of examining at- tentively the Retreat, or Lunatic Hospital, erected there by the quakers, thirty years ago, I hope my friend will pardon me if I trespass a little on his jurisdiction. I confess, then, that one of my inducements to speak of it arises from the disgustful recollection which " With fright Still bathes my heart in sweat," implanted in my mind by the hospital outside the gates IN ENGLAND. 213 of Milan, called La Senavra ; and by that of the Bicetre, a short distance from Paris. Let not this observation be taken in ill part: I do not wish to make it a reflection on either France or Italy ; for in England itself, establish- ments of this kind, in times past, were conducted in a most shameful manner ; so that, although their govern- ment has been ameliorated for some years, complaints are even now brought before parliament of the ill usage of persons in these asylums. It is only thirty years since a more enlightened philanthropy has corrected their errors, and suppressed their abuses. It was the Retreat of York that set the example of a better considered humanity, and served as a model for the reforms which were afterwards eagerly introduced in the other hospi- tals. It was a novelty (I say it in the teeth of those Turco-Christian governments which love not novelties) that effected such extensive good. This is the principal reason for which I esteem it not unuseful to give a few heads of the system. I am not, however, the first to speak of it. M. Delarive, a medical man of Geneva, gave a description of it in 1798, in the " Bibliotheque Britan- nique ;" but the establishment was then in ks infancy, it had been in existence only two years. It afterwards underwent some additions to the buildings, and some variations in the regimen ; it will not, therefore, be a use- less or presumptuous repetition to relate the results con- firmed by thirty years experience. It is a real phenomenon of human nature, that the English, who are distinguished among other nations for solid reason, should be the most subject to the loss of it. Madness, that terrible malady which destroys the most important of all health that of the mind, attacks almost every class in England. The last king, George the Third, lost, from time to time, the use of reason ; Castlereagh, one of his ministers, killed himself in a fit of frenzy ; the 214 THE ITALIAN EXILE eloquent Romilly, through the same malady, destroyed his own life ; Cowper, one of the sweetest poets in Eng- land, Collins, one of the best lyrists, and Swift, a very witty writer both in prose and verse, were subject to at- tacks of melancholy, a conventional term to veil the hor- ror that the name of madness inspires. Most of the suicides committed in the foggy month of November, and even in other months, are occasioned by strong fits of gloom. It is hard to say what is the average number of persons thus afflicted in England, because the govern- ment does not maintain a central office of statistics, as in France ; but, from what I have under my own eye, I am able to say that there are, in the city in which I write, two hundred and fifty insane persons, in two different hospitals, collected from a population of 400,000 souls. The number will appear very great, especially when it is considered, that, besides these hospitals, there are many private mad-houses, the number of patients in which I cannot state. The Englishman, so steeled against every sort of dan- ger, cannot sustain the weight of misfortune, or some- times even that of weariness ; one of them killed himself because he could not endure the bore of dressing and un- dressing every day. An Englishman can remain two years on board a vessel on a cruise, without being tired, because he is taken up with the delight of consulting the winds and waves, and with the enemies of his country. In a storm, no man is more fearless, patient, and endur- ing he is more than a man. But when the stoical courage of suffering is required, without the stimulus of danger or exertion, he is less than other men. However much the Bible may be read in England, the example of Job has made few converts there. Thus love, which we look upon as a sort of game at blind-man's-buff, soon turns the brain of an Englishman ; unaccustomed to any IN ENGLAND. 215 of the passions, his heart easily surrenders at the assault of one of them, as those who live too long in peace do not know how to go to war; or, as he who is not used to wine, becomes intoxicated with but a little. It is, perhaps, be- cause alienation of mind is so frequent a malady in their country that the English writers paint it so excellently. The feigned insanity of Hamlet and the true madness of King Lear, are perhaps two of the finest and most inimi- table pictures in Shakspeare. Almost every poet has the description of a lunatic : Crabbe has his Thomas Grey ; Cowper his wandering girl of the mountain, who, be- trayed by a sailor, and bereft of reason, passes the time filling her sleeve with pins. The madness of the father of Agnes, in Paer's opera, is taken from a novel of Mrs. Opie, of Norwich. Who, too, does not recollect the poor Maria described by Sterne, mad for love, with her little dog always by her side, the only being in the world who had remained faithful to her ? Great, therefore, is the number of asylums erected in all parts of England for the reception of these unfor- tunates ; some of them are answerable to the opulence of the nation, as the New Bethlem of London, a vast and magnificent edifice. But the most magnificent in appear- ance are not always the best managed establishments, still less those which contain large numbers of patients ; this is become a general principle in charitable institu- tions of every sort magnificence brings on expensive- ness ; great numbers, negligence. Let not the