/ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF William B. Vasels ITALY AND ITS INHABITANST VOL. I. ITALY ^ AND ITS INHABITANTS; AN ACCOUNT OF A TOUR IN THAT COUNTRY IN 1816 AND 1817: CONTAINING A VIEW OF CHARACTERS, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, GOVERNMENTS, ANTIQUITIES, LITERATURE, DIALECTS, THEATRES, AND THE FINE ARTS ; WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE ORIGIN OF ROME AND OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE. BY JAMES AUG. GALIFFE OF GENEVA [N TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. LONDON JOHN MURRAY MDCCCXX LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES, JSoithuinljeiland-coiii t. 3X5- TO THE READER. l\j.Y aim in the following pages is, to describe Italy exactly as it is : — making men and manners the principal objects of my attention, without neglecting any thing that is worthy of notice in the face of the country : never exaggerating the beautiful or the disagreeable ; not wholly discarding enthusiasm, but never, I hope, suffering it to lead me essentially astray ; speaking freely of abuses, but not wilfully calumniating. To eloquence of description or the graces of style, — those excellencies which peculiarly mark the compositions of the present age, I have no pretensions : but f hope to compensate in some degree for VI TO THE READER. my deficiency in these respects, by sim- plicity and fidelity, — by some originality upon objects of literary and historical interest, — and by always thinking for my- self. When the Reader is informed that 1 only began to speak the English language in my twenty-second year, and that whatever proficiency I may once have attained in it, has been impaired by a subsequent re- sidence of sixteen years in Germany, Hol- land, Russia, Italy, and Switzerland, and by the habit of using the language and the idiom of each of these countries, — he will, I am sure, be lenient in his strictures on my style. I throw myself entirely on his indulgence. In politicks 1 am aware that I shall dis- please all party-men :— by siding abso- lutely with none, and by condemning whatever 1 see wrong on any side. Ar- dently wishing to see all my fellow-creatures TO THE READER. Vll happy, 1 am equally an enemy to oppres- sion in the Rulers, and to a restless and revolutionary fondness for change in the People. My desire is to inculcate real liberality, — to see independence established wherever it can maintain itself, and liberty planted wherever it will grow. These few words contain my political creed. My religious spirit is that of toleration, — but, (I trust) not of indifference : and I abhor the despotism of priests, almost as cordially as that of military tyrants. I must request the reader not to lose sight of the date of my journey. I visited Italy at a sad time : and I hope to God that much of the misery which I then witnessed no longer exists. But its source is not dried up : the atrocities and suf- ferings which 1 lament, have a perennial spring in the state of things established by short-sighted politicians. My next work (if this shall happily be Vlll TO THE READER. received with favour) shall be devoted to Russia, where I have spent nine of the best years of my life : no country has been so foolishly misrepresented. James Aug. Galiffe. Geneva, April 1820. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER I. Pas Departure from Geneva — Hints with respect to Carriages and Luggage — Scenery between Evian and St. Gin- m goux — The Valais ; Misery of its inhabitants — Wa- terfall of Pissevache — The Trient — Sion — Brig — Excursion to Maters and the Cascade of the Yelch- bach — The Simplon — Buonaparte — Usurpation and Legitimacy — The Popes abettors of Usurpation — " Baron Fleming, jun." — Remarks on the Road over the Simplon I CHAPTER II Entrance into Italy — Valleys of Valso and Tosa — Domo d'Ossola- — Excursion on the Lago Maggiore — The Borromean Islands — Arona — Como — Beggars — X CONTENTS. Page Beautiful Scenery of the Lake of Como — Villas and Towns upon its Banks — The Pliniana — The Capu- ana, fyc. — Cadenabbio — Road from Como to Milan 22 CHAPTER III. Milan — Theatre of La Scala; Performances and Perform- ers — The Composer Soliva — Caution against the Laquais de Place — Agreeable Qualities of the Mi- lanese — Wishes for their Independence — Remarks on the Political Condition of Lombardy, under its late and its present Rulers ; and on the Errors of the Austrian Government — Natural Blessings en- joyed by the Lombards 38 CHAPTER IV. Milan— The Brera Museum — Teatro Re — The Italians excellent Comedians — Arlecchino — Puppet-show — Cathedral of Milan — Excursion by Water to Pavia, the old Capital of Lombardy — The Milanese jealous of the Pavians — The Borromean College — Univer- sity — Cathedral — The Certosa — Return to Milan — Excellent Pavement — Splendour of the Equipages and Beauty of the Horses on the Promenade of the Corso — Milanese Females — The lower Classes pas- sionately fond of Dancing — Monza — The Iron Crown— Falsifications of History — Milanese Dialect 'Hid Monev ,56 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER V. Page Departure from Milan — Brescia — Civility of the Inhabi- tants — Extraordinary Beauty of the Females — De- senzano — Lago di Garda — Verona — Roman Am- phitheatre — Tomb of Juliet ; and Adventure of an' English Lady — Picturesque Appearance of Verona — The Bridge — Theatres — Praise of Rossini, and of his Opera of Tancredi — Ballet — Rapid Decay and Depopulation of Verona 79 CHAPTER VI. Vicenza — Magnificence of its deserted Palaces — Wretch- edness of the Population, and its causes — Palladio — Olympic Theatre — Rotonda Capra — Portico and Church of La Madonna del Monte — Departure from Vicenza — Padua — Its Antiquity — Place of Santa Justina — Church and Tomb of St. Anthony — Hall of Justice — University — Guido's Painting of St. John, in the Church of the Remitani — Journey from Padua to Venice by Water — Company in the Barge 97 CHAPTER VII. Vi nice — Inns Place of Sua Marco — Canals and Gon- dolas — Streets and Bridges — General View of the <')\y — Mendicity audita Causes — Reprobation ol Xli CONTENTS. Pa«e the Political Treatment of Venice — Venetian So- ciety — Collections of Paintings — Remarks on the Character of the Venetian School of Painting . .117 CHAPTER VIII. Venetian Theatres — Singers and Actors — Degraded state of the Drama — Analysis of a " laughable" Comedy, and of the " Receipt for Misers" — Peculiarities of the Venetian Dialect — Money — Return from Venice to Padua 140 CHAPTER IX. Disagreeable Journey from Padua to Ferrara — Ferrara — Excessive Loquacity of the Ferrarans — Excellence of the Opera — Reflections on the Donation of the Countess Matilda, on the Rapacity of the Popes, and on the Injustice of the late Political Arrange- ments ' 163 CHAPTER X. Bologna — Paintings restored from the Louvre— Guido's Massacre of the Innocents — Private Collections— Musick — Operas L'Agnese.by Paer; and Adeline, a Farce ; further Specimens of the Depravation of dramatic Taste — Personal Appearance of the Bo- locnese — Impudence of the Beggars — Badness of CONTENTS. Mil Page the Police— Political State of Bologna— Publick Buildings— Dialect— Money 175 CHAPTER XI. Departure from Bologna — Faenza — Forli — Rimini — Ex- amination of the Historical Accounts of Caesar's Passage of the Rubicon — Pesaro — Fano — Via Fla- minia — Fossombrone — Quarries at the Furlo — Cas- cade of Terni — Narni — Otricoli — Nepi — Feelings excited by the near approach to Rome .... - 200 CHAPTER XII. Dreary Road from Nepi to Rome — Entrance into Rome, and unexpected Cheerfulness of the Scene — Albergo Tedesco — Rossini, the Composer — His Talents and Operas — LaCenerentola — The Romans not naturally musical — St. Peter's— Critical Remarks on its Beau- ties and Defects — Reflections on the extraordinary Vicissitudes of the ancient Mistress and Scourge of the World >lti CHAPTER XIII. The Palace of the Vatican — Its prodigious Extent and inestimable Treasures of Art — Canova — Criticism of his Talents and Works — Perseus — Pugilists — Naked Statue of the Princess Borghese. find Sta- XIV CONTENTS. Pae;e tues of the Buonaparte Family — Cupid and Psyche — King Ferdinand 237 CHAPTER XIV. Brief Notice of other Roman Artists, and of their Works — Torwalsen, in Sculpture — Lanti, Camuc- cini, Verstappen, Bassi, and Kaysermann, in Paint- ing — Extraordinary Talent of an uninstructed Boy — Master-pieces of the Old Painters restored from the Louvre — Final Remarks on the Museums of the Vatican and the Capitol 258 CHAPTER XV. Account of some of the best Paintings at Rome, in Churches, and in the Palazzi Colonna, Sciarra. Corsini, Farnese, Doria, Barberini, <§-c. SfC — Le Nozze Aldobrandine — Notice of the iEgina Mar- bles ; and of the Statues on the Monte Cavallo . 275 CHAPTER XVI. Ancient Rome — Reasons of the present Depopulation of the Country around — Defence of the Popes from the Charge of neglecting to preserve the Monuments of Antiquity, and of degrading them to modern Uses — The Coliseum, Pantheon, and Columns of Trajan and Autonine — Censure of a class of English Tra- CONTENTS. XV Pagr vellers — Difficulty of settling: the Topography of Ancient Rome, without further Excavations — Few Remains of the Ages of the Republick .... 292 CHAPTER XVII. View of the State of Society in Rome under the Kings ; as accounting for the Stupendous Public Works of that early Age, of which the Remains exist at the present Day 314 CHAPTER XVIII. Rome as a Republick — Continuation of the Political Sketch commenced in the preceding Chapter, as hearing upon the Examination of the Monuments of the different ages of Rome 326 CHAPTER XIX. Rome under the Emperors — Examination of the Boun- daries of Roma Quadrata ; and Remarks on the Monuments of that Age of Rome — Inferiority of the Romans to the Greeks in good Taste and the Fine Arts 337 CHAPTER XX. On the Origin and Language of Ancient Rome . . . 3.06 XVI CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXI. Further Notice of Antiquities of Rome — Grotto of Egeria — Tomb of Cecilia Metella — Pyramid of Caius Sestius — Thermae of Titus — Baths of Cara- calla — Catacombs of St. Sebastian — Mausoleum of Adrian, or Castle of St. Angelo — Other antique Remains of lesser note — Remarks on the Archi- tecture of St. John Lateran, and other modern Churches 384 CHAPTER XXII. State of polished Society in Rome — Improvvisatore — The Roman Theatres : Argentina, La Valle, Apollo, Delia Pace, and Capranica, — Pulcinello — The Theatres of Pallacorda, Fiano, and Aliberti . . 