LETTERS
FHOM THE
NORTH OF riALY.
VOL. II.
London: I'm.ikI hi C. Knuorth,
l;,Mi-V.ird. T<ni|,ie-l;jr.
V
LETTERS
NORTH OF ITALY.
ADDRESSED TO
HENRY HALL AM, Esq.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
With discourse tluit shifts and changes,
That at random rovts and ranges.
Hither, th.tlier, here and there.
Over ocean, tartli and air ;
To the pole and to the tropic.
Overrunning every topic —
— Tell us, is he diuuk or mad?
— No, believe ine, grave and sad.
THE BIRDS, MS. Traiultun.
VOL. IL
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1819.
#
a^^""
CONTENTS
TO
VOL. II.
LETTER XXXII.
On the Venetian Dialect— its Origin and Character— On
Venetian Poetry and Music, as connected with it — on
the other Dialects of Italy Page 1
LETTER XXXIII.
On the Italian Language— its proper Designation and
Character — its extreme Difficulties— to be distin-
guished from the Florentine or Tuscan, which has a
Physiognomy of its own — a Sunmiary of its Beauties
and Defects— its Origin, and the Character of the
Parent Tongue — on its Pronunciation . . . . l6
LETTER XXXIV.
On the Necessity of Italian to a Traveller — Extraordi-
nary Italian Linguist at Bologna 52
LETTER XXXV.
Conduct of the Imperial Government at Venice . . 56
yi CONTENTS.
LETTER XXXVI.
Fiscal System of Austria in Italy, &c 68
LETTER XXXVII.
State of Tythes in Italy, &c 82
LETTER XXXVIII.
Originality of character common amongst the ancient
Venetians 91
LETTER XXXIX.
On Venetian and Italian Mercantile Character, &c. 98
LETTER XL.
Account of the ancient Venetian Nobility — Causes of its
Ruin, &c J 04
LETTER XLI.
Characteristics of Italy, Moral and Physical . . 115
LETTER XLII.
On the coincidence of popular Superstitions . . 125
LETTER XLItl.
Observations on the Architecture of St. Mark's at Ve-
nice, &c 12y
LETTER XLIV.
Visit to the Island of Torzelo, and Reflections excited
by it 130
CONTENTS. Vll
LETTER XLV.
Fresco Paintings in San Rocco — Restitution of ancient
Monuments to Venice, &.c 136
LETTER XLVL
On the Possibility of a Union of the Italian Provinces 139
LETTER XLVIL
Description of the Fire in Ca Corner — Conduct of the
J\ustrian Government and Troops — Mode of con-
structing the Foundations of Houses in Venice — of
supplying the City with fresh Water .... 142
LETTER XLVIIL
Venetian Festivals, Customs, and Table — Difference of
National Taste, &c 159
LETTER XLIX.
Other Festivals and Customs, &c 171
LETTER L.
On the Discoveries of the early Venetiarrs . . . 176
LETTER LL
Notions of Delicacy comparative amongst different Na-
tions 182
LETTER LIE
Visit to Bassatio 1 85
LETTER LIIL
Journey homewards. — Milan 201
Vlll CONTENTS.
LETTER LIV.
Oil tlic Poetry of Pahini — State of Manners in Italy,
as inlhicnced by the Government 204
LETTER LV.
Turin, and Italian Recollections 218
LETTERS
FROM THE
NORTH OF ITALY.
LETTER XXXII.
Ou the Venetian Dialect — its Origin and Character —
Venetian Poetry and Music, as connected with it —
On the other Dialects of Italy.
Venice, November, 1817.
The Venetian is the language generally spoken
here, and indeed in all the considerable towns
of this state, except a few, such as Brescia and
Bergamo, which have a dialect of their own.
Of such towns it may be observed, that they
were not comprehended in the tract of country
inhabited by the ancient Veneti, but settled by
the Cisalpine Gauls.
The colour of the ancient language of this
people glimmered througli their Latin, as may
VOL. II. B
2 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
be seen in inscriptions collected by Maffe'i,^
and it should sccni probable that the original
dialects of the different races of settlers in Italy-
arc one remote cause of the variety of jargons
A\ hich at present prevail there.
(^f these the Venetian is undoubtedly the
best. It is softer and more winning than the
Tuscan, though it falls far beneath it in dignity
and force. The judgment however of a fo-
reigner is of little weioht. It has had better
testimonies borne to its merits by Bettmelli,
and a host of Italian writers, who may naturally
be supposed to have had a nicer and more dis-
criminating sense of its perfections. In all the
lighter and gayer walks of poetry it is delight-
ful ; and the Venetian verse is, I should say,
compared with the verse of other nations, very
much what Venetian painting is as to that of
the rest of Europe.
Venice is indeed a little world by itself, with
arts of its own and manners of its own. It is
original in almost every thing; in its language
its pictures, its poetry, and its music ; wdiich
* The Latin lapidary inscriptions found in the subalpine
towns of Italy often mark the provinciality of the authors.
Thus the W, one of the most characteristic marks of a tramon-
tane alphabet, is to be found in those of the Gallic colonies.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. J
however, may be all said to be qiiales dtcct esse
sorores.
But our business is at present w itli tlic lan-
guage. This is principally of Latin blood dashed
with Greek, Sclavonic, and I know not what.
The mixture of Greek,* which is infused in it,
is however, perhaps, not greater than what pre-
vails in the Italian ; and, I believe, the original
of many words which are usually considered as
aliens might be found either in the pure or
corrupter ages of latinity : for the inflections
and deflections which these suffer, deceive our
eyes, and it is often as difficult to trace such
in their new forms, as it is to recognize the
root of a plant in the variety and luxuriance
of its branches. Who, for instance, would at
first sight imagine that the Latin word forma
was only the Doric /xo^fpisi turned inside out? or
what rrenchmen would recognize wasp in the
waps of provincial English? The same prin-
ciple of change naturally prevails in the Italian
dialects, and I recollect being called upon by a
lower Florentine to look at a certain warden
" where there were stautcy
* Many familiar Venetian words are taken from the Greek,
as Magari ! (Maxagjo?), which answers to the conditional felice
me ! of the Italian.
B '1
4 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
The instances I have quoted are of one
description ; there is a much larger class of
another, which follow the natural and uniform
bent of the language. Thus caleghicr, which
has puzzled some etymologists, is \'enctian for
a shoe-maker: this word should, according to
the Italian rules of inflection, be calegajo, as
bottegkier makes bottegajo. Now considering
the thing under this point of view, we see that
tr and ajo are mere tails, and that the body of
the word is caliga, the short boot amongst the
Romans, from which Caligula took his name.
Following therefore a simple rule of analogy,
caleghier is a boot or shoe-maker.
But referring to what I have said in a pre-
ceding paragraph as well as in the last, I have
no doubt that one skilled in disentangling sylla-
bles, which get absolutely matted in time, might
find in Du Cange the parentage of many words,
whose derivation most puzzles us in Venetian.
Still there are vocables which cannot be as-
cribed to a Latin stem. Thus much is cer-
tain. But the mode of their introduction may
be a subject of doubt and inquiry. Some con-
tend (and such is the vulgar opinion) that the
influx of these is to be ascribed to the inter-
course of the Venetians with the barbarians, and
the Greeks of Constantinople. A very little
lETTEKS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 5
consideration liowevcr will shew the fallacy of
such a supposition.*
It is to be observed that the language is very
nearly the same throughout the tract of country
which has been termed inland and maritime
Venice; that is, the region inhabited by the
ancient Veneti, which corresponds, in a great
degree, with the modern limits of the Venetian
state. Now it is quite clear that the dialect of
maritime Venice could not have receixed acces-
sions of speech from the barbarians, for they
never entered the lagoon ; and it is equally clear
that many parts of inland Venice were as little
likely to naturalize Greek words from Constan-
tinople, since they had no communication with
that city.
Could we suppose that the candle had been
thus lit at both ends, each would retain some
signs of such a process, but this is so far from
being the case, that the language of Venice is
the same as that of Verona, and I should say
that as little difference, in this respect, existed
between the two cities, as may be traced be-
tween two contiguous counties in England.
Reasoning therefore from the uniformit}- of their
* See Filiasi su' primi c sccondi Vcncti.
b3
6 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
dialect, even at the two extremities of the tract
through which it is spoken, is it not a fair in-
duction that the aliens, to which I have alluded,
had been tor ages and ages denizened in the
language ?
Let us try this theory a little farther. All
writers are agreed that the ancient Vetieti, or
Venetians, were a race differing in blood from
the Gallic tribes who peopled the rest of Lom-
bardy. Latizi, almost the only man who has
carried right principles of reasoning into inves-
tigations of national monuments, and who may
be classed amongst the most ingenious and accu-
rate of authors, I think, supposes the Veneti to
have been a Greek and Celtic mixture, obseiving,
that the infusion of Greek which he discovered
in their inscriptions was purer than that which
he found in the remains of the Etrurians* This
then may, at least, account for whatever there
•was or is of Greek in the language of this
people. But whatever were the elements of
their tongue, it is notorious they had one to them-
selves, however it was composed. This was
afterwards, as that of all the aboriginal Italians,
merged in the Latin, but many proofs might
* iSoggio di Lingua Etrusca.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 7
be adduced that, (like that of the Gauls, &c.)
it communicated something of its own colour
to the mass in which it mixed: For the lapidary
inscriptions, furnished by the Venetian district
and collected by Mafj'ei, shew the same sort of
ancient provinciality, (though of a different
dye,) which marks those of the Gallic colonies;
and in them may be seen some of the same
commutations of letters, which are common at
present in the Venetian dialect. In the EpisioUe
ad FamiUares of Cicero there is a letter in which
he mentions words as current in these provinces
which were not known at Rome. Livy was
accused of patav'mity or padumiism, (whatever
might be meant by the charge ;) and it was said
of Catullus that he had introduced new forms
of speech into the Latin. Circumstances might
be addiicetl in proof of these being Veronisms.
Thus he calls a torrent proww*, and is, I believe,
singular in its use. It may, perhaps, be sup-
posed, that this was the mere substitution for
the substantive of one of its ordinary and ap-
propriate epithets ; but it is to be remarked that
pronio still signifies torrent in the })ro\ ince of
Verona.
I have already Innted my belief that what I
have here attempted to jirove, aj)plied probably
to all Italy. In additional confirmation of this
notion, Algarutti, somewhere, mentions a letter
li 4
8 LETTERS FROM THft NOllTH OF ITALY.
of Varus to Virgil, in wliich, commenting on an
epigram, he criticizes the word putus, averring
it not to be Latin. Now putto, though natu-
raUzed in ItaHan, is at present, I beUeve, only
familiarly used in the Mantuan and neighbouring
districts, and would not be understood by the
uneducated in Tuscany.
Whether or no the position I have contended
for extends south as well as north, I have, I think,
made it good in the Venetian province. If
therefore there is, as I have first shewn, reason
to suppose that foreign words, such as have
been described, were of early introduction, (and
there is every ground for saying that such ex-
isted in the language of the Veneti and tainted
the Latin, when adopted by them,) it seems to me
equally reasonable to suppose that these same
anomalies have been transmitted to the dialect
which has succeeded to the Latin.
Li rejecting however the idea that the Greek,
Sclavonic, or other terms which puzzle us in
Venetian are of modern origin, I do not mean
to say that modern Sclavonic slang, (such as
oaths, &c.) has not crept into use, in (compara-
tively speaking) modern times ; but these oaths,
for instance, merely float upon the surface, and
are no more incorporated with the language than
Gaelic interjections are in certain of the Scotch
LETTERS TllOM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 9
dialects, or than English oaths (adopted for the
convenience of trade) arc in the French of
Jersey and Guernsey.*
Havino- now brought all the little learning of
M'hich I am possessed, to bear upon the origin of
the Venetian dialect, and indeed exhausted my
ammunition ; I proceed to give some account of
its more modern history. Partially cultivated
for a time, it was early superseded by the Italian,
as a written language ; nor M'as this change con-
fined to literary men, any more here than in the
rest of Italy : for it may now be said that all
classes throughout the peninsula, who can write,
compose in something as like Italian as they can
brew it.
The dialects have however remained every
where in oral use amongst the vulgar, and the
vernacular of Venice (as well as some others)
almost as much amongst high as low. As to
the latter class indeed, it is hardly an exaggera-
tion to say they are as ignorant of Italian as of
English. t
* 'I'lic inhabitants of these islands surrendered their own
natural oaths on becoming Hugonots ; but rinding the want of
them in their maritime intercourse with Southampton and
Weymouth, adopted English ones.
t My she servant here said one morning to my own, in my
presence, Vago ad impizar el Jogo ; vd ben dito cussi ? — Si — ■
Gho piuser, perche mi voggio imparar a parlor in Inglese. The
10 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
But though the Venetian ceased to exist as a
written language, either as employed in serious
branches of literature or the concerns of business,
as the gay pursued tilting as a sport after it had
ceased to be a mode of real combat, so certain
airy wits have descended into this deserted arena
and given no contemptible proofs of activity and
grace.
The happiest efforts of these poets have usu-
ally been what we term Venetian ballads, a
great number of which, though cruelly disfi-
gured, are current in England. The music to
which these songs are set is well known in
London. But no idea can be formed of them
by hearing them any where but at Venice,
For the pronunciation, if ever to be imitated,
is only to be caught from Venetian lips, and
nothing can be more ludicrous in the eyes and
ears of one who " has swam in a gondola," than
the gay or impassioned strain of the poetry, con-
trasted with the stucco-face of the statue which
doles it forth at home. Here it is seconded by
all the nice inflections of voice, all the grace of
gesture, and all that play of features which dis-
tinguishes the Venetian women. It is now how-
absurdity of this jargon consists in the woman's tliinking that
she was speaking English, whereas the slight deviation which
she made from her own dialect was into Italian.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 1 1
ever almost as difficult to find one who can sing
a Venetian ballad as one who can chaunt verses
from Tasso.
This poet has been, as you know, translated
into all or nearly all the Italian dialects, but
with most success into that of this state, minis-
tering matter for their music to the gondoleers
of former times. But " the songs of other
years " have died away. I requested one, the
other da}', from a man who was said to be
amongst the last depositories of them ; but
found I had touched a tender string in asking
for a song of Sion. He shook his head, and
told me that, " in times like these, he had no
heart to sing."
This boat-music was destined for the silence
and solitude of the night; but it should seem
that some of our countrymen entertain very
different notions on this subject; as I saw lately
a sober-looking Englishman, with his wife and
child, embarked on the grand canal at mid-day,
with two violins and a drum. Yet they did not
look like people who would have paraded Bond
Street, at tlie time of high water with fiddles in
a barouche.
But 1 have somehow or other got from Ve-
netian poetry to A^cnetian music, and from a
gondola into a carriage. I have however, I
12 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
believe, said all I had to communicate upon
these subjects.
In the mean time something yet remains to
be said upon the dialects of Italy in general.
These are all, I repeat, like the Venetian, the
bastard progeny of the Latin, however alloyed
by baser metal, and nearly allied to the modem
Italian. Notwithstanding this, the mixture of
foreign words which has been introduced into
them and the twist which has been given to
their own natural roots, renders them extremely
difficult to be understood. Hence the reports
of travellers, who describe long conversations
held with the peasantry of Italy, are to be re-
ceived with great caution, and I can say with
truth that I once passed some da3'^s at Bologna,
without being able to gather even the general
sense of what w^as said to me by any of the
uneducated. Yet, when my ear had insensibly
accustomed itself to this jargon at the theatre,
from the mouth of one of the masques, de?
scribed in a former letter, I found that its
elements were already known to me, and might
be considered (to use a mean but expressive
metaphor) as Tuscan vocables gutted and
trussed. The running title indeed of a J3olognese
poem, which is now lying on my table, may
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 13
serve as an illustration of this : it is entitled
L D^sgrazie cV B'rtuldin. This sort of clisem-
bowelment, as well as the torture of their inflec-
tions, seems to have been the common destiny
of the dialects. Words leave letters as we
leave hiijfsj'isrc behind us in our travels. Thus
the Tuscan word capo, has lost its /> by the time
it arrives at Venice, and becomes cao. In its
further progress to IMilan, it drops its a and
becomes co ; in which state it may be found in
the Inferno of Dante, who uses the expression
/;/ CO del pontc. From Capo and co then may be
learned the general principle of change through-
out the peninsula.
After statins: the Venetian to be the best of
the dialects, I will (though I cannot venture
to discriminate intermediate shades) state what
I conceive to be decidedly the w^orst. These are,
the vernacular of Bologna,* Genoa and IMilan.
Yet one of these (however harsh and inelegant)
is distinguished by that spirit of poetry which
is peculiar to Italy. Thus the holly is called in
* It is very difficult to understand what Dante has said re-
specting the Bolognese dialect. The only supposition which
can explain his encomium is, cither, that it has totally changed
its character, a thing which appears impossible, or that Dante,
in his inveterate hatred to Florence, sought to exalt another
city at its expense. The latter is my own belief.
14 l.ETTEKS I'KOM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
IVIilauese tlic lion-laurel, and tlie strawberry,
May-scarlet.
When I was first in this country,! began making
a collection of popular poetry, for the purpose of
illustrating the different dialects, but having lost
a part of my cabinet, never had the courage to
resume the task. I regret this the more, as I am
convinced it is the only way of making an esti-
mate of them : for though specimens of these may
be found amongst the works of the learned, and
a collection of the various translations of Tasso
already referred to, might be thought sufhcient
to the purpose, it is evident that the provincial
dialect of scholars must savour of the more
general and polished language in which they
read and compose. This observation may indeed
be stretched farther, and it may be said that
even those who approach the educated can hardly
be considered as credible witnesses in such a
matter. Yet it is thus that foreigners are con-
tinually deceived, who consider the speech of
a servitor di piazza as a specimen of the lan-
guage of the place where he plies. / fell into
this mistake on my first visit to Italy : 1 re-
member that walking to see some piece of
antiquity in the neighbourhood of Rome, my
attention was caught by a wild flower in the
fields, when the laquais de place observing it,
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. \5
said, " Covimanda die lo carpa ? " Had I left
the city next day, I should probahly have re-
marked upon the mixture of hitinity still to be
found in the vernacular of Rome : I stayed long
enough to discover that it had no more of this
than many of its sister dialects, and that my
laquais de place talked like a cardinal.*
* TIic polished language of Rome, which differs toto ccclo
from the vulgar vernacular, is to be considered as sophisticated
Italian. The assemblage of priests from different parts of Italy
has rendered a lingua aulica more especially necessary there,
and this has naturally taken a very strong tinge from the Latin,
such being the language of church and chancery.
This influx of latinisms has a very bad effect, and renders
the Italian of Rome particularly disagreeable to me. The rea-
son seems to be this : Though almost all Italian words have a
similar origin, they have by long intermixture acquired a
character of their own. Now the introduction of a quantity
of crude materials changes the colour and flavour of the mess,
into which they are cast.
( 16 )
LETTER XXXIII.
On the Italian Language — its proper Designation and
Character — its extreme Difficulties — to be distinguished
from the Florentine or Tuscan, which has a Phj/si-
o<r/iomi/ of its ozvn — a Summary of its Beauties and
Defects — its Origin, and the Character of the Parent
Tongue — on its Pronunciation.
Venice, November, 1817-
The general view which I have taken of the
Italian dialects naturally leads to the considera-
tion of the tongue, which is to be considered as
the queen and empress of them all : this has
been by some called Florentiiie, by some Tuscan j
and by others, (and these are more numerous,)
Italian.
But as something more than is at first appa-
rent, depends upon its name, it will not be amiss
to examine the grounds upon which these dif-
ferent designations rest. If this language is to
be called Flcroitine, as contended by Machiavel
and others, the term would restrict its elements
to such as are furnished by Florence, excluding
words of common currency in neighbouring cities,
as iSienna,' 8ic. But for this principle the veriest
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 17
provincial purist would scarcely contend. Again,
iF it is to be Tuscan, this name would, on the
same grounds, confine its vocabulary to the
limits of the dukedom : but almost all the
classical authors of the peninsula have disdained
so narrow a lield. I conclude, therefore, that
it is more properly as well as more popularly
called Italiaji ; but in an examination of its
character 1 shall throw more lights on its de-
signation.
The Italian (to describe it as accurately as I
can) is an ideal language, which has indeed what
may be termed the Tuscan for its base,* but re-
ceives and naturalizes forms of speech from all
the provinces ; being, as Alonti, echoing Dante,
says, to be found every where in parts, but no
AV'here as a whole.
It is perhaps this character Mhich renders
it a delightful vehicle for verse, even in the
eyes of those who will not allow it to be
such for prose; for wheth.er poetry, in the ab-
* This I take to be undeniable by a fair critic ; yet the not
admitting this principle (for I do not find it any where ad-
mitted) has given the Tuscans their only vantage ground in this
long disputed argument.
VOL. IT. C
18 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
stract, be, or be not (as is contended) a thing
essentially ideal, such is undoubtedly the spirit
of Italian poetry. As is the statue then, such
should be the drapery. For conceive an ideal
work of the finest sculpture, clothed in a grace-
h\\ but familiar dress : such a vision disgusts us
as soon .as formed. But give the same figure
drapery of composition, and it pleases. It is
for this reason that all attempts to translate
Petrarch into English have so egregiously failed.
To catch and preserve his spirit of diction in a
vernacular language, is as hopeless as it would
be to fix the fugitive tints of the rainbow and
paint them in body colours.
But having called up Petrarch as a witness, I
cannot immediately dismiss him, as I have occa-
sion for him again as an evidence who is to speak
yet more directly to my first position. This poet
is acknowledged to have been one of the main
reformers, if not one of the architects, of his
language. And from what mine did he extract
his materials ? Not out of " quarries which he
found at home." For, though a Tuscan born,
he never, I believe, passed any length of time
in his native province, which he left young, and
with the vernacular dialect of which he could
not have been familiarly acquainted. A large
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALV. 1^
part of his materials may be said to be " pcre-
grini mar mi —
Da dotta mano in varie forme sculti."*
Ariosto.
Nor was he licentious in this ; for tlie permis-
sion of importation on wliich he acted is to be
found in the Vucabolario dclla Crusca, which has
(no matter to what extent or under what reser-
vations) completely established the principle.
But without adopting the laws of this capri-
cious code in their detail, for indeed they are
too contradictory to be capable of complete
observation, let us see what appears to have
governed the great mass of Italian writers. I
have already said that Tuscan forms the base of
their Italian, but it remains to shew what modi-
fications it has undergone, and what clianges
have been grafted upon it. I shall illustrate
these as familiarly as I can.
In every language words get naturally dis-
torted from their original meaning, and of this I
might adduce various examples in our own.
They sometimes have it improperly enlarged,
but oftener contracted, as in the case of the
English words aspersions and audacious, which
* Rare foreign marbles, wrought by cunning hand.
C 2
20 LETTERS FUOM THE NOUTH OF ITALY.
admitted either a good or bad signification, in
the time of Shakspearc ; but which are both
now taken only in an evil sense. They some-
times however also extend their pretensions.
This has been done by the word inveterate.
Thus, though to say an inveterate enemy is cor-
rect, you will, I think, agree with me, that to
talk of any one being inveterate against another
Avould be a barbarism, were it not now sanctioned
by the use of porters and of peers. Of such
abuses the Tuscan is full : It has been the task
of the compilers of the Italian, to reform them,
to polish right and left, rubbing off the rust,
perhaps the precious rust of antiquity ; — to
clothe words according to an uniform system of
orthography, and recast all incorrect forms of
phraseology.
These changes, you may say, have been ef-
fected or attempted in all languages ; but these
reformers have introduced amongst others, one
which is single in its kind. Though they have
accepted many Tuscan or Florentine words, they
have rejected many others, not only of what are
vulgarly called Jine words, but several amongst
those which are the most familiar. Thus cesoje
means scissars at Florence, but forbid is the
word adopted into general Italian use ; and I
might adduce a variety of similar examples.
LETTIUS FROM TIIK NORTH OF ITALY. '21
Other (litteicnces were also introclucccl in coin-
poundiiig this huiguagc, which have produced
a yet wider effect. The changes I aUude to
affect both syntax and prosody : every one, for
example, at all conversant with the language,
knows that the penultimate syllable of the indi-
cative-imperfect tense is long, (as we should
express it,) and pronounced long, both in Italian
verse and prose ; whereas the Florentines make
it short, pronouncing amavUmo amavamo. More-
over it would be endless to cite misconstructions
and misconjugations allowed in the Tuscan and
rcjecteil in the Italia?!.
So much for modiiications of the Tuscan base ;
but you will always keep in recollection its
wider admission of foreign graces. This cha-
racter of the order, or rather this disposition to
receive any character, renders the Italian an
engine applicable to all purposes in the hands
of those who know how to wield it; and the
English notion of this language, which sees in
it only a vehicle for pathetic or amatory verse,
appears to me founded upon a very superficial
view of the subject. This magnificent machine
may be better compared to an organ, which has
all the sources of harmony within itself; from
the trumpet-stop to the flageolet. Take, as a
proof, two authors, wlio have both graced the
c 3
22 LETTEKS EROIM THE NOUTII OF ITALY.
language in Avhich they wrote, and both ex-
hibited the most singular contra.^t of powers : I
mean A [fieri and Metastas'io. Have we not
here the trumpet and the flute?
But the ItaHan is not only susceptible of the
apparently contradictory qualities of softness
and strength; it is capable of uniting principled
more substantially opposite ; it not only hardens
and melts, but contracts or dilates as it is moulded
by the artist. Our critics at home are very
severe upon the diffusive character of the Italian
prosers, yet it would be impossible for any lan-
guage with which I am acquainted, to produce
a more extraordinary model of vigour and com-
pression than is to be found in the translation of
Tacitus by Davanzati. If however it is objected
to me, that, judging him by the principles I
have myself laid down, this author wrote rather
in Florentine * than in Italian, dealing largely
* I cannot perhaps bring this distinction better home to the
understanding of a reader not acquainted with the subject of
controversy, than by citing an observation of Monti: He says
that the " Jerusalem Dcli\ercd " of Tasso might be as well
translated from Italian into Florentine (add, into any given sub-
division of Tuscan) as into any other dialect of the peninsula.
Indeed many works might be cited as written in pure Florentine,
as the Teatro Antico Fiorentino, the Canfi Carnascialcscki, Sx.
LETTERS IROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 23
in words and phrases that are unintelligible out
ot" Florence, I will take another writer, who
equally illustrates my position, I mean Machia-
vel, as severe and concise as Davanzati. I press
him into my service, though inlisted on the
other side of the question ; for he cannot surely
be said to write in Florentiiie, who has rejected
all local modes of speech, and is intelligible to
to every one who can read Italian. For it is
singular that, whilst this author insists the
language under consideration should be called
Flor^entine, I should cite his writings as models
of the purest Italian. He seems to be himself
aware of the contradiction, wliich exists be-
tween the fact he contends for, and the tone of
his and almost all other literary works ; for he
confesses that the written language of Italy dif-
fers considerably from that of Florence; but, by
way of obviating the deduction, says, " Is not this
the case every where, and does not the literary
necessarily differ from the colloquial language?"
The ob\ ious answer to this would be another
question, " In what degree? " for on this every
thing depends. Thus the French or Fnglish,
as spoken, differs from itself as Avritten ; but
this distinction docs not consist in any essential
change. No new elements are introduced into
the written language : the difference is seen in
c 4
'i4 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
superiority of elegance and arrangement. The
English do not recur to Scotland, nor the French
to Provence for words and phraseology. The
Italian, on the contrary, is almost unlimited in
his range. It is hence, perhaps, that some of
the fe.w lights of the language have shot their
rays from spots where it was unknown, but
as Latin is in Hungary. This is equally true
of the present as of former ages, and you will
recollect that our friend Ugo FoscolOy to whom
I should give the first place amongst the mo-
dern Italians, is, strictly speaking, a Venetian
Creole.* But in discussing the merits of the
Italian, the questions of name and character
are necessarily getting continually involved ; I
shall disentangle my skein and keep it clear as
long as I can.
Speaking of the genius of the Italian ; I said
that it was an engine applicable to all purposes.
Yet though this instrument, " govern its ven-
tages but rightly, Avill discourse most eloquent
music ; " like other weapons of the art, it makes
woeful discord in the hands of him who is not
perfect in its management. This is so difficult,
that few French or English, with the exception
* Of Venetian origin, but a native of Zante.
LETTEllS FROM THE NORTH OE ITALY. 25
of Menage, Milton and Mathias, who, I sup-
pose, triumphed in the spiiit of alliteration,
have ever cultivated it with success. But let
us look to the peninsula itself, to Tuscany,* if
you will, or indeed to the very spot from which
I date, as affording the hest illustration of the
truth of my position. Goldoni was, as every
one knows, horn a Venetian. As such, he was
necessarily educated in the study of the Italian,
which, as I have already said, is the written
language of the whole peninsula, and in which
he himself wrote ahout forty volumes in octavo:
he passed moreover six years of his life in Tus-
cany : yet with all his exercise and all his
advantages he never arrived at composing in
Italian with force, purity, or precision. This
man went to France, and a trifling anecdotef
which he has given of himself, shews how lit-
tle he then knew of the language of the coun-
try to which he was hound. Yet a few years
* I should say that the present Tuscan school was tlic worst
in the peninsula.
t lie tells us that on his voyage to some southern port of
France, his fear was increased during a gale of wind by a
Frenchman's exclaiming Voild ! on the approach of every heavy
sea. This he imagined was an injunction to make more sail,
confoundins tela with voilti. See his Memoirs.
25 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
after tliis we fincl him writing a comedy in
French,* which was received with applause;
and the lang'uagc of which has, I bcHeve, es-
caj)e{i criticism.
But, to rise a Httle higher in the scale than
poor Golcloni, and cite one, who, unlike him,
zaas eminently successful in point of style, I
mean the author of Galateo: by what sacrifices
was this perfection purchased? We are told, if
my recollection serves me, that he employed
thirt}^ or forty years in its composition. Now
is life long enough to bestow such a space of
time, on what might be comprized in a moderate
sized duodecimo?
I have cited this work ; since, though it is a
model of Italian elegance, there is nothing in the
matter (which I have just measured) that
need have cost an hour's thought to the com-
poser.