traveller, then, expect to see in the Retreat a palace with Corinthian columns, superb peristyle, and other superfluous ornaments. The Retreat has in its look the modesty of beneficence ; it resembles the country house of some private individual not fond of luxury or pomp; it has all the simplicity of its founders, the quakers. To tell the truth, its form is somewhat irregu- 216 THE ITALIAN EXILE lar ; the interior compartments might be better arranged, the staircases more simple, the passages better ventilated and more cheerful ; its architecture at least will not serve for a model. It was designed at first as a receptacle for only thirty quakers, and having been afterwards enlarged, to meet the increased demand, the additions spoiled its symmetry, and produced defects which did not exist in the original design. At present the number of patients amounts to eighty. The hospitals afterwards erected elsewhere, have been built in a better and more orna- mental style, without being too luxurious. The situation of the Retreat, however, compensates fully for the inconvenience of its plan. It is seated on an eminence, about half a mile from the city, and at much the same distance from the river Ouse. In front, an agree- able prospect opens, of a fertile plain, scattered here and there with clumps of trees ; and, towards the northeast, a chain of hills at the distance of twenty-five miles, closes the horizon. Every thing in the house breathes the same simplicity, cordiality, order, and quietness, which reign in private families. When I was there, the superintend- ent himself had the kindness to accompany me through- out, and to satisfy all my enquiries. Commencing from the door, I could perceive nothing to awaken the idea of a prison : no window bars, no iron gates, no guards. On the contrary, I found that every idea even of seclusion is removed. At the entrance I met some female servants, buxom and gay, with the most florid health imprinted on their cheeks. I was intro- duced into a reception room, on the ground floor, as clean and well furnished as that of an English gentleman. I visited the whole of the hospital, from top to bottom, cast- ing a curious eye through all the chambers, and I saw neither chains, nor iron bars : I heard no cries, no howl- ing, no lamentations, all was in the utmost neatness, IN ENGLAND. 217 no bad smell, and every where the most perfect ventila- tion. Out of about eighty patients, male and female, there was not one in a state of coercion. Let the reader be assured, that in this I do not use false colours or ex- aggerations : in this matter, truth is a duty more than ever sacred! In the day, each sex has two court yards to walk in, and two rooms to meet in, with a fire, surrounded by a guard, shut at top like a cage, to prevent any accident, but the windows are not grated. In the sitting room of the quiet mad people, they are three feet and a half wide, and six feet high, with the panes fixed in sashes of painted iron, instead of lead ; the only precaution taken, and a most judicious one. In the room set apart for the raving, who never exceed seven or eight out of eighty, the glass windows are doubled, and four feet and a quarter from the ground, to take away from the patients too ready an opportunity of breaking them, or injuring themselves. These windows are so contrived, that while they admit air and afford security, they bear the ap- pearance of common windows, an innocent and salutary deception, since it conduces to quiet the imagination. The danger incurred in similar hospitals from the furious efforts of these unhappy beings, has been exaggerated : the error always committed, is the believing human na- ture to be worse than it is : hence sharp and violent measures have been resorted to, which only tend to irritate it, and make it become really bad. In England, the opposite system, that of mildness, is practised, not only with children, not only with kings and madmen, but even with animals, and especially horses. The good results leave no longer any doubt which of these methods is preferable. In respect to madmen, it is now confirmed by experience, that not only are severe and coercive methods pernicious, but that it is necessary to withdraw 19 218 THE ITALIAN EXILE from the senses and the imagination even the idea of rigour, much more that of chains and imprisonment. The average number of madmen restrained with cords or strait waistcoats rarely exceeds two. In cases of raving madness, the patient is merely shut up in a dark and quiet room, that he may be deprived of the excite- ments of light and sound, besides that of external objects, which are apt to heat the fancy. Solitary confinement in darkness is an efficacious remedy, already tried with good success in the prisons of Philadelphia (which were also established by a quaker, with a new code of regula- tions,) to soften the spirit of incorrigible criminals. This isolation disposes the maniac to sleep, and, if he shows no disposition to suicide, the strait waistcoat is not put on, and he can walk about and extend himself at will upon his bed. Those amongst them who are disposed to suicide, are in the day time restrained by a strait waistcoat, and in the night tied down in their beds, but so that they can freely turn themselves. This bed is so ingenious, that I am sorry it cannot be well described in words. When I entered the sitting rooms, some were playing, some reading, some writing ; while others were collected about the guard surrounding the fire. In the women' s rooms, most of the inmates were at work, and a person coming in, without being apprised beforehand, would believe himself at first among persons of sound mind, so complete are the decorum and tranquillity which the matron knows how to preserve. The patients who are well off have separate and more elegant rooms, and, instead of the court yard, a garden to walk in. They had in their apartments both news- papers and books; one of them was contemplating a portrait, which he had, he told me, drawn at midnight ; it was that of his Dulcinea. Showing it to me, he IN ENGLAND. 