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 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 "VACATION RAMBLES. 3
 
 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 VACATION RAMBLES, 
 
 CONSISTING OF 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF A TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, TO ITALY, 
 
 AND HOMEWARD BY SWITZERLAND, 
 
 IN THE VACATION OF 184(3. 
 
 T. N. TALFOUBD. 
 
 LONDON : 
 EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. 
 
 1854.
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBU11V AND EVANS, PKISTKRS, WHITEFRIARS.
 
 501&574 
 
 \ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE recollections which form this small volume 
 were partly -written in the year which followed the 
 journey they recall ; but the office of embodying 
 them in words was laid aside amidst the mingled 
 anxieties of renewed parliamentary duty and pro- 
 fessional exertion which ensued, and was only 
 resumed last vacation in tardy fulfilment of a 
 promise to my companions that I would try to 
 retrace our last tour with such vividness as waning 
 life might allow. I do not offer the result to them, 
 much less to others, as supplying fresh pictures of 
 well-known scenes, or just inferences from very 
 imperfect perceptions ; but as a true account of a 
 piece of holiday travel and an honest development 
 of the feelings enkindled by its circumstances 
 which, if not always of the approved conventional
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 , fonn at least the genuine experience of an 
 individual mind. Awakened by rapid and superfi- 
 cial glances at mighty things, they may be wholly 
 destitute of value ; but as the temporary relation 
 of the writer to the subjects of his recollections is 
 stated everywhere with the exactest truth, the 
 reader is enabled to judge whether they are worth 
 more or less than a smile. My only object in this 
 imprint if object it may be called is to make 
 the genial reader a partaker with me in the last 
 continental holiday I enjoyed while the arduous 
 labours and feverish excitements of life rendered 
 the change to foreign scenes in the vacation more 
 intensely delightful than it can ever again be to 
 one, who has since been blessed by Providence 
 with the attainment of a position which is invested 
 with no sharper anxieties than those which attend 
 the endeavour to discharge its duties, 
 
 T. N. T. 
 
 LONDON, 1854.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 JOURNEY FROM LONDON BY DIEPPE TO PARIS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Departure from the Brighton Station Domestic disclosures 
 of the Rail way Ruins of the Atmospheric Experiment 
 Glimpse of Leith Hill Tower, and of old times 
 Dismal voyage from Shoreham to Dieppe An English 
 hotel in France -Dieppe in a wet morning Our de- 
 tention, and advice to passengers not to be "Looked 
 to Paris" Journey by diligence to Rouen, and con- 
 signment to rail and Paris Railway to Paris Arrival 
 at Paris . . 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 FOUR DAYS AT PARIS. 
 
 Sensations on awaking at Paris Historical associations 
 suggested by objects in sight Visit to the Louvre 
 Elaborate ugliness of the artists "Clarissa Harlowe" 
 at the Grymnase Service at Notre Dame Visit to the 
 water-playing at St. Cloud A day at Versailles- 
 Visit to the Hospital of Invalids An old soldier's 
 funeral The Pere la Chaise The "Avare" at the 
 Theatre Franchise Departure by diligence for Italy . 21
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 FROM PARIS TO MARSEILLES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Start in false diligence for Marseilles Journey to Dijon 
 Distant aspect of Dijon Aggravated sufferings iu 
 diligence to Chalons Voyage down the Saone to 
 Lyons Lyons Meeting with "the Blind Traveller" 
 Performance of "Robert the Devil" without the 
 Nuns Voyage down the Rhone to Avignon Aviguon 
 Dreadful journey through the night to Marseilles 
 A glimpse of Lablache -View from Montebello of the 
 Bay of Lyons Associations with "Monte Christo" 
 The Sailor's Sunday night in the harbour of Marseilles 
 The play at Marseilles Fruit at Marseilles Fare- 
 well to Marseilles . ,46 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 MARSEILLES TO ROME BY GENOA AND NAPLES. 
 
 Delicious indolence of an enchanted voyage from Marseilles 
 to Naples Stoppage at Genoa Aspect of Genoa from 
 the sea Walks in Genoa Decorated churches Hall 
 of memorial statues at the bank of St. George The 
 Goldsmiths' street and story Church of the Annun- 
 ciation Passing view of Elba Entrance of the Bay 
 of Naples, and heterodox opinion about its superiority 
 to smaller bays Neapolitan Custom-house Hercu- 
 laneum Pompeii Magnificent storm Public Garden 
 of Naples General aspect of Naples Picturesque 
 groups in Naples Vesuvius smokeless Sad memorial 
 of Sir W. W. Follett by his dying entry in the visitors' 
 book Retrospective view of his professional character 
 Departure by diligence for Rome Bootless halt at 
 Capua Starving journey to Antium Astounding 
 glimpse of the Coliseum Entrance of Rome .
 
 CONTENTS. is 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 A GLOOMY GLIMPSE OF ROME. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 First impressions in Rome Search in darkness for great 
 objects The illumination in honour of Pope Pius the 
 Ninth The Capitol The Capitoline Rock The Coli- 
 seumSentiments excited by the Coliseum The 
 arches, columns, and temples of imperial Rome com- 
 pared with the familiar prints of them The Jews' 
 quarter The malaria visible The Baths of Caracalla 
 Shelley's reference to their ruins as the scene of his 
 composition of the "Prometheus Unbound" The 
 Basilicas of St. Mary Maggiore, St. John Lateran, and 
 St. Peter's Ascent of the dome of St. Peter's The 
 Vatican The "Last Judgment" The Laocoon The 
 Pantheon A local version of the death of Julius 
 Caesar Italian churches and worship Thoughts on 
 Philo-Romdnism, Mr. Faber's poetic feeling respecting 
 continental services and its issue Confession of a 
 heterodox impression of Rome . . . .131 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 ROME TO MILAN. 
 
 Departure from Rome by diligence for Florence Ad- 
 vantages of travelling by diligence in the retrospective 
 view Journey to Montefiaseone Dead lake of 
 Bolsena Acquapendente at midnight Volcanic wastes 
 Inn near Radicofani Second night's journey, through 
 Sienna Descent to Florence Aspects and treasures 
 of Florence The Medicean Venus and neighbouring 
 works of art A Tuscan trial in show The Hall of 
 Niobe Departure by roiture for Milan Ascent of the 
 pass of the Apennines Wayside desolation Two 
 aged crones Pietra-mala Visit to a bed of flames 
 Descent to Bologna Church of St. Petronius Street 
 performance by puppets -Modena Reggio Parma 
 Piacenza Journey by Lodi to Milan . . . 188 
 
 b
 
 x CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 FROM MILAN, THROUGH SWITZERLAND, HOME. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 First impressions of the Cathedral of Milan Aspects of the 
 interior Tomb of Cardinal Boromeo Roof of the 
 Cathedral The " Last Supper "The Theatro Fiando 
 The grand Opera Awful familiarity with sacred 
 things Paintings of young Italy Journey to the 
 Lago Maggiore Ascent of the Monte Monterone from 
 Baveno Passage of the Simplon Visit to the Castle 
 of Sion An unknown prisoner's gratitude for a look 
 Journey to Martigny Separation of our party 
 Excursion over the Col de Balm to Chamouni A wet 
 day at Chamouni Effect of frost and snow on the 
 lower mountains Eloquent scrawl at the Montanvert 
 Return to Martigny Journey by Vevay to Lausanne 
 At home at Lausanne with Dickens . 233
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY 
 
 VACATION RAMBLE.
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY 
 
 VACATION RAMBLE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 JOURNEY FROM LONDON BY DIEPPE TO PARIS. 
 
 Departure from the Brighton Station Domestic disclosures of 
 the Railway Ruins of the Atmospheric Experiment 
 Glimpse of Leith Hill Tower, and of old times Dismal 
 -e from Shoreham to Dieppe An English hotel in 
 France Dieppe in a wet morning Onr detention, and 
 advice to passengers not to be "booked to Paris" Journey 
 by diligence to Rouen, and consignment to rail and Paris 
 Railway to Paris Arrival at Paris. 
 
 ON Thursday, 20th August, 1846, another party 
 of four, consisting of my wife, our eldest son and 
 daughter, and myself, started for the Continent on 
 a rapid tour, intending to go as far, and to glance 
 at as much as possible, in our limited holiday-season 
 of six or seven weeks. Our desperate resolution of
 
 2 DEPARTURE. 
 
 comprehensiveness and superficiality -was justified by 
 the belief that this visit to foreign parts would be 
 our last, and our only opportunity of affording to our 
 young lady, as yet untravelled, the means of seeing 
 some of the great European wonders in the com- 
 pany of parents, whom duties to younger children 
 might constrain to pass such future vacations as 
 remain for them among the beauties and grandeurs 
 of their own land. At the station of the Brighton 
 Eailway, we parted from those younger ones whom 
 we left to a cheerless holiday, with a feeling akin to 
 remorse, which strengthened into a schoolboy's 
 promise that, "if forgiven this once," we would 
 play the parental truants no more. As soon, how- 
 ever, as the train began to move, our attention was 
 diverted from our own domestic associations to 
 those pictures of suburban life which the engineers 
 lay open to the downturned eyes of curious pas- 
 sengers ; and, as the speed grew quicker, we caught 
 a brief acquaintance with attics and second floors 
 beneath us, which looked almost as real as in 
 Dickens' s prose. Gliding over narrow, dim, snug, 
 social streets and lanes, and between the small 
 patches of garden-ground in which the struggling
 
 KAILWAY DISCLOSURES. 3 
 
 shrubs and shrinking dahlias are tended with more 
 love, and blossom for more enjoyment, than the 
 floral furniture of noble conservatories, we contract 
 a pleasant sense of kindred with the homes thus 
 strangely bared to our view, and, for the moment, 
 sympathise with the blameless vanities which lurk 
 beneath the little arbours, and in the loves and 
 hopes that nestle within the low cottage or the 
 dark-tiled attic. But, while thus indulging in tran- 
 sient amenities, we quit the brotherhood of the 
 Greenwich Eailway, and the abodes of dense popu- 
 lation, to strike into the line between the gentle 
 undulations of Sydenham and jSTorwood, beside the 
 huge serpent pipe which so lately embodied " the 
 Atmospheric Principle," and now sadly proclaims 
 its failure. A few months seem to have passed 
 since we envied the Croydon Atmospheric Train 
 as it bounded like a race-horse over the high arch 
 which crossed this Brighton line, with a sort of dis- 
 dainful beauty ; and now only the ruins of the 
 experiment remain ! Yet, who can look on them 
 and doubt that a season will arrive when science 
 shall master "the chough and crow," and all 
 
 petty obstacles to its triumph ; that an embodied 
 
 B 2
 
 4 ATMOSPHERIC REMAINS. 
 
 thought so beautiful shall be made subservient to 
 happiness when the steam-engine, the Caliban im- 
 pelled by forces of earth and fire, shall quail before 
 the delicate spirit of air ? 
 
 Four lines, amidst the immortal sorceries of 
 " The Ancient Mariner," anticipated the discovery, 
 and suggested its use. As the death -freighted 
 vessel sweeps across the enchanted sea, a voice 
 inquires 
 
 " But wherefore drives that ship so fast 
 Without or tide or wind 1" 
 
 And another voice answers 
 
 "The air is cut away before 
 And closes from behind." 
 
 To apply this principle to an exhausted pipe 
 lying along the ground, and thereby to move with 
 the swiftness of an eagle, a mass of men and 
 things, without smoke, dust, or danger, regardless 
 of steep inclines, was the design of the patentee ; 
 and although the broken pipe may vanish from the 
 Croydon line, and the towers with which Brunei, 
 in generous reliance on the aerial principle, lined 
 the coast between Exeter and Plymouth, may stand 
 costly memorials of failure, it is difficult to believe
 
 LEITH HILL TOWER. 5 
 
 that human intelligence will not yet accomplish 
 the alliance between air and earth, which may- 
 invest the purest element of our condition with 
 such active 'power to bless it ! 
 
 But while we anticipate the final victory of air 
 over steam, the grim power to which we are thus 
 thankless has wafted us far beyond the vestiges of 
 the atmospheric creation ; we have passed through 
 the first belt of hills between London and the sea, 
 and, looking back, expatiate on the wooded heights 
 and the declivities of chalk, so daintily fringed, of 
 our own Surrey Alps. Tes ; Alps they were once 
 
 ftf 
 
 to me, before I knew loftier summits than the 
 Oxfordshire banks of the Thames, seen from the 
 noble playground at Heading (now, alas ! a dismal 
 area for railway, stations), which seem now only 
 pleasant park-like slopes, just overtopping the village 
 church-tower and the poplars which indicate the 
 majestic course of the stateliest of rivers. And 
 see ! far away to the right, on the loftiest summit 
 of the range, stretched a little beyond its waving 
 line into the plain, a dark-grey speck denotes the 
 lonely tower of Leith Hill, which rises in memory, 
 whilst the long reaches of upland common spread
 
 6 LEITH HILL TOWER. 
 
 out immeasurably behind it, and the abrupt descent 
 into the Weald of Sussex frowns below it and the 
 mind's eye glances over the rich plain to the second 
 belt of hills, beyond which gleams the blue water of 
 the sea, as the body's eye did thirty years ago and 
 overleaps the interval of time as quickly, and reaches 
 the distant heights as soon, as the greedy sight 
 embraced the scene in that delightful hour. How 
 vividly do I renew the day when, resolved to realise 
 the picture of old honest Dennis, I took the wings 
 of the morning and the outside of a Dorking Stage, 
 to the quaint old town passing disdainfully the 
 fairy bowers of Box Hill, and the learned shades 
 of Deepdene, to discover solitudes more wild, more 
 silent, more remote from the richly-decorated 
 nature which in Berkshire had fed my childhood, 
 than I had yet conceived ; how I explored the 
 ways, deep embedded in sand or loam, amidst ser- 
 pentine roots of ancient trees breaking through the 
 red or yellow earth, until I came to a lonely and 
 neglected park, " where many a garden-flower grew 
 wild," and bright waters thrown into the air fell 
 with unheard murmurs, and all things breathed of 
 a desolate beauty; and where, to my wonder, in
 
 LEITH HILL TOWER. 7 
 
 the midst of a sloping belt of trees, a waterfall 
 broke out, dashed over broken stonework, and fell 
 into a dark brimful decaying basin the scene so 
 strangely forlorn seeming to tell of some old 
 enchantment broken ; how, emerging from these 
 shades to the free hill-side, I innocently startled 
 flocks of wild fowl from a rush-grown pool, and 
 asking my way to the tower at a solitary cottage, 
 perused on the wall a pious handbill, announcing 
 " Twenty-four Reasons why we should not go to the 
 Play," (which, in that spot, were scarcely needed 
 to ensure a virtuous forbearance from the sin of 
 the drama) ; how thence I wound up a broad green 
 path, first amidst open heather and furze, and after- 
 wards through mournful fir-trees, scarcely conscious 
 of ascent, until the gaunt tower rose suddenly on 
 my sight, and, in a few minutes, I stood beneath it, 
 with the vast prospect disclosed, to feel, for the 
 first time, "the power of hills." To this glorious 
 spot I afterwards often resorted for a lonely holiday : 
 and the last visit was on the greatest of all my 
 holidays, no longer lonely my wedding holiday 
 when I brought hither the fair partner of the life- 
 struggle then seriously beginning, to impart to
 
 SHOREHAM TRAIN. 
 
 her the pleasure which had so often soothed my 
 anxieties, and assuaged my hopes ; and, from that 
 day to this, though a quarter of a century had 
 passed, I had never visited those noble solitudes ; 
 but I cannot thus look on their crowning object, 
 even at this distance of some ten miles, without 
 renewing that first perception of mountain-glory 
 which neither Malvern, nor Snowdou, nor Mont 
 Blanc, nor " all that is in fellowship with joy," have 
 ever excelled, though they have helped, by due 
 gradation, to expand and to satisfy.* 
 
 It was no drawback to the solemn interest of 
 these recollections, that the sky grew clouded and 
 the small rain swept wildly over the heath ; but 
 the heavy wet into which the drizzle had deepened 
 by the time we reached the station at Brighton did 
 not enhance our anticipation of a pleasant voyage. 
 "A pleasant voyage," alas! as applied to our 
 
 * Subsequent visits to this delightful region confirm my belief 
 that there is no inland part of England nearer to London than 
 Westmoreland so rich in various beauty as that which may be 
 enjoyed in the leisurely circuit of a five hours' walk from 
 Dorking, by the park, once deservedly called ' ' Lonesome, " but 
 now bright and gay as it is lovely, to Leith Hill Tower, and back 
 by the village of Cold Harbour to Dorking.
 
 VOYAGE TO DIEPPE. 9 
 
 British seas, is almost a contradiction in terms ; 
 so, at least, we thought when having been com- 
 pressed, in close association with piles of luggage, 
 within a carriage of "The Shoreham Express Train," 
 and dragged in it through those most dreary of 
 deserts, fields of stunted vegetation, diversified by 
 skeleton terraces and heaps of modern ruin, 
 we found ourselves on board a small dirty steamer, 
 dripping with wet that could not wash it sea- 
 worthy enough, perhaps, to satisfy the implied 
 condition of a voyage policy, but appearing to all 
 our eyes slow, and to female eyes not sure. It 
 struggled off, however, at once, into the deep sea ; 
 but long steamed in the neighbourhood of the 
 shore, which I could scarcely discern through the 
 thickening rain and the deepening twilight, but on 
 which I earnestly fixed my eyes till the last 
 ghostly outline of the downs vanished ; for on one 
 of the highest points, in a small cemetery bared to 
 the sea winds, sleeps, in the sound hopeful sleep, a 
 serious child, who, twelve winters before, wasted 
 from the world at Brighton, and was buried on the 
 height of the upland desolation. The rain and 
 mist and dead colour of the sea and sky, waning
 
 10 ARRIVAL AT DIEPPE. 
 
 into darkness, were congenial with mournful 
 thoughts, and prolonged them until we were alone 
 amidst the sea, and sweeping right across the 
 Channel to France. Long were the few hours 
 that followed offering only change of misery from 
 the cold, saturated deck to the steaming cabin ; till 
 a large dull light shone heavily through the rain, and 
 we passed beneath an enormous wall frowning over 
 the black sea ; and, in another instant, we were in 
 a land-locked basin fronted by a row of shops and 
 hotels, flaring through the fierce rain, which made 
 them ghastly. Our dismal but short voyage was 
 over ; we were at Dieppe. 
 
 Landed amidst the threefold confusion of darkness, 
 rain, and shivering torches, made more confounded 
 by a concourse of garcons and commissioners 
 of the dirtiest order, gibbering, muttering, or 
 shrieking out the merits of various hotels, we 
 sought protection in the first we reached, recom- 
 mended to our eyes as " being kept by an English 
 landlady." I am afraid the statement was true, if 
 English may, in foreign parts, include Irish ; for a 
 fat tawdry trollop, who sat enthroned in a recess 
 beside the narrowest of passages in savage imitation
 
 ARRIVAL AT DIEPPE. 11 
 
 of a British public-bouse bar, welcomed us in our 
 mother tongue, dashed with Tipperary brogue, and 
 dispatched a damsel more slatternly than herself 
 "to show the bed-rooms." These let us leave un- 
 recorded ; if possible, unremembered ; and descend 
 to the saloon a long, low, narrow room on the first 
 floor, almost filled by a bare moth-eaten table, 
 along which some of our fellow-sufferers of the 
 packet, soaked and dripping as we, were poised on 
 cushionless walnut-tree benches, some desperately 
 attempting to stifle hunger by slices or rough- 
 hewn lumps of mutton or beef; some waiting, 
 with ill-repressed impatience, till the equivocal 
 refection of a cup of pale sloe-leaf decoction, 
 announced as tea, should fall to their share. The 
 flaring tallow candles, which, in the rustiest of iron 
 sockets, straggled along the table, were multiplied 
 by partial reflection in the streaming oil-skin capes 
 and irradiated mackintoshes, which dangled from 
 convenient pegs behind us, doubling the sense of 
 damp which is so truly English all the world over. 
 We felt bewildered ; for we recognised no out- 
 landish enormities ; all might be truly British ; but 
 we were puzzled by the strange chance which
 
 12 DETENTION AT DIEPPE. 
 
 seemed to have brought us to the " worst inn's 
 worst room " of one of our densest manufacturing 
 towns, which our smallest commercial gentlemen 
 would justly disdain. The home-picture was not 
 dispelled, though it was cheered, by some really hot 
 brandy-and- water, which came at last true refuge 
 for the destitute and sent us, not weeping, but 
 wondering to our beds. 
 
 We rose at daybreak, expecting to leave Dieppe 
 for Rouen by the first diligence at seven o'clock 
 to seats in which, having paid our fare in Lombard 
 Street, and being ticketed and labelled " all the 
 way to Paris," with a written warranty of trans- 
 portation, from capital to capital, in an impossible 
 number of hours, we fancied ourselves entitled 
 but we were coolly informed at the office that the 
 first diligence was engaged for travellers, who, less 
 provident than we, had kept their purses and per- 
 sons at liberty ; and we were referred to a half-past 
 nine conveyance as the destiny of the ticketed 
 passengers, but in which we were only to expect 
 such places as the chance customers might leave 
 for us. " "Warned by our fate," as George Barne- 
 well impressively observes towards the close of his
 
 DETENTION AT DIEPPE. 13 
 
 moral story, let ingenuous travellers beware of 
 fascinating proposals to book them in Lombard 
 Street "all the way to Paris." Once released 
 from the shackles of business, let them not " their 
 unhoused free condition put into circumscription 
 or confine," for the sea's or the railway's worth. 
 Let them keep the mastery over their minds and 
 bodies; and they will have a better chance of 
 getting safely and speedily to their journey's end, 
 ^ven if the slight trouble of making fresh contracts 
 should exceed that of submitting their tickets to be 
 torn or stamped at each change of vehicle at the 
 will of the "worshipful company." You may 
 bind yourself to the labours of life with advantage, 
 whatever school-boys or apprentices may think to the 
 contrary during their wholesome bondage ; but let 
 no one apprentice himself to pleasure unless in 
 the article of marriage and even then it is said not 
 always to answer. Repentance came, as it always 
 comes, too late ; remonstrance was vain ; having no 
 more to pay, we had no claim even to a civil reply ; 
 and, while we lingered about the office, we saw the 
 diligence depart packed full, inside and outside, 
 with our happier companions, while we were left to
 
 14 DIEPPE. 
 
 three hours of heavy wet at an inn which shall be 
 nameless. The prospect from its narrow pent- 
 housed door, though fronting the harbour, was not 
 consoling. The rain still pelted the rough stones 
 of the pavement, and soaked the decaying posts and 
 stumps, which, at irregular intervals, lined the margin 
 of the basin; the tide had gone far out from it, and 
 had left its floor of mud to be diversified by 
 swollen streams of darker filth, which issued from 
 beneath the street, and wound their uncovered way 
 among a few melancholy fishing-boats moored to 
 the posts ; while, beyond these, a few masted vessels, 
 with a few rags of wet canvas spread out in fretful 
 despair, showed their spars against the brown 
 blanket of cloud which invested the prospect sea- 
 ward. Still the open air, saturated with rain, was 
 preferable to the filthy damp within ; and I scudded 
 forth on a voyage of discovery ; picked my way 
 through huge pools of water, to the corner of the 
 first street which runs at right angles to the har- 
 bour, and which gave dim hints of greensward 
 beyond it. Invited by this bit of green, I breasted 
 the rain which drove through the narrow avenue, 
 and found it a rank fringe of grass chequered by
 
 DIEPPE. 15 
 
 heaps of rubbish ; but, 011 one side, a tall cliff of 
 chalk rose spectral through the mist, which I, at 
 once, felt as a friend assuring me that Nature 
 everywhere lias something beyond the power of 
 human pollution. By this time the rain had 
 abated (as it generally does if you do not give way 
 to it), so that when I rejoined our party under the 
 inn's pent-house, I found that our elder and more 
 adventurous lady had gone forth in search of the 
 cathedral. On this hint I followed, along a street 
 of decent shops, to the small square in which it 
 crouches, and found that free admission, which we 
 Protestants enjoy in visiting continental churches 
 without imitating in our own. I found the church 
 far superior to the city, yet characteristic of its 
 aspects dingy yet gaudy, indicating various styles 
 and dates, but though " tawdry yellow strove with 
 dirty red," blended into rude harmony by one dark 
 hue pervading all, and chiefly illustrated by a 
 strange picture of the Holy Sepulchre and the 
 Three Marys. Still a religious calm pervaded the 
 interior, and prepared us to bear meekly the 
 remaining annoyances of our sojourn at Dieppe, 
 which ended after a coarse breakfast of blackish
 
 16 DEPARTURE FROM DIEPPE. 
 
 bread, cold boiled mutton, and straw-coloured 
 coffee, by our receiving our passport vised, and 
 taking our places in the second diligence for 
 Paris. 
 
 From this moment, the weather rapidly improved ; 
 at the top of the long hill leading from the town, 
 the basin with its encircling houses, so dark and 
 dismal half an hour before, lay in glimmer and 
 dispersing gloom, and looked picturesque between 
 its cliffs ; the heavy blanket of cloud curled upward 
 from the sea, which heaved towards the harbour 
 in a hue sullenly approaching to green ; the sky 
 grew brighter and brighter ; and, from that hour, 
 our days were scarcely chequered by a cloud until 
 we sought shelter from tremendous rain beneath 
 the arches of the Coliseum. All was serene with 
 us, without and within ; the country of orchards, 
 intersected by thick hedgerows, reminded us of 
 the tamer parts of Gloucestershire ; and the 
 illusion of England's encircling us, would have 
 been pleasantly complete, if it had not been more 
 pleasantly broken by the towering head-gear of 
 bright scarlet and blue of some Norman lass, 
 trudging bare-footed and contented to market, or
 
 VALE OF CAILLY. 17 
 
 riding with triumphant smiles, in some crazy cart 
 to the same scene of business and gaiety. Soon 
 the diligence descended into the Vale of Cailly, 
 which strongly reminded me of that of Stroud, 
 with a difference in favour of our own golden 
 valley. Both tracts of country present a remark- 
 able combination of luxurious scenery with the 
 abodes of dense population and the appliances of 
 busy life sparkling streams, perpetually diverted 
 to turn brightly painted mills huge manufactories 
 perched on apparently inaccessible heights artifi- 
 cial canals, over which Nature has vindicated her 
 reconciling influence by tufting and embowering 
 the dark water iron tram-roads, piercing thick 
 copses and opening fair glades in the way to 
 quarries or workshops ; but the English valley 
 is scooped out as with a bolder hand, and all things 
 bespeak a more lavish outpouring of the wealth 
 of nature and art. One feature our vale does 
 not disclose, which supplied contrast and relief 
 to the bright confusion of the Norman valley 
 an old-fashioned and almost forsaken chateau, 
 withdrawn from the vivid life around it, within 
 rusted iron gates still exhibiting some trace of
 
 18 YALE OF CAILLY. 
 
 gilding outworn, and lofty walls of crumbling 
 stone suggesting that it had mouldered in the 
 damp of many autumns, and been baked in the 
 hot sunshine of many summers since its cham- 
 bers were festal rarely tended by human hand, 
 with broad pathways overgrown by luxuriant 
 weeds, tangled gardens full of wild roses all 
 things speaking of indolent repose, and mild, 
 poor aristocratic existence outliving its resources 
 and of the fatal system, of perpetual subdivision 
 of estates which leaves many a rural mansion of 
 France, not purchased by upstart wealth, a ruin. 
 But while we moralise on the blessing of a resident 
 gentry, and feel our anger rising against the Man- 
 chester School of Equality, we catch a bright blue 
 glimpse of the Seine ; the villas raised by mercantile 
 success, while it is allowed its brief space of a 
 life's vanity, thicken ; and we find ourselves in 
 the heart of Eouen ; fit termination of the gay 
 valley we have passed for it is at once crowded 
 with busy life, aud arrayed in the glory of a 
 dream. Here we were transferred from the road 
 to the rail, not, as we feared, by little billets for 
 railway carriages, with the chance of finding them
 
 PARISIAN AQUATICS. 19 
 
 pre-occupied ; but hoisted, diligence and all, off the 
 wheels, swung up high in air, and deposited on a 
 railway truck, by no wilder magic than that of 
 a crane. Thus we were "duly forwarded" to 
 Paris. 
 
 Our railway course had been formed by cutting 
 off huge loops of the Seine, which it frequently 
 crosses, and piercing a huge table-land of chalk, 
 
 whwb occupies one of its largest peninsulas, by 
 
 t^ 
 a tunnel surpassing in length any through which 
 
 I have ever shuddered, disclosing a succession of 
 pictures, or rather scenes (for nothing can be less 
 picturesque), composed almost entirely of green 
 and white broad plains of meadow, surmounted 
 by cliffs of chalk, beneath which, the lucid river 
 sometimes gleams, and sometimes, but rarely, 
 interrupted by a farm-house or a windmill smiling 
 landscapes of two colours. AVhen we reached 
 Poissy, however, the river was decked with boats, 
 all brilliantly painted, and flashing with red and 
 yellow streamers, assembled for an aquatic fete, 
 which had been planned by some young Parisian 
 gentlemen to display their prowess and their 
 
 dresses. The dresses were not of a uniform sim- 
 
 c 2
 
 20 ARRIVAL AT PARIS. 
 
 plicity like thoae of the "jolly young watermen " 
 of Eton or Oxford, but of various and sometimes 
 grotesque fashions, among which the modern 
 Greek attire, or that which passes for it in melo- 
 dramas, seemed to predominate. Many of these 
 fantastic costumes were doomed to be drenched ; 
 for the maritime sport consisted of manoeuvres by 
 the crews of opposing boats to upset each other, 
 and tip the entire crew into the stream ; a pleasant 
 effect which, happily for us, was produced while 
 we passed, amidst shouts and shrieks of laughter. 
 Such are the vagaries of airy politeness when it 
 affects the robust, and of practical wisdom when 
 it grows romantic ! AYe reached Paris at dusk ; 
 endured a long waiting for a brief ordeal of 
 package examination with hungry patience ; 
 and found our way, in a hackney carriage, to 
 Meurice's, there to forget among the decent show 
 of English comforts the lesson of national humili- 
 ation which the English hostelry of Dieppe had 
 taught us.
 
 V 
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 FOUR DAYS AT PARIS. 
 
 Sensations on awaking at Paris Historical associations suggested 
 by objects in sight Visit to the Louvre Elaborate ugliness 
 of the artists "Clarissa Harlowe " at the Gymnase Service 
 at Notre Dame Visit to the water-playing at St. Cloud 
 A day at Versailles Visit to the Hospital of Invalids An 
 old soldier's funeral The Pdre la Chaise The "Avare" at 
 the Theatre Fran9aise Departure by diligence for Italy. 
 
 AWAKING from sleep, which the unrest of the 
 previous night had rendered deep, I was strangely 
 affected by the assurance, gradually rendered 
 perfect, that I was in the midst of Paris ; and the 
 sensations that crept over me as I realised the fact 
 were more memorable than those which attended a 
 similar consciousness on my first visit. ]S"o city in 
 the world, except Home, can fill, disturb, and agi- 
 tate the mind with associations so various and so 
 powerful, or justify them by appearances so eloquent 
 of deeds, as this. London, huge, wealthy, populous
 
 22 HISTORICAL PARIS. 
 
 beyond the utmost anticipation of a foreigner who 
 has reached its centre by any of its enormous 
 avenues, has nothing of historical aspect or interest 
 to compare with the weight of human thoughts 
 vrhich cluster about this metropolis of gaiety and 
 joy. A glance from the giddy height of my 
 window, as I eagerly threw it open to the topmost 
 battlement of the hotel, across the gardens of the 
 Tuileries, embracing one side of the palace to the 
 river, and, with a little aid from recollection, piercing 
 the old huddled city beyond it, brought in quick 
 succession, the sense of ages of luxurious power 
 of the series of convulsions in which its pillared 
 defences of rottenness were hurled to the dust, and 
 mingled with blood ; of the wildest freaks of our 
 nature when shaking off its intolerable fetters ; and 
 of the glittering romance of the great Emperor 
 who rose from the crash of society to encircle 
 its restless front with a diadem of the most 
 extraordinary vicissitudes of the world all acted on 
 the visible arena. When, from such a point, you 
 analyse the details of the scene around you, the 
 impression of crowded histories is everywhere 
 renewed and deepened. There is the long line of
 
 HISTORICAL PARIS. 23 
 
 palace-front, vast without other grandeur than 
 that which uniform stateliness suggests, breathing 
 of the long succession of Bourbon kings ; the up- 
 piled buildings which have witnessed a thousand 
 heroic tragedies ; the glowing elegance of the column 
 moulded from the cannon captured by the Parisian 
 hero, and surmounted by his image, " in his habit 
 as he lived ; " and, all around you, the vestiges of 
 antiquity, presented by no other European capital, 
 contrasted with the festal gaiety of the crowd whom 
 every available wall invites, by fascinating hand- 
 bills, to spectacles of various pleasure. The im- 
 pression, conveyed from these sources, was deeper 
 than before, because unsatisfied curiosity did not 
 perplex the mind with its shallow excitements, and a 
 knowledge of the import of each edifice combined 
 to strengthen it. The tremendous foreground of 
 the great revolution, in which hours involved the 
 actions and the suiferings of years, threw into an 
 artificial antiquity the luxuries and crimes of 
 the Bourbon kings, as if ages separated them 
 from the present ; and while I recalled them, the 
 faint scent from the rain-drenched flowers in the 
 royal garden seemed breath from long-past years,
 
 24 HISTORICAL PARIS. 
 
 The sense too of evanescent gladness, which sheds 
 solemnity through the gaieties it rebukes and 
 heightens was here most vividly perceived, not 
 only by reason of the contrast of airy delights 
 with the works which death had wrought amidst 
 its scenes, but by the absorption of the future 
 in the present which Parisian existence dares 
 and suffers wise in reference to the enjoyment 
 of this mortal life madly foolish in reference to 
 that which is to come but in its excess pre- 
 senting an aspect of human character which 
 deserves attentive and painful study. 
 
 Alas ! we must now * speak in the past tense 
 even of the Parisian spirit of unthinking gaiety 
 and joy ! Paris, without the opening of a per- 
 spective of immortality, has achieved a foreground 
 darkened, saddened, perplexed. Its last revolution, 
 unlike its first which overthrew ancestral tyrannies, 
 and made a stage for heroic spirits to act and 
 die on, has raised a dismal cloud of dust from the 
 
 * This passage was written during the interlude of the 
 Provisional Government, which followed the downfall of the 
 House of Orleans, and which the quiet-loving Parisians aver to 
 be the most vexatious they have ever borne. Was it not the 
 
 most frivolous also ?
 
 HISTORICAL PARIS. 25 
 
 trampling of multitudes over the traces of monarchy, 
 in which men of words, journalists and literary 
 adventurers, rule the scene in which they are felt to 
 be almost as unreal as the phantoms of their brains. 
 The imagination, affected only by the masses of 
 things, is not' elevated but chilled and perplexed 
 by the accidental overthrow of a tottering throne 
 followed by a series of philosophical quibbles in 
 feeble action. In the great revolution, the passions 
 and the deeds of the most sanguinary anarchists 
 were invested with dramatic dignity and interest 
 by the opposition of the powers they subverted ; 
 they overturned old, rooted, inveterate and incorri- 
 gible things ; and the spectacle, august and fearful, 
 retains a mighty place in the mighty past. But 
 the mutations acted now on the dead level of 
 republicanism, show nothing of interest in either 
 contending party ; and are only rendered worthy 
 of our observation by our fears for some issue 
 which may endanger our own repose ; for who 
 can sympathise with a constitution of yesterday, 
 or find a meaning in the charge of insurrection 
 against it ? Paris republican Paris gay, festive, 
 joyous no longer, is as frivolous as when it was
 
 26 THE LOUVRE. 
 
 happy, and has lost the prosperity of its hours 
 which once " knit with the Graces in dance led 
 on the eternal spring," without increasing the 
 dignity or the wisdom of its years. 
 
 But this is anticipation; fortunately we saw the 
 capital of the world of pleasure while* its superficial 
 charms remained unbroken while it was the city 
 for a holiday and " nothing serious of mortality " 
 breathed except from the past. After breakfast, 
 we repaired to the Louvre, and spent several 
 hours in a slow walk through that enormous 
 gallery, not, as before, painfully impatient to reach 
 the glories of Italian art, but leisurely proceeding 
 from school to school, from the poorest in invention 
 and power to the greatest. The artists and 
 students engaged in copying the pictures strangely 
 contrasted the beauty of the aspects they trans- 
 ferred to canvas with the various ugliness of their 
 own ; for (leaving the ladies unsuggested) a set of 
 males so remarkably exemplifying every species of 
 ill-favouredness has rarely been collected, even for 
 the ballet of the opera, as these. If there were no 
 ostentation in their manner or dress, the wayward- 
 ness of nature would be unheeded ; or a simple
 
 THE FRENCH CLARISSA. 27 
 
 and manly bearing make ugliness itself respectable ; 
 but the puzzling wonder lies in the determination 
 of men, who might pass unnoticed in the crowd of 
 the world, to invite attention to the irregularities 
 of nature by fantastic devices of art cutting 
 grizzled beards, red whiskers, and sandy mous- 
 taches into startling varieties of shape ; bidding 
 the scanty hair to fall over the shoulders in the 
 greasiest of flakes, and affecting every strange com- 
 bination of dirty and gaudy fashion. It would seem 
 that personal vanity is so strong in each of these 
 young men, that he thinks his particular deformity 
 consecrated by being his own ; and displays it 
 because he desires, above all things, to retain a 
 marked individuality among his fellows. 
 