But in what, it may be asked, consists the
difficulty of Italian composition? In the first
place, I should say in the choice of terms, almost
all marked by some indescribable difference, the
abundance of which, in itself, puzzles and con-
founds — above all, in the exercise of the right
* Lc Buurrcau bievfaisant .
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 27
of importing foreign terms, the trade in w liicL
cannot absolutely be called free, but requires con-
siderable exertion of judgment. Nor docs it in-
deed consist only in the selection of materials ; it
lies in the very architecture of the language, the
structure of its sentences being schemed on dis-
tinct principles from those of the other tongues
of Europe. In this country a man fagots
his notions as they fall, content if' each bundle
is properly secured. The binder thinks this is
done, if no link be wanting in his chain of rea-
soning : little attention is paid to the rest, as is
witnessed by the S^ris of Bishop Berkley. His
ascent by a long flight of easy steps from
tar-water to the Trinity is perhaps the happiest
specimen of subtle but well connected reasoning
which exists; yet the more mechanical part of
the performance, however esteemed by us, would
disgust the Italian workman, who must consider
it as coarsely wrought, in comparison of his own
models of exact and delicate execution. His
mode of composing may be compared to the
process of dove-tailing. Add that each sen-
tence is blended into that which follows, with
such a nice gradation of shade, that the aid of
stops may be considered as unnecessary in a'
well written Italian work. Hence it is that
foreigners who attempt this language, if they
28 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALV.
succeed in the outline, rarely succeed in giving
it the chiar' oscuro which it requires.
I am sensiJjle that these observations may
sound extravagant to the French or English;
who consider Italian as of easy acquisition. I
cannot perhaps better illustrate the cause of this
popular mistake and the real state of the fact,
than b}^ citing a comparison made use of to me
at a time when I shared the general delusion,
by an Italian who (no common occurrence) was
intimately acquainted with his own language.
" This," he said, " might be likened to a coquette,
from whom it was easy to obtain a kind look, a
squeeze of the hand, or a smile, but with whom
there was no going farther." It is now six years
since I heard this comparison, and every suc-
ceeding year has more deeply impressed me
with a conviction of its truth.
We have indeed a crowd of witnesses to this
point in the host of Italian writers, who have
failed in their pursuit. To descend to our own
times ; how very few have succeeded in it ?
These wnite in a colloquial jargon, replete with
provincial gibberish and Gallicisms ; while a yet
more powerful party flies at higher game, and
^oes to the thirteenth century in search of an
antiquated phraseology, which is become half
unintelligible to the present. Tiiis last may be
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 129
considered as the prevaiHiig folly of the day,
though it should seem to be the least explical)lc.
That a people shouUl neglect or adulterate
their own language is sufficiently intelligible,
and referable to those very common motives,
ignorance and laziness : but the causes which
should have incited them to a contiary and
very troublesome pursuit are not ecjually appa-
rent. While, on the other hand, the inconve-
niences which must result from this pedantic
passion might, one should think, have been
obvious to an}' but the besotted sect of the ti^e-
ccntisti. Algarotti, with great reason, attacks
the folly of his countrymen for recurring to the
French for military terms, where exact equiva-
lents are to be found in Italian. But this
argument will not carry far, since it will not of
course bear upon sciences either unknown, or
imperfectly cultivated, at the time the Italian
was supposed to have been perfectioned. And
are new terms in natm^al history or geology
to be excluded, because these studies were un-
known to tlie writers of the thirteenth century ?
who, if they had found or distinguished feldspar
or a mammoth's bones amongst the Alps, would
have called the first a sort of a stone, and the
second a sort of a beast. Y'et, notwithstandino-
30 LETTERS FllOiM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
the absurdity of its tenets, tliis sect, like others,
luis increased, deriving nourishment from its
own extravagances ; though there have not been
wanting men of judgment to expose them.
Having pointed out the difficulties of this
lanq-ua<>:e and the extravagances of those who
have written in it, let us ascend to the first
great cause which has led them astray. In all
cases where art is greatly predominant, art is
necessarily apt to degenerate into aifectation.
An Englishman (to take the first-turn metaphor)
writes very much as he rides. He gets on
horseback how he can, and being somehow or
other shaken into his scat, goes straight forward
to his object, while the Italian is more anxious to
shew his grace than to get to his journey's end.
His seat indeed is strong, his posture is elegant,
and the animal he bestrides is perhaps obedient
to his will ; but after all, all is but vanity, and,
nine times out of ten, the object is mere caper
and caracole.
I ought, however, when enlarging on the
pow^ers of this language, to have made some ne-
cessary exceptions. As an ideal language and
having no precise standard of idiomatic phraseo-
logy, it must (however applicable to other sub-
jects) fail in those of familiar humour, and it is
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 31
therefore an unrittin<»; vehicle for comedy. Va-
rious causes* have been assigned for the failure
of this amongst a j3eople which appears pecu-
liarly fitted for its cultivation. Various others
might he alleged with equal plausibility : but
the main and effectual bar to its success appears
to me to be founded in what I have adduced.
For comedy is to be judged by the many, and
can only be thoroughly intelligible to them, by
dealing in a phraseology which is in common
currency, and on which, custom has stamped a
certain and recognized sense. Hence what is
by us called idiom, serves in all the more ordi-
nary purposes of literature, as coin in the smaller
and more familiar intercourse of trade.
But here circumstances render the currency
of a common specie impossible, at least with
any equality of exchange. For suppose the
Tuscan to have been adopted, or (to give more
force to my argument) something less abstract,
as the Florentine ; the rihoboli Fiorentini '\
might excite much merriment amidst the ^vq-
(\\xe\\te.Ysoi the Mercatovecchioy without perhaps
* Many of these arc merely second causes, such as the bad
composition of the theatrical corps, their faulty declamation,
&c. &c. &c.
t Proverbial modes of diction peculiar to I'lorenciv
52 LETTEllS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALV.
l)cing fully felt by those of the Meixato ?iuovo;*
and tlic humour would, at any rate, be consi-
dered as vulgar, by all the educated of Florence
itself : for it is a nice point in all languages to
steer between familiarity and vulgarity, and a
thousand inelegancies of diction have perhaps
no fault in themselves, being mere vulgarities
of convention ; held vulgar, because they are
only common in an inferior class of society.
Thus to i^ide in a coach is voted vulgar in Eng-
lish, and pincer tharpe is, as I am told, con-
sidered so in French : but if idiomatic phra-
seology is left wholly to the ])eople, it must,
upon tiiis principle, become wholly vulgar. But
tliis would be the smallest part of the evil : this
style of diction, perhaps voted vulgar in Florence
itself, would not be at all intelligible without
her walls. As a simple proof, open any volume
* The Florentine, itself, is subdivided by the learned into
two dialects, to wit, that of the mercato xecchiu and the merca-
to nuoxo ; but a lower Florentine once told me, that the people
acknowledge others, (I think four,) assigning a separate one to
each of the parishes of the CamulJuli.
There is, perhaps, more than one mode of speech current
in our own monstrous metropolis, but I do not think any lower
Londoner would say, he recognized different dialects in Wap-
ping and Westminster.
LETTERS FKOM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 33
of the Teatro Comico Fiore??thw, and you, who
know the written language of Italy, will, I
think, be continually at fault. Nor would a
foreigner only tind difficulties; for an accom-
phshed Italian might l)e often aground. The
comic authors therefore, writing for all Italy,
have necessarily adopted a language wliich is
common to the peninsula; but this, as I have
already mentioned, is for other reasons insuffi-
cient to their end.
For the same reason that Italian is insufficient
to the ends of the stage, I should also say it
was naturally, though not necessarily ill adapted
to the purposes of business ; it might even be
said to those of conversation which requires pre-
cision. Because, as there is no living standard
to refer to, and the Italians, considered gene-
rally, are not a reading nation, and so do not
seek this standard in books, the majority of them
never learn the full value and force of words.
When they are therefore ignorant of the right
one, they either seek its equivalent in their own
provincial dialect or supply its want by a galli-
cism or a periphrasis. The consequences of this,
in the interchange of what I will call metaphy-
sical terms, are easily conceived : but the evil
does not stop here ; for, from the want of any
VOL. II. D
34 LKTTERS FllOM THE NOUTFI OF [TALY.
small rcc(),t»"nizc(l coin, if ideas are not exchanged
in the provincial currency of the place, the thing
itself may be said to be given instead of its sym-
bol. As a })roof of this, as much witliin your
reach as mine, look owtshutttrs in Baretti's Dic-
tionary, and you will iind them described, not
translated in Italian : that is, not the single word
given, which is their equivalent in that language,
l)ut a regular definition, as finestra cli legno al cli
J'liori, al di dentro di quella d'l %:ctro, all which
mioht have been simiified in thesin<>;le word im-
s n o
posla. Ask, on the other hand, another, (as a
Venetian, for instance,) what is Italian for shut-
ters, and he will tell you scuri. Imagine then
these two principles widely acted upon ; that is,
a dozen people dealing in definitions instead of
equivalents, or ])laying at cross-purposes, by using
terms to which different parts of the company
annex either a different value, or no value at
all. To offer you also written evidence of my
second assertion, look at the Italian newspapers,
and I will venture to maintain that, from Turin
to Naples, you will not find one but what is
filled with provincialisms, unintelligible but for
the assistance of the context.
Having balanced the beauties and defects of
the Italian, let us now look to the mine that has
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 35
furnislicd the ore, of which, tliough iciincd niul
amalg-aiiiatetl with otiicr metals, it has been
principally composed.
Of all living, inartificial tongues, the Tuscan,
or (to take hold of something more palpable) the
Florentine, is the most poetical and picturcs(iue.
But it is rarely that foreigners fish deep enough
to fnid its pearls, for these are only to be collected
amongst the lowest orders of the people. The
upper ranks of Florence, who do not think them-
selves under the necessity of studying Italian
o-rammaticallv, vet seek to assimilate their tone
to that of the rest of Italy, make a miserable
medley, and are perhaps the worst models of
speech in the peninsula. The people, on the
contrary, are content, as My. VVhistlecraft says,
" To talk as their good mothers us'd to teach,"
that is, in the very pith and poetry of Boccac-
cio. I mean of course his phraseology, and do
not extend my observation to the elegant, but
laboured construction of his sentences,*
" Which neither is, nor was, nor e'er could be "
• 'Boccaccio is considorod by Barttli as one of tlie £!;reat cor-
rupters of the Italian school, and as having Ix't-n of as pestilent
example in literature as in morals. Without adopting the
violence of this kill-cow criti.-, (Ariilarco Scaniinbue, as he
D 'i
36 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
the natural order of conversation or composition
in any country or age. It would, least of all,
be so in Florence, the dialect of which is re-
markable for the absence of art, and is indebted
for this to its peculiar character.
It has been often remarked that the language
of savages and hunters, &c. is replete with pic-
ture. We may say also (for the same reason)
that our sailors never speak but in metaphor.
They talk of the wind " coming in spiteful puffs,
of pulling agaifist a heart-breaki7ig stream, and
of an iron-bound coast, c^'C." If they would tell
you that the tide begins to abate of its force,
they say that the tide is grown an old man. —
But I am insisting npon what is, I believe,
generally acknowledged. Another thing, how-
ever, not generally recognized, is, equally true ;
namely, that not only the language of the
description of men I have specified, is peculiarly
picturesque, but that the speech of the lower
orders is always more so than that of the upper —
that those who are yclept "base and mechanical,"
have their imagery, and that in all countries, the
justly styles himself,) there is, I believe, truth in his accusation.
Bui the style of Boccaccio is exquisite — granted; and so is
Lord Bacon's ; yet few, I suppose, would j)ropose the chan-
cellor as a model.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 37
language of polished society (j3robal)ly tVom tlieir
habits of abstraction) is that whicli is most deii-
cicnt in vigour and originality : Thus, whilst the
gentleman drones out his common-place modes
of speech, the journeyman distiller talks almost
in the tone of Dante, of a silent spirit, (mesLw-
ing a tasteless one,) the barber, of a razor's cut-
ting sxvect* and the labourer, of its being cruel
cold. The Florentines, however, give in to tbis
style of speech more than any other people, and
put passion, life, and figure into every thing they
say. 1 recollect asking my M'ay of one to a par-
ticular house, and he told me to go straight
forwards to the bottom of the street, and it
would tumble on my head. My servant, who,
I believe, I have already said, was of the
same city, appearing not to comprehend some
directions I was giving him, I asked him if he
understood me ; he answered " Yes, for I al-
ways spoke in relief^ (cue parlava sempre
scoLPiTO.) Another Florentine, describing to
me an accident which had happened to a coach,
the horses of which had broken loose from their
traces, leaving the carriage to roll down a hill
* A carpenter will even christen a chissrl or saw which cutjs
clean, " 5weet-lips."
o 3
J8 LETTERS FROIM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
liy itself, observed, in the course of liis story,
" AUorcfic capltd in fondo, dove era piu docile a
fermarsi " — Compare this with Virgil's
ncque audit ciirrus habenas,
and decide which is tlie most poetical.
This figurati\e mode of expression is, of
course, in a great measure rubbed smooth by the
polish which the language has received in being-
ground into Italian.
But this is not the only beauty which has been
sacrificed. Thus one characteristic has not gene-
rally been transferred into the artificial language
which must appear most precious in the eyes of
an Englishman — I mean a brevity of expression,
which is, I think, as remarkable as that which
distinguishes his own vernacular tongue ; the
Florentines coining a verb out of every noun, and
thus condensing into one word what would other-
wise cost three. As an instance of how far this,
is carried, I should mention that, asking my ser-
vant once whether he was comfortable on the
coach-box, he answered me that he was very
well oif, adding " chh gid si moleggid' — " for
here one springs it."
Passing to other modifications of the Tuscan,
more particularly to corrected irregularities of
grammar, I am not even sure that these have not
LETTERS FROM TIIK NORTH OF ITAI-Y. 3.9
been somcw hat rashly dealt w ith ; lor such,
though uiiaccompaniccl by any specific i'orce or
elegance, sometimes give the same wild grace to
language which neglect does to female beauty,
and are not, therefore, to be lightly loptaway or
reformed. But there is yet another grammatical
irregularity wliich is deserving of closer consi-
deration-^! mean such as gives force to ex-
pression, and is moreover often indicative of
national character and habits. Thus a thorough-
paced Florentine, announcing to another his in-
tention of dining with you, M'ould, I believe,
say, " Vado a pranzo in casa il Signor Ilallam;'''
but if he Mas speaking of your house in any
other way than that indicative of frequenting it,
as of its being well or ill built, &:c. he would say
" La casa del Signor liallam — '' This exemp-
tion of the genitive from inflection in tlic first
instance, is a sort of domestication of it, Avhicli
pleases me much. Take, as a specimen of ano-
ther species of irregularity, the omission of the
defmitearticle before certain words, as Arno; since
his dear river is so familiar to the Florentine, that
it becomes to him as a living person. Something
of this kind is to be found in Greek, and in Ens-
lish, for we have still left us some stray ungram-
inatical graces which have escaped tliosc Spar-
D 4
40 LETTERS FKOM THE NORTH OF ITALY,
tacuscs Messrs. Lowth and Blair.* Thus, in,
Greek, the definite article is not, I beheve, at-
tached to tlie word /Aao-tKi^, and in EngUsh we
* These persons may be considered as having attempted to
latinize a language whose genius is hostile to the attempt — to
reduce it to something like the principles of Italian — to divest
it of its peculiar physiognomy, and shape all the anomaliesj
which I have mentioned, to a rigorous standard of analogy.
The last object appears the most justifiable in theory; yet it
would be difficult to produce a more ridiculous effect than that
which often results from this attempt at precision ; and I shall
cite a sentence of Mr. Blair's, made absurd by a single mono-
syllable, inserted upon the principle of grammatical analogy,
" If at sometimes he falls much below himself, at other times
he rises above every poet of the ancient or modern world." —
Character of Milton.
I may, perhaps, at first sight, appear inconsistent, when I
protest ^.gainst the conversion of English into British, after con-
tending that Tuscan was to be generalized into Italian. But I
consider every language as having a character of its own, which
Ought not to be forced out of its bias. Now the language of
the peninsula took from its birth the bent, in which I contend it
should be indulged; while the English is radically vernacular.
If I am asked whether I would, therefore, have it run wild, I
say " No;" but I would not have it unnecessarily grafted froni
a foreign stock, or twisted and tortured out of its natural
growth. In short I would have men consider their language,
like the other institutions of their ancestors, in a religious, but
uot superstitious spirit of reverence.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 41
leave it out before parliament; omissions which
prove how much these two words were, or arc
familiarized both to Greeks and EngHsh, and
which giv^c a characteristic cast to the national
lan«2:uau:e of both. Bnt all such features have
been obliterated m the process I have described.
To sum up, as far as I have gone, the contents
of this long letter, without reference to their
order, I should say then that Italian was not
Tuscan, though in great part fashioned out of it
that, without pretending to determine on which
side the scale inclines upon the whole, it may be
averred that many beauties have been sacrificed,
and many accessions received in the process; that
the latter, however, are greater in theory than in
practice ; and that the chase of the beautiful ideal
has, in a vast variety of cases, led Italian authors
out of the right road, dazzled them with false
lights, and lost them in the pursuit of an ignis
fatfius.
It is not, however, the only charge against an
ideal language that it is apt to adopt a tawdry
and ditfusive character of expression; it often
assumes a fantastic one, eschewing what is real
as necessarily ignoble. Thus I remember once
objecting to an Italian translator of Shakspeare,
that he had deviated essentially from his original,
in what he put into the mouth of one of the sen-
42 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
tiiicls in Hamlet, viz. of " not an insect having
stirred," whereas he says in the EngHsh, that
" not a i\iousE had stirred." Hut he overruled
my ol)jection by the remark, that such illustra-
tions were too mean for the Italian stage.* I
next reproached him with having substituted a
fillet (benda) for the handkerchief in the tragedy
of Othello, observing that the handkerchief was
a more probable meansof mischief than the fillet,
and that, according to my northern notions, the
very familiarity of the instrument produced
effect, as contrasted with the powerful passions
which it put in motion. Here, however, he again
turned my battery by informing me that the
word handkerchief could not be used in Italian
poetr}^ And though this might be considered as
an absurd refinement by a Pindemonte or a Fos-
colo, it is, I am persuaded, a principle which
would influence a host of peninsular purists.
Having at length done with the Italian, and
Italian ideal, I am inclined to throw out a few
speculations on the character of the parent
tongue, which, I believe, was influenced by
* The poets of another age were of another opinion. Ariost»
makes the Ore's wife say of him,
" Che scnte fm a un topo che sia in casa."
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 45
the same circumstances as concuncd in the for-
mation of its offspring-. To put this as shortly as
I can, that the Latin, cultivated by the Romans,
was no more the Lai in spoken in Latium than
modern Italian is the Italian which is spoken in
Tuscany. This notion is not my own; and I
recollect thinking it a iar-fetched conjecture
wli'en it was broached to me. Some school-boy
recollections, however, carried me back to my
Quintilian; and I found in this hint a key to
passages which were before unintelligible. In-
deed without it, how can we well explain the
difficulty which he says there was in teaching chil-
dren Latin with precision? A month's residence
in modern Florence might illustrate his position.
The natives of that citv, as I have alreadv
said, speak their own vernacular with spirit,
where they do not seek to assimilate their speech
to that of the rest of Italy ; hut, for the want of
liaving studied this last criticall}^ they uni-
formly massacre it in the attempt. A more
unquestionable coniirmation of the opinion I
have thrown out may, liowever, perhaps be
found in the author I have just cited. I allude
to a passage which seems to prove the legality of
a naturalization of provincial phrases. I have
already said something on this point incidentally
44 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
to another subject,* and have cited various au-
thorities, but I shall now confine myself to
Quintilian. Speaking of the patavinity of Livy,
he says, (I quote from very distant recollec-
tion,) " if it can be fairly objected to an author,
that he has introduced modes of speech from
any of the provinces of Italy."
In fine, that the Latin of the learned (or at
least what, according to Quintilian, ought to have
been the Latin of the learned) was as much an
ideal language as its daughter the Italian, seems
clear to me; but what was the language of
the people can hardly be precisely ascertained.
It may however admit a doubt whether it came
as near the lingua aidica of those days, as the
Tuscan does to the modern Italian.
But since we are upon this subject, I cannot
leave untouched the speculations of Maffei and
some others, who contend they have made out
the features of the ancient vulgar tongue of
Rome in the modern Italian which, according to
them, is a mere continuation of it, having only
undergone such changes as time must necessarily
introduce. These are wide words : let us see if
* In the preceding letter, on the supposed Venctianisms of
Catullus, &c.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY, 45
we can come to any thing like a closer conclu-
sion, reasoning from the data which arc left
to us.
One great and singular point of resemblance
there certainly is between the Italian and what
I will call the ancient, as well as vulgar, Latin,
if- we may judge from rustic inscriptions. The
thing 1 allude to is tlie use, as a nominative,
of what, in good Latin, became the ablative
case. Thus we find in these animo used in-
stead of a?iij?ius, &c. It may be seen in Lanzis
Saggio di Lingua Etrusca, that the great grand-
fathers of the Catos and Cetheguses were not
worth a nominative, the ablative serving as such
when required ; and even when a later age adopted
the refinement of setting up a nominative it did
not pass current with the people. This was
natural ; for it may be remarked, that in all coun-
tries, imperfections of speech linger amongst tlic
less polished orders of society.
But some yet more material points of resem-
blance have been discovered. Many elementarj
Italian words, considered by some as the influx
of later and barbarous times, have been traced
to the Latin source : these may be said to have
been for a long while borne to the bottom, and
to have risen again to the surface, amid the roll
and revolutions of the stream. Some such have
46 LETTKTiS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
been cited from Plautus, by Monti, in his late
pliilological work, as casa, testa, Jocus^ bdlus, and
others, which, though grammatically moulded
by the poet, were, it should seem, as popu-
larly used, as their modern Italian derivatives,
and in substitution for classical terms ; as casa
instead of d.om\] s, Jociis instead of ignis, testa
instead of caput, and bellus instead of pulcheu.
It is not, however, enough to point out par-
ticular features of resemblance, where general
likeness is wanting ; and it may be contended,
that the vulgar Latin, though there might be sin-
gle points of resemblance, differed radically from
the modern Italian. I doubt whether we know
enough of it, to decide whether this be true or
not ; as all our conjectures must be drawn on
this point from the written and not the popular
tongue of ancient Italy : yet it would not per-
haps be a rash assertion that there was some
tendency even in the written towards the pre-
sent speech of the peninsula.
Thus, the auxiliary verbs, considered as
the strongest marks of distinction betwixt the
dead and living languages, may yet be traced,
though faintly, in the ancient written Latin,
and it docs not appear a far-fetched conjecture,
that their use should have been more frequent
in the vulgar. For the passion of the people
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALV. 47
for such useful implements and of such easy
management, is notorious in modern Europe,*
and was for the same reason prohably equally
ueneral amonijst the ancient inhabitants of La-
tium. It does not seem to me, therefore, that
these seeds could havie lain dormant for ages, and
only have sprung and sprouted in the corruption
of the language.
I know, however, it is thought by many,
that the auxiliary verbs, now gen'Dral in all
the languages of Europe, were introduced by
the barbarians who inundated it. That they
existed in tlieir variety of jargons there is no
doubt, but I believe they sprung spontaneously
both in Greek and Latin, and grew without a
graft.
Languages may indeed be compared to ma-
chinery, which is always complicated in the
beginning, each part I)eing adapted to one only
* Thus to take my proofs from places most present to my
observation or recollection — The Venetian has only tlie inde-
finite perfect in his languaire, always ^however perfectly com-
pleted the action nia) be) making use of the auxiliary verb to
rig out a jury-tense. Ex. gr. lie says " son anda," and has
Jio etpiivalent for the Italian Aiiddi. In tfil^ same way the
Hampshire-man says " I did go;" and never, '• I went," al-
ways supposing him to be unsophisticated.
#
48 LETTERS EROM THE NORTH OF VtALlTi
purpose: In the course of time, things are sitil-
plificd, and one engine is made appHcal)le to"
many. The same process may be detected in
all hinguages. The ancient Greek, for instance,
had a dual or definite plural, as well as an inde-
finite one ; the Otaheitans, we are told, re-
fining on this principle, have a quintal, com-
prizing four of these ingenious inconveniences.
But the Greeks soon found their dual useless;
and the Otaheitans, as they advance in civili-
zation, will probably make a similar discover3\
The Arab has, according to report, 100 names
for a camel, and the Gael about as many for
a mountain. These are not synonymcs, but
different shades of language. Accordingly the
Gael, who has learned English, finds it is less
troublesome to use epithets, each of which may
serve many substantives, than to distinguish
many substantives by some mark which is ex-
clusively peculiar to each.
The aiLviliaries are of the nature of these
examples. It is more troublesome to twist
verbs into a multiplicity of inflections, each
being a fixed appendage to its principle, than to
call in the aid of shall, will, and have, who are
scrubs of all work, and can be tacked to any
verb which advertizes for a tense.
The natural explanation of all this seems
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 49
to be that the power of abstractiiii;- is one of
man's later acquisitions, and it is tlierefore in a
late stage of society that this takes place. But
when we look back to aticiait languages with
attention, we may see that the principle of
auxiliary verbs has ahva} s existed, and if we
examine living ones, shall detect it in endea-
vouring to extend itself; even where its pro-
gress may have escaped general observation.
Ask, for instance, an Italian grammarian how
many auxiliary verbs he acknowledges, and he
will tell you, two only. Vet it might easily be
shewn that others have made good their preten-
sions to be considered as signs, de facto, if not
de jure. Ex. gr. The Romaic 3^« or ^i7m and
English JVill have their equivalent in his
language, as, Viiol piovere, it xvill rain ; Voglio
dire lanimo mio, I will speak my mind, ^c. or
the same sign stands in the place of shall, as,
Vogliamo andare ? Shall we go 7
AVide as is the range which I have taken
through the birth, parentage, and education of
the Italian, 1 have hitherto neglected one point;
I mean its pronunciation ; and 1 am the less
inclined to leave it untouched, as it throws some
additional light upon the character of the lan-
guage, and will come in aiil of what I have
already advanced : for this too is, in the strictest
VOL. H. a
jO LLITEUS FROM THE NOIlTll 01 ITALY.
sense of the word, ideal ; but as I do not want
you to take the assertion on trust, you may
try its truth by chasing Itahan pronunciation
through every place wliere it has left an echo.
Can that of Florence, for instance, be taken as
a standard ? — Certainly not : for it is proverbi-
ally ridiculed for its harsh and guttural sounds.
Can that of any other city then in the duke-
dom ? — I still answer " No ; not even Sienna."
Because, all over Tuscany, the ci is uttered in
a way which is not esteemed correct by the
rest of Italy, and because the diphthongal vow-
els are sounded there, as no where else ; that is
to say, one of them is omitted; and words
composed asj'voco, S^c. are pronounced as if they
were written yoco, S^c. Where then shall we
look for the polar star which is to determine
our course ? I recollect reading in Veneronis
Grammar that it is to be found at Rome, as is
inferred from the proverb of Lingua Toscana in
hocca Romaua ; and the currency this has ac-
quired, made me, notwithstanding a protest of
Barctti% honour it without question or doubt.
I, however, hesitated on hearing the Romanx«;z-
tilena, (a vile effeminate drawl,) and set myself
to inquire of what ^r?fi it really Avas. I may
have searched ill ; but I have vainly runmiaged
for it in all the books which concern this Ian-
LETTERS mOM THE NORTH 01- ITALY. 51
guage, and every thing, and every saying wliicU
relates to it. I, at length, looked a little more
closely to my reporter, and finding his Grammar
by no means correct, in(jnired into his qualifi-
cations. The result was, that he was a French-
man; I forget his name; hut recollect being
told he had no jMctcnsion to that of Vene?^o?n,
which was apparently assumed merely to sell
his book, he having no sort of connection with
Italy. I therefore take tlie liberty, till some
one shall affirm the thing on some better autho-
rity, to consider the proverb of Lingua Toscana
in bocca Romana as a lie to which rhyme has
given currency.
What then, you will say, is to be considered
as the rule of pronunciation ? I answer, that
the rules of declamation, as well as those of
composition, are to be sought in different pro-
vinces, and these will form in their complex
some imaginary model of excellence.
I have woven my web, which I fear you may
find ill-spun ; but I will not quarrel with you,
though, as Hamlet says, you should think
" my words much too light for the bore of the
matter."
E 2
( 52
LETTER XXXIV.
On the Necessity of lialian to a Traveller — Extraordi-
nary Italian Linguist at Bologna.
Venice, November, 1817.
After having expended so much fire on the
Italian language, you will perhaps be inclined
to reproach me, for having omitted a point very
interesting to the traveller, if not to the philo-
logist : to wit, whether a knowledge of this lan-
guage is necessary to the tourist in Italy. As
to this ; I should say, that it depends upon the
object of the traveller ; for, if he merely goes
in search of monuments of art and antiquities,
he may do very well with no other language
but his own; for the Italian is so quick of un-
derstanding, that a sign or a look is enough to
speak your meaning : and this is not thrown
out at random ; for I know an instance of an
Englishman who travelled over a great part of
the peninsula on foot without any knowledge of
Italian, or even of French : but if the traveller's
views are more extensive, and embrace the
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 53
study of manners, Italian is absolutely neces-
sary.
It is to be premised, in the first place, that
though French is very general in Italy, there
are many cultivated Italians, who camiot speak
it with fluency ; and, in the next place, that
those who do, will merely address themselves
in it to you, M'hile all general conversation
is carried on in Italian. But the Italian who
does speak it becomes a different person, on va-
rying his language. This apparent change of
character may be observed in England. Let us
suppose a foreigner, a German, for instance, not
familiar with French phraseology, to be conver-
sing with an Englishman who is, in French. The
Englishman, speaking of a dish which pleases
him, says " it is a dish to be eat on all fours,''
or talks of " fatiguing a sallad," or speaking of
colours, raves about " the thigh-colour of an
agitated nymph."* The foreigner naturally
sets him down either for a beast, or a fool ;
whilst, on the contrary, the man is neither the
one nor the other, but merely adapts himself to
the idiom of the language in which he speaks.