407 CHAPTER XXIII. Amusements of the Carnival at Rome — The Pope's Soldiers , [It] CHAPTER XXIV. Instances of the Wretchedness of the Lower Classes at Rome — Remarks on the decline of the charitable Disposition of English Travellers 141 ITALY, AND ITS INHABITANTS, In 1816—1817. CHAPTER I. Departure from Geneva. — Hints with respect to Carriages and Luggage. — Scenery between Evian and St. Gingoux. — The Valais ; Misery of its Inhabitants. — Waterfall of Pissevache. — The Trient. — Sion. — Brig. — Excursion to Maters and the Cascade of the Yelchbach. — The Simplon. — Buonaparte. — Usurpation and Legitimacy. — The Popes abettors of Usurpation. — " Baron Fleming, Juip." — Remains on the Road over the Simplon. WE set out from Geneva on Wednesday the 2d of October, 1816, intending to cross the Alps at the passage of the Simplon. We had been fortunate enough to provide ourselves with a remarkably light travelling carnage, a circumstance oi" no small im- vol. i. n 2 HINTS FOR TRAVELLERS. portance on the journey upon which we were entering. The very appearance of such a carriage engages the good-will of the post-masters and the post-boys, and affords the traveller the best chance of being driven cheerfully and rapidly along : whilst a heavy clumsy-looking vehicle is criticised and complained of at every sta- tion ; and is made the pretext for every delay, whether occasioned by the laziness of the postillion, or the feebleness of the horses. There is another inconvenience which travellers often inflict upon themselves, against which we had been careful to guard ; I mean, a superfluity of luggage. A number of loose parcels and packages is a positive and serious evil on a long journey. The space which they occupy, and the care which they require, are an annoyance as long as they happen to be preserved ; and the gradual and successive loss of them, which inevitably takes place at every inn on the road, is a source of continual vexation and regret. Experi- enced travellers well know how important it EVIAN. ST, GINGOUX. 3 is to their comfort to carry nothing with them but what is quite indispensable ; and to pack what they do carry in the smallest compass possible, only keeping at hand the maps and books for which they may have constant occasion. We slept at Evian. The next morning being rainy, we were for some time de- prived of the magnificent prospect from the publick walk called the Terrasse ; but the weather soon cleared up, and we were pleased beyond measure with the scenery on the road to St. Gingoiix. A beautiful lake on the left ; on the right, high moun- tains, under the shelter of which arose a range of diversified hills, crowned with old castles, towers, churches, villages, and pea- sants' cottages ; nearer at hand, fields and meadows, adorned with the most pic- turesque of European trees — the chestnut ; all combined to render this part of our journey in the highest degree delightful, and to make us wish that the scenery of Italy might not charm us less than that of the country between Evian and St, Gingoux. THE VALAIS. The Valais presents a very different as- pect. There nature seems to have done her utmost to deter man from fixing his habitation. Frequent falls of enormous rocks from the summits of the impending mountains ; immense accumulations of ice and snow which threaten the hopes of every year, and often overwhelm and de- stroy in an instant the collected produce of painful labour, and of persevering indus- try*; an ungrateful soil; an unwholesome climate ; all these warnings have been given in vain. Man has perversely braved them all ; and the seal of his punishment seems to have been stamped on the disgusting countenances of a great part of the popu- lation of this ill-omened country. No sight can be imagined more repulsive than the moving masses of flesh and blood which continually meet the eye ; unless it be * A huge rock had lately rolled down across the high- way, and so completely obstructed the passage, that it had been necessary to cut a new road around it. All the crops had failed at once ; the harvest, the vintage, the chestnuts, in short, every tiling. The dreadful disasters which have since been occasioned by the last inundation, are fresh in every body's recollection. CASCADE OF PISSEVACHE. THE TRIENT. O the hideous grin which distinguishes them from the brute creation, and by which the stranger is shocked to be reminded that they are one of the varieties of his own species. The waterfall of Pissevache is a fine ob- ject, and well deserves to be examined, though it is not comparable to any of the three falls of the Reichenbach, in the valley of Meyringen*. It has, however, this great advantage, — that it may be closely approached, and seen in profile ; in which point of view, a cascade appears in its greatest beauty. A little further the river Trient gushes through a narrow pass between two moun- tains, which appear to have been originally a single mass, split asunder by some con- vulsion of nature. I narrowly escaped paying dearly for the gratification of exa- mining this extraordinary fissure ; having contrived with some difficulty to clamber up to the summit of a steep rock, from whence I made several hazardous and * In the Ciinton of Berne. 6 SION. fruitless attempts to descend, the tufts of grass and moss to which I clung for sup- port giving way within my grasp. At length I was fortunate enough to attract the notice of a peasant, whom I called to my assistance, and by whose guidance and aid I was extricated from this awkward situation. It was completely dark when we arrived at Sion, where we rested for the night. On retiring to bed, I observed a man walking to and fro in the passage, whose sinister countenance excited in me the suspicion of his being a robber : this suspicion I commu- nicated toN (my fellow-traveller), who, though he rallied me on my pretensions to physiognomical science, was not the less careful to secure the door of our sleeping- room in the best manner that he could. His care, however, was rendered superflu- ous. We incurred no risk of being sur- prised in our sleep ; for we were kept awake till day-light, by a German and his wife, who lay in an adjoining room, and who were loudly disputing at intervals, during the whole of the night, which of them SION. should get up to let into their room a wretched little cur, which had been shut out when they went to bed ; and which filled up the occasional pauses in the contention between its master and mistress, by its own hideous howlings for admittance. The next morning before breakfast, we walked up a pretty high hill near the town, to examine the noble ruins of two castles in the midst of most picturesque scenery. The ascent to them is extremely steep ; and we returned from our excursion exhausted with hunger and fatigue. There was an incon- venience in this, of which we had not an- ticipated the full extent : for not only was the inn so crowded that we had great dif- ficulty in procuring any breakfast at all ; but we found it prudent to leave half- finished even the very bad meal which had been set before us, in order that we might get the start of Lord and Lady Cowper and their family, who were travelling the same road, and by whose pre-occupation of the post-horses, if we had suffered them to precede us, our progress must have been considerably delayed. 8 BRIG. CASCADE OF THE YELCHBACH. Our postillion frequently dismounted on this part of the road, to climb into the vine- yards to gather some very sour grapes. At the distance of a mile or two from Sierre, he fell in with a friend of his, who ran on foot by the side of the horses, for the sake of conversation. We heard them talking with great earnestness of the reported arrest of a person at Sion, whom I soon recognized from their description to be the same indi- vidual whom I had observed at the inn on the preceding evening. Having reached Brig in good time, we resolved to walk to the other side of the Rhone before dinner ; and the fineness of the evening tempted us to prolong our excursion. We passed through the village of Maters, and ascended a hill of a re- markably picturesque appearance, where we found a most beautiful waterfall, form- ed by the Yelchbach. The number of streams into which the river divides, and the almost impenetrable thickets through which they flow, made it impossible to ap- proach the foot of the cascade ; so that we could only admire it at a distance. This, THE YELCHBACH. — INN AT BRIG. 9 however, did not satisfy me. I was de- termined to obtain a nearer view of it from the rocks above ; in attempting which, I found myself embarrassed among the pre- cipices, much in the same manner as I had been at the Trient, and in a situation where a false step would have been my destruction. N had not been able to follow me in my ascent, — his imperfect recovery from a lameness having obliged him to restrain his ardour for pedestrian enterprises ; and he began to be seriously alarmed at my stay, the noise of the waterfall having pre- vented him from hearing my answers to his repeated shouts. The sun had already set ere I succeeded (by dint of rolling and tumbling down the precipice) in rejoining him in safety ; and I resolved that this should be the last adventure of the kind. But the cascade of the Yelchbach is a delightful spot, and well deserves a travel- ler's notice. On our way back to Brig, we had the snowy summits of Ganters in our view, still tinged with the last rays of the sun, which imparted to them that exquisite rosy tint so 10 INN AT BRIG. much admired on Montb/anc, as seen after sun-set from Geneva. We were, on the whole, perfectly delighted with our walk ; but it was an enjoyment not without its cost. The inn, which was empty on our arrival, had by this time filled to such a degree, that poor Madame Calvet, our land- lady, hardly knew what she was about. Our dinner had been given, in our absence, to other travellers; and that which she had prepared to replace it, we requested her to give to Lord Cowper's children, who were still less able than we were to suffer the pains of hunger. We received a visit in the evening from Mr. L , a Welsh gentleman, whom 1 had known in Switzerland, and who came to propose that we should form a caravan for the next day, as there was great probability that we should be attacked by robbers, if we crossed the Simplon in single carriages. He informed us that Mr. O , an elderly gentleman who was travelling with his wife, had been on the point of engaging an Ita- lian courier at Geneva, whom he after- INN AT BRIG. 11 wards rejected, in