219 asked if I did not recognise it, and I did not hesitate to reply in the affirmative. He was a well dressed young man of good address, one of the many victims of love. He took my arm, and led me to walk with him in the garden, asked me the news, and, afterwards, whenever walking with his keeper in the public road, was sure to recognise me, and stopped to bid me good day. I saw also in the distance a man who, although it was the month of December, was digging the ground with all his might with a pickaxe. I asked the superintendent who he was, and he told me he was a farmer, very skilful in agriculture, who always recovered by labour the use of reason, which deserted him almost periodically every two or three years. These two examples are neither very extraordinary nor very interesting, but I have adduced them to show most decidedly, that in the regimen pursued at the Retreat, there is nothing com- plicated, metaphysical, or transcendental : but that every thing depends on making the patients believe that they are in a place of quietness, and among friends, just as if they had gone into the country for the benefit of their health. Besides the pleasure ground, there is a kitchen garden, which supplies them with vegetables. The most re- spectable (and those who once were, but are so no longer) dine with the superintendent, and many of the women dine with the matron. This confidence contributes greatly to keep them in order, and conduct them back to decorum. The diet is simple and abundant, the superintendent is also the apothecary of the hospital. He is a very courteous quaker, and, after having satisfied my curiosity on all points, offered to lend me Mr. Tuke's book, in which that gentleman, another quaker, gives a succinct history of the establishment up to the year 220 THE ITALIAN EXILE 1813. I recommend the perusal of this most judicious work to all medical men, and directors of charitable in- stitutions ; it contains only about three hundred pages, and costs no more than four or five shillings. IN ENGLAND. 221 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 1st. The great merit of this establishment is, the sim- plicity of the treatment. I never saw that of Aversa, in the kingdom of Naples, but, from what I have read of it, it appears to me that the wonderful cures effected there, are rather to be attributed to the wisdom and sagacity of the director, than to the method, which is not very easy of imitation; in fact, it has never yet been imitated, that I know of. On the contrary, the system followed in the retreat at York, is so easy, is so completely the invention of good sense alone, that every intelligent man is capable of following it. This is the incomparable ad- vantage of all the English institutions ; that nation does not run after the difficult or the extravagant, but the useful. Hence, instead of the complicated system of Pestalozzi, in popular education, it adopted that of schools of mutual instruction ; thus, in manufactures, it lets its neighbours make the gorgeous gobelins, the brilliant bijouteries, articles of fancy, while it cultivates the manufactures that supply the world with clothing. A system, a method, an invention of any kind whatever, when it is not adapted for common use, and demands in its execution more than an ordinary capacity (which is the gift of few, very few,) may be a wonder of the world, and the glory of an individual, but will not increase the 19* 222 THE ITALIAN EXILE wealth or happiness of a nation. The system, however, of the Retreat, from its facility and simplicity, has been adopted withont difficulty by many similar establish- ments in England : it has been the model after which many other hospitals have corrected their numerous and almost incredible abuses. The hospital that succeeded best in its imitations (and perhaps surpassed the original,) is* that called the " Lunatic Asylum," which in 1774 was built, also near the city of York, as a hospital for the insane of a part of the county. The old building being burnt, and a new one about to be erected in 1814, and it being desired at the same time to suppress all the abuses of the old administration, and the errors of the old method, that of the quakers was taken as a pat- tern, not less of economy, than the treatment of the patients. This other hospital contains one hundred and thirty madmen. The traveller will be surprised at the view of this building, at the walks shaded by old and branching trees which surround it, at the beautiful in- ternal galleries, at the cheerful rooms ; but he should not forget, that this establishment, such as it is, would not have existed but for the p re-existence "of that of the quakers. At one time, when darkness, chains, and pun- ishments, were used as the means of cure, it seemed as if madmen (as the physician Delarive wittily observed) had invented that method as a cure for their fellow mad- men. In this hospital for the county of York, when the conflagration happened, two madmen were burnt to death, who could not make their escape in consequence of their being chained. What first made the quakers in 1798 determine on building a hospital for their own insane, was the death of an individual of their sect in the county hospital, from ill treatment and neglect. If mild- ness has been substituted for barbarity, a reasonable and economical system for a strange and expensive one, ENGLAND. 223 let the traveller recollect that the merit is due to the Quakers' Retreat, obscure in outward appearance, but not yet surpassed in intrinsic excellence. 