We may therefore infer from what I have stated,
* Couteur de cuisse de ni/ife atiue ; a fashionable Paribian tint
during the year 1817.
£ 3
54 LKTTEUS FUOM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
that, let the Itahan speak French well or ill, the
rational traveller's object in conversing with him
is in part defeated ; for if he speaks it well, his
natural character is seen through a doubtful me-
dium; if ill, it is a fatigue to figure in a duet,
w here both are out of tune. The second case is
by far the most frequent ; for languages (though
he is a better linguist than the Englishman) are
not usually the strong side of the Italian.
But as this country has been fertile in every
variety of genius, from that which handles the
pencil to that w^hich sweeps the skies with the
telescope ; so even in this, her least favourite
beat, she has produced men who, in early life,
have embraced such a circle of languages, as one
should hardly imagine three ages would have
enabled them to attain. Thus the wonders which
are related of one of these, Pico di Mirandola, I
always considered as fabulous, till I was myself
the vv'itness of acquisitions which can scarcely
be considered as less extraordinary.
The livina: lion to whom 1 allude is the Sio^nor
Mezzofanti, of Bologna, who, when I saw him,
though he was only thirty-six years old, read
twenty and conversed in eighteen languages.
This is the least marvellous part of the story ;
he spoke all these fluently, and those, of which I
could judge, with the most extraordinary pre-
LF.TTFRS FROAI TIIK NOIITII OF ITA I.V. 55
cision. I had the pleasure of dining in his
company formerly in the house of a Bolognese
lady, at whose table a German officer declared
that he could not have distinguished him from
a German. He passed the whole of the next
day with G and myself, and G told
me he should have taken him for an English-
man, who had been some time out of England.
A Smyrniotc servant, who was witii me,
bore equal testimony to his skill in other lan-
guages, and declared that he might pass for a
Greek or a Turk, throughout the dominions of
the Grand Signior. But what most surprized
me was his accuracy ; for during long and re-
peated conversations in English, he ncser once
misapplied the sig}i of a tense, that fearful stum-
bling-block to Scotch and Irish, in whose wri-
tings there is almost always to be found some
abuse of these indefinable niceties.
The marvel was, if possible, rendered more
marvellous by this gentleman's accomplish-
ments and information, things rare in linguists,
who generally mistake the means for the end.
It ought also to be stated, that his various ac-
quisitions had been all made in Bologna, from
which, when I saw him, he had never wandered
above thirty miles.
e4
( S6 )
LETTER XXXV.
Conduct of the Imperial Government at Venice.
Venice, November, 1817-
We are told that on Louis XIV. expressing,
when a child, his admiration at the despotic
power possessed by the Turkish sultans, one of
his courtiers had the honesty to draw his atten-
tion to the number of those who had perished
by the bowstring. But it is a vulgar view of
the subject to imagine that absolute princes are
subjected to no heavier penalty. A miserable
end is bad, but a miserable life is yet worse. I
call his a miserable life, who is deprived of the
exercise of free-will, while he is seated beneath
the shadow of power. Amongst the strange
contradictions which are to be found in despotic
governments, the theory and practice of which
are generally at variance, this is, I believe, one
of the most ordinary. I do not, however, mean
to say that there have not existed in diiferent
ages and different countries absolute monarchs
of extraordinary mind and talents, who have
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OI ITALY. 5/
been able to guide or stem opinion, and who
have really reigned : but I sj)cak of w hat I
believe to be the ease in a great majority of
instances. This is easily accounted for, since
despotism cannot rest upon its own base. De-
spotic monarchs, therefore, seek as narrow a
one for it as possible, and plant it (where
they do not lind this done to their hand) upon
the prejudices of the people. Hence in such
states there is a constant reciprocation of
slavery, through every link of the chain which
binds empire together. As a proof; who arc
more enslaved to established usages than the
Emperors of China and INIorocco ? The Emperor
of China may indeed cane his mandarins, and
the Emperor of Morocco may behead his people
at pleasure ; but should either attempt any libe-
ral or useful reform, he would be instantly
hurled from his throne. We may say that all
monarchy is built upon opinion. Constitutional
kings in mixed monarchies, which are rationally
constituted, generally speaking have to defer to
the enlightened part of the public. Absolute mo-
narchs are more usually the tools of the ignorant
and hypocritical. To a European instance ; the
Emperor of Austria is sometimes stigmatized in
Italy as a wayward tyrant, at once foolish and
faithless, professing great religion and morality.
58 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
and violating, in practice, every precept of Gocf
and man. The following notice may serve to shew
how far these accusations are founded in truth,
and how far he is a willing instrument in perpe-
trating the mischief which is attributed to him.
The whole of Italy rung w\ih the gracious pro-
fessions which he made to his new subjects on
visiting his ItaHan states ; of his promise to abo-
hsh provincial custom-houses, to diminish the
burdens under which his subjects were groaning,
S^c. ^c. S^c. Princes, however, too often find a
dispensation from these sort of promises in the
necessities of the state, and the circumstances of
the times. We will therefore pass by these and
their non-performance, and look to others of a
diiferent description, for the violation of which
it would be difficult to find other excuse than
that which serves as a text to my letter.
When the Emperor visited Venice in 1815,
he inspected in person all the public institutions,
churches, hospitals, and prisons. On his visit-
ing the prison of the Riva degli Schiavoni, the
keeper informed him of whatever was interest-
ing in the history of those confined in it, or
the immediate cause of their imprisonment.
Amongst others he pointed out two boys, the
eldest of whom was not above fifteen years old,
and who, by the French laws, which remained
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 59
in force, had been sentenced to five years' im-
prisonment for stealing some fruit, observing
that two years of that period had aheady elapsed;
and he ventured to suggest, in a case where the
punishment was so evidently disproportioned to
the offence, his Imperial Majesty would find a
happy occasion for exercising his mercy. He
made the reply, which he vouchsafed to every
petition which was presented him, o^ Sara fat to;*
but never redeemed his promise, either in this
or in the innuuierable other occasions, where
he had pledged it, and always in the same
form of words. During his six weeks' stay at
Venice, he was positively besieged by sup-
pliants, and one of those about him has re-
ported, that the number of their petitions
amounted to 40,000; all which were received
with the invariable answer of Sara fatto, yet I
have been assured, that no instance is known of
a single promise having been fulfilled. This
statement, though made by one whose evidence
would appear unexceptionable, must, I think,
when tried by arithmetic, be considered as ex-
aggerated; for you will observe that, allowing
this imperial assurance-machine to have been at
work for only twelve hours out of the four and
^^mtmmm Mill ■ ^» .. .. ■ ■ ■ ■ — — ■■■— 1.^ M .« ■ I !■
* It shall be done.
60 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALT.
twenty, it would have delivered about a Jie a se-
cond, a power that appears almost incredible.
But allowing this statement to be overcharged,
it is universally agreed that numerous petitions
were graciously received, and compliance pro-
mised, but in no one known instance per-
formed.
Are we to attribute this conduct to forgetful-
ness — to indiiference ? I have, without affecta-
tion, too good an opinion of the Emperor's
intentions, to accuse him of what may be
considered as crimes in a sovereign. All is to
be attributed to his not being a free agent ; but
if a doubt could remain on this subject the fol-
lowing anecdote will, I think, remove it.
An officer who had, by his services, arrived at
the rank of captain in the French navy, but
who had only been able to obtain a lieutenant's
commission in the Austrian service, on the
Imperialists taking possession of Venice, peti-
tioned the Emperor to be re-instated in his
original rank. His prayer was backed by the
commandant of the Austrian marine, who con-
firmed the statement of his claims, and strongly
recommended him as a meritorious officer. The
Emperor said that he considered his case as a
very hard one, and would himself transmit it to
the Aulic Chamber, to whom he would enjoin
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF IT ALT. 61
his restoration to the rank he had formerly
filled. The officer relied npon the word of his
sovereigTi, hut, after some weeks, the com-
inandant of the marine received a letter from
the Aiilic Council, returning tlie petition in
question, and stating that the petitioner was at
liberty to quit the Imperial service, if he did
not think proper to hold such a commission as
they had been pleased to assign him ; that they
were astonished at the general's presuming to
support sucli a document, knowing, as he must
have done, their sentiments from the existence
of the commission itself. They recommended
to him, moreover, not to be guilty of a similar
act of indiscretion in future ; as, in such case,
they could not consider him as longer worthy
of the high situation entrusted to his charge.
But this man, some will say, was a former
servant of France, and was, as such, entitled to
no better measure than that which he received.
I have a case in point for such as feel or reason
in this manner. A Venetian 2:entleman, o-o-
vernor of the fortress of the Lido, in pursuance
of orders, fired upon, and repulsed a French
brig, which was attempting to enter the port, a
few days before the i^cvolutionlsemejit of Venice.
Buonaparte insisted on his punishment, and he
was moreover excluded from all future com-
6:2 LETTERS FROM THK \URT1I OF ITALY.
inancl (luring tlie new systeni of things. This
HKin, reduced to poverty, sought grace at the
feet of the Emperor, who assured liim of his
protection and assistance. — He died neglected
and in misery, and one of his sons is now em-
ployed in piecing the tesselated pavement in
the church of St. Mark !
It will not he out of its place to remark here,
that France, though an aggressor in the begin-
ning, was perhaps, in the last instance, justified
in her hostilities to Venice, which that power
had provoked by a diversion favourable to
Austria.
The treatment of this man, independently of
the object in confirmation of which I have told
the story, may serve to shew the treatment
which his Imperial Majesty's Italian subjects are
destined to receive, whatever be their claims.
But I might say, that every day offers fresh
proofs of the hopelessness of these, almost every
of^ce being now filled with Germans, from the
clerk and corporal to the judge and general,
all unacquainted with the language, and unex-
perienced in the habits, of the country.
This must be considered as a perverse system
of policy in any country, but it is most pecu-
liarly mischievous to the interests of its authors
in this. The Venetian revolution cast adrift an
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 6'3
immense number of persons, who lived upon the
employments of the state. It was hardly to be
expected that the beggarly government of
Austria should make an adequate provision ibr
them, but it might at least have given employ-
ment to hundreds, were it only in the subaltern
departments of its innumerable petty establish
nients. But a more dangerous source of discon-
tent has been opened in all the Austro-Italiaii
provinces by this illiberal system of exclusion.
There is a host of needy military adventurers,
late in the service of the kingdom of Italy w ho
are now either pining in the inferior ranKS of
the imperial army, or being too proud to descend
in the scale of service, are actually without the
means of obtaining their daily bread. These
men are, of course, all ripe for revolution, and
ready for any chance or change that may pre-
sent itself. But if the fate of those who have
been turned adrift is pitiable, that of many
who have remained in the vessel is hardly
to be envied, these being put on short allow-
ance, and having scarcely wherewithal to sup-
port a miserable existence. In the time of the
French a subaltern in the Venetian marine
had three franks a day : he has now one and a
half
^U LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
The Venetians received this paternal treat-
ment at the hands of his Imperial Majesty im-
mediately on returning under his dominion, and
indeed have no legal right " to think themselves
ill-used ;" but the Milanese have this melancholy
resource. Till latcl}^ they enjoyed certain pri-
vileges, which they imagined they liad ensured
by a capitulation,* under which they subjected
themselves to their invaders. I am now, how-
ever, told that, by the new organisation lately
sent to IVIilan from Vienna, there are only two
Italians left in the higher departments of that
government.
The Milanese have hitherto confined their
revenge to teaching their magpies and jack-
dawst to rail upon their ostensible tyrant. But
* The immediate violation of the most essential article of
this might have taught the Milanese how little was to be hoped
from its other stipulations.
By the capitulation made in 1815, the Austrians engaged not
to enter the city, but to leave a certain circle about it unvio-
lated ; in the mean time the infamous murder of Prina and the
surrender of Paris gave them courage to violate their engage-
ments, and they took military possession of Milan, onl}' two
days after having solemnly stipulated to respect it.
t The magpies and jackdaws of Milan saluted the Emperor,
©n his last visit, with the cry of " Va xia Chccco," or, " Get
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 65
will their rage always find so innocent a vent?
God grant it may ! for I see nothing that this
miscrahlc country could hope from a revolution.
If the IMilanese, however, have not reaped
the benefits they expected from their capitula-
tion, they have gained something by shewing
their teeth ; for the minor impositions of Milan
are at least somewhat milder than at A'enicc,
and, as a simple proof of this, I should state that
a letter from Venice to Milan pays much less
than one from Milan to Venice, though the road
runs nearly on a flat, and no reason can be
assigned for the diiference.
How much more rational was the system pur-
sued by the French, who, opening the road to all
Italians, peculiarly encouraged national talents
and worth! I do not believe I exaggerate when
I say that, excepting the line of country an-
nexed to France, there was not a Frenchman
employed, even as a sub-prefect, in Italy. Tlie
only one who held any civil official situation
in this city was the director of the post. In
military matters it was indeed otherwise ; for
the commandants in all towns were, I believe,
away, Frank !" This circumstance was omitted in the otTicial
account of his Imperial Majesty's reception.
VOL. II. F
66 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
French; but that Buonaparte sliould deviate in
tliis particular from his general system, and not
choose to part with the staff of power, can
hardly be objected to him. In my general horror
of his system, (of which I have by no means di-
vested myself,) I could not, at first, understand
why he was here preferred to his successor; but
1 can say, with truth, that on coming to Italy
the scales fell from my eyes, and I instantly dis-
cerned and acknowledged the justice of the pre-
ference shewn to his administration by the Ita-
lians over that of a race which seems rather
Chinese than European.
At least I am not single in these sentiments ;
for I never yet met with an Englishman, who
knew enough of the language of Italy to in-
form himself of what was passing about him, — I
never knew one employed or unemployed,
" whether whig or tory,
Whether he went to meeting or to church,"
M^histlecraft.
who did not feel what / feel, and generally in
a much keener degree than myself.
All the misery which I have thus described
as heaped upon Italy is, I repeat, in my firm
belief, inflicted by an unwilling instrument.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 67
The Emperor of Austria has the reputation of
an amiable private character, and the princes of
his house have shewn talent as well as good
intentions, whenever they have been unfetteied
from the gyves of the Aulic Council.
F 2
( es )
LETTER XXXVI.
Fiscal Sj/stem of Austria in Italy, S^r.
Venice, November, 1817-
I SHALL attempt in my present letter to give
you some idea of Austria's ^5c«/ administration
of these provinces, from which you will judge
whether Lomhardy has, in this respect, reason to
be content with her change of masters. It is but
just to state, that the system is not to be exclu-
sively attributed to the head of the sour-crout na-
tions, and that Austria is not to be considered as
more weak or tyrannical tlian her neighbours;
who are all, like the emperor, excellent persons
in private life, and all scourges of the countries
subject to their sway.
But as it would be a useless task to trace this
scheme of oppression, through all its variations,
I shall give you that of the government of the
state from which I write, which is, however, as
I have hinted, a little more severe than the other
great division of Lomhardy, known under the
name of the Milanese.
I have already mentioned, incidentally to other
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 69
matters, the taxes upon flesh, fowl, fish, flour, &c. ;
but to give a more comprehensive idea of these,
I shall state that every eatable and drinkable is
not only taxed, &c. but seized and cessed under
whatever various foim it may present itself.
Thus grain, flour, and bread, pay each a sepaiate
impost. It is the same with bull and beef, &c. ; and
mark, that not an article is brought to the place
I date from, no not even a cabbage, but what
pays its miserable fraction of a farthing. Such
revenue, it is obvious, can only be collected at an
expense, which must run away with the profit.
But these petty taxes, which are almost unpro-
ductive to the government, thougii grievous in
the extreme to the subject, are, to speak fami-
liarly, mere flea-bites in comparison to the other
Vampire-pulls of the Austrian eagle.
I pass to these more cruel evacuations. The
most serious of them, known by the name of la
prediale, which prevails over Italy, is levied as
well on land as on all descriptions of actual and
tangible property. These pay 25 per cent, upon
their annual produce, that produce being calcu-
lated by public appraisers, and estimated accord-
ing to the valuation made by them, under the
French administration. This tax is collected in
four even and quarterly ])ayments. There are, in
addition to this, what arc called extra taxes (so-
F 3
70 LETTERS FROM 'I'HE NORTH OF ITALY.
pra-impostc) which proprietors })ay, and which
are known by the various denominations of
stradale, communale, reimposta, S^c. The taxes
of this latter description have amounted, during
the three years of Austrian government, to about
12 per cent, a year. The whole amount, there-
fore, of these greater taxes would be '^1 per cent.
— always speaking of annual produce.
It is but justice to declare that this appears
to me to have been heavier in the time of the
French; since, according to the best official in-
formation I can obtain, the aggregate produce of
their main taxes amounted from 42 to 44 per
cent.
The question, howevei', whether Italy was
more severely taxed under the French or Aus-
trians, is not to be determined by this compari-
son, because the system of frontier custom-
houses, such as at present are established at the
interval of every few miles, as between Padua
and Venice, Vicenza and Padua, though all situ-
ated within the same state — this monstrous
piece of folly, I say, did not exist under the
French, who were cruel task-masters, but not
ignorant of their own interest, if careless of that
of the people whom they had united to them. We
must, therefore, in addition to the 37 per cent,
levied by the Austrians, throw in the innume-
LETTERS FRO:\r THE NORTH OF ITALY. 71
rablc petty duties levied upon different articles
in transitu.
It ouglit, however, to ];e stated that the next
most foolish and iniquitous tax still existing,
was even of old Venetian origin, and was pre-
served by the French, I mean that which bears
upon all beasts in life, lump, or leavings, from
the wholesale bull Avhich enters the city with
horns fixed and tail Hying, down to the lowest
garbage which is extracted from him when he
has laid down his life in the slaughter-house.*
But questions of taxation are not only to be
tried by numbers ; and the last species of impost
which I have described is a striking illustration
of this truth. Taxes are, as any child knows,
more or less mischievous, not only in proportion
* The smallest piece of entrails belonging to a beast, of
whatever condition, pays under a tax, the title of which I copy
from an official paper : " Dazio sugli animali bovini, porcini,
pecorini, carni, grassina e minuzzami" that is, tax upon beasts ;
ox, swine, and sheep, flesh, fat, and ofl'al. As this could not
touch the countryman who killed his own mutton, another
engine was levelled at him under the lillc of poll-tax, or
" dazio testatico." Such was, however, the misery of last year,
that this could not be collected. The deficiency was, however,
in some way or other to be made up, and a tax upon stamped
paper infinitely wider than that of otirs, was augmented in pro-
portion to the failure of the poll-tax.
F 4
72 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
to tlieir extent, but with reference to their
nature and their apphcation. Brought to this
last test, I should give a decided preference to
French economy. Under this, I see the com-
pletion of magnificent public Avorks, and the
foundation of establishments for the encourage-
ment of art, of fine public roads, and a secure
police. On the other side, I see all the sources
of wealth cut oflT from the country where they
spring and which they watered, to be diverted
into a desert which its inhabitants have not the
skill or the activity to fertilize. Thus a striking
instance of the mode in which the ancient pro-
vinces of Austria are favoured at the expense of
her new acquisitions is afforded by her mode of
supplying the wants of her armies. These are
supplied with all necessaries, where the thing
is practicable, out of her hereditary transalpine
dominions, though necessarily at a much greater
expense; a curious contrast to the conduct of
France, who fed and clothed her Gallo-Italian
armies entirely with the products of the pe-
ninsula.
But to leave all question of the distribution or
application of taxes, and to return to that of the
amount, under the French and Austrian regi-
men in Italy; I mean taxes of every kind,
whether on land, on articles of consumption, or
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 73
duties, &c. &c. &c. I am assured by another au-
thority, (my own opinion leans a diflfcrent way,)
that these are so much more oppressive at pre-
sent, that where French Italy paid thirty mil-
lions of francs, Austrian Italy now pays forty.
And you will recollect that the Lombard and
Venetian states are at least a third less than was
the kingdom of Italy. If this fact, which I have
heard confidently averred,"^ be true, the excess of
present taxation must arise out of provincial im-
ports and exports: for I cannot be deceived in
the statement which I have given you respect-
ing the prediale, &c.
Whether the French system of raising a re-
venue in Italy was more or less nefarious than
that of the Austrians, it must be acknowledged
that the mode of collecting it, as well as the
formation of the main system of taxation, origi-
nated with the former. It is scarcely possible
* Were I to measure these warring statements by the autho-
rity of the men who furnished them, I should lean rather to this
last than that which I have most relied upon. But the account
favourable to Austria was given me in detail, and the details
seemed consistent with each other. On the other hand, that
which spoke most in favour of France, was an assertion unsup-
ported by actual proofs. After all, the accounts arc not abso-
lutely inconsistent.
74 LETTERS FROIM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
to conceive any thing more monstrous than this
mode of collection, which, adopted by the Aus-
trians, remains unmodified and unmitigated to
the present hour.
I have aheady stated that the payment of the
prediale, &c. is to be made quarterly ; the failure
of this payment at quarter-day is visited by the
mulct of an additional live per cent, if the pay-
ment be not made oood within the four-and-
o
twenty hours of the day of receipt. This penalty
" drinks deep;" but that which awaits further de-
fault, to pursue my quotation, " drinks cup and
all." For if the tax, together with its penalties,
is not paid at the conclusion of the term of fif-
teen days, (for so much more law is afforded the
debtor,) the receive?' threatens what is called un
oppignorazionc, in plain English, a distress, and
this he may levy upon house, lands, or move-
ables, as he shall think fit. If, notwithstanding
this intimation, the tax and penalties are not
paid, the distress is actually levied; and this be-
ing done, in addition to the tax itself and its
penalties, the expenses of the distress are also to
be defrayed by the defaulter. If he does not
voluntarily defray all these accumulated charges,
a new distress is levied upon other lands, other
houses, and other moveables. Thus, you sec,
there is an eternal repetition of the Gallico-Italian
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALV. 75
scene of Moli^ie, " che fare ? — seignare, pur-
gai'e, e dysterisare'' But tlic matter is not
mended, and the old question is renewed of che
fare ? — re-seignare, xc-purgare, et re-clt/steri-
zare*
Tlie distress is now levied according: to the
mode of the country, that is, the property of the
defaulter is put under sequestration, but this/>ef;/e
forlc et dure does not extort payment. The next
step of the receiver, under such circumstances,
is to send him a " diffida.'' After this ominous
intimation, he proceeds to sell his distrained
property by auction, but if the sale of it more
than covers the debt, is supposed to return him
the overplus. There is still moreover a last
liope held out to him ; though his property is
sold, he has two months good allowed him to
recover it, by the payment of the same price at
which it was purchased. This is, however, to
be considered as scarcely more than a nominal
grace, since the expenses and difficulties at-
tending this transaction are such as to render it
usually much more advisable to acquiesce in the
loss. I should observe that no legal claim \\ hat-
* In applying this to Venice, I might say Xanthe, retro pro-
pera ; for this, as well as IMoliiiic's best buffoncry, is taken from
a Venetian farce.
76 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
ever ever stands in the way of the harpy claws
of the imperial eagle. To give you, however,
some more precise notion of the habits of this
obscene bird, take the following anecdote, re-
specting which I shall observe, that the circum-
stances came under my own immediate obser-
vation.
A Venetian gentleman, some time absent
from Venice, together with other property in
houses, was owner of a magazine, which a tenant
held by a livello, or hfe-lease. This man having
been long in arrears of rent, the gentleman
began to lose patience, and was recurring to
rigorous proceedings, when he was informed,
by the supposed tenant, that he was no longer
possessor of the magazine, the government
having seized upon it for the non-payment of
the prediale ! Every day offers similar instances
of ruthless rapine.
While such are the burdens and visitations
which vex and break down the landed pro-
prietor, the monied proprietor, whether he
put his gold out to interest, or whether he brood
over his bags, withholding his wealth from
healthful circulation, — the monied proprietor is
untouched either by direct or indirect taxation.
But, considering the general system of go-
vernment, there is another point in which the
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALV. 77
conduct of the French will appear in a very
superior light, if contrasted with that of the
Austrians; I mean that of legislation. Under
the French, Italy enjoyed all the incalculable
advantages of a code, which allowed the cross-
examination of witnesses, and gave publicity to
all the proceedings of justice. This was indeed
so under the ancient government of V^enice ; bu1>
a criminal code was given her by France infi-
nitely superior to what she possessed in the time
of her republic. But the system of open pleadings
and examinations has given way to one which
has abolished the oral examination of witnesses,
and to these principles, perhaps yet more pre-
cious in Italy* than elsewhere, has been substi-
tuted that of written depositions and secret ap-
plications to the judges.
When I imagined I had done with my fiscal
* There is, I should suppose, no getting at truth in any
country but through the oral examination and cross-examina-
tion of witnesses; and the immense number of judicial murders
which took place in old France, is no doubt to be attributed to
the system of written depositions : but a late Venetian judge
once insisted, with me, tliat this system was more particularly
mischievous here. He observed, that the ingenuity of the Ita-
lian always enabled him to dress up a story on paper, but that
his passionate temperament as universally led him into contra-
dictions on cross-examination.
7S LETTERS FllOM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
notices and was sliding into other things, a new
tax was notified on land, which is supposed to
have been imposed in order to make up for the
deficiency which will naturally follow in the
custom-house revenue, in consequence of the
late prohibitive decrees. It is, however, impos-
sible to enumerate all these changes as they
arise ; this would be to attempt to give the
weight and measure of a body which is con-
tinually growing.
You will exclaim, How do the proprietors
exist under these accumulated burdens? To
this I answer, that an immense number of them
are ruined, and those who yet keep together a
part of their inheritance, remain without heart
or hope. Were the dues of the church in like
proportion, they must be absolutely crushed, but
these are fortunately light in Italy. To begin
with Venice, they are very inconsiderable ; but
perhaps some account of the clerical ceconomy
of this place may be acceptable.
Venice is now divided into thirty parishes.
The rectors of them have their estates as the Patri-
arch has ; the minimum of their respective in-
come being fixed at seven hundred franks, or
about thirty pounds sterling ; but it is to be un-
derstood that more than half of them enjoy a
revenue of at least double the amount. The
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 79
minimum of the salary of the vicars and coadju-
tors of these, as they arc called, (and there arc
many such in each parish,) is fixed, as I un-
derstand it, at four hundred francs. In general,
this last body depend on the auxiliary masses
which they celebrate, each of which is paid by
the person who causes it to be said, at the rate
of about fifteen-pence of our money.
The income of bishops, to reascend in the scale,
in like manner, depends, on fixed property oir
funds, but, if it falls beneath a given sum, is, as
well as the preceding deficits, to be made good
out of the cassa di beni demaniali, as is also that
of the country rectors, whose minimum is about
thirty pounds a year, arising, as I before stated,
out of tythes : But these have often other
sources of revenue, in lands or funds. The
tythes collected, I mean in the Venetian state,
except in some few cases, such as I shall specify
in a more general view of this subject, often do
not exceed the fortieth instead of the tenth allot-
ment of produce as with us. In consequence,
the livings of the clergy are moderate in the
Stato Veneto : From what I can learn there are
not above fifty considerable ones. These, how-
ever, are rich, there being perhaps as many
which amount to three hundred pounds a year, a
so LETTERS FROM THE NORTIJ OF ITALY.
large sum here, more particularly in the country ;
for we must allow that men arc not only rich
or poor in ])roportion to what they hat'e and
what that will buy, but also in proportion to
what they want. Now in Italy, not only neces-
saries are cheaper, but (more particularly out of
great cities) fewer things are necessary ; so that
I should almost rate this sum spent in a parson-
age in Italy as much more than equivalent to a
thousand pounds a year spent in a rectory in Eng-
land, where, from greater commerce, the modes
of artificial life are more generally multiphed and
diffused.
I should not conclude my account of the Ve-
netian clergy, without giving some little insight
into its character, but that this is now melted
into that of the Italian clergy, monastical or re-
gular, and is of course no longer animated by the
spirit which distinguished it in the days of Fra
Paolo.
The Patriarch, however, retains his authority,
as a sort of puny pope, and grants divorces as in
the time of the Venetian republic. You will
recollect you and I having once discussed the
principle of these divorces, which appears such a
manifest infringement of the maxims of the
Roman Catholic church. What we imagined,
I find confirmed upon inquiry : these do not,
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH Ol ITAl V. b 1
in any degree, compromise the doctrine of mar-
riage being a sacrament, and tlierelore indis-
soluble; since the union, however sanctioned,
has always been held to be conditional as to
certain points ; and these divorces w ere and are
granted on the allegation of circumstances which
would have rendered a marriage void ah initio^
according to tlie long established maxims of
Rome.
vol.. II.
( B2 )
LETTER XXXVII.
State of Tythes in Italy, S^c.
Venice, December, 1817-
I PROCEED to give you some general notices on
tythes as collected in northern Italy ; but these
tally so well with my transappennine recollec-
tions that I believe (with the exception of Tus-
cany, where they were commuted for money by
Leopold) they will apply, at least in the main,
to the southern provinces of the peninsula. I
trust my statement will be correct; but I ought
not to conceal from you that I have been obliged
to condemn, on after-examination, some notices
on this subject, on the accuracy of which I relied.
The fact is, that there is nothing so difficult as to
collect information of this description in Italy.
In the first place, the people are not accustomed
to the examination of public documents, as with
us; such being for the most part inaccessible
but to public functionaries. In the next place
they are not less presumptuous on account of
their ignorance, but answer your queries with a
confidence, which imposes till repeated proofs
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 83
of the absence of exactness destroy the imposi-
tion. A pecuHar difficulty lias been added to
the general ones wliich attend such a research,
in the Venetian state. The taxes upon landed
property under the aristocracy were called by
the name of tythes, or decime, and there was an
office at the Rialto, entitled La Magistratura
delle Dechne, for their administration. Hence,
I am persuaded, arose many of the mistakes
which I detected, though in my inquiries I had
sought to guard against such, and particularly
specified that I confined my questions to decime
ecclesiastiche.
There was the less excuse for the blunders I
allude to, since, though decima is the Italian
word for tythe, the ecclesiastic tythe in the
Venetian State is usually termed Quai^antese :
though the payment made to the church, or its
representative, is not limited to the fortieth part
of the produce, as the name would import.