 In the evening, we went, of course, to the play 
 and, English-like, attracted by anything bearing 
 an English name, selected the Gymnase, where, 
 among lighter pieces, was presented a dramatic 
 version of "Clarissa Harlowe." To us, accus- 
 tomed to regard this greatest of romances as an 
 artificial world, a little beside the actual, but 
 realised to the mind by consummate dexterity and 
 minuteness of detail, in which the most shocking
 
 28 THE FRENCH CLARISSA. 
 
 catastrophe is rendered tragic by the fine gradations 
 of oppression by -which it is approached it seems 
 strange that Parisians should select a scheme so 
 ponderous, and destroy its significance by com- 
 pressing its eight thick volumes into three short 
 acts. But, since the first revolution, " Clarissa 
 Harlowe," of English fictions, has been an especial 
 favourite with French readers ; so highly, indeed, 
 was it esteemed by the great Emperor that, at one 
 of his levees when Consul, while he passed Erskine 
 unheeded, he lavished attentions on a Colonel 
 Lovelace, merely because he bore the name of 
 Richardson's hero. The secret of this preference 
 lies not in sympathy with the manners created 
 by Richardson, for these are repugnant both 
 to French nature and art; nor in appreciation 
 of the infinite nicety of shading by which the 
 strangest transitions are made endurable and 
 contrasts brought into harmony ; nor in veneration 
 for the heroic excellence which rises superior 
 to external pollutions ; but in distempered admira- 
 tion of the boldness with which the main incident 
 is selected, and of the moral paradox by which 
 the atrocity and basenesses of the ravisher are
 
 THE FRENCH CLARISSA. 29 
 
 associated with intellectual vivacity and insolent 
 power. JSTo English novelist of the present time 
 would dare to surround his heroine with such 
 companions as those allotted to Clarissa in the 
 inner house of Mrs. Sinclair, still less to select for 
 his catastrophe the odious crime to which all the 
 action of the fable tends, and from which all its 
 misery deepens, even if he could soften and redeem 
 it by the author's industrious felicity of art ; nor 
 would any writer of our most licentious age, less 
 armed with moral circumstance than the strait- 
 laced Richardson, have ventured on such themes. 
 But the "extravagant and erring spirit" of 
 French revolutionary fiction, which makes amends 
 for the frosted correctness of French classical 
 tragedy by its excess, rejoices in this species of 
 intrepidity, and while it dwells with prurient 
 regard over the sufferings of Clarissa, rejects all 
 the elaborate detail which makes them tolerable 
 to us ignores the nobleness which exalts them 
 and finds them capable of all the development it 
 seeks within the limits of a melodrama. "We saw, 
 therefore, the calamity, not through long per- 
 spective, but cast into the unmitigated foreground ;
 
 30 THE FRENCH CLARISSA. 
 
 Clarissa reduced to an ordinary sufferer ; and 
 Lovelace, flaunting in lace and profligacy, without 
 the regality of disposition which elevates, though 
 it cannot palliate, the guilt of his infamous in- 
 trigues. The interminable ceremonies and 
 squabbles of Harlowe Place were represented by one 
 formal tea-drinking; the elaborate trickeries of the 
 brothel were crowded into one gay supper, prepara- 
 tory to the shameful victory; and the exquisite 
 dying scenes were compressed into a single exhibi- 
 tion of stupor and madness. While all the other 
 persons of the drama flaunted in French nomen- 
 clature, the heroine was strangely designated as 
 Jfiss Clarice left half English, made half French 
 so as, in the name, to symbolise the fashion in which 
 the whole romance is treated. Except the charming 
 acting of the gentle lady who played Clarice Rose 
 Cheri the representation presented little worthy 
 of remembrance. It had attracted Lord jS^or- 
 manby, who had arrived at Paris that day, as 
 ambassador to the court of Louis Philippe, and 
 had not yet entered on the stage of Parisian diplo- 
 matic life ; for he watched the performance from a 
 box just over us.
 
 RIVER BATH. 31 
 
 The morning of the next day opened on us in 
 delightful freshness ; and at early hour, light of 
 heart and step, I skimmed the royal garden to 
 bathe in one of the huge covered baths which are 
 ranged on the opposite bank of the Seine caught 
 the same delicate scent of the rain-drenched 
 flowers which had been wafted years ago to me 
 from the same flower-beds ; and soon found a 
 hugely canopied bath, which, after being duly 
 supplied with a white dressing-gown and a pair of 
 drawers, of the opera dancing dimensions, I was 
 permitted to enter. The use of slight apologies 
 for costume is an essential condition of bathing on 
 the Continent, even when, as in this case, the bath 
 was only occupied by the wearer; but they are 
 scarcely worthy to displace the healthful indif- 
 ference of English swimmers. The water of the 
 Seine is not pellucid ; but it is sufficiently re- 
 freshing to a traveller ; and I found it all my own, 
 in this vast bath, every morning during my stay in 
 Paris. 
 
 After breakfast, when the sun was high and hot, 
 we set out to witness the Roman Catholic service 
 in the old Cathedral of Paris. Our path, after
 
 32 NOTRE DA11E. 
 
 crossing the river, wound through narrow alleys of 
 the old city, then stretched along arid quays, and 
 finally straggled, through a maze of bankruptcy 
 made visible, to the front of the venerable pile. 
 The service did not reward the sultry walk ; but 
 rebuked it by the conviction that, in Paris, the 
 Eoman Catholic faith has outworn even its forms. 
 The performance was marked with indolent indif- 
 ference, from the highest of the priests to the 
 smallest of the choristers. The boys who bore the 
 censers, clad in vestments which may once have 
 been white, flung half over their greasy jackets, 
 came along swinging about the sacred vessels with a 
 saucy carelessness, which seemed almost affected, 
 and which would have deserved chastisement if it 
 had not been sanctioned as it was too probably 
 taught by the lazy movements and vacant faces 
 of the priests. How unlike were the aspects 
 of these children to the earnest, pale, wrapt 
 countenance of the little sacrister I had seen 
 assisting a solemn service at Antwerp; or the 
 image of the good page, saved from death by his 
 duteous observances at the altar, in Schiller's 
 immortal song !
 
 ST. CLOUD. 33 
 
 In the afternoon we< went " with the whole 
 world," as we were told, by the railway to St. 
 Cloud, to witness a display of water-works, which, 
 we were assured by the Commissioner of the hotel, 
 would cost the government many hundred pounds 
 such being the loss by broken pipes when- 
 ever the fountains are made alive to damp the 
 rising discontents of Paris. The scene of action 
 proved to be a pretty piece of park-like land, 
 shaded by some fine old trees, and formed into 
 terraces, each imbedding a basin, over which 
 river-gods, nymphs, and Cupids held dry and dusty 
 sway. The assembly was far less numerous than 
 the comprehensive promise led us to fear ; con- 
 sisting of long streams of holiday-makers, looking 
 like festal tradespeople, with boys and girls to 
 match, pouring through all the avenues, for whose 
 refection vast baskets of fossil-looking gingerbread, 
 and plain rolls resembling lumps of granite, were 
 offered by old ladies and saucy gamins with 
 clamorous invitations. The eagerness with which 
 even the dry rolls were bought, and the festive 
 air with which they were gallantly offered by the 
 gentlemen to their fair companions, and the relish
 
 34 ST. CLOUD. 
 
 with wliicli they were consumed by both sexes, 
 without butter, cheese, or other appliance, exem- 
 plified one of the pleasantest traits of the French 
 character the disposition to be contented with 
 little and to make that little gay. " Our basest 
 beggars" being, according to Lear, "in the poorest 
 thing superfluous," would disdain a meal of hard 
 rolls without gin or porter to reward it ; and yet 
 these Parisian gallants, in best holiday trim, offered 
 the crusty masses with as free an air, and partook 
 of them with as much apparent relish, as if they had 
 been parcel of the varied luxuries which Messrs. 
 Fortnuin and Mason combine for a Derby-day 
 luncheon. As dry rolls were " not dreamed of in 
 our philosophy," and we were too mindful of the 
 dinner at the table d'hote, which " cast its shadows 
 before," to indulge in more attractive fare, we grew 
 weary of the long delay which followed ; and, at 
 last, fearful of being too late for the chief event of 
 an Englishman's holiday, were retreating towards 
 the station, when the slope of a dry cascade 
 descending between two pools began to glimmer, 
 and one of the dusty urns began to trickle, and a 
 lion's mouth grew moist with a whitish foam, and
 
 VERSAILLES. 35 
 
 the up-turned lips of a Cupid threw a slender stream 
 into the air ; and so, by slow degrees, the various 
 orifices for water got into play, until the fountains 
 were all feebly spouting and trickling about us. 
 The effect was rather pretty, and shed a coolness 
 over the sultry atmosphere ; but the quantity of 
 water exhibited was small not so lucid or so 
 copious as one square in Rome can show at all 
 hours of day and night throughout the year. 
 The Parisians, however, were enchanted; and it 
 was pleasant to see the " Panem et Circenses " 
 thus translated into bread and water, sufficient for 
 the gratification of a light-hearted people. 
 
 We spent all Monday one of the longest days 
 of my life (in its passage) at Versailles. Its 
 tiresome part consisted in the enormous succession 
 of radiant objects seen through the five hundred 
 rooms of the palace all oblong, lofty, gorgeous, 
 gilded, picture-lined and, so far as I can recollect, 
 alike. The modern pictures, if not the best, were 
 the most interesting, for they embraced gigantic re- 
 presentations of all the events (but one) of modern 
 French history ; the remarkable circumstance being 
 
 the heroic impartiality with which all its aspects 
 
 D 2
 
 36 VERSAILLES. 
 
 were presented. That the glories of Napoleon's 
 career should be thus commemorated at the 
 expense of Louis Philippe, was in accordance with 
 the cool and crafty policy of the modern Ulysses ; 
 but that the two brief restorations of the legiti- 
 mate line of Bourbon should have here pictorial 
 records, not being intended for caricatures, seemed, 
 to first observation, strange. The national vanity, 
 however, solves this, as it solves many other French 
 problems ; it is thoroughly impartial, and treats 
 every vicissitude of the great nation as alike 
 worthy to be made immortal. It has not, indeed, 
 expatiated in a representation of the "battle of 
 Mont St. Jean," as the Parisians designate our 
 "Waterloo ; nor has it, amidst all the figures of 
 friends and foes, traced one likeness of the Duke 
 of Wellington ; perhaps the greatest compliment 
 ever paid by French silence. To make amends 
 for this chasm in military annals, the recent naval 
 achievements of France were irradiated by a 
 portrait of the Prince Joinville, standing on the prow 
 of a glittering ship, in our common sailor's neatest 
 attire tight blue jacket, open collar, loose black 
 neckcloth, and snow-white trowsers the exact
 
 VERSAILLES. 37 
 
 costume in which a very young lady dances the 
 hornpipe in the Spoil'd Child the type of dandi- 
 fied melo-dramatic seamanship. 
 
 After sight of these scenic, perhaps frail, memo- 
 rials of the house of Orleans, it was delightful 
 to explore the vestiges of martyred and undying 
 beauty in the rooms of the Great and Little 
 Trianon ; the two houses of pleasure in which 
 Marie Antoinette found retirement and silence 
 amidst the feverish luxuries of her wretched lot. 
 The first might be the bower of sober pomp ; but 
 the last, which was peculiarly her own, bespoke 
 a taste which must have regarded extreme 
 simplicity as essential to perfect repose. The 
 prevailing white paint, which was only remarkable 
 for looking intensely clean ; the furniture (which 
 was said to have been hers) entirely destitute of the 
 appliances of ease ; and the absence of every orna- 
 ment which could divide a moment's glance with the 
 rich foliage and flowers embowering the windows, 
 seemed to characterise, not a Paphian abode of 
 licentious enjoyment, but the retreat of a mind not 
 wholly " unspotted by the world," but pure in its 
 inmost recesses. JN"o stained glass, no gilding, no
 
 3S VERSAILLES. 
 
 figured roofs, gave token of a sense of luxury ; 
 light, air, and cleanliness, seemed the attributes of 
 this simple abode ; and yet here the murdered queen 
 was said to pass the hours desecrated by jacobin 
 slander ; and to this place, scarcely invested with 
 the charms of a polite rusticity, the heart of 
 its mistress clave with fonder remembrance 
 than to the Palace of the Tuileries, at which 
 she cast one despairing glance on her last 
 dreadful journey. 
 
 With this memorable exception, and the 
 opposite idea conveyed by the theatre of the 
 palace, breathing throughout its huge crimson circle, 
 the finest air of intellectual luxury the morning's 
 show was scarcely endurable ; but an evening 
 made sweeter by fatigue, in the embowered cottage 
 of cordial hosts, was enjoyed with the keenest relish. 
 A week of travel in the Great Desert could 
 scarcely have made the pure claret and cold 
 champagne we drank within sound of the murmur 
 of on*e little bright fountain, sweeter, than the huge 
 morning dragged out into apparent eternity through 
 the palatial splendours of Versailles. 
 
 On Tuesday, we began our day's pleasure (Oh,
 
 A SOLDIER S FUXERAL. 39 
 
 what hard work that pleasure was !) by a torrid 
 walk to the Hospital of the Invalids, in order to 
 introduce our untravelled novice to the tomb of 
 Xapoleon. In this purpose we were foiled, as the 
 gorgeous spectacle was veiled to admit of repairs in 
 the surrounding buildings ; but in the great church 
 by which it is approached we witnessed another spec- 
 tacle, as truly suggesting one aspect of the imperial 
 policy as the sarcophagus, the violet drapery and the 
 golden bees import another the funeral rites of 
 an ancient soldier, who had shared the Emperor's 
 triumphs and reverses. Our attention was attracted 
 by a sweet and solemn strain of music floating from 
 an unseen organ, and rivetted by a wretched pro- 
 cession strangely at variance with the prelude. No 
 ceremony in which human interests are assumed to 
 mingle could be conceived more dismally squalid. 
 A coffin of rudely painted wood was borne by four 
 old soldiers, who looked as hardened and insensible 
 as if they had been cut out of dirty pasteboard, and 
 received by two lounging, swaggering, chuckling 
 priests, who muttered some prayers over it with hur- 
 ried lips and absent minds. The bearers of the coffin, 
 who stood beside it during the " maimed rites," had
 
 40 A SOLDIER S FUNERAL. 
 
 been, as we were told, regimental comrades of the 
 dead ; they were old as he had been ; and if they were 
 untouched by regrets for their departed companion, 
 might naturally be expected to feel some self-pity 
 for their own approaching relinquishment of life ; but 
 they seemed as careless as the priests. The music 
 continued as if to indicate that there was pity above ; 
 but below all was tearless, unless there was some 
 kindly moisture in the glazed eyes of an aged 
 crone, who sat on a form in a distant aisle, with 
 bronzed and withered hands tightly clasped, and a 
 thin face a little upturned though shaking with 
 palsy, who probably owned some link of kindred 
 or cherished some remembrance of old acquaint- 
 anceship with the dead soldier ; but who was not 
 recognised as a mourner. The painful spectacle, 
 involving as utter disrespect for the clay of which 
 an immortal spirit had been tenant for fourscore 
 years as the absence of manly sorrow or Christian 
 hope, indicated the human material of which tri- 
 umphant armies are composed, arid which remains 
 after the agonies of conflict have been dulled, and 
 its shouts have died from the memory. It showed 
 that in the dull collapse of a soldier's life which
 
 THE PERE LA CHAISE. 4) 
 
 ambition has nurtured only for discipline and glory, 
 all the affections wither that even the regards 
 which fellowship in extreme perils, and in the festal 
 excitements which precede and reward them, create, 
 retain no lasting seat ; but that the man who has 
 been polished and degraded into a noble machine, 
 may remain when the impulses of active service 
 are withdrawn, untouched by love, hope, or fear 
 objectless and joyless lumber almost as little 
 worth as the last remaining pawn of a worm-eaten 
 chess-board! How different from this neglected 
 human tool is the pious soldier, who, like the centu- 
 rion in the Gospel, applies the law of military 
 obedience to eternal obligations ! 
 
 As our next duty involved a journey of some 
 miles to the opposite side of Paris, we took coach 
 and were driven to contemplate a different aspect 
 of death, as it is decked with all the gauds of 
 desperate fancy in the famous Cemetery of the 
 Pere la Chaise. We perceived that we were nearly 
 approaching the spot by the row T s of workshops for 
 the manufacture of monumental sculptures, inter- 
 spersed with inviting repositories for the sale of 
 the yellow garlands which the visitants of the tombs
 
 42 THE PERE LA CHAISE. 
 
 purchase to disperse about them a trade significant 
 of its customers. To purchase ready-made gar- 
 lands for the perpetuation of a floral grief, and to 
 hang them on pegs till their rottenness becomes 
 ostentatious, is one of the most artificial tricks of 
 feeble imagination ; and such tricks create a con- 
 stant demand for such funereal wares and produce 
 an unfailing supply ready to the hand. The 
 natural act of casting a freshly-gathered flower on 
 the grave of a friend, and the custom, which, in 
 Wales, and some country-places of England, has 
 arisen of decorating the mounds of the village- 
 churchyard with nosegays on high festivals of the 
 Church, spring from a feeling, which, if it suggested 
 first this elaborate necrology, has been crystallised 
 in its progress. And well do the dreary devices 
 of the interior of the burial-place fulfil the promise 
 of its entrance! They are, at best, but feeble 
 attempts to fret the surface of oblivion ; they leave 
 its depths unfathomed by revelation and its hue 
 unenlivened by hope. They rarely intimate any 
 feeling but that of irretrievable loss ; the allusions 
 to Christian reconcilement and heavenly reunion 
 are rare ; even the cross seems repelled from this
 
 THEATRE FRANfAIS. 43 
 
 region of the hopeless dead; and if the divine 
 symbol, so wisely and justly honoured in the Roman 
 Catholic worship, sometimes appears, it is generally 
 on the humblest monuments. Instead of suggesting 
 great thoughts which alone can compete with the 
 terrible reality of death, there are superfluous 
 acknowledgments of its power, and vain attempts 
 to give prettiness to its symbols. The position of 
 the cemetery is, however, noble presenting finer 
 glimpses of Paris than any other spot I have seen 
 and its trees and shrubs, among which narrow 
 pathways wind, and its shady spots, in which 
 modest flowers grow wild, and where human 
 affectation has been worn out, touch the heart 
 soothingly, and relieve it of that oppressive tight- 
 ness which the images of decorative grief and 
 rayless perpetuity engender. 
 
 In the evening we went to the Theatre Fra^ais, 
 and found it almost as chilling as the cemetery. 
 As the principal actors were "starring" in the 
 provinces, the benches were so thinly peopled that 
 the dimly-lighted house looked and felt like a 
 vault, and its gloom was not compensated by the 
 physical or intellectual splendour of the stage.
 
 44 THEATRE FRANfAIS. 
 
 The play was the Avare of Moliere, on which, 
 being a classical comedy, the curtain never dropped ; 
 the scene was not changed; and although the 
 action maintained its progress, the actors usually 
 stood still. The repose of the French high comedy, 
 unless illustrated by rare vivacity of looks and man- 
 ners, like that of the unforgotten Mars, must always 
 verge on insipidity ; and, on this occasion, it sunk 
 into restless ennui. A modern comedy, which has 
 been adapted to the English stage, under the title 
 of " A Hint to Husbands," followed by way of 
 afterpiece ; and, although low enough in sentiment, 
 and poor enough in situation, contrasted favourably 
 with the grand comedy of Moliere, because during 
 its performance the scenes were sometimes 
 shifted; the curtain dropped at the end of each act ; 
 and if the men, rouged and moustached, moved 
 like wooden puppets, the ladies, unrestrained by 
 classic rules, kept the stage alive by the exhibition 
 of very pretty French nature- with " nods and 
 becks and wreathed smiles," fluttering in perpetual 
 motion. We escaped into the Palais .Royal, in 
 hope to catch a parting glance of Parisian gaiety 
 at its best, in the sober enjoyment of ice and
 
 PEENCH DECORUM. 45 
 
 lemonade under the trees ; but the laws of decorum 
 which regulate all the outward symbols of French 
 pleasure, had closed the cafes, and sent home the 
 holiday makers, and left the square as deserted as 
 the strictest moralist could desire.
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 FROM PARIS TO MARSEILLES. 
 
 Start in false Diligence for Marseilles Journey to Dijon 
 Distant aspect of Dijon Aggravated sufferings in Diligence 
 to Chalons Voyage down the Saone to Lyons Lyons 
 Meeting with "the Blind Traveller" Performance of 
 " Robert the Devil" without the Nuns Yoyage down the 
 Rhone to Avignon Avignon Dreadful journey through 
 the night to Marseilles A glimpse of Lablache View from 
 Montebello of the Bay of Lyons Associations with "Monte 
 Christo" The Sailor's Sunday night in the harbour of 
 
 Marseilles The Play at Marseilles Fruit at Marseilles 
 
 Farewell to Marseilles. 
 
 ON Wednesday, 26th of August, we bade a 
 cheerful adieu to Paris, and having escaped the 
 ignoble meshes of the passport-web (which can 
 scarcely be more irritating under any Ke- 
 public) started; -for Italy \ We made a false 
 start ; for intending to go by Chalons and Lyons 
 to Marseilles, we had taken our garon's word, 
 in answer to our enquiries after a diligence to 
 Chalons ; or perhaps had too lightly regarded his
 
 A FALSE START. 47 
 
 answer, as importing that there was only one office 
 where the delights of travelling by a diligence 
 thither could be insured ; and, without further 
 inquiry, condemned ourselves to the dominion of 
 the office to which he directed us. It turned out 
 that we were taken in ; we had, indeed, secured 
 places for Chalons, but in a diligence which pro- 
 gressed first to Dijon; whence, after an interval 
 of weary unrest, we might be forwarded by an 
 associated travelling misery ; the mistake involv- 
 ing a circuit of thirty miles, which, when added 
 to two hundred in a French diligence, is a 
 serious penalty for an error. "We started, 
 however, in happy ignorance of this part of our 
 misfortune ; but we became woefully conscious 
 of another effect of our ignorant precipitation 
 our nicely printed tickets were found to indicate 
 the two central places in the huge carcass of 
 the atrocious caravan for the ladies, and two 
 corner seats, of course apart, on its topmost out- 
 side for myself and son. The case of the ladies 
 was the most piteous ; to travel two hundred and 
 thirty miles in the viscera of a diligence, with the 
 other four compartments amply and horribly filled,
 
 48 FROM PARIS TO CHALONS. 
 
 would have been unendurable, if the magic name 
 " Italy " had not whispered " courage." There was 
 no choice, no remedy ; the time for starting had 
 passed the ladies squeezed themselves into their 
 prison-holes within, while we mounted aloft ; and, 
 just at noon, we were all swinging, stifling, and 
 rattling along through the deep alleys of old Paris. 
 On we swung crushed of limb but light of heart, 
 until, as twilight was beginning to make the flat 
 scenery look amiable in a dull serenity, we stopped 
 in a walled town to partake of a rude, plentiful, 
 and most welcome dinner. As we were rising 
 abruptly from a specious dessert which the impera- 
 tive voice of our charioteer forbade us to enjoy. 
 a merry young French merchant, who was a fellow - 
 suflferer somewhere about the diligence with us, 
 gave us in excellent English excellent advice, to 
 indemnify ourselves against the unwelcome summons 
 by pocketing the cakes and fruit, assuring us 
 that such was the custom of the French way-side 
 hostelries ; and while we idly hesitated to commit 
 such a breach of the etiquette of English inns, he 
 appealed for confirmation to the trim little damsel 
 in attendance ; who ratified his proposal by
 
 FROM PAHIS TO CHALONS. 49 
 
 smilingly, with the visible sweetness of a true 
 good nature, expressing her " hope that we should 
 take all," and heaping up the peaches and apricots 
 for us. The fruits of this agreeable incident 
 served to lighten a few of the weary minutes 
 that stretched into' the night which, however, 
 did not prove so tedious as I feared ; and leaving 
 no particular recollection behind, was very tolerable 
 when it was over. On we were borne by uninter- 
 mittent stages, resting only once for a breakfast, 
 ruder than yesterday's dinner through flat but 
 fertile plains, along roads stony and dusty by 
 turns. As the sun was declining in a crystalline 
 sky, necked only with a few pink clouds, we came 
 suddenly on the brink of a long hollow, looking as 
 if it had been scooped out of the level earth, 
 which reached on each side as far as the eye could 
 trace it, filled with brushwood a most agreeable 
 surprise in our level journey and, after we had 
 edged its brink for a mile, a fair city, clad in the 
 loveliest light, apparently at a distance of about 
 two miles, rose before us. 
 
 To enquiries for its name, made eager more by 
 a view to dinner than geographical lore, we received
 
 50 FROM PARIS TO CHALONS. 
 
 answer that it was no other than Dijon where 
 we had arrived in the dead of the night on our 
 first tour, on the way to Geneva, and in which 
 we had spent some pleasant hours ; but which 
 we had no notion of revisiting. We then 
 learned the full extent of our disaster; we had 
 travelled our former road again without sus- 
 pecting it, (so different were the lights and 
 glooms of the two pilgrimages,) and were making 
 a circuit of thirty miles ; but we found consolation 
 in the prospect of seeing again a town which was 
 agreeably pictured in our memories, and in the 
 assurance that here we should certainly dine. 
 Meanwhile the city, with its encircling wall, a 
 segment of which stood clear before us, its belt 
 of trees that invests it, and its towers and 
 spires spread out in long and fair array, grew 
 more and more beautiful as we approached, 
 and as the lights of sunset about it grew softer. 
 The air was profoundly silent ; and the scene 
 so marvellously wore the air of a vision, that I almost 
 expected it to melt away with the delicate clouds 
 that had streaked it. The spectacle was lost when 
 we felt the tremendous shaking over the stony
 
 FEOM PARIS TO CHALONS. 51 
 
 streets and heard the loud cracking of -the coach- 
 men's whips ; but its influences remained to soothe 
 all disappointment ; and we were almost as happy 
 as we were hungry when we dismounted in the 
 midst of Dijon. 
 
 In spite of the remonstrance of our young 
 French companion, we persisted in seeking our 
 refreshment at the very small " Hotel of Geneva," 
 which had received us with unforgotten cordiality 
 at our midnight arrival on the former journey ; 
 but the repetition did not entirely succeed ; alas ! 
 what repetition in this life ever succeeds ? Our 
 elderly jovial- faced host, with whom we thought 
 we had established a sort of filial interest, had 
 obviously forgotten us ; the dingy and dirty 
 apartments did not wear the aspect of rough 
 comfort which our old weariness had imparted to 
 them ; but the Burgundy was as good as ever. 
 A due sense of "the eternal fitness of things," 
 enforced on us the duty of drinking the best 
 Burgundy we could procure in Dijon, in gay 
 defiance to the fever which so strangely but surely 
 lurks beneath " the sunset glow " of that insidious 
 
 liquor ; and this peculiar quality did not fail to 
 
 E 2
 
 52 FROM PARIS TO CHALONS. 
 
 render me intensely restless during the captivity 
 of the nocturnal journey which ensued. My 
 imprisonment, indeed, was more rigid than before ; 
 for the new diligence into which we were decanted 
 was smaller in all its compartments than that 
 which we had quitted ; and, I am afraid, that I 
 was rather an impatient sufferer during its slow 
 and dark progress to Chalons. My unrest was 
 also ' aggravated by a rumour which prevailed in 
 more than one quarter of the diligence, that the 
 river Saone, on which we were promised embarka- 
 tion, would be found too low for a steamer's 
 passage ; and that we should be obliged to proceed 
 by diligence (if haply we could find such an engine 
 of felicity) \o Lyons. The notion of an additional 
 eighty or one hundred miles of diligence was too 
 frightful to be dwelt on; I determined that the 
 river should be equal to its duty ; and so it was. 
 At four o'clock on Friday morning, we were 
 released on its margin from our dungeon and our 
 doubts ; for, in the faint star-light a little steamer, 
 moored to the quay, awaited us. It was of course 
 not ready to start ; and as no hospitable parlour, 
 or bar, or kitchen, or stable opened to receive us,
 
 FROM CHALONS TO LYONS. 53 
 
 we could only watch our piled luggage and try 
 to induce warmth by pacing up and down the 
 dreary wharf which stretched out between rows 
 of spectral warehouses and the dark stream. 
 Before dawn began to disclose the realities of the 
 strange spot which glimmers in my recollection 
 like a puzzling dream we were on the deck of 
 a small and singularly narrow steam-boat, and 
 were moving silently and rapidly down a brownish 
 river. 
 
 The morning air seemed very cold to the nerves 
 of people who had been so long aliens from 
 beds as we ; but the contrast of the freedom, 
 stillness, and steadiness of the boat with the 
 opposite qualities of the diligence, was enchant- 
 ing ; and the verdant banks of the Saone, touched 
 with the dawning light, seemed as good as fairy- 
 land. At first, these banks were only gentle 
 undulations bristling with vineyards and spotted 
 with ostentatious cottages and modest villas ; but 
 they gradually rose into beauty or stooped into 
 romance. We shot beneath several massive stone 
 bridges of ten or twelve arches, from one of which 
 we were told the snow-clad pinnacles of Mont Blanc
 
 54 FROM CHALONS TO LYONS. 
 
 are visible in clear weather in the similitude of a 
 jagged cloud, and passed the pretty town of Macon, 
 the birth-place of Lamartine, \vho for a few days 
 looked so glorious, and has since found that a 
 nation cannot be governed by fine words. Onward, 
 the river contracting in breadth, was attended 
 by nobler accessories ; rocky hills swept along 
 its sides ; these gradually became populous with 
 gardens, villas, terraces, which, as we glided rapidly 
 down an impetuous stream, thickened became 
 entirely covered with dwellings of intermitting 
 squalidness and splendour and the voyage ended 
 in the heart of Lyons. We had accomplished 
 about one hundred miles in less than nine hours, 
 and blazing in mid-noon, received our first impres- 
 sion of this remarkable city. The heat was so 
 violent that we were glad to find the hotel to 
 which we were directed dull, massive, gloomy ; 
 our rooms floored with dark bare wood ; the dra- 
 peries of faded brown stuff; and all about us dark, 
 sombre, and cool. Having obtained the purifying 
 appliances which, for a time, supply the want 
 of sleep, and enjoyed some coffee and cutlets, we 
 were prepared to explore the formidable heights
 
 LYONS. 55 
 
 around us, and achieve such a notion of this 
 stupendous human hive as a few short hours could 
 verify. 
 
 Lyons is not only " a great fact," but what is 
 far nobler a great IDEA ; the recollection even of 
 the glance we took of its aspects is a huge picture 
 suggestive of a thousand busy thoughts. If look- 
 ing at it first from the Saone, we felt the power 
 of a mightier stream in the consciousness that the 
 Rhone was near, our sense of the grandeur of the 
 Rhone, on our approach to its margin, was more 
 perfect because the mind had been expanded and the 
 eye familiarised to a breadth of running water than 
 if it had been attended by the force of surprise. 
 Enthroned at the confluence of two such rivers, 
 on a promontory wreathed upward into a chain of 
 undulating heights, covered, through all the noble 
 irregularities of the ground, with domes, spires, and 
 tall houses full of windows a palace of industry 
 upon a natural throne and spreading out beyond 
 each river on the side of the Saone to a vast circle 
 of towering buildings answering to the central 
 elevations, and on that of the Rhone extending 
 over a plain, crowded with quays and warehouses,
 
 56 LYONS. 
 
 and the magnificent abodes of merchants who rise 
 above the French curse of equal fortunes Lyons 
 presents a combination to which Lisbon, Rouen, and 
 Edinburgh might have contributed portions each, 
 perhaps, a nobler section than the parts \vhich 
 indicate resemblance but neither forming a whole 
 of such strange and various grandeur. We 
 threaded narrow, flint-paved, and most severe 
 ascents between dingiest houses so tall as almost 
 to exclude the noon-day sunlight, on the chance of 
 achieving some eminence whence we might see 
 both rivers and the entire city, but we did not 
 succeed in finding any spot whence the eye could 
 embrace the entire circle. The glorious portions, 
 however, on which we expatiated suggested the 
 perfect sphere ; and we descended, well satisfied 
 with the results of our fatiguing experiments, to 
 enjoy the shade of an enormous line of trees, bor- 
 dering the Rhone, and luxuriate in the sight of 
 the huge body of water rushing by us with one 
 heart, and which it was delightful to identify, in its 
 pomp and pride, with the narrow channel of deep 
 translucent water we had seen gush out of the lake 
 at Geneva, and two miles onward strongly but
 
 LYONS. 57 
 
 vainly resist a fusion with the turbid Arve, foaming 
 from the glaciers of Chamouni. 
 
 We dined luxuriously at the table-d'hote at 
 five o'clock, and were leaving the dining-room, 
 when a ministering garfon informed me that .a 
 blind English gentleman had caught English 
 accents at a distance, and wished for the pleasure 
 of speaking with a fellow-countryman. I went to 
 him; and found a venerable man with a long 
 beard, who introduced himself to me as " Mr. 
 Holman, the blind traveller." He was, he said, on 
 his way to Egypt, and averred that he experienced 
 gratifications akin to those of travellers with eyes 
 in his visits to celebrated places that, in the 
 vicissitudes of the atmosphere, and the feelings 
 suggested by unseen objects, he perceived all the 
 varieties of nature and art that they saw ; and 
 appealed to his works in proof of his assertion 
 that he could see with his mind. I wish his prac- 
 tical intuition may be as real as his belief in it ; 
 for it is delightful to recognise the inward lights 
 by which Providence may compensate for the organs 
 which are rayless ; but the works of " the blind 
 traveller " do not prove it. They are elaborate
 
 58 LYONS. 
 
 accounts of countries he has visited, compiled with 
 industry and care ; but they are such as may be 
 written without either vision or a miracle. How 
 rarely, indeed, do words, apparently winged and 
 vivid, give us a notion of an unvisited scene which 
 approximates to truth, in things beyond measure- 
 ment and catalogue ! For what aspects of land and 
 sea and sky, exquisitely various in each momentary 
 being of light and shadow, does one epithet often 
 stand ! What virtual representation of a thousand 
 things may one good word comprehend in its 
 duty ! What gorgeous fallacies the best descrip- 
 tions are ! Possibly Mr. Holman has presented 
 some scenes the better for not having seen them 
 as Mrs. Eadcliffe has introduced the loveliest wood- 
 land glades into the middle of France or as Hazlitt 
 wrote his finest criticisms on the acted drama when 
 "the players did not put him out!" Whatever 
 are Mr. Holmau's felicities as a phenomenon, or 
 his merits as a workman-like author, his kind 
 interest in our welfare could not be mistaken ; for, 
 learning from me that we purposed to visit Rome 
 he deprecated our purpose with the earnest tone of 
 an ancient friendship. " Go to Eome, my dear
 
 LYONS. 59 
 
 Sir," said he, "in September, and you will die as 
 surely as you now live." Not quite convinced, but 
 much startled, I replied " Why, I suppose, there 
 are some people at Rome in September and they 
 do not all die why may we not perchance 
 escape ? " " Oh, no ! " he replied with authority ; 
 " you must not go to Rome if you go, you will all 
 die there I am sure of it ; go to Sicily that is 
 charming, delicious, divine ; but Rome in Septem- 
 ber is death." I left him, staggered by his prophetic 
 emphasis ; but our determination to see Rome, 
 which was the main object of our journey, was too 
 firmly rooted to be resigned ; we called our fatalism 
 to our aid as the last resort of obstinacy : and Mr. 
 Holman shared the lot of Teiresias, and other blind 
 prophets, who have poured out their warnings on 
 incorrigible hearers. Happily for us, his prophecies 
 differed from theirs in wanting correspondence of 
 issue ; for we saw Rome while it was yet unconscious 
 of the blessings of French republican protection ; 
 and although we actually beheld the malaria rising, 
 "like an exhalation "from an opening of its great 
 sewer, " it harmed not us ! " 
 
 As we were destined to start for our voyage on
 
 60 LYONS. 
 
 the Ehone to Avignon at half-past four next morn- 
 ing, and had not been in bed since Tuesday, 
 prudence urged an early retirement to the rest we 
 had achieved ; but, alas ! there was a theatre open 
 at Lyons, where, according to announcement, the 
 opera of " Eobert the Devil " was to be executed 
 which, to our young gentleman, possessed ir- 
 resistible attraction although accompanied by the 
 statement that the scene of the resuscitated nuns 
 would, by royal command, be omitted I So it was 
 really " Eobert " without the " Devil ; " and even 
 if the banished nuns have been restored under the 
 republic, the performance must be too dull to be 
 noxious even to French morals. My son and I 
 "assisted" at the " maimed rites," while the ladies 
 took the wiser course of going early to bed ; for 
 which wisdom I soon envied them. The theatre 
 proved to be dull aud dingy, as French theatres 
 usually are; the performance was equable and 
 praiseworthy throughout, but never reaching excel- 
 lence ; in short, " very tolerable and not to be 
 endured " so, after enduring it for two drowsy 
 hours, I made my escape to bed, and left my dear, 
 inveterate playgoer to see the nunless end of it.
 
 FROM LYONS TO AVIGNON. 6l 
 
 In the next cold, dim morning we "might be 
 seen" (as a conscientious novelist would say at the 
 opening of a chapter) on our shivering way along the 
 princely quay to the steamer a boat very long, very 
 narrow, and very sharp, but more commodious than 
 that by which we had pierced the shallows of the 
 Saone and, when the cathedral clock drowsily indi- 
 cated the hourof/?y<?,we were gliding down the majes- 
 tic river. We had one hundred and forty miles to 
 conquer before landing, and we reached Avignon, our 
 place of destination, before four o'clock in the after- 
 noon to me a marvellous transit. The interval em- 
 braced ten gloriously illumined and thought-freight 
 hours. The huge portion of the Rhone which filled 
 them, is to my mind, more impressive than any 
 equal portion of the Rhine ; it is not so various ; 
 never contracted into a gorge so romantic as that 
 near St. Goar ; never expanded into such vast 
 fields of water perplexed by bright islands, and 
 glistening with yellow sand-banks, as the Rhine 
 between Manheiin and Strasbourg ; not wreathed 
 into such enormous but defined curves, nor flowing 
 in such satin-tissued green, nor broken into such 
 dolphin-like ridges of prismatic colour, as the Rhine
 
 62 FROM LYONS TO AVIGNON. 
 
 everywhere ; but, as it rolls on, one huge volume of 
 dark-brown water, between vaster hills, it presents 
 a more single, entire, and harmonious idea, and 
 more strongly indicates the sense of direct, irresis- 
 tible progress. Instead of bridges of boats such 
 as cross the Rhine at Cologne, Manheim, Mayence, 
 and Strasbourg, the Ehone is spanned by many 
 noble stone-bridges, some of airy height, and others 
 of stately masonry. The greatest of all, the Pont 
 St. Esprit, comprises twenty-six arches, and being 
 built at an angle to stem the current, extending 
 2700 feet in length, astounded us as if it were some- 
 thing monstrous the feeling of amazement at its 
 extent being heightened to the apprehension by the 
 rapidity of the glance which took it in, while the 
 boat was dashed through a giddy whirlpool of one 
 of the side arches, and by the sense of the strength 
 against which this wild torrent has raged for four 
 centuries in vain. What an admiration of the 
 energetic piety of the fourteenth century is inspired 
 by the knowledge that a brotherhood of monks 
 accomplished this prodigious work in forty-five 
 years ! The scale of the Ehone seems to my recol- 
 lection greater than that of the Shine ; its reaches
 
 FKOM LYONS TO AVIGNON. 63 
 
 are bolder ; its loftiest mountains stand apart visible 
 as independent objects for many miles, not like 
 those of the Rhine, which, with the exception of the 
 Drachenfels, are clustered together in ranges 
 through which the stream flows in labyrinthine 
 beauty less lovely perhaps, but more impressive 
 not framed to lead the affections insensibly from a 
 dalliance with willow-beds, and islets like flower- 
 pots set in water, to the conception of great solitudes 
 of lake and woodland, but commanding a more 
 immediate reception of great images. Its associa- 
 tions lead farther back into history than the border 
 castles of the Rhine, and suggest feelings akin to 
 the wilder impetuosity of its current. 
 