2d. Owing to the economy with which the Retreat is managed, it is now able to support itself. The other York hospital, on the same plan, has also always an an- nual surplus, which enables it to enlarge its buildings, to grant entirely gratuitous admissions to several poor patients, and to remain independent of the casual libe- rality of extraordinary legacies and donations. In this most important point of view, the charitable establishments on the continent are in general exposed to two inconveniences, the difficulty of finding a gene- rous benefactor to furnish not only a sufficient capital to build the edifice, but to endow it with an annual revenue for the support of the patients. And where such a dona- tion is made, it is generally in prejudice of the relations, who are defrauded of their expected inheritance, so that, in many states, the law has very providently stepped in to put an end to such largesses. These two inconve- niences disappear where an arrangement has been adopted by which an annual income greater than the expense is produced. This well-judged economy is still limited, even in England, to the hospitals for the insane. The hospitals for other maladies (to which the admissions are all gratuitous) are maintained in great part by annual subscriptions, I say in great part, because some of them are in the enjoyment of ancient bequests. But even this second method of annual subscriptions is preferable to that of a revenue derived from donations and legacies. Besides the great good of preventing disinheritances, it has the advantage of a better ordered economy, because all those interested (that is, all the annual subscribers) keep a watch over it ; and it has the other not less valuable advantage, of keeping the sentiment of com- 224 THE ITALIAN EXILE passion alive and active. The annual subscribers are easily found in England. As it is the custom there to board and lodge the footmen and maid servants in the master's house, whenever one of them falls ill, the master, if he is a subscriber, shares the expense of taking care of him, by sending him to the hospital, which for neat- ness, quiet, order, and sometimes for elegance, may vie with a gentleman's house. 3d. The government of England has no voice in the administration of the institutions of public beneficence. It neve? interferes, except when the protection of per- sonal liberty is in question, as it has often occurred, that, in consequence of complaints of the cruelties practised in private or public madhouses, it has ordered special investigations, by which the regulation was introduced, that no patient can be received into a madhouse, without a certificate from the medical attendant, who is respon- sible for giving it. In short, in England, benevolence is free, it is only malevolence that is enslaved. 4th. In this country every thing is public, and good actions have a public recompense. For this reason, the donations made to hospitals are inscribed in letters of gold on their walls. When you enter the spacious hos- pital for the insane called New Bethlem, you see on a great black table (to make the better display), written in large gilt letters, the name of every benefactor, and the sum he contributed. The same black tables orna- ment the walls of the beautiful hospital of Derby, which I advise every traveller to visit, to see how the most useful discoveries in physic and mechanics have been applied to the comfort of the poorest classes. The cus- tom of taking the benefactor's portrait, observed at Milan, would be still more flattering to human vanity, and would be worthy of approbation, if confined to those who give in their lifetime, and not extended to those who, IN ENGLAND. 225 from revenge or superstition, give away at their death what they can no longer carry with them. 5th. The average term for a cure in the Retreat is six months, when the disease is not organic (that is, here- ditary.) The expedition of the cure, and the mildness of the method, are perhaps to be attributed to the softened character of madness in England. Education and the climate render it leas violent than in hot climates, and among those nations where the passions of men are continually irritated. The difference is visible in the paroxysms of anger, and above all in intoxication. The drunken Englishman grows sleepy and falls as if dead in the middle of the street, without annoying any body : the native of the south, influenced with wine, insults, menaces, fights, becomes worse than a Rodomont, and by himself alone wakens up a whole street. It must then be expected, that this same method, adopted in hot countries, will not have so ready and happy a success as in England. But it will not for all that, be any the less the most excellent of all the methods hitherto in use. All remedies, according to climates or temperaments, have more or loss of efficacy; but they do not alter their nature. , 6th. The remark made by Locke, among many others, on children, that mildness rules them better than rigour, has contributed to suggest, by analogy, the method to be pursued by those, who, having lost the guidance of reason, have arrived at a second childhood. Cannot, then, this same method be applied, by analogy again, to nations, to sects, to factions, when they are overcome by the strength of the passions, and fall into delirium ? If, instead of tortures, of funeral piles, of confiscations, and of scaffolds, mildness, humanity and reason, were em- ployed to assuage the passions of the multitude, how 226 THE ITALIAN EXILE IN ENGLAND. much less had been the number of martyrs of religious intolerance, of political assassinations, of the crimes and horrors, that have disgraced and imbrued in blood the human race ! I* m . II m NDI o: li O CO r i * 3 n V A O'">~7~~JO A U