As little is it to be supposed that payment
of a tenth is to be implied by decima, for there
is no general rule respecting the quantum of
these contributions throughout Italy. In some
places it is a payment of one in forty, in others
of one in ten, in others of one in eleven, of
one in fifteen, and of one in twenty. This
variety seems to have sprung out of local cir-
(; 2
84 LETTERS I ROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
cumstances, at least in the first instance, and to
have been afterwards confirmed by custom.
What gives weight to this supposition is that
the proportion paid is usually highest in moun-
tainous and unproductive tracts, where it seems
to have been necessary to tax the proprietors
hardest lor the maintenance of a minister.
Though the question of quantity is vague
and various, the quality of articles subject to
tythes, is determined on a more general princi-
ple. This is, I believe, almost every where
payable solely on omni genere frugum et ani-
malium, as it is expressed. But even these words
are not to be construed according to their strict
acceptation ; for though grapes, as forming an
article of necessity, are tythcable, other fruits,
wherever grown, thouglf articles of common
consumption, are not included in the description;
being considered as mere articles of luxur3^
Another important modification of this prin-
ciple, is, I believe, general in Italy : the tythe
on grain is paid but on one harvest ; where more
than one, of whatever .description, is reaped.
This is never locally commuted, but always
taken in kind, though the beasts are usually
(perhaps always) redeemed by money.
It is, I suppose, on the principle of the ex-
emption of fruits, not productive of a certain pro-
LETTERS TROM THE NOUTII OF ITAT.V. 8j
fit, that what v/e should call orchards, walled in
of old, (in this part of Italy termed broli, and
I believe, in Italian law-language, terreni casa-
li,) though perhaps producing other tythcable
things,* do not contribute. Sometimes, also,
particular lands are tythe free, though they do
not come under this description, the causes of
such immunity, as in other countries, being
forgot.
The most important and general exemption
however, of which I am aware is that of waste
lands, which are for ever exempted from tythe,
on being newly inclosed, unless they should be
lands which, having been once cultivated, and
having once paid, run waste, and are afterwards
rendered anew productive ; there being a general
rule applicable in this case where not contra-
vened by local custom or rights ; the maxim of
soliti solvere solvant.
It is singular enough that England should be
the only country in Europe where the principle
* The bvoli in the north of Italy are usually oblong pieces
of walled ground, planted with fruit trees, witii grain growing
under them, as you see grass or potatoes in an English orchard.
A cradle-walk usually runs round tluni parallel with the walls,
which is also productive ; as its sides and roof are covered
with vines.
G 3
S6 LETTERS FROM TIIK NORTH OF ITALY.
of exempting waste lands newly inclosed, tor a
shorter or longer period, from tythe, lias not
been practically adopted. The effect is visible;
for it is the country in Europe where most
waste land is to be found. Waste land however
is not here, as you will have seen, exempted
expressly as waste, which was the case m old
France, but incidentally to the maxim of ad-
mitting no new claims on the part of the church,
the rights of which are determined by prescrip-
tion.
This leads to much litigation, particularly in
the case I have cited, because it must be a mat-
ter of doubt, whether lands newly put into cul-
tivation have not formerly been productive,
and taxed as such. Such a doubt would, at
first sight indeed, appear incapable of solution;
but the difficulty is generally provided for by
the institutions of the country : for, in most
places, a register exists, kept from time imme-
morial, either by the church or its representative,
descriptive of the lands now, or once, subject
to tythes; as well as indicative of the proportion
in which they contributed ; i. e. whether one in
ten, or one in forty, &c. To illustrate this docu-
ment, a map is also often to be found in the pos-
session of tythe owners, whether lay or ecclesi-
astical, in which the lands are laid down accord-
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 87
ing to tlie specification in the register : and these
are the two touchstones by which sucli (jucs-
tions are tried.
Notwithstanding, however, that disputes fre-
quently arise as to claims or exemptions, this
debate set at rest, nothing is more rare, at least
in the Venetian State, than small squabbles
between parishioners and tythe owners, whether
priests or lay-men, though the latter are the most
rigorous creditors: Tor these usually send agents
into the field in harvest-time, to watch over the
conduct of the farmer ; a precaution unusual
with the clergy, who deservedly pique themselves
on their moderation, and take contentedly what-
ever is given them. As a striking jjroof of this,
I should mention that I was once assured by a
Venetian judge, that he did not recollect a suit
moved against the farmer for a fraudulent or
insufficient payment of tythe, and that, how-
ever eager he had seen priests to maintain the
interests of their order, he had never had reason
to accuse them of individual greediness.
What is the cause of the extraordinary con-
trast afforded as to this matter, by the clergy of
Italy and that of England ? The only probable
conjecture which I can assign, is, that the lay
owners are not so important and powerful a body
G 4
88 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
as witli US, and therefore " bear their faculties
more meekly " than those of England. For it
is the influence of these men which bears out and
encourag'cs the church in the exaction of her
dues. As a proof of this, the lay impropriator
is always the most rigid claimant ; and though
our church is much more severe than the Italian
in the article of tythes, it is notorious that the
clergyman rarely gets what he has, by law, a
right to. My inference then, is this. The lay
impropriator is naturally the greedy person ; but
in Italy, he enjoys comparatively little consider-
ation, and has therefore less courage to squabble
for his rights, and consequently influences less
by his example.
The singular spirit of self-denial which I
have stated, would naturally lead one to expect
something evangelical in the Italian clergy, but
though there are to be found amongst them mo-
dels of apostolical piety, I do not believe that this
is the real characteristic of the class at large. At
least an unfavourable inference is to be drawn
from the little consideration which they enjoy in
this country, always excepting the Roman State.
Out of this, you rarely meet priests, (who are
not distinguished by learning or talents) unless it
is in the house of some bigoted person, who hopes
eternal happiness through their mediation.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 8.9
But their friendly reception, by the religiously
inclined, is by no means general. I recollect
when I was last in Italy, living on a familiar
footing in a family, the mistress of which was
a woman of strong religious feelings, and what
is in this country called devout. Being struck
by the absence of priests, I at last, when 1
thought our intimacy might justify such a li-
berty, expressed my surprize at never having
seen one in the house. She answered " that
she hoped I never should — that she considered
them as mischievous men, who sowed discord
in families with the view of acquiring their di-
rection, which, as far as she was concerned, she
was resolved they should never obtain;" observ-
ing, very much in the tone of Shadwell, on,
" The fatal mischiefs which domestic priests
Brought oil the best of families in halt/
Where their dull patrons give them line enough.
First with the women they insinuate
(Whose fear and folly makes them slaves to them)
And give them ill opinions of their husbands.
Oft they divide them, if the women rule not ;
But if they govern them, their reign is sure.
Then they've the secrets of the faniilv,
Dispose o' the children, place and then displace
Whom, and when they think fit, See."
The Lancashire Witches.
90 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
I believe that this lady was not at all singular
in her opinions, though I cannot tell, from per-
sonal experience, how far they were founded in
truth. Were I indeed merely to speak from
what I have seen, I should have to report most
favourabl}'' of the Italian country clergy, who
live quietly, and, like the old parochial clergy of
France, never mix indecently in the pleasures
or bustle of the world.
( 91 )
LETTER XXXVIII.
Originality of Character common amongst the ancient
Venetians.
Venice, December, 1817.
The system of taxation, instituted by France,
and persisted in by Austria, and which forms
the subject of one of my last letters, is so much
the more heavily felt by tlie inhabitants of the
Venetian state, from their having been perhaps
the people least directly or indirectly taxed, that
have ever been subjected to a regular system of
imposts. For the Venetian republic laid the
foundations of its fiscal system, at a period
when commerce aftbrded it the only substantial
source of revenue; and when it became pos-
sessed of territory, did not apply itself, in earnest,
to the extraction of wealth from this new mine;
probably because the nobles being, for the most
part, the possessors of the soil, did not chuse
to tax themselves. The taxes then both on
moveable and landed property were light in
the time of the Venetian republic, and princi-
,92 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
pally consisted, as till lately in America, on du-
ties, whether of export or import.
It is indeed the fashion to consider the ex-
tinguished republic of Venice as presenting the
most atrocious system of administration that
ever existed in Europe. I am inclined to think
that its practical atrocities of every kind have
been greatly exaggerated. I will mention to
you some circumstances which have guided my
opinion. To the point.
The first thing that I expected to witness in
Venice, which must be supposed to be still, to a
degree, under the influence of the impulse given
it by the ancient form of government, was a
system of manners, more or less indicative of
its supposed character. I mean indicative of
that system of espionage, which I thought, at
least, would have shew n itself in some order or
other of the people. But I can assure you that
in my different visits to this city and its subor-
dinate towns, I have not only not found any
thing which savoured of the spirit of division,
(I except the case of the Caste km i and the Ni-
coloti,) but am ready to maintain that I never
visited any country, where the people seemed
equally linked in love. You cannot walk the
town for a day without being struck by this
universal spirit of kindness. The young man,
I.J.TTKUS lUO.M THE NOltTlI OF TIALV. 93
who is perhaps loaded with a burden, if he de-
sires an old man to make way for him, addresses
him by the title q^ father, the old man answers
him with that of son, and you hear continually
" caro pare" and *' carofid" from the mouth of
the lowest of the mob. Your servant calls the
kitchen-maid his sister, and she hails him as her
brother. The Venetians really give you the
idea of being; members of one 2;reat familv.
It is true that throughout Italy you may ob-
serve the inhabitants of every petty city hang
together more than in any other country, a con-
sequence undoubtedly of their affections being
centered within a narrow focus : But this fact
is peculiarly remarkable in Venice.
You will probably allow the justice of the
inference I draw from this; but I am not
ccjually sure that I shall have your assent to
another of my conclusions. If I can depend
upon stories and anecdotes in circulation, the
Venetians were disting-uishcd for 2:reat origina-
lity of character, though this has been depressed
under the iron crown of France and the leaden
sceptre of Austria. For myself, I see in this
an unequivocal proof of their having been in
the enjoyment of a very considerable degree of
civil liberty, for you may remark that originality
of character is never to be found under despotic
94 LETTERS FROM 'JHE NORTH OF ITALY.
governments, except in such persons as are
placed by circumstances beyond the reach of
power. A Potcmkin or a Prince de Ligne there-
fore are scarcely contradictions to my theory.
I might furnish a thousand instances in sup-
port of the fact, from which I have drawn tliis
inference, but I shall content myself with copy-
ing one portrait which was given me to day ;
this, not only as an illustration, but as affording
some sort of relief to the matter of my preceding-
letters.
But to my picture : tlie person from whom I
shall attempt this sketch was a woman, who
died a few years ago. Though not born noble,
or ennobled by marriage, she, somehow or other,
by her intrigues, obtained a very lucrative em-
ployment for her son, who was the support of
her family ; her husband being a drunken brute,
who was a burden to it. Though the custom
of the country, and the degrading vices of her
husband, might have palliated (if example can
palliate such things) her entering into a wider
field of gallantry, she confined herself to one
lover, with whom she lived forty years, and to
whom she gave proofs of a devotion which
would pass in England for heroic, if the tie
which united them had been of a difllerent de-
scription. But though her known inaccessi-
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 9j
bility, and indeed latterly her age, prevented her
from being- pursued as an object of gallantry,
her wit and powers of pleasing, secured to
licr a little court to the very end of her life,
to the last moment of which she enjoyed such
animal spirits as are generally supj)osed only to
be compatible with youth and healtlL But the
most extraordinary part of this woman's charac-
ter was her philosophy, which, while it wore the
stamp of the other sex, did not take from the
tenderness of her own, as long as that tender-
ness could be useful to its object. She never,
however, suffered this to interfere unnecessarily
with her interests or pleasures, and cast it away
the instant it became of no avail.
Two or three anecdotes of her will be illus-
trative of these facts. Her husband had broken
his leg in some debauch, and her son, of whom
she was passionately fond, at the same time
was seized with a dangerous illness: yet she was,
during this dreadful period, never distracted
by the variety of calls upon her attention, but
passed from one sick room to the other with a
method and activity which appeared inimitable.*
• Having, upon one occasion, been brought tu the bed-side
•f her husband, who she found iiad called her only to hear hi'^
96 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
Her son escaped on this occasion, but died before
his mothei". ^V'hen the news was brought her
by the priest who had comforted him in his last
moments, she, for a moment, sunk under the
shock; but a few seconds after, recollected he
had that morning changed a dollar for some
purpose, and that the change must be in his
bed.
She had attended her lover during a long
sickness with the same anxious zeal she had
bestowed upon her husband and son, scarcely
allowing herself a moment of repose. He too
died under her care. Those who had seen her
half distracted during his sufferings, imagined
that her life was wound up in his ; but to
their infinite surprize, she was seen, the very
morning after, walking, cahii and unconcerned,
in the Piazza di San Marco. To some friends,
Avho ventured to intimate their surprize, she
observed, that to keep her lover in life, she
would have cracked her heart-strings ; but she
was too sensible of the folly of regret ever to
indulge in so useless a passion.
complaints, she quickly observed, " Si, sigc c bcvc, pcrc/te vu
no se boil da oltro ; intanto 7i/i vago da quest' altru cfie muore."
" Yes, howl and drink, for you are fit for nothing else. In the
meantime, I am going to the one who is dying :" i. e. her son.
LETTERS FUOM THE NORTH Ol' ITALY. 97
I might cite various ignoblcr traits of eccentri-
city. Take one: a Venetian, who thed not very
long ago, made a provision of torches for his
funeral, artificially loaded with crackers, antici-
pating, to a confidential friend, the hubbub that
would result from the explosion ; which he had
calculated must take place in the most inconve-
nient spots. It would be an unpaidonable omis-
sion were I not to state that this posthumous
joke verified the most sanguine expectations of
its projector.
VOL. 11.
( 98 )
LETTER XXXIX.
On Venetian and Italian Mercantile Character, S^c.
Venice, December, ISlf-
Though some faint traces yet exist of the old
Venetian character, it should be observed that
these are, generally speaking, nearly worn out.
The ?nost remarkable, as contrasted with the rest
of Italy, certainly is so. The probity of Panta-
loon was proverbial, and the honour and punc-
tuality of a Venetian merchant were, I believe,
recognized throughout the various provinces of
Italy, That this is not now the case, I attribute
to the Austrians; but you will, perhaps, be in-
clined to treat my opinions, on this point, like
those of the old fellow-commoner of Cam-
bridge ; who ascribed every evil in life, even that
of the dogs' befouling his staircase, " to those
damned presbyterians."
But I am inclined to be more liberal ; and,
instead of merely ascribing the change of the
mercantile character in Venice to the Austrians,
as such, am almost inclined to believe, that pub-
lic honesty is scarcely compatible with their law.
LETTERS 1-ltOM THE NOH'I 11 OF ITA I.V. 99
What this is, may be guessed from the consti-
tution of tlieir tribunals, as well as the code itself,
which they administer. A tribunal here is com-
posed of different poor judges. This bodes ill : —
but, at least, numbers promise security against
corruption. — Not at all. — In each tribunal one
judge is charged with the particular examination
of a cause. This man, termed a relater, examines
the papers and aihdavits, and by his opinions his
brothers are necessarily guided; tor men will
not, it may be guessed, go out of their way in
search of labours and responsibility. Bribe the
relatore then, and your business is done.
But this is only one faulty stone in the struc-
ture. Alas, the whole fabric is rotten, the whole
code, civil and criminal; which, in various ways,
serves as a cloak to villany of e\ cry various
description. An English merchant had a debt
of eight hundred pounds due to him from a
person of respectaljility, I mean of respectability
in the mercantile world of Venice, and came
here with the view of recoNcring it. The matter
came before the chaml)er of commerce, and the
thing was so clear, that, alter sundry dirty fetches,
the defendant was obliged to pay the money into
court. Still the plaintiff was no farther advanced,
and tlie said money was not to be reco\cred
H 2
]()0 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALV.
from the gripe of justice. Month after month
j)assecl away; and at hist a person, who inte-
rested himself officially for the creditor, declared
his intention of applying, on his behalf, to the
British ambassador at Vienna, and bringing the
matter, through him, under the cognizance of
the emperor. The answer of the tribunal was,
" If you do, your appeal can be of no avail; cer-
tain forms are allowed by our law, and these
cannot be superseded by the emperor himself;
but let the prosecutor wait till Christmas, and he
will have his money." To all remonstrances it
^va.s answered, " Wait till Christmas — / cajinot
tell you more — but wait till Christmas, and the
eight hundred pounds will be forthcoming;"
Christmas came, and the money zvas paid, nearly
an equal sum having been consumed in the
litigation. The friend of the poor English mer-
chant now learnt the secret cause of the delays
which had been thrown in the way of his client.
Christmas is the period when the principal of
money, put out at interest, can be called in;
and this equitable court, it seems, gambled at
usury with the money of its suitors.
An English gentleman, conversant with this
place, talking once with me about the mercantile
classes of Venice, assured me that he did not
LETTERS FROM THE XOUTH OF ITALY. 101
apeak paradoxically when he gave by much the
highest rank in the scale of honesty to the Jews,
the second to the Venetians, and the lowest of
all to the Germans who are settled here, and
who are amongst the principal money-agents of
the city.
But if mercantile honour does not stand higli
amongst any class at Venice, it must be con-
fessed that it is at a low ebb all over the penin-
sula; and I do not hesitate to say that, measuring
such men by our English standard, I never met
with an honest banker in Italy. This is a strong
assertion; hut I will state on what it is founded.
They not only universally dabble in petty gains,
whicli a London merchant would be ashamed
of, but put upon you bold and downright
frauds. Thus, Friday is the day on which the
rate of exchange is settled ; I go tlie Wed-
nesday following to my banker and draw upon
him for a hundred pounds, and he gives me, in
the coin of the country, five pounds less than I
ought to receive. I count my money, and tell
him, that, according to the last declared state of
the exchange, I ought to have more; bu^ he re-
plies, that he will not cash my bills ujjon other
terms. I am told that the law affords a rcniedv in
this case; but how am 1 to obtain it? 1 am a bird
H 3
102 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY,
of passage, perched for a little space, and months
must roll away, in a paper-war of replies and re-
joinders, before I can bring my artillery to bear:
for there is no mesne process here, excepting that
of the bastinado.
But the tricks of mercantile men are not al-
ways confined to such petty frauds, and I might
select some proofs of my position both from
" continent and isle;" I will take the most fla-
grant I am acquainted with. The scene lies in
Sicilv. An Enolish merchant there, after a lonff
legal warfare with some mercliants of the island,
brought his foes to an agreement, which was
signed in form. Some time afterwards, these
men, repenting them of their act, went to the
Englishman, and desired to see the paper again.
He, sillily enough, put it into the hands of their
spokesman, who instantly tore it to bits. I
should not dwell on an individual act of base-
ness, had it received the chastisement which it
merited from society; but I never heard that this
piece of villany brought with it any ill conse-
quences to its perpetrator.
As riches are every thing in Italy, it being
premised tliat most mercantile men here are
what we shoidd call rogues, it may be observed
that their roguery is usually in proportion to
LETTERS FKOiM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 103
their rank. The banking knight is naught; but
the banking duke is a knave protest.*
In assigning, however, the liighest rank in
roguery to the greatest and richest amongst the
commercial men, I am tar from meaning to over-
look the claims ot" subordinate dabblers in mo-
ney or things vendible. A shopkeeper who has
only one price is a thing rare in Italy; and I do
not exaggerate, when I say that an Englishman,
on his first visit, usually pays doidjle what would
be asked of one experienced in the prices of the
place.
* In Alficri's Life, I find the following confirmation of my
opinion. He has just been speaking of an Italian banker's
trick, and pursues: " Ma io non avea neppure bisogno di aver
provato questa cortesia banchieresca, per fissare la mia opinione
di codesta classe di gente, che sempre mi h scmbrata una
delle piu vili c pessime del mondo sociale, e cib tanto piil quanta
esei si van rnaschcrando da signori," <§c. — vol. i. p. 33.
H 4
( 104 )
LETTER XL.
Account of the ancient Venetian Nobility — Causes of its
Ruin, S)C.
Venice, December, 1817-
I GAVE you in a former letter from Vicenza
some Italian stanzas, in which Gritti, the Vene-
tian poet, has sketched his own portrait ; I am
now tempted to give you another unpublished
draught by the same painter, in which he, in
a few lines, threw off that of the indigent
Venetian noble. I have seen this, as well as
the former stanzas given by me, better combed
and curled ; but I prefer them in their dishe-
velled state, which bears with it evidence of
their having been rhapsodies of the moment.
" Sono iin povero ladro aristocratico
Errante per la Veneta palude,
Che i denti per il mio duro panatico
Aguzzo in su la cote e in su 1' incude ;
Mi slombo in piedi, e a seder' mi snatico,
Ballottando or la fame, or la virtude :
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OT ITALY. 10.5
Piego, piango, minaccio, insisto, adulo,
Ed ho me stesso, e la iiiia patria in ciilo."*
Some annotations are necessary to make this
stanza intelligible. I should observe that, in his
" Mi slombo in piedi,'' Gritti appears to allude
to the multitude of bows made b} the pursuers
of patronage, under the porticos of the Procu-
ratie, the spot frequented by the members of
the maggior cousigiw, previous to its assend^ling ;
and in the '' a seder mi snafico,'' to a wooden
chair in which the Venetian nobles sate, whilst
balloting ; a mode of voting by which all the
patronage of the republic was distributed I It
is scarcely necessary to obserNc, that a large
part of these petty princes existed by this : but
a more detailed account of the Venetian aristo-
cracy may be, in some respects, new even to
you.
The nobles of Venice, though all equal in the
* I'm a poor peer of Venice loose among her
Marshes! With standins; hows I've double grown,
And in my trade of place and pension-monger,
Sate till I've ground my buttocks to the bone ;
Balloting now for mf.rit, now for hunger:
Breaking, myself, my teeth, u|)on a stone,
I crave, cringe, storm, and sliivc, thro' life's short farce,
And vote friends, self and country all
106 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
eye of the law, were fancifully divided into
three classes ; the first distinguislicd as that of
the sayigue bid or sangue colombin, i. e. hlue
blood or pigeon's blood ; the second, as the divi-
sion of the 7norel de mezo, or the middle piece,
and the poorest of all as Bernaboti, or Barna-
bites; from their inhabiting small and cheap
houses in the parish of St. Barnabas.
It will be easily conceived that the poor
nobility must have been numerous in a state
which considered all the legitimate sons of a
patrician as noble; where commerce no longer
offered a resource, and the only profession left
was that of the law. This class, therefore, sub-
sisting upon the employments of the republic,
civil or military, at home and abroad, was neces-
sarily ruined by the revolution. But the cause
of the almost general havoc which involved
the Venetian aristocracy is not so immediately
visible; the less so, as the laws of the fode-com-
messo, which corresponds with our entail, were
sufficiently rigorous in old Venice.*
* Property did not, however, descend generally in entirety
to the eldest lineal heir of the house in Italy as with us ; there
being families where only a considerable preference was given
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 107
I shall try, acconlino- to the information I
have received, to explain how this was accom-
plished. The first and foremost cause was the
excessive indolence and profusion of the last
generations of the nobility, who appear to have
resembled the ancestor of Sir Roger de Coverley ;
who, he tells us, " would sign a deed for a
mortgage, covering one half his estate, with his
glove on : " with this difference, however, that
the Venetian patrician could only mortgage his
estate during his own natural life; a circum-
stance which, it appears at first sight, should
have been the protection of the ancient houses of
Venice. The protection was, however, in most
instances of no avail.
to the eldest son. There was also a usage in most Venetian
families termed the Mazorasco, (not to be confounded with the
Italian maiorasco and the French majorat,) which ensured a
certain portion to the eldest collateral descendant, should he
be older than the lineal one.
Property is now divided in Italy, on the death of a possessor,
as it is in modern France. A father, at his death, can only dis-
poseof one small part of his property at his own will and plea-
sure ; this varying according to the number of his children:
the other must be equally divided amongst them, whether male
or female. If, moreover, he should, in the exercise of this
jight of preference, favour a child by a single jot more than
the law permits, even this privilege becomes void, and all the
children share and share alike, withyut the least regard to the
dispositions of the testator.
108 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
In almost all countries the laws of honour
often contravene the laws of the land, often
mischievously ; but they sometimes come in aid
of sound morality. Such was their effect here.
The law of the Jede-commesso allowed a son to
charge himself with the debts of a father, with-
out prejudice to his successors ; but it being
considered as a point of honour to take up
this burden, the sons son succeeded to it, and
the debts of one generation were perpetuated
through diverse succeeding ones.
Things were in this state when the old go-
vernment was overthrown, and the law oi Jede-
commesso abolished here, as well as all over the
countries revolutionized by France. The con-
sequence was the immediate seizure of property
so encumbered. This was inevitable; and the
creditor of the family of Cor7ih\ or any other
Venetian house, seized upon his own.
Thus one of the indirect consequences of the
revolution was the destruction of an immense
number of Venetian families of the sanj^ue bid
and morhl de mezo. It was, however, more im-
mediately destructive to those denominated the
Barnabites, who were at once cut off from all
the lucrative offices of the state. Nor was this
all : the daughters of the indigent nobility had
LETTERS FUOM THE NOKTll OF ITALY. 1 OJ)
all of them pensions which they brought in
dowry to their hus])ands ; but place and pen-
sion, though bestowed for hfe, were anniliilated,
and, in the place of these, a miserable stipend
of two Venetian livres a day (not (juite ten-pence
Englisli) was bestowed on those wlio conde-
scended to accej)t of it, by tlie nmshrooni muni-
cipality which flourished for its day out of the
ruins of the aristocracy. Poor as this pittance
was, even in this country where necessaries bear
a price out of all proportion to luxuries, num-
bers did accept it, under the idea that it would
be increased under happier circumstances ; but
the French, it will be easily believed, did not
augment it, and (what could scarcely be be-
lieved but by those versed in the proceedings of
the cabinet of Vienna) the Austrian government
dipt this miserable mite, and clogged it with
conditions, which neither the revolutionary mu-
nicipality nor the French were illiberal enough
to impose.
The municipality gave their compensation,
and, the whole of the terra jtrma being in pos-
session of the enemy, perhaps they could give
no more — the m.unicipality gave it as unre-
stricted as the pensions it was to replace : the
French made no alteration in the system ; but
the Austrians have not only limited it to per-
110 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
sons not having- two hunclrcd ducats a-year,
(twenty-five pounds sterling,) but have insisted
upon its being spent in their own dominions.
Of the rigour with which this condition is ex-
acted, take the following example : — A lady,
ignorant of the regulations which had been in-
troduced, was absent two years in the south of
France ; she returned, and claimed the arrears
of her pension, without having specified where
she had been. The arrears were paid after the
usual difficulties, but her absence having been
ascertained, she was ordered to disgorge her
prey, under the threat of being excluded from
all further provision.*
* I should have mentioned that another violent, though par-
tial, change in property was introduced by the abolition of the
law oi fede-commcsso. Succession to entailed property as well
as nobility was forfeited by a misalliance ; the issue of such
marriage being considered as a sort of political mestis, and de-
scending into the class styled that of secretaries, and the estate
going to the next heir male wherever he might be found.
It should, however, be stated, that the law respecting mis-
alliance did not extend so widely as might be expected, this only
excepting the daughters of such as were incapable of being in-
scribed in the libro d'oro : and the exercisers of all the liberal
professions, such as the advocate, physician, apothecary, and
even the music-master, might aspire to it.
Still one class of women was excepted, precisely that with
which such misalliances were most frequently contracted, I
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. I 1 1
I have said, after the usual diflicultics : I will
now illustrate these. Another lady claimed
seveti months arrears of pension, due during a
residence in Lombardy and tlie Venetian state.
Now this was a claim verifiable by a single in-
strument, her passport, wiiich ascertained the
day of her arrival in every town, by the signa-
ture of accredited officers of the Austrian police.
Notwithstanding tliis, she was seven months
more before she could obtain her demand.
These were spent in the presentation of petitions,
always by order, always on stamped paper, and
mean the domic di teatro. The number of these marriages at-
tests the want of feeling, or at least the entire want of thought
of the last Venetian generation of nobility. To the offspring
of such, whose fathers were yet alive, a portion of their fathers'
lands were given by the abolition of the fcde-conmitsso.
To pursue these marriages of the nobility : There was, 1
believe, no country in the world where such precautions were
taken on this subject for the enforcement of what made part of
the policy of the state : a nobleman even marrying a noble lady
was obliged to communicate his marriage speedily to what was
called // Cotlcgio. If he did not, his children remained ex-
cluded from all the privileges of nobility. A certain degree of
law was indeed, given to parents, who had neglected this,
enabling them to recur by petition to the same body for the
same purpose within a limited time; but this term passed, there
was no raodo of repairing the neglect.
1 12 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
in the almost daily beat of half the official stairs
of Venice, either in person or in proxy.*
But I willingly turn away my eyes from a
picture, every detail of which is painful, and
having described the fortunes of the Venetian
nobility, shall give some account of their ho-
nours.
The patricians, as I said before, all equal in the
eye of the law, had no titles as such, excepting
that of your Excellency ; though some bore them,
as Counts, 8^c. of terra ferma, before being en-
rolled in the nobility of Venice; and some had
titles assigned them as compensations for, or
rather as memorials of fallen "leatncss. Thus
the Querini, formerly lords of Crema, had the
distinction continued to them, after Crema was
absorbed in the Venetian state.
These families, however, usually let their
titles sleep, considering the quality of an un-
* This is by no means a single case : A Venetian judge,
displaced, but pensioned by the Austrians, neglected to receive
his allowance according to the example of the others. At
length he applied for his arrears, which were denied him.
" What," said he, " will you not give me what others have
received ? " " No ! " was the answer, " and those others will
bo forced to refund." — Note that these pensions had been
paid, in virtue of a solemn and printed decree.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. ] IJ
titled Venetian patrician as superior to any
other distinction. Nor does this seem to have
been an odd refinement, for the old re|)ublic
sold titles for a pittance to whoever could pay
for them, though such a person might not even
have had the education of a gentleman.* It
Avas natural therefore that a Lord of Crema
should fear being confounded with this countly
canaglia, and sink his having any thing in com-
mon with such a crew.