 Let those who are disposed to murmur at our 
 mortal life as short, glance, with us, at some of the 
 objects presented to our vision ; and, comprehending 
 the sentiments reflected from them, partake our 
 gratitude for the vastness of our time's capa city and 
 for the extension given to our meditative e xistence 
 by the modern development of the power of steam 
 which combined with the power of thought to 
 people three-fourths of a summer's day with 
 the Rhone's course of one hundred and forty
 
 64 FROM LYONS TO AVIGNOX. 
 
 miles. In those little hours, what reminiscences of 
 ancient glory ; what suggestive hints of dim super- 
 stition ; what images of heroic daring and Christian 
 suffering have been gathered from the shores which 
 have opened and closed on our passage ! Casting a 
 glance on Vienne, as the steamer rushes by it, and 
 piercing, in the instant, the narrow valley which 
 opens in the midst of its huddled edifices, we 
 recognise the first fastness-refuge of the western 
 Church of Christ, whence the voice of its earliest 
 martyrs was sent to embolden and animate a noble 
 army of sufferers throughout many regions and 
 several ages. On one side frowns Mont Salomon, 
 the reputed prison of Pontius Pilate ; while, 
 further on, the Chateau de Ponsas, cresting a 
 savagely dark rock, whence it is said that the 
 miserable Governor cast himself into the Ehone, and 
 the huge Mont Pilas each suggests, deepens and 
 reduplicates the impression of that peculiar horror 
 which invests the image of this most wretched of 
 men, and recals the immortal lesson, which shows 
 how an unimaginable gulf may open for crimes no 
 more seemingly atrocious than dastardly and selfish 
 weakness, which, while shrinking from the danger
 
 PROM LYONS TO AVIGNON. 65 
 
 of saving an innocent life, involved the guilt of the 
 greatest death of all ages. Though the Alps of Switz- 
 erland and Savoy are a hundred miles away, yet, 
 from the waters on which we are gliding opens the 
 valley of Isere, and, like a mass of snow-white cloud 
 at the end of its vista, gleams Mont Blanc, sug- 
 gesting the airy fantasies of an enchanted world. 
 The regions where are matured juices which, by a 
 thousand delicate flavours, have cast a perfume on 
 social life, expand in succession. Here, behind a 
 round barren summit, which thrusts itself far out 
 into the stream above long ridges which descend to 
 the brink like steps of a giant's palace, waves the 
 vineyard where the choicest Hermitage ripens; there, 
 huge cliffs of clay cast a hotter sun-heat on broad 
 low plains, whence the rough Contes is drawn ; along 
 that immense slant of green the delicate Cote Koti 
 ripens into its sunset glow ; and on those sharp 
 descents of hills which meet in the village of 
 St. Perey those grapes cluster which burst with 
 their own deliciousness before they are pressed 
 into juice which requires no art to make it sweeter. 
 The peaked mountains and forked rocks which rise 
 from the stream often indicate long ranges of
 
 66 FROM LYONS TO AVIGNON. 
 
 hills of which they are the lower terminations; 
 thus, the three pointed masses of dark basalt that 
 lower over Eochemaure form the root of the vast 
 Coiron range which connects the Loire with the 
 Rhone, and that huge Mont Venteoux is the 
 footstool of the French Alps. For a moment, in 
 passing, you discern a portion of a great white 
 circle of wall ; it is the Roman temple of Orange 
 and thence, amidst the rude masses of rough 
 grandeur, flashes on the mind the splendour of 
 imperial Rome ; while Yalens suggests the young 
 ambition of Napoleon, when a friendless lieutenant 
 of infantry, meditating on his dawning fortune. 
 We glide on till the terrible turrets of Avignon 
 appear, first seen mirrored in the broad water 
 over-shadowing the mind with black images of papal 
 superstition, pomp, and cruelty ; softening it by the 
 memories of Petrarch's mournful beauty ; diverting 
 it by the fantastic recollections of Rienzi, the 
 theatrical tribune of a scenic Rome, here idly 
 plotting the renewal of a pictorial republic ; and 
 freezing it by the thought of those revolutionary 
 horrors which made the daily executions of Robes- 
 pierre look pale, and which Mr. Carlyle's panting
 
 AVIGNON. 67 
 
 muse of heroic prose vainly toils to embody. Our 
 voyage is over ; but its ten hours will last as long as 
 consciousness of the past shall continue. 
 
 All things at Avignon combined to favour our 
 eagerness to reach the shore of the Mediterranean. 
 At the Hotel de 1'Europe, we learned that a table 
 d'hote would be spread in less than an hour, and 
 that, an hour after, a diligence would depart for 
 Marseilles, which was advertised to reach its desti- 
 nation (0, vague and deceitful promise!) early 
 next morning. The bureau of this unknown recep- 
 tacle of misery was opposite the hotel ; and a few 
 minutes sufficed for securing places on the roof for 
 my son and me, and two inside for the ladies, by 
 one who dreamed not then how much wretchedness 
 can be purchased with a little money. The residue 
 of our anteprandial hour, being insufficient to 
 allow of our attaining any eminence, was wearily 
 occupied in languid strolls through deep alleys, up 
 steep streets paved with sharp flints, and among 
 prisons, or prison-like houses, and was rewarded 
 only by meeting with one enormous procession of 
 monks, gowned priests, and surpliced children, an 
 firary of black and white never before seen by me
 
 63 AVTGXOX. 
 
 except in a dream but the meaning of which, if it 
 had one, remained unguessed, and the only point of 
 information we achieved was that, which for a long 
 time was doubtful, that it had an end. Dinner 
 came to our inexpressible relief: dinner served with 
 remarkable elegance, accompanied by a profuse 
 supply of fruits and flowers ; and when it was 
 over, and we took leave for the diligence, the land- 
 lady, with a hurried courtesy " of the right breed," 
 loaded us with peaches and roses snatched from the 
 dessert, and sent us on our way in good humour 
 with her and all the world. Did she foresee our 
 diligential doom, and, in ancient fashion, shower 
 them as votive ofierings on the victims of destiny ? 
 The first two stages, slowly performed in the 
 waning light, were to us of the outside delightful ; 
 but two circumstances suggested distrust of the 
 promised termination of our journey at dawn ; 
 first, that our diligence, a miniature specimen of 
 its formidable class, about the bulk of an auld- 
 world English six-insided stage, which had left 
 Avignon in gallant trim with three respectable 
 horses, dropped its leader at the first change, and 
 struggled on with a pair of wretched animals which
 
 FROM AVIGNON TO MARSEILLES. 69 
 
 might have acted as skeletons in the train of the 
 "Wild Huntsman ; second, that our " little bark " 
 moved servilely attendant on a full-sized four-horsed 
 diligence ; stopped behind it whenever it stopped, 
 even for some momentary adjustment in the middle 
 of the road, like the attendant on a tragic queen ; 
 while the greater adventurer never returned the 
 compliment, but unmindful of the silent homage 
 we had paid it on many stoppages, and our duteous 
 admiration as it crawled up the hills, like a huge 
 sea-monster, at our first extra stoppage, rumbled 
 majestically out of sight, and was seen no more. 
 Our pace then became slower : night closed over us 
 with a curtain of the heaviest leaden clouds, from 
 behind which the moon sometimes spitefully peeped 
 to show us the dreariness of the country which it 
 did not condescend to adorn; and we began to 
 freeze in our lofty seats, less from absolute cold than 
 from a frigid sympathy with the icy character of our 
 motion. The stages were short ; the pauses long ; 
 until one pause, which followed our attainment of 
 the edge of a wide-spread table-land, threatened to 
 be endless. The vehicle stood, as if rooted, in the 
 middle of one of those straggling French villages of
 
 70 FROM AVIGNON TO MARSEILLES. 
 
 ponderous homesteads which, at their best, look 
 like logwood towns in slow progress, and at their 
 worst (of which this seemed a model specimen) 
 like savage hamlets grown prematurely old. The 
 coach stood " full inside ; " outwards in utter deso- 
 lation with its broken pole bound up by a dirty rope 
 which, dangling down, had been gradually growing 
 spectral to our strained eyes, before a hovel much 
 larger than its neighbours, which we guessed to be 
 an inn by a broken horse-trough in front, guarded 
 by a pump without a handle. "With a desperate 
 purpose to find relief in a crust of black bread and 
 a bottle of sharp wine, not for refreshment but for 
 change of sensation, I quitted my perch, pushed 
 open a rough-hewn unpainted door, by upsetting a 
 faggot placed within as a fastening, and gained 
 admittance to a huge low room, which might have 
 been a kitchen, except that the only hint of a fire- 
 place was given by a line of broken flag-stones 
 rather blacker than the bricken floor surmounted by 
 a large chimney. One tallow candle flaring in its 
 low tin socket disclosed this melancholy apartment, 
 about which I looked in vain for a flitch of bacon, 
 or a rope of onions, or a mouldy cheese to hint of
 
 FROM AVIGNON TO MARSEILLES. 71 
 
 something that some one might eat, or for a bat 
 tered pewter pot, or even a rim of liquor-stain on a 
 bench or table to indicate that once upon a time 
 something had been drank there ; but a half- 
 chopped log of wood on a long deal table, with a 
 rusty cleaver beside it, was the nearest approach to 
 a vestige of humanity that I could discover. I 
 called ; I shouted ; not even an echo answered, 
 until just as I was departing in despair, a figure, 
 half-ostler, half-ogre, slouched in as if walking in 
 its sleep, for if the eyes were open their sense was 
 unawakened; and large, round, wide-open they 
 were, beneath a mat of reddish hair, set in a broad, 
 dirty, fairish face, which surmounted a mass of 
 great coat and galligaskins without form. In an 
 extended hand the figure grasped an enormous 
 horse-whip, with which, by a tremendous crack, be 
 replied to the absurd inquiries I addressed to him 
 as to the cause of our detention and the proba- 
 bility of our departure. As I repeated these 
 questions in idle despair (for, of course, he could 
 not understand me) he only expanded his great 
 eyes and cracked his whip anew ; till I guessed 
 the fact that there was a failure in the supply
 
 72 FROM AVIGNON TO MARSEILLES. 
 
 of horses, and that our conductor was gone on 
 a hopeful expedition among the upland farms to 
 beg, borrow, or otherwise acquire animals for our 
 need. But to the inquiry how long we were likely 
 to wait it was impossible to gain an intimation ; 
 the ostler stood stock still and cracked his whip, as 
 if by that movement he was discharging the sole 
 duty for which he was born ; when hopeless of 
 obtaining a bit of truth I should have felt the most 
 palpable lie to be a comfort. At last, I resolved " to 
 walk on ; " and bidding my imprisoned companions 
 to hope for better times, proceeded to that desperate 
 resource of bewildered restlessness, which has only 
 one certainty, that it cannot advance you unless 
 you walk all your way ; and as I did not contem- 
 plate such an exploit, I was obliged to walk 
 slowly lest I should outstrip the coach beyond 
 the possibility of its catching me. And so I 
 walked on for miles and miles and miles, I cannot 
 guess how many, in the murky night, through a 
 region compared with which the bleakest table- 
 land of the Cotswolds is a paradise, by a road only 
 diversified by long descents and correspondent 
 elevations, which, unfringed even by coarse rushes
 
 FJIOM AVIGNON TO MARSEILLES. 73 
 
 or scanty grass, stretched before me distinguished 
 only by a dustier brown from the arid fields. 
 Morning dawned greyly ; and though the sun did 
 not deign to gild the blanket of eastern cloud, he 
 showed us more distinctly the nakedness of the 
 land all in a manner cultivated but yielding such 
 poor return to the proprietors of its strips as the 
 squalid poverty of the hovels, by which it was 
 dotted at long intervals, indicated telling only of 
 ill-requited, ignorant labour just sufficiently active 
 to deprive the country of those compensations which 
 nature makes to barren soils by patches of rank 
 verdure, or rocks stained by time. Two hours 
 after daybreak, I caught the drowsy sound of a 
 horse-bell, which announced our vehicle (for there 
 could be no other) on its way ; in an hour 
 more it crawled beside me ; but as the road 
 presented a series of ascents and descents, I 
 did not resume my seat till it reached the edge of 
 the desolate region and descended into a valley, 
 where the road branches to Aries. Hence the scene 
 was quite different, for the country, though not 
 luxuriant, looked like life ; the road was chequered 
 by villas and pretty cottages; but as the sun
 
 74 FROM AVIGNON TO MARSEILLES. 
 
 glared out high in heaven, our slow progress ex- 
 posed us to a more acute form of martyrdom, for 
 we were half flayed by the heat, and more than 
 half blinded by the dust. "We thirsted for the 
 famous blue of the Mediterranean, and eagerly 
 looked for it at every turn ; but we saw only hill 
 slopes speckled with white villas, until the strag- 
 gling villas condensed into a long suburb ; the 
 dusty way gave place to a flint-paved road which 
 rocked us not to rest ; the heights were covered 
 with white houses intermixed with dusky trees ; 
 and long after mid-day I descended from my " bad 
 eminence " in the midst of Marseilles exhumed 
 my fair fellow-travellers from their moving tomb 
 and breaking from a crowd of enthusiastic inviters 
 to various unrivalled hotels, found my way with 
 them, burning, panting, and fainting, to the Hotel 
 1' Orient for shade, water, and repose, never more 
 needed by any four travellers in this dusty world. 
 
 "We were soon enabled by the appliances of a 
 most luxurious hotel to enter the salle a manger, 
 where the noontide table d'hote was just ending, 
 to late coffee and bread and butter, reserving our 
 substantial repast till five o'clock. There we saw,
 
 MARSEILLES. 75 
 
 completing the contrast between our past savage 
 journey and the present accumulated humanities, a 
 virtual representative of the highest civilisation in 
 the goodly form of Lablache, who, with two ladies, 
 was finishing his dejeuner preparatory to his de- 
 parture for Naples by a steamer ready to sail. 
 The intelligence awakened some regrets in us that 
 our difficulties of luggage and passport would not 
 permit us to share his voyage, as, but for these, we 
 should have arrived exactly in time to sail at once 
 for Italy. But we unjustly accused our fortune ; 
 for these obstacles procured us two days' rest and 
 enjoyment at Marseilles, and did not prevent us 
 from reaching Naples so nearly at the same time 
 with the regretted steamer, which had made several 
 stoppages, that we were dismissed from the Nea- 
 politan Custom-house contemporaneously with its 
 envied voyagers. 
 
 Indeed, we should have lost much, if we had 
 quitted Marseilles thus unseen ; as we should have 
 missed the impression of a remarkable seaport, and 
 one of the most perfect prospects in the world. 
 After breakfast, starting alone to seek an eminence 
 whence we might survey the city and obtain a first
 
 76 MARSEILLES. 
 
 glimpse of the Mediterranean, I wound my way up 
 huge hills of rubbish, through unfinished buildings 
 and labyrinths of stone, to a lofty summit over- 
 looking the Bay of Lyons, and immediately above 
 the basin of Marseilles. The city rose almost in a 
 circle around this spot which, I think, is called 
 Montebello the hills beyond it glittered with the 
 innumerable villas to which the tradesmen almost 
 universally aspire, contrasted, not relieved, by 
 groves of dusky olive so far, a prospect more 
 vivid than enchanting ; but before me lay the 
 deeply purple Mediterranean, narrowing from its 
 aerial expanse into a basin circled with rocks of 
 soft cream-colour, and heaving from its unruffled 
 surface the island rocks of similar colour, with 
 white buildings cresting them. These barren 
 islands were rich in some of those associations 
 which the genius of localised romance can lend to 
 the scene it breathes on ; for there towered the 
 castle d'lf which, if left to authentic history, 
 would have suggested nothing but works of active 
 tyranny and obscure sufferings, but which the 
 author of "Monte Christo " has invested with 
 undying interest by the greatest of French
 
 MARSEILLES. 77 
 
 romances. As I looked on the radiant contrast of 
 the deep purpled sea in its finely curved basin and 
 the turrets of bright stone morticed into the rocks, 
 that spread their roots out visibly beneath the lucid 
 water, those scenes which Dumas had associated 
 with them " descending slow their glittering skirts 
 unrolled," from the first picture of the young 
 sailor entering the harbour of Marseilles, master of 
 the vessel he had saved, to enjoy love, promotion, 
 and the luxury of blessing a father's age, to the 
 completion of the inveterate purpose of the same 
 being, pale, mysterious, and potent in boundless 
 wealth, by the exemplary punishment of the men 
 who had quenched his young hope in dungeoned 
 years. There is in the work a combination of the 
 fantastic splendours of a fairy tale with the earnest- 
 ness of tragic purpose nurtured by tragic passion ; 
 of prodigal extravagance of incident with the perfect 
 development of a scheme of revenge gradually 
 immeshing its victims not only without equal in 
 degree, but differing in kind from all other works 
 of its author and of his continental rivals. Except 
 one exquisite touch of true Parisian morality 
 where the son of the ruined banker coolly accedes
 
 78 MARSEILLES. 
 
 to his father's scheme of suicide, and assists in 
 preparations for the paternal exit, in order that it 
 may be at once quiet and productive of the medi- 
 tated eclat this romance is free from those 
 obliquities which often render the works of its 
 author monstrous. Perhaps, among them, " Monte 
 Christo" alone could be brought to recollection 
 among the fairest scenes of nature, without 
 inducing the sense of intolerable discord. 
 
 After dinner, having conducted my fellow- 
 travellers to this eminence, whence the prospect, 
 if more lovely in evening light, looked less mar- 
 vellous than in the kindred gorgeousness of hols 
 sunshine, I went with them to the harbour, which 
 we reached a little after sunset. This oblong creek, 
 which the Mediterranean has cut into the land, 
 looked full of sailing-vessels and steamers of all 
 nations, extending close to the broad stone-flagged 
 pavement ; and this noble causeway, beneath 
 handsome houses, and free from lumber as an 
 ordinary street, unlike quays which lie beneath 
 warehouses, formed a remarkable platform for the 
 inspection of the vast congress of sea-palaces. It 
 was a fine scene for a sailor's decorous Sunday night.
 
 MARSEILLES. 79 
 
 The flags, in honour of the day, streamed from all 
 the mastheads above the groves of interlacing spars 
 of the ships as they lay, tier beyond tier, bewildering 
 the eye chiefly unpeopled and silent, except 
 where some youngster had proved his niinbleness 
 by twisting himself into a dizzy seat, and announced 
 his success to his clustered shipmates by straining 
 a boyish voice into a shout of derisive triumph. 
 Sailors of all nations in their smartest attire were 
 rolling about the pavement, sometimes arm-in-arm, 
 sometimes with arms thrown over a comrade's 
 shoulder, all apparently in the kindest of humours. 
 Now and then, we caught an anxious word, uttered 
 in a deep voice ; but much offcener a merry laugh 
 came floating by ; and in the whole scene there was 
 no symptom of drunkenness or rudeness ; it wore a 
 holiday air without dissipation ; unless the frequent 
 pipe and cigar may be so accounted in a place 
 where vegetable decomposition in a tideless sea 
 produced scents which almost made tobacco virtue. 
 Ao the twilight faded, and the harvest moon 
 scattered its light among the tall masts, and 
 brilliant gas-lights from the streets flung their 
 uncertain glare over the pavement, the scene
 
 80 MARSEILLES. 
 
 assumed an aspect strangely different from that 
 which when first entered it had worn ; the buzz of 
 tongues grew louder and livelier ; but still perfect 
 good-humour rang in all the Babel which surprised 
 our ears from half the dialects of the world. 
 
 In this pleasant spectacle, we forgot our own 
 unrest of the Saturday night ; and lingered about 
 the quays till they were nearly deserted ; and 
 even the sleep which followed was not unbroken 
 by fantastic combinations of the ships and groups 
 of the harbour. Next day, Monday, was spent in 
 bright, hot, glorious strolls about Marseilles and 
 its suburbs, from the dawn, when I threaded my 
 way through the lumbered wilderness of Monte- 
 bello to discern in faint freshness the colours of 
 the rocks and sea, up to the midnight when, 
 returning from the play, we won our passage 
 through the crowding visitants of a fair, holden 
 beneath two long avenues of trees, beneath which 
 tents for the sale of all sorts of tempting things 
 were pitched, and which were so densely peopled 
 that none but the brave could achieve however 
 they might deserve "the fair." One disappoint- 
 ment my son and I, indeed, suffered in an expedition
 
 MARSEILLES. SI 
 
 to baths, misnamed "Mediterranean," which we 
 found in a distant suburb, to consist only of 
 canopied openings to the sea, which was so 
 shallow as to afford no means of immersion 
 except by lying down in its sharp shingly 
 bed; and, being tideless, afforded no promise of 
 one auxiliary wave. At the theatre, to which, 
 alter dinner, we dutifully repaired, we felt quite 
 at home, for the boxes were as empty as those of 
 one of our theatres when the legitimate drama is 
 acted, and the pit was thronged by a crowd as 
 noisy in impatience and as boisterous in applause 
 as an English audience ; suggesting the inference 
 that the provinces of France are not so serious 
 in their pleasures as the capital, and the hope, 
 that they do not emulate the corresponding levity 
 in things serious, which forms the balance of 
 Parisian life. The performances consisted of three 
 Vaudevilles, excellently acted, although by per- 
 formers destitute of metropolitan celebrity, the 
 men being exemplarily careful and correct, and the 
 ladies equalling them in those merits, and being 
 also as charming as accurate. This I apprehend 
 to be the general character of French actors ; and
 
 82 MARSEILLES. 
 
 assuredly it did not fail in these provincial scenes. 
 "Whether the stage be great or small, the piece 
 classic or farcical, all the performers strive to do 
 their best in the smallest as in the first parts ; they 
 study the text docilely, dress correctly (unless when 
 they misrepresent English people), and take their 
 position on the precise plank assigned them at 
 rehearsal with mathematic exactness. Besides dis- 
 playing those excellences, the ladies shed the genial 
 vivacity of their nature through the well observed 
 forms, and diffuse among the spectators the enjoy- 
 ment they feel, while the gentlemen look dry and 
 withered even in youth, with masks of paint and 
 mustache for faces, and limbs obedient to mecha- 
 nical law, as if moved by metallic springs. Such 
 at least was the acting at Marseilles ; the ladies and 
 gentlemen being in their respective ways perfect 
 the latter aa exact machines, the former as happy 
 beings made exact by a law of harmony. 
 
 Learning that on Tuesday a steamer called the 
 Charlemagne would proceed from Marseilles to 
 Naples, stopping only at Genoa, we resolved 
 to take at once the great dip into Southern beauty, 
 and return by Eome and Florence ; and accordingly
 
 MAHSEILLES. 83 
 
 we secured berths and all attendant comforts, 
 receiving a regularly signed and witnessed contract 
 in change for our napoleons, stating all the parti- 
 culars of luxury we were to enjoy, and which 
 was most liberally fulfilled. The vessel was to 
 leave the harbour at one, before which I again 
 visited Montebello, and took a leave doubtless a 
 final leave of its lovely summit. The peculiarity 
 which most pleased me, in ranging about among 
 the shops, was the plenitude of fruit, especially 
 grapes, finer in appearance than any I saw in 
 Italy, and only yielding to our choicest hot-house 
 grapes in flavour. I cannot now fathom their 
 cheapness ; for when seeking to obtain relief of 
 a few heavy copper pieces which had accumulated 
 in my pocket, I went into a little shop, and 
 delivering them to the lady who represented 
 Pomona at its door, asked for their value in grapes, 
 I found it far more than I could carry how much 
 more I cannot tell bunch after bunch was heaped 
 up by her liberality, with which I filled a news- 
 paper then my hat and then was obliged to 
 confess my inability to go on receiving, and left 
 behind an unknown quantity, while, with head
 
 84 MARSEILLES. 
 
 uncovered, I bore my spoils to the inn. " A Sicilian 
 fruitfulness " seemed outdone in this Southern 
 city of France; which we left in the conviction 
 that Italy could no better realise the poet's 
 words, 
 
 " Hesperian fables true 
 If true here only."
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 MARSEILLES TO ROME BY GENOA AND NAPLES. 
 
 Delicious indolence of an enchanted voyage from Marseilles to 
 Naples Stoppage at Genoa Aspect of Genoa from the 
 sea Walks in Genoa Decorated churches Hall of 
 memorial statues at the Bank of St. George The Gold- 
 smiths' street and story Church of the Annunciation 
 Passing view of Elba Entrance of the Bay of Naples, and 
 heterodox opinion about its superiority to smaller bays 
 Neapolitan custom-house Herculaneum Pompeii Mag- 
 nificent storm Public Garden of Naples General aspect 
 of Naples Picturesque groups in Naples Vesuvius smoke- 
 less Sad memorial of Sir W. W. Follett by his dying 
 entry in the visitors' book Retrospective view of his pro- 
 fessional character Departure by diligence for Rome 
 Bootless halt at Capua Starving journey to Antium 
 Astounding glimpse of the Coliseum Entrance of Rome. 
 
 I CAN imagine no condition of earthly being more 
 luxurious than that which I enjoyed during our 
 voyage from Marseilles to Naples, commencing at 
 noon, on Tuesday, 1st September, and ending at 
 nine o'clock of the forenoon of Friday 4th ; broken
 
 86 FROM MARSEILLES TO GENOA. 
 
 only by our visit to Genoa, which, notwithstanding 
 the beauty that invests its remembrance, was, at 
 the time, actually unwelcome. For an hour after 
 we quitted the harbour, the glittering sea heaved 
 and rolled enough to produce a sensation of 
 pleasing faintness ; but afterwards the pathway of 
 the vessel lay through an unruffled purple plain, 
 sometimes without visible limit, sometimes edged 
 or crested with lofty rocks, which, clothed in thin 
 vapour, seemed the guardian towers of an en- 
 chanted lake sacred to indolent repose. If its 
 motion had depended on wind or tide our steamer 
 must have remained "as idle as a painted ship 
 upon a painted ocean ; " but the steam-power 
 enabled us to enjoy that highest state of intel- 
 lectual pleasure which arises from the blended 
 sense of perfect tranquillity and rapid progress. 
 Scarce a cloud floated through the air during the 
 day, and the few clouds that gathered at evening 
 in the west were only sufficient to pavilion the 
 sunset's glories. It is true that the sun rained 
 down heat during twelve hours of his course, 
 which to the dwellers on earth must have been 
 tremendous ; but to us it only indicated an
 
 FROM MARSEILLES TO GENOA. 87 
 
 Egyptian pomp differing from that of Cleopatra on 
 the Cydnus in being devoid of the fatigue which 
 the consciousness of admired splendour produces. 
 The soft coolness and the mild light of dawn, and 
 the rich lustre of evening were not required for 
 our refreshment, though welcome varieties in the 
 day coming, as Milton represents such alterna- 
 tions in his heaven, "for change delectable not 
 need." We had not even the labour of mounting 
 or descending a few steps in a change between the 
 saloon and the deck ; for the saloon was built on 
 the deck-level, so that the movement was languidly 
 performed, from the large, deep, soft sofas which 
 encircled the room and the windows which pre- 
 sented bright pictures to the reclining idler, to the 
 full blaze of ocean and sky. At dawn, or when- 
 ever we chose after it, excellent coffee awaited us 
 with biscuit for such as might be rash enough to 
 prefer such dry refection to the just anticipation of 
 the sumptuous breakfast which was served at ten. 
 Then, four dishes of exquisite French cookery, with 
 a bottle of clear amber-coloured dry Italian wine for 
 each person, followed by a dessert of fresh grapes and 
 melons or peaches, and rich dried fruits, with coffee
 
 88 FROM MARSEILLES TO GENOA. 
 
 and liqueurs were served on a round table, encircled 
 by sofas, in a small cabin, with as quiet a grace as 
 that with which the Chifihey's supper sprang up 
 at the village hostelry in Sir "Walter's Peveril. At 
 five in the afternoon, dinner was served with similar 
 taste, but with greater variety and profusion ; the 
 only difference, except in the number of dishes, 
 being that, at the evening repast, our captain 
 presided; but, as we did not understand his 
 language, nor he ours, he could only pay us silent 
 courtesy, which he did in gracious pantomime, by 
 which he pressed the good things of his ship upon 
 us so that the due observance of the main purpose 
 of the sitting was not interrupted by idle dialogue. 
 Until the vessel touched at Genoa, we were the only 
 passengers on board ; and the three persons who 
 joined it there proved little worse than automata, 
 for they caught at once the spirit of the calm and 
 enjoyed it in expressive silence. As the vessel 
 held its way in deep, still water, the crew seemed 
 to have almost as little occupation as its passen- 
 gers ; but perhaps the leisure, which to the care- 
 worn careless idlers of a holiday, was delicious, 
 hung heavy on their hands. Their chief amuse-
 
 PROM MARSEILLES TO GENOA. 89 
 
 ment was supplied by a large dog, who partook of 
 the drowsiness of the human world, and readily 
 yielded to their command, that he should repeat 
 the lesson they had taught him to counterfeit 
 death, in order that they might sleepily follow his 
 pretended funeral in the slow pace which befitted 
 them, repeating, " (Test il mort." The bearer, in 
 this drowsy farce, was a slim sailor lad, who, 
 though his limbs were unshackled by any dress 
 except a coarse shirt and trowsers, never used 
 them, so far as we saw, for any purpose except that 
 of performing his part in the evening melodrama ; 
 but he was the playmate of the dog and the pet of 
 the crew, and might be fancied a young gentle- 
 man in disguise. We assisted twice at this affect- 
 ing ceremony, which we were told by a Scotch 
 engineer who managed the engine, was often 
 repeated, so that it did not even cost the fatigue of 
 a smile. The curse of toil seemed suspended ; so 
 that it was difficult for us to believe that we were 
 still dwellers in a working world. 
 
 At noon on Wednesday, the charm was inter- 
 rupted by the vessel sweeping into the Port of 
 Genoa to land us till sunset ; and the image of
 
 90 GENOA. 
 
 that pictorial city, so suddenly exhibited, so swiftly 
 withdrawn, glistens in the past, as if it were an 
 air-drawn fancy breaking through an enchanted 
 slumber. Perhaps a visitor, fugitive as we, 
 seeking to recall it after it has been obscured 
 by the concerns of busy life, will recognise 
 at first only a confused rainbow-streak in his 
 memory ; but that streak will gradually expand in 
 gorgeous colours those colours will settle into 
 shapes and presently the radiant semicircle will 
 appear complete, blazing in the sun ; and Genoa 
 La Superba will be clearly reflected in the intel- 
 lectual mirror. Its two piers do not define the 
 limits of its harbour with nicer exactness than 
 the retreating hills describe the circle within which 
 the city glistens. It does not, like Xaples or Lisbon, 
 command its sea basin ; it possesses it entirely 
 as its own ; ridge, sea, buildings, form all one idea 
 one scene over which colour reigns triumphant. 
 The first impression on the spectator is rather 
 that of a wilderness of flowers than of clustered 
 fabrics made by hands. Around the circle, palaces, 
 churches, villas, rise, tufted with bright orange 
 trees, or garlanded with the red oleander in long
 
 GENOA. 91 
 
 streaks, as if all had sprung into life together ; even 
 the lighthouse looks as if it had been cast out of 
 the rock far towards the clear blue sky, by an effort 
 of nature, in sudden perfection. Explored if 
 the languid observation of five torrid hours may 
 usurp such a word the interior of the queenly city 
 does not diminish though it may divide the impres- 
 sion which its general aspect creates. From us, 
 heated, unnerved by marine luxury, impatient even 
 of the labour of admiration, its internal details 
 scarcely obtained the justice of a moment ; yet we 
 saw that it is populous with stately palaces, which, 
 except in the great avenue of the Strada Nuova, 
 line streets so narrow that the artists who have 
 adorned them with paintings and sculpture to their 
 summits must have been content with producing 
 the beautiful for its own sake, regardless of space 
 for the spectator to examine and admire. Indeed 
 the streets thus bordered are often, not only as 
 narrow as a metropolitan lane paved from side to 
 side without causeways, but rendered laborious by 
 steep declivities, that the elevated scene-painting 
 even where not invisible, can scarcely obtain appre- 
 ciation. The opened portals of the noblest palaces
 
 92 GENOA. 
 
 perhaps made some amends, by suggesting the full 
 magnificence of the interior ; for the glimpses 
 they allowed us of fine quadrangles, staircases of 
 grandest proportion, and orange-groves which, 
 opening beyond the statues, glistened with the 
 topmost sparkles of fountains, gave hints of gran- 
 deur which it is impossible for the reality, disclosed 
 on the most leisure inspection, to excel. 
 
 To secure a dinner the first object of sensible 
 man's selfish purpose by obtaining the reversion 
 of seats at a table-d'hote, we toiled as good men 
 do after the rewards of virtue ; and, having been 
 rejected at three or four grand hotels, probably as 
 suspicious vagrants, found hope, as in a Pandora's 
 box, at the bottom of the city, in a rough-looking 
 hotel, close to the quay, where we were more 
 courteously treated, and were assured of places and 
 dinners at four ; and thus became free for architec- 
 ture and art. 
 
 Resigning ourselves to the guidance of one of 
 the commissionaires of our friendly inn, who had 
 fought a bitter battle of tongues with a rival to 
 obtain the honour of attending us, we were con- 
 ducted to the Cathedral of St. Lorenzo, and found
 
 GENOA. 93 
 
 ourselves in an interior of barbaric splendour with 
 little to remind us of a Christian church. Corin- 
 thian columns and arches of pointed Gothic ; pillars 
 of granite, porphyry, and marble rising from basaltic 
 bases ; a pavement of variegated marbles polished 
 to the brightness of a mirror, and the alternate 
 stripes of black and white marble, which line the 
 walls and the roof, startle by violent contrasts of 
 form and colour, and seem to import some old bar- 
 barian idolatry ; but the choir, gilt and carved and 
 painted in the warmest style of Eoinan Catholic 
 sentiment, vindicate the dominion of the Italian 
 faith. But the utmost pomp of decoration has 
 been reserved for the Chapel of Saint John the 
 Baptist, which our ladies looked into, but were 
 not permitted to enter; as the sex to which 
 Herodias claimed to belong is excluded from the 
 chapel of her victim on all days of the year but one 
 which, of course, was not that of our visit. 
 Here, if Genoese priests may be believed, are 
 sepulchred the actual remains of the holy fore- 
 runner of our Lord, in an iron clasped chest 
 encircled with porphyry columns and ceiled with 
 marble, which admit glimpses of the actual reposi-
 
 94 GENOA. 
 
 tory of the dead ; and thence, on the day sacred 
 to his name, in every year, is the chest carried, in 
 a procession of priests and civic functionaries, 
 through the city. The shrine is surrounded by 
 sixteen marble statues ; porphyry, alabaster, and 
 marbles of various colours, and gold, glitter around 
 " as if Egypt with Assyria strove in luxury ; " a 
 profusion of ornaments which could not be more 
 strangely applied than in honour of one whose image 
 is invested to the Christian mind with a simple, and 
 almost savage, grandeur ! 
 
 From the cathedral our conductor led us to the 
 Bank of St. George a noble building associated with 
 the history of Genoese commerce but more inter- 
 esting from the devotion of its hall to the memorial 
 statues of the mighty Genoese of all times. These 
 are ranged round the area in two ranks, those of the 
 upper standing, of the lower sitting, " in their habits 
 as they lived," and in attitudes of meditation or 
 speech suggesting at once the functions of life and 
 the repose of the grave. Inscriptions, some strik- 
 ingly simple, some setting forth in detail the acts 
 and qualities of the honoured dead, give to this vast 
 monumental room the highest interest of life in
 
 GENOA. 95 
 
 death. How much wiser is the devotion of such a 
 place to the unmingled contemplation of human 
 excellence, where fame is made palpable, to the 
 introduction of scattered monuments in temples 
 dedicated, not to the glory of man, but to the 
 worship of God ! Placed in cathedrals and churches 
 the memorials of " the noblest men who ever lived 
 in the tide of time " however just and suggestive 
 must interfere with the tenor of those humble and 
 holy thoughts which affect alike the loftiest and 
 the meanest intellects, and relate to common sin 
 and sorrow and hope. The church is the place for 
 the comfort of " the poor in spirit " not for the 
 perpetuation of heroic memories, still less for the 
 attempts of affection to preserve the personal traits 
 of ordinary persons for a little while from oblivion. 
 It is true that the images of the great and good, 
 who have been taken from the world, may some- 
 times fitly blend with adoration of the Spirit that 
 inspired and led them ; or that the idea of a 
 shadowy duration, prolonged in accumulated fame 
 beyond death and the grave, may present a symbol 
 and add a confirmation of the immortal destiny of 
 the species ; but these feelings may be justly excited
 
 96 GENOA. 
 
 in places to which they may impart a lower kind of 
 sanctity than that which pervades the House of 
 God. They ennoble a hall like this ; but the 
 introduction of statues and inscriptions in places 
 dedicated to the Eternal must, at the best, disturb 
 the singleness of heart with which we should love, 
 confess, and adore ; and the monuments of wealth, 
 and the tablets which make walls biographical, and 
 bring the Parish Register before the eye, not only 
 disturb the sentiment of devotion, but nurture the 
 love of personal detail which belongs to the basest 
 part of our nature, and is at direct enmity with its 
 limitless desires. 
 