consequence of informa- tion from the police that he was a danger- ous person ; that the man had ever since pursued Mr. O from inn to inn, always taking his night's lodging at the same place, and in the same house ; that in this manner he had overtaken Mr. O on the preceding night, at Sion ; where the lat- ter, in the hope of disembarrassing himself of his pursuer, had offered to leave some money for him with the landlord, deliver- able twenty-four hours after Mr. O 's departure ; that this offer had been re- fused, and that the man had just ar- rived at Brig, From Mr. L 's descrip- tion of the man, I immediately discovered that it was the same ill-looking individual who had excited my suspicions at Sion : and shortly afterwards I found him, to my dismay, in close conference with our postillion, when 1 went down to fix with the latter the hour of our departure in the morning. We immediately examined our magazine of arms, which N — - — had un- dertaken to provide and superintend ; and we found, to my great mortification, thai 12 ROBBERS ON THE SIMPLON. though we had, indeed, a brace of good- looking pistols, we had neither balls, nor gunpowder. Happily our means of de- fence were not put to the trial ; the fellow, indeed, met us, three or four times on the road across the mountain, where the short cuts of the foot-path gave him a consider- able advantage ; but he neither attacked us, nor Mr. O — , whose man-servant sat on the coach-box, armed at all points, and prepared for action. Whether it was that he only chose to frighten the old gentleman, or that he failed in meeting with the associates whom he ex- pected, (as the late attack upon Mr. Tho- mas Hope's carriage in open day had awakened the police, and obliged the ban- ditti to greater prudence,) I cannot tell; but I learnt from our post-boy, that the landlord at Brig having, on the preceding night, sent word to his postillions, who were drinking with an Italian friend of theirs, that they should be sent to prison if they did not immediately separate; two of the postillions had thereupon deserted to Glise. This, I thought, sounded ill : I affected, how- ever, not to pay much attention to it ; but THE SIMPLON. — BUONAPARTE. 13 half an hour afterwards, I contrived to lead the conversation again to the subject of highwaymen, and said, that those who at- tacked us, would be sadly disappointed, for that we had barely enough to take us to Milan : the lad upon this assured me, with a serious countenance, that we had acted very imprudently in taking so little money, as we might be most cruelly treated by the robbers, if they were disappointed of their expected booty. It is time that I should say something of the famous road over the Simplon; though, indeed, so much has already been said re- specting it, that I might perhaps be excused for passing it over in silence ; the rather as I unfortunately do not participate in the extraordinary enthusiasm, which the very mention of it generally excites. I have met with numbers of sensible men who could not speak of this work of Buonaparte but in terms of the most extravagant admiration. And I have even found persons who had not seen the work, ready to quarrel with any one who could suppose that there was any undertaking in the world to becompared 14 THE SIMPLON, AND BUONAPARTE. with it. It is, I am sorry to say, almost exclu- sively amongst the English that I have met with these enthusiastick admirers of every thing which is in any way connected with the name of that tyrant, to whose overthrow they have so mainly contributed. I really believe that many of them imagine that they are thus exhibiting only a generous liberality ; but to me it appears the most unaccountable of all foibles. To raise an humbled but generous foe, is, indeed, a noble act ; but to profess extravagant ad- miration for a cruel despot, the avowed enemy of freedom and of every liberal sen- timent, is unworthy of the inhabitants of a free country. If the road over the Simplon were the first work of the kind ever thought of, one might, though detesting the character, ad- mire the genius, of the man who had de- signed and accomplished it. But there existed previously many other roads of the same description, some of them much more admirable, when considered with reference to the great disparity of the means with which they were accomplished, — a circum- THE SIMPLON, AND BUONAPARTE. 15 stance which ought never to be lost sight of. Buonaparte ordered some hundreds of his slaves to cut a road over the Simplon, similar to those which existed in several other parts of the Alps and Apennines. It cost him, perhaps, sixty or eighty of his men, who were crushed by the falling of some of the galleries, or blown into the air by the blasting of the rocks. What was that to him — who, according to his own account, had a disposable annual income of 120 or 150,000 lives? It cost him be- sides, a few millions of francs ; but who believes that either he, or any of his crea- tures, deprived their tables of a single morsel of bread towards its completion ? Besides, what was pecuniary expense to one who disposed, at his pleasure, of almost all the public and private treasures of Europe ? Never can I profane my admiration, by bestowing it on the works of mere despotic will, acting upon the persons and fortunes of so many millions of men ! Never can J bring myself to admire what I hate; and most cordially do I hate unlimited power, lie who possesses it by the chance of birth, 10 USURPATION, AND LEGITIMACY. may often set little value upon it — may sometimes even take pleasure in fixing limits to its exercise; and in that case, (as Madame de Stael very justly observed, in speaking of the present Emperor of Russia,) his personal character becomes a Consti- tution for his subjects. But he who seizes it in opposition to every right, and without any other title than that of brutal force, will inevitably be a tyrant. I should be sorry to be considered as hating this man merely as an usurper, and from an ardent love for what is called legitimacy. What I hated in him was, not so much his usurpation, as the use he made of it. As to the thing itself, whoever has read history, must be strangely blinded by prejudice or by passion, to make much noise about modern usurpations. What has there been else in the world, since the world began ; and what sort of a figure would many of the present Sovereigns of Europe now make, if their ancestors had been particularly nice and scrupulous on this subject? By what right did the Car- lovingians hold the Crown of France ? By USURPERS, AND POPES. 17 what right did the present dynasty supplant them? What was William the Conqueror's title to the English throne ? — But that which most surprises me, (or, to speak more accu- rately, that which would surprise me, if any contradiction in the human mind could do so,) is to hear so many staunch papists raise an outcry against what so many Popes have sanctioned by their authority and their ex- ample. Who but a Pope crowned Pepin? Who but a Pope crowned his worthy son, the assassin and usurper, Charlemagne? Who but a Pope ordered the coronation of that most execrable of usurpers, Charles of Anjou ? Surely Louis IX., of whom they have made a Saint, and one of the holiest of the whole legion, must have known what was proper for a good Catholick to do and to approve. If he had considered usurpa- tion as so black a ('rime, would he have fur- nished his brother with the means of exer- cising at Naples and in Sicily, those rare talents for oppression and judicial murder, which in Provence had enrolled his name amongst those of the bloodiest tyrants? Against which oi the Kmperors did the VOL I ( 18 USURPERS, AND POPES. Popes display the most inveterate malice, and direct the most furious persecutions ? Against those, of course, who claimed the Imperial Crown by legitimate hereditary right. — I might fill volumes with examples of their exciting, fomenting, nay preaching, rebellion against legitimate Sovereigns; and of their befriending, caressing, and crown- ing usurpers. But how could it be other- wise? How else could they themselves have presumed to usurp to their own private be- nefit so large a portion of Italy, and to arrogate to themselves the right of dispos- ing of all the Crowns in the world ? Far be it from me, therefore, to reproach any Roman Catholick Sovereign, for acting upon such respectable authorities, and following such high precedents ! My inten- tion is merely to shew the necessitv ofmu- tual indulgence, and to recommend some degree of equity in political judgments ; if, indeed, politics and equity are not more irreconcileable, than usurpation and here- ditary right. To return to the Simplon, — from which I was not much more distant in thought THE SFMPLON AND BUONAPARTE. 19 than in reality, when these reflections oc- curred to me ; — it is the work of an usurper, and could not be that of a legitimate sove- reign. Monsieur de Chateauvieux, in his Letters on Italy, hints at one of Buona- parte's chief objects in multiplying the means of communication between the dif- ferent parts of Europe, namely, that of an- nihilating the boundaries which nature (or, to speak more religiously, which God) had interposed between them. This puts me in mind of a strange German novel, called " Baron Fleming, Junior'," the hero of which wisely resolves to restore the human race to what he considered its primitive beauty, by preventing from marrying, every man or woman on his estates who had not flaxen hair and an aquiline nose; a whim which causes in the end the most dreadful dis- orders. The attempt to force all the nations of the earth under one yoke, and to blend them into one uniform race of slaves, is not much more absurd than the scheme for ex- tirpating brown eyes and black hair from the future generations of a German barony. But what would be merely ridiculous in a C 2 20 ROAD OVER THE SIMPLON. country gentleman, is atrocious and into- lerable in a sovereign despot. The road from Brig to the top of the mountain is very like the ascent of Mount Jura, on the side of France. The prin- cipal difference between them, lies in the greater depth of the precipices of the Sim- plon, and in the greater elevation of theroad, which leads the traveller close to the bor- ders of some of the glaciers. But I have seen nothing in any country with which I can compare the descent on the Italian side. There, it constantly runs along the foot of precipices, and is overhung by tremendous rocks, huge fragments of which (some of them of forty cubic feet and more), lay scat- tered on each side of the way, affrighting the traveller with evidences of the danger to which he is exposed. There are many points of view highly picturesque, and se- veral really sublime ; but in its general effect it is like travelling between two walls of 6 or 7,000 feet in height ; and the head aches, at length, from the fatigue of having to look up so high for a view of the sky. Besides, the road, which we had found ROAD OVER THE SIMPLON. 