The great political revolution that has taken
place, destroying the splendour of the tibro
d'oro, has induced some to produce their terra
Jerma titles; but the majority content themselves
with the stjde of CavaUere,'\ which docs not
necessarily denote actual knighthood ; and is
often used almost as liberally in Italy, as the ,
denomination of Squire now is in England. A
striking proof indeed of good sense and dignity
was given by the great body of the Venetian
nobility, on being invited by Austria to claim
* The qualification to be a Count was about what is sup-
posed to qualify for knighthood in England, and the fro paid
for the title, if I am rightly informed, 20 or 40/.
t No order of knighthood was peculiar to Venice, and her
citizens were precluded by law from becoming members of
foreign orders.
VOL. TI. I
114 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
nobility and title from her, on the verification of
their rights, the great body of them merely
desiring a recognition of their rank, without
availing themselves of the offer held out to them.
A few, indeed, have pursued a different line of
conduct, and received patents of princes, &c.
( 115 )
LETTER XLI.
C/iaraiteristics of Italy^ Moral and Fhysical.
Venice, December, 181 7.
* Trumpets sound, " Boot and saddle! " fold your cloaks,
And, guards, convey your king to summer's scat,'
AVhere no perpetual drizzle drives or soaks ;
Where skies are blue, and suns give light and heat ;
Where the wind woes you lovingly, and where
Wit walks the streets, and music's in the air.'
Court and Parliament of Beasts.
These few lines comprize, in my opinion, the
principal attractions of Italy, and I ought to
confess, that I have found all these without
going farther south than Venice, in pursuit of
them.
Till within these three days, we have had tlie
weather of an English May, with its accompa-
niments of green peas, straw herrics and roses.
It is now indeed hecome veiy cold, hut the
sun's rays are still so powerful that it is impos-
sible to take exercise where "at full they play;'
and I have frequently acted the traveller in the
I 2
Il6 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
fable, and discarded my great coat, as well as
taken shelter under porticos.
Italy's skies and suns have passed into
a proverb ; but I have never yet heard her
coiTiparati\e calm remarked upon : though she
affords a strange contrast in this, to England ;
which may indeed be compared to the island
of Ruach, whose inhabitants, Rabelais tells us,
" eat nothing but wind, drink nothing but
wind, and have no other houses but weather-
cocks." Not only England; I think every
part of Europe which I have visited, is more
swept by winds than Italy, where continued
gales are unknown ; such rarely continuing,
even in the season of the equinox, for more
than three or four days Avithout intermission,
so that a winter's gale of wind is here, little
more than what seamen call a summer s gale in
England. A striking proof indeed of compara-
tive calm may be observed in the public gardens
of this city. These are situated on the sea-side
of the town, yet their acacias are neither bent nor
broken.
Something similar may be observed both of
the bays of Naples and Genoa, along both of
which are thousands of trellised galleries, covered
with the vine or the oleander, whose foliage
remains undishevelled by the wind.
One understands the immense power of this
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 117
in England, and one may say, that living in
an island, whctlicr in that of Britain or Ruach
is like living in a room, witli a thorougli draft
of air. But it seems somewhat more dilficult
to explain why Italy is so much less buffeted
than the remainder of the continent; the more
so as its peninsular form Mould apj)arently ex-
pose it to stronger ventilation. In crossing,
some months ago, tlie plains on the southern side
of Dol, I observed, that the trees, which border
the road, according to the general custom in
France, M^ere in some instances drifted, and in
others, nearly bent double, so that our flat and ex-
posed coasts could scarcely offer the picture of a
more cheerless champaign. Yet this feature of
desolation is never seen in the great plains of
Italy, though in these, and indeed on hill or
dale, you may encounter squall and whirlwind.
In further proof of what I have asserted as
to the calms of Italy, I never recollect having
seen a windmill in any part of it; though these
would be a convenience in some places. There
weije two in old Venice on the spot where the
public gardens, alluded to above, now arc, but
they were demolished, as I am informed, on
account of the insufficiency of wind. During
the last blockade an attempt was made to es-
tablish one in a yet more exposed situation ou
r 'o
118 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY'.
the outer side of the lagoon, which is only shut
off from the sea by low and bare islands, but
here again the experiment failed, and the inha-
bitants ^\'ere obliged to grind what unground
grain was brought, in hand-mills.
Probably the chains of mountains which bound
and intersect Italy, break or stagnate the winds *
Something also is to be ascribed, perhaps, to the
form of the coasts, and the circumstance of their
being washed by inland seas, but undoubtedly
there is no want of wind in the Mediterranean ;
and the having sailed much upon this sea, which I
have traversed four times in its utmost extent,
and having lived five winter months at Malta,
enables me to speak with some confidence upon
the subject. But I have observed two essential
points of difference between the gales of the
Mediterranean and the ocean. The wind the
most violent, very seldom continues long in the
same point, in the Mediterranean ; and it may
be remarked, also, that even where it blows
fresh at sea, it often does not blow home; but
moderates on approaching the continental coasts.
* The old Venetian proverb of froppe feste, troppe teste,
€ troppe tempestc, seems to be at variance with this ; but it
is to be remarked that tonpesta in modern Italian is often used
to express a storm of rain or hail.
LETTERS FHOM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 1 19
This absence of storm is no doubt a great de-
light; but it does not seem a very far-fetched
conjecture that the malaria may derive a great
part of its intensity from such a cause. I have
however discussed this subject as well as I could
in other Letters. I pass to the conclusion of
my text,
" IVit walks the streets, and music's in the air."
These are graces which nobody, I suppose,
will deny to Italy ; but I have a mind to give
you some anecdotes illustrative of my text.
My first story will lose much of its point, from
being in need of explanation : For this pur-
pose, I prefer a prologue to an epilogue. A
favourite game of the populace, all over Italy,
called la morra, consists in two persons holding
up their hands at the same moment, with a cer-
tain number of fingers extended. The players
guess alternately at the aggregate quantity of
these, and he who guesses oftenest right, counts
most points. You therefore frequently see two
men walking soberly together; one of whom,
on a sudden, holds up his hand. I may now
introduce my dramatis personcc. I was walking,
the other morning with my poodle, when, in
the social spirit which characterizes Italy, he
i4
120 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
was joined by another of his race. Soon after-
wards, my beast was seized, as it should seem,
by some convulsive affection, and lifted up one
of his fore paws, going provisionally upon
three. "What's the matter with that dog?"
said a Venetian sailor. " Oh don't you see
he is playing at morra with the other?" an-
swered his comrade.
There is certainly something very droll in
the humour which assimilates the actions of
beasts to those of men, and, as I am on this
ground, I feel disposed to follow up my Vene-
tian with a Florentine story of the same descrip-
tion. In my account of the Vicentine improv-
visafore, I mentioned that, at a certain hour of
the evening, a great proportion of the lower
people of Florence sally to serenade their mis-
tresses, a piece of gallantry which is termed la
cuccliiata^ in the language of that city. An
Italian acquaintance of mine was, at this time,
passing through a street, when he observed a dog
looking wistfully at a bitch in a balcony ; but
whose admiration was somewhat distracted by
* The serenade made at midnight, and which is, I suppose,
of foreign origin, is called by them, la serenata ; which is the
general Italian word for serenades, of whatever season.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 121
a flea-bite : This set him scratching with vehe-
mence, whilst his eyes were still fixed upon his
four-footed love. A lower Florentine, wlio was
passing at this moment, stopt, and cried out,
^^ E' ummnorato, suona la chitarra; fa la cuc-
chiata alia hella,'' likening, in his mind, the
dog's scratching his ribs, to a man thrumming
on a guitar.
Florence and Venice arc the two places where
you indeed find popular drollery in its greatest
perfection, and of that gay and natural cast
which characterizes the humour of the Irish.*
But this is more or less diffused all over Italy,
and, perhaps, is not done justice to, from the
difficulty there is in understanding many of the
dialects.
Considering; national humour as forminu; a
striking feature of national character, I am
tempted to enlarge a little more on this subject,
and to mention a species of wit, which is, I think,
almost exclusively Venetian. Were I called upon
to describe this Jo7'mallj/, I do not know whether
* It is however of a more elegant character than the Irish,
and in this respect I should give the W-netian humour a pre-
ference over the Florentine, though in the absurd stories I have
cited, these two appear, in the lawyer's phrase, to run pretty
much on four legs. The Venetian wit is lighter: the Floren-
tine is perhaps of a more forcible description.
122 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
I could define it more strictly than by saying it
consisted in practical jokes brought to bear in-
tellectually. To instances.
A proud patrician, asking a connexion to a
great dinner, regretted at the same time that
he should put him to the expense of a dress
suit of clothes. The guest arrived, habited in
black silk, and bringing with him his servant
who was to wait, dressed in a magnificent suit
of embroidery, the exact pattern of his enter-
tainer's; which he had ingeniousl}^ procured
from his taylor.
A Venetian lady, famous for her gallantries,
being alone with a young man in a gondola,
complained of a sudden pain in her back, which
prevented her adjusting a garter that had slipped
down : She in consequence desired her compa-
nion to replace it. He did so, with becoming
gravity ; and the lady on landing presented him
with a box of sugar plums for his pains.
A certain Abate, who was an accomplished,
but tiresome man, called upon a Venetian gen-
tleman who wasjust going out, and detained him
by complaints of the world. He said, he was
learned and clever, but that " nissun swceva sti-
marlo,'' " that nobody knew his value," or, lite-
rally, " that nobody knew how to value him."
The friend heard him out, put his arm under hisj
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. ]<23
and carried him away with l\iin. Tiicy had not
walked tar, when the hearer entered the shop
of a broker and appraiser, and exclaimed, ^^Caro
vu, stimhne sto Sior Abate, che nissim altro sd,
stimar.'" " ^ly good friend, value nie this Ablje,
whom nobody else knows how to vahie."'
A gondolecr was ordered b}' a foreigner to the
ehurcii of Saint Ermagora e Fortiinaio, which
is known, I do not know why, by the name of
San JMarquola, amongst the Venetian populace.
The gondolecr, therefore, not understanding
him, rowed him in vain from Saint to Saint,
till out of all patience, he carried him to the
church of All Saints, and bade liim " find him
out amongst them ; since, for his part, he did not
know where else to look for him." But I am lay-
ing the foundations of an Adriatic Joe Miller.
I have now something to say of the music bi
the air. Though it is undoubtedly of an in-
ferior description to what may be had in the
theatres, the street music of Italy, from the
general diffusion of this species of talent, on
which I have already remarked, is to be consi-
dered as infinitely superior to that of the rest of
Europe. The present favourite air, " which car-
men whistle," is the " Di tanti palpiti'^ in Tax-
CREDi ; which is warbled with as much passion
as the most tolderollol tunes are bawled about
124 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
in England. But here it is curious to watch the
progress of refinement. The music is not too
clehcate for the merest mountaineer; but he
often embodies it in words which are more
within his reach.
It should be stated, that music all over Italy-
is to be had on pleasanter and much easier
terms than elsewhere, and that, in a coun-
try where it is so prized and cultivated, the least
fuss is made about it. Except in a new opera
which people are anxious to liear through, there
are very seldom more than three or four airs,
which excite general and deep attention, and
during the others, people talk, lounge, and
laugh with impunity. You will recollect how
differently *' things are managed in France,"
where one is not only expected to be silent, but
to look all eye and ear, during an eternal roll
of recitative. —
( 12.5 )
LETTER XLII.
On the Coincidence of Popular SaperslitioTi^
Venice, December, 181 7.
As I gave you in my last Letter some specimens
of popular humour, I shall treat you in this, with
an odd example of popular superstition.
As I was passing, this morning, near my
kitchen, M'hich, according to the rational prac-
tice of Italy, is on the floor which you inhabit, I
heard my cook making great lamentations over
the loss of a bucket, which had got loose from
its rope, at the bottom of the well. I suggested
the obvious expedient of lowering somebody
down in quest of it; but was assured that even a
boy had been already employed upon this service
without effect. Upon my expressing some sur-
prize, that more confidence was placed in the
exertions of a chikl, than of a man, 1 was an-
swered Jlla, Sigiwr, ghe vol ini biisiaro. That
a liar was thought most calculated for this pur-
pose, somewhat surprized me ; but it explained
the preference given to a child, on the supposi-
J 26 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
tion that lying is more peculiarly the vice of in-
fancy, though heaven knows it is that of all ages.
This anecdote seems to open some new
sources of superstitions : these, as I have already
observed, are, in general, the same all over
Europe, and are therefore evidently derived from
common origins. One is evidently our common
religion. Thus the fear, which is entertained
here and elsewhere, of beginning a journey or
any other operation, on a Friday, and the super-
stitious awe, which Friday brings with it to a
part of the inhabitants of Scotland, may be at-
tributed to the most solemn event, which marks
our creed, and which would seem to have given
a short triumph upon that day to the powers of
darkness. The ill omen of laying the knife and
fork across seems to be of the same parentage ;
and the fear of sitting down, thirteen, to table ;
and the destiny, supposed to attach to the first
that rises, evidently comes from the last supper
and the end of Judas Iscariot. It is remark-
able, that in the famous painting of this, by
Leonardo da Vinci, and known all over the
world through the print of Morghen, (which, by
the way, bears little resemblance to the original,)
Judas is represented as overturning the salt.
Did this superstition originate during the sacri-
ficial ceremonies of pagan worship ?
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALT. 127
Bat religion, of wliatcvcr dc.scii{)tion, is not
the only hot-bed of these follies ; which owe their
birth even to so unsubstantial a thing as a nie-
tiiphor. Thus the idea that a present of a knife
cuts love is as strong in Italy as in England ;
and the penalty is redeemed in the same manner,
by converting a gift into a sale. Does the par-
ticular superstition I am recording arise out of
an epigram? At least, the idea of sending a liar
to the supposed abode of truth, seems to savour
of this supposition.
( 1^8 )
LETTER XLIII.
Observations on the Architecture of St. Mark's at Fe-
nice, Sfc.
Venice, December, 1817.
There is, I think, no wonder in Venice supe-
rior to the church of St. Mark. Canaletto may
shew you what it is without, but a Rembrandt
only could give an idea of its interior. Precisely
as I should, with Warton, try the taste of one
who professed to love poetry, by Lycidas, or
any beautiful piece which could not be brought
to the standard of general rules, so I should
sound the feeling of any one in matters of archi-
tecture by the impression which he received from
the grand canal, the piazza, piazzetta, and, above
all, the interior of St. Mark's. If I could have
visions any where, it would be here. There is
without doubt something particularly imposing,
when employed for religious purposes, in that
species of mixt architecture produced at Con-
stantinople, which I will venture to call Greek-
Gothic, and which bears the visible sign of its
purpose, the uniting two dissimilar ages in one
LETTERS FROM THE XORTII OF ITALY. 129
common creed. But the picturesque eft'ect of
the church is, no doubt, in j3art, produced by the
mixture of painting and gilding, peculiar to this
style of building, as well as by the distribution
of hght, all which come in aid of the architec-
ture. Gilpin indeed tells us that the picturesque
eye overlooks colour. This, taken in the plain
acceptation of the phrase, is, to my under-
standing, perfectly monstrous ; for, were it tj ue,
a landscape of Poussin's would be reduced to
the level of one of his own dirty daubs, and a
forest in winter offer the same beauties, as one
variegated with all the tints of Autumn.
Though I have not been able to pass over St.
Mark's in silence, do not imagine that 1 am about
to drag you through the various churches of Ve-
nice, which deservedly form the admiration of
the artist and amateur.
I abstain, too, from enumerating pictures and
statues. For these, I shall send you to Guide-
books, which are safe authority in this matter,
if not in other respects; since they give you a
regular list of lions, all which you must once
see with your own eyes; though there may not
be a quarter of them that you would revisit.
VOL. II.
( 130 )
LETTER XLIV.
f^isit to the Island of Torzelo, and Re/lections excited
hy it.
Venice, December, 1817.
Though I told you in my last I should turn
you over to Guide-books for lions, (and there is
a very good one for this city,) I do not mean to
ahhere rigidly to such a resolution, as there will
sometimes be objects of curiosity, deriving their
interest from association, or some other less de-
finable cause, which deserve the notice of the
traveller, though not registered amongst the
wonders of a place.
Of this nature was an object of curiosity,
which I almost stumbled upon by accident.
Having visited the manufactures of Murano
and Burano^ and witnessed such a scene of pro-
miscuous misery as I feel no temptation to de-
scribe, I prolonged my voyage, and landed on
the nearly desert island of Torzelo, about six
miles from Venice.
This spot, once the summer resort of the Ve-
netian patricians, and covered with their villas
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 1:31
and gardens, presented a very difterent ehaructci
of desolation. My eyes were neither pained by
the visible progress of ruin, nor disgusted by the
meanness of the instrument which liad wrouglit
it. Time was here the great destroyer, and,
moreover, Time had done his work.
I was favoure^l by one of those delicious days
of sunshine, common even in a Lombard winter,
which in some degree mitigated the melancholy
of the prospect, and enabled me to saunter
and view, without inconvenience, all the cir-
cumstances of the scene. Amidst the vestiges
of departed grandeur were left some poor and
scattered houses, and a church, the rij'accia-
mento of which dates, I believe, from the ele-
venth century. A broken column marked the
centre of what had been the piazza, and from
which had once waved the standard of St Mark.
Amidst these remains glided a few human
beings, the miserable tenants of the place.*
There was nothing striking in the architec-
ture, nothing picturesque in the landscape,
but the whole made an impression upon me
which no other ruins ever produced. M'hilst I
was musing upon the prospect before me, a clock
* A stray English doctor had been marked down there; but
I did not put him up.
132 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH 0» ITALY.
from a half-ruined tower tolled twenty. Time
only had suifered no change, together with the
monuments he had overthrown : He spoke an
antiquated language, hardly intelligible to the
generation of the day.
The church here, though not very striking in
point of architecture, had in itself some interest-
ing features. Its stone shutters, carrying one's
ideas back to days of violence, are, as far as my
observation goes, a singular remnant of such an
age; and some very curious mosaics, in the
inside, may vie in beauty, and antiquity with
those of St. Mark.
To return, however, to the general impression
made upon me by this isle of ruins, other and
less fantastical reflections succeeded to those
which first presented themselves. Gazing upon
the scene before me, I could not but muse upon
the way in which Venetian empire had been
lost and won. When this scene was gay with
villas and with vineyards, Venice contented her-
self with insular dominion, and this may be con-
sidered as the most flourishing and triumphant
era of her state. She sought and obtained con-
tinental greatness, and thus sloped the way to
her destruction. Her ruin was not indeed the
immediate consequence of this change of policy,
but it was evidently the first step towards it ; nor,
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 133
in her aftci-strugglcs for dominion or existence,
was she ever capable of tlie gigantic effort she
made untlcr the Doge Michiel, for the conciuest
of Constantinople. For when we consider the
extent of this, the number and burden of the
vessels which comj)osed her armament, we may
perhaps at^rm that the history of the world does
not present a more striking picture of the unas-
sisted powers of commerce.
We are at first disposed to allow no quarter
to statesmen, who depart from the steps of their
fathers and risk the glory and happiness of
their country upon a new foundation ; but we
shall find grounds for alleviating our censure,
observing that these men usually either imagine
they are only taking a new road to the same ob-
ject, or at least believe they have not lost sight
of it, in the new path which they have struck
out.
Thus the first wars carried on, and the first
acquisitions made by Venice upon terra ferma,
had all a view to the immediate furtherance of
her commerce. The trade she drove with Lom-
bardy, by means of the large navigable streams
which intersect it, was continually interrupted
by the vexations of the Paduaus, &c. and her
manufactured and imported articles shut out at
this important entrance. Her first temptation
K o
J 34 LETTERS FROM Tilt NORTH OF ITALV.
therefore was to get possession of the mouths of
these rivers: Experience sliewed her it was use-
less to stop there, and that if she meant to ac-
comphsh lier object, she must ascend them from
" (ill to fount." Thus was she involved in con-
tinental struggles, which, by degrees, changed
their character, and her riches and resources
were diverted into channels which brought no
return. Meantime she left that part unarmed in
which she was most vulnerable ; and resembled
the stag in the fable, who turning his blind side
to the quarter from which he expected no dan-
ger, was slain by an arrow from the sea.*
The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope
and America must indeed have been cruel
wounds to this republic : but I am led to think
that the necessary consequences of these two
changes have been somewhat exaggerated.
The discovery of the Cape deprived her of a
mighty source of wealth, which flowed through
Alexandria ; but what deprived her of her com-
merce, and what of her colonies, in other parts
of the Mediterranean and Archipelago ? What
cut off her trade with the interior of Africa ?
What with Flanders, so flourishing in the earlier
* I allude to the loss of Cyprus and the war of Candia.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OK ITALY. 135
days of the republic? What, in short, prevented
her sliaring, as a nation, in tlic very discoveries
to which the science and entcrprize of some of
her citizens appear to have contril)uted?*
If it is urged that she was less favourably
situated than others for sucli a purpose ; so was
she for the tralTic whicli slie drove with Flanders ;
so that the trifling difference of distance can
scarcely be considered as an argument. It might
be said to her that it was tlie mis-direction and
abuse of strength, and the loss of a right spirit
rather than any particular misfortune,
" Which sunk so low that sacred head of thine."
The evil once received into her system, she
never rallied from it ; and nations are like indi-
viduals : They may recover from acute and acci-
dental diseases, but there is no cure for debility
and chronic ones. Venice will now soon be
what sailors call a sheer hulk. May she be a
sea-mark to others, and may her wreck teach
them to avoid the rocks on which she split !
* More will be said on this subject in a succeeding letter.
K 4
( 13^ )
LETTER XLV.
Fresco Paititings in San liocco — Restitution of ancient
Monuments to Fenice, Sfc.
Venice, December, 1817.
It is a dangerous thing to make resolutions. I
am again tempted to depart from that, which
formed the subject of a former letter, unless the
salvo which I there made may be considered
justificatory of such a proceeding. This, to ex-
cuse a visit, or rather some account of a visit,
which I made a few days ago to the ancient
convent of San Rocco, the walls of which are
covered with the paintings of Tintoretto, &c. I
had seen many separate works of this master
at Florence; but these viewed separately give
no more idea of the powers of the painter than
a stray canto of Ariosto does of those of the
poet. The seeing this grand assemblage of his
paintings together produces something like the
effect of reading the Orlando ; and Tintoretto
may be truly characterized as the Ariosto of
picture.
These frescoes were never removed ; but the
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OT ITALY. 137
pictures and relics of departed Venetian great-
ness, which had been carried away, are all re-
placed in statu quo, and the pictures have no
doubt gained by the exchange, since some of
them (that, for instance, of the martyrdom of St.
Paul) were painted for particular lights.
I cannot, however, for one, detesting, as I do,
the atrocious system of robbery, which placed
the pictures and marbles of Italy in the Louvre,
see those grounds for quarrelling with their dis-
tribution which have been discovered by various
Englishmen. Speaking absolutely, it is impos-
sible that statues or pictures, crowded as these
necessarily were, could be seen to the best ad-
vantage ; but, allowing for this difficulty, the art
displayed in their arrangement, appeared to me
to be admirable.
It gave me great pleasure that the horses
which were taken down and packed by the Eng-
lish, arrived the least injured at their destination.
The lion, removed by other hands, w^as less for-
tunate. He was, however, repaired, and horses
and lions were hoisted, by the arsenalott'i, into
their respective stations, with a precision not
inferior to that of our own seamen.
I am told, that on the day of the restoration
of these national monuments, a general move-
ment was to be seen amidst the populace. They
138 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
assembled in groups, with tears in their eyes,
talking over their departed happiness and gran-
deur, favourite topics with the Venetians of all
classes; and I am assured that had there been
a leader to animate them, the canals of Venice
might have run red with Austrian blood. The
clouds fortunately cleared away ; I say fortu-
nately, for what good effect could be hoped
from such a tempest? Divided and broken, as
Italy is, a revolution, if successful, could but be
local, and if only local, could never be perma-
nent, unless protected by foreign power. A
union of her provinces indeed would be an eter-
nal bulwark, and in cementing these together,
she would build a wall of brass about her fron-
tier. Two moments (for they were but mo-
ments) seemed to afford some faint hope of such
a consummation, but the master-mason slept,
and the mystic head was not heard. It has
spoken twice, and may speak thrice : but it w\]\
speak in vain.
( y^9 )
LETTER XLVI.
On the Possihili/i/ of a Union of the Italian Pro-
linces.
Venice, December, 1817-
To pursue the subject of my last letter : I have
been sometimes amused by the facility with
which people at liome unite the Italian provinces
under one government. Tliey seem to consider
them as a parcel of walnut shells thrown into a
washing- glass, after dinner, which must come to-
gether through the force of mutual attraction.
They have not, however, yet begun to act or be
acted upon by this reciprocal spirit of coalition ;
nor did I ever see any thing indicative of such a
principle, if I except a few loose wishes from a
few young men who called themselves Unita-
rians, and (if I recollect rightly) confined their
efforts to wearing a blue coat and white waist-
coat as the symbol of their fraternity. In truth
cognate provinces, as long as they are upon a
footing of equality, can never be efltcctively
consolidated. They may indeed w\\\\.c J edera-
tively, but to do this they must first become re-
140 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
publics, for we have not yet heard o^ federative
monarchies, as the word is riglitly understood:
a circumstance which seems to afford an argu-
ment against the vulgar position, that republics
are worse neighbours than despotic states.
There is indeed only one way in which cog-
nate provinces may coalesce into the strictest
union, a principle that has been illustrated in
France and Great Britain ; that is, by one of
these possessing such a superior degree of wealth
and strength as could bribe or force the others
into union. It was on this ground I said that
the magic head destined to give the signal for
building a brazen wall about Italy had spoken
twice : the first time was when the fabric of
Buonaparte's power fell to pieces. Had Eugene
Beaiiharnois then been guilty of one of those
splendid crimes, which are to be abhorred or
justified not only by the motive which dictates
them but by the success which attends them ;
had he raised his standard, and Lombardy risen
at his back, all Italy might perhaps have been
gathered beneath it. A second opportunity was
offered when Murat marched his legions north :
this was an ill-conceived enterprize : still for-
tune presented herself for a moment, but this ad-
venturer let her slip through his arms. Had he,
instead of losing time in attempting to possess
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH 01 ITALT. 141
himself of the batteries on tlic Pd, a paltry pre-
caution when we consider that his enterprizc
necessarily involved success or ruin, and that
retreat was impossible — had he, instead of this,
given his enemies the slip, and marched into
Piedmont, he would have found there the rem-
nants of a discontented soldiery, trained to con-
quest, and who would possibly have lined his
army with such strength as might have enabled
Italy to make a desperate effort for indepen-
dence. He did not; and the last stake was lost.
( 142 )
LETTER XLVII.
Description of the Fire in Ca Corner — Conduct of
the Austrian Government and Troops — Mode of con-
structing the Foundations of Houses in Venice — of
supplying the City with fresh Water,
Venice, December, 1817.
The repose of Venice, a few nights ago, was
fearfully disturbed. At about one in the morn-
ing, cannon were heard, the drums beat the
general, and troops assembled from all parts.
The first fear was that of a revolution ; but this
was soon changed for another, somewhat less
alarming. The cry of fogo ! was soon heard in
all directions, and a pyramid of flame which burst
out at no great distance, confirmed the truth.
The sort of square in which my house was
situated, was soon filled with people, but again
abandoned ; so that the stage, at intervals, re-
mained clear. And that there might not be
wanting some strange resemblance to an Italian
drama, three men of a low description, who
were apparently ignorant of the alarm, sud-
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 143
(lenly appeared, tuned their guitars, and began
a serenade. Their ill-timed music was paid in a
coin which they little expected : a party of sol-
diers issued from the military governor's house,*
opposite to that which I inhabit, surrountled the
unfortunate musicians, and drove them away to
assist at the extinction of the fne. They, as
you will easily conceive, had recourse, hut in
vain, to complaints and remonstrances. " Alala-
tetti, niente cap'u^'' was the only answer ; the in-
tended force of which words was inculcated
by a few pricks of the bayonet. I should be
ashamed to mention the momentary effect which
this strange interlude produced upon me, if it
was not notorious that the mind is sometimes
most sensible of the ludicrous, when under the
influence of awful impressions; a circumstance
which, perhaps, explains the possibility of our
deriving pleasure from a mixture of the horrible
and the ridiculous in works of fiction ; though
this, in common theory, would appear a con-
* The history of this house may give some general notion
of the state of Venice. It was parted with a few years ago for
a small sum by its last proprietor, a once rich and noble lady,
who died in the last stage of indigence and misery, or, as the
Italians term it, " upon itraiu."
144 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
junction monstrous and disgusting.* As I had
no wish to share the fate of the conscribed, and
had no reason to beHeve my infirmities would
be a protection, I remained at home, or, to speak
more precisely, in bed.
The house in which this fire took place was a
magnificent palace, situated on the grand canal,
entitled Ca Corner, which I saw whimsically
enough translated, in an English paper, the Cor-
ner-house, and such it in fact was. The family
of Corner, you will recollect, formerly gave a
crown to Venice,t but their genealogical tree is
now withered, root and branch. They had, ac-
cordingly, sold this magnificent patrimony, for a
trifling sum, to the Austrian government, which
occupies, for its various offices, nearly double
the space of that to which it succeeded on the
expulsion of the French.
It is scarcely possible to imagine a house
more happily situated for the extinction of fire ;
for the basement story is washed, in front, by
the grand canal, and laterally, by one of the
rii, so that it is accessible on two sides by
* Madame de Stacl says, I believe, in her Dtfphine, " le
peril raonte la tete com me le via."
t The crown of Cyprus.
LETTERS FROM THE XOUTIl OF lTy\LV. 145
water; an immense advantage, because the
engines, whicli are placed in well-boats, thus oc-
cupy positions both in front and flank, and have
a constant supply : Unless indeed the Austrian
soldiers could be supposed to have grounds for
their belief, that salt-water will not extinguish
fire; a street anecdote which was current next
day, and which, if not true, will at least shew
you in what estimation their wits are held by
the Venetians. The weather too, which was
drizzling, seconded local advantages, but the
flames raged, for a time, unabated, continued for
four-and-twenty houis, and finally reduced the
interior of this princely fabric to a heap of ruins.
Some account of the mode of operations for
the extinction of the fire, will explain the cause,
and indeed to some of these I was an eye-wit-
ness ; though, for the greater part, I remained,
whilst others
" Survey'd llic whole scene with wonder,
Much like Caligula, under a bed,
Studying the cause of lightning and thunder."