 Our guide conducted us through the Goldsmiths' 
 Street, which is one of the broadest alleys of the 
 steep ascent of the city, radiant with painted walls, 
 resounding with constant hammers, and enriched 
 by a picture of the Holy Family in stone, worthy 
 of Raphael's hand, and now preserved beneath a 
 canopy by the brotherhood of working goldsmiths, 
 as the last relic of the departed glory of their 
 Gould. Besides its association with an ancient 
 and once powerful community, now reduced to a 
 society of craftsmen, this picture is invested with
 
 GENOA. 97 
 
 the dearer interest which belongs to genius extin- 
 guished by death in the brilliant uncertainty of its 
 dawn ; for its author, Pellegrino Piola, died in his 
 twenty-second year, leaving, in his successful 
 attempts at various excellence, a problem never to 
 be solved in what style he would have excelled in 
 protracted life, or whether he would have developed 
 for himself a style of art embracing the finest 
 qualities of several styles. The story associated with 
 the Apprentice's Pillar at Eoslin, of the murder of 
 an extraordinary pupil by an envious master, is ap- 
 plied to this picture, as it is to several other works 
 of precocious desert in different places; but its 
 verity in this instance is not required to deepen 
 that awe with which every Christian observer must 
 contemplate the exhibition of rare powers just 
 shown to our species, and suddenly withdrawn to 
 baffle its earthly anticipation, and add confirmation 
 to the faith which teaches that this world is not the 
 final home of genius. 
 
 Our guide, who seemed to think that he had 
 done enough to earn all the payment he could ask 
 for a day's attendance, sharply intimated that his 
 duties were over ; and left us free, in the bright
 
 98 GENOA. 
 
 wilderness of Genoa, to work out our own destiny. 
 We looked into several churches through doors 
 liberally expanded on the true Catholic principle, 
 each, to our wearied eyes, seeming more richly 
 decorated than the last ; till purple, violet, gold, 
 chequered marbles, and enshrined Madonnas 
 reached their climax of combination in the inte- 
 rior of a small church, which we afterwards learned 
 was that of " The Annunciation;" " a thing to 
 dream of, not to tell" that is to describe for 
 our language of upholstery has no terms of adequate 
 significance. We wished to reach the palace 
 sometime occupied by Lord Byron, and more re- 
 cently by our Dickens ; but the terrible brilliancy 
 of the sun-light prevented us from toiling up to its 
 terraced heights, and unnerved us for everything 
 but dinner. That was welcome, though coarsely 
 conceived and executed in comparison with the 
 repasts of our sea-pavilion, to which we gladly 
 returned at the appointed hour. We had been 
 admonished to remember that the vessel would 
 leave the quay at six; but she did not quit her 
 moorings tiil eight, by which time the moon had 
 obtained supreme dominion, and showered down
 
 ELBA. 99 
 
 soft light on the marvellous circle of Genoa, lending 
 a wild and dubious aspect to the bare mountain 
 sweeps and dwarf woods above the City of Palaces, 
 and embossing, with the whitest frosted silver, the 
 sea that rimmed it. 
 
 The hours of the next day flowed in the gentlest 
 idleness, too perfect a sensation in its kind to 
 admit an attempt to retrace the vision of Genoa, 
 though, now and then, its confused colours faintly 
 streaked my thoughts. But they were stirred by a 
 despotic impulse just before sunset, when a long, 
 bare, brown-cliffed island arose near our way, clad 
 in rich brassy light, and impressed with a sullen 
 dignity ; and I was told that its name was Elba. 
 For a little interval a breathing time before the 
 last tremendous act of a mighty life this barren 
 island, in itself insignificant, wore the interest of 
 the setting-place of a marvellous career, in the 
 eyes of the nations who cherished the delusion that 
 the most prodigious activity of the world found its 
 subsistence in miniature improvements and the 
 regulations of a mimic court. A glance, as super- 
 ficial as ours, might have shown to all but a 
 
 Congress of the diplomatists of Europe with what 
 
 n 2
 
 100 BAY OF NAPLES. 
 
 extraordinary rashness the place of retreat was 
 selected ; at least, after the event, it looks exactly 
 placed and fitted for the tiring-room of the world's 
 chief actor preparatory to his reappearance on the 
 stage of Europe. Here, amidst the shows of 
 childish empire, was planned and matured the 
 most dazzling enterprise of history ; inspired by 
 confidence in the fascination of a name achieved in 
 a few years, which still governs France with impe- 
 rial power and justified by qualities, which, if 
 they had been cemented by a sympathy with human 
 nature, instead of being divided by selfishness and 
 hardened by scorn, would not only have borne their 
 possessor triumphant from Cannes to Paris, but 
 would have resisted the world in arms. 
 
 On Friday morning, we passed Ischia and 
 Procida, and glided into the Bay of Naples, which 
 lay in its full expanse before us. Without pre- 
 suming to impugn the raptures which it has 
 prompted, and which it has so often been mapped 
 out to justify, I must confess, for my own poor 
 part, that I have been more deeply charmed by 
 smaller and less famous bays. Viewed from the 
 entrance, not only the side-slopes which descend
 
 BAY OF NAPLES. 101 
 
 to its margin, but the central forms of the up-piled 
 city and its attendant mountains, seem wanting in 
 grandeur appropriate to the extent of the basin 
 they border or crown ; even the noble form of 
 Vesuvius and its outworks are scarcely adequate 
 to such a position. Viewed seaward from the city, 
 indeed, the expanse is far more beautiful, because 
 the greatest objects are seen in their full majesty, 
 and the islands which adorn the distance swim 
 in soft misty light which thickens as the heat 
 increases, and prolong the sense of ocean-fields 
 by partially displacing them. A similar effect 
 may be enjoyed by a traveller contented with 
 British scenery surveying the islands at the 
 mouth of the little bay of Tenby at a summer's 
 noon, with the additional charm of aspects, shifting 
 as he strolls, which cannot be enjoyed in the 
 contemplation of objects so vast as those of the 
 Bay of Naples. If the beautiful rocks called 
 the Mumbles could be transferred from the 
 sister bay 'of Swansea to one side of the bay of 
 Tenby, it would become almost a complete 
 miniature of the Bay of Naples ; and nothing 
 but an equal luxury of climate would be wanting
 
 102 NAPLES. 
 
 to the production of at least equal pleasure in 
 a beholder who is not devoted to an Italian 
 name. It is a sad heresy ; but I confess the view 
 of the small rocky basin beneath Montebello at 
 Marseilles, with its castellated island, affected me 
 with more delightful surprise than any aspect of 
 the Bay of Naples. 
 
 If the enchantment of the bay had been more 
 perfect it would have been broken at our landing ; 
 for rude officials seized our passports and ordered 
 us to the custom-house, to await there the exami- 
 nation of our luggage; and we were heralded to 
 that den of rudeness and extortion as if we had 
 been followers of Mazzini, doomed to await the 
 tender mercies of the State. The annoyances of 
 the Neapolitan Dogano exceed those I have 
 experienced in similar places of torment that 
 of London always excepted and, on this occasion, 
 they were increased by the contemporaneous 
 arrival of the passengers whom we had so 
 foolishly envied, and having left Marseilles two 
 days before us, endured the customary torture at 
 the same hour. The want of courtesy in the 
 officers was, however, less remarkable than the
 
 NAPLES. 103 
 
 open daring of their extortion : for when, after an 
 hour's struggle to identify our very humble 
 packages, we reached, through several cases of 
 assault and battery, the point of examination, we 
 were informed by that expressive pantomime in 
 which the Italians excel, that unless we paid the 
 bailiff, who was disguised as a soldier, for his 
 abstinence, he would pour forth the whole of our 
 poor travelling properties on the filthy floor. Of 
 course we yielded ; and not knowing how much 
 would suffice, dropped coin after coin into the 
 huge black hand of the brigand, until it closed, and, 
 with a grinning smile, he motioned us to take up our 
 own. Having arranged them amidst the shoves 
 and pushes of the guardians of social order, and 
 rescued them from the fierce contention of half a 
 dozen porters, fighting for employment, we de- 
 livered them to the two successful combatants, and 
 followed them to the Victoria Hotel. There the 
 scene was indeed changed ; for we, who had just 
 been treated worse than a set of tramps applying 
 to an insolent overseer for a night's lodging, found 
 ourselves the welcome occupants of apartments on 
 the second floor of a fine mansion, painted and
 
 104 HERCULANEUM. 
 
 gilded almost as profusely as a Genoese church ; and 
 presently, in a substantial and elegant breakfast, 
 forgot for awhile the rudeness of our reception. We 
 lost no time, however, in this breakfast ; for we at 
 once ordered a carriage to take us to Herculaneum 
 and Pompeii, and before it came we were ready 
 for the excursion. 
 
 The first of these celebrated places, I own, 
 grievously disappointed me. All I saw of it was a 
 dark succession of winding subterranean passages, 
 one of which, said to describe a circle, was stated 
 to be the theatre of the buried city ; if so, its area 
 had been completely filled with solid lava, as hard 
 as "the nether millstone," to which the Puritans 
 were wont to liken the hearts of playgoers. No 
 exercise of imagination, at least none within the 
 small compass of mine, could connect this curving 
 line of dungeon with spectacles of beauty and forms 
 of delight; the hollows were dark and cold passages 
 which led to nothing ; and I was almost as glad to 
 leave them as to emerge from a railway tunnel. 
 Pompeii made rich amends ; for it as far surpassed 
 all expectations as Herculaneum had fallen below 
 them. No description, no picture had conveyed to
 
 POMPEII. 105 
 
 me any notion of the affluence of objects of intense 
 interest the lines of streets, consisting of small 
 houses of tradesmen, but pillared and sculptured 
 as if they were the abodes of patricians ; the 
 radiant confusion of theatres and temples ; or led 
 me to anticipate that blended sense of beauty 
 defying decay, of hoary antiquity, and of affecting 
 domestic circumstance, which is felt in a hasty walk 
 through the excavated city. A fatal outburst of 
 nature's fire has become, in the highest degree, 
 conservative; filled up with its train the gap 
 of eighteen centuries, has made "the trivial 
 fond records " which the prints of hurried foot- 
 steps and trembling fingers imply, immortal in the 
 marl which hardened over them, and has left them 
 as touching as if they told the fate of some 
 ancient friend. But perhaps the feeling impressed 
 on us by the developed ruins rather they should 
 be called remains, than ruins was exceeded by 
 that produced by busy conjectures respecting 
 those which still are earthed beneath the roots of 
 the mantling vineyards, rich in luscious grapes, 
 some bunches of which were presented to us, 
 within the undoubted circle of the ancient walls.
 
 106 POMPEII. 
 
 Temples, palaces, and shops, villas, baths, and 
 theatres, perhaps exceeding in importance those 
 already disclosed, lie hid beneath the soil we 
 trampled, only, perhaps, separated from our 
 pathway by a thin covering of mould. Eemem- 
 bering the quaint assertion of Sir Thomas Brown, 
 the high-priest of the earth-temple of antiquity, 
 " that the treasures of time lie high, not far from 
 the roots of some vegetables," I thought it might 
 be easy to discover an urn at the slender root of a 
 vine by an act of spade husbandry ; and the 
 thought engendered a personal familiarity with 
 the antique world, beyond the contemplation of 
 magnificent ruins. 
 
 As we returned to Naples, towards sunset, a 
 magnificent storm came rushing over the bay, of 
 which we caught occasional glimpses through the 
 lines of villas which separated our road from its 
 brink. The thunder broke mournfully from the 
 distance of the open sea ; sheets of lightning 
 flashed before us in rapid succession ; while our 
 charioteer urged the two noble horses that drew 
 our car into a gallop with the fury that seems to 
 possess Neapolitan coachmen, in hope to escape
 
 NAPLES. 107 
 
 the clouds of hailstones which swept towards us. 
 Seated beside him on the box, I enjoyed a kind of 
 desperate luxury in the whirl and the storm, which 
 roared as if the demons of Vesuvius were behind 
 us, while we swept over the plain with an oriental 
 defiance of consequence. The sensation was born 
 of the moment for like a moment in retrospect 
 it appears of a headlong career of six miles, 
 which brought us safely to the door of our hotel, 
 just as tremendous hail and rain were hurled 
 against it. 
 
 The tempest cooled the air so delightfully, that 
 although its waters filled the great pools and lay 
 heavy on the smitten trees, we were tempted, in 
 the watery moonlight which succeeded it, to visit 
 the public garden, scarcely worthy of its position, 
 which requires it to be the chief ornament of 
 a great city. It is a long strip of level ground 
 fenced from the bay, which it borders, dotted with 
 sunburnt and sea-swayed trees, and chequered by 
 broad straight walks, after the fashion of Versailles, 
 with more relief of shade and without the grandeur 
 of space. It is adorned by small stone basins and 
 plaster casts from antique statues, very inferior to
 
 108 NAPLES. 
 
 those in the gardens of the Tuileries ; and although 
 a pleasant outlet for a populous town, and par- 
 ticularly agreeable after the vigorous refreshment 
 of the tempest, holds no considerable station in 
 the visitor's memory. After this ramble, came 
 night, with mosquito curtains that did not 
 keep out the mosquito torture, which, while I 
 remained in Naples, did not allow me one hour's 
 unbroken sleep, and made me regard with amaze- 
 ment the natives, walking or riding as if they had 
 slept, and without marks of the little demon on 
 their complexions. 
 
 We went about, however, next day to see all 
 the out-door wonders of Naples without any guide 
 in its stony wilderness, over which the sun, in 
 Pope's Homeric language, " refulgent shot intoler- 
 able day." Having always associated the idea 
 of Naples with that of lazy luxury, I was 
 astonished to recognise in it chiefly the idea of 
 vastness of prodigious height and enormous pro- 
 portions. Looking from the sea-margin to its 
 utmost heights, it rather resembled a city of 
 giants than the selectest abode of pleasure. 
 Lovely, no doubt very lovely are some of the
 
 NAPLES. 109 
 
 details which its towering [succession of houses, 
 gardens, and terraces present to the view of an 
 observer so placed ; but these, breaking the mass 
 of buildings, augment the effect of vastness by 
 instructing the eye to appreciate their extent as 
 it rises from point to point to the summit. But 
 a walk amidst its mazes when the sea and the 
 great outlines of the city are lost, bewilders and 
 sickens. The height of the houses, which border 
 the steep and narrow ways, equalling the loftiest 
 in the old town of Edinburgh ; the dangling lamps, 
 suspended by ropes, which cross the arduous 
 passages ; the loud babble of strange tongues 
 often accompanied by fierce gestures ; and the 
 unceasing rattle of carriages of all kinds, driven 
 with reckless disregard of foot-passengers, as if 
 the coachmen set human life at a pin's fee, may 
 well astonish the Englishman who expected an 
 epicurean paradise. Panting for some silent and 
 green relief from this noisy confusion, my son 
 and I endeavoured to reach the country, if country 
 there should be, above this magnificent Tartarus 
 of a city, and accordingly threaded and picked 
 our way up one of its central heights, by alleys
 
 1 10 NAPLES. 
 
 as steep as one of the iron cascades down which 
 the ore thunders from a Welsh mountain mine; 
 then along almost interminable avenues between 
 blank walls ; then up nights of stone and lava 
 steps polluted by filth of the most shocking kind. 
 At last we reached a bastion, and peeped over a 
 battlement into a barrack-yard, which bore traces 
 of a less degraded humanity ; but we could find 
 no opening to a prospect ; and not a blade of 
 grass, not a fountain, not a breath of untainted 
 air refreshed our fruitless labour. How it is 
 possible for English men and women to pass 
 months in such a place, and " bless their stars and 
 call it luxury," even if the satiated mosquitos give 
 them leave to sleep, is a mystery which has 
 doubtless a solution which I sought in vain. 
 
 Tet the groups we saw from our windows, 
 which overlooked the best area for the exhibition 
 of the graceful side of Neapolitan life, were 
 usually instinct with a careless grace, and often 
 presented surprising harmonies of colour. The 
 best were supplied by the peasants bringing to 
 market, in the early morning, the spoils of the 
 country in huge baskets, where grapes, apricots,
 
 NAPLES. Ill 
 
 and other fruits and vegetables were heaped up 
 and capped with fresh flowers; sometimes borne 
 on the heads of young girls, treading with a 
 cheerfulness which heightened the grace of their 
 movements, but often by haggard women, grown 
 prematurely old in sun-burnt labour, or bare- 
 legged tawny men who looked, on near approach, 
 as if they had crept out of earth-holes ; but all, 
 as they streamed along, or clustered for gossip, 
 unconsciously forming lively pictures. In the 
 hours of blazing heat, the shores of the bay were 
 so still that you might hear the distant buzz of 
 one of the terrible insects ; but, as evening drew 
 on, the road, which is the fashionable drive of 
 Naples, glittered with carriages, passing and 
 repassing at a rapid pace, which produced an 
 impression that a great number of equipages 
 were in motion ; while in truth they were 
 comparatively few. As the carriages were driven 
 with a rapidity not often sought in traversing a 
 short line, the first effect and the reaction were 
 similar to those the spectator feels in witnessing 
 the long march of supernumeraries in a scenic 
 procession, when he recognises in those who
 
 112 NAPLES. 
 
 bring up the rear the familiar faces of its 
 pioneers. The famous theatre of San Carlo was 
 not open; so our evening amusement, after the 
 departure of the carriages, was confined to the 
 public gardens, where we discovered a pavilion 
 prettily nested among the thickest trees, and 
 affording a supply of iced punch which the fervid 
 temperature of the garden, even after sunset, 
 rendered particularly grateful. 
 
 The next day, we took a carriage and went 
 through a tour of churches. They are generally 
 of nobler proportions than those of Genoa that 
 of St. Januarius rising into grandeur but not so 
 well decorated or preserved. The stupendous heat 
 and the continuous unrest made the excursion 
 almost painful, and my impression may be unjust ; 
 but they seem generally of soiled finery, or 
 dingy grandeur. All this time, Vesuvius was 
 provokingly quiet. My companions thought they 
 discovered a thin smoke issuing from the slender 
 cone of its summit, but I believe they were mocked 
 with a fleecy cloud by which nature mimicked 
 the true smoke which so often issues from the 
 crater. We see indications of this tricksome
 
 VESTIGES OF FOLLETT. 113 
 
 spirit when, on our approach to Switzerland, 
 the clouds in the direction of the invisible 
 Alps perplex us by assuming the semblance of 
 ice-clad ranges ; or when we look towards 
 Chamouni, with earnestness which seeks to explore 
 an impossible distance, an ambitious congrega- 
 tion of vapours floats for a few moments in 
 the likeness of a head "as old and white" as 
 that of the monarch of mountains. Parody has 
 in it an essence of truth ; and nature has her 
 parodies. 
 
 As we announced to our host our intention to 
 depart on the following day, he brought us his 
 record of visitors for the customary inscription of 
 our names ; and turning over the pages, I was 
 startled by the traces of a well-known, hand, 
 tremulously indicating the presence of " Sir W. 
 W. Follett ," when on a journey too late, alas ! 
 in search of renovated strength, in the Autumn 
 of 1844. Since then, the calamity which im- 
 pended over that celebrated lawyer has occurred 
 what an extinction how sadly premature ; how 
 awfully complete ! The contrast between life and 
 death never seemed to me so terribly palpable
 
 114 VESTIGES OF FOLLETT. 
 
 as in this reminiscence thus awakened ; the action 
 of the life had been so fervid, the desolation of the 
 grave was so rayless. Before me lay an expiring 
 relic for the writer was stricken mortally when 
 he traced it of a life of the most earnest endea- 
 vours, and the most brilliant successes a life loved, 
 prized, cherished, honoured, beyond the common 
 lot even of distinguished men the life of an advo- 
 cate who had achieved, with triumphant ease, the 
 foremost place in a profession, which in its exercise 
 involves intimate participation -with the interests, 
 hopes, fears, passions, affections, and vicissitudes of 
 many lives; the life of a politician admired by 
 the first assembly of free men in the world, idolised 
 by partisans, respected by opponents, esteemed by 
 the best, consulted by the wisest, whose declining 
 health was the subject of solicitude to his sovereign 
 quenched in its prime by too prodigal a use of its 
 energies ; and what remains ? A name dear to the 
 affections of a few friends ; the waning image of a 
 modest and earnest speaker ; and the splendid ex- 
 ample of success embodied in a fortune of 200,000^., 
 acquired in ten years by the labours which hastened 
 its extinction are all this world possesses of Sir
 
 VESTIGES OF FOLLETT. 115 
 
 William Follett. The poet's anticipation, "Non 
 omnis moriar," so far as it indicates earthly dura- 
 tion, has no place in the surviving vestiges of his 
 career. To mankind, to his country, to his pro- 
 fession, he has left nothing ; not a measure con- 
 ceived, not a danger averted, not a principle 
 vindicated; not a speech intrinsically worthy of 
 preservation ; not a striking image, not an affecting 
 sentiment; in his death the power of mortality 
 is supreme. How strange how sadly strange 
 that a course so splendid should end in darkness 
 so obscure ! 
 
 It may be well, while the materials for investi- 
 gation remain, to inquire into the causes of success, 
 so brilliant and so fairly attained by powers which 
 have left so little traces of their progress. Erskine 
 was never more decidedly at the head of the 
 Common Law Bar than Follett; compared with 
 Follett he was insignificant in the House of Com- 
 mons ; his career was chequered by vanities and 
 weaknesses from which that of Follett was free; 
 and yet even if he had not been associated with the 
 greatest constitutional questions of his time and 
 
 their triumphant solution, his fame would live by 
 
 i2
 
 116 VESTIGES OP FOLLETT. 
 
 the mere force and beauty of his forensic eloquence 
 as long as our language. But no collection of the 
 speeches of Follett has been made ; none will ever 
 be attempted; no speech he delivered is read, 
 except perchance as part of an interesting trial 
 and essential to its story, and then the language is 
 felt to be poor, the cadences without music, and 
 the composition vapid and spiritless; although, if 
 studied with a view to the secrets of forensic 
 success, with "a learned spirit of human dealing " 
 in connection with the facts developed and 
 the difficulties encountered, will supply abundant 
 materials for admiration of that unerring skill 
 which induced the repetition of fortunate topics, 
 the dexterous suppression of the most stubborn 
 things when capable of oblivion, and the light 
 evasive touch with which the speaker fulfilled his 
 promise of not forgetting others which could not 
 be passed over, but which, if deeply considered, 
 might be fatal. If, however, there was no principle 
 of duration in his forensic achievements, there can 
 be no doubt of the esteem in which they were held 
 or the eagerness with which they were sought. 
 His supremacy in the minds of clients was more
 
 VESTIGES OF FOLLETT. 117 
 
 like the rage of a fashion for a youthful Roscius or 
 an extraordinary preacher than the result of deli- 
 berate consideration ; and yet it prevailed, in 
 questions not of an evening's amusement, but of 
 penury or riches, honour or shame. Suitors were 
 content, not only to make large sacrifices for the 
 assured advantage of his advocacy, but for the bare 
 chance the distant hope of having some little 
 part (like that which Phormio desires to retain in 
 Thais) of his faculties', with the certainty of pre- 
 venting their opposition. There was no just 
 ground, in his case, for the complaint that he 
 received large fees for services he did not render ; 
 for the chances were understood by those who 
 adventured in his lottery; in which, after all, 
 there were comparatively few blanks. His name 
 was " a tower of strength," which it was delightful 
 to know that the adverse faction wanted, and which 
 inspired confidence even on the back of the brief 
 of his forsaken junior, who bore the burthen and 
 heat of the day for a fifth of the fee which secured 
 that name. "Will posterity ask what were the 
 powers thus sought, thus prized, thus rewarded, 
 and thus transient ? They will be truly told that
 
 118 VESTIGES OP FOLLETT. 
 
 he was endowed, in a remarkable degree, with 
 some moral qualities which smoothed his course and 
 charmed away opposition, and with some physical 
 advantages which happily set off his intellectual 
 gifts ; that he was blessed with a temper at once 
 gentle and even ; with a gracious manner and a 
 social temperament ; that he was without jealousy 
 of the solid or showy talents of others, and will- 
 ingly gave them the amplest meed of praise; that he 
 spoke with all the grace of modesty, yet with the 
 assurance of perfect mastery over his subject, his 
 powers, and his audience ; and yet they will scarcely 
 recognise in these excellences sufficient reasons for 
 his extraordinary success. To me, the true secret 
 of his peculiar strength appeared to lie in the 
 possession of two powers which rarely co-exist in 
 the same mind extraordinary subtlety of percep- 
 tion and as remarkable simplicity of execution. In 
 the first of these faculties in the intuitive power 
 of common sense which is the finest essence of 
 experience whereby it attains "to something of 
 prophetic strain" he excelled all his contemporaries 
 except Lord Abinger, with whom it was more 
 liable to be swayed by prejudice or modified by
 
 VESTIGES OF FOLLETT. 119 
 
 taste, as it was adorned with happier graces. The 
 perfection of this faculty was remarkably exemplified 
 in the fleeting visits he often paid to the trials of 
 causes which he had left to the conduct of his 
 juniors ; a few words, sometimes a glance, sufficed 
 to convey to his mind the exact position of com- 
 plicated affairs, and enabled him to decide what 
 should be done or avoided ; and where the inter- 
 ference of any other advocate would have been 
 dangerous, he often rendered good service, and 
 which was more extraordinary never did harm. 
 So his unrivalled aptitude for legal reasoning 
 enabled him to deal with authorities as he dealt 
 with facts; if unprepared for an argument he could 
 find its links in the chaos of an index, and make 
 an imposing show of learning out of a page of 
 Harrison ; and with the aid of the interruptions of 
 the Bench, which he could as dexterously provoke 
 as parry, could find the right clue and conduct a 
 luminous train of reasoning to a triumphant close. 
 His most elaborate arguments, though not com- 
 parable in essence with those of his chief opponent, 
 Lord Campbell which in comprehensive outline, 
 exact logic, felicitous illustration, and harmonious
 
 120 VESTIGES OF FOLLETT. 
 
 structure, excelled all others I have heard were 
 delivered in tones so nicely adapted to the minds 
 and ears of the judges, with an earnestness so 
 winning and a confidence so contagious, that they 
 made a judgment on his side not only a necessity 
 but a pleasure. 
 
 The other faculty, to which in combination with 
 his subtlety of understanding, the excellence of 
 his advocacy may be attributed, is one more 
 rarely possessed, and scarcely ever in such asso- 
 ciation the entire singleness of a mind equally 
 present in every part of a cause. If the promo- 
 tion of the interest of the client were an advocate's 
 highest duty, it would be another name for the 
 exactest virtue ; and inasmuch as that interest is 
 not, like the objects of moral zeal, fixed in character, 
 but liable to frequent change, the faculty of 
 directing the whole power of the understanding to 
 each shifting aspect of the cause in its minutest 
 shadowings, without the guidance of an inflexible 
 law, is far more wonderful, if far less noble, than a 
 singleness of devotion to right. It has an integrity 
 of its own, which bears some affinity to that honesty 
 which Baillie JSichol Jarvie attributes to his High-
 
 VESTIGES OF FOLLETT. 121 
 
 land kinsman. Such honesty that is the entire 
 devotion of all the faculties to the object for 
 which it was retained, without the lapse of a 
 moment's vanity or indolence, with unlimited vision 
 and unceasing activity was Follett's beyond all 
 other advocates of our time. To the presentment 
 of truth, or sophism, as the cause might require, 
 he gave his entire mind with as perfect an oblivion 
 of self as the most heroic sufferer for principle. 
 The faculty which in Gladstone, the statesman, 
 applied to realities and inspired only by the 
 desire to discover the truth and to clothe it in 
 language, assumes, in the minds of superficial 
 observers, the air of casuistry from the nicety of 
 its distinctions and the earnest desire of the 
 speaker to present truth in its finest shades in 
 Follett, the advocate, applied indiscriminately to 
 the development of the specious shows of things as 
 of their essences, wore all the semblance of sin- 
 cerity ; and, in one sense, deserved it. No fears, no 
 doubts, no scruples shook him. Of the licence 
 which advocacy draws from sympathy with the 
 feelings of those it represents he made full use, 
 with unhesitating power ; for his reason, of " large
 
 122 VESTIGES OF FOLLETT. 
 
 discourse," was as pliable as the affections of the 
 most sensitive nature. Nor was he diverted from 
 his aim by any figure or fancy ; if he neither 
 exalted his subject by imagination, nor illustrated 
 it by wit, nor softened its details by pathos, he 
 never made it the subject of vain attempts at the 
 exhibition of either. He went into the arena, 
 stripped of all incumbrance, to win, and contended 
 studious only and always, of victory. His presence 
 of mind was not merely the absence of external 
 distraction, nor the capacity of calling up all ener- 
 gies on an emergency, but the continued application 
 of them equally to the duty of each moment. 
 There are few speakers, even of fervid sincerity and 
 zeal, whose thoughts do not frequently run before or 
 beside the moment's purpose ; whose wits do not 
 sometimes wander on to some other part of the 
 case than that they are instantly discussing ; who 
 do not anticipate some future effect, or dally with 
 some apprehension of future peril, while they should 
 consider only the next word or sentence. This 
 momentary desertion of the exact purpose never 
 occurred to Follett; he fitted the thought to its 
 place ; the word to the thought ; and allowed the
 
 VESTIGES OF FOLLETT. 123 
 
 action only to take care of itself, as it always will 
 with an earnest speaker. His, therefore, was rather 
 the artlessness than the art of advocacy its second 
 nature justly appreciated by those to whose 
 interests it was devoted ; but not fully understood 
 even by the spectator of its exertion ; dying with 
 the causes in which it was engaged, and leaving 
 no vestiges except in their success. Hence the 
 blank -which is substituted for the space he filled in 
 human affairs ! The modest assurance, the happy 
 boldness, the extemporaneous logic, all that " led 
 but to the grave," exist, like the images of departed 
 actors, only in the recollection of those who wit- 
 nessed them, till memory shall fade into tradition, 
 and tradition dwindle down to a name. Should they 
 be commemorated by a statue ? Yes : for the 
 reasons why it has been denied by some who admired 
 him in life ; because his faculties were among the 
 noble things that perish entirely, and will not speak 
 for themselves to the future. Warriors and statesmen 
 live in the effects of those careers which give them 
 places in history ; a poet lives whole, entire, vital in 
 his works, sometimes even more clearly perceived 
 in the indestructible part, when personal frailties
 
 124 FROM. NAPLES TO ROME. 
 
 and peculiarities are forgotten; so long as his 
 works survive, a statue is superfluous, when they 
 are forgotten, it is without meaning. But an 
 advocate, like Follett, of qualities most happily 
 adapted to his office and unraised beyond it, who 
 has died before he has invested a family with 
 hereditary honours, can only be manifested to 
 another generation by a durable effigy. I am, 
 therefore, glad that a statue, worthy in the 
 felicity of its execution to manifest the per- 
 sonal appearance of the child and conqueror of 
 Fortune, holds a place among the effigies of our 
 honoured dead ; although it would be more fitly 
 placed in the Hall than the Abbey of Westmin- 
 ster ; but to any one in whose recollection his 
 living form is cherished, the frail memorial which 
 this tremulous scrawl presents, is more affecting. 
 
 Monday, the day of our departure for Rome was 
 a day of tremendous heat, cloudless sky, and faint 
 mist over the blue distance beyond the islands, 
 with only white fleece overhanging Vesuvius, whicli 
 our younger travellers pronounced smoke, but 
 which I believe was cloud assuming its semblance 
 to deceive us. Still eager, in spite of blind pro-
 
 FROM NAPLES TO SOME. 125 
 
 pliecy, to hurry onward to Eome, we had taken 
 our places in the diligence, which started at eleven 
 in the forenoon, and now wended our broiling 
 way to assume them. The ride to Capua was a 
 painful course of jolting over stoned roads, scarcely 
 relieved by arid prospects from the windows of 
 our prison, of vineyards bearing grapes which 
 looked like pellets of mud, and olive trees lowering 
 on the hill-sides beyond them, which looked " the 
 quintessence of dust." At Capua, the diligence 
 halted in a narrow dirty street, before a hostelry 
 with a kitchen open in front, which, at first sight, 
 wore the aspect of a blacksmith's forge ; but, on 
 minute inspection, grew horrible in the conviction 
 that it was a place where food was cooked and 
 sold ; what we had supposed to be coils of rope 
 proved to be chains of sausages ; and the huge fire 
 proved to be devoted to some indescribable pre- 
 paration of human food. Here we were invited 
 by our conductor to dine ; and, on our expressing 
 some irrepressible amusement at the suggestion, 
 were advised by a good-natured but very dirty 
 young German, who was our fellow captive in the 
 diligence, to reconsider our decision, as we should
 
 126 FROM NAPLES TO ROME. 
 
 have no other opportunity of eating till the after- 
 noon of the next day. This friendly admonition 
 seemed to us too bad to be true, as the hour was 
 then only two o'clock : but whether it was true or 
 false, dining at Capua was impossible ; we, there- 
 fore, descended from the vehicle, of which we were 
 afraid to lose sight, and sauntered sadly up and 
 down the dismal street, to see nothing of grandeur 
 but a handsome gateway in the town-wall, and 
 some trees waving in a garden loftily uplifted 
 beside it, till we were called to resume our seats, 
 and the vehicle recommenced its pace of four 
 miles an hour. As evening drew on, the scenery 
 we passed was marked by a bold simplicity, con- 
 sisting of a succession of vast basins of bare land, 
 floored with short brownish grass, and crowned by 
 large ledges of crouching rocks, here and there 
 dotted with patches of vineyard, and sometimes dis- 
 closing a grim castellated villa, or a long straggling 
 hamlet, on the grassy part of the slopes. Twilight 
 was succeeded by bright moonlight ; and the night 
 wore away, broken by long stoppages at the stages 
 where the horse-changes were effected by the dull 
 light of huge horned lanthorns which grim hostlers
 
 PROM NAPLES TO ROME. 127 
 
 used in adjusting the ropes. Outside the gate of 
 one town, we were detained an hour, which seemed 
 six, before the keeper of the keys came to admit 
 us, while we cudgelled our bewildered brains to 
 guess the cause of our detention, in vain. The 
 dawn was lovely ; the vines, which now edged the 
 road instead of bristling in the fields, trailing long 
 branches bent down with grapes, or trained over 
 lofty trellis-work, were bathed in dew, the sight 
 of which refreshed our scorched and sleepless eyes'; 
 and if we could have obtained a crust of the 
 bitterest bread, we should have been contented 
 with our fortune. We tried, awkwardly of course, 
 at several places of stoppage, which looked as if 
 people sometimes eat there, to make known our 
 modest wishes, but without success ; till we 
 resigned ourselves to our misery, and, as the heat 
 of the day came on, began to understand what 
 hunger is. About two o'clock in the afternoon, 
 these cravings were appeased ; we reached a town 
 walled like an eyeless fortress or a prison; were 
 driven into the court-yard, and were told that we 
 were in the ancient capital of the Volsci once 
 called Antium and that here we might breakfast.
 
 128 FROM NAPLES RO ROME. 
 
 Since the evening when Coriolanus stood on the 
 hearth of his enemy, and was 'taken by him in to 
 supper till this very afternoon, no strangers have 
 more eagerly hailed the Yolscian hospitality than 
 our famishing selves. The domestic architecture of 
 Antium has not improved since the time of Tullus 
 Aufidius, if as I do not doubt the Kemble 
 representation of it was a truth, as it certainly was 
 to me; but although the ccenaculum into which 
 we were ushered was more like a stable than a 
 place of Christian refreshment, low, stone-flagged, 
 furnished only with stone benches and worm-eaten 
 tables, a room and appliances which would have 
 inspired a world of declamation from anti-poor-law 
 philanthropists if disclosed in a union workhouse ; 
 and although black stale bread and shapeless 
 masses of rough-hewn mutton and beef boiled to 
 the consistency of leather, flanked by bottles of the 
 smallest infra-acid wine, constituted our fare, we 
 breakfasted with the enjoyment of the Homeric rage, 
 and were deaf to wise suggestions that we should 
 be obliged to dine in Borne. By this repast, we 
 were enabled to watch and enjoy the approach to 
 Eonie. to which else we should have been indifferent,
 
 FROM NAPLES TO ROME. 129 
 
 and were sustained during the lingering expec- 
 tation of many miles of dead level, only enlivened 
 by the evolutions of a brown snake, about twice 
 the size of one of our English venomless horrors, 
 disporting itself on a clay bank that bordered 
 the road. A priest, who had entered the diligence 
 at Antium, with a devotional book in his hand, re- 
 peated his prayers aloud in a sharp rapid tone, over 
 and over again, by which he reminded me of the 
 long-forgotten art of audibly learning a repetition 
 at school. He paused, however, in his devotions, 
 with great courtesy, to point out to us the first 
 appearance of the dome of St. Peter's, which, seen 
 alone on the level of the swamp before us, at ten 
 miles distance, looked like a hay-cock, but soon 
 afterwards assumed the improved aspect of a cow 
 on the top of a malt-house, and was not seen again 
 until we saw it foreshortened from the court of 
 its fountains. A black line of aqueduct now 
 darkened the left-hand region ; soon dead walls, 
 inclosing villas and gardens, bordered the road; 
 heaps of ruins, ancient and modern, gleamed on 
 either side, until an enormous mass of the Coliseum 
 towered above us, and the diligence lumbered
 
 130 ARRIVAL AT ROME. 
 
 along beneath a huge circlet of brick and gaping 
 orifices of windows, which stunned us like a blow. 
 A lofty gate opened ; a long stoppage ensued in the 
 waning light ; the diligence passed between two 
 dingy soldiers; and we were within the walls of 
 Koine. The feeling of awe with which this con- 
 sciousness made us shiver rendered us more 
 impatient than usual of the barbarisms of the 
 Custom-house, whither the diligence was obliged to 
 proceed with all its passengers, and where the 
 luggage was examined with drowsy civility in 
 a room like a London warehouse, when it is 
 made drearier by a connexion with Manchester. 
 Hence we escaped to a Eoman cabriolet which 
 slowly carried us through deepening twilight, and 
 at nightfall, deposited us among the luxuries of the 
 Hotel de 1' Europe, where we rested from the fatigues 
 of four nights in Naples and our starving journey.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A GLOOMY GLIMPSE OF ROME. 
 