21 very smooth on the Swiss side of the moun- tain, was here so horribly rugged, that we were really astonished how the carriage could sustain the violent shocks which it re- ceived. Perhaps the road may have been since improved by the repairs which were then in progress. But the number of work- men employed seemed barely sufficient to remove the principal obstructions, in places where enormous masses of rock, falling from the tops of the mountains, had broken and blocked up the passage; and it may be doubted, whether the king of Sardinia will be able to keep the road in repair with the produce of the toll, which is only six franks for each horse. I cannot imagine why he does not take advantage of the rage of the day, to impose a four or five fold duty ; which would undoubtedly be paid by the same number of travellers, though there might perhaps be some diminution of the receipts from the carriers of merchandise. 22 CHAPTER U. Entrance into Italy . — Valleys of V also and Tosa. — Domo d'Ossola. — Excursion on the Lago Maggiore. — The Borromean Islands. — Arona. — Como. — Beggars. — Beautiful Scenery of the hake of Como. — Villas and Towns upon its Banks. — The Pliniana. — The Capmna, &c. — Cadenabbio. — Road from Como to Milan. ALTHOUGH, like every Swiss, I am a great admirer of wild scenery, I must confess I was satiated with it in the descent of the Simplon ; and I was truly glad to leave those dark abysses, for the beautiful smil- ing valley of Valso ; which afforded a de- lightful relief both to my mintl and my eyes, by its charming verdure diversified with white houses, by the pleasing undula- tions of its surface, and by the graceful festoons of vine which adorn its trees. From thence we entered the vallev of Tosa, which is no less agreeable, and which leads to a vast plain extending all the way to Dotjio d'Ossola. Beimr a market-day. DOMO d'ossola. 23 the road was covered with people; and never did I see so many ugly faces in so short a space of time. Now and then, how- ever, there were some few exceptions ; and the children in general were handsome and graceful, and had a certain classical air which, to our tastes, rendered them not unworthy to figure in an Italian landscape. We were peculiarly struck with the elegant shape, the glossy skin, and (if I may so call it) the intelligent and animated appear- ance of the horned cattle. The goats, too, are remarkable for their graceful sleek- ness and their resemblance to deer. The inn at Domo cfOssola gave us no favourable foretaste of those we were to find in Italy : it is worse than the worst in the Valais. The rooms are paved with flat stones ; the beds were without curtains, and of a dismal appearance ; and the ugh we had a great variety of dishes at supper, not one of them was tolerably dressed. Mr. O 's persecutor arrived at this inn close at his heels; but from this time we ceased to hear any thing further res- pecting him. 21 LAGO MAGGIORE. BORROMEAN ISLANDS. We left Domo d'Ossola, on the morning of Sunday, the 6th of October ; took rather an expensive than a good breakfast at Or- ?wvasco, and proceeded as far as Bavino, where we exchanged our carriage for a boat, and embarked on the Lago Maggiore. Our first visit on the lake was to the ce- lebrated Isola Bella. This island is alto- gether artificial, and contains a large but very ill-looking palace in the worst taste of architecture, with a pyramid of terraces and flower-gardens, raised one above an- other. There is no shade, except in one small place near the margin of the lake, where some very fine laurel-trees grow, on one of which Buonaparte's name was carved, — it is said, by himself, on his way to (or from) Marengo. The next island in importance is the lsola Madre, which being unaided by art, and left to the embellish- ments of nature alone, must deserve the preference on that account ; but, as it lay at a considerable distance, and as our cu- riosity had been much abated by our dis- appointment at the lsola Bella, w T e did not visit it. The lsola dci Pescadori. or Fishers LAGO MAGGIOllE. ARONA. 25 Island, contains nothing but a heap of dirty houses ; and the Isola di San Giovanni is only a very small rock on which there is hardly room for a few willows which have been planted there. But if we saw little to admire in those famous Borromean Islands, which, in their bloom of youth, enchanted travellers and inspired poets, we were at least quite charmed with the Lago Maggiore, and its beautiful prospects : it is exactly of the size and of the form one would choose, if it were to be created anew ; large enough not to be encumbered by its islands, nor so large as to preclude a distinct view of the towns, villages, and private houses, on its opposite shores. The road by the water-side is extremely beautiful, and runs on a sort of terrace, as far as Aiwia, at the lower end of the lake. About a mile from this tOAvn is the statue of St. Charles Boiromeo, conspicuously placed on a high hill, with its back turned to the traveller. When we came near enough to sec the statue in profile, we could neither of us restrain our laughter a! the ridiculous size of the Saint's enormous 26 AHONA — SESTO CALENDE. nose; and afterwards going to look at it in front, we were no less amused with the prodigious length of his ears. This statue, which is of brass, and twenty-two feet high, does great honour in many re- spects to the talent of the artist ; but he surely carried his honest scruples a little too far, in thinking himself obliged to make the personal defects of his holy model as prominent as possible. Arona has little to boast of except the exquisite beauty of its situation. The pros- pects of the lake, which it affords, are quite enchanting; and as the inn seemed a tole- rably good one, we determined to stay there for the night. We dined on most de- licious fish called agoni (which, I believe, is pe?xh 9 but in that case the perch of the Lago Maggiore is infinitely superior to that of any other) and we found the enormous beds of the inn extremely comfortable. The next morning, Monday, the 7th of October, we crossed the Ticino, at Sesto Ca- lende, where we breakfasted*. The cross- road from thence to Varese was hardly pass- * The passage costs one trunk per horse. COMO. 21 able; but at Varese, which is a very pretty little town, we again came into the imperial road which is truly admirable; and arrived at Como early enough to visit the Cathedral before dinner. It contains several good pictures, most of them by Luino. One of the prebendaries* very politely came up to us, showed us what he thought most deserv- ing of our attention, and then invited us to accompany him to his own house situated on a hill at a short distance from the town, to see his collection of paintings, which proved to be so numerous, that we could not have examined the whole in less than a week. There appeared to be, as is usual in similar cases, a great majority of inferior works with a few pieces of very high merit ; and we were less pleased with the prebendary's paintings than with the prospect from his house, and his extreme politeness. He offered us refreshments, which we declined; and returning to our inn, we got a very good dinner, but very indifferent beds. The town of Como itself is not remark- able for its beauty ; but, had it been as mag- * II Signor Cappi. 28 COMO. — THE LAKE. nificent as Petersburgb, we could not have enjoyed it, besieged as we were at every step by crowds of beggars, whose numbers every donation seemed to double, and who hardly left us room either to move or to breathe. The next morning, Tuesday, the 8th of October, we disembarrassed ourselves of this plague by embarking on the lake in a boat with four pair of oars. One of our boat-men took great pains to entertain us duringthe voyage with anecdotes and stand- ing jests against Germans, country parsons, and the Princess of Wales. But we paid little attention to him, being rapt in admi- ration of the scenery round us. Nothing can be more enchanting at first sight, than the panoramic view from the lake at a little distance from the shore. It is surrounded with hills covered with woods, villages, and palaces ; the green of nature being here, as in other landscapes on this side the Alps, beautifully spangled with the silvery white- ness of the dwellings of man. The palace of the Princess of Wales lies on the shore opposite to Coino, and has LAKE OF COMO. 29 grand appearance at a distance ; but it is far from being a desirable habitation. The heat in summer, the frost in winter, and the mountain torrents in spring and au- tumn, make it, by turns, as disagreeable a residence as a palace can be. Her Royal Highness seldom spends there more than two or three days at a time, though she has laid out immense sums in roads, as well as in repairs and alterations of the palace. As we were told that no Englishmen were ad- mitted, and as N 's curiosity was not powerful enough to induce him to disguise, even for a few minutes, a circumstance on which he particularly prided himself, we did not attempt to land in the face of Her Royal Highnesses Hungarian guards; but kept near the eastern shore of the lake which offers the greatest number of inter- esting places to visit. The first villa on the eastern side is that of the Marchc.se di Cornaggio ; who has erected a small pyramid in his garden, as a monument to the memory of a faithful dog, by whose courage his life was saved in an encounter with robbers. 