I have already mentioned the vicinity of the
governor's house to my own. Now the fire,
though it appeared very near, was almost in-
stantly proclaimed to be in Ca Conihr at the
distance of nearly half a mile. Notwithstand-
VOL. II. L
146 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
ing this, the first detachment of troops which
was formed, instead of at once moving to the
spot, proceeded very deUberately to examine
the governor's premises, and having ascertained
that there was no fire there, marched off in what,
I suppose, they called quick time, to the place
where there xvas.
The fire in the mean time was of course gain-
ing ground, and indeed continued to do so after
their arrival ; a circumstance which will not ap-
pear extraordinary, considering their conduct.
For the soldiery of an Alaric could not have
presented a more barbarous spectacle of indis-
cipline. More intent on plunder, than assisting
in the extinction of the fire, these men forced
the doors, and seized upon cases containing
money,* or papers, vv^hich they broke up and
* Some of these deposits belonged to clerks employed by
the government, who were totally ruined by their losses. It is
to be observed, that the Italians rarely place money in the
hands of a merchant, but with a view to traffic. Hence all
keep money for present use in their desks, and some enormous
sums. I do not exaggerate when I state that I knew an
instance of a strong closet found propped, at the death of its
proprietor, on account of the weight of gold contained in it.
In support of the generality of this practice, and the neces-
sity of it, I shall mention two anecdotes. Wishing to profit by
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 147
threw into the flames, appropriating their con-
tents: they dashed in pieces magnificent mir-
rors, the manufacture of the country, carrying
one of our few lucid intervals of exchange, I once drew
four hundred louis in a considerable Italian city. I wished to
deposit these in the hands of the person who had supplied
them, but he refused the charge. I at last found a person who
took them, but he tormented me so continually to take them
back, that I was obliged to acquiesce in his desire. His rea-
son was, that, as the time at which I might have occasion
for them was uncertain, they were a useless incumbrance
to him.
I was more fortunate in my banker than an Italian friend,
from whom I learned accidentally that he had several thousand
francs deposited in his house in the country. Remonstrating
with him on the danger of this, he asked me, " What I would
have him do ? — that he had once deposited a large sum in the
hands of a banker, and that, on redemanding it, he told him
frankly he had it not in his possession, and that it would take
him a considerable time to re-collect it."
I need hardly observe how strongly the practice 1 have men-
tioned, attests the honesty of the Italian servants; for nothing
is more rare than a domestic robbery, indeed so rare, that /
never knew an example of it. I have lost many things travel-
ling, but never had any reason to believe that they were stolen;
and an ingenious English artist, long established in Italy, with
whom I recollect comparing notes on this subject, told me, that
getting up one morning in Rome, about ten o'clock he per-
ceived he had lost a book, which he thought he must have
dropt from his pocket overnight in searching for his house-key.
He immediately went in pursuit of it, and found it lying in the
l2
148 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
off the fragments to serve tliem as shaving-
glasses in their quarters, and, in their senseless
love of plunder, stuffed even the well-soaked
sponges of ink-glasses into their breeches-pockets.
Yet the Austrian soldier, thus lawless when
protected by circumstances of night, and num-
bers, is the same man who lets himself be
bastinadoed in sunshine with complacency;
who issues from his rank at the bidding of a
corporal, makes a back, receives a caning, thanks
the inflictor, and returns in ordinary time to his
company.
You would, perhaps, think this system little
calculated to fit a man for the various duties of
a soldier, and not even likely to have the imme-
diate effect which it is intended to produce.
Such is not the opinion of the majority of con-
tinental marshals and martinets. These, with the
exception of the French and Italians, who abhor
the stick as much as the English, seem to think
that a magic virtue resides in the cudgel of the
corporal. But if the system is bad, the abuse
to which it is open is infinitely worse ; for it is
street before the door, though thousands^perhaps had passed in
the interval between the loss and the recovery.
The mirrors mentioned in the text belonged to the family,
which had not yet removed them.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 149
to be recollected, that in all services, more espe-
cially the one in question, there are fops and
tyrants, men
" Whose paltry passion is for slang and swagger,
The soldier's bestial oaths, and l)rutal jeering; —
For jargon, and jackboots, and sword and dagger,
And picketing, and caning, and cashiering."
Court and Parliament of Beasts.
How little essential discipline seems to be
j)romotcd by this system, has been seen upon
the present occasion. But if the conduct of the
troops had been more respectable, and had they
laboured heartily in the service, on which they
were commanded, there were not arms where-
with to combat the enemy. There were indeed
seven engines in the Arsenal, but only one was
fit for action. To render the others available,
they seized the first object which came to
hand, and official papers, containing accounts,
&c. were applied to the stoppage of holes and
crevices. The story told was, that aj)plica-
tion had been previously made to the govern-
ment of the place for their repair; but the answer
given, that a representation must first be made
upon the subject at Vienna. However this may
be, the fact that they had been for months out
of repair was notorious throughout Venice.
l3
150 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
In this country (I may say throughout Italy)
the system of insurance against lire is unknown,
as is the insurance of life ;* and indeed the only
species of insurance which I know of is that of
contraband English goods. It will follow from
what I have stated, that the only means of com-
bating fire reside in the government. In the
ancient state of Venice, the provident care of
the magistracy was conspicuous with regard to
this ; for the arsetialotti, or artificers, of the Ar-
senal, were, in addition to their other services,
employed as firemen, and, as such, richly paid
and encouraged. These, in the days of the re-
public, amounted to three thousand ; they are
now reduced to as many hundreds, ill-paid, and,
in consequence, ill-affected to their employers.
It was said, that they worked upon this occa-
sion with courage and activity! in tearing down
* The insurance of life is unknown in Italy. Captains of ships
sometimes get it done at Constantinople.
t They gave a strong proof also that they were of superior
honesty. A connection of the family, with whom I had inter-
course, had some pipes of foreign wines in the cellars ; he
broke into these w hen the pillage was at its height, with a band
of arsetialotti, making his approach by the rio which I have
mentioned, and carried off all his treasures without loss, his
LETTERS FROM THE NOUTll OF ITALY. \5\
walls to prevent the communication ot" the lire,
but that their efforts were not commensurate in
extinguishing it. Their conduct may be ex-
plained in two ways. It would not, perhaps, be
attributing too much to Italian relinement to
suppose that they might labour cheerfully for
the preservation of the property of their fellow
citizens, while they saw with pleasure the de-
struction of that of the government. Another
and more simple cause would, however, afford
sufficient explanation. These men, ill-paid at
other times, were well rewarded, by the day,
when thus employed. So that they found their
account in necessitating the prolongation of
their services.
The Ca Corner was sold to the Austrian go-
vernment for the sum which had been expended
on its riva, or water-foundations.
I have not, in my account of the localities of
Venice, explained how these are formed. I shall
take this opportunity to supply the deficiency.
The water is excluded, as with us in works of
a similar description : The first stratum of soil
below the bottom of the canals is then thrown
assistants contenting; themselves with the gift of five or six dol-
lars, and not having pierced a cask.
l4
152 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
out, because this, as being soft alluvial matter^
afFoids no solid foundation, and piles are driven
into that beneath it, which appears to have been
the original bed of the lagoon, and on which a
mass of mud or malm (inelmd) has been accu-
mulated.
This naturally suggests another question.
Such being the nature of the soil, how is
Venice supplied with water? Every campo has
its wells; but these, though wells in appearance,
are, in fact, great reservoirs of rain water, which,
as the pavement slopes towards them, is received
in drains lined with sand, and so filtered into its
receptacle. This, that the salt water may not
penetrate it below, is carefully bricked with
mortar, upon a body of cement and clay. The
water thus collected is very considerable in
quantity, yet much more might undoubtedly be
procured, were the roofs of the houses con-
structed of flat terraces, as is the case in Malta.
It is true, indeed, that what runs from them
into the campi is conveyed into the w^ells ; but
what runs from them into the rii or the cale is
lost : in the rii necessarily, in the cale because
they are so dirty from the throng of passengers,
that the water would be rendered unfit for use,
as well as collected with difficulty.
Still a sufficiency of rain-water is usually
LETTEllS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 153
obtained, though in hot and (hy summers, like
the last, the eity is not suflieient to itself. lu this
case, however, it is not without a supply; for
water is then brought, at a reasonable price,
from the Brenta ; and, as a resource against a
blockade, large reservoirs are formed in the Lido.
The ])ossibility of these running short, le(| the
government, at a time that the enemy was in
possession of the main land, to bore for a spring
on this spot, and the experiment was attended
with apparent success ; but the quick exhaustion
of the supposed source, as well as its mixed
character, (for it was slightly brackish,) proved
it to ha\e been probably salt water percolated
through the sand.
Still there is no doubt that fresh water might
be obtained by sinking deep enough, in Venice,
since ancient wells existed in Torzelo and some
other islands of the lestuary. Indeed it has been
found here, but always in a spot where it
could be of no avail, as in driving piles for
the foundations of houses, &c. It is usually un-
imprisoned on piercing a hard stratum, which
lies under the moist alluvial matter of a later
date. This is called, in \''cnetian, caranto ; but
I am, unfortunately, ignorant of its Italian,
French, or English name. It a|)j)ears to be a
species of indurated earth; the outer crust of
154 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
which requires to be broken with the pick-axe.
On the inside, however, it is soft and saponace-
ous. Masses, seemingly of this description, are
to be seen on the beach, at the foot of Hordle
chff, in Hampshire, which have been brought
down by streams, in a different state, from the
height above, and apparently acquired their new
character from the mixt action of fresh and salt
water* with which they are occasionally cover-
ed. This substance is at Hordle of a blue colour;
it is here sometimes blue and sometimes of a yel-
lowish cast.
With regard, however, to the main point,
there exists very curious evidence of Venice
having been anciently supplied with fresh
* The circumstance of this substance being always, 1 believe,
found on the surface in planes apparently exposed to the action
of salt water, would lead me to suppose that such was neces-
sary to its formation. If this be so, we have here a strong ar-
gument for the great plain of Lombardy having been once co-
vered by the Adriatic, since the caranto is found every where.
Near Modena, as here, it forms the crust covering the springs,
which lie about si.xty feet deep. Yet the plain of Modena is,
according to Sir George Shuckburgh, 200 feet above the level
of the sea.
I cannot leave Hordle cliff unnoticed on another account.
The rare fossils, found there, are of the same kind as many
discovered in the mountains near Verona.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 155
spring-water. In the year 1680, when the eanal
called the Canaregio* was deepening, (the eanal
whieh forms the entrance to Venice on the
landward side of the Lagoon,) a considerahle
source of water was discovered which was more
nearly fresh than salt.
It rose from the centre of a (juadrilateral
cassoon, composed of thick planks secured by
strong palisades; the points of which were
planted one foot beneath the then bottom of the
canal, and seven beneath the low water mark.
The cassoon itself, was seven feet deep. The
spring which issued from it was so copious,
that it was found impossible to exhaust it. A
ship's pump, with the bottom of tlie tube se-
cured by a plug, was then forced into the hole
from which it sprung. This drawn, the water
rose perfectly fresh and sweet to the surface.
There is then no doubt that the surface of the
cassoon was formerly above ground, and it must
have formed a cistern for the receptacle of foun-
tain water before the canal existed, and before
the slow but progressive rise of the tides had
overwhelmed it.
In Italian, Canal ngio.
156 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
Of this increase and invasion of the sea
there is no doubt, though some persons imagine
that Ocean has long been caUing oft' his waters
from the Lagoon. A few facts are sufficient to
disprove this error. In the island of San Seco?ido,
in front of the Canaregio, some years ago^ were
discovered Pcoman pavements and vaults, three
feet and a half beneath low water mark, and
the rise of water would seem to have been more
rapid in ages more nearly approaching our own
time; for, in turning the church of San Gem-
miniano, in the place of St. Mark, into a palace,
and penetrating below the ancient foundations,
a puntil, {as, it is called here,) or wooden landing
place, like those in modern use, was discovered
beneath them.
It is impossible to conjecture, with any proba-
bility, the date of the cassoon-fountain that I
mentioned, since some woods, when exposed to
the sole action of salt water, will last for many
centuries, and palisades have been found here in
pavements, known to be Roman from the stamp
and inscriptions of the tiles of which they were
composed. For the rest, the change in the chan-
nels which intersect the Lagoon is common,
and easily explained : They depend on currents,
which again depend on the rivers which flow into
it, and vary according to the volume of water
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 157
which these bring down, or the impediments it
meets.
Besides the reservoirs which I have mentioned
in the Campi of modern Venice, there are some
in private houses, and tlierc were two in C() Cor-
n^r, in which, according to vulgar bchef, the
water was filtered through quick silver and gold
dust, instead of sand. Tradition said that these
had been formed by a Corner (not the Corner,
I imagine, who published on regimen) as a pre-
caution against the gravel ; But the magnifi-
cence of the patrician palaces is sufiiciently
indicative of the disposition of the proprietors,
without recurring to the exaggerations of fable.
The houses of the rich nobles are spacious
throughout Italy, but more particularly in Ve-
nice. The palace of an acquaintance of mine,
now sold for nearly nothing, in consequence of
a distress for taxes, lodged two or three branches
of his family, and contained upwards of seventy
bed-rooms.* The immense size of these build-
ings is explained by the supposition that those
of the more ancient nobles served for magazines
as well as dwelling houses, and that the fashion,
thus begun, was continued; though the motive
for it no longer existed.
* In the kitchens were 100 stoves.
158 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
One more last word respecting the Corner pa-
lace : I have already mentioned that it had been
converted into an office; and in this were depo-
sited public papers of considerable importance.
A quantity of these were missing, which could
not be supposed to have been destroyed. Two
days afterwards I saw a placard on the walls, on
the part of the government, not offering a re-
ward to any one who should restore them, but
threatening those who retained them with ven-
geance, much in the tone a conjuror or Avitch
would, I suppose, employ against such as had
purloined their cat or their cauldron.
A day or two afterwards there came out a new
order of the government, in the Venetian Ga-
zette, highly complimentary to the troops who
had been employed, and full of commendations
of their discipline and activity.
( 1.^9 )
LETTER XLVIII.
Vetietian Festivals, Customs, and Table — Difference of
National Taste, S^r.
Venice, December, 1817.
The Christmas liolidays, properly speaking, are
just past. Tlie first, beginning with Christmas
eve, is a day of great festivity with the Vene-
tians; one of those on which the head of a house
usually entertains his family and friends; almost
every such person having a day, as St. Martin's
or Christmas eve, appropriated to such a purpose.
On these occasions the rich and liberal feed
many, and feast high, though in the present in-
stance, as it is the vigil of a holiday, and one of
those very few meager days which are (generally
speaking) observed by the Italian laity, their
fare is confined to loaves and fishes. Even I can-
not refuse a tribute to the excellence of the
table of Christmas eve, though, after feeding
two or three months on Catholic and frugal
cates in Tuscany, where
" il cane sen doleva e '1 gatto
Che gli ossi rimanean troppo puliti,"
Pithi*
» — . where clog
And cat complain'd the bones were gnaw'd too clean.
1(50 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY*
I had reason to say, with Mercutio, " O flesh,
flesh, how art thou fishyficd!" and am still almost
at odds with ichthiophagy.
This is, however, less dreadful because more
varied on these solemn days. On these the Ita-
lians usually dine late; and on this occasion the
lower people of Venice seldom dine at all, work-
ing double tides at supper. The practice seems
to originate in the notion that it is not right to
make superfluous meals on this solemn day, the
inconsistency of turning the single one, to which
they confine themselves, into a feast, having
nothing which is revolting to their ideas. It
should, however, be observed, that this practice
depends purely upon popular opinion, and on no
injunction of the church.
Speaking of these feasts, I was invited, I re-
collect, once, on St. INIartin's day, by a hospitable
family of Vicenza, but declined the honour, on
being informed by an annual guest that the table
was laid on that occasion with forty covers.
It is difficult, indeed, to conceive any thing more
tedious than one of these solemn repasts, on
whatever occasion it may be held, at which every
dish is carved and circled at intervals. This is,
no doubt, a most rational custom in the main,
leaving host and guests at liberty ; but the time,
occupied by the practice, when the society is
numerous, is surely more than a counterbalance
LETTEKS FKOl^r THE NORTH OE ITALY. 1 6' I
to the coiucnicncc. I remember, for instanee,
beino- once present at a dinner, given by the
cardinal pro-secretary of state at Rome, where
the company consisted of twenty-five persons,
and the dinner, in consequence, lasted for three
hours. I dont know u hethcr three or four other
English, wlio were present, suffered as mucli as
I did, but, for myself, I never felt half so fatigued
at any after-dinner-sitting in Englandor in Scot-
lantl. For, though both customs are bad enough,
it is surely better to drink when one is not dry
than to eat when one is not hungry.
For the Venetian holidays I have mentioned
there are set dishes,*' as there are with ns, and
some of them of as strange composition: witness,
one of fruits, preserved with sugar, spices, and
mustard, which is the Venetian equivalent for a
minced-pie. For the rest, the fare of Christmas
eve, though meagre, is, as I have said, magnifi-
cent, alw ays bating a sort of pye-pottage, called
iorta dc lasagne., which might, I suppose, pair
off with plum-porridge itself.
There is indeed one circumstance very favor-
able to the meagre (lc[)artment of the kitchen.
The Mediterranean and Adriatic, in addition to
* Generally termed jticitti di nilnica.
VOL. II. M
162 LETTERS FROM THE N(DRTH OF ITALY.
most of those of our own coasts, have various
delicate fish which are not to be found in the
British seas. Of the tunny, sword-fish, and
many others of the larger classes, you have of
course read. Some others, which are rare with
us, as the red mullet, swarm in these latitudes ;
and some tribes which are known to us, here
break into varieties which are infinitely bet-
ter flavoured than the parent stock. Amongst
such may be reckoned a sort of lobster^* a crab
of gentler kind, and various shell fish, entitled
sea-fruit'\ in Italy, all which might well merit
the eloquence of an Athenaeus.
But not to pass by the torta de lasagne, of
which I had nearly lost sight, though its taste
is fresh in my recollection: It is composed of
oil, onions, paste, parsley, pine-nuts, raisins, cur-
rants, and candied orange peel, a dish which,
you will recollect, is to serve as a prologue to
fish or flesh !
It ought, however^ to be stated that the ordi-
nary pottage of this country, and which is, gene-
rally speaking, that of all ranks in Venice, re-
quires no prejudices of education or habit to
* The real lobster is, however, rarer in the Mediterranean
t*han with us.
t Frutti di mare.
LETTEUS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. l63
make it go clown, but may be considered as a
dish to be eat at sight. It consists in rice boiled
in beef broth, not sodden, and rari ?iantes, as in
England and France, but firm, and in sucli (juan-
tity as to nearly, or quite, absorb the bouillon hi
which they are cooked : To this is added grated
Parmesan cheese. And the mess admits other
additions, as tomatas, onions, celery, parsley, &c.
Rice thus dressed, wliich have drunk up the
broth, are termed ?'isi desiirai, as capable of being
spread, right or left, with the spoon. There is
also a vulgar variety of tlie dish, termed risi a
la becliera, or rice dressed butcher fashion. In
this the principal auxiliary is marrow, which, if
it is entirely incorporated in the grain, makes a
pottage that (speaking after a friend) wouki
almost justify the sacrifice of an Esau.
The mode of cooking the rice to a just degree
of consistency, seems taken from the Turks,
who ha\e a saying that rice, as a proof of being-
well drest, should be capable of being counted.
You will recollect the importance attached to
this grain by the Janissaries, whose rice-kettles
serve as standards; and, iu general, by the
Turkish militia, which is recruited by parading
them, and calling for the services of such as eat
the rice of the Grand Signior. An almostequal
degree of respect is attached to this food by the
M 2
154 LETTERS FROM TilE NORTH OF ITALV.
Venetians, and it is a common thing, on hiring
a Venetian maid-servant, for her to stipulate for
a certain monthly salary, and her rice.
Another custom, derived from the long inter-
course of V'enice with Turkey, is the presenting
coffee at visits. Neither do tlie Venetians yield
to their masters in the manufacture of this be-
verage, the flavour of which depends much more
on its mode of preparation than its quality;* and
it is curious enough that England, where the
* The coffee consumed in the Levant is generally that of the
West India islands ; and though I have drunk it a thousand
times in Turkey, as v.cU at visits as at coffee-houses, I
never but once had it even announced to me as of Mocha.
This was on board tlie Capitan Pasha's ship, whose servant
whispered the information with a sort of mysterious parade.
Since I am on this subject, I should mention that a friend of
mine, formerly commodore at Alexandria, was commissicmed
to procure a (quantity of Mocha coffee, which was sent him
across the desert, on camels, and carried by him, untouched, to
Malta. It was there delivered ovcrto the examination of coffee-
sorters, who are to be found in that island ; and these pro-
nounced one fourth part to consist of a berry of another
growth — so difficult is it to procure this fruit unadulterated.
The coffee in Turkey, however, is excellent, because it is fresh-
roasted, infused liberally, and drunk immediately. In England
it is detestable, because it is often bought in powder, (and
therefore probably adulU'rated,) or fried in fat, doled out by
pinches, and let stand till it is acid. From the same cause (the
LETTERS IROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 1 65
coffec-bciiv and the cacao-nut arc to be had in
perfection, sliould be the only country in Euro|)c
where the drink w hich is composed from them
isunsufferable.
To return to a tlieme on which I have already
touched, the strange fashions of food w hicii have
some how or other passed into use amongst (hf-
fercnt nations, wliilst they are poison to their
neighbours, from tlie torta ik lasagjic of \\nice
to the partridge and poultice of England ; there
seems to be but one general exception to this
principle, which is the coupling bread, or some
substitute for it, with meat — a practice which is.
Frencli usually make it over nii^ht) coft'cc, though better than
in England, is never good in France.
Our custom of drinking creatn or milk with it proljal)Iy ren-
ders us so strangely indifferent to its flavour.
Tiic passion of the \'enetians for coffee-houses, in which men
and women of all ranks delight, is generally known. There
are, I think, twenty in St. Mark's Place alone. The Ijest of
these are adorned with great elegance, are covered with mir-
rors, and have handsome awnings before them in fine weather;
and under these arc assembled as many persons as in the room
itself. This, according to the tone of the country, is open
and undivided by partitions. Formerly, however, these shops
savoured more of the aristocratical spirit of separation, being
broken into large stalls like our own. But as this mitigated,
long previous to the French revolution, these barriers aiso
disappeared.
W 3
166 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY,
I believe, common to all nations that have
grain, or farinaceous fruit or root, within their
reach. But this fact does not prove that there is
any natural standard of taste : For this union of
bread and meat is not dictated by instinct,
though in what it originates, except in the agree-
ment of different countries in its wholesomeness,
I know not. A strong proof of its not being-
dictated by instinct I have witnessed in Italian
as well as English children, who are both trained
with difficulty to the practice, and usually en-
ticed into it by bonuses of beef and mutton. A
whimsical confirmation, indeed, of my opinion
was lately offered, by this place, in an old gen-
tleman, who, not having been in infancy either
beat or bribed into bread, never adopted it in
after-life, continuing to his death a curious speci-
men of unsophisticated carrion. If his example
makes against the notion of this use originating
in instinct, it might also (as far as a single
instance can tell) suggest some doubt of its
necessity; for the carnivorous person lived long
and merrily.
The present anecdote, and some others which
I have not given you, and more particularly the
having once seen a man eat melon with Spanish
snuff, (a sight not singular, as I am told, in Italy,)
have almost forced the conviction upon me, that
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 167
there is no such thing as a gamut for tlie palate.
If you urge, in oj3p()sition, the general analogy
of nature, I do not know what hattie 1 can make;
but if you attack me with the trite instance of
the passion of young children for spirits, I sliall
observe that they soon grow out of it : and this,
therefore, seems to prove nothing more than an
early obtuseuess of palate, which is gratified by
any thing that is stimulating. And something
analogous mav be remarked in the voiing of
other animals, as in puppy-dogs, who eat filth till
they come to dog's estate, &c.
Having related the domestic uses of Christmas
eve, there yet remain those of tAvo other days to
be described. The table oi Christmas day is be-
sieged by a much smaller circle than on the vigil
of the feast, being, on the present occasion, only
surrounded by the family, or those intimately
connected with it. Here too there are dishes
of prescription, though I never heard that any
penalty was attached to the abstaining from
them, as is the case in England. But as almost
every superstition exists, in its whole or parts, all
the world over, so this is also to be found here
under the general head of Moon^ who, as the
arbitress of tides, is the great cause of all inex-
plicable effects. Hence a lower Venetian, who
)ias no money in his pocket, at the aj)pearance
ivi 4
168 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
of this planet, expects to remain without it till
she has repaired her horns.
St. Slepliai's day brings with it, I believe, lit-
tle that is remarkable, except the general rush
from all parts of Venice to the theatres, which,
having been closed for a short time, re-open on
tliat day. There seems to be as much supersti-
tion, indeed, as to being seen at the Opera, at the
theatre of the Fenice, on that occasion, as is
attached to eating the torfa de lasagne on Christ-
mas eve. The only intelligible attraction is that
the Opera is always new ; but as such, it must ne-
cessarily be deficient in the precision of its ma-
chinery. Notwithstanding such an objection, a
box, on this night, cannot be had under five or,
perhaps, ten guineas, which, three nights after-
wards, may be procured for one — nay, at the
interval of some weeks, at the price of fifteen
pence, as I know from personal experience. If
it is suspension of rank not to appear at the
PhoinLv ; it is absolute forfeiture of cast not to be
able to say that you were at some theatre or
other; and, on the evening of St. Stephen, not a
lady is to be found at home in Venice.
To take a long leap : the Epiphany is called
here the Epif'ama, ox Befanla, indifferently; as if
it took its nan;e from the Bejana — an odd sort
of she-goblin, who is supposed to preside over
LETTERS ruOM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 1(T£)
Twclttli-clay. This is not distinouislicd l)y the
ceremonies with which it is celebrated by us,
thougli some of tliese were of Latin origin. The
rites are propitiatory of the Bej'aiia, who seems
to fill the same j)lace lu re \\hich the queen of
the fairies formerly did in England. Children
usually leave her a part of their siipj)er, or, at
least, a brown roll, (for 6iie is supj)osed to prefer
brown bread to white.) and a tumbler of wine.
As a receptacle for the exchange of merchan-
dize, they suspend a stocking in the kitchen,
Avhich is found, the next morning, filled with
dirt, rubbish, and a few sweatmeats. I need not
observe that the bread and wine disappear. At
Kome a puppet, representing the Bcfana, is
dressed up and hung with Christmas presents.
There is nothing here, that 1 am aware of,
which is interesting in the scenic part of the re-
ligious functions of this festival, with the ex-
ception of the music of a mass, called la Pasto-
rale, in commemoration of that with which our
Sayiour is supposed to have been saluted by the
shepherds, and usually imitative of the sounds of
the pastoral pipes. This, which is various in
various churches, is always comj)osed according
to the ])rincij)les of the old school. Its tone, on
this solenni occasion, is much relished by the
Italians, notwithstanding they are by no means
iowiXo^ ancient music, having (as I should imagine
170 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
is the general disposition of man) much more
sensibihty to melody than harmony, and seldom
pretending to a taste which they do not really
possess.
You will not, I think, quarrel with me for
stringing together the " auld world," as well as
the newer stories of the place; the less so as
all recollections of ancient Venice may be con-
sidered as things saved from the waters. The
customs of the city have changed ; her ports and
channels are filling up, and her palaces are
crumbling into ruins.* Yet a little, and Venice
will be a JBaby-Babylon, with the substitution
of the gull for the bittern and the porpus for
the fox. Should you be (as I believe) desirous
of raking for riches amidst her rubbish, read
the Feste Veneziane, lately published by la Dama
JHenier Michiel. This lady has, in her descrip-
tion of the Venetian festivals, put together much
that is curious and interesting, and having formed
a chaplet out of relics long trampled in the dirt,
hung it up on the altars of her country, in a
spirit that would not have misseemed the most
illustrious of her ancestry.
* The government, to stave ott' this evil, have prohibited the
pulling down of houses, so that the possessors have not eve^
^he benefit of their ruins.
( 171 )
LETTER XLIX.
Ol/wr Festivals and Cusloms, S,c.
\'cnicc, January, 1818.
To one who hunts such game as 1 pursue, mat-
ter is nevTr wanting. This small chace may be
compared to bird-nesting, in a track, where there
are nests in every bush. There is no scarcity of
esfss — the difficulty lies in strinoin"' them.
Under the impression of this, I am tempted to
interrupt the order of time, (rather than break the
thread of my argument,) and to pursue the
subject of my last Letter according to old recol-
lections, though I shall greatly anticipate events.
The Carnival, thou^'h it is o-ayer or duller ac-
cording to the genius of the nations which cele-
brate it, is, in its general character, nearly the
same all over the peninsula. The beginning is
like any other season ; towards the middle you
begin to meet masques and mummers in sunshine;
in tlie last lifteen days the plot tliiekens ; and
during the three last all is lunly burly. But to
paint these, which may be almost considered as a
separate festival, I must avail myself of the
J 72 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
words of Messrs. William and Thomas Whistle-
craft, ill whose " prospectus and specimen of an
intended national work," I find the description
ready made to my hand, observing, that besides
the ordinary dramatis personcBj
" Beggars and vagabonds, blind, lame, and sturdy.
Minstrels and singers, with their various airs,
The pipe, the tabor, and the hurdy-gurdy,
Jugglers and mountebanks, with apes and bears.
Continue, from the first day to the third day,
An uproar like ten thousand Smithfield fairs."
The shops are shut, all business is at a stand,
and the drunken cries heard at night, afford
a clear proof of the pleasures to which these days
of leisure are dedicated.
These holidays may surely be reckoned
amongst the secondary causes which contribute
to the indolence of the Italian, since they re-
concile this to his conscience as being of reli-
gious institution. Now there is, perhaps, no
offence which is so unproportionably punished
by conscience as that of indolence. With the
wicked man, it is an intermittent disease; with
the idle man, it is a chronic one.