 First impression in Rome Search in darkness for great objects 
 The illumination in honour of Pope Pius the Ninth 
 The Capitol The Capitoline rock The Coliseum Sen- 
 timents excited by the Coliseum The arches, columns, and 
 temples of imperial Rome compared with the familiar prints 
 of them The Jews' quarter The malaria visible The 
 Baths of Caracalla Shelley's reference to their ruins as the 
 scene of his composition of the " Prometheus Unbound" 
 The basilicas of St. Mary Maggiore, St. John Lateran, and 
 St. Peter's Ascent of the dome of St. Peter's The 
 Vatican The "Last Judgment" The Laocoon The 
 Pantheon A local version of the death of Julius Caesar 
 Italian churches and worship Thoughts on Philo- 
 Romanism Mr. Faber's poetic feeling respecting conti- 
 nental services and its issue Confession of a heterodox 
 impression of Rome. 
 
 EVEETTHING around us tended to negative the 
 great conviction that we were bodily in Rome. 
 The stunning effect of the segment of the Coli- 
 seum we had passed had been dissipated, for the 
 time, by our wearisome attendance at the Custom-
 
 132 ROME IN DARKNESS. 
 
 house, aiid by our slow transit through long alleys 
 of tall and dismal houses, which might have 
 blackened between our Cheapside and the Thames. 
 "We had unconsciously crossed the central street 
 of Rome, but did not discover in the Corso an 
 exception to the general closeness, and had noticed 
 some preparations for an illumination, but had 
 seen nothing to remind us of the republic, the 
 empire, or the triumphant popedom. It was dusk 
 when we reached our hotel ; and before I was free 
 to walk out and search for some vestige of the 
 greatness around us, almost dark. The immediate 
 objects then partially visible did not gratify my 
 curiosity, for the Piazza di Spagna, in which we 
 lodged, seemed a mean oblong space, lined with 
 buildings like warehouses or hotels, and only dis- 
 tinguished by a central fountain, and a broad flight 
 of handsome stairs stretching upwards into dark- 
 ness. Up those steps which I found connecting a 
 succession of elevations, I ascended, with hesitating 
 steps, to a terrace, which I did not venture to 
 traverse, but from which I looked eagerly out into 
 the gloom, in hope to trace some outline of the 
 churches or ruins which I knew, but scarcely felt,
 
 ILLUMINATION TOR THE POPE. 133 
 
 to be near me ; but I could only discern some low 
 cupolas, and one greater beyond them which I 
 rashly attributed to St. Peter's, really in another 
 direction and beyond the sphere of daylight vision. 
 When, later in the evening, I revisited the same 
 spot, the scene was changed ; for the long course 
 of the central street was indicated by two lines of 
 blazing light, its double streaks alone displacing the 
 blackness in which the city was still wrapped, 
 except where similar lines of fire reflected from 
 cross streets, and some clustered lights here and 
 there, dotted as arising from small open spaces, 
 showed that the illumination of the Corso was 
 partaken by some few other portions of Rome. 
 On inquiry, we found that these lights, proceeding 
 from lamps and torches, had been kindled in 
 honour of the new Pope, Pius the Ninth, who, on 
 that very 8th of September, had made his public 
 entry into Eome, amidst the acclamations of too 
 credulous champions of Italian liberties. On finding 
 that we had arrived at this auspicious season, our 
 party sallied forth into the Corso, which we found 
 blazing with coloured lamps and huge torches, and 
 the windows of the first floors lined with ladies in
 
 134 ILLUMINATION FOE, THE POPE. 
 
 balconies, temporary and fixed, who were dressed, 
 almost without exception, in white muslin, and 
 with heads uncovered, except where jewels sparkled 
 across the brow or gleamed from among the hair, 
 and who, we were told, waited for a procession 
 which, having conducted the idol of the day to the 
 Vatican, was expected to return by torch-light. 
 The narrowness of this famous street rendered the 
 profuse illumination of both its sides almost 
 intolerable; and, in spite of the cries of appro- 
 bation which sometimes attended the exertions 
 of a ballad-singer, combining in his song the 
 inveterate discords of Freedom and the Pope, a 
 sense of hollowness struck to the heart in the 
 midst of this factitious triumph of liberal papacy. 
 At the corners of the avenues issuing into the 
 Corso, stood enthusiastic Lazaroni, distributing 
 sonnets in praise of the Holy Father who had 
 released some political captives from the prisons, 
 and who promised the golden union of Liberty and 
 Faith. These little poems, of which we obtained 
 some specimens, were not works involving much 
 labour, notwithstanding their sonnet-form ; for 
 although the composition of a sonnet is a gymnastic
 
 ILLUMINATION FOE, THE POPE. 135 
 
 exercise in untractable English of some difficult}-, 
 it is as "easy as lying " in rhythmical Italian ; and, 
 for sentiment or imagery, these were not likely to 
 live even long enough to shame their prophecies. 
 At the time, our impressions were those of wonder 
 at the rashness of the new pontiff ; of pitying 
 belief that his days were already numbered in the 
 Holy College ; of anticipation that our next 
 intelligence would be the interruption of his 
 career of insane reform by sudden death. But 
 we little knew the recesses of the papal mind ; we 
 did not perceive that the removal of fetters from 
 the limbs of a few victims of oppression was an 
 artful preparation for riveting more grievoiis 
 fetters on the mind; nor did we anticipate that 
 the deluded patriots who now celebrated his 
 advent, would soon awake to a terrible conviction 
 of their error ; and that, from their vengeance 
 their idol of this night would fly, in the veritable 
 guise of Mr. Carlile's favourite symbol for the 
 lowest impostures, that of a liveried flunkey, 
 and would share a coachman's box ; or that the 
 holy liberator would be restored to his seat of 
 tyrannical imbecility by the arms of men who
 
 136 THE CAPITOL. 
 
 took " Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity " for 
 their motto, till they bartered them for an imperial 
 circlet ! 
 
 Although the journey of the preceding night, 
 and the more lamentable unrest of the Neapolitan 
 couches, had prepared me for dreamless sleep, the 
 sense of being actually in Borne overcame it before 
 day-break. The scene without, however, when I 
 first looked on it, was too miserable to be explored ; 
 for the famed Italian sky was as filthy as a London 
 fog ; dense, dull, continuous rain was turning the 
 litters of the square to mud ; the opposite houses 
 appeared more wan and warehouse-like than 
 when seen in the uncertain twilight ; and no vista 
 opened beyond them. But as we had not time to 
 wait for weather, when breakfast was over, we 
 committed ourselves to the custody of a commis- 
 sionnaire of the hotel ; and, under his guidance, soon 
 found ourselves at the foot of the Capitol. What 
 a word to conjure up images and thoughts ! But 
 when they came, was there anything to answer 
 them ? My vision of the antique world had sug- 
 gested a sacred edifice, combining the attributes of 
 fortress and temple, and rising into blue sky from
 
 THE CAPITOL. 137 
 
 the pedestal of a precipitous rock a symbol as 
 well as an asylum for the majesty of the world 
 strength crowned by beauty ; but the reality differed 
 from the dream. Instead of looking up to a dizzy 
 eminence, I saw before me a broad incline of noble 
 width, rising between balustrades, with two huge 
 lionesses in basalt at its foot, leading to a square area 
 of apparently inconsiderable extent, open in front, 
 and surrounded on its three remaining sides by 
 handsome incongruous buildings, surmounted by a 
 single square tower. It is true that, within the 
 space thus presented to the eye, are some most 
 noble and interesting of the works of art which 
 time has spared; for, on the balustrades are the 
 trophies usually attributed to Marius, but really of 
 later date ; at the corners of the summit of the 
 steps, stand the giant statues of Castor and Pollux, 
 each holding a horse, worthy to be curbed by a 
 hero ; in the centre of the square, is the famous 
 statue in bronze of Marcus Aurelius, and, what is 
 greater, of his horse standing on a block of marble, 
 which, as a single object of art, is perhaps unsur- 
 passed in the world ; and, besides these, are the mile- 
 stone which marked the first mile on the Appian
 
 138 THE CAPITOL. 
 
 way, and the ball once held by the statue which 
 stood on the summit of the column of Trajan, and 
 which was reputed to contain his ashes ; and these 
 and other statues and groups, less remarkable, 
 affect the mind with a crowd of various associations. 
 But this collection of great works, having no con- 
 nection with the history of the Capitol, does not 
 satisfy the expectation, although it may compensate 
 for the failure. The buildings look like what they 
 are cabinets of antiquities most richly endowed ; 
 but there is nothing in their appearance martial or 
 august, or even classical nothing which breathes 
 of Consular or Imperial Eome. The central pile is 
 " The Palace of the Senator," and dates only from, 
 the fourteenth century ; that on the south is the 
 Palace of the Conservatori ; that on the north is 
 the Museum of the Capitol. These halls contain 
 some of the richest spoils of time ; the " Bronze 
 Wolf of the Capitol," so mysterious in origin, so 
 exquisite in workmanship, so sublimely significant 
 in expression; the effeminate perfection of the 
 Antinous ; the marble tragedy of the Dying 
 Gladiator; the Pawn of the loveliest shape and 
 marble; statues, almost without number, of gods
 
 THE CAP1TOLINE ROCK. 139 
 
 and heroes and meaner mortals ; works of beauty 
 " that the sense aches at," and remains replete with 
 the finest interest of antiquity sufficient to bewilder 
 and entrance the spectator but not blending into 
 one great sentiment appropriate to the memorable 
 spot they adorn. I ascended the central tower, 
 whence the best panoramic view of Home should be 
 obtained, but the rain which had strengthened into 
 storm, being dashed by the wind against me as I 
 emerged from the staircase, compelled an immediate 
 retreat ; and left the contrast between the Capitol 
 unvisited and the Capitol explored, unhappily for 
 me, only too decisive. 
 
 In compliance with a request that we might see 
 the Capitoline Rock, we were conducted through a 
 dirty alley to an open space amidst mean houses, 
 and were directed to look up a steep slope of earth 
 and clay capped by a mouldering wall. The silent 
 execution of the vengeance of the fierce republic 
 could scarcely have occurred in this place, which it 
 was impossible to connect with the defiance of the 
 fate by Coriolanus, " Let them pronounce the steep 
 Tarpeian rock ; " for here the hero's destiny would 
 have been more like a perilous roll down a dunghill
 
 140 THE COLISEUM. 
 
 than a plunge into airy death. To me the eminence 
 looked like the hill of a provincial market-garden, 
 where the stubborn inequality of the ground, 
 rendering cultivation impossible, had tempted idle 
 gardeners to bestow all kinds of vegetable refuse. 
 I suspect there was another side to the mass which 
 our conductor thought unworthy of a visit in the 
 rain, which may look more like a precipice; but 
 unless it were quite unlike the declivity we saw, 
 Justice must have deserted her once terrible 
 domain, and left it to a philanthropic police. 
 
 From this "impostor to true fear," we were 
 conducted to that ruin which no weather can 
 affect ; no sunshine glorify ; no moonlight render 
 more romantic that huge oval which we had 
 trembled at in passing the Coliseum, which 
 must surpass all expectation, however exalted. 
 Prints have made the outlines of its form 
 familiar; but no print, no picture, ever gave an 
 adequate notion of the colossal power the reality 
 exercises over the mind, which, for the first time, 
 contemplates it. The rents which disclose the 
 jagged masses of its walls to the eye, assist the 
 perception of its magnitude, not so much by
 
 THE COLISEUM. 141 
 
 rendering the thickness of the walls palpable, as 
 by counteracting the effect which else the beauty 
 of its oval shape would produce in diminishing its 
 apparent size. On the other hand, the sense of 
 that very beauty, which is entirely preserved 
 to the mind, though thus broken to the eye, en- 
 hances the idea of size, by suggesting the wonder, 
 that a thing so beautiful should be also so stupen- 
 dous. The trees which, rooted in its higher 
 regions, wave in its openings or tower into the sky, 
 also assist, by the standard they introduce, in 
 procuring justice from the eye for its height ; the 
 arches and fountains beside it, noble in themselves, 
 further aid in marking its supremacy ; and the 
 entire result of these combined felicities is the 
 perception of a work of human hands beyond 
 the architectural imagination of our Martin to 
 equal. 
 
 The impression I received from this gigantic ruin 
 was, however, chiefly physical the sense of beauty 
 and power presented to the eye in unparalleled union 
 not enhanced by any association which the 
 spectacle enkindled; and, perhaps, on that account, 
 the more perfect in itself, but involving a necessity
 
 142 THE COLISEUM. 
 
 for expressing dissent from high poetical autho- 
 rities. " For my own poor part," I am obliged to 
 confess my inability to associate with " the noble 
 wreck " any moral or intellectual greatness. With 
 all due admiration for the intrinsic excellence of 
 Lord Byron's celebrated passage respecting it, I 
 cannot acquiesce in its justice, when the place 
 " becomes religion," and the heart runs o'er 
 
 ' ' With silent worship of the great of old, 
 The dead but sceptred sovereigns that still rule 
 Our spirits from their urns." 
 
 With the actions of men who have been the lights 
 and ornaments of the world, this mighty pile has 
 surely no communion ; and the only " dead but 
 sceptred sovereigns" who are peculiarly associated 
 with it are the Eoman Emperors, for whose barba- 
 rian pastimes it was built, and of whose crimes it was 
 often the theatre; and their sovereignty over the 
 spirits of men assuredly did not survive them. If 
 the poet, refers not to the Eoman Emperors who were 
 successively associated with the bloody Circus, but 
 to other and nobler men among the dead whose 
 enduring sovereignty may be suggested by a 
 mighty ruin softened by moonlight, the objection
 
 THE COLISEUM. 143 
 
 is that this place lias a history of its own which 
 must intervene, and which is inconsistent with the 
 contemplation either of moral excellence or pure 
 intellectual power. Can any noble sympathy co- 
 exist with the consciousness of the shameful fact, 
 that, on the opening, miscalled consecration, of this 
 amphitheatre, under one of the least odious of the 
 Caesars, five thousand noble beasts, brought from 
 their native forests, for the amusement of the degen- 
 erate progeny of the wolf, were exhibited in combat, 
 agony, and death; a deed of cruel cowardice, 
 more base, if less atrocious, than the cruelties 
 which are inflicted by man on his own species : 
 because inflicted on animals which could inspire 
 no aversion, could make no appeal, and could 
 hope no avenger ! Even if the scene had not 
 been devoted to the infliction of torture and 
 death on thousands of Christians, could the long 
 succession of barbarities, worthy of such a begin- 
 ning, allow the silent walls to be simply eloquent 
 of an ideal past and creative of sympathies with 
 poets, sages, or immortal sovereigns, who, if wor- 
 thy "to rule our spirits from their urns," would 
 have turned with disgust from its games, in which
 
 144 THE COLISEUM. 
 
 doomed beasts and gladiators were the actors and 
 the victims ? 
 
 It is true, that in the annals of the barbarous 
 amusements enjoyed and the savage cruelties in- 
 flicted within these walls may be discerned the 
 images of heroic suffering ; and it may be suggested 
 that these should countervail the atrocities of thea- 
 trical slaughter and imperial persecution, and thus 
 sweeten and consecrate the place to the Christian 
 spectator. The knowledge of such constancy may 
 well console us, on reflection, for the infamies of 
 crime; but the crowding groups of successive 
 sufferers, with the surrounding images of torment, 
 confuse the sense of admiration which would be 
 inspired by the heroism of an individual soul. 
 Moral energies, in order to affect us by the majesty 
 of endurance, must be contemplated in their 
 separate force, not guessed at as animating, at 
 once, numbers of the holy and brave : but each, in 
 his personal qualities and peculiar wrongs, must 
 appeal to admiring sympathy, when we would forget 
 the oppressor in his victims. " The noble army of 
 martyrs " " crowned with glory, honour, and 
 immortality," may shine in upon our holiest hours
 
 THE COLISEUM. 145 
 
 without distinction of person ; for they, assoiled 
 from all mortal incumbrance, are no longer 
 regarded with the solicitudes which gather round 
 earthly struggle and grief, but are contemplated with 
 that serene pleasure which regards the triumphant 
 band as the equal partakers of one reward. But 
 the sufferer claims as one of ourselves ; our admira- 
 tion of his bravest patience grows out of conscious 
 weakness such as he conquers for us; the traits of 
 his nobleness are personal ; and these do not glow 
 out from the dim accumulation of agonies, which 
 the martyrdoms of the Coliseum involve, with 
 sufficient force to master the sense of throng- 
 ing oppressions and crimes. Every one who 
 remembers the impressions made on him by a 
 youthful perusal of histories of martyrdom, will 
 probably confess that a morbid depression, blended 
 with an insatiable curiosity, stifled the sense of 
 heroism, and unnerved rather than exalted the 
 mind, while " supping full of horrors." In 
 the Coliseum, therefore, the pomp and the guilt 
 of ages saddened me more than the sense of 
 Christian heroism affected me ; and I confess that 
 I should have breathed more freely in the majestic
 
 146 THE COLISEUM. 
 
 circle if I could have unlearned all its history, and 
 regarded it simply in its material beauty and 
 grandeur as a work reared in unknown ages by 
 human power ; for it was animated for me only by 
 tyrannies and tortures. Then, its huge circum- 
 ference, with its enormous chasms, looking like 
 marl baked in the heat of thousands of fierce 
 summers, would be simply "prodigious;" and then, 
 in the presence of its sensuous grandeur, the paltry 
 statuettes, unworthily representative of the phy- 
 sical circumstances of our Lord's passion, and the 
 central promise of indulgences for every kiss be- 
 stowed on the cross, would not mingle a sense of 
 shame for the perversion of our faith with the 
 recollections of its persecution by pagan tyranny. 
 
 Although the rain still fell incessantly, we 
 struggled on under the supervision of a guide, 
 whose depressed umbrella gave him the appearance 
 of an ambulatory fountain, to realise all that 
 pictures and prints had taught us of the temples, 
 arches, and columns of the Empire ; and we did 
 realise them and no more. The objects, exqui- 
 sitely beautiful as they stand, are peculiarly within 
 the scope of pictorial representation ; and the
 
 IMPEEIAL REMAINS. 147 
 
 impression made by the realities was precisely that 
 which pictures and engravings had enabled us to 
 anticipate ; they proved no larger, nor loftier, nor 
 lovelier than the forms with which we were 
 acquainted. In one respect, indeed, the repre- 
 sentations had the advantage of the realities the 
 effect of the space which the artist can confer at his 
 pleasure, and which, in fact, he usually confers on 
 the object he represents ; so that whether that 
 object be the assize court of a county town, really 
 placed in a narrow market-square, or an arch of 
 imperial Eome, the area for contemplation is ex- 
 tended, and the influences which the atmosphere 
 seems to breathe round the fabric. This license the 
 artists, who have otherwise faithfully depicted the 
 relics of the Roman Empire, have largely used; they 
 have given the space which the most exquisite 
 remains have needed ; for although the principal 
 ruins stand apart from the huddled pile of the 
 modern city, divided from it by the Capitoline Hill 
 they seem crowded to the eye of modern admi- 
 ration, as if their constructors had not foreseen how 
 Time would increase their demands on Space. The 
 
 injurious effect of a contracted area is increased, 
 
 L 2
 
 148 IMPERIAL REMAINS. 
 
 when the remains of antique beauty stand, as in the 
 Forum of Trajan, upon excavated ground, whence the 
 accumulated rubbish has been removed while the 
 neighbouring ground is left in its state of artificial 
 elevation: so that they are subjected to the eye 
 of the spectator, when they ought to command 
 it. Notwithstanding these deductions from the 
 pictured anticipations, there is an exquisite sen- 
 suous pleasure in the actual embrace by the eye 
 of objects so charming as the Column of Trajan, 
 the Arch of Constantine, or those three columns 
 in the Forum which form the most beautiful 
 fragment in the world ; but the visual enjoyment 
 is enhanced by no new idea to a mind familiar 
 with their pictured forms ; and the links of asso- 
 ciation with them are to me feeble. When they 
 press on the mind images of the Kornan Empire by 
 figures which directly relate to its ignoble persons 
 or its bloody catastrophes, they cast upon it a 
 weight from which it would gladly escape ; and 
 when they simply exhibit the chaste forms of 
 Grecian invention, as in the columns and the 
 remains of temples, their symmetrical beauty 
 prevents the feeling of antiquity from being pro-
 
 IMPERIAL REMAINS. 149 
 
 minent ; to the mind they are young still ; and it 
 feels that "they will never grow old." They bear, 
 in truth, no relation to Time ; and, incapable of its 
 decay, wear none of the traces of its passage which 
 make Antiquity, embodied in forms which attest it, 
 a present power. They are, in truth, what they seem; 
 and he who justly appreciates their seeming knows 
 and feels all that they are. We revisited them in the 
 evening, when the rain had ceased, and saw them 
 through the pure medium of the refreshed air, and 
 clad in the light of a rainy sunset, with the full 
 perception of the luxury of gazing on most exqui- 
 site forms ; but the feast was rather that of the eyes 
 than of the soul. Let, therefore, those who, with the 
 finest capacity to appreciate the ruins of Imperial 
 Home, are precluded by circumstances from 
 beholding them, be consoled by the assurance that 
 they may enjoy a conception of them as perfect, 
 and an opportunity of cherishing the influences 
 breathed from their forms as ample, by pondering 
 over a portfolio of well-engraved prints, as in their 
 actual presence. 
 
 In the next day, we embraced, under the guidance 
 of a good-natured and delightfully ignorant and
 
 150 MALARIA VISIBLE. 
 
 conceited commissionaire, a great number of the 
 mighty objects around us; following him, from early 
 morning, through pestilent alleys, filthy market- 
 places, and beside glorious fountains, to the Baths 
 of Caracalla ; and thence to the Basilicas of St. 
 Mary Maggiore, St. John Lateran, and St. Peter's 
 which last we reached in the light of golden 
 evening catching glimpses so transient of objects 
 so enormous, and so replete with gorgeous details, 
 that the result presses like a magnificent night- 
 mare on the memory. From the unutterable 
 abominations of the Jews' quarter; its filthy rows 
 of shops ; its filthier articles of food, exposed as if 
 for sale ; and its inhabitants, filthiest of all, with 
 fierce eyes looking out from hair-imbedded and 
 anciently-begrimed faces, my thought, even at a 
 distance of years, shrinks with loathing. One 
 fearful manifestation we saw, with recollection of 
 the Blind Traveller's prophecy the visible malaria 
 emerging in a foul, thick steam from a chasm in 
 the arched brick-work of a tremendous sewer, in 
 which we might have realised the Cloaca Maxima, 
 if our guide would have waited to respond to our ' 
 inquiries. He saw the vapour, and ran away
 
 BATHS OF CARACALLA. 151 
 
 without giving us any other warning than his 
 example ; but we took the hint, and followed him, 
 and overtook him " safe at distance." "We could 
 only understand from the answers he gave, in very 
 broken English, to our inquiries, that a nearer 
 approach would have been dangerous ; but as to 
 the date or history of the sewer, he would say 
 nothing ; and we were content that it should 
 remain a mystery. 
 
 Next to the Coliseum, the ruins of the Baths of 
 Caracalla form the surviving mass which imperial 
 power "created hugest;" perhaps it is equal in 
 magnitude, but it holds no rivalry in the recol- 
 lection with the Amphitheatre of Vespasian. The 
 circles of the Coliseum, suggesting at first a shape 
 of beauty, gradually expand the mind with delight 
 and wonder, till it embraces the bulk of matter so 
 marvellously wreathed into exquisite form, and thus 
 realises the idea of its true magnitude, while the 
 oblong form of the giant walls of the Baths is subject 
 to the deduction which a stranger's, eye uncon- 
 sciously makes from size. As these ruins are ex- 
 amined in detail, they are found to be colossal ; and 
 appear to form a prodigious quarry whence fragments
 
 152 BATHS OF CARACALLA. 
 
 of exquisite workmanship and entire works of 
 art may be eviscerated probably for ages without 
 exhaustion. Hence, the Farnese Hercules and other 
 great remains of statuary have been exhumed, and 
 now masses of finely sculptured pediment lie in 
 heaps among broken arches and columns, open to 
 artistic plunder, but looking as if they were sufficient 
 to satisfy the pilfering fingers of dilettanti for years 
 to come. Grand, however, as the towering walls and 
 arches appeared, and rich as the heaps of prostrate 
 ruin seemed in the vestiges of exquisite art, they 
 did not present to my apprehension any beauty of 
 the kind which Shelley imputes to them, when he 
 describes their site as the place in which he chiefly 
 composed his mystical drama, " The Prometheus 
 Unbound " " upon the mountainous ruins, among 
 the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous 
 blooming roses, which are extended in ever-winding 
 labyrinths upon its immense platforms and dizzy 
 arches suspended in the air." The thickets of 
 roses which embosomed the poet, and which 
 perhaps his mind half created, had left no trace 
 visible to me ; but he had, by thus linking these 
 ruins with one of his own immortal works,
 
 BATHS OF CARACALLA. 153 
 
 imparted to them an interest little akin to the 
 images of imperial luxury which, in themselves, 
 they awaken. Referring to his composition of this 
 poem in this place, he says, " The bright blue sky 
 of Eome, and the effect of the vigorous awakening 
 of spring in that divinest climate, and the new life 
 in which it drenches the spirits even to intoxication, 
 were the inspiration of this drama." I did not 
 partake of these physical advantages ; for I visited 
 the spot in sultry autumn, and did not perceive a 
 brighter colour in the sky, nor a more delicious 
 odour in the plants, nor deeper beauty in the 
 vegetation, than our inland country can disclose ; 
 but the inspiration of the loveliness which Shelley 
 tasted, breathes over the ruins from the etherial 
 creation which he fashioned among them, and gives 
 to them, for me, a consecration beyond the influence 
 of emperors or ages. 
 
 Hence we turned back to visit the great Basilicas 
 of Santa Maria Maggiore and St. John Lateran, 
 which we found so rich in chapels, shrines, 
 columns, pictures, and statues, in marble, porphyry, 
 and gold, as to perplex the sense and bewilder the 
 memory ; and yet the noblest characteristics of
 
 154 ST. MARY MAGGIOBE. 
 
 eacli, triumphing over the distracting variety of its 
 beautiful details, left an individual and a deep 
 impression. A glance at the interior of the prin- 
 cipal of the churches dedicated to the honour of 
 the Blessed Virgin will stamp its peculiar character 
 on the mind for ever. It looks like an immense 
 hall of the purest white marble ; the roof, of 
 a noble elevation, appears perfectly flat ; and the 
 spectator of the nave sees a vast interior beneath 
 it, bordered by a series of thirty-six Ionic 
 columns of white marble, leaving two narrow 
 aisles on each side, which, when gleaming between 
 the columns, serve to heighten the effect of the 
 vast central space, by the uncertain extent they 
 suggest beyond it ; and if the Eoman veneration 
 for the Blessed Virgin had stopped " on this side 
 idolatry ; " and if this church had been dedicated 
 to Tier simply as its patron saint, it would be, 
 in its purity, simplicity, and nobleness, a just 
 embodiment of a sentiment, which, because 
 heightened into adoration by Catholics, we Pro- 
 testants are too apt unduly to lower, but which all 
 Christians are bound reverentially to cherish. I 
 saw afterwards, in bright succession, the riches of
 
 ST. MARY MAGGIORE. 155 
 
 this Basilica; the roof finely carved and gilded 
 with the first gold brought to Spain from Peru, 
 which the greatest of queens and of women, 
 Isabella of Castile, presented to Pope Alexander 
 the Sixth ; the curious mosaics of the side aisles 
 in which are figured the histories of the Hebrew 
 patriarchs ; the huge urn of porphyry which 
 ennobles the high altar ; the rich Chapel of the 
 SS. Sacramento, and the far richer Borghese 
 Chapel ; multitudes of frescoes, statues, and 
 tombs ; but these could neither enhance nor 
 confuse the first, last, entire idea with which a 
 glance at the interior of this Christian temple en- 
 dowed us almost giving, in Grecian architecture, 
 such relation of a building to a thought as the 
 G-othic discloses, when, as in the Cathedral of 
 St. Owen at Rouen, it seems as if the edifice 
 had sprung from a single act of the mind into 
 being as a flower springs up and expands from 
 its stem. 
 
 The Basilica of St. John Lateran is, in many 
 respects, the most august of Eoman churches, 
 and may well justify the claim made in its 
 inscription " Omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum
 
 156 ST. JOHN LATERAN. 
 
 mater et caput " being the first monument of the 
 union of Christianity with Empire founded by 
 Constantine, and the place of his baptism. It 
 comprises almost a wilderness of magnificent 
 compartments and is enriched by an unbounded 
 profusion of ornaments mosaics, colossal statues 
 of the Apostles, all varieties of small columns in 
 every species of precious material, the great 
 Corsini Chapel in the crucial form, resplendent 
 in parts and exquisite in the whole the Baptistery 
 of Constantine, in which the half-hero half- 
 mountebank Rienzi presumed to bathe in the 
 night before he summoned Clement VI. and 
 the Electors of Germany to appear before him ; 
 and it has a richly ornamented front with five 
 balconies, like the front of an enormous theatre ; 
 but it is not in the contemplation of all or any 
 of these grandeurs that the true greatness of the 
 place is perceived. The spot wiiich to me, at 
 least, above all others of this Basilica, and, 
 indeed, above all other spots in Rome, was most 
 eloquent, is the terrace floor of the northern 
 portico beneath a roof" supported by columns 
 so lofty as to make palpable the insignificance
 
 ST. PETERS. 157 
 
 of all things beneath them, with the Campagna 
 spread out far below to the feet of the Sabine 
 hills, and the two dark lines of aqueduct on 
 each side connecting the distant uplands witli 
 the city. "When the spectator, satiated with 
 radiant shows, stands on this spot, he sees neither 
 the Eome of the Empire nor the Rome of 
 the Papacy, but he feels the spirit of the eldest 
 Eome in that plain traversed by the ways where 
 soldiers, orators, and poets, whose deeds and 
 thoughts slid into his youthful blood, have trodden ; 
 in the field of infant Rome's victories and virtues ; 
 and in those gigantic works which heroic genius 
 started from barbarism to conceive, and which 
 were formed by the first efforts of heroic labour. 
 Sober clouds embrowned the prospect when I saw 
 it, but the air was perfectly silent and I looked 
 on it as a vision of the past, in which the sense 
 of old Roman virtue and the memory of the far- 
 off time when I first felt its influence, were 
 harmoniously though mournfully blended. 
 
 "What should be said of St. Peters? In pru- 
 dence nothing lest I should betray the last infir- 
 mity of ignoble minds, in want of due admiration
 
 158 ST. PETER S. 
 
 for the cathedral which Lord Byron (cited in our 
 Hand-book as if he were a Christian authority) 
 has pronounced " worthiest of God, the holy and 
 the true, since Zion's desolation," and which he 
 designates as "the Holy of Holies," and an 
 " eternal ark of worship undefiled." I believe 
 it is lawful to dislike the facade, which seemed 
 to me almost Saracenic in the combination of bar- 
 barous vastness with profuse ornament, though 
 appropriately terminating the semicircular colon- 
 nades, which may be as perfectly known by familiar 
 prints as by visual observation. The gigantic 
 statues which pinnacle its front so conceal the 
 lower part of the dome and throw it so far back 
 in the view that, on the approach, it loses its 
 height and its majesty. Entering, I did not partake 
 the disappointment of those who require time to 
 understand the vastness of the interior ; probably 
 because I had first paced the entire length of the 
 vestibule, which represents the breadth of the 
 front, between its equestrian statues at each 
 termination ; and had thus become instructed as 
 to one of its dimensions. When I passed into 
 the nave, I felt the space before me so greatly
 
 ST. PETER S. 159 
 
 superior to that which I had ever comprehended 
 in a church, that when, as I walked up the centre, 
 and traced in its pavement the visible boasts of its 
 superiority to our St. Paul's, to the Cathedral of 
 Milan, to St. Paul's of Eome, and to the Mosque of 
 St. Sophia, I felt surprise that such of those interiors 
 as I had seen should bear so great a proportion 
 to the mightier fabric, which, indeed, would have 
 been estimated more highly without this vaunting. 
 Advancing onward to the centre of the dome, 
 I received the greatest impression of the stately 
 beauty of the Church, of which the four colossal 
 piers that support the cupola are the noblest 
 objects. I felt that human architecture could 
 effect no more. Tet, to one standing here, amidst 
 the beautiful built up into the sublime, what other 
 sentiment was awakened except astonishment at 
 the genius which had reared the temple, and at the 
 wealth which adorned it ? None ! Not only 
 did I fail to recognise the " Holy of Holies " 
 of the author of Don Juan, but I saw nothing in 
 it which breathed of religion or worship. The 
 chapels which border its aisles, and the pictures, 
 tablets, and columns which decorate its walls,
 
 160 ST. PETER'S. 
 
 are too small, even when colossal, to interfere 
 with its space ; but they do not tend to awaken 
 elevated or solemn thought. In the glittering 
 spectacle of marble and gold, there is nothing 
 that hints of the eternal ; the glorious area might 
 be the hall of the palace of a giant king, or it 
 might find fit place in "that high capital," which 
 " rose like an exhalation," at Milton's bidding. 
 Neither the high altar, beneath its canopy of 
 bronze, in the centre of the dome, all glistening 
 with gilded ornaments, nor the confessional with 
 a kneeling statue of a pope from Canova's sensuous 
 hand, though hung round with ever-burning lamps, 
 is suggestive of pious thought ; but the marble 
 genius of Death, with face averted, at the magni- 
 ficent tomb of Clement XIII., does impress 
 the mind with the earthly side of mortality, 
 while the correspondent figure of Eeligion with 
 golden rays, does not, with any equal influence, 
 suggest the deathless. The marble lions at the 
 angles of this monument are admirable specimens 
 of Canova's skill; while, considered as ornaments 
 of a Christian church, they partake the general 
 character of the whole ; and are neither more nor
 
 ST. PETER'S. 161 
 
 less appropriate to a House of God than many other 
 of its decorations. 
 
 When we entered St. Peter's this evening, the 
 church was, or seemed to be, empty ; but presently 
 three priests appeared, looking of the size of mice, 
 and slowly walked to that doubtful statue which 
 was fashioned either for Jupiter or St. Peter. 
 Having reverently kissed the foot of the image, 
 they knelt down in a row before it, as if to pray 
 while we contemplated them chiefly as setting 
 forth the magnitude of the building in which they 
 seemed, in the distance, so diminutive. To our 
 surprise, notwithstanding our experience of con- 
 tinental habits, each began zealously spitting on 
 the beautiful pavement, as if it was a portion of his 
 duty I fear illustrating the habits which a priest- 
 hood, possessed of unlimited power, encourages 
 by its example. In this instance, the uniformity 
 of the act was as comic, as the trait was indicative 
 of the relation of the manners of the priesthood to 
 the condition of the people; which, in such respects, 
 they might elevate at their pleasure. 
 
 The next day, we revisited St. Peter's; and 
 after renewing and realising our impressions of
 
 162 ST. PETER'S. 
 
 its vast interior, ascended to the gallery imme- 
 diately beneath the ball ; and found our first 
 notion of the magnitude of the cathedral redupli- 
 cated and confirmed. This idea was chiefly 
 enhanced by the comparison of all the variety of 
 common things which are seen on the external roof 
 of the church, whence the great cupola springs 
 workshops, workmen's houses, a fountain, and all the 
 apparatus of labour and life of a small colony of men, 
 whose duty is to keep the mighty masses of their 
 neighbourhood in repair, and to hang and light the 
 lamps which are clustered over the dome on the 
 great festivals. These dwellings, with the domestic 
 associations they imply ; the smaller cupolas which 
 rise among them ; and the gigantic statues which 
 look like baby figures from below, and here assume 
 their proper dimensions ; and the near aspect of 
 the great cone itself rising directly above the 
 village of the artificers, filled us with admiration of 
 the greatness of the mountain of art we were 
 traversing. The converse of the feeling alleged 
 to possess spectators on the first admission to 
 St. Peter's, of disappointment as to size, was 
 ours; to us, the Genius of Space seemed to be
 
 ST. PETEK'S. 163 
 
 triumphant, and to give to every part, as well as to 
 the whole, the utmost possible effect of dimension ; 
 as if the vastness of Michael Angelo's genius 
 stamped on everything he touched the impress of 
 greatness, and embodied Space in a compass which, 
 however large, was too narrow for his conceptions. 
 The view of the subjected city from the topmost 
 gallery is, to my honest belief, -not only inferior to 
 that of London from the iron gallery of St. Paul's, 
 but of Paris from the column of the Place Vendome ; 
 the pile of the Capitol, chiefly distinguished by its 
 square tower, does not fulfil the notion the simple 
 reference of Cassius gives us, as he speaks of the 
 break of the day when the greatest of all Romans 
 was murdered " Stands as the Capitol directly 
 there;" the Tiber looks a muddy ditch; the 
 arches and columns of the Empire are scarcely 
 to be discerned beyond the wilderness of ordi- 
 nary houses which is stretched before them ; 
 even the Coliseum, which is clearly denned, loses 
 its magnitude in the distance, and losing that 
 attribute, loses all its greatness ; and the nearer 
 edifices, especially the Castle of St. Angelo, are 
 
 more grotesque than grand. But there are great 
 
 M 2
 
 164 ST. PETER'S. 
 
 features in the prospect the long dusky chain of 
 the Apennines, and the sea, which we saw 
 glistening near Civita Vecchia, beyond the long, 
 arid, intervening plain; and these are objects which 
 need no aid, and receive no detriment, from man's 
 civil or ecclesiastical history. How refreshing was 
 the glimpse of the bare mountains and the 
 illimitable sea after the splendours of the Papacy, 
 and the wilderness of stone ! 
 