30 LAKE OF COMO. At a short distance from thence, we landed to seethe Plinia?ia, so called from the younger Pliny's description of its spring. It is certainly a charming place; but the remembrance of that amiable author, and the idea that he perhaps composed, in this very spot, some of the sweetly-flowing prose which no admirer of elegant writing and sound morality can read without loving him, contributes materially, no doubt, to render it attractive. At all events, the Pli- niana would have one very serious incon- venience as a residence ; that of dampness, by which all the family portraits of the Ca- ?iavisi, to whom it belongs, are completely spoilt. Farther on we saw Lazzino della Mala Fortuna, where it is said that no sun is seen during three months in winter, and no moon during three months in summer; it is the only village near the lake, whose houses are not white- washed. We next landed at the foot of the village of Nesso, where we saw one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Europe. The basin which it forms filled up the whole space LAKE OF COMO. 31 before it, so that we could not get a near view of it 3 without going into the water. I accepted the proposition of one of our boatmen to take me on his shoulders : but as soon as he entered the water, he be- gan to tremble so violently, either from the cold, or from the fear of letting me fall, that he could not advance. I then went up to the village, every house of which is a mill, and offers a different and most delightful prospect. 1 entered into several of them and found the people ex- tremely friendly, and much pleased with my admiration of their native place. Be- yond the village is a fine meadow, across which I saw another waterfall ; but I had not time to go up to it, as N was wait- ing for me in the boat. We went from thence to Bellaggio, a castle belonging to the Dukes of Sorbellone- Sfondrate. The ruins of the castle are situ- ated on the top of a high hill between the lakes of Como and Lecco, just where they meet; and, from that spot, we enjoyed a truly magnificent prospect. The modern fabrick is built much lower down, and is 32 LAKE OF COMO. not remarkable for any architectural beau- ties. We did not go into it, but only stopt on a bench under the gateway, to eat some half ripe Mai voisi grapes and hard peaches. Our guide was an elderly woman of an enormous size, whose agility was strangely at variance with her figure, and gave us a high opinion of the healthiness of the place. Our next visit was to Fiume Lato, a consi- derable torrent which, issuing from a rock, rushes impetuously down to the lake. After this we landed at the Capuana, a villa which some say belonged to Pliny, but it did not appear to us to possess any peculiar charms. But I must, in fairness, confess, that we bes;an to be fastidious cri- ticks ; being tired with the labours of the day, and having almost exhausted our ad- miration upon other objects. It would have been impossible, however, not to admire the beautiful Vill VENETIAN BEGGARS. at Vieenza, — for that natural cheerfulness which is one of the chief characteristicks of a Venetian, has not yet abandoned this class ; and I have often smiled at the lively and even joyous countenances of the children who came skipping along, to beg for the means of procuring their first morsel of food for the day. The poorest class lives almost exclusively on pumpkins, of which there are two sorts. The first and cheapest is that round and insipid kind, which is known all over Europe : it is called Zucca barucca, and a slice of it costs only one centime, equal to the tenth part of a penny. It is miserable food, but five or six slices during the day, are sufficient to keep body and soul together. The other sort is called Zucca Santa : it is more substantial, less insipid, and proportionally dearer ; and is the favourite and usual food of that portion of the lower classes who are just above begging. Its form is that of a very long pear, its taste is not unlike that of a carrot, and the rind, when fried, forms a sort of resinous substance which is esteemed a great delicacy by VENETIAN BEGGARS. 127 the pumpkin-caters. These pumpkins or gourds are sold, ready fried, in three or four different moveable stalls in every street : you cannot go ten paces, without meeting with some. They afford perhaps a less savoury, but certainly a more whole- some nourishment, than the greasy and dirty fritters, of which the Amsterdam beggars are so fond, and to which they add a nauseous decoction of endive, dignified with the name of coffee, — a beverage for- tunately unknown to the poor people of Venice. I am persuaded that laziness is not among the chief causes of this prodigious degree of mendicity. The character of the nation is alone sufficient to repel such a charge ; the lower classes arc remarkably lively, cheerful, and active ; you cannot stop a minute in the streets, without being beset by a dozen of men or boys eager to ask your commands; and at night you meet them provided with an umbrella and a lantern ready to accompany you for two pence or three pence to any part of the town ; they are easily satisfied, and never 128 VENETIAN BEGGARS. attempt to overcharge you. Surely such people do not deserve to be reduced to beg- gary ! I cannot, however, pretend to say that there are none among them who counter- feit misery. The day after our arrival I was roused by the most piteous cries I had ever heard. A woman under my window was exclaiming "Oh! God! oh! God! wretch " that I am ! Here am I starving for want " of a morsel of bread, and no christian " soul will save me ! " I was shocked be- yond expression, leaped out of bed, tiew to the window, and threw her all the small coin I had, wrapt in a piece of paper : she took it up, coolly unfolded the paper, put the money into her pocket, and — instead of run- ning, as I doubted not she would, to the nearest baker's, to appease her hunger, she only went a little farther along the street, and then repeated exactly the same words, with the same accent of despair. I could have beaten her, lor the bitter feelings she had excited. — But the num- ber of these skilful actors is very small ; that of real, unfortunate, helpless beg- gars is immense, and cannot but daily CAUSES OF THE DECAY OF VENICE. 129 increase. It is utterly impossible, that a city built in the midst of the sea, can subsist by any other means than independence and commerce. The former has been de- stroyed ; the latter is sacrificed to the pro- sperity of Trieste. If there ever was a city which deserved the respect of all Europe for the wonderful spirit of liberty which gave it birth, — for the glorious deeds by which it distinguished itself, during so many ages, — for the firm and constant ad- herence to those principles which preserved it amidst the most violent political storms by which so many changes were wrought in the great and more powerful monarchies around it, — if there ever was one which its geographical situation alone ought to have saved, that town was Venice ; and after ages (if our own does not wash away the stain) will be amazed that the grasping ambition of one Power could obtain such a victim from the culpable concessions of its Allies. This cowardly political murder will brand with eternal infamy the names of its abettors; and more particularly of those who knew, or who oughtto have known, VOL. 1. K 130 DECAY OF VENICE. the value of liberty, and who professed themselves the champions of independence. Russia might possibly have fancied that Venice would be happy under the dominion of Austria ; but England could not think so. The partition of Poland found some apologists, in consequence of the internal dissensions by which that kingdom had been previously torn ; but the ruin of Venice will find none, except among the flatterers of those who consented to it. There are many noble and handsome churches in Venice ; it did contain also a great many splendid palaces, some of which are yet inhabited, but the greater part are deserted or left to decay. In such cir- cumstances, who can wonder that there is so little society here, notwithstanding that the Venetians are the most agreeable com- panions in the world. The ladies receive no company at home ; but it is not unusual for them to visit the coffee-houses, and par- ticularly that of Florian, after the play, which is seldom over before midnight ; and to spend two or three hours there with their acquaintance. The countess Albrizzi^ VENETIAN SOCIETlf. 131 however, to whom we had letters of intro- duction, is an exception to the general rule, and sees parties at her own house ; but she was out of town when we arrived, and only returned the very day that we left Venice. Our bankers, Messrs. S and W , were liberal and obliging to us as their customers ; but they did not show us the least civility as strangers. We dined also with Messrs. D , to whom we had been introduced by a friend of theirs, and found them extremely kind, and attentive : they, however, are French gentlemen ; and cannot, though they have lived in Venice from their earliest infancy, be considered as specimens of Venetian society. Those of the natives with whom we had an oppor- tunity, during our stay, of contracting any acquaintance, (chiefly at the coffee-houses or at the tables where we dined,) were ex- tremely agreeable. The Venetians are cer- tainly an affectionate, kind-hearted set ol beings, very cheerful, lively, active, fond of pleasure, of music, dancing, dress, and every thing that is gay. Almost all the young men of eighteen or twenty years of K 2 132 CHARACTER OP THE VENETIANS. age, play on the guitar, and give serenades every evening to the young females of their acquaintance. Of course, jealousy will sometimes interfere on those occasions, and blows ensue, but their affrays are seldom bloody. On the whole, they are an amiable people ; but God knows how long they will continue so, — how long they will be able to bear up against the dreadful evils which the last political arrangements of Europe have inflicted upon them. Amongst the few very rich men in Ve- nice (few I mean in comparison with former times) is Mr. Manfrin, the son of a late merchant who made a large fortune. This gentleman makes a noble use of the riches left him by his father : his palace contains a most beautiful collection of paintings, to which he continues adding whatever mas- ter-pieces money can procure. Seven large rooms are already full of these magnificent embellishments ; and there will be more in a few years. The most remarkable of these paintings — those at least which I was most struck with, were the following : 1. Noah leaving the Ark, by Raphael. MR. manfrin's picture. 133 The animals are very ill designed ; but the head of the second father of mankind is truly sublime, and worthy of the artist to whom it is attributed; the majesty of his countenance is such as no words can do justice to. 2. The judgment of Midas, by Guido Reni. Nothing can be imagined more brilliant than the beauty of the youthful God. Health, genius, and enthusiasm, combine to make him incomparable; and his graceful- ness is not impaired even by playing on a violin. One of the by-standers is likewise re- markable for the beauty of his countenance. 