On the first stroke of Lent, the sea is suddenly
hushed, and not even a swell remains. This
LETTERS FUOM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 173
season of peace and penitence is however intei-
rupted by a very odd popular festival which
takes place (accordinu; to our University slang)
on the day that term divides. The origin of it
seems lost; for, though common, in the greater
part of Italy,* with some variety of circum-
stance, I never met with a person, from the pro-
fessor to the barber, m ho could suggest any pro-
bable explanation. I shall describe it as it is
performed in Venice.
A small stage, with a covering, is erected in
the most spacious campo of the parishes, M'hicli
celebrate the festival. Upon this appears the
effigy of an old woman, and seated before her
are two men, one habited as a notary, the other
as a sort of military jack-pudding with a drawn
sabre. These two eat and drink, and dispute
about her fate, one being apparently the advo-
cate and the other the accuser of the dame. This
insists upon her being burnt; and that declares
she shall be saved. An appeal is at length made
to the people, who unanimously condemn her
to the flames. At length, after some accessary
games, such as running in sacks, swarming up
* There is, I believe, some sort of popular festival at tlii>
period in France.
174 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
a greased pole for fowls, flasks of wine, &c.,
lashed to the top, the figure is set fire to
amidst a volley of squibs, and burnt, much as
Guy Fawkes is with us.
There is little that is striking in what is termed
passion week by us, and the holy week by the
Italians, the week preceding this last being
termed passion week here, and I suppose in other
Catholic countries. I except one circumstance.
Till the period of the Ascension, all clocks and
bells are silenced; and I recollect that this prin-
ciple was carried so far in Malta, that even the
Governor, Sir Hildebrand Oakes's dinner bell
was dismounted by the Maltese part of his es-
tablishment; a liberty which he had the good
sense and good-nature to suffer, contrary to the
usual habits of military chiefs.
It is impossible for me to go back in recollec-
tion to Malta, without observing the diiference
of colour which the Roman Catholic religion
takes from the national character of the people
amongst whom it is cultivated. I cannot look
back on the Procession of Penitents in that island
during the sett'imana santa without horror:
whilst at Naples there is something of festive,
even in the representation of those events, which
seem least to admit such a character. I allude
to the transparencies of the holy sepulchre ex-
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 175
hibited in different churches, and which arc
visited by numerous parties, in tlie spirit of
pleasure, rather than of pilgrimage.
As usual, something of superstitious obser-
vance mingles in the meats of this, as well as of
the other religious festivals. Our hot-cross-buns
have an equivalent in cakes marked with a cross;
and a lamb, or at least part of a roast lamb, is eat,
(I suppose this is Jewish) as are also hard eggs,
in every family of Italy, on Easter sunday.
( 176 )
LETTER L.
On the Discoveries of the early Venetians.
Venice, January, 1818.
I WENT yesterday to the public library for the
purpose of looking at the famous maypamondo of
Fra Mauro^ a lion, which (strange to say !) I had
never seen. When we consider the age in which
this marvellous monument of science was con-
structed, and the circumstances which relate to
it, it is impossible to refuse the Venetians a high
place in the rank of discoverers. This singular
work was composed, we know, about the middle
of the fifteenth century ; at a time when one
should have thought that beyond what had been
made out by the ancients, materials must have
been absolutely wanting for such a work. Yet
what anticipations of after-knowledge do w^e not
find in it, and what a strange twilight must
have broken upon Venice; though the daylight
which followed was destined to other nations,
till then sitting in darkness !
You are doubtless informed of the Fra Mau-
ro\ having maintained the possibility of circum-
navigating Africa, but are perhaps not aware of
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITAJ.V. 177
the precise evidence (tliough Tiraboschi lias
written on the subject) which exists of liis
inappcunoiido having suggested to Don Henry of
Portugal the very scheme which was, in the
course of time, to arrest the progress of Venetian
greatness. This fact lias been put beyond the
reacli of tloul)t, by the Abbot Ziirla, who lias
collected the most minute circumstances attend-
ing these transactions. Zurla has also illus-
trated the voyage of the Zeni to the north,
which, it appears to me, can no more be consi-
dered fabulous than the tra\els of Marco Polo^
and has thrown ncw^ light upon the singular
discoveries of Alvise di Ca da Mosto*
There is much scattereil evidence of other
early unpublished discoveries; and the commerce
which these people carried on in the interior of
Africa, at an early period of their history, is
almost placed beyond doubt.
Conquest is always ruinous to knowledge.
A part of the old Venetian documents were
carried away to Milan, and those left are so
crowded and disordered that it is impossible to
* Or Alxisi of the house of Moslo. Persons ignorant of tlio
meaning of these terms bave run ihcni into one lump, and
christened him Cadamosto.
VOL. II. N
178 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
refer to tliem ; yet an imperfect list of a part
of these confirms what I have just alluded to;
I mean the interior African commerce of the
Venetians, which appears to have been carried
on by regular caravans.
May not, perhaps, the distant voyages which
these people seem to have made, and the inter-
course they had with remote nations, which can
only explain the composition of the mappamon-
do, serve also to explain the odd prophecies and
half lights respecting another world* that were
atloat prior to the promises of the
*' Nudo nocchier promettitor di regni?"^
Chiabrera.
Voltaire, with his usual flippancy, dismisses,
you will recollect, the famous passage of Dante,
as a mere accidental coincidence with truths
afterwards established ; and says the poet talked
metaphorically, signifying the cardinal virtues
by the four stars ; and spoke of purgatory, and
not of a real land. As to the first; he must
have read Dante with very little attention who
does not observe how often he speaks of things
in a double sense ; that is to say, in one real
* The same explanation may be given of the celebrated pas-
sage of Seneca.
t A scurvy skipper, promiser of crowns.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 179
and figurative; and how accurate be was in
applying his astronomical lights, according to
the site in which he lays his scene. Nor was
it extraordinary, that any one should at that
period consider the islands in question as the
actual purgatory. Voltaire, I believe, might
have learned from the Fathers, with whom he
affects so intimate an acquaintance, that Paradise
occupied a certain defined situation ; which is
even assigned to it in tbe mappamondo of Frd,
Mauro. And why then should not one of the
Western Islands have passed as well for the site
of Purgatory, according to the notions at that
time entertained? But a document indeed exists,
which ma}' throw more light on tbe probability
of that for which I co.itend. PktvG d' Abano^
a physician of celebrity, mentions in a letter,
Marco Polos having delineated for him what
was apparently one of the four stars of Datite.
Now this man was cotemjiorary with the poet,
who, you know, made a long residence at Ve-
nice.
The " sit apud te honos aiitiquitati ct fabulis
quoque'' is an injunction which I feel in its full
force; but I believe, that I am borne out by facts
as well as fable in my reverence for the early
Venetians, and in an opinion, which I entertain,
that the early history of this country contains
n2
180 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALl^
curious matter in the branch of arts and sciences,
which is not generally known; .and that other
natious have, in truth, only restored much which
they iuiaginc themselves to have invented.
In the " Storia Civile e Politica del Commercio
de Veneziani" the author, a Venetian gentleman
named Cay^lo Antonio Marin, amidst a variety of
proofs and presumptions of early Venetian dis-
coveries, states that, in a visit to a convent, which
he specifies, he saw a Crucifixion painted on
glass, with the date of 1 177.* He mentions also
that the friend who shewed it him and who
had analyzed the colours, maintained he had
found oil in the composition. Dr. Johnson,
no inaccurate examiner of evidence, in his life
of Fra Paolo Sarpi, says : " By him Acguapen-
dente, the great anatomist, confesses that he was
iristructed how vision is performed, and there
are proofs that he was not a stranger to the cir-
culation of the blood."
Let me add that, together wnth the obliga-
tions we have to this extraordinary people in
the improvement of humble but more useful
science, such as the introduction of precision into
matters of trade,t &c. we have some, of a different
* The Venetians were perhaps (and probably in this instance)
the depositaries of some of the arts of Constantinople.
t The mode of book-keeping by singlfc and double entry,
styled the Italian, undoubtedly originated with the Venetians.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITAI.V. 181
character, which wc probably little suspect. I
allude to the first statute of mortmain, imitated
from a Venetian law, enactinu; similar but
stronger provisions, and known by the same de-
nomination ; Ic leggi (Idle mani morte.
In an act founded on this j)rincij)le in 1767, I
find the following preamble: "Con nioltiplici
leggi, e particolarmente con {pielle del 13^53,
1506, di questo maggior consiglio, e con I'altra
1605 del senato, si procur^ d'impedire che li
stabili di questa citta c di questo stato non va-
dano negli ecclesiastici e cause pie per via di
Icgati, &c. &c. kc^
It is true that this principle of law was adopted
early, and very universally; I believe (though
you will know best) with the exception of the
Roman State, and I hnd it recognized in the
statutes of Milan, when under the dominion of
her dukes. Still no precise act upon the sub-
ject dates from so early a period as the first of
Venice.
Many Venetian words naturalized in Kngland (to say' nothing
of corresponding idioms) attest the great conwnunication we
must once have had with Wnice. Take, for instance, //rwo,
in our common English signilication piilegni, which is in this
sense called pituita in Italian ; slepa a slap, bullo a bully, artichucQ
an artichoke, (remark the ch is pronounced as with us) spienza
the spleen, ixc. &c.
N 3
( 182 )
LETTER LI.
Notions of Delicacy comparative amongst different
Nations.
Venice, January, 1818.
I DINED yesterday with a Venetian friend who
had been in Eno^land and brouoht from thence
various Englishhabits and indulgences. Amongst
others, the usual after-piece of coffee and /i^wewr
was followed by the introduction of the tea-table,
with all its customary artillery. After a minute
inspection, and inquiry into the uses of the se-
veral pieces composing this battery, we arrived
at the slop-basin, when the lady of the house,
herself untravelled, shrugged up her shoulders
and turning to me, observed that, " all English
as I was, even / must allow the indelicacy of
this receptacle of leavings." I should perhaps
have attempted to say something in its favour
but that I had seen in her hands the " Quinze
jours a Loridres,"" and knew I should next have
to plead the part of a vessel of yet greater abo-
mination. So I abandoned our crockery-creed,
and silently acquiesced in all the reproaches
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH Ot ITALY. 183
which Avcre bestowed on tlic least offensive jiait
of our estabHsliment.
Nothing is perhaps more anuisini:;- than to
observe how arbitrary are all notions of reline-
ment, and how generally a nation which taunts
anotlicr \vith an ofiensive habit, is reproached
by the accused, for some ecjuivalent piece of
indelicacy.
A foreigner once told me he was warned by
an English lady of the impropriety of blowing
his nose overtly in the presence of the sex ;
but observed, at the same time, that he had
detected many of our fine ladies in secret sniffs:
A remark that brings to my recollection a
circumstance which will not be misplaced in
this chapter of comparative nosology. Seeing
an Italian lady once examine the seam of her
pocket-handkerchief, I asked her, indiscreetly
enough, what she was about, and she answered
that the difference of the two borders served
her as a rule for the side on which she blew her
nose. I do not know whether this piece of ulti a-
delicacy was personal, provincial, or j)eninsular,
but am certain that there is no woman in Eng-
land who does not ten times a day volunteer the
forced penance of a puppy dog.
You will, I am sure, recollect the tirade, in
Sterne's Sentimental Journey, upon national in-
N 4
184 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY,
tolerance, arising out of an anecdote of a similar
description. But what sermon, or satire could
reform this uncharitable spirit? springing, as it
does, out of that general principle of
*' Indulging vices we're inclin'd to,
And damnins: those we have no mind to,"
( 185 )
LETTER LII.
Visit to Bassano, S)C.
Valdagno, May, 1818.
It is SO long since 1 have written to you, tliat I
scarcely know bow to break niyselt' in anew to
the task. The fact is that, not to .s])cak of other
things which interrupted my labours, I had
really exhausted all I had to say.
I thought indeed that some excursions, made
by me early in the spring, when I broke cover
from Venice, in the impatience for green fields
and birds and beasts, might have furnished me
Avith something new% but this not being the
case, I determined to wait till time should pro-
duce matter for a letter. You may perhaps
think that the same motive for silence exists,
after reading the present.
I had been often i)ressed by a gentleman,
who makes Bassano his summer residence, to
visit him in his couutry-(juarters, and this
scheme I at last accomplished in company with
a small partv, \\ ith wiiom I set out iVom Padua.
The road from this place to Bassano presents the
usual features of Lond)ar(l scenery, but appears
as if i)rei)aring itself to be magnificent in pro-
186 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
portion as it approaches the great gorge of the
Tyrohan Alps.
I could have wished to have had some of our
EngHsh acquaintance with me on this occasion :
1 mean some of those who echo the charge of
the want of hospitaUty in Italy, (because it
does not run in the same channels as in Eng;-
land,) and complain that they have housed
and fed Italians,
" Sed contra accipiunt meros amores,
Seu quid suavius elegantiusve est."*'
Catullus.
Not having announced our intention, the
head of the family was from home, being gone to
welcome the Austrian Viceroy at Verona. His
sister, however, insisted we should stay till his
return, and in the mean time, as we afterwards
discovered, dispatched an express to inform him
of our arrival. He accordingly returned the
day after.
There was now no possibility of a speedy
cacape ; nor, to say the truth, were we very
desirous to effect it.
The liouse where we found ourselves had a
large and pleasant garden beliind it, and was in
* But were with empty graces paid ;
Mere kindness — lights and lemonade.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 18^
the centre of Bassanu, a city ot" about the size
of Southainj)t()ii, aiul coutaiiiiiig probably 8,000
souls. It is at fust a matter of surprize to an
Englishman, that a rich lauded proprietor should
establish himself in a town, or always in some-
thing apj)roaching to it; but various reasons,
some of which I have detailed in a former letter,
naturally lead to this. Not to repeat those
which 1 formerly adduced, personal security
from robbers is not amongst the least, a con-
sideration which weighs, more or less, all over
the peninsula. Another is the impossibility of
being well supplied with provisions, except in
populous places.
\ow will be disposed to ask me whether this
does not apply equally to England. I say No,
and will illustrate the difference by a recent
anecdote. After having fed on carrion, or
having fasted rather than feed on carrion, for a
long while in Abano, I asked the cook if he
could not get me a piece of meat from Padua;
he told me that he would venture it now and
then ; but that he could not practise this cofi-
traband often, as the local guard of the village,
if they detected him, would confiscate the ven-
ture. For on the same principle* my Paduan
* Sec an early letter Irom l^achia.
188 LETTElfS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
friend could not in town have meat from the
country, /, living in the country, could not
have meat from a town, within whose limits I
did not happen to be situated. The explanation
of this was that the farmer of the meat-tax of
Abano would have suffered had meat been pur-
chased at any other place, and it was therefore
a violation of law in us the tenants of the hos-
pital, or in the inhabitants at large, to supply
ourselves at any other place. The consequences
of this system are obvious; but its most dis-
agreeable effects are confined to small villages,
as in towns competition secures attention to the
customer.
But if the country has its dangers and in-
conveniences, the city is not exempt from the
last. On going over my friend's premises I was
surprized to find his best entrance blocked up ;
when he explained this, by telling me he did it
to separate from his family an ofhcer, who was
in possession of that part of the house. As I
knew that there was only a squadron of cavalry
in Bassano, I was somewhat surprized at the in-
formation ; and still more when informed that
the officer had possessed himself of his quarters
without the form of an order from the civil
power, which even here assigns them in detail,
though obliged to comply with the military re-^
LETTKRS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 189
quisition, in the gross. ISIy friend added, that
being of the nuinicipality, he might indeed get
redress, but in that case he should provoke the
enmity of a man capable of avenging himself in
a thousand ways, and who would probably hand
down the quarrel to his successors.
Such evils, however, as these are small in
comparison with what Bassano had to suffer
during the war. The country was wasted about
it in every direction, and it latterly sustained the
loss of its bridge, a most serious evil, in places
w here a river is not navigable : For the Brenta,
" un fiume
Che verso il vicin mar cheto si move,"
in this place rushes along
" gonfio e bianco gid di spume,
Per neve sciolta, e per montane piove."*
Ariosto.
This river was here once spanned by a beautiful
bridge of Palladios : destroyed by one of those
dreadful floods which these Alpine waters occa-
a stream which, far from home,
Glides slowly to the neighbouring sea, in (juiet ;
But works and whitens here with froth and foam,
.And swoln wilii snows and niuiintain-rain runs riot.
190 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
sionally jDour clown, bearing with them trees and
masses of timber, which no structure can resist.
To the Palladian bridge was substituted another
in wood ; the work of Rettiondi, whom Alga-
rotti, in his »S«^^7V) sopj^a I' Architettura, I think,
terms the Archimedes of Italy. This, reputed
one of the most curious monuments of mecha-
nism, was destined to be destroyed by another
element : It was burned by the Viceroy, Eu-
gene Beauharnois, in his retreat from Italy : a
piece of mischief, from which he would un-
doubtedly have refrained, had he known how
much law would have been granted him by his
pursuers.
But it is time I should say something of the
town : this is best seen, together with the cir-
cumjacent country, from the house of the arch-
priest, which is situated on an eminence, and
was once the residence of
" Ezzelino, immanissimo tiranno."*
From this place the view is very striking; for
there arc indeed few Italian cities so singu-
larly situated as Bassano, which is built upon a
high promontory winding into what was appa-
rently once a lake, through the deserted bed of
* Of Ezzelin, that most inhuman tyrant.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 1<)1
which runs the Brenta, many feet below the level
of the town.
In such a case it is impossible not to start a
theory : the most obvious seems to be that the
river having forced the mountain defile, had, at
the fust opening of the gorge, expanded its
waters into a natural bowl, capable of contain-
ing them, but that one of the sides of this, no
longer patient of the pressure iVom behind, had
given way, and the stream, bursting through
the aperture, drained off the waters of the lake.
Something like this seems to have caused the
subalpine lake of Como, and that of Iseo, be-
tween Brescia and Bergamo ; but in these,
either from the descent being less rapid, or some
other cause, only the superfluous waters are
carried off, the lake remaining and the river
issuing out of the side, opposite to that by which
it entered. So much for my theory, which you
may either adopt or batter down at pleasure.
Though the general appeaiance of Bassano is
curious, I know not that it contains much in
art which might interest in detail. There arc
however some fresco paintings by Jacopo da
Ponte, known by picture-mongers under the
name of Bassano, this town being, in fact, his
birth-place : The most striking circumstance
respecting them (a thing however by no means
l92 LETTERS FR03I THE NORTH OF ITALY.
uncommon) is the proof they exhibit of his
change of style ; he having" begun as an imitator
of the Perugian school, (as may be seen in his
Flight into Egypt, preserved, I think, in the
Town-hall,) and grown original in the exercise
of his art.
There are also many casts of Canovas con^
tained in the Rezzomco palace, with a laudatory
inscription more happily imagined than the
papal decree, which ranks him with Phidias and
Praxiteles. This silly hope to prescribe to pos-
terity is no new attempt on the part of Rome ;
and the favours are not forgot which were pro-
fusely lavished by pope, prelates, and people,
on the Chevalier Bernini. The omen can
hardly be very flattering to the Marquis of
Ischia.
I cannot help returning for a moment to
the fresco paintings, which, fresh or faded, make
the ornament of so many Italian towns. I
remember seeing one on the outside of a house,
in a mountain village, which would not have
discredited Perugino himself* There is nothing
which more attests the ancient magnificence
of this people when " wealth Avas theirs,*' than
these remnants of art. To such too may be
added their relics in architecture, which are as
common: and I have counted six buildings.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY, l^.l
fairly called palaces, in the niisciahle town of
Valdagno.
But to return to Bassano : Its vicinities are
much more interesting than the tow n itscll", or
any thing which is contained in it. Mounting
the Brenta, or rather its hanks, (tor, as 1 have
said, it is not here navigahlc,) you see, every
where, though less marked, the features of tlic
Tyrol. A few miles up the stream you are
presented w ith a very curious |)henomenon: This
is the Ollicro, which rushes into it at ahout tiie
distance of half a mile from its sources, in such
a body as to communicate its own clear colour
to one half of the turbid Brenta, and for a con-
siderable distance. This river, indeed, which
rises from two springs, one very picturesquely
situated within a cavern, bursts out in such a
volume as to be capable of floating a lighter at
either source.
A fact (more curious in natural history) is that
though the mountains throughout tlieir whole
range on the western side of the Brcfiia contain
tt^ap, none is to be found throughout an im-
mense distance, I believe more than 1000 miles,
on the eastern. But I hear you ask me how
long I have been up to tra[) ? I an^w er, '' JS'^on
mens hie sermo,'" It is that of my host, who, I
would have you to know, is a mighty mine-
ralogist, and coni])limcnted as such by Brocchi
VOL. II. o
194 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
who speaks of his collection of specimens of
Italian rocks, as of the best, whether public or
private, in the peninsula.
The province of Bassano, though rich in pic-
turesque scenes and natural wonders, is (as may
be conjectured) less fertile than the plains of
Italy. One sack of wheat, for instance, is said
to yield little more than three, and the maize
cannot be cultivated. Still this (as every where
else throughout the peninsula) is only com-
parative sterility. Wine and oil, wood, herbage,
and silk, are produced in abundance, and to-
bacco is cultivated with success, (if such a stric-
ture may be permitted from an Englishman)
notwithstanding the perverse regulations of the
government. Respecting these, it is enough to
say, that whilst on one side the Brenta, the
growth of this plant is permitted permanently,
it is only suffered for three years on the other;
whilst all must be delivered at a fixed price to
the government. This sends it in a raw state
to Venice, where it is worked up, and distributed
in other provinces : so that a Bassanese cannot
buy tobacco of his own growth, which is sold in
Friuli and its dependencies. He must go to
Vicenza, if he has occasion for any. Another
plant which is produced in singular perfection
here is the asparagus. I see you laugh at the
supposition of a particular soil being requisite
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 195
for the culture of M'hat you will say can be had
good at a small expense in an artificial one.
Yet, I can assure you, Covcnt Garden never
turned out such delicious asparagus as Bassano,
But the nature of the soil (whatever value our
gardeners may attach to it) is of much more
importance in Italy than in England: for hor-
ticulture, like all useful arts, is a century in
arrear throughout the peninsula. As for all
artificial vegetables, as tame-mushrooms, (for
instance) these are things never heard of, the
Italians usually contenting themselves with the
great red umbrella toad-stool, of which there
are two species, one wholesome, and the other
poisonous, or recurring only to the fields for
others.
As to the principles of succession, though
they might, no doubt, be reduced to practice in
shaded and well-watered places, (no country of-
fering such m(?ans of irrigation) e\'en these, and
many more are imperfectly understood. It is
true that in the neighbourhood of the populous
cities of Rome, Venice, &c. the exertions of
the inhabitants, in some degree, second the happy
dispositions of the climate, and tbe fruits of the
earth are plentiful in due season. But this is
not the case where labour is not equally goaded.
ValdagnOy for example, is frecjuented, during
four months in the year, as Tunbridge is. with
o 2
196 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
US, yet roots and herbage are almost as scarce
there, as bulbs in Africa during- the dry season.
I told a servant I had brought with me, who
was a native of this province, to ask if it was
not possible to have some carrots with my beef;
and he returned laughing, and said the waiter
did not know what a carrot was. Recollecting
the precedent of the sultan in Mr. Celoe's Ori-
ental Tales, Mdio bade his vizir bring him a
man who did not know what canaffee m as, I
sent for him, and only by dint of description
succeeded in makins: him understand what I
wanted. I mentioned a nearly similar instance
of barbarity at Abano, a bathing-place yet more
throno'ed than Valdao-jio.
o o
If horticulture be a fair test of the progress of
useful civilization, Italy has at present advanced
no farther than England had at the time of the
revolution : I now, however, waver in a former
opinion, and am inclined to believe she was once
more advanced, as well in the useful as in the finer
arts, and that her present disease is a relapse. I
might cite various facts in confirmation of this
from the work of Filiasi su primi e secondi Ve-
neti, S^c. where may be found many proofs of
useful arts and sciences once successfully cul-
tivated in this part of Italy.
Whilst the advantages which the Bassanese, a
mountain territory, holds out to the cultivator,
LETTERS FUOM THE NORTH OF ITAI.V. 197
are sucli as I have described, there are other,
and not less essential, temptations to tlie
stranger. In the south ot" Italy yoii can only
escape the excessive heats by taking refuge on
the top of the Apennines, where there is an ab-
sence of all other comforts but that of cool; and
I was informed at Rome, that the late Bishop
of Bristol used always to run up JSlount Radi-
coj'ani in the summer months. Such extra-epis-
copal activity is not necessary in Lombardy, from
the vicinity of the Alps ; and Bassano, and the
place M'hence I date, both situated at the foot
of the mountains, afford a striking instance of
this. You have indeed occasionally excessive
heat for about eight hours, that is, from ten in
the morning till six in the evening; but the air
is usually elastic, and the remainder of the four-
and-twenty cool. This is a great delight in
southern climates, where the heat of the evening
or the night is the only real and irreparable evil.
This is no doubt to be attributed to the Alpine
rivers, which produce a delicious freshness, and
more still to the prevalence of the bracing w inds
which come iced from the mountains, and give
check-mate to the scirocco.
I gave you some account of the waters of
Recoaro, m a letter from Vicenza. Taken at
the fountain, which is at a short distance from
3
19!^ LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
this place, they are yet more efficacious, as well
as palatable. The effects I have seen protluced
by them are really marvellous : Thus, I icmem-
ber a man Avhen I was last in Italy, who was
suffering cruelly under a liver-complaint, and
who, judging from his looks, I did not imagine
could have outlived the year ; I found him this
winter, to my infinite surprize, in health and
spirits: he informed me he had undergone a
thorough repair at Recoaro; but, it sliould be
added, his resuscitation was not the work of a
single visit, but that of a spring and autumn's
course repeated for two years.
These waters are of the nature of those of
Pyrmont.
I ought not to conclude this letter without
mentioning a circumstance I observed on my
journey from Bassano to Valdagno, which leads
to some considerations on one of the natural
plagues of Italy, and the means which have
been suggested for its relief. The Agtio, which
gives its name to this place, like many other
rivers, often breaks its bounds; but furnishes a
remedy for its own excesses, depositing copi-
ously a rich vegetable soil, which serves at length
as a barrier against itself. Observing the effects
of one of its floods, I took the trouble to ascertain
what time had been required (taking advantage
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 199
of the works it had itself thrown up) to re-con-
fine it to its bed. I was answered " Twelve
years."
Now it is to Ije remarked that the ylgno is
very little above the levil of the circumjacent
country ; whilst many other rivers absolutely
overlook it. Tbe Po, tor instance, I should say,
had in some places raised its channel as much
above the lands throuL,h which it Hows, as the
Thames has his near Dagcnham breach.
I mention this, because a very strange project
has been broached by some foreign engineers,
and treated out of Italy with more respect than
it appears to me to deserve. Tliese arc lor
letting loose the rivers, that, by depositing the
matter suspended in them, they may raise the
neighbouring country to the heigbt of their
banks; and thus apply a radical cure to the evil
of inundations, necessarily frecjuent in the pe-
ninsula.
The circumstances howe\er which I have
mentioned, will, I think, shew the extravagance
of this idea. For if twelve years were necessary
to reduce the Agno to order, which is a brook
in comparison with the Fd of Lombardy, what
time must elapse before his enormous volume of
water could be poured back into his channel?
Nor would the evil be confined to deluging and
o 4
200 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
poisoning* provinces for a century. The dread-
ful consequences would remain after the cause
of mischief was removed : for the Pd and some
other rivers, instead of depositing malm, (as the
/igno does) cany with them rubble and sand
wherever they wander, and form an upper stra-
tum of absolute rubbish.
The only practicable remedy appears to me to
be a good system of engineering, which is carried
on here, I should suspect, often upon an ineffi-
cient scale and foundation, and differs, like so
many other things in Italy, at the distance of
every few miles. The Italians have however an
answer to the reproach of the want of system
in this case, and say the various character of
their rivers demands a varied scheme of defence.
Whether this be a real justification of the
diversity of modes and materials which they
bring to bear npon the enemy, or whether it
arises from the strange want of concert which, as
I have frequently said, marks the different dis-
tricts of the peninsula, I really cannot venture
to decide.
* The malaria is often produced by the outbreak of a river
and the deposition of its stagnant waters, as at Caldiero in the
Veronese, &c.
( 201 )
LETTER LIII.
Jonrnejf homewards. — Milan .
Paris, 1818.
After having conducted you (to say nothing
of devious excursions) halt-way tVoni one end of
the great Alpine chain to the other, I shall not
think it necessary to carry you back as regularly
to my point of exit : since a great part of the
way has been already trod, and what has 7iofy
resembles so much what has, that I shall let you
off with a few observations on the two great
cities which lie upon this route.
Milan, the first of these, is large, and situated
on a plain, and is what, I suppose, would be
called a fine city : But it has nothing very
strikino- cither within or without to recommend
it. Add that it is hot in summer, foggy in the
fall, and cold in the winter.
I know not whether it is to be attributed to
these its disadvantages ; but what Alfieri says of
the perfection of the plant man in Italy, certainly
does not apply to Milan ; for I think I never saw
202 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
such a number of deformed and diminutive
wretches in any city of Europe. This is not an
observation pecuHar to myself, for it has been
remarked upon by Ugo Foscolo in a note to his
translation of Sterne's Sentimental Journey, and
I recollect once counting nearly sixty in two
days. This leads me to an observation which
applies generally in the peninsula. I never saw
deformity or infirmity excite a smile. Italy is,
I believe, the only country in Europe which is
free from this brutality. I have witnessed it
in England and Germany, and France.
Mishapen objects, though more common in
Milan, are also to be found in the neighbouring
towns, both on plain and hill, and spread into
the confines of the Venetian State, where they
are almost lost. I do not know to what one
should ascribe this local tendency to deformity.
Is it a defect of race, running through the
descendants of the GaUic subalpine tribes, as
one might almost be led to conjecture from its
stopping, or all but stopping, at those of the an-
cient Yeneti? As a confirmation of such a guess,
the absence of deformity forms the character-
istic of some nations, and I never saw a mis-
shapen person in Greece.
As in the Milanese, man is often cut short of
his fair personal proportions, so I should say
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF TTALA'. 203
that lie was liehind all tlic t)thcr Italians in
mental (lualitications, beinj^- ordinarily heavy,
and slow of understanding. The person how-
ever who will form the subject of my next
Letter, may serve as a brilliant exception to this
opinion.