 Another delightful refreshment for the spectator, 
 wearied with admiration of St. Peter's, is supplied 
 by the two fountains which, without ceasing, send 
 up their waters into the air in front of its colon- 
 nades. The effect of the copious waters flung to a 
 great height, and descending in myriads of crystal 
 drops, when seen against a pale blue sky, would be 
 refreshing enough to lighten the heart after the 
 marble wonders, were they ten times St. Peter's. 
 Indeed, whatever may be the extent of admiration 
 felt for Rome, in triumph or in ruins Eepublican, 
 Imperial, or Papal there can be no question about 
 one present excellence it possesses ; it is a City 
 of Fountains. Almost every square, great or small, 
 has its fountain of pure and apparently inex-
 
 THE VATICAN. 165 
 
 haustible water ; in many places, these works 
 among which the water exults, are of great beauty; 
 a single square could beat the vaunted exhibition 
 at St. Cloud, which all Paris goes to see on Sunday, 
 and which costs the government half a subsidy in 
 broken pipes. If, as I believe, this vast supply 
 of pure water is poured from the Sabine hills 
 through the ancient aqueducts, how nobly do the 
 earliest contributions to the true greatness of 
 Home transcend the works of the Empire and the 
 Popedorn ! 
 
 From St. Peter's we were conducted to the 
 Vatican, to be made dizzy by a succession of glimpses 
 of objects, which would require from minds less 
 uninstructed in art than mine, weeks for contem- 
 plation. As I have no right to affect the tone of 
 criticism on works of the highest class, as the 
 " Transfiguration," and the " Communion of Saint 
 Jerome," I will only say that the " Communion " 
 impressed me more deeply than any other picture 
 of the Vatican. The mighty fresco of the Sistine 
 Chapel, however transcendent the merits of its 
 details, did not affect me as the grasp of a subject 
 so awful and so fearfully near in interest to every
 
 166 THE VATICAN. 
 
 Christian mind, by an artist of the vastest power, 
 should affect a trembling observer. That a repre- 
 sentation of the Last Judgment, even by the most 
 gifted of mortal men, should fail to realise the 
 imagery of terror, delight, and majesty which has 
 dimly floated through the sleeping and waking 
 dreams of those who know they must awake from 
 the grave to abide the issue of eternity, may 
 well be regarded as impossible; but still it might 
 be expected that, in the attempt by Michael Angelo, 
 the most potent of all painters, there would be 
 found an idea pervading the composition which 
 should give unity and coherence to its portions. 
 But I looked for the influences of such a power in 
 vain. In its vast space, are some groups that are 
 fearful ; others that are charming ; as a study of 
 limbs and members, it is almost miraculous ; but 
 there is no presiding majesty ; no balance of parts ; 
 nothing that stamps even the reality of a moment 
 on the conception ; nothing in this great hand- 
 writing on the wall " to make mad the guilty and 
 appal the free." Among the statues of the Vatican, 
 those which stand out in recollection are the lovely 
 Belvedere Antinous j the Belvedere Apollo, " too
 
 THE LAOCOON. 167 
 
 fair for worship, too divine for love ; " and the 
 group of the Laocoon, immortal in torture. I looked 
 on this work, worthy of Pliny's praise, with an 
 anxiety suggested by the use to which it has been 
 applied by "Winkelman, as illustrating the principles 
 of the Greek tragedy as exhibiting repose in the 
 midst of agony, and pervaded by a sweetness which 
 dignifies and consecrates pain. As I did not find 
 this observation justified by the casts, I examined 
 the original marble in hope to find a sentiment 
 which I had been unable to discover in the copies ; 
 but I looked in vain. In proportion as the niceties 
 of its execution are more finely perceived than in 
 the casts, with which every untravelled student is 
 familiar, they seemed to me less accordant with the 
 relation in which Winkelman placed the group, and 
 which Schlegel has made textual. I saw, in the 
 marble, in unmitigated force, the struggle of agony 
 and despair with the most odious instruments of 
 both ; the serpentine embrace more shocking in the 
 slimy abomination of the detestable reptiles than in 
 their fatal power ; as if every fold over the quivering 
 flesh were a separate death-pang. In the face of 
 the chief sufferer, I could find no indication of
 
 168 THE PANTHEON. 
 
 submission; nothing but fierce agonies and sickening 
 horrors ; nor did the forms of the sons suggest to 
 me any sense of the helpless grace of suffering 
 childhood. They seemed to me like full-grown 
 men, of diminutive stature ; or if regarded as of the 
 ordinary size, like common men, involved in a 
 giant's calamity which they repel with less than his 
 strength, but scarcely with less than his dismay. 
 Although, therefore, the vigour and truth of this 
 composition are beyond praise, I cannot repress the 
 reluctant belief that the suggestive power attributed 
 to it by criticism is the work of ingenious theory, 
 which has " made the meat it feeds on." 
 
 Through a wide market-square, clogged with the 
 baskets and stores of market-women, and strewn 
 with vegetable refuse, we struggled to the Pantheon ; 
 which, of all the buildings I saw in Rome, was to 
 me most replete with interest that cannot die. Its 
 majestic portico and more majestic dome carry the 
 mind a little way beyond the imperial mass of 
 crime out of which the grandeurs of the Empire 
 tower ; not far, indeed, into the Republic, but into 
 an age which was illustrated by its forms and 
 embossed with the figures of its history. But there
 
 THE PANTHEON. 169 
 
 is a charm breathing in that perfect circle beyond 
 the majestic beauty of its. form beyond even the 
 shows of free greatness -which were attendant on 
 its origin for it contains the ashes of the purest 
 and holiest of painters of Eaphael, cut down in 
 the flower of his life the presence of which, after 
 many generations, was attested by the exposure of 
 the human hand which had wrought immortal 
 wonders, disclosed entire to crumble at once into 
 dust ! The remains of other painters have clustered 
 about this shrine, where the sense of beauty the 
 finest perfume of mortal life will be breathed 
 while Home shall stand. Amidst the thoughts of 
 power, greatness, oppression, and perverted faith, 
 which the dead and the living Eome engendered in 
 me, those which the sense of happiest art awakened 
 at the tomb of its greatest master, were the serenest 
 and the most welcome. 
 
 Before the^ end of this crowded day, we were 
 conducted to the Theatre of Pompey, where we saw 
 only a lofty wall amidst squalid houses, and to the 
 Barberini Palace. In the neighbourhood of the 
 first, our guide pointed out the corner of a small 
 square as the spot where " Julius Ca?sar was
 
 170 PHILO-ROMANISM. 
 
 brutally murdered by Marc Antony." I ventured 
 to express a doubt of this new version of an old 
 story; but " the sad historian of the pensive 
 scene" insisted on its being correct, and was 
 obviously surprised that a stranger should doubt 
 his local knowledge. "I say, Sir," said he, "this 
 is the place the very place where it happened . 
 why, I have been here, and seen it a thousand 
 times ; " so I gave up the point. At the Barberini 
 Palace we saw what, indeed, alone we went to see 
 the portrait of Beatrice Cenci, said to have been 
 painted in her prison by Guido ; but we did not 
 trace in the lineaments of the original, any more 
 than we had traced in the common prints, the 
 intense expression in which Shelley read her 
 dreadful history, and which inspired the most 
 simple and sublime of all dramas which have been 
 shaped in our language since the days of its 
 greatest master. After our long day of excitement, 
 we enjoyed the best of social refreshments in the 
 company of Mr. Leicester Adolphus, who spent 
 the evening with us. 
 
 During our progress from one great object to 
 another in these three days, we looked into many
 
 PHILO-ROMANISM. 171 
 
 churches which, according to the generous habit of 
 Roman Catholic countries, were always open except 
 for three hours in the middle of the day, when there 
 is an interval in the succession of services during 
 which the priests take their refreshment and 
 repose. I cannot repay this courtesy by attri- 
 buting to its opportunities any increased sentiment 
 of respect for the system on which strangers are so 
 liberally permitted to glance in its place of pride ; 
 on the contrary, I found my observation of the 
 glittering appliances of the Italian worship cor- 
 rective of any tendencies to undue sympathy with 
 its ritual. A familiarity with the demeanour of 
 the Roman Catholic clergy in England, before 
 their church took those steps which made her 
 aggression palpable, might naturally induce a 
 respectful sympathy for men of piety and learning, 
 devoted to the conservation of rites and cere- 
 monials dear to a large portion of the Christian 
 Church, and here, in adversity, maintained, by 
 cheerful sacrifices, in decent splendour ; and with 
 that sympathy might blamelessly mingle a regard 
 for the ceremonials themselves, cherished with such 
 constant reverence in adverse fortune. Such a
 
 172 PH1LO-ROMANISM. 
 
 feeling, so far as it tends to danger, will be 
 repressed by a glimpse of the pomps and vanities 
 of the Papacy in Eome. He who, in the cathedrals 
 of Belgium and Germany, has felt the influences of 
 Gothic art, awing and sanctifying the taste they 
 educate, will regard the churches of Eome, with few 
 exceptions, rather as resembling tawdry theatres 
 which, having been painted and gilded for lamp- 
 light, are painfully exposed to the light of day, than 
 as the fit nurseries and asylums of prayer and faith. 
 He will find the incidents which disturbed his 
 reverential thoughts in the nobler cathedrals mul- 
 tiplied: the .images of physical suffering; the 
 sprawling angels ; the tawdry gem-bedizened dolls ; 
 and all those indications of the supremacy of the 
 Mother of our Lord which, two centuries ago, 
 induced the author of the "Holy Dying" to describe 
 the tramontane religion as " less Christian than 
 Marian." Without deciding whether it is the 
 purpose of the ecclesiastical authorities to render to 
 the Blessed Virgin honours equal to those paid to 
 Deity, he will see, as matter of stubborn fact 
 " oculis siibjectjijidelibus " that she is often more 
 prominently presented to the eyes and commended
 
 PHILO-ROMANISM. 173 
 
 to the imagination of the devout than her Divine 
 Son; and turning from these glorified Marys to 
 the New Testament, he will wonder how it is 
 possible for believers in the Holy Gospel to find 
 even the slightest grounds for such an exaltation of 
 one justly esteemed as " Blessed among women." 
 Nor will he discern in the appearances of the 
 priests, or of the worshippers, those indications 
 of deep and hearted piety which may have engaged 
 his respect for Romanism in England. He will 
 sometimes see an aged man, and oftener an aged 
 woman, bent down in earnest devotion, and 
 observe the serious brow of a priest intent on his 
 mission ; but he will also often observe a careless 
 style of ministration, as if the ritual had become a 
 meaningless thing of course, and will sometimes 
 observe, amidst indifference, a faint smile denoting 
 a state of mind scarcely consistent with belief 
 rooted in the affections. He may perchance see 
 as I saw at Marseilles a priest duly apparelled 
 on his way to administer the holy sacrament to 
 the dying, lounging along the street with careless 
 gait, and gazing idly at every group whom his bell 
 has invited to look at him, beneath a canopy borne
 
 174 PHILO-EOMANISM. 
 
 by two grinning boys and may realise the most 
 fearful contrast between the solemnities of the 
 death-bed and the indifference of its attendant 
 minister. If it is uncharitable to conclude that, 
 beneath the pompous observances of Home, infi- 
 delity more or less conscious often lurks, as 
 certainly it would be unjust to affirm this on 
 such rapid glances as I could cast on the surface 
 of things, I cannot help expressing my fear 
 that the ruins of Paganism, on -which the im- 
 perial Christianity of Some was erected, bore in 
 them a rottenness which has infected the fabric. 
 Long before Paganism was supplanted by Chris- 
 tianity as the religion of the Empire, it had become 
 the husk of a departed faith. The deities of the 
 Pantheon, which for ages had been to all thoughtful 
 and learned men at best poetic images, had utterly 
 lost the reverence of the people, who still paid them 
 a nominal homage ; and to them the notions of life, 
 death, and immortality had become mere phantasms. 
 This habit of cherishing a iheogony without a 
 theology by the outworn forms of ancient religion, 
 was a dangerous foundation for the belief of those 
 multitudes who embraced the Christian faith, not
 
 PHILO-EOMAXISM. 175 
 
 while it was exalted by persecutions and purified 
 by shames, but when it was allied to power and 
 adopted by fashion. As, when the temples of the 
 gods of Greece were converted into Christian 
 churches, the vestiges of the dethroned religion 
 were suffered to endure, so the prevalence of con- 
 temptuous infidelity, or of Epicurean indifference, 
 infected the national Christianity, and while its 
 true Church of humble and earnest believers was 
 grounded on a rock, still maintained a deadening 
 influence among vast numbers of nominal converts, 
 and induced a readiness to accept and to multiply 
 the symbols of faith without a vivifying spirit, and 
 to " rest and expatiate" not " in a life to come," 
 but in the scenery of religion artistically manifested 
 to the senses. 
 
 There is no question of nearer interest to the 
 welfare of mankind than that which involves the 
 conditions under which things "unseen and eternal" 
 shall be embodied in palpable symbols ; and happy 
 is he who. finds in the church by which he is 
 embraced those " outward and visible signs of 
 iuward and spiritual grace," which nurture withir 
 him the capacity to love and the disposition a
 
 176 PHILO-ROMANISM. 
 
 adore. The danger arises from the natural ten- 
 dency of those aids and appliances which the 
 weakness of our nature needs, and for which it 
 craves, in order to the nurture of its aspirations 
 and the impersonation of its hopes, towards the 
 insidious spirit of idolatry which first turns the 
 symbols of devotion into its substance, and then 
 regards them as objects of worship. In the 
 Christian world, the Roman Catholic church seeks 
 most intimately to apply the forms with which de- 
 votional feeling has been allied to frequent use ; on 
 the other hand, the various disciples of English 
 and Scottish Puritanism most largely reject them ; 
 while the true position of the Church of England has 
 been obscured by the untempered zeal of one class 
 of her members, by the indifference of another, and 
 by the dissensions of all. In this state of feeling, it 
 is not surprising that a species of Philo-Rornanism 
 should have been deeply interfused in minds more 
 disposed to revere than to inquire ; who seek in 
 religion for that which Kent found in the coun- 
 tenance of Lear, and which all true servants 
 iesire in a master they would earnestly serve, 
 'uthority ; " whom a just sense of human infir-
 
 PHILO-KOMANISM. 177 
 
 mity induces to yearn for visible tokens of comfort 
 and aids in mastering the temptation of the 
 world ; and who, therefore, incline, in sentiment, to 
 an encrusted and decorated religion, while yet 
 unconvinced of the truth of its peculiar doctrines, 
 or the justice of its claims. While their under- 
 standing has too vividly perceived the contrast 
 between the position which the Blessed Virgin 
 holds in the Gospel of our Lord, at once her Son 
 and her God, and that to which she is elevated in 
 the Romanists' esteem, to allow them to accept her 
 enthronement as "the Queen of Heaven," and 
 her investiture with intercessory grace, as Christian 
 verities, they have yet desired to share in the per- 
 ception of a serene image, in which virgin purity 
 and maternal love have been mysteriously blended, 
 and which shone out with modest but ineffable 
 sweetness over the most awful passages of that 
 redemption, for the accomplishment of which it 
 was created and blessed. Weary with contro- 
 versies for which our life is too busy and too short, 
 they have longed for the sustaining restraint of an 
 infallible Church, which, if it sepulchred the rea- 
 soning powers of man, at least " buried them in a
 
 178 PHILO-UOMANISM. 
 
 triumphant grave." To sympathies thus awakened, 
 I believe a glance at the papal pomps of Rome, 
 of Naples, and of Florence, will supply a powerful 
 counteraction, and without affecting any ques- 
 tion of controversy between the churches of Home 
 and of England will restore the mind to its 
 just balance, unless it is so deeply tinged with 
 prepossession as to survey all it perceives through 
 a fallacious medium. It will, I venture to think, 
 at least diminish an inclination to prefer the 
 Roman Catholic church, as mere matter of sen- 
 sibility and taste, to our own, and confirm the 
 English Churchman in his gratitude to Providence, 
 which has led him to partake in a less radiantly 
 pavilioned worship. He will see, in the Italian 
 churches, that image of the Yirgin, which he 
 has been accustomed to invest with the gentlest 
 attributes of female self-sacrifice, and has felt, in 
 its simple humanity, to breathe of chaste beauty 
 and maternal grace, so multiplied in the idolatrous 
 excess of picture through the houses of God, and 
 so debased by the doll-like representations which 
 disfigure those holy places, as to lose the purest 
 influences which it should rain on Christian
 
 PHILO-ROMANISM. 179 
 
 thoughts. He will perceive abundant traces of 
 that erroneous estimate of the mind of the people, 
 which, assuming it incapable of being strongly moved 
 by the noblest works of art, induces the employ- 
 ment of the poorest devices of spangled muslin and 
 gems or glass, instead of daring to recognise the 
 truth that there is nothing so capable of universal 
 application as the truly beautiful and great ; 
 nothing so largely understood, nothing so pro- 
 foundly felt, nothing so deeply loved. Turning 
 from the representations of the Virgin, in exquisite 
 painting and execrable wood-work, to those of the 
 sufferings of our Lord, he will see, in the per- 
 petual appeals to the lowest sensibilities, not only 
 the nurture of morbid taste, but a constant 
 hindrance to such faint perception of the mighty 
 sacrifice as it is possible for the human mind to 
 attain. While the spectator gazes on the en- 
 crimsoned crucifix, or ranges from passage to 
 passage of the bodily sufferings , of our Lord, 
 exhibited in the " Stations," he loses amidst these 
 appearances of an ordinary martyrdom the sense 
 of that agony which only Godhead could bear ; 
 on which no eye could look; the anticipation of 
 
 N 2
 
 180 PHILO-ROMANISM. 
 
 which induced the agony of the garden, and the 
 extremity of which drew forth the great excla- 
 mation on the cross. So far is the influence of 
 these daubed agonies and bleeding statuettes 
 from keeping before the mind the presence of the 
 august suffering of a Divine Power that, as far as 
 it is possible to the perversity of human power, it 
 debases the wonder and the awe which should 
 elevate our gratitude to adoration into the faint 
 sickness of pity. Surely the plainest symbol is 
 the best the simple cross enough to lead the 
 thought through the palpable into the mightier 
 obscure ; all imagery beyond this tends to limit 
 the worship of the intellect and the affections. 
 
 On his return to his native land, the English 
 Churchman, who has witnessed the ceremonies 
 of Rome with an undazzled eye, will cleave with 
 a fonder gratitude to the blessings which an 
 inflamed fancy may have induced him to under- 
 value. From the sacerdotal robe, which, stiff with 
 embroidery and gold, makes the wearer appear like 
 a walking brocade, he will recur without regret 
 to the grave elegance of the English vestments 
 which grace without disguising the person of the
 
 PHILO-EOMANISM. 181 
 
 minister. If, in the performance of divine service 
 he should see less variety of posture and admit an 
 absence of pantomimic expression, he will find 
 enough for the purposes of earth and heaven. 
 The change of attitude from that of humble 
 supplication to that of representative prayer and 
 of benignant authority, and the hearted utterance 
 of the noblest language in which human contrition 
 and need of divine clemency ever were embodied 
 for mortal lips to utter and for mortal ears to 
 drink in, will better accord with his chastened 
 emotions than the bowings and shiffcings and 
 crossings of the Roman priests. He will prefer 
 the fresh breath of " incense-breathing morn," 
 as wafted into a country church, and softened by 
 the protection of its simple arches, to " the clouds 
 of fragrance" rolling from the altar, when to the 
 passionate apprehension of a Roman Catholic 
 poet, "altars blaze and angels tremble round." 
 He will learn more justly to appreciate that 
 happy medium between the substitution of forms 
 for essences and their rejection which his own 
 Church achieves to perceive how the solemnities 
 of life and death are represented, not clouded in
 
 182 PHILO-ROJIANISJf. 
 
 her ritual ; and how the Christian course from the 
 baptismal font to the hopeful grave is defined, 
 shielded, and sustained by holy boundaries which 
 preserve the feet from straying while they leave 
 the mind free to aspire ; and he will bless the 
 Providence which gave him England for his home, 
 and her Church for his teacher. 
 
 A little incident, now invested with a painful 
 interest, induced me to note, more distinctly than 
 I should else probably have done, the tendencies of 
 the Italian worship. A young lady, recently con- 
 verted from dissent to the Eoman Catholic faith, 
 had requested my wife to bring her a prayer-book 
 from Rome; and in execution, as I thought, of 
 this wish, I purchased a collection of prayers in 
 one of the deep-shadowed book-shops of the Corso. 
 On exhibiting my purchase with some self-com- 
 placency to the ladies, I found that it would not 
 accomplish the desire of their friend, as it purported 
 to be published at Florence, and the magic word 
 "Rom" on the title-page was thought essential to the 
 success of our mission. I endeavoured to exchange it 
 at the learned cell where I had bought it, for some 
 book of devotion bearing true impress, but none
 
 miLO-llOilANISil. 183 
 
 such could be found ; and the result of my enquiries 
 in many places was, that all authorised books of 
 Roman Catholic devotion had, of late years, been 
 published at Florence. As my purchase was thus 
 pronounced worthless for its object, and aa it was 
 worthless to us, not as Protestants, but as persons 
 incapable of reading its language, I accepted the 
 courteous offer of the bookseller to exchange it for 
 another book ; and the only English book which 
 his shelves supplied was a little volume, containing, 
 " The Stygian Lake, and other poems, by the 
 Rev. Frederick William Faber, dedicated to the 
 author of The Christian Tear." Having met the 
 accomplished poet at Ambleside two autumns 
 before, and enjoyed his society in the company of 
 Mr. Wordsworth, and retaining a delightful recol- 
 lection of the Christian graces of his deportment and 
 conversation, I regarded this addition to our few 
 companion books as fortunately timed; though 
 there was something singular in finding such an 
 English work in such a place. On perusing it, I 
 found the records of the author's impressions on 
 the aspects of the Roman Catholic worship in the 
 scenes of its triumphs differing too obviously
 
 184 PHILO-ROMANISM. 
 
 from those which I had just received tinged 
 deeply with a sentimental respect for the foreign 
 rites, hut expressing a resolution to adhere, 
 notwithstanding such acknowledged sympathies, 
 to the English Church, and entreating other 
 travellers to follow his example. It is painful, 
 but instructive, now to recal some of the verses 
 which he penned in the honest, hut most erro- 
 neous, reliance on his own constancy. 
 
 " if thou envy the sweet graces 
 Of Holy Church in foreign places, 
 The forms bequeathed from elder days, 
 The incense of the ancient ways, 
 And the bright hues of Heaven that fall 
 On her capacious ritual ; 
 And if to thee, in feverish dream, 
 Through what cold men have been undoing, 
 Our island church may haply seem 
 A chapel rear d within a ruin ; 
 For thy soul's sake for sake of her, 
 wander not, nor dare to stir 
 From our right home, but let it be 
 Thy true and only chivalry 
 With patriot sympathy to bide 
 Calm at our English mother's side. 
 
 Alas ! for poor human chivalry ! The " English 
 Mother" has lost her gifted son and to him " the 
 age of chivalry has past." I do not wonder that
 
 HERESY ON ROME. 185 
 
 this English clergyman, whose fine sensibilities 
 were so strongly excited by the rites and ob- 
 servances of Italian worship, as to make it 
 seem chivalrous in his eyes to adhere to the 
 Church of which he was a minister, should 
 speedily forsake her communion ; but I do 
 wonder, "having seen what I have seen," that 
 such a man, after actually beholding Rome in 
 the flesh, should have found in her services the 
 blandishments to which, in spite of his gallant 
 resolution, he has yielded. Let susceptible and 
 devout natures be warned by Mr. Faber's chivalry 
 and desertion, and beware how they indulge, like 
 him, in sympathy with that which their under- 
 standing condemns ; they may be assured that the 
 Church of Rome, which will readily accept their 
 sentimental regards for what they promise, is too 
 consistent and too wise to return the compliment 
 paid by their weakness ! 
 
 My first and last glimpse of Rome was about to 
 close ; so brief that the attempt to fix any im- 
 pressions it has left on me in words seems pre- 
 sumptuous ; and yet I did not desire to prolong it. 
 My preconceptions had been confused rather than
 
 186 HERESY ON ROME. 
 
 realised by the array of great objects which had 
 passed before me in rapid succession, and the trains 
 of associations they suggested. Of the Borne of 
 my schoolboy reverence the mother of heroes 
 and nurse of heroic thoughts I had scarcely 
 seen a memorial among the maze of Imperial 
 ruins and Papal splendours ; and in all that I 
 feebly attempted to grasp, one set of associations 
 so crushed another, or mingled so strangely with 
 it, as to dissipate impressions that separately 
 might have been worthier. The two ideas of 
 Rome Imperial and Rome Papal; of the city of 
 ruins and the city of churches and palaces, held 
 frequent conflict in my thoughts; so that I 
 could not follow Lord Byron in his impersonation 
 of the Eternal City as the " JSTiobe of Nations," 
 nor regard it as forming one mighty whole. If 
 I may frankly confess the extent of my unwor- 
 thiness to visit it, I must admit that, to my 
 recollection, Rome seems an enormous museum 
 filled with the most wonderful works of human 
 hands exhibiting marvellous vestiges of human 
 power; and embracing scenes of profound his- 
 torical interest; but the various memories glide
 
 HERESY ON ROME. 187 
 
 away iu a succession of gorgeous temples, 
 churches, and galleries. To leave it was to 
 escape from a region of enchantment into the 
 fresh air of humanity and nature ; and, humiliating 
 as the truth may be, I quitted it for ever without 
 a sigh !
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOME TO MILAN. 
 
 Departure from Rome by diligence for Florence Advantages of 
 travelling by diligence in the retrospective view Journey 
 to Montefiascone Dead lake of Bolsena Acquapendente at 
 midnight Volcanic wastes Tnn near Radicofani Second 
 night's journey, through Sienna Descent to Florence 
 Aspects and treasures of Florence The Medicean Venus 
 and neighbouring works of art A Tuscan trial in show 
 The Hall of Niobe Departure by voiture for Milan 
 Ascent of the pass of the Apennines Wayside deso- 
 lation Two aged crones Pietra-mala Visit to a bed of 
 flames Descent to Bologna Church of St. Petronius 
 Street performance by puppets Modena Reggio Parma 
 Piacenza Journey by Lodi to Milan. 
 
 STILL " bent on speed," we travelled by the most 
 fatiguing, but the surest conveyance, the diligence, 
 which offered by its slow, but unbroken course, to 
 convey us to Florence in about forty-eight hours 
 instead of the vetturino's limit of four or five days. 
 With all its manifold inconveniences of unrest, 
 rumbling, jolting, crowding, and starving, this mode
 
 TRAVEL BY DILIGENCE. 189 
 
 of conveyance has advantages when the country 
 through which the vehicle crawls is as yet unvisited. 
 If it is well to prolong in ourselves the conscious- 
 ness of our human life, a journey by diligence assists 
 a desirable object ; for, in the retrospect, its hours 
 stretch out into an enormous length, and form a 
 chapter for themselves in the mind's autobiography, 
 which, at a due distance, may stand for the record 
 of weeks. Xor does it lack picturesque variety 
 with which it may people the slow series of its 
 conserved minutes ; for it involves to the pensive 
 recollection, midnight stoppages before the loneliest 
 inns, nodding as if to their fall, where the drowsy 
 hostlers shuffle about as if dreaming of a half- 
 forgotten world ; frequent interposed walks up 
 long hills, sometimes stretching out their ugliness 
 in ostentatious expanse for miles ; sometimes 
 winding through trees and shrubs bathed in the 
 earliest freshness of morning ; sometimes inviting 
 to a short cut through the woods, which almost 
 proves an adventure ; and where the vista of road 
 is longest and dullest it makes solitude palpable to 
 the traveller as he follows it by the form of the 
 caravan itself, toiling up the ascent with the huge
 
 190 TRAVEL BY DILIGENCE. 
 
 patience of some docile animal of antediluvian size. 
 Of all my journeys by diligence, this, which hap- 
 pened to be last, was the most memorable from 
 the extraordinary slowness of the vehicle's habitual 
 pace, and from the large entireness of the 
 successive pieces of scenery through which it 
 drawled with us. The aspect of the country was 
 not diversified by frequent and gradual change, but 
 presented large tracts, each bearing its own dis- 
 tinctive character ; now a region of level bareness ; 
 now a table land of volcanic remains, heaved into 
 stony mountains, and pierced as if by exhausted 
 craters ; now a succession of valleys formed by 
 vast swelling hill-sides, and crested by castellated 
 rocks ; now a road bordered for miles by luxuriant 
 vineyards and flowering thickets; each division 
 separate as the act of a drama. Once beyond the 
 Porta del Popolo you are in the country not, as 
 with us Londoners, exchanging the metropolis for 
 suburbs as dense and more stifling than the city 
 and after crossing the Tiber by the Ponte Molle, 
 and passing the cypresses of the Monte Mario, 
 enter on an open, dull, desolate country, made 
 mournful by the frequent recurrence of decaying
 
 ROME TO MONTEFIASCOXE. 191 
 
 farm-houses and skeleton edifices in ruins, though 
 never half finished, as if agriculture was in the last 
 stage of decrepitude. At a foot-pace, though with 
 frequent change of horses, we languished on 
 throughout the day till -we reached Eonciglione, 
 when the character of scenery \vas suddenly 
 changed from tameness of a dead level to a bold 
 beauty ; and we stopped at a large old inn in front 
 of a deep ravine, filled with trees and shrubs, 
 which would have been thought grand even in 
 Scotland, and looked up to a majestic castle on a 
 lofty crag above us. Hence we ascended to 
 L'Imposta, passing the margin of an exquisitely 
 small lake, lying in the circular crater of a for- 
 gotten volcano ; and, having attained the summit of 
 a long hill, entered on a tract nobly volcanic, where 
 the huge undulations made by ancient fire had been 
 partially covered by noble trees, or fringed by most 
 graceful shrubs. At Yiterbo, finding ourselves in a 
 walled city, we hoped to dine ; but we were still 
 borne slowly onward, through a flat dreary region, 
 until, at Montefiascone, a rude inn received us for 
 dinner. Here we satisfied the rage of hunger 
 with coarse and plentiful repast of fish, beef
 
 192 MONTEFIASCONE. 
 
 boiled to leather, and greasy beans, accompanied 
 by a pale white wine of an acidity more pungent 
 than ever elsewhere gave man an unmerited heart- 
 burn. This last and worst grievance I owed to 
 my inexcusable neglect of a previous examination 
 of my " Murray ;" for if I had performed my duty 
 in this respect, I should have learned that the 
 town is famous for a luscious sweet wine called 
 Est, after the jovial bishop, Johanu Fugger, whose 
 valet wrote this word three times, to indicate the 
 superlative excellence of the liquor to his master, 
 who died of it ; and is entombed with two 
 goblets on each side of his mitre, and comme- 
 morated by an inscription written by the servant, 
 which gives an unenviable notoriety to the result 
 which the treacherous valet prompted. If I had 
 learned my proper lesson in due time, I should 
 certainly have pronounced " EST" at least once; 
 and, avoiding the sour wine, should have escaped a 
 world of horrors. Hence we descended to Bolsena 
 in the waning light of a delicious evening, which 
 just enabled us to see the dead lake in its volcanic 
 bed, and to feel the influence of the awful solitude 
 which surrounds it. There it lies, cultivated to
 
 THE DEAD LAKE. J 93 
 
 the edge in some parts, and nobly fringed by 
 forest trees in others, but so cursed by the im- 
 putation of malaria, that it is deserted at night by 
 those who by day cultivate its shores and reap its 
 fruits ; many labour, but no one rests beside it ; 
 and those who most admire its beauty shrink from 
 the death it spreads. It could scarcely be fancy 
 which made me feel, as I gazed on it, that it 
 breathed the desolation of the grave; for I am 
 not aware that I had then read of the opinion 
 which Mr. Blewitt * records as rendering it an 
 uninhabited region, while the eye perceives nothing 
 but a calm beauty in the knolls and jutting pro- 
 montories which are mirrored in its lucid water. 
 The impression probably arose from the absence of 
 any human sound in a scene of cultivated richness ; 
 but I certainly felt it as we slowly traversed the 
 passages of our road whence it is visible. On, 
 through deepening twilight, thick darkness, and 
 pale moonshine we went, amidst country which 
 
 * In his admirable ' ' Handbook for Central Italy, " to which 
 the ' ' Handbook for Southern Italy " now forms a companion 
 so richly adapted, not only for the companion of a tour but for 
 its memorial, as to make such poor sketches as this seem 
 presumptuous, except to the eyes of friendship.
 
 194 ACQUAPEXDENTE. 
 
 presented no features at least, none to be dis- 
 cerned in the night worthy of recollection, until 
 the approach to Acquapendente gave me the ap- 
 prehension of a dim paradise. As I walked on 
 slowly, but much faster than the vehicle, up a 
 winding road between shrubs and trees of delicious 
 fragrance, and saw, or thought I saw, a cluster of 
 towers high above me, the belief that regions of 
 exquisite beauty were near possessed me, until I 
 stopped at a dungeon-like gate, obstinately closed, 
 where I was obliged to await the arrival of the 
 diligence, which procured its opening and my 
 admission into a very dirty little square of a very 
 dirty little town. Here we were detained for 
 more than an hour, while some ungartered officials 
 pretended to examine our passports, as they 
 fumbled them over in their sleep ; and the night 
 grew dismally cold. There was a room like a large 
 stable open for our shelter ; but meat, drink, or fire 
 was, according to the savage fashion of Italian 
 inns, unattainable ; and a moonlight pacing under 
 strange turrets and among stranger habitations, 
 was our only consolation during the interval 
 necessary for the satisfaction of the claims of the
 
 BLASTED EAIiTH. 195 
 
 state and the coachman. The longest hour, how- 
 ever, must end ; we resumed our frigid seats, and 
 onwards and upwards the diligence crawled, while 
 some "twinklings of oblivion" protracted the 
 apparent duration of this measureless journey. 
 "When morning dawned, we found ourselves in a 
 desolation which might make day hideous, and 
 induce a regret, scarcely ever felt by mortal, that 
 the sense of vision were denied to us a vast 
 expanse, not of level ground indeed, but of low hills, 
 or rather undulating surfaces, of rough clay, marl, 
 and stones ; a wilderness of clods, and loose heaps of 
 the vilest refuse of the earth, substances which even 
 that kind mother would not own for hers. Not a 
 blade of grass, not a stunted tree, not a trailing 
 bramble, gave hiut of her vegetable power ; but, 
 now and then, a mud-built hovel gave to the scene 
 a ghastly galvanic life, suggesting the fearful 
 notion that human existence was actually endured 
 among these frightful wastes ! A blasted heath, 
 even if Middleton's witches had swept over it, 
 would be a paradise to such an ocean of blasted 
 dirt ; and Shakspeare's witches would disdain even 
 
 to curse it. 
 
 o 2
 
 195 HADICOFANI. 
 
 Our course lay upward, and by midday brought 
 us to a considerable elevation, when we saw the 
 apparition of a large gaunt house before us ; 
 approached it with a faint curiosity, and learned 
 from the authorities of the vehicle that here it 
 would breakfast ; which was good tidings even in 
 this strange land ; for we were almost in the 
 condition which induced Dandie Dinmont to 
 answer Meg Merrilies' question to himself and his 
 friend, if they would take something, by another 
 " is there anything ive will not take? " Above the 
 shelving shoal of clay which rose from the door, 
 stood some brownish walls, which we were told 
 enclosed the village of Kadicofani ; and higher yet, 
 at the verge of the scene of earthly desolation, stood 
 the ruins of a robber's castle, which might have 
 been the Italian residence of Bunyan's Giant 
 Despair. Our inn which, strange to tell, had the 
 reputation of, once on a time, having been a palace 
 was, however, worthy a happier region ; it was 
 large, and almost stately, and its first floor, to 
 which we were invited, comprised a suite of lofty 
 rooms, with bare floors and rough furniture, but 
 airy, clean enough for the casual eye, and if the
 
 UADICOFANI. 197 
 
 large windows, which let in plentiful light, had not 
 also disclosed some of the horrors of the prospect, 
 would have been almost cheerful. Here we enjoyed 
 a breakfast of hard black bread, a large platter of 
 eggs, some boiled beef of the usual consistency, 
 and a great skinny fowl swimming in yellowish 
 butter, with the true relish of hunger; and thought 
 some light Italian wine called Asti, almost 
 nectar, notwithstanding that the banquet was 
 served on the worm-eaten slab of walnut-tree, 
 unprofaued by a cloth. And there were other 
 traces of humanity around us, almost as startling 
 as the footprint in Robinson Crusoe's island. At 
 one end of the house was a small poultry-yard, 
 where real living chickens eagerly pecked the hard 
 crumbs we threw to them ; and behind the house, 
 in an enclosure fenced from the frightful waste 
 by rude paling, of some ten yards square, a few 
 straggling currant-bushes and some patches of 
 coarse grass gave signs that nature was not entirely 
 dead and forgotten ; and my aching eyes devoured 
 these vestiges of her dear presence with a sense of 
 enjoyment which luxuriant pastures could not have 
 better supplied. What slight indications of the
 
 193 DESCENT TO FLORENCE. 
 
 silent beauty of the external world are sufficient to 
 suggest its reliefs to the mind, and refresh it with 
 the full sense of that loveliness that never re- 
 proaches, or wearies, or satiates ! The very poverty 
 of the object makes us conscious of the delicacy and 
 the strength of the ties which unite the humblest 
 things with the greatest, and enable us the better 
 to appreciate the greatest in our thoughts. During 
 the good hour which our coachman allowed us, after 
 the liberal fashion of diligences, I slipped out 
 several times to pace the little pathway of this 
 scanty oasis; and, when finally called to mount 
 the swagging summit of our vehicle, I looked at the 
 bushes and grass with true regret that I should see 
 them no more. 
 