3. Lucretia in the act of stabbing herself by the same artist. She seems to yield to necessity, rather than to follow an heroic choice; and her eyes upbraid the Gods who oblige her to quit this life. She is ad- mirably beautiful, and inspires the liveliest compassion. 4. Another Lucretia, by Luca Giordano. No less beautiful than the former ; but she looks determined, and there is not the least regret of life, nor the least appear- ance of hesitation in her countenance ; so 134 MR. manfrin's pictures. that she raises feelings of admiration, not of pity, and forms a very happy contrast to the preceding picture. 5. A very small, but exquisitely beau- tiful, Descent from the Cross, by Raphael. 6. A Mary Magdalen, by Correggio, which is perfectly delightful. 7. The flight into Egypt, by Ludovico Caracci. 8. A magnificent portrait of Ariosto, by Titian. 9- Another of a Spanish Organist, by Velasquez. 10. A Madonna, by Previtali (if I mistake not,) remarkable for the beauty of her fea- tures. 1 1 . A head of St, John the Baptist, dread- fully interesting. 12. Several charming landscapes, by Dietrich. There are doubtless many others which deserve to be noticed, but I went only twice, and had not sufficient leisure to be- stow a careful examination upon the whole collection. Much trouble has been saved to the visitors by the care of the landlord, MR. manfrin's pictures. , 135 who has furnished every room with a sort of map of its contents, in four sheets, each sheet giving the plan of one side of the room ; and within the representation of every frame that hangs upon it, is in-" scribed the subject of the painting, and the name of the painter. There is also a sort of spectacles without glasses com- posed of two parallel tubes, which prevent the eye from being dazzled or distracted with surrounding objects, and are ex- tremely useful to look at those paintings which are nearest the ceiling. The palace of the ancient family of Bar- barigo, one of the most illustrious of Ve- nice and noblest in Europe, contains a great many paintings by Titian, some of which are beautiful ; but there are others whose only recommendation is the name of the painter. The finest work that was ever produced by the pencil of Paolo Veronese (or, more properly speaking, Paolo Cagliari, the Ve- ronese) is in the palazzo Pisani ; it repre- sents the family of Darius at the feet of Alexander. This magnificent piece is in 136 VENETIAN PAINTINGS. the very best state of preservation, and im- mense sums have been offered for it in vain. ' There are some good statues in the -Palazzo Grimani ; but the weather was so dark and unfavourable on both the occa- sions when we visited it, that we could only see them very imperfectly. The publick library contains, among other objects of interest, two pieces of sculpture of the greatest beauty ; the one representing Ganymede, which is thought to be the work of Phidias ; the other a very indecent Leda. There are very fine paintings by Luca Giordano, in the church della Salute. The works of Titian and Tiepolo are also met with in almost all the other churches, and in a great many private houses; but as the last-named artists were paid by the day, at the rate of one frank, or ten-pence ster- ling, for whatever they did, they have left numberless works of very little or no merit, which would give a mean opinion of their skill, if other pictures, which they painted for their own account, did not vindicate VENETIAN SCHOOL OV PAINTING. 137 their talents, and command the admiration of all connoisseurs. There were several painters of very great eminence, in what is called the Venetian School ; but all of them, as it appears to me, had some peculiar ble- mishes, which in a great measure spoil the effect of their works and diminish their lustre. The first and most glaring of their defects was, that of always copying from individual nature, instead of working upon their own conceptions of ideal beauty. Their figures, whatever might be the sub- ject they were treating, were invariably portraits of Venetian gentlemen and ladies. They are in consequence remarkable for a certain sameness of feature and expression, which stamp them at once as individuals of the same nation. The women are almost universally represented with too short a face, and too prominent a nose, — which are obvious peculiarities in the Venetians. In the living specimens, these defects are more than compensated by the gracefulness of the attitudes and the animation of the counte- nances of the persons in whom they occur ; but these are charms for which motion and 138 VENETIAN SCHOOL OF PAINTING. speech are indispensable, and which no painting can adequately represent. The second defect is nearly allied to the first : in order to please their employers, they almost always introduced contemporary portraits into their historical paintings, and those not the portraits of the hand- somest persons of the time, or of the fittest subjects for the pencil, but of their patrons and of their connexions, many of whom no painter could represent other- wise than exceedingly ugly. The third fault which I find with the Venetian school I ought perhaps to pass over in silence ; for, as I am no painter, I may be a very imper- fect judge of this part of the art. But by premising that, though a zealous amateur, I do not pretend to the character of a skilful connoisseur, I run no risk of misleading any one in recording my opinions. I think, then, that the colouring is too abrupt (if I may thus translate our French word tran- chant) ; the eye does not glide from one object to another, as in the beautifully smooth and mellow works of the Bo- lognese school ; but is, on the contrary. VENETIAN SCHOOL OF PAINTING. 139 forced to skip from each figure to the next, with an unpleasant shock at every new transition. 140 CHAP. VIII. Venetian Theatres-Singers and Actors — Degraded state of the Drama — Analysis of a laughable Comedy, and of the " Receipt for Misers" — Peculiarities of the Venetian Dialect — Money — Return from Venice to Padua. 1 HERE are six theatres in Venice ; 1 . The largest is that of San Chrysostome, which may contain 2,500 spectators : it has a very singular shape, being neither round nor oval : that part of the house which faces the stage is much broader than the rest, and contains eleven boxes in a straight line, together with two half-boxes at the corners, where the front and the side boxes join. This distribution produces a very awkward effect to the eye ; but it is agree- able to have so many places in front. We found at this theatre a very bad set of actors, who performed operas. 2. The second in size, but the first in rank, is the theatre delta Fenice, which is almost perfectly circular, and extremely VENETIAN THEATRES. 141 handsome ; it may hold about two thou- sand spectators, and is only used during the carnival. 3. The third, of San Benedetto, is oval, much inferior to the last in beauty, but equal in size and capacity. Here we wit- nessed a lamentable drama on the bom- bardment of Algiers; the scenery of which would not have been tolerated at Astley's, or Sadler's Wells. 4. The theatre of San Luca is like the preceding, in size and in shape ; and was occupied by a company of comic actors, who performed tolerably well, though the prima Amoroso, was neither young nor hand- some, and the Amoroso very unattractive. 5. The theatre of Sa?i Moise is ugly and small ; it holds hardly one thousand spec- tators ; but the company who were then performing at it could not have attracted a larger audience, even in the largest theatre in the city, though they performed Rossini's charming opera of Tancredi. The prima Donna, who represented the hero, was the only good singer amongst them ; her name was Marchesini. I was 142 THE SINGER MARCHESINI. told that she was nearly fifty years of age ; and her voice bore witness to the truth of the allegation, whenever she attempted to reach the high notes ; but there are few of such required in her part. In the lower notes her voice was still very fine, though somewhat hard : and she had the agreeable qualification of articulating every syllable so distinctly, that I did not miss a single word of her part. Her face might have looked old in a woman's dress, but, in a sol- dier's it seemed handsome and expressive. Her acting was decent and graceful. She did not indeed pique herself upon very nicely attending to the stage-directions. Her re- citation of the words " lo ti baccio," ad- dressed to her native country, on landing, was uncommonly good, though unaccom- panied with any gesture that could indi- cate even the wish, much less the act of kissing the soil ; and when she afterwards sung with Argyro, these words, " Ah ! if " thou knewest whom thou pressest to thy " bosom/' Argyro was at the other end of the stage, very far from indulging in such tendernesses. But these are trifles in an VENETIAN OPERA SINGERS. 143 opera singer. One Grassini in an age is enough for the pride of Italy ; — not to speak of Catalani, who is likewise, in point of acting, a very superior woman. Mar- chesini had an excellent manner of singing, and ranked high in the best Italian school, — which is not that of the present day. She is sparing of ornaments, which it is now the fashion to lavish profusely on every sort of music almost without discrimination ; and those which she does introduce are good in style and seasonable in their application. In short, she pleased me extremely ; but she was wholly unsupported. The second singer was, perhaps, not quite so old ; but her voice was utterly gone, which I regretted the more, as her method, like that of Mar- chesini, bespoke one of the best scholars of the great school. The tenor was indifferent, but the bass utterly bad. I should have set down the latter for a German, from his pro- nunciation and his frequent faults against prosody, which excited the laughter of the audience, but no expression of dissatisfac- tion. The chorusses were very bad ; nothing but Rossini's charming composition could 144 THE VENETIAN STAGE. have attracted an audience to this theatre ; but Tancredi is, indeed, sufficiently ex- cellent to please, even though ill sung. 6. The sixth theatre, that of San Samuele, was shut up, and we could not see it. It may seem strange, that theatres should receive their names from Apostles and Saints ; but it is the custom at Venice so to baptize them ; and their god-fathers are the patrons of the churches which happen to stand nearest to them. In speaking of the theatres and the plays at Venice, Mr. La