( 204 )
LETTER LIV.
On the Poetry of Parkii — state of Manners in Italy,
as injiuenced by the Government.
Paris, September, 1818.
You will, I am sure, recollect charging me to
give yoLi my thoughts on the poetry of Pari?ii,
the great luminary of the city I have just de-
scribed, in whose neighbourhood he was born,
which was long his residence, and which now
contains his ashes.
When I alleged the difficulties which such a
task presented to a foreigner, you answered that
you wanted to see him measured by a foreign
standard — by the judgment of an Englishman.
It is upon this ground only that I speak of a man,
who is perhaps of all the Italian writers least
amenable to the bar of a tramontane tribunal.
If I therefore venture to pronounce sentence
upon him, it will be, always in allowing him the
benefit of an appeal.
Parini is to be considered in the double capa-
city of a lyric and a satyrical poet. In the first
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OI- ITALY. 205
light, he is looked upon in the peninsula as a
great lefoiiner, or at least example, of the Italian
sehool; the diction of Guidi, <k.c. not enjoying
that unquestioned credit in Italy, which it lias
acquired amongst the i'ew cultivators of Italian
poetry at home.
To this style he has suhstituted a much chaster
and more natural character of expression. If
we allow, therefore, weight to the position of
Alfieri, who asserts that, in lyric poetry, expres-
sion is every thing, Pariiii has accomplished no
ordinary enterprize. But of all styles of diction,
that in which this author excels is perhaps the
least likely to take with foreigners. Its character
is elegant simplicity. Now if it requires no"
common sense of the beautiful to enjoy the
" numbers which Petrarch flowed in," respecting
M'liom I might perhaps say, that
" lo nol soft'crsi molto, nc si poco,
Cli' io nol vedessi sfavillar d'iiitorno
Qual ferro che bollente esce del fuoco," *
// VdradiMi.
it asks a yet steadier sight to distinguish the
lights of Parini — I will say a more refined
* I gaz'd not yet so dazzled or so darkling,
But what I saw him llanie and flash like steel
Snatch'd freshly from the forge, red-hot and sparkling.
S06 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
taste and more exercised judgment to weigh
those nice combinations of expression, which are
recommended rather by their dehcacy than their
brilliance.
1 shall not however make a hasli out of what
Italian critics have written upon Parini, though
they might minister materials for an elaborate
essay ; nor dwell even in details of my own on his
lyrics, which I just feel enough to feel that I
do not feel them as I ought. I shall nevertheless
not pass over the most popular work of this au-
thor, which, though distinguished both by ex-
quisite beauties of rhythm and of diction, has
other merits that a foreigner is perhaps somewhat
better qualified to appreciate. This effort of
his muse, in the
^' canti
Che il Lombardo pungean Sardauapalo," *
Vgo Foscolo.
is, though little known in England, more likely
to be esteemed there, than his lyrical flights.
It is a poem in blank verse, divided into parts,
and entitled // Alatlino, il Mezzodl, e, la Sera.
This, to define it in a business-like-way, is
descriptive of a day's work in dandyism, or may
* The strain which stung the Lombard Sybarite,
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 207
be considered as a calendar, ironically didactive
of Italian foppery. Such a scheme does not
promise much, but the immediate subject is not
kept rigorously in view, serving principally to
thread and hold together a series of digressions,
which spring happily out of the sid^ject and as
easily subside into it.
In this, Parini resembles Cmcpcr in his Task^
and indeed in many points of detail ; as in his
sneering tone of satire, in his picturesque de-
scriptions, his precision, where there is a ques-
tion of any thing mechanical, in the adoption
of a species of blank verse between the familiar
and the dignified, which was new in the lan-
guage of each, and in a diction haj)pily adapted
to the vehicle he has chosen. But here the ad-
vantage is greatly on the side of Parini. In
more essential points I should give it to the
Englishman. Thus, though Cowper is caustic
as Parini, he sneers only by starts, and does not
fatigue you with that eternal drone of irony
which predominates in the music of the Italian;
this stop being heard above all others and often
drowning the sweetness of his softer tones. He
rises much above the other too in some yet more
important respects. There is a tone of feel-
ing in Cowper, which Parini never reaches, and
which, were verse to be measured by its depth
208 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
of passion, would place our countrymen first
among the poets of the day.
But our business is with Parim. A slight
view of the Matti?io will serve to give a loose
notion of his design. The first part begins
with an ironical exhortation to the Dandy, with
respect to the distribution of his time. Then
follow the occupations of the day, all told in the
same strain, and unenlivened, as in other comic
poets, by a single sally of frank and good hu-
moured gaiety. The digressions in short are the
only part that please me. Some of these are
indeed delightful, but they are always so in pro-
portion as they lose sight of the subject. I am
disposed to select one as a specimen of the
poetry. He has been describing the duties of
Sirventismo, for the origin of which he accounts
in the following lines.
Tempo gid fu, die il pargoletto Amore
Dato era in guardia al suo fratello Imene j
Poiche la Madre lor temea, clie il cieco
liicauto Nume perigliando gisse
Misero e solo per oblique vie,
Time was the little Love, scarce fledg'd and creeping,
Was put into his brother Hymen's keeping ;
For much the Mother fear'd the graceless God
Might stray or come to mischief, if he trod
LETTF.RS lUOM Till. NORTH OF ITALY. 20.9
K die, bersaglio agl' iiuliscreti colpi
Di scnza guida c senza tVeno arciero,
Troppo iinmatuio al fin corresse il seine
Umaii, eir e iiato a doniiiiar la terra.
PereicS la prole iiial seeura all' allia
111 cura (lato avea, si lor (liceiido :
" Ite o figli del par ; In piii possente
Tl dardo scocca, e tu piu cauto il guida
A ccrta ineta." Cosi ognor cnnipagna
Iva la dolce coppia, e in uii sol regno
E d' un nodo comun Taliiie stringea.
iMIora I'll clie il Sol inai sempre unit!
Vedea un pastore ed una pastoiella
Starsi al prato, a la selva, al colle, al fonte ;
E la Suora di lui vedeali poi
Uniti ancor nel talamo beato,
Cli' ainbo gli aniici numi a piene mani
Gareggiando spargean di gigli e rose.
The world alone, and man's imperial raco
In his first fury perish from ilioir place.
So putting him beneath his brother's care,
She, with this lesson, launched the little pair :
" Go, peers in power! Yoit, strongest, ply the dart.
To guide it. Hymen, be thy sager part."
She ended, and the brothers rang'd their round.
And in close couples souls and bodies bound.
Twas then that never sun beheld a swain
And shepherdess together on the plain.
By field, or fountain, or by bosky bourn.
But that his sister, in her nightly turn,
Saw them together laid in lowly shod.
While the young Gods rain'd roses on their bed.
VOL. II. P
<210 LETTERS FROM THE NORTJI OF ITALY.
Ma die nan puote anco in iliviuo petto,
Se mai s' accende, ambizi-on di regno ?
Crcbber I'ali ad Amore a poco e poco,
E la forza con esse ; ed e la forza
Unica e sola del regnar maestra.
Perci6 a poc' aere prima, indi piu ardito
A vie maggior fidossi, e fiero alfine,
Entr6 nell' alto, e il grande arco crollando
E il capo, risonar fece a quel moto
II duro acciar che la faretra a tergo
Gli enipie, e grid6 : " Solo regnar vogl' io,"
Disse, e volto a la niadre; " Amore, admique
" Il piu possente infra gli Dei, il primo
Di Citerea figliuol, ricever leggi,
E dal minor german ricever leggi
Vile alunno, anzi servo ? Or dunque Amore
Non osera. fuorch' una unica volta
But what will not ambition ? By degrees
Love's pinions push'd, and with the growth of these
Fast grew the stripling's strength (and stories shew)
Force is the single source of power below.
First in shoal air he play'd and narrow rings ;
At last more bold confiding in his wings,
Flung his steel case of sounding shafts behind,
Brandish'd his bow, and, borne upon the wind,
Bounc'd into baby rage ; and cried with scorn ;
•' First of the Gods, and Venus' elder born.
Shall I then, like a pupil, wait command,
— Say slave — and at a younger brother's hand ? —
LETTERS PROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 1211
Feriru un' alma come questo schifo
Da me vonebbr .'' K noii potro giammai
Dappoi cli' io striiisi im laccio, aiuo slcgailo
A mio talento, e qualor |>arini iiii allru
Stringerne ancora? E lascenN pur cli'tgli
Di suoi unguenti impcci a me i mii i dardi
Perclic imii veleiiosi c iikmi criuUli
Sceiidauo ai petti r ()i- via pciclie iiuii logli
A me du le mie man quest' arco, e queste
Armi da le mie spallo, o ignudo lasci,
Quasi lifiuto degli Dei, Cupido ?
Oh il bel viver che fia qualor tu solo
Regui in mio loco ! Oh il bel vederti, lasso !
Studiarti a tone da le languid' alme
La stanchezza e'l fastidio, e spander gelo
— Not twice with liis good will one bosom strike ?
Nor loose the knot once faston'd, as I like?
Nor, at my riper pleasure tie another?
And shall this squeamish, sober-blooded brother
Sheathe with his balsams my wide wasting dart,
That it may rankle less within the heart?
No ; bid mo rather here at once deliver
Mine arms, despoil me of my bow and (luivei- ;
And leave me stript and lielpless to all eyes.
The scorn of men aiul outcast of the skies.
Wiiat a rare worUl 'iwill bi', when thou shall rciizn
In place of Cupid ! I behold thee strain
To light in languid souls some faint dej^ire,
And see thee scatter frost instead of fire.
1' 2
*iI2 LETTKllS FliOM THE NORTH OF ITALY
Di foco in vcce! Or, Genitrice, intendi,
V'aglio e vo' rcgnur solo. A tuo piacere
Tru noi parti I'impero ; ond' io con teco
Abbia oniai pace, e in compagnia d'Jmene
Me non trovin mai p'lh le umane genti."
Qui tacqiie Aniore, e minaccioso in atto,
Parve all' Idalia Dea chider risposta.
Ella tenta placarlo, e pianti e preghi
Sparge, ma in vano ; onde a' due figli volta.
Con questo dir pose al contender fine.
" Poicli^ nulla tra voi pace esser puote,
Si dividano i regni. E perche Tuno
Sia dall' altro germano ognor disgiunto,
Sieno tra voi diversi e'l tempo e I'opra.
Tu che di strali altero a fren non cedi
But mark me, Mother, I can reign alone,
And will; I'll bear no brother near the throne.
Then, at thy pleasure, portion our domain ;
Give each his lot; and so shall 1 remain
At peace with thee, while we our interests sever,
And Love and Hymen make divorce for ever."
He ended, and with threatening act and eye,
Appear'd to wait the Goddess's reply ;
She sobs and sighs with fond entreaties mixt,
But read his part resolv'd, his purpose fixt.
Then, hopeless to remove such settled hate,
With this short sentence stopt all new debate.
" Since you can't rule like brothers in the realm.
In fair rotation, take and quit the helm.
Diverse your task and times. — Wild Archer, smit^
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OT IT A TV. 213
L'alme fcrisci, c tutto il f;iorno impera :
E til clie (li fior placitli liai corona,
Le saline accoppia, c coll' ardtnle face
Regna la nottc." Ora di qui, Signore,
Venue il rito gentil, clie a' freddi sposi
Le teiielne coiufde e de le spose
Le caste uiembia : E a voi, bcata gente
Del piu nobil mondo, il cor di queste
E il douiiuio del di largo destina.
Fors' anco un di piu liberal contiue
Vostri diritti avrau, se Amor piu forte
Qualche provincia al sue gerniano usurpa :
Cosi giova .spcrar. Tu volgi intanto
A' niiei versi I'orccchio, ed odi or quale
Cura al niattin tu dcbbi aver di lei
Che spontanea o pregata a te donossi
The soul \v\th i/oiir keen shafts, and rule in light.
You of the kindled torch and saffron flower
Bind bodies, and bo tliinc the midnight hour !"
And hence, egregious Sir, the gentle rite
Which to cf)ld husbands yields the shades of night.
And spousal corpse ; wiiile you more happy sway
The heart, and hold dominion of the day.
Add (and the thing's within the reach of fate)
That Love, usurping on liis brother's State,
May win his wilful liegemen wider scope j
At least, we'll feast our fancy with the hope.
And now, illustrious youth, incline thine eaj
To my didartive strain, and studious hear
f 3
214 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
Per tua dama quel d'l lieto che a fida
Carta non senza testimoiij fiiro
A vicenda commessi i patti santi
E Ic condizi-on del caro nodo, &c.
Though the extract which I have given, may,
as I have said, serve as a favourable specimen of
the general tone of Parini's poetry, it is not to
be considered as a flattering test of the execution,
either with respect to rhythm or expression,
\vhich are both as nicely laboured throughout
as in this short effort of his fancy. The poem
is indeed a painting in ivory, wrought with a
delicacy and precision of which perhaps no model
could be found in any language in Europe.
The original however of the miniature (Parini
copied from a living model) was so little satisfied
with his portrait that he had the poor Abbe bas^
tinadoed, a mode of retort by no means unusual
in ancient Italy ; where vengeance was often
carried to severer lengths, and usually with im-
punity.
Since I am on this subject, another anecdote
may throw more light on the state of justice in
What morning cares await thee with the dame,
Who, woo'd or willing, partner of thy flame,
(Nor was the knot unwitness'd which you join'd)
With thee, to mutual duties seal'd and sign'd, &c.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 215
the peninsula previous to its conquest by France,
and niigiit alone i)lca(l the cause of the Italians
witii those nations who have steered,
Con iniglior corso, e con migliore sle/lit.*
II Paradisu.
A young man of cchication and hitherto unble-
mished life, resi(hng in a frontier city, received,
from a powerful noble, sucli an outrage as ren-
dered life intolerable, and w hicli he at last re-
venged in a manner which was scarcely less
odious than the injury lie had received.
This story was told to me and another Eng-
lishman who, as well as myself, expressed his
horror at the wrong as well as the revenge.
" Why did not he challenge the offender r " said
my companion. — " Because he would have been
amenable to justice, and punished forhis/;re-
sumption''' — " Why not keep his horse ready sad-
dled, pistol his enemy, and escape over tlic
frontier ? "' — " Because he would ha\ e left his
family subject to the persecution of that of the
miscreant whose life he had taken."
Is any thing more required to explain the po-
pular reproach bestowed on this peo{)le, and can
any thing more forcibly demonstrate the falsity
of the position, that the iuiluence (^f tyranny
* A better course 6enfa/A abetter star.
p4
'2\6 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
falls merely on those within its immediate reach,
and that its evils,
" To men, remote from power but rarely known.
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own ? "
I said in a former letter from Vicenza, that
French justice had extinguished that class of
enormities the most flagrant of which was assas-
sination. It certainly did so ; and during the
first visit I made to Italy, I did not hear a single
instance of the kind, even in provinces such as
Piedmont, where the vivacity and ferocity of the
national character led most to such excesses.*
* Nothing could be more ridiculous than the wonderment
excited at home by the attempt to assassinate the Duke of
Cumberland. Yet the circumstances of the murder of the
unfortunate D'A/itraigues which followed at no long interval,
might have sufficiently explained the spirit in which it was
perpetrated.
If a Piedmontese of the old school once bit his thumb at
you, (no matter how slight the provocation,) accompanying it
with " Tu me la pagherai! " a sentence generally pronounced
aside, the words were a death-warrant, and the action its seal.
It was for this reason that many other Italians would not
employ them as servants, and I remember one being refused as
a cook at Milan, on the sole ground of his being a Piedmontese;
though, be it added, they are the very best cooks in the penin-
sula.
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITAT.V. C17
It is (liK- to the Austrian govern inciit to say,
that Lombardy is yet IVcc tVoin micIi honors ;
but the tragedy is getting up in other parts of
the peninsuhi and will prol)ahIy take as deep a
dye as before. Turin, indeed, and Naples have
ahcady furnislied a prelude sueh as aflbrds a
dreadful earnest of what is to eome.
Not to shift my seene, I eonfnie myself to
the former metropolis. A noble, as I am in-
formed by an Englishman fresh from Turin, no
later than this spring, upon some real or imagi-
nary provoeation, sh(jt a very respectable citizen,
and has since been untouched by justice.
Such is the morality of a pious monarch who
has established a kitchen incjuisition in his do-
minions ! In these you may do murder, but
you must not eat flesh on a Friday.* The dread-
ful storm which so long raged in Europe and
devastated her most fertile provinces, at least
brouiiht with it the consolation of its bavins:
cleared the air of some impurities; but the
noxious exhalations and the reptiles are re-
turned.
* His inaximum on meat, ri<;i(lly enforced in Piedmont,
will do more towards forciiii; fasts than the host of spies whose
reports shut out the carnivorous from the favours and protec-
tion of the court.
( 218 )
LETTER LV.
Turin and general Italian Recollections.
Paris, September, 1818.
Turin, the last city of Italy towards tlie French
frontier, affords a striking contrast to INIilan.
It is an elegant and uniformly built city, with
all its streets at right angles, and affording some
general recollection of Bath, though very dif-
ferent, both in its localities and in the details of
its architecture.
A city built upon this principle of uniformity
is very pretty in theory, but in practice seldom
produces the pleasing effect of irregularity ; for
the same reason that Portland-place does not
afford the same gay and pleasing prospect as
Pall xMail.
Throughout nature the picturesque triumphs
over the beautiful.
Beyond the mere exterior of Turin I have
little to communicate. When one arrives at the
threshold of Italy, one is always in a hurry
either to get in or to get out; and, as to my own
personal experience, I know as little of the
LETTERS TROM THE NORTH OF ITALY, 219
state of manners in Piedmont as in Tunis or
Constantinople. Yet even the diflcience of
those usages in tliis and neit^hbourinLV cities,
whicli arc obvious to remark, is curious, and
may serve to prepare the traveller who enters
the peninsula by this road, tor that iniinite va-
riety of habits which distinguishes the provinces
of Italy.
London and Edinburgh do not aflord the con-
trast which is presented by Turin and Milan,
though only a day's journey from each other.
Thus, for instance, call on a person at Turin,
and you find him basking in the full glare of a
summer's sun. The Milanese, on the contrary,
has the good sense to exclude heat and flies, and
sits in twilight as long as the dog-star rages.
It is not hotter at iMilan than at Turin or Ve-
rona, yet this rational practice has neither passed
east nor west. Such things in themselves would
not deserNC obscr\ation ; but that they serve, as
I said before, to mark the insulation, as it may
be called, of every Italian city, even where
commerce and communication are most easy.
As to what is more worthy of attention,
the national character of the Piedmontcse ; I
believe Aljieri\ picture of himself and his ser-
vant is a faithful likeness of his unsophisticated
countrymen ; and let me add that wherever I
220 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
have followed this distiiiguishcd author, I liave
found him a faithful painter of manners, not-
withstanding the boldness of his strokes and the
height of his colouring. For the sophisticated
Piedmontese ; he appears to me, wherever I
have met him going loose about the world, but
a bad imitation of the Frenchman, upon whose
model he appears to have formed himself.
Yet though this province has been, in a great
degree frenchified, there is always something
which marks transalpine character, and I recol-
lect being as much struck by a whimsical cus-
tom, on my first passage through Piedmont, as
I probably should be by any singular observance
in Otaheitc.
In almost every barber's shop in the country,
in addition to the equivalent for our " Shave-for-
a penny- inscription," you see Qui si scrive sulla
testa. I of course asked an explanation, and
was informed that it was a common practice
amongst the lower orders in the country, to have
their own initials, perhaps those of their mistress,
or any other capricious symbol, cut in their hair,
as children sow their cypher in mustard and
cress in England. Thus I once saw a man Avith
the cypher of his mistress whom he had lost,
cut on his forelocks and remember thinking I
had discovered a new beauty in the " Italia,
LETTERS FRO:\I THE NORTH OF ITAI,V. C'J 1
Italia,' of Filicaja, and that he iiuist have had
this usage before his eyes, in the hue,
" Che scritli in iVoute per gran doglia porte."
But I unhickily found that tlie custom was pe-
culiar to Pie(hnont, and tliat Filicaja luul never
been there. So much for tlie discoveries of
commentators !
The traveller scarcely expects to find antiqui-
ties in this land of the Allobroges ; yet Turin
is in possession of one which is interesting in
other points of view than as a mere remnant of
art. — I allude to the tavola Isiaca. In this is to
be found the exact representation of the modern
Venetian gondola, without its fehe or hutch,
which makes no essential part of the boat, but
ships and unships at pleasure.
Following this train of recollections, I should
say that the drawing comparisons between the
former and present state of art and the being
enabled to ascertain what usages have come
down to the moderns, unaltered from the
ancients, makes one of the great charms of
antiquarian pursuits. Such speculations often
entertained me at Pompcja, and I remember,
returning one day from thence, to have met a
jackass with a pack-saddle, the })reci^e counter-
222 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
part of one (ass and housings) which I had seen
there, in picture on the walls.
Hue redeo uncle ahi'i : Amongst the customs of
Venice, it is curious to observe how many seem
to have been borrowed from the Egyptians. In
the island of San Cristoforo, now converted into
a general burying ground, was preserved tlie
body of the Doge Moro, in [i sarcophagus, which,
both in its form and materials, corresponds with
the description of that discovered by Belzoni.
But as I am on the subject of dead Doges, I
should remark that an infinitely more curious
process observed with respect to these, seems to
have been borrowed from the same source. An
old statute of Venice, which went, as Scotch
lawyers say, into desuetude, enjoined a post-
humous trial of these sovereigns of the Adriatic.
Those who liad any thing to allege against one,
were invited to prefer their charges upon his
death, and if after their examination, the body
was cast, a fine, proportionate to the offence, was
levied on the goods or lands of the deceased.
But I am transporting you at a flight from
one country to another in a way very different
from that in which I travelled myself; for in
my way homewards, I deviated from the straight
road in order to make an excursion in the
principality of Parma.
LETTERS rUO.M TllK NORTH Or ITALY, C2ii
I was not infliicncccl in this visit by the wish
of seeing what are called hons, for I knew tlierc
"vvere none to Ije seen, but 1 had heard tliis .small
state spoken of in the rest of Italy, as the only
one which was well governed; perhaps in the
spirit of gallantry, or perhaps in the foolish
love of whatever was connected with Ihiona-
parte.
I soon however saw how ill deserved were
these encomiums. 1 found here the same system
in vigour (if tins be not an abuse of the word) as
in Austrian Lombardy, " with new additions
never made before." Take as instances the ac-
cumulation of a debt, the interest of which was
not even paid, whilst anti(juated and long re-
sisted pecuniary claims of Rome were acknow-
ledged and discharged, sundry monastic order^
restored, and in short whatever weakness could
graft upon stupidity and perverseuess.
This naturally leads me to some general re-
flections on the political state of Italy.
Taking one's stand on the last of this cluster
of kingdoms it is imjjossible not to cast one's
eyes back for a moment on tlie pr()sj)ect which
we are leaving behind us.
It was my fust intention to give a somewhat
detailed description of it, and to point out the
224 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
characteristic features of the governments into
which it is divided. But when I considered the
thing hotter, I observed, that however such a
picture might be diversified by hght and shade,
tlie parts were essentially tlie same, and the
same style of colouring prevailed throughout
the whole.
All these petty states are administered nearly
upon one model. All have preserved what-
ever there was of domineering and rapacious in
the French system; all have cast away whatever
there was of salutary in the new scheme of
things, and renewed whatever was most odious
and most contemptible in the old.
I have dwelt most upon the administration of
the Austrian provinces; because these are the
most important, and most likely to influence
more or less, the lot of the great continent of
Europe. But as a proof that the imperial por-
tion is not worse governed than the rest of Italy,
let us take a single glance at the state Avhich
ranks next in power and in influence ; respect-
ing which there cannot, I think, be a difference
of opinion amongst those who are not, as Elbow
says, "cardinally given." Such I should ima-
gine would be few : for the Catholics have on
every occasion and in every case, with the ex-
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALV. C25
ception of Spain, breathed a very different spirit
from that of this papistical i)eeragc.*
Not to retouch that most niiscliievous and
monstrous principle of taxing exported pro-
ducts, let us merely see how it is acted upon.
During the last year of scarcity, the prohibition
of exporting grain was, if ever, justifiable. Yet
this, though forbidden to the community, was per-
mitted to favoured individuals, I suppose in
foolish trust ; and the cardinal-legate of Bologna
was calculated to have made 50,000 francs by
this legitimate source of profit, whilst hundreds
were perishing by famine.
Under the government of France the annona-
laws slept, and justice, civil as well as criminal,
was well and expeditiously distributed. At pre-
sent, there is no one, uninfluenced by passion,
who would not rather renounce a debt than en-
deavour to recover it by law : while the Campagna
has been desolated to the very gates of Rome
by miscreants, of whose warfare she has only
obtained a remission by such a treaty as has laid
the foundation of future outrages, besides cover-
ing her government with contempt. Of this
treaty I have, I believe, touched the principal
* Yet Rome has at present a liberal Pope and a liberal
prime minister.
VOL. II. Q
226 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
article — that of the wretches being bribed into
a temporary surrender l)y the promise of their
being " lodged and fed at public charge ;" these
bag-banditti being at the expiration of a certain
period to be again turned out for the diversion
of the public.
During the government of France the Ro-
man state had fine roads and noble public insti-
tutions. These are going to decay; yet she
pays, under the prediale and sopra imposie, as
much or more (if I may believe Romans) than
when subject to hostile usurpation.
This is the case, directly or indirectW, with
all the provinces of Italy : they suffer, to say
the least, all the evil, and share in little of the
good, produced by the revolution.
Can this state of things last ? If you say, the
machine performed its functions, well or ill,
once, and why should not it hold together now?
I answer, that this piece of mechanism does
not resemble what it was; for in the recon-
struction, new principles have been adopted,
which necessarily tend to its speedy destruction.
For instance, these governments were always,
no doubt, weak ; but they were at least indul-
gent to the subject. Thus, that under imme-
diate consideration had always its banditti and
its annona laws ; but it was sufficient to its ex-
LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY. 237
penses without the levy of direct taxes, exact-
ing even less than the old Venetian aristocracy.
Despotism had, moreover, formerly some-
thing to rest upon. Religion was not then, as
now, nearly extinct in Italy. The priesthood
were respected, and a rich and privileged nobility,
as well as the hierarchy, weighed naturally and
powerfully on the side of the prince. The
priesthood is now without influence; and the no-
bility, since the abolition of the rights of primo-
geniture, and their feudal privileges, is not only
without weight, but has, of course, no longer
any motive of attachment to the government ;
and has indeed, under the pressure of the times,
taken a character, which is least of all favour-
able to the support of absolute power.*
* Tlic taxes falling entirely on the landed proprietor, with
the exception of those which bear upon the merest necessaries
of life, the nobility, already impoverished by the abolition of
the rights of primogeniture, &c. have had recourse to all sorts
of ii:aijs and means and taken a peddling character, which runs
nearly throughout the cast. The number of those who lend
money privately, on what we should call usurious terms, is
inconceivable, and many deal in the details of commerce,
without even the assistance of agents. I liavc known a noble
sell his wine at his own back-door. Observing a machine in
the entry to a gentleman's house, and asking him its purpose,
he told me it was to weigh merchandize; and 1 shall not easily
228 LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF ITALY.
It is moreover a very serious consideration that
not only arc the weights and pendulum of this
forget another visit, in which I passed through a double rank of
women and girls, spinning and preparing silk, who entirely
occupied the spacious porticoes of a country-house, the hall
of which was half covered with mulberry leaves, the food of
silk-worms: What was worse, my own stockings were covered
with fleas who fed upon the women: The roptilc-stink ab-
solutely obliged me to hold my nose, while the rattle of the
wheels was such as would have provoketl the horse-whip of
Lismahago.
But to return to the sort oi gavel-kind which has been estab-
lished all over the continent, wherever French power took per-
manent root, this (a sign of the times) is generally considered
in Italy as a thing called for by the spirit of the age ; and in an
eulogium on Buonaparte, pronounced in the academy of Ce-
sena, since printed and puffed, it is ridiculously made a princi-
pal ground of praise.
In point of fact, however, this regulation of property, as
indeed the whole of the French civil code, sprang out of the
revolution, the principles of which it was well calculated to
promote. Buonaparte could not, therefore, as " the child
and champion of Jacobinism," directly oppose it ; but he
was too sensible of the obvious danger with which it threatened
monarchy, not to attempt a relief. It was to effect this that he
re-established the principle of the majorat, which would in
time, to a degree, have countermined the effects of an eternal
sub-division of property. He assigned estates in conquered
countries to his new nobles, strictly entailed on their eldest
heir male, and upon failure of such, revertible to tlie crown.
This ingenious outwork covered a yet more efficient defence.
LETTERS FROM TllF. NORTH ()\- ITALY. i2'if)
machine altered, the med^m too is changed
in wliich they are to play ; and the tone w liich
marks this age is (in many respects most uu-
happily) not that winch characterized the last.
I venture hut one conjecture as to w hat is to he
the ultimate end of this : " no good : ot" that he
sure." For the present, a recollection of their
past suflferings and the necessity of repose, keeps
the Italians cjuiet; hut these are only temporary
sedatives, and hegin to wear out. The mine is
charged anew, and if any accident gives it i\vc,
half Europe will be shattered by the shock.
The possessors of these estates were enabled to sell thim on
condition of vesting; the price received in other lands of equal
value to hv purchased in France and settled to the same uses.
This note may serve a second purpose. It may serve to il-
lustrate the strange ignorance of the mass of Italians, even on
subjects of common inff)rnialion. We have here a learned ara-
demician pronouncing a discourse, in which he praises his idol
for being the author of a system which had been forced upon
him, and which he had attempted to thwart and undermine.
THE EXD.
Luixlon. I'rinlc'd bjr C Itovioilli,
Hill )i«<l, Iriiiple-liai.
ERRATA.
VOL.1, p. 304, line 20, for ' Oscauajid Atellan.'read ' Oscan or Atellan.'
VOL. II. p. 45, line 13, for ' were not worth a nominative,' read ' were not
always worth a nominative.'
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