 As we proceeded, and the day waned, the 
 country became less striking in dreariness, and 
 we gradually descended into a tame and fertile 
 region ; night here fell on us ; we passed through 
 Sienna without perceiving anything but gates, 
 tall houses, and dim towers, and at daybreak 
 attained the topmost ridge of the hills which bound 
 the valley of the Arno, and began to descend on 
 Florence. The prospects now disclosed were, of
 
 DESCENT TO FLORENCE. 199 
 
 course, strongly contrasted with the regions 
 through which we shivered yesterday ; but I did 
 not discern that luxuriant loveliness which poets 
 and novelists have conspired to attribute to the 
 valley of the Arno. The long hill which we were 
 slowly descending seemed rather sharply to recede 
 from the bed of the gleaming river, than gently to 
 embosom it ; the opposite hills were more slanted 
 than curved, and their slopes were rather spotted 
 than lit up by the villas of dazzling white which 
 seemed chiefly to adorn them. The alternation of 
 vineyards and plantations of olive-trees presented 
 the dazzling contrast of vivid green stripes and dull 
 dusky masses ; but the effect was more strange 
 than harmonious. Our view was often confined 
 by long blank walls, or the sides or offices of 
 villas, but the valley sometimes lay open, in 
 full expanse, with the domes, spires, and towers 
 of Florence spread out in its depth. About ten 
 o'clock of the morning of our third day, our 
 emancipation from the diligence was achieved, and 
 an hotel in a street near the centre of the city } 
 running at right angles to the bank of the Arno, 
 received us.
 
 200 FLORENCE. 
 
 After that water, cutlets, and coffee had repaired 
 the ravages of our two nights' journey, we went out 
 to look at a city which bore a name that had been to 
 us almost a spell ; but my vision of marble palaces, 
 beside a brimming translucent river, interspersed 
 with groves of myrtles and orange-trees, was soon 
 dispelled. I saw, instead of these, lofty ranges of 
 uniform houses, with broad paved causeways ; 
 public buildings or giant mansions, massive, 
 towering, and blank-walled, looking more like 
 prisons than the abodes of gaiety and joy ; a river 
 in a low bed, embanked by brick walls, not clear, 
 nor even affluent, disfigured by occasional shelves 
 of mud, and crossed by some handsome, but not 
 beautiful bridges; and although the two palatial 
 galleries, unfolding their treasures in bright suc- 
 cession, afterwards gave to Florence the interest 
 which triumphant Art sheds about it, I could never 
 realise in it the idea of a city devoted to poetic 
 luxury. The square of the Duomo, ennobled by 
 fine statues, seemed to me too small an area for 
 those marble majesties, and scarcely worthy of the 
 Cathedral. The interior of that church, with its 
 enormous dome, its four huge arches yawning along
 
 FLOKENCE, 201 
 
 the nave on each side ; its pavement of red, blue, 
 and white marbles ; and its wealth of decoration, 
 rendered harmonious and solemn by the gorgeous 
 gloom which the richness of its painted windows 
 shed on all, produced in us a feeling more allied to 
 religious awe than any church we had yet seen in 
 Italy ; for though the details of the interior were 
 sumptuous in the extreme, they were subdued by 
 a pervading sentiment of greatness. On the other 
 hand, the famous Chapel of the Medici, in which 
 every device of wealth is lavished on the sepulchres 
 of the mighty, sickens the heart with the sense of 
 the vanity of a struggle by the powers of this world 
 with Death. Let the gold, the gems, the roses, and 
 the crowns be multiplied around the ashes of 
 kings "there the antic sits, mocking their state," 
 and insisting on the terrible plainness of his 
 lesson. Sepulchral memorials should be simple ; 
 not affecting to perpetuate the shows of life, but 
 suggesting thoughts akin to those which will last 
 for ever. 
 
 At the imperial gallery, we hurried through 
 priceless treasures of art to the Tribune, the shrine 
 of the Medicean Venus, and found a crowd, chiefly
 
 202 THE TRIBUNE. 
 
 of our own country people, paying their homage to 
 the divinity of the spot. Casts had made us 
 so familiar with the "statue that enchants the 
 world," that our hurry was less prompted by 
 curiosity, than by desire to pay our dutiful 
 observance at the shrine of beauty and fame. 
 The pure marble, however, being especially appro- 
 priate to the peculiar excellence of the celebrated 
 figure, is necessary to complete the impression 
 made by its perfection of prettiness ; perhaps even 
 the more delicate material of alabaster would 
 heighten the sense of voluptuous elegance which 
 it breathes. Turning from the contemplation of 
 this smiling figure, we find the effeminacy of art 
 carried further in the Apolino, whence the female 
 charm which endows the Venus is absent, and 
 there is only exquisite execution to compensate 
 for the absence of the vigour of manhood. The 
 voluptuous character of both these figures is nobly 
 rebuked by the austere grandeur of a circular 
 picture by Michael Angelo, on the subject of the 
 Virgin presenting the infant Saviour to Joseph 
 an elaborate exercise of gigantic power impatient 
 of the gradations of beauty, as if a painter of the
 
 A TUSCAN TRIAL. 203 
 
 heroic age was frowning on the luxurious trifling 
 of some harlotries of art. In an adjoining room, 
 is a picture still more antagonistic to the senti- 
 ment breathed from the delicate marbles of the 
 Tribune the Medusa's Head of Leonardo da 
 Vinci in which the pale and sudden calmness of 
 death looks out from the mass of hideous snakes 
 which entwine the pale unanimated brow they had 
 frightfully tormented when living. 
 
 As I ascended the great staircase of the Palace 
 Uffizi, I observed on one of the landing-places an 
 opening through folding-doors, which disclosed a 
 long hall, at the extremity of which appeared a 
 circle of robed figures on a raised seat ; and, on 
 enquiry, I found that the place was the Hall of 
 Justice, and that a criminal trial was proceeding. 
 I was, at the moment, too eager for the wonders 
 of the Tribune to propose delay ; but while the 
 rest of my party were detained by the enchant- 
 ments of the gallery, I stole back to catch a glimpse 
 of the administration of Tuscan justice. I found 
 the body of the hall occupied only by a few 
 scattered groups of " barren spectators," who stood 
 listlessly about like our idlers on the last day of
 
 204 A TUSCAN TRIAL. 
 
 an Assize, when some case, " interesting only to the 
 parties," is drawing to its conclusion; and so, 
 without impediment, reached the barrier which 
 divided the professional performers from the public. 
 On a raised crescent bench sat seven or eight 
 lawyers, all robed in- black, two wearing large- 
 brimmed, low-crowned hats ; one, the central 
 figure, obviously the presiding judge, the other 
 said to be the prosecutor for the State. I looked 
 for the prisoner's bar and the prisoner, who is 
 always the most interesting person of the drama 
 of a criminal trial while the judge is as surely the 
 least ; but, at first, I could not discover him. He 
 was not, however, absent from the scene which he 
 had peopled ; for, on further scrutiny, I found him 
 the sole occupant of a box large enough to hold a 
 jury, and in the position which the jury-box 
 usually occupies with us, lounging at his ease, and 
 only distinguished in appearance from an impor- 
 tant functionary of the law, by the presence of 
 two soldiers, who, with fixed bayonets, kept guard 
 at each angle of his commodious position. I felt 
 then most intensely, what I have so often felt with 
 less intensity, the humiliation of my inability to
 
 A TUSCAN TRIAL. 205 
 
 understand the language of the country to which 
 I was a visitor, and which reduced the proceeding 
 for me to a judicial pantomime ; still the spec- 
 tacle was not the less curious. The trial, whatever 
 it meant, went on slowly. A female witness was 
 under examination, and any question proposed to 
 her by the prosecutor's counsel, was first written 
 down by a notary ; then handed to the advocate for 
 the prisoner sometimes approved, sometimes dis- 
 cussed; and at last, when settled, read to the witness 
 by the central judge. Our commissioner, who had 
 not been permitted to enter the gallery of pictures 
 and statues with us, and who, having waited on the 
 staircase, had attended me into the hall, informed 
 me that the witness, though examined for the 
 prosecution, was favourably disposed to the 
 prisoner ; and, if this was the case, she had even 
 ampler opportunity of fashioning her answers to 
 her pleasure than a Welsh witness w r ith us, who 
 understands the Saxon dialect, but prefers being 
 examined in his own. The prisoner, a good-look- 
 ing lad of nineteen or twenty years of age, who 
 might be of the degree of a merchant's clerk, or a 
 tradesman's son, reclined on the benches of which
 
 206 A TUSCAN TRIAL. 
 
 he was the sole occupant, in the attitude of a 
 person who was fatigued (not to say lored) with 
 proceedings which he was obliged to witness ; but 
 without affectation, or any apparent desire for 
 effect. I requested my guide to ascertain the 
 nature of the charge, which he did by addressing 
 one of the bystanders, who gave a careless reply, 
 which was interpreted to me, " 'Tis only a case of 
 stabbing." "Is the prisoner's life in jeopardy ?" 
 asked my guide, at my desire ; "0 no ! " replied 
 his informant, "he will get about ten years." 
 Having, with some effort, induced my interpreter 
 to pursue his enquiries into what he obviously 
 thought a very uninteresting matter, I learned 
 that the prisoner had stabbed a man who 
 was his rival in a girl's affection, and that the 
 witness was the girl's mother, who had favoured 
 his suit, and who would serve him if she could, 
 but it was thought that she could not evade the 
 sagacity of her questioner, whose repute for 
 sagacity was high. Finding that I could learn 
 but little of the progress of the investigation, I 
 rejoined my companions in the gallery, where we 
 remained till the time of its early closing move-
 
 HALL OP NIOBE. 207 
 
 ment ; and, as we passed the doors of the Palace 
 of Justice, I found the spectators coming from the 
 court, whence the judges had just retired, and 
 presently saw the prisoner walking between the 
 soldiers who had guarded him iu his place of pride, 
 too obviously still in custody, and indifferent 
 no longer ; for though he tried to smile, with lips 
 tightly compressed, he was not contented with his 
 condition. We ascertained that he had been 
 convicted of some light grade of his offence, and 
 sentenced to a short imprisonment. He was said 
 " to have got off very well ; " but he had obviously 
 shrunk from the position he had occupied w r hen on 
 his trial ; the sentence was thought too trivial to 
 invest him with any interest ; and he was a hero 
 no longer. 
 
 Having no ability to estimate the excellence of 
 the works which form this noble collection, I can 
 only record the impression which one collection of 
 sculpture, devoted to one subject, made on me ; 
 the Hall of jNaobe. It seemed to me like a beautiful 
 dislocation of tragedy; admirable in parts; but 
 so divided as to produce the effect of repetition 
 without coherence. The figure of Niobe, with the
 
 203 START FOR MIL AX. 
 
 child cleaving to her arm, is as affecting as stone 
 can be made by human art ; but the figures of the 
 dying sons, each making his separate appeal to 
 our commiseration, as if arranging a theatrical 
 death, exhaust without satisfying the sympathies. 
 On the following day, we saw the gallery of the 
 Pitti palace ; the Church of Santa Maria Novella, 
 of San Marco, and La Santissima Annunciata ; and 
 we were almost as much fatigued with our admi- 
 ration as we had been by our journey. 
 
 On calculating the time which was left us, we 
 found that it allowed us to change our mode of 
 travelling from the constant labour of the diligence 
 to the intermittent pleasures of the vetturini ; and, 
 accordingly, by the aid of the master of our hotel, 
 we made a contract with the proprietor of an open 
 carriage, and two strong horses, for our conveyance 
 to Milan, with supply, according to the fashion of 
 those Italian ministers of enjoyment, of meat, wine, 
 and lodging ; an arrangement for submission to a 
 despotism as irresponsible as that of the diligence, 
 but involving all the difference between good abso- 
 lutism and bad the happiness or misery of the 
 subjects. At six in the morning of Wednesday,
 
 APENNINE ROAD. 209 
 
 
 
 16th September, we found our carriage ready ; our 
 coachman waiting obsequiously, with hat in hand, 
 as if he had been our servant instead of our sove- 
 reign ; and submitted our persons, baggage, and 
 appetites, unreservedly to his will. The morning 
 was deliciously clear, bright, and cool ; and as we 
 ascended the long slope which extends from the 
 gate of Florence upwards throughout the first 
 stage, it arrayed the city in the happiest lights ; 
 dome after dome, and tower after tower, catching 
 the hues of sunrise, until the whole city blazed in 
 the fullness of day, and innumerable villas glittered 
 like large mushrooms over the vast hills ; still the 
 scene fell short of the paradise of poets. But the 
 masses of the fortress of Fiesole wore their own 
 peculiar charm, that with which they were in- 
 vested for ever by one line, in which the immortal 
 labour of Milton has used them, to build up the 
 beautiful into the sublime in the investiture of his 
 fallen archangel. After half an hour's rest for the 
 horses at Fontebuona, we entered a charmingly 
 undulated region, by a road winding among large 
 bare hills embosoming noble basins crowded with 
 the richest verdure, and often bordered with vines
 
 210 APENNINE ROAD. 
 
 treilised on high arches, which sometimes overhung 
 the road, and seemed to hold down heavy bunches 
 of ripe grapes as if inviting the traveller to 
 pluck them, best vegetable blessing conferred by 
 Heaven on man ! Through this delightful country 
 we passed with unruffled pleasure, now rapidly 
 descending into a nest of beauty; now slowly 
 ascending a hill, and walking before the carriage, 
 or deviating from the road, to take a field-pathway 
 across a curve, with frequent glimpses of lovely hill- 
 tops, or secluded valleys ; everywhere exulting in 
 the hum of bees, the silent gleamings of yellow 
 butterflies, and the scent of such wild flowers as in 
 Switzerland would only have charmed the eye, but 
 which here shed fresh perfumes on the breezes 
 which, as we attained a considerable Apennine 
 elevation, " sprung up on freshened wing, am- 
 brosial gales." One passage in this morning's 
 journey I chiefly remember, and though it is one 
 of those passages which lead to nothing, its 
 images impressed themselves so vividly upon me, 
 that I cannot resist the temptation to recall them. 
 Finding myself alone, and considerably in advance 
 of the carriage, I deviated from the road through a
 
 WAY-SIDE DESOLATION. 211 
 
 gap in a broken wall which extended for a mile at 
 least along our elevated way into an avenue of 
 stately firs, and found it to be part of the forsaken 
 domain of a stately chateau, apparently without 
 inhabitant, though many of its numerous windows 
 were unclosed, as if there had not even been a 
 hand to shut them; the shutters were dropping; 
 glass was everywhere broken ; and all things falling 
 into unwatched ruin. I walked along the whole 
 length of the avenue to its termination before the 
 entrance of the mansion, and there looked on this 
 scene of domestic desolation with a feeling of 
 deeper sadness than attends the contemplation of 
 a castle or an abbey in ruins. Elegant enjoyments 
 had been once living there ; urns were covered with 
 trailing plants grown wild; thickets of roses 
 straggling out into irregular beauty, were shedding 
 masses of pink, crimson, and yellow leaves ; a sun- 
 dial was literally dropping to pieces ; and here and 
 there a bed of gay flowers could be traced among 
 the long coarse grass of a lawn which had once 
 been their framework ; and the rim of a marble 
 basin bespoke the place of a long dried-up fountain. 
 I never saw any abode of modern date so utterly
 
 212 TWO 1'EAEFUL WOMEN. 
 
 abandoned, and over which desolation seemed to 
 have so long and so obscurely reigned ; for the 
 place, which might have been a princely pleasure- 
 house, must have been, for at least one generation 
 of men, abandoned to the elements. Passing again 
 into the road through another breach of the wall, 
 and descending a steep bank on which it stood, I 
 was startled almost petrified by the apparition 
 of two aged women sitting on the declivity before 
 me, who started up at my approach as if to oppose 
 my passage. Of all fearful women I have seen 
 these were the most fearful ; about equal in extreme 
 age and ugliness, but of opposite styles of the 
 hideous. One of them would have been as tall as 
 Meg Merrilies if she had been erect ; but her 
 lath-like frame, bent almost double, projected along 
 the road as she supported the slanted figure by a 
 snake-like stick, and thrust forward her dark thin 
 face puckered into enormous furrows, and eyes 
 only visible as blearing gleams, beneath the battered 
 rim of a mannish hat ; while her gown, which had 
 once been bright yellow, hung in dirty tatters 
 about her. The other was short and erect, with a 
 round doll's face, which once had been fair, but
 
 APENNINE INN. 213 
 
 was all fretted over, and frightfully deficient in 
 nose that member being scarcely distinguishable 
 between the cheeks, which were divided by a slit 
 for a mouth extending almost from ear to ear. 
 Her garb was a dirty russet. They did not speak, 
 nor utter a sound; but thrust out together their 
 tawny hands for alms, which I did not bestow, but 
 walked rapidly past them. They followed me ; 
 but at a pace so slow, that they scarcely seemed to 
 move, as I stopped, at a little distance, irresistibly 
 impelled to look again at them. I presume they 
 had no connection with the stately desolation I 
 had explored ; but if a curse could have blasted the 
 spot, they might have been willing servants of the 
 power which winged it. 
 
 At noon we halted, according to the will of our 
 lord, and found, speedily served by his unseen 
 ministration, a repast partaking of breakfast, as 
 in truth it was, and of dinner as we made it. The 
 place of this welcome repast was a little inn high 
 seated in the midst of the Apennines, with a glorious 
 sweep of country before and beneath it ; a scene of 
 grandeur enthroned in the bosom of the mountains. 
 We looked on a semicircle of wooded hills which
 
 214 APENNINE PASS. 
 
 bounded the view by a lofty undulating line, and 
 embraced, as in an enormous bowl, a number of 
 finely curved and richly wooded eminences all the 
 earth wreathed into circular forms like a piece of 
 our lovely Monmouthshire on a larger scale. Here 
 we spent two delightful hours, eating, drinking, and 
 gradually appreciating the exuberant graces of the 
 prospect ; and left it to mount the culminating 
 point of the road over the Apennine range. As we 
 approached the summit of the pass, the ground 
 became more barren; large masses of basalt were 
 seen in the upland valleys, beetling like remains of 
 enormous temples ; and the hills rose in red and 
 brown sterility around us. As I walked on before 
 the carriage, toiling up a long ascent, I saw again, 
 on a steep red bank of clay which overtopped 
 some dwarf bushes on the wayside, the same two 
 aged crones, who had crawled unnoticed past our 
 hostelry while we rested ; and fancying they 
 might be the spies of such bands as Mrs. Eadclifie 
 has assigned to these Apennine solitudes, I fell 
 back towards the carriage, and passed them with 
 it. They stood still on their pedestal looking at 
 us as we drove slowly by them, but they did not
 
 PIET11A-MALA. 215 
 
 condescend to notice us even by a mendicant 
 gesture ; they soon became specks against the 
 sunny sky, and we saw them no more. 
 
 Our road, after undulating a little, now decidedly 
 inclined downwards, though among more savage 
 mountains^ than those which crowned its summit. 
 We passed Covigliaio which we had looked for as 
 our resting-place for the night; but submitted? 
 with unmurmuring obedience, to the will of our 
 charioteer, and were carried on to Pietra-Mala, 
 where we supped and slept. The little village lay 
 upon a waste of volcanic refuse, amidst reddish 
 banks, but it had its own small plots of pasture, a 
 few orchard trees, and a living stream. Its re- 
 markable phenomenon of a bed of flames was 
 visible from a hillock close to the door of our little 
 inn ; and I, with the juvenile part of our company, 
 determined to visit it while supper was in pre- 
 paration. My wife, who else would have led the 
 way, was prevented from joining us by a sprained 
 ankle, which she achieved in descending the dark 
 staircase of our Florentine hotel ; and we set out, 
 disdaining all offers of guidance, in the belief that 
 our fiery goal would be a sufficient indication of
 
 216 A BED OF FLAMES. 
 
 our way, and that we could reach it before the 
 darkness, which was stealing on us, should 
 perplex our path. We set out gaily enough, 
 along a footpath bordered by real but scanty grass, 
 and by some bushes almost like an English hedge- 
 row on one side ; a true country path ; and skirted 
 a tower, or building tower-like, and thence issued 
 on a region, which, if baked clay and bared basaltic 
 strata might stand for polluted ice, would resemble 
 the moraine at the foot of a glacier. "We soon 
 passed the last bush ; the grassy border failed ; 
 then the trodden path itself became scarcely dis- 
 tinguishable ; and that was soon lost in the wilder- 
 ness of stiff clay and stones. Still the flames, 
 white in the evening twilight, danced before us, 
 and seemed so near to us, that we disdained to 
 abandon the attempt to reach them. So we 
 scrambled on, towards them as we thought ; and 
 they flared still, but still looked no nearer ; while 
 the way became more difficult and laborious. 
 Sometimes we struggled over undulations like 
 great waves of clay; sometimes we climbed over 
 prostrate masses of rude basaltic columns like a 
 huge piece of ruin ; sometimes we threaded a
 
 A BED OP FLAMES. 217 
 
 little valley of small pebbles, which hid our 
 guiding fires, and out of which it was hard work 
 to scramble. It was now quite dark ; the flames 
 only looked redder than before ; still we went on, 
 and still we seemed just as near and no nearer than 
 ever ; and presently found ourselves on the top of a 
 ridge with a wide uncertain valley below us, and the 
 fire apparently at a distance beyond it. Our 
 situation was scarcely agreeable ; chiefly because, 
 in our ignorance of the ground, we feared lest we 
 might stumble on a precipice ; but we went on over 
 rougher and rougher ground, assured, that unless 
 the fire should prove ambulatory, we must reach it. 
 For some time, we could perceive a gleaming white 
 line, streaking the mountain side we had quitted, 
 which indicated the road to Bologna, and served 
 as a guiding mark ; but this was now obliterated 
 in the nightfall ; and, below its level, a single flame, 
 akin to those we sought; a jet of spontaneous 
 fire ; became visible, and waved high in the rising 
 wind. As we groped on, I stumbled at a steep bit 
 of declivity and fell, and stunned for the moment, 
 thought I had fallen from a considerable height; 
 but the descent proved to be only a deeper furrow in
 
 218 A BED OF FLAMES. 
 
 the clay ; and the rest of the party, warned by my 
 fall, readily found a way to descend it. I rose 
 quite sick of fire-hunting, and proposed to return ; 
 when, in a moment, we found ourselves close to the 
 flames, which just before had seemed no nearer 
 than at first. The garden of fire beside which we 
 now stood proved to be a strange and beautiful 
 phenomenon. Out of a bed of clay, perhaps 
 twenty yards square, through crevices so small 
 as to be discernible only on close inspection, 
 sprang flames of five or six feet high, as if they 
 grew like native flowers in the soil. We walked 
 among them, and felt scarcely any heat ; we trod 
 out some of the smaller flakes, and they disap- 
 peared, but, immediately after, rose again in the 
 same spots; and the wind, which was now high, 
 blew out some of them at every gust, but the 
 flame was immediately renewed from the earth. 
 The flakes communicated fire to wood, or any 
 inflammable substance, as rapidly as ordinary flame ; 
 but they scarcely scorched a hand passed slowly 
 through them. This earth-born, earth-sustained 
 fire, not flung up by volcanic rage, but steadily 
 issuing from the quiet soil, seemed to me a very
 
 APENNINE DESCENT. 219 
 
 interesting curiosity, although " no more than 
 natural ;" and its effect was enhanced by the pure 
 blaze of its kindred earth-torch on the mountain- 
 side, which seemed literally "to dally with the 
 wind." We returned to our inn more rapidly 
 than we came, having acquired some knowledge of 
 the waste; and, long as our absence had been, 
 reached the inn before supper was ready. When 
 it came, it proved to partake of the fossil character 
 of the region ; for the bread was of the consistency 
 of stone, and the mutton-chops, which alone gave 
 it relish, were chiefly bones ; but we had acquired 
 appetites to match both, and we dealt with them 
 accordingly. 
 
 Early the next morning, without seeking for 
 any further specimen of the cookery of Pietra- 
 Mala, we resumed our journey over the wilds ; 
 took a farewell glance at the grove of fire which 
 flashed still in the dawn, but more feebly than 
 at night ; and looked in vain for our single earth- 
 torch, though we passed close to the spot whence 
 it appeared to rise. Descending steadily, we 
 soon quitted the stony region, and wound down 
 a magnificent road bordered by immense chestnut
 
 220 BOLOGNA. 
 
 trees which was sometimes darkened by the huge 
 shadows they cast across it, but which left 
 interstices through which we could often see the 
 loftier branches bathed in the exquisite light of 
 dawn. More beautiful at least more various 
 and rich in beauty grew the country as we 
 proceeded, and more nobly curved the descending 
 road which traversed it. So we went on, through 
 gorgeous gloom and cool sunshine, with luxu- 
 riant grass and wild flowers waving on each side, 
 and in the meadows expanding below us, until 
 we reached Lojano, where we stopped for break- 
 fast. Here, during our halt of two hours, we 
 enjoyed a great view of the dusky chain of the 
 Apennines, which we had just crossed, and 
 wandered, happily without an object, in the 
 richest pastures. Resuming our carriage, we 
 continued the descent till we halted at Pio- 
 noro beneath the last outwork of the mountain ; 
 and thence, after half an hour's dreamy stroll, 
 were driven across a gently inclining country 
 to Bologna. 
 
 "We reached this famous seat of learning, 
 early enough to acquire some idea of its stateliness
 
 BOLOGNA. 221 
 
 before nightfall. No city ever, at a mere 
 glimpse, impressed me so deeply as this, with 
 its long avenues of porticoes, its crowd of palaces 
 and churches, its noble Piazza, and its magni- 
 ficent fountain. Its great church, also, that of 
 St. Petronius, which we visited, seemed to me 
 the mightiest attempt ever made at the sublime 
 in the erection of a building for the service of 
 God ; mighty in conception, noble in its partial 
 execution; and though seeming almost rude in 
 the incompleteness of its vast interior, mighty 
 in failure beyond success. Few of the Conti- 
 nental cathedrals are complete; but the imper- 
 fection generally consists in the absence of a 
 tower, a spire, or some ornament which does not 
 affect the general impression; but here the huge 
 interior, larger than that of the Eoman St. Peter's, 
 all seen at a glance, is only partially lined, while 
 the enormous iron ties which visibly sustain 
 the great arches, and the sharp-pointed windows 
 gleaming almost numberless, and dimly lighting 
 the area, combine to produce the feeling that an 
 architectural effort has been made at greatness 
 beyond mortal power to complete. This impression
 
 222 BOLOGNA. 
 
 is not divided but heightened by the elabo- 
 rate decoration bestowed on some parts of the 
 design, and the treasures of painting and sculp- 
 ture with which this edifice, half temple, half 
 barn, is enriched: for it seems as if piety, 
 unable to accomplish the greatness it had con- 
 ceived, had found relief in the multiplication of 
 rare gifts and the adornment of particular por- 
 tions. This specimen of the Italian Gothic, 
 though of a style less perfectly adapted to 
 religious contemplation than the pure Gothic, 
 seemed to indicate more than any other work 
 I had seen of man, the greatness of his desires, 
 and the inadequacy of his power, in this life, 
 to realise them. 
 
 "We were conducted by our driver and master 
 to a comfortable hotel, where, according to his 
 direction, an excellent dinner was provided for us, 
 and the carte of wines presented for our free 
 choice, as if the ordinary duty of paying the bill 
 were adjunct to our condition. I believe we used 
 our liberty with moderation ; and, having dined, 
 my son and I went out to study the Bolognese 
 street-characters beneath the porticoes. A crowd
 
 BOLOGNA TO MODEXA. 223 
 
 in the centre of a square induced us to wait and 
 witness what we supposed to be an exhibition of 
 the eccentricities and misfortunes of our own 
 legitimate Punch ; but we found a representation 
 by puppets on an ambulatory stage of a "petite 
 comedie." We waited with the multitude for 
 a considerable time, till it ended in a happy 
 marriage, actually riveted by the interest of the 
 story ; and dropped our small coins into the 
 hat handed round at the fall of the curtain, 
 with the conviction that we had rarely felt 
 so little dulness in the conduct of a genteel 
 comedy, or witnessed such uniform excellence in 
 the actors. 
 
 At six next morning, we were on our route 
 to Milan by the " ^JEmilian Way," a way which, 
 after the magnificent variety of our journey 
 through the Apennines, would have seemed natter 
 than it is, if that had been possible ; but it was 
 not. It was, indeed, bordered by luxuriant vines, 
 trellised, and laden with grapes ; and, for a little 
 while, the array of palatial buildings on the heights 
 relieved its flatness ; but soon we saw nothing 
 but the straightest of roads, extending as far as
 
 224 MODENA. 
 
 the eye could penetrate, through a fertile plain 
 with the waving line of the Apennines beautifully 
 undulated, but scarcely looking higher than our 
 own Malvern hills. A slow dull ride, latterly 
 made duller by thickly drizzling rain, brought 
 us to Modena, the capital of the dominions of 
 the mighty " Due de Mud" as the sovereign 
 of this miniature state was reverently styled by 
 our charioteer ; and here ,we stopped for break- 
 fast. "While the repast was in preparation, as 
 the rain was clearing away, we accomplished the 
 circuit of the high capital by a walk round its 
 ramparts, which command a view of the whole 
 range of the Apennines, now clad in rich, rainy 
 purple, but looking so low and familiar, that even 
 with the fresh remembrance of our own passage 
 through their upland wastes, it was difficult for 
 us to think they had " verge and room " for the 
 terrors of Udolpho. These ramparts, which 
 environ the town, and make palpable its exceeding 
 littleness, were guarded by little soldiers gaily 
 equipped, who marched with a strutting stateliness 
 of step worthy the conscious defenders of 
 a capital, and looked on us, unhappy foreigners
 
 MODENA. 225 
 
 to their Duchy, with a pitying disdain -which Little 
 Pedlingtoii could scarcely rival. 
 
 The state boasts a very striking but very strange 
 Duomo, which we visited after breakfast, and 
 inspected with feelings which vibrated between 
 dislike and admiration. An immense projecting 
 porch, before the grand entrance, supported by 
 columns which rest on lions ; a fine tower more 
 than three hundred feet in height; and arcades 
 running along a large portion of the exterior, 
 produce the impression of a kind of barbaric 
 magnificence, like the profuse ornaments of a 
 savage ; but the most anomalous incongruities are 
 within. Here the capitals of pillars embossed 
 by shapes of ugly monsters ; a screen of red 
 marble sustaining small columns beneath the 
 balustrade ; and pictures, whose figures sprawl 
 like " the saints of Verrio or Laguerre," perplexed 
 us. We were persuaded to see the Ducal gallery 
 of paintings, which we were assured were among 
 the finest in Italy : they may be so ; but the 
 only one I remember is a Crucifixion by Gruido 
 a picture of only one figure, that of our Saviour 
 on the cross with utter darkness behind it a 
 
 Q
 
 226 REGGIO. 
 
 grand and simple idea most nobly executed and 
 which, at least while I looked on it, seemed to 
 me, of all the modes in which its awful subject 
 has been treated, the most awful. The walk on the 
 ramparts, in the freshness which succeeded the rain, 
 with the Apennines richly purple, the vines and 
 mulberry-trees sparkling with myriads of drops, and 
 the quiet air of the fortifications, in which the little 
 smart soldiers, with their little bright guns, looked 
 like the martial puppets which the Peace Society 
 has not yet taken from childhood, I recall like 
 some old familiar memory. 
 
 By countless lengths of the JEmilian Way, we 
 reached Heggio at nightfal, and slept at that old 
 country town after an evening stroll about its 
 streets, which, though narrow and bordered by 
 dingy houses, retained the ever-living charm which 
 breathes through the birthplace of a poet. This 
 ordinary town is the spring-head of inexhaustible 
 pleasures ; for here Ariosto's life began ; here his 
 name is still pronounced with affectionate reverence; 
 and the house in which he was born is pointed out 
 " with meet pride," as the Ayrshire lad points to 
 Mosgiel Farm. Our inn at Reggio was in a dark
 
 PARMA. 227 
 
 lane, with a gateway like that of our own Saracen's 
 Head ; but I was made at home there by sympathy 
 with the poet's fellow-townsmen, the humblest of 
 whom grow proud when they claim him as theirs 
 as if they shared some part of his fame. 
 
 At daybreak on September 19th, in a crisp 
 morning without a cloud, we resumed our carriage 
 and the jEmilian Way. The road stretched on 
 with its ever- wearisome sameness, which too earnest 
 anticipations of breakfast long deferred rendered 
 doubly trying to our patience, especially when 
 our appetites were sharpened by a view of the 
 towers of Parma, where our refreshment was to be 
 enjoyed, and which stood staring at us for at least 
 an hour and a half before we reached them. Every- 
 thing however, in this world has an end ; and, 
 at last, when we had begun to doubt this " truth to 
 be a liar," we found ourselves within the comely 
 and welcome city. The time prescribed for our 
 halting allowed us, after the principal object had 
 been duly honoured, to visit the Faruese Theatre, 
 the Duomo, and the Corregios of the Arch-ducal 
 gallery. The huge theatre, the dusty wreck of an 
 old tenement of gaiety, itself scarcely more sub-
 
 2-28 PARMA. 
 
 stantial, at its best, than a theatrical property, 
 awakens, not that melancholy inspired by mighty 
 ruins, which is ennobled by the great objects which 
 it deplores, but a sense of painful pity. Ambitious 
 in form, for it combines the semicircular benches 
 of the ancient amphitheatre with the modern tiers 
 of boxes for aristocratic spectators ; admirably 
 adapted to the exhibition of spectacle and the con- 
 veyance of sound ; a perfect theatre, therefore, for 
 the purposes of scenic representation, it is composed 
 entirely of wood, as if intended only as an imperial 
 booth, to serve some high occasion of transitory 
 pomp. It has, however, endured for two centuries, 
 and stands yet, dismantled, dusty, worm-eaten, 
 tottering, creaking, gaping ; like a house of soiled 
 cards for giant babies to play with ! The colossal 
 bust of Maria Louisa, by Canova, which attracted 
 my gaze almost immediately on quitting this in- 
 glorious relic for the Gallery, seemed to tell a 
 similar tale of the mockeries of imperial state, 
 preserved by some strange caprice of fortune after 
 the life of grandeur has left it of Napoleon's 
 Empress keeping up a phantasm of state in this 
 miniature Duchy !
 
 PIACENZA. 229 
 
 The Duomo is chiefly remarkable for the great 
 red marble lions of its portico, and the tattered 
 glory of the frescoes of Corregio which hallow its 
 dome. Seen at a great height above us ; in lights 
 cast with curious infelicity through small circular 
 windows of the cupola, and afflicted by weather-stain 
 and decay, the works of the painter or rather the 
 work, for they form one representation of the re- 
 ception of the Virgin into heaven, to which she seems 
 ascending from the vaulted church below, as from 
 a tomb filled us with a recognition of holy happi- 
 ness which is breathed from every part ; seemingly 
 disjointed, but essentially harmonious ; confused in 
 detail, but single in expression ; dimly perceived, 
 but intensely felt and enjoyed. Of the Corregios 
 of the Gallery I dare not speak further than that 
 two of them, which are placed with duteous observ- 
 ance in separate rooms, seem to deserve all the 
 homage, short of idolatry, that man can pay to 
 them. After five hours spent in Parma, we resumed 
 the ultra-eternal ^Emilian "Way, and pursued it until 
 long after dark, when we reached Fiorenzuola. 
 where we found rest and comfort in a large homely 
 inn ; and we drank the Yin Santo, wine the colour
 
 230 PIACENZA. 
 
 of blood, but briskly pleasant, and not guilty of 
 very intoxicating qualities. 
 
 The next morning, September 20th, we started 
 in rain on another reach of the Way, which stretched 
 through a country as level as it was straight. The 
 weather brightened as we proceeded, and, when we 
 reached Piacenza, allowed us a charming walk on 
 the ramparts, akin to that which we enjoyed at 
 Modena. In a flat and tame country, a grass-grown 
 mound rising in regular circlet round a city wins the 
 peculiar interest which some objects of little beauty 
 inspire, by the speed with which the mind establishes 
 a familiarity with them like old acquaintanceship ; 
 it understands at once the refreshment which the 
 inhabitants derive from the habitual perception of 
 this lowly form of nature ; and this feeling here 
 had more in it of affection than at Modena, inas- 
 much as the ramparts were decaying ; gently 
 mouldering into green like that which surmounted 
 them ; and the city wore the air of gentle desolation. 
 The Duomo, with its strangely adorned porches, its 
 monstrous pedestals, and dark, yet gorgeous variety 
 of architecture, is a striking Lombard church ; but 
 the noblest sight in the city is the Piazza de
 
 PIACENZA. 231 
 
 Cavalli, a long terrace before the Palazzo Publico. 
 The old building above it, of great length, in 
 various styles, its lower portion of stone, its 
 higher of brick, but harmonised by time, which has 
 wrought strongly upon it, has something of oriental 
 grandeur ; and at each end of the terrace in front 
 of it is a gigantic bronze statue, one representing 
 the Duke Alexandro, the other his son, E-anuccio, 
 both on horseback, each said to have been cast at 
 one jet. When this terrace is approached from 
 the opposite street, which is very narrow, and is, 
 therefore, at once disclosed, it is startling in its 
 colossal majesty ; and, associated with the stillness 
 around it and the touches of silent decay, appears a 
 portion of some ancient capital, rescued, like the 
 remains of Nineveh, from the oblivion of ages. 
 Nothing among the Medicean glories of Florence 
 so deeply impressed me as this terrace. 
 
 After four hours of rest and sight-seeing at 
 Piacenza, we proceeded to the bank of the Po, 
 which had been long marked out before us like 
 the Ehine, by rows of poplars, crossed it in 
 heavy rain, and, after various custom-house and 
 passport miseries, the chief object of which,
 
 232 PIACENZA. 
 
 however, was intelligible, we were permitted to 
 sup and sleep at Lodi. Next day, we proceeded, 
 still on a dead level, till the marble pinnacles of 
 the great Duomo of Milan flashed in the sun; 
 and though visible only for a few minutes, 
 cheered our way to Milan, where the excellent 
 hotel of the Grand Bretagne received us.
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 FROM MILAN, THROUGH SWITZERLAND, HOME. 
 