Lande savs that nothing but downright farce and gross buffoonery would please in that city ; and that the taste of the people of Italy, and more par- ticularly that of the Venetians, had entirely banished tragical, and even serious, subjects from the stage. In consequence of these observations, which could not fail to please one who likes laughing much better than crying, I longed to see a comedy per- formed at Venice ; and as one was an- nounced on the San Luca play-bill , " tutta da ridere," — all for laughter, — I hastened to that theatre at an early hour to secure a A COMEDY, " TUTTA DA RIDERE." \4>5 good place, quite prepared to laugh my fill. The reader will judge of my temptations to merriment, from the following argument of the play. Count A has a son named Carlo, whom he resolves to marry to Julia, daugh- ter of a very rich man called Federico, because she is to have 100,000 ducats to her portion. The young man, having re- fused this match, has been imprisoned in his own room by his father, who gives out that he has sent him on his travels. At the end of a year, Carlo, tired of his captivity consents to the marriage, and is liberated just at the moment when Federico and his daughter Julia arrive at the Count's house for the purpose of concluding it. Now the supposed travels of the young bridegroom might have afforded matter for some amusing scenes ; but the author en- tirely neglects this opportunity of comic effect, and represents Carlo as so indignant at the manner in which he has been treated that it is impossible to laugh at him. It turns out, moreover, that he has had a little love-affair with a country girl called Rosa- VOL. I. L 146 \ COMEDY, " TUTTA DA RIDERE." lia, by whom he has already two children, and whom he is determined not to abandon. Luckily for him, Julia is on her part despe- rately in love with Gasparino, her father's favourite footman ; and as the latter proves in the end to be Carlo's intimate friend in disguise, there seems to be no difficulty in making their private arrangements for a partie quarree. One would imagine that the play must now be at an end, after a little scolding from the old people : but no such thing : this is only the opening. You are now introduced to the virtuous Rosalia and her little illegitimates, who are introduced sleeping together in one bed on the stage, where they continue during a whole act ! and you further learn (parenthetically) that her father has died of grief at her miscon- duct. This, however, she does not seem to take much to heart ; for she goes on exactly in thesame way with her friend Carlo, who has placed her with a farmer in the neighbourhood of his father's house. But on hearing a report that Carlo is going to be married to Julia, she flies into such a passion ' that when he comes to contradict the story A COMEDY, " TUTTA DA RIDERE." 147 she runs almost mad with rage at the sight of him ; and he has to talk and swear for a good quarter of an hour, ere he can make her listen to him. As soon as the expla- nation is over and he is gone, both Rosalia and the farmer's wife fall a crying ; the latter for joy, and Rosalia for sorrow, at certain sad forebodings which she feels. Nor are those forebodings vain ; for the moment she has sat down to supper with the farmer and his family, four or five ruf- fians rush in and carry away her children, in spite of a most tremendous concert of howlings, vociferations, and screams; strange ingredients for a comedy " tutta da rider el" But this is not all : Rosalia, who learns that the Count himself, Carlo's father, is the author of this violence, runs to his house with a firm determination to strangle him. As she has never seen him, she takes old Federico for him, and is just about to perpetrate her intention, when Julia arrives, who informs her of the mistake and soothes her with assurances of friendship and esteem. Close upon Julia's heels follows Julia's friend Gasparino : next comes the L 2 148 A COMEDY, " TUTTA DA RIDERE." Count with the servant whom he had em- ployed to carry away the babes. As soon as Rosalia sees them, she flies at them in a fury, and tries to kill them; but the Count, who has a numerous set of ruffians at com- mand, laughs her rage to scorn, and orders her to be carried away by'some of his attend- ants, — in spite of his son Carlo, who arrives just apropos to see the order carried into ex- ecution. Old Federico is so much fright- ened at all this, that he runs off with Julia in his arms ; the farmer carries away his wife on the other side ; and the act closed amidst such shouts and bravoes, that I thought the audience had run mad. Sacchi, the proprietor of the theatre, who performed the part of Federico, was loudly called for, and he would undoubtedly have been crowned, if a wreath of laurel had been at hand ; but no laurels, I fear, are likely to grow within the precincts of San Luca. Thus encouraged, the actors went on with the play, — for the whole of what I have described had been crowded into two acts ; and God knows there had been yet little da ridere. In the next act Gasparino A COMEDY, " TUTTA DA KIDERE." 149 is seen at supper (for there is much of sup- per-eating in this play) with the rascally footman of the Count; through whom he makes a feigned proposal to marry Rosalia, take charge of her children, and thus relieve the Count from this troublesome affair ; for the sum of 7,000 ducats ! The bargain is immediately closed, and Gasparino re- ceives the key of Rosalia's dungeon, under pretence of going to make a little love to her before the marriage. He takes old Fe- derico along with him, and the scene then changes to a dungeon, where Rosalia has just fallen senseless on the floor, exhausted with hunger, — for it will be recollected that she had been prevented from eating her supper that evening. Gasparino and old Federico bring her to life again, by pouring some cordial down her throat. Soon after which the Count comes in ; but his tyrannical designs are baffled by the arrival of his son, with an officer and a troop of soldiers, who take Rosalia under their protection, as well as her brats, and place them under that of the law. — The fifth act opens with the Count's attempt to bribe the judge who 150 A COMEDY, " TUTTA DA RIDERE. is to pronounce sentence on this affair, and who happens to be incorruptible : the whole dramatis personae then appear in the court, and each tells his own story ; old Fe- derico acting as Rosalia's advocate. After the pleadings are over, the amours of Gaspa- rino and Julia, though they seem to have no sort of connexion with those of Carlo and his mistress, are voluntarily confessed ; and the good old man Federico, Julia's father, flies into such a passion, talks of such pu- nishnients to be inflicted upon the young couple, seems to consider all those proposed by the Count as so inadequate to the fault, that the latter, delighted with his apparent severity, declares that he will himself follow, with respect to Carlo and Rosalia, the ex- ample which his friend may set him, with respect to Julia and Gasparino : where- upon Federico says to his daughter, " I had " promised to give thee a hundred thousand " ducats, and to leave thee the rest of my " fortune after my death. Take the whole " of my fortune from tiiis very instant. " Increase and multiply." It will be seen that the play is not DECAY OF THE VENETIAN DRAMA, 151 overburdened with moral. That defect might perhaps be overlooked, if the piece were all farce — as the bill announced it; but really, the abominable tyranny of a father and a nobleman, the disobedience of his son, the scandalous conduct of the son's mis- tress, the death of her father, the love of a young lady for one whom she really takes to be a footman, the deceit used by her lover towards the best of men, the atrocious villany of the Count's valet, the despair and rage of a father and mother from whom their children are violently torn, together with attempts at strangling and starving to death, — seem to me most extraordinary contrivances to make people laugh ! How would Mr. Lalande stare, if he saw this, or such a play as this, performed on the very boards which he thought were for ever consecrated to rude jolly mirth ! If the new lords of Venice succeed in changing the manners, language, and grace- ful liveliness of the people, as effectually as they seem to have succeeded already in (hanging their dramatic taste ; it will, indeed, be a noble compensation lor the loss 152 DECAY OF THE VENETIAN DRAMA. of comfort, and of independence ! What a fall in a nation for whom Goldoni composed his beautiful comedies, to tolerate and even to take delight in the low, vulgar, filthy compositions of the school of Kotzebue ! I saw another play, much less immoral and disgusting than this, but yet so Ger- man, and in such a deplorable taste, that I think it right to give its analysis here, as an additional specimen of the present state of dramatic literature in this part of Italy. This play, a most lamentable one like the last, but with some mixture of mirth, is called a Receipt for Misers ; the Miser, however, fills but a very secondary part in it, and only lends his name to the title, in order that it may have something of a comic sound. The plot is as follows : — An unfortunate gentleman has been con- demned to death for a crime of which he is innocent, but of which he has been accused and convicted by the intrigues and perfi- dious manoeuvres of a Minister of State, who lusts after his wife, and failing to ob- tain her favours by any other means, deter- mines on the destruction of all her family. " RECEIPT FOR MISERS." 153 This lady and her three children are repre- sented as actually dying of hunger. An old Jew gives her one ducat for a picture by Titian, which both seller and buyer know to be worth eight hundred, but which the latter (strangely enough) contrives to persuade her is only a copy. Just as the Jew has carried off his purchase, and as the servant is going out to buy some food for the starving family, the miser rushes in and seizes upon the ducat by force, as a part of what is due to him for the lodgings they occupy in his house. Not satisfied with this, he is on the point of driving them all into the street ; when a poor girl, who sup- ports them by her labour, comes and in- duces him, by the sacrifice of her earnings, to take patience for another day. All this is serious enough ; but what is (mite dis- gusting is to hear the old servant, instead of showing the least attachment to his mas- ter's family, constantly crying out, " Give " me something to eat, — I am hungry ; — "give me something to eat:" and when tl>e poor girl, at last, brings the little she has been able to procure, when the mother 154 " RECEIPT FOR MISERS." refuses to touch the least part of it in order that her children may have enough, this buffoon gives each of them a very little bit, and devours all the rest himself. This, I suppose, is meant to be very comic ; for the audience laughed at it. The Emperor Jo- seph is travelling incognito, and, under the disguise of a doctor, is a witness of all that occurs. I may here observe, by the way, that this same Emperor is introduced into so many plays, that one gets quite tired of his ever-stirring, ever-meddling Majesty. The authors, doubtless, intended thereby a compliment to the Imperial family ; but it is a silly custom, and will, I trust, be left off. But, to return to the Receipt for Misers: — 'J 'he unfortunate lady has a cousin, who inhumanly refuses to bestow upon her a morsel of bread, at the same time thai she orders pigeons to be roasted for her little dog, which she places under the care of the supposed doctor. The glut- tonous servant gets alms from the emperor three times, by first covering his right eye, then his left eye, and afterwards pretend- ing to be dumb. The emperor, who knows DECAY OF THE VENETIAN 1MJAMA. 155 him through his disguises, says, on the last occasion, that he has given him money twice already ; whereupon the pretended mute cries out — " No ! those to whom you " gave were blind, but I am dumb ;" which naivete pleases his majesty so well, that he immediately takes the beggar into his ser- vice ! In short, with the help of Francesco Soave's tales, and of more vulgar collections of anecdotes and jokes, the play reaches a fifth act, in which every body is rewarded or punished. But the wicked minister is not only not put to death, but is even pro- mised his pardon ; though he is fully con- victed of having done his best to hang the husband, dishonour the wife, and starve the three children. Poets may kill a ty- rant, and even the best of princes ; but a minister, it seems, is here a sacred per- sonage, however rascally his conduct may be. The worst of all this is, that the Italians, who are excellent comic actors, are really obliged to do violence to their own taste and talents, in composing and performing such vile plays as these. A gentleman amateur made one effort, while we were al 150 VENETIAN STAGE. Venice, to restore the dignity of the stage, by offering to perform the chief part in Alfieri's tragedy of Orestes, which brought a very respectable auditory to the theatre. His voice was too much like that of John Kemble; it was hollow and mo- notonous ; and he carried his action so far as to stroke his own cheeks, to express the caresses which he received from the per- son who saved him in his childhood from the murderers of his father, — in short, he could not name any thing without indicat- ing it with his hands. But he evinced a clear and vigorous conception of the part. Electra was in very bad hands ; Clytemnes- tra had nothing of the queen, except her supposed tallness; Egysthuswas indifferent; and Py lades, though really the best actor of the whole set, was barely tolerable. In spite of all this, the play afforded me real pleasure by its own beauties, which no acting, however bad, can totally disguise. Some of its passages are truly sublime. It has, how ever, one striking defect : Orestes shows too much positive hatred to his mother, whom he seems to class with Egys- VENICE DIALECT. 157 thus in his feelings. Now, if the audience approve of this hard-heartedness, they can- not pity Clytemnestra ; if they pity Cly- temnestra, Orestes must appear inhuman and unnatural. I think it impossible to escape from this dilemma. But Alfieri delighted in such harshness of feature. We visited the noble Dockyard of the Admiralty, with deep feelings of regret for the fallen greatness which, from that place, had sent forth so many glorious expeditions. If time had allowed us to make a longer stay in Venice, we should have taken pri- vate lodgings, or boarded with some fa- mily. Living is not dear, but the taverns (restaurateurs) are very indifferent. There is no other water than that of cisterns ; which, besides being unpleasant to the taste, is apt to produce disagreeable effects upon the health of strangers. The Venetian dialect is extremely agree- able to the ear; there is something in- fantine in the pronunciation, which is full of grace. The g, for example, is almost always pronounced z ; they say doze for doge : zorno for giorno ; zoco for 158 VENETIAN DIALECT. gioco. Sometimes it is pronounced like a y, as venio for vengo ; linguayo for Imguaggio, SfC. They do not pronounce the c like the Tuscans, but like the French and English. Sc is not sounded like the English sh t but like ss ; they say conosso for conosco ; lasso for lascio ; zz is turned into ss, as delica- tessa for delicatezza, §c. The nasal sounds are the same as in the French and Milanese. The last syllable of the participles is cut off, as in sta for stato, magnia for mangiato • and in like manner the second person of the plural in verbs ; which, thus curtailed, and preceded by the pronoun vu for voi, sometimes form complete French to the ear. Thus they say vu save for voi sapete ; vu perderi for voi perderete. They also say il dise for egli diceva, fyc. As no man of taste would form a library without the works of Goldoni, and as those works contain nu- merous specimens of his native language, the Venetian dialect is, on the whole, better known in several countries of Europe than the dialects of their own provinces. Mo- liere, it is true, has now and then intro- VENETIAN DIALECT. 159 duced the patois of various French pro- vinces into his plays ; but then it is only in short scraps ; which may amuse a Pa- risian for the moment, but afford little gra- tification to the curiosity of a linguist. On the English stage also, it has been common, of late years, to introduce the Irish and Scotch, and some of the English country dialects ; — but always incidentally, as in Moliere. Goldoni is the only good author who has written whole characters, and even principal ones, in a language which few people, besides the natives of Venice or of its immediate vicinity, can completely understand. Some critics may blame him fortius ; but to me he appears deserving of praise, for attempting to raise the dialect of his native town to the dignity of a distinct language. With the view of perfecting my acquain- tance with the various dialects, I made a resolution at Venice, which I determined to keep during the whole time of my stay in Italy. It was to take a native servant, wherever I happened to stop, who could not speak any thing but his own provincial 160 VENETIAN DIALECT — MONEY. tongue. I accordingly engaged a Venetian, to accompany us in all our excursions to various parts of the town, to the churches, palaces, and other sights, to go errands, and to attend us at table. By this mean I could soon understand every thing that was said ; and, before I left Venice, could converse with all classes of the inha- bitants, without which, a tolerable know- ledge of the national character is not to be acquired. I paid my servant three lire, or fifteen pence sterling, a day ; with which he was perfectly satisfied, and which made him as careful, as civil, and as atten- tive as a human creature could be. The Venetian lira is worth exactly half a frank, or five pence ; this once known, it would be easy to make up one's accounts in that currency ; but there are several coins which bear denominations quite dif- ferent from their value. — The piece of 26 soldi is called l\ lira, and is worth 66* Italian or French centimes. — That of 17 soldi, called 1 lira, is worth 44 centimes. — That of 2 lire, called 1 lira, is worth 50 centimes. VENETIAN MONEY — RETURN TO PARMA. 161 Gold constantly bears an agio, which varies according to circumstances ; the 40 frank pieces which had cost me no more than 40 fr . 30 c . at Milan, were here worth 41 fr . 28 c ., so that I gained nearly one frank by each of them; but, then, the change for gold pieces being always given in Venetian coins, it is expedient not to exchange at Venice more gold than is necessary for current expenses. We left Venice on Wednesday, the 13th November, at a quarter past nine o'clock in the morning, and landed at Fusina ; where we could get no other vehicle than a very small gig, driven by a man who stood behind. This carriage had, I believe, no springs ; and we really thought we should be shaken out of our skins, when we came to the very rough pavement of Padua. The Golden Eagle, where we had left our carriage was far within the town, and seemed to us like the distant promised land. At length, however, we reached it, without broken bones, at half-past three o'clock ; and we had no sooner seen our rooms, than we has- tened to the church of the Remitani, to re- VOL. i. m 162 PADUA. peat our visit to Guido Reni's St. John. We were so far from making unfavourable com- parisons of this picture, with all the master- pieces we had seen at Venice, that we liked it even better than before ; and the next morning we went again to take our leave of it. 163 CHAPTER IX. Disagreeable Journey from Padua to Ferrara — Ferrara — Excessive Loquacity of the Ferrarans — Excellence of the Opera — Reflections on the Donation of the Countess Matilda, on the Rapa- city of the Popes, and on the Injustice of the late Political Arrangements. YvE set out from Padua for Rovigo, on Thursday, November 14th, at one o'clock, and found the road abominably bad. When we came to Monselice, the postmaster declared that it was absolutely impossible for us to proceed with fewer than four horses ; but, as I was no less peremptory in refu- sing to take them, the dispute ended in our taking three. I might perhaps have carried the point, and obliged him to give us only two ; but it began to be late, and I thought it best to yield in order to avoid the acci- dents which might have happened in the dark. The road was indeed so horrible, that even with three horses we could not reach Rovigo till after it was dark, at about half- M e 164 ROAD FROM PADUA TO FERRARA. past six o'clock. There we got very in- different beds, but a pretty good supper and breakfast. In the morning I was again obliged to fight a hard battle to avoid taking four horses, without which the post- master swore that we could not travel ; but we again compromised the matter by agree- ing to take three, which, to speak the truth, were