 First impressions of the Cathedral of Milan Aspects of the 
 interior Tomb of Cardinal Boromeo Roof of the Cathe- 
 dralThe "Last Supper" The Theatro Fiando The 
 Grand Opera Awful familiarity with sacred things 
 Paintings of young Italy Journey to the Lago Maggiore 
 Ascent of the Monte Monterone from Baveno Passage of 
 the Simplon Visit to the Castle of Sion An unknown 
 prisoner's gratitude for a look Journey to Martigny 
 Separation of our party Excursion over the Col de Balm 
 to Chamouni A wet day at Chamouni Effect of frost and 
 snow on the lower mountains Eloquent scrawl at the 
 Moutanvert Return to Martigny Journey by Vevay to 
 Lausanne At home with Dickens. 
 
 MILAN is, as all the world knows, a populous 
 city, of seven miles circumference, with handsome 
 gates, narrow and long streets, filthy alleys, nume- 
 rous churches, and a magnificent theatre ; rich 
 in historical memories and richer in dramatic 
 associations ; but it contains two objects only, 
 which deeply affected my mind or added subjects
 
 234 CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. 
 
 to my range of thought the Cathedral and 
 Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. As soon as 
 we had established ourselves in our rooms, and 
 shaken off the gentle yoke of our travelling 
 master, we hurried to the front of the famous 
 Duomo, and, in a few minutes, stood in the middle 
 of the street that intersected its square. My 
 first impressions were tinged with disappointment ; 
 the exquisitely symmetrical object before me 
 looked smaller than I had expected; its summits 
 did not seem so lofty as they had appeared when 
 they glistened on us in the distance ; and the 
 lower part of the front embrowned by the 
 weather-stains and the vapours of the city, 
 which sent dark streaks upwards along the pure 
 marble, looked incongruous with the dazzling 
 whiteness of the airy grove of its pinnacles. But 
 as we drew nearer, the sense of its extreme 
 beauty gradually possessed us ; the edifice, filling 
 the entire space, seemed stepping into an 
 enchanted air; as we advanced, the separate 
 loveliness of every part expanded, more like a 
 vision slowly disclosed than a reality approached. 
 The doors were beneficently open; and so long
 
 CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. 235 
 
 as we proceeded over the marble pavement 
 towards the high altar the effect of expanding 
 beauty prevailed. But when we turned back 
 towards the entrance, the enchantment ceased ; 
 for we saw opposite to us an unsightly wall 
 pierced by small windows irregularly disposed, 
 and letting in a glaring, unsoftened, irreligious 
 light. How it happened that, amidst the employ- 
 ment of such prodigality and taste as wrought 
 the magic of the first aspect of the interior, 
 this side should have been left thus ungraced, I 
 cannot conjecture ; for the beautiful here neither 
 requires nor admits any heightening of contrast ; 
 and the contrast would be painful, except that 
 the spectator has only to turn again from any 
 point and thence renew the pleasure which first 
 thrilled him. 
 
 During the three days we spent at Milan, we 
 made several visits to the Cathedral, returning 
 wearied from other sights to seek unfailing refresh- 
 merit in beholding it ; and, at last, we applied the 
 silver key of five francs to the sepulchre where 
 the great and good Cardinal Boromeo, in his 
 proper person, lies amidst treasures of gold and
 
 236 CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. 
 
 gems. Whether the wealth be real or simulated 
 is a question of little moment ; in either case the 
 mockery of earthly pomp is the same ; but the 
 exhibition of the actual remains of famed and 
 titled mortality has a freezing interest for " us 
 poor humans." That chamber of the grave, 
 which Sir Thomas Browne would think too 
 garish, preserves something nearer to life than a 
 skeleton or mummy, in " the quintessence of dust " 
 which it enshrines. On that skin of parchment 
 yet lingers or seems to linger an expression 
 of anxious benevolence ; painful like that which 
 lives in the memory of all those who knew the 
 living Charles Lamb, but retaining still a trace 
 of ineffable sweetness yet claimed from the grave. 
 In gazing on it with admiring sympathy, I felt 
 assured that of all human qualities gentleness 
 is the most imperishable in death as in life ; 
 because gentleness has in it none of the elements 
 of decay which blend with fierce passions and proud 
 virtues. Here, not only did the " ashes of the 
 just " in moral power achieve a victory over the 
 grave, but the very dust itself bore witness to 
 the angelic nature which possessed it living.
 
 THE "LAST SUPPER. 237 
 
 On issuing from the jewelled vault, we ascended 
 the roof of the Cathedral and walked among the 
 groves of its marble pinnacles, amazed at the 
 unblemished purity of their material, and the 
 exquisite elaboration of art bestowed in their 
 smallest details. They reminded me of my 
 passage of the glacier in my attempt to ascend 
 Mont Blanc, where ice had been wreathed by 
 the cold breath of an hour into shapes of " white 
 wonder," almost as regular as these ; and how 
 infinitely nobler and more lovely ! My eyes were 
 on the sculptured forest ; but my heart was 
 straying among the Alpine caves. At the verge 
 of the dim horizon, beyond the long, fertile, dreary 
 plains of Lombardy, rose the snowy heights them- 
 selves in the soft evening air ; urging unutterable 
 desires to be again plunged in their solitudes ; 
 and making the exquisite marbles look sickly in 
 the ungrateful comparison which their very love- 
 liness suggested, and in wishes to which the 
 distant Alps gave wings. 
 
 It is impossible for me by any words even to 
 indicate my feelings respecting the picture which 
 does more than " enchant the world ; " for it
 
 238 THE "LAST SUPPER." 
 
 elevates, purifies, and blesses it. All tliat is said 
 of its disfiguration how, at first sight, it appears 
 like an oblong blot on a chance-stained wall ; 
 how damps have swollen and cracked, and corroded 
 it ; how the colour has fallen off from it in flakes, 
 and how coarse daubing has supplied the loss, 
 to the destruction even of the outline of some 
 of the figures is true ; all that has been said of 
 its admirable composition, of the sudden division 
 of its persons into animated groups, by the awful 
 declaration of the Saviour, and of their various 
 excellence, is also true ; but there remains that 
 which has not been said, because it cannot be 
 adequately expressed in human language. The 
 influence which this work has exercised over the 
 race whose anticipated redemption it celebrates, 
 is beyond conception, alike in the finest engraving 
 and in the poorest print disfigured with the most 
 tawdry colours in palace, mansion, workshop, 
 road-side inn it has shed its sanctity through 
 a million homes. And yet none of these copies 
 not the most exquisite engravings while they 
 render the outlines of the figures with nicer 
 distinctness than that which they bear on the
 
 THE " LAST SUPPER/' 239 
 
 coloured wall convey any notion of the divine 
 expression that yet lingers (and will linger until 
 the last vestiges of the work shall be obliterated) 
 in the countenance of the central figure. It is 
 not so much the aspect of one " made perfect 
 through suffering," as of one perfect in suffering. 
 In no other representation of our Lord is there 
 such abstraction of the being in sorrow ; in other 
 pictures the beneficent expression is cast on 
 others ; but here it is turned inward on itself ; 
 self-collected in self-estimated pain, as if the 
 last circumstance of mental suffering by which 
 the divine humanity was touched, and which com- 
 pelled the declaration that an apostle was the 
 present traitor, had urged into full anticipation 
 the mighty sorrow about to begin. And yet the 
 expression is not merely that of heroic agony, nor 
 yet of brave patience enhanced by ineffable 
 sweetness, but of the composure of a God in 
 anticipated endurance of sufferings which a Divine 
 Nature alone could bear. How does this picture 
 of spiritual agony, suggesting that unseen sorrow 
 no less than the infliction of Almighty justice 
 on the sins of the world, compared with which
 
 240 THE "LAST SUPPER. 
 
 buffettings, stripes, insults, the weariness of 
 bearing a cross, and the torment of suspension 
 on it, are but shows of grief transcend those 
 images of the fleshly accompaniments of the 
 Atonement which narrow the sphere of devotion in 
 the Italian churches ! How does it vindicate the 
 Sacrifice which inestimable love devised and com- 
 pleted for man, from the debasement of those 
 images, Avhether supplied by the clumsiest manu- 
 facture or by the highest genius, by the 
 crucifix besmeared with crimson paint on the 
 way-side, or by that picture of Rubens which, with 
 sickening fidelity, represents a flagellation in all 
 its shocking details and represents nothing more I 
 Perhaps the appeal this picture makes to the 
 reasoning imagination and the purest affection of 
 Christians', derives a peculiar interest, not heighten- 
 ing that which its own excellence awakens, but 
 coexistent with it, from the apprehension that it 
 will soon utterly pass away from the eyes of the 
 world, and live only in those memories in which it 
 is touched with something of the softness of a 
 vision. There, however, as yet, that figure which 
 has more intensely expressed the divine in the
 
 THE THEATRO FIANDO. 241 
 
 human thau any other work of man, survives the 
 crimes and the follies of ages ; like our religion 
 itself, assailed by outrage; left to decay by long 
 indifference ; patched, daubed, obscured, and dis- 
 torted by the zeal of erring friendship : but still 
 preserving an essence which breathes through all 
 the injuries of error and circumstance ; the visible 
 divinity of the world ! 
 
 We looked into many churches at Milan ; but 
 of all these, only the mighty Romanesque of 
 St. Ambrosio, the gigantic simplicity of its 
 design, and the barbaric splendour of its decoration, 
 retain a place in my memory. At the Theatro 
 Fiando we experienced a disappointment, due to 
 our ignorance, but pitiably ludicrous. Allured by 
 a play -bill announcing a deeply interesting melo- 
 drama, we went to the compact little theatre 
 expecting to sup full of horrors ; and we might 
 have been surfeited with them to our heart's 
 content, if the wrongs and sufferings of puppets 
 could move us, for the performances proved to 
 consist of the marvellous jerks of these unreal 
 mockeries of nature and art. Very cleverly manu- 
 factured, and very cleverly managed indeed they
 
 242 THE THEATRE PIANDO. 
 
 were not more cleverly than the wire-impelled 
 performers who startled us in the street of 
 Bologna by their excellence but they were 
 rendered ineffably tedious by the accompaniment 
 of speeches read behind the scenes, which in 
 the street exhibition was happily omitted. They 
 made out a romantic story intelligibly enough, 
 even to us, who did not understand the reading; 
 but the atrocious uncle scowled, and the true 
 heir knelt with most piteous action, and the 
 young lady stretched her wire-impelled arms with 
 all-embracing liberality, only to make us long 
 for actors of flesh and blood. One discovery is 
 made by witnessing the cleverest representation of 
 puppetry ; of the large measure which we owe in 
 the enjoyment of the acted drama to an unconscious 
 sympathy with the living artists themselves, after 
 the first surprise and delight of childhood have worn 
 away ; just as we read a romance with double 
 interest, as a portion of the writer's mind a 
 deciphering of his thoughts a.s well as a tissue of 
 incidents and characters unfolded in his fable. 
 
 The grand Opera-house of La Scala, not so 
 beautiful in shape as our Opera-house in the
 
 OPERA AT MILAN. 243 
 
 Ilaymarket, nor so nobly adapted to scenic repre- 
 sentation as that in Covent Garden, invited us by the 
 agreeable anomaly of an English prima donna on a 
 continental stage, the " Signora Cattariua Hayes," 
 or, in her mother tongue, Miss Catherine Hayes. 
 The lady sang and acted with vigour and success, and 
 her coadjutors, though not of first-rate pretension, 
 zealously and ably supported her ; but we scarcely 
 dare recall the performance to recollection, for the 
 strange impiety which it involved. The opera was 
 the "Moses in Egypt," not veiled, as with us, 
 under the guise of " Peter the Hermit," but 
 involving the naked presentment of an awful 
 portion of the Old Testament, with the visual 
 representation of the burning bush in whicli 
 Jehovah was supposed to abide. It struck us 
 untutored English as a blasphemy so fearful, that 
 we looked round at the voluptuous composure of 
 the spectators in the boxes with wonder that they 
 were not trembling lest the roof should fall and 
 crush them. We saw in the endurance of such 
 presumption an effect of that familiarity with the 
 holiest tilings which the excessive use of religious 
 
 symbols induces, when reverence is lost in recurring 
 
 R 2
 
 244 MODERN PICTURES. 
 
 forms. That which a scenical religion produces in 
 Italy, the incrustation of feelings by phrases 
 nourishes among some devout Protestants, who 
 are nearer to the sensuous system of the Eoman 
 Catholic Church than they suspect the difference 
 being that their symbols do not consist of images 
 or pictures, but of a phraseology of their own 
 which, dictated at first by a desire to grasp divine 
 things with the force of human affection, have 
 been employed amidst the affairs of life, until they 
 disfigure pious discourse by a familiarity with 
 Heaven which would be irreverent, if use had 
 not outworn their meaning. The opera was 
 followed by a magnificent ballet, on the subject 
 of Sardanapalus, not so marvellously like a resusci- 
 tation of Nineveh and Assyrian pomps as the 
 triumphant result of Mr. Kean's pictorial skill, and 
 learning, and taste; but full of life and colour; 
 and without the alloy of speeches which no acting 
 can vivify. 
 
 "We visited the Brera to see its collection of old 
 pictures, among which are some noble works ill- 
 placed, and worse lighted, and afterwards attended 
 the exhibition of the paintings of young Italy, the
 
 MILAN TO AVENO. 245 
 
 Milanese Exhibition of the current year. It was 
 intolerably radiant in colour, abounding in skies of 
 deeper blue than Italy rejoices in, woods of the 
 liveliest green, and ships and cities of amber ; alto- 
 gether a collection of gaudy impossibilities, few of 
 which would be admitted at Birmingham. Those 
 few, if the works of inexperienced youths, would 
 indicate promise of excellence, if they did not also 
 indicate the opinion of the artists that it is already 
 attained. "We felt an inexpressible relief in 
 escaping into the open air from the dazzling 
 confusion of this ill-assorted rainbow. 
 
 Our host of the Grande Bretagne willingly 
 negociated a contract with a charioteer to conduct 
 us over the Simplon to Martigny in five days 
 for twenty napoleons, including all tolls, bridges, 
 and extra horses, but not inserting the provisional 
 considerations of our former arrangement, and 
 brought it to us duly signed and witnessed, only 
 suggesting that a donative contingent on good 
 behaviour might be expected beyond the stipulated 
 sum. At six in the morning of Thursday, 24th 
 of September, we started under the conduct of 
 our new minister, hungry for the mountains.
 
 246 MILAN TO AVENO. 
 
 The morning was fresh and clear after a showery 
 night, and the breeze from the north wafted to 
 us a feeling of Switzerland and of old delights. 
 At first, we passed along a straight road, too much 
 resembling the dreadful ^milian Way, though 
 bordered by mulberry-trees, and by trellised or 
 trailing vines ; but the road grew less formal as 
 we went on, and gradually began to curve a little 
 among fields, flat it is true, but still endowed with 
 some of the quiet attributes of English inland 
 country ; for sometimes hedge-rows interposed, and 
 shady lanes opened beside us. About mid-day 
 we stopped to breakfast at a neat country inn, 
 with a garden so trimly kept as to denote a loving 
 care which betokens the prevalent desire of rustics to 
 attain a personal interest with nature in her home- 
 liest beauties. This desire is apparent in thefondness 
 of the Swiss farmers for little plots of garden, 
 on the nested resting-places of the loftiest 
 mountains, and in the richest recesses of the most 
 luxuriant valleys where such pretty trifling with 
 beauty seems to a stranger superfluous. Yet this 
 longing for a personal intimacy with the silent 
 loveliness which neither envies, nor reproaches, nor
 
 MILAN TO AVENO. 247 
 
 argues, is akin to that of our retiring citizen, 
 who rejoices in a few stunted gooseberry-bushes, 
 a dwarf poplar, and a dingy laurel. After the 
 delightful idleness of two hours in this unpre- 
 tending spot, we resumed our way, and caught 
 glimpses of the Lago Maggiore spreading out in 
 an enchanted region, with the snowy range of Alps 
 waving beyond it ; touched on its borders at Sesto, 
 where our passport grievances were augmented 
 by merciless rain ; and escaped from our tormentors 
 wet and happy, to proceed to Aveno. During this 
 last stage, we were drenched by heavy showers, 
 and reached a dark hostelry very cold after sunset ; 
 but through a long row of trees which fronted us, 
 the lake now shone with the reflection of a golden 
 sunset; and soon moonlight rained down a more 
 uncertain beauty on its water ; and, as we sat in 
 the comfortless window seats of a dismal room we 
 merged all unpleasant sensations in the luxury of 
 vision. Even hunger was held in check during the 
 long interval between our arrival and our evening 
 repast ; for, in addition to the terrestrial charms 
 we looked on, the eastern sky became filled with 
 white lights which quivered with glory.
 
 248 AVENO TO THE SIMPLON. 
 
 The next day, 25th of September, was one of 
 our greatest days, spent in loveliness, above, 
 beneath, and around us. In a morning of exquisite 
 freshness after the rain, we traversed the margin of 
 the lake to Baveno, where we breakfasted at an hotel 
 surrounded by gardens and almost covered with 
 flowering shrubs ; and thence ascended the Monte 
 Monterone in the hope of obtaining a view of a 
 portion of the Italian side of Monte Rosa. The 
 intimation of Murray of this Mount of Prospect that 
 " its sides are infested with snakes," did not deter 
 us; but among rocks breaking out from flowery 
 herbage, along narrow openings in thick woods, 
 beside heaps of glowing stones, though bent on 
 the detection of our serpentine enemies, we saw no 
 glimmer of one of the accursed race, and were 
 about to vote the passage in Murray a libel, when, 
 alas ! our young lady espied a slender, bright slate- 
 coloured reptile, not much larger than a common 
 worm, but with a head bespeaking it an undoubted 
 member of the snake family harmless and graceful 
 but still a young snake and my theory vanished, 
 and some crazy rhymes by which I had celebrated 
 the purity of the hill as we went along, came to
 
 AVENO TO THE SIMPLON. 249 
 
 an untimely end. We ascended the ridge which 
 rises between the Lago Maggiore and the Lake 
 Orto, to the height of 4,000 feet, with perpetual 
 change of delight, derived from the luxuriant 
 beauty of the mountain we traversed and the views 
 of the lake we had quitted, filling its bed to the 
 brim with water which scarcely trembled, and of 
 Isola Bella rising out of it with intermingled ter- 
 races and woods, like a huge flower-pot set in the 
 water. At the summit, another view, entirely 
 different in character that of the Lake Orto resting 
 in a barren solitude among stern crags broke on us, 
 so that the view on one side was like one 
 of the noblest in the Scotch highlands, while that, 
 on the other, breathed the most voluptuous 
 enchantment of Italy. We saw little, however, of 
 Monte Rosa, if we saw it at all ; a great mist filled 
 the quarter where the famous Alp should have been 
 disclosed; and though, now and then, the mist 
 opened so far as to show large masses of snow high 
 up within it, we were not assured that these were 
 proper parts of the second mountain of Europe. 
 One remarkable effect I chiefly remember among the 
 revolutions which the light breezes wrought among
 
 250 THE SIMPLOX. 
 
 the loftiest clouds : a conical ice-top canopied by 
 an arched opening in the massive clouds which left 
 a rim. of bright blue sky exactly circling it, and 
 stood on each side of the opening like a palace wall. 
 We descended through the warm, soft, perfumed 
 air, with the expanding beauty of the great lake 
 before us, to some excellent cutlets and delicate 
 white wine at Baveno ; scarcely able to believe we 
 were in the climate we had felt so cold and damp 
 yesterday; but a long evening journey in an open 
 carriage to Domo D'Orsola, which we reached not 
 long before midnight, recalled the ordinary sensa- 
 tions of our shivering English nature. 
 
 The next day, 26th of September, was occupied 
 from five in the morning till seven in the evening, 
 in the passage of the Simplon from Domo D'Orsola 
 to Brieg. At the beginning of the ascent, 
 the road, allowed by the Sardinian government to 
 remain unrepaired after great floods, was more like 
 the bed of a mountain torrent than the vaunted 
 work of engineering skill executed under the auspices 
 of imperial genius ; but, as we ascended, we 
 recognised the triumphs of art and power in the 
 airy terraces, the solemn galleries, the bridges
 
 THE SIMPLON. 251 
 
 spanning the headlong torrents ; works made to 
 defy the elements. Passing the lamentable 
 Hospice, we found shelter in a small inn in the 
 village of Simplon, whose coarse refreshment, 
 chiefly consisting of bouilli, which, had a kindred 
 quality with the rocks, was welcome, and some 
 glowing embers in a large chafing-dish diffused 
 a more welcome warmth. "Wandering into the 
 church of the village, which, although small and 
 poverty-stricken in the exterior, was decorated 
 with numerous pictures, we found the predomi- 
 nance of the Virgin over all other pious associations 
 more conspicious even than usual ; as if the 
 preference of the human to the divine for the 
 homage of the heart was cultivated most in the 
 most bleak and barren regions. The descent, 
 which, although performed in much less time, 
 appears longer to the mind than the ascent, 
 seemed to me interminable ; we saw the town of 
 Brieg at the utmost depth below for hours, during 
 which, although continually descending, we scarcely 
 seemed to be brought nearer to it ; perhaps, because, 
 the object, being continually in our sight, was not 
 affected on our approach by the sense of gradation.
 
 252 THE SIMPLON. 
 
 "Wonderful as the Pass is, it seems to me less 
 rich in points of interest than either that of the 
 Splugen or of the St. Grothard; it has no one 
 defile comparable in terrible grandeur to the Via 
 Mala of the first, or to the Devil's Bridge of the 
 second ; nor has it passages of affluent beauty like 
 those created by the loveliness which is poured 
 throughout the course of the Ticino from Ariolo 
 downwards to the battlements of Bellinzona. 
 With one circumstance of greatness it is, however, 
 endowed a noble crowd of icy summits opened to 
 the eye near the Hospice, which seems only a few 
 miles distant a picture wholly absent from the 
 two rival passes, the majesties of which are all of 
 the earth, and scarcely give a hint of the regions of 
 perpetual snow. The Simplon Pass is also a simple 
 idea ; it consists almost entirely of inclined planes, 
 carried in ledges along the alternate sides of 
 uniform valleys, like wide funnels, which the 
 mind seems to appropriate completely as the eye 
 surveys them ; so that, at night, at Brieg, I was 
 able to grasp the entire Pass at once in my mental 
 vision. 
 
 On the following day, 27th of September, we
 
 SIGN. 253 
 
 proceeded down the valley of the Ehone ; passed 
 Visp without a suspicion that the narrow valley 
 behind its elevated Doric church led directly to 
 the foot of the Matterhorn that column of rock 
 almost a mile in perpendicular height set on a 
 pedestal of icy mountains and to the foot of Monte 
 Bosa, and to Zermatt, whence platforms can be 
 attained commanding alps and seas of ice, which 
 make the Wengern Alp's diorama seem poor in 
 the comparison. "We breakfasted at Turtman 
 within hearing of the roar of one of the finest 
 waterfalls in Switzerland; and reached Sion in 
 time to visit two of its three castles before 
 nightfall. One of them you reach immediately 
 after threading the filthiest alleys of a filthy town 
 passing from the backs of stables and the more 
 squalid abodes of men, and the prison walls into a 
 region of romance ; a towering ruin partly repaired 
 and occupied and partly desolate with one fine 
 tree in a grass-grown court-yard, whence you may 
 ascend by dark staircases, to story after story of 
 forsaken rooms, commanding extensive views of 
 the Ehone and the hills. From this castle, you 
 may descend directly to the foot of a much higher
 
 254 A PRISONER S GREETING. 
 
 hill on which a larger ruin stands, wholly forsaken 
 except by the cattle that browse on the rich 
 herbage of its halls ; gaunt and spectral, con- 
 sisting of long ranges of broken walls and the 
 places of windows that form great frames for 
 pictures of the long line of the river and the 
 perspective of the broad mountains. 
 
 Returning from this noiseless solitude of the 
 great castle to the crowded town, a little incident 
 hardly incident affected us with a vain pity. 
 In a narrow alley leading into the main street, we 
 met a party of four soldiers with drawn swords 
 conveying a man to prison a slender bright- 
 complexioned stripling, who walked bareheaded 
 by himself, having two soldiers before and two 
 behind him. He moved with a quick step and a 
 dauntless air, and looked steadfastly at us as 
 we approached him on the flinty hill we were 
 descending. His expression of countenance so 
 resembled that of a person eyeing another with 
 the desire of recognition, that I involuntarily 
 inclined my head and waved my hand to answer 
 his earnest look ; and I have rarely seen a face so 
 lighted up with grateful expression as his, when he
 
 SIGN TO MAUTIGNY. 255 
 
 held up his manacled hands with a smile as if in 
 apology for not returning the greeting. It was 
 the look of a moment ; the little procession turned 
 directly towards the entrance of the gaol, and we 
 saw him. no more ; but there was something 
 strangely affecting in this silent interchange of 
 courtesy with a nature never to be understood, and 
 in this pity for suffering we could never even 
 guess at. Whether the prisoner was about to 
 endure a short confinement for some slight trans- 
 gression, or was wrongly or rightly charged with a 
 grievous offence, we shall never know ; but the 
 heart could not be utterly depraved which was 
 capable of animating such an expression of gratitude 
 for the slight token of a foreign stranger's imperfect 
 sympathy. 
 
 We left Sion early on the 28th of September, 
 in a morning as strangely "fair and foul " as that 
 on which the weird sisters met Macbeth ; for the 
 sun shone brilliantly while a high wind blew about 
 huge masses of cloud which sometimes filled the 
 broad valley of the Khone and concealed the broad 
 area of the least beautiful of Swiss valleys. As we 
 approached Martigny, the mists rose entirely from
 
 256 MARTIGNY TO CHAMOUM. 
 
 the plain, and took stations on the jutting fronts of 
 some of the great hills in shapes so pillar-like and 
 upon masses so prominent and vast, that I could 
 fancy the old gods of Olympus sitting on veiled 
 thrones in stately silence ; while from the summits 
 high above them light vapours, like incense, curled 
 into the blue sky. The breadth and level dreariness 
 of the floor of the valley, which the Rhone half 
 converts into a waste of sand, rendered the solem- 
 nity of the mist-capped crags that bordered it more 
 awful. 
 
 We reached Martigny, the most mournful of all 
 the inhabited places of the earth, by mid-day ; and, 
 being informed at the Hotel de la Tour where we 
 parted with our Milanese coachman, that by starting 
 immediately on mules we might reach Chamouni 
 before night, suddenly resolved on re-visiting that 
 enchanted region. Our youngest lady had never 
 seen the lofty valley which "Wyndham and Pocock 
 introduced to the knowledge of adventurous tra- 
 vellers just a century before Mr. Albert Smith 
 made it familiar to the world of fashion ; and, as the 
 Egyptian Hall had not then supplied the place 
 of a passage through the Tete-Noir, or over the
 
 MAETIGNY TO CHAMOUNI. 257 
 
 Col de Balm, I was anxious she should see what 
 I then regarded (Zermatt being unvisited) as the 
 greatest of earthly sights. The accomplishment of 
 this desire however, involved a very disagree- 
 able separation ; for my wife, still suffering from 
 the sprain of Florence, was not prepared to 
 encounter the mule-back journey ; but with her 
 customary disregard of all selfish considerations, 
 she insisted on our leaving her at Martigny. There 
 was no time for deliberation, so we parted ; and 
 the juniors and I set forth; crossed the For- 
 clar, descended into the Vale of Trient; and 
 ascended the Col de Balm, where we dined, 
 with excellent appetite, on delectably over-boiled 
 mutton, and partook merrily of that sweet brisk 
 liquid called Swiss champagne, which I take to be 
 animated mead. The view of Mont Blanc from 
 the Chalet, and during the descent, is not so 
 perfect as that which is obtained on the top of the 
 Breven, where the eye embraces the entire range of 
 the mountain in front, and penetrates into the 
 bosom of its central snows ; but it is more com- 
 prehensive, because it enables the traveller to look 
 at the mountain in half profile, and see more of its
 
 258 CHAMOUNI IX RAIN. 
 
 enormous buttresses and pillars. Our guides thought 
 so long a delay at the Chalet necessary to the refresh- 
 ment of the mules, or perhaps of themselves, that 
 it was dark before we reached the margin of the 
 infant Arve, here rejoicing in its brief purity 
 before it receives the turbid offering of the ice- 
 caverns, which changes it to the discoloured 
 stream with which it, in its turn, pollutes the lake- 
 regenerated Ehone. The faint gleam of a young 
 and waterish moon gave to the glacier De la Tour, 
 as we passed it, a most spectral aspect ; it looked 
 like a vast region of pale ghosts. The evening 
 repast was far advanced at the Hotel de 1' Union 
 before we took our places at the table ; where we 
 enjoyed tea with such light additions as our 
 voracity, gratified at the hut of the Col de Balm, 
 left us able to enjoy. 
 
 The next day was one of the longest in en- 
 durance, one of the shortest in memory, I have 
 ever passed ; it was a wet day at Chamouni : not 
 a day of driving showers, or storms, but of dense 
 unmerciful rain, which fell from clouds that 
 obliterated every trace of mountain. Such a day 
 intended to be our only day at such a place ;
 
 CHAMOUN1 IN EAIN. 259 
 
 what a visitation! The resource of bed-room 
 fires was impossible ; for the rooms, built only for 
 summer, were without stoves ; and the only fire, 
 that in the rude saloon, was encircled by guests 
 who, from the antiquity of their visit, though only 
 dating two days back, derived just precedence; 
 and the privileged class formed a small minority of 
 our fellow-captives. Some of the male prisoners 
 paced the room in pitiable listlessness, now and 
 then casting a glance at the deep-seated window, 
 all diamonded with drops, as if hope could possibly 
 come through it ; others lay doggedly stretched 
 on the hard benches ; while the young ladies sat, 
 stiff and prim, and the elder ladies sought relief in 
 drowsy or sharp lamentations. A little variety 
 was introduced into the scene by some young 
 gentlemen, either very big schoolboys, or very 
 fresh college men, w r ho amused themselves by 
 running out into the rain, and returning in bear- 
 skin cloaks like walking cascades, and wide-awake 
 hats with brims filled like basins, to enjoy the 
 alarm which their approaches gave to the sisters or 
 lady cousins of their party. But was there nothing 
 to read? "We had stripped ourselves of our few
 
 260 CHAMOUNI IN RA1X. 
 
 travelling books, even to our Murray, and left 
 them at Martigny ; and, alas ! for the " Cabinet 
 du Lecture," the name of which inspired most 
 fallacious hopes ! It contained numerous volumes 
 in boards and calf; but such an extraordinary 
 collection of what Charles Lamb designates as 
 " books that are no books," has rarely been formed 
 by the most perverted ingenuity of an innkeeper. 
 There were two " Gazetteers ;" " Burke' s Peerage ;" 
 several odd volumes of the " Code Napoleon ;" two 
 volumes of " Poems on Various Subjects," obviously 
 by " 'prentice hands ;" an " Essay on Military For- 
 tification ;" and a very few odd volumes of odd 
 novels, of which the only readable were Sir Bulwer 
 Lytton's "Night and Morning," which wanted the 
 first volume ; and Ainsworth's "Miser's Daughter," 
 which lacked the second. At last, we bethought 
 ourselves that the solitary chilliness of our bed- 
 rooms would be more tolerable than this social 
 misery ; and leaving an elderly gentleman, poring 
 with puzzled eyes over a chapter of the " Code 
 Napoleon," and the young ladies prettily and 
 sincerely deprecating the advances of the very wet 
 young gentlemen, we withdrew with the fragments
 
 CHAMOUNI. 261 
 
 of Bulwer and Ainsworth, and by exchanging 
 them, made them last, as a pretence at amusement, 
 till the bell rang at four o'clock for dinner; 
 which made the remaining hours (however they 
 were passed) comparatively easy. By the happy 
 disposition vouchsafed to human memory, the 
 hours of this long wet day have dwindled in its 
 retrospect to such moments as would be spent in 
 telling all that remains to me of them ; while every 
 day of travel, which passes rapidly in various 
 happiness, expands all its scenes in the retro- 
 spect, and presents some of its thoughts in bright 
 succession, when we search for it among the 
 treasures which we carry always with us. 
 
 The next morning was fair, though cold ; clouds 
 hung about the loftiest points of Mont Blanc, but 
 the range of the Breven was clear, and strange to 
 see, was capped with snow. This juxtaposition of 
 the fugitive snow with the enduring ice-fields im- 
 paired the visible supremacy of Mont Blanc ; for 
 although the white domes and pinnacles of the 
 Alpine world, always wanting points of perspective 
 to vindicate their superiority over the earthy 
 mountains, do not always excel them by the mere
 
 262 CHAMOUNI. 
 
 sense of elevation, they stand so contrasted with 
 them by the wonder of ever-sunned and ever-lasting 
 whiteness, that they are at once felt to belong to a 
 sublimer class of the manifestations of nature ; but 
 now, when the inferior range of mountains was 
 capped with the same colouring, the greater was 
 scarcely distinguishable in appearance from the 
 less ; and the snow-clad range of the Breven, simu- 
 lating its mightier opposite, looked almost as 
 majestical in its transitory snow-robe, as Mont 
 Blanc's domes invested with that which never melts. 
 So, feebly moralised I, do the things of this life, 
 when they assume to us the importance which 
 belongs to the everlasting, lower to our perception 
 the things which are eternal. 
 
 We ought to have rejoined our lonely lady 
 to-day in the Hades of Martigny ; but as our 
 young lady had never seen the wonders of 
 Chamouni, and possibly might never again be so 
 near them, we did what we knew the forsaken 
 one would have insisted on, and took another day 
 of desertion. We filled our truant time as full of 
 sights as it could hold; visited the Flegore, the 
 caverned source of the Averon, and the Montanvert ;
 
 CHAMOUNI. 263 
 
 and only reached our hotel in time for the evening 
 repast. At the Moritanvert, we took a retrospective 
 review of the books in which travellers inscribe 
 their names ; and some, chiefly of the Anglo-Saxon 
 race, from both sides of the Atlantic, perpetuate 
 their folly for a few autumns. Among these 
 fugitive memorials, was one ambitious scrawl of a 
 popular and eloquent divine, whereby, in letters 
 almost an inch long, and in words which I cannot 
 precisely remember, he recorded his sense of the 
 triumphant refutation given to Atheism by the 
 Mer de Glace, intimating his conviction, that, wher- 
 ever else doubts of the being of Deity might be 
 cherished, they must yield to the grandeur of the 
 spot ; and attesting the logic by his name in equally 
 magnificent characters. It seemed to me that the 
 Great First Cause had rarely been so little under- 
 stood as by this poetical theist; who seems to 
 have thought that in proportion as the marks 
 of order and design are withdrawn, the vestiges 
 of Deity become manifest ; as if the smallest 
 insect that the microscope ever expanded for 
 human wonder did not exhibit more conclusive 
 indications of the active wisdom and goodness
 
 264 THE TETE NOIR. 
 
 of a God than a magnificent chaos of elemental 
 confusion. 
 
 On the 1st of October, we returned to Martigny 
 by the Tete JS"oir ; and, often with reverted eyes, 
 watched the snows of Mont Blanc diminish in 
 visible expanse till they filled the urn-like opening 
 of the black declivities of the pass, like a vase of 
 unspotted ice. In the lowest part of the chasm, 
 where the waters tumble and roar into each other, 
 we plucked wild currants and raspberries ; and at 
 the small chalet beyond the sharp angle, found the 
 less airy refreshments of ham, eggs, and sweet 
 wine. Here our host astonished us by the narrative 
 of the recent abduction of a child from the valley 
 by an eagle, and of the discovery of the lost child in 
 the eagle's nest on a crag many thousand feet high, 
 after ten days' absence, unharmed and in good 
 condition. To silence all doubts, he produced the 
 lost and found one, in the person of a robust boy of 
 seven or eight years old, who bore no marks of his 
 elevated sojourn ; but when I requested permission 
 to question the child, through our guide, as to his 
 aerial experiences, my curiosity was repressed by 
 the decisive information that "he was born deaf,
 
 AT HOME WITH DICKENS. 2(55 
 
 dumb, and an idiot." The eagle, therefore, wisely 
 selected a victim who, on a miraculous escape, could 
 not betray the secrets of the prison cleft ; and has 
 thus deprived the story of a needless but interesting 
 confirmation it might have received from the child's 
 narrative. 
 
 We found the deserted lady weary of her solitude, 
 which had proved more completely desolate than 
 our fears had painted it ; for as the large hotel was 
 without another guest, she had endured a loneliness 
 rendered more oppressive by the sense that the 
 place had been recently full of travellers whom the 
 advancing autumn had sent to the comforts of 
 home. The next day, we all went by voiture to 
 Vevay, where, in the palatial hotel of M. Monet, 
 we found gaiety still lingering; having rested at 
 Bex, and strolled in an immense avenue of walnut 
 trees, which had liberally " shaken their superflux" 
 to the wayfarers. From Vevay, a voiture con- 
 veyed us to Lausanne, where our friend and the 
 world's favourite, Mr. Charles Dickens, expected 
 us to visit him at a villa where he had resided for a 
 few months. Here, then, our last Vacation Ramble 
 may be considered as ending. It is true that his
 
 266 AT HOME WITH DICKENS. 
 
 faithful servant, " the brave courier," who had 
 become a familiar person to us in the " Pictures of 
 Italy," and who has since been severed by death 
 from the family into which he seemed happily 
 engrafted, procured a voiture for our conveyance 
 through the delightful Munster Thai to Basle ; that 
 we again followed the lovely course of the Birs from 
 its source almost to the Rhine ; that we glided 
 down that glorious highway of nations in tran- 
 quillity as deep as ever; that we took one large 
 draught of beauty in the most angelic of interiors 
 at Cologne, and thence hastened by accustomed 
 ways to London. But we were at home at the 
 "moment when we reached the hospitable roof of 
 our friend of the most profoundly English of 
 all the writers of our time and, therefore, at 
 Kosemont which is now doubtless pointed out to 
 travellers as having been honoured by his sojourn 
 " shut up in measureless content," I take my leave 
 of the friendly reader, and close this slender memo- 
 rial of superficial glances, of wayward thoughts, 
 and imperishable pleasures. 
 
 BRADBunr Axn EVASS, 

 
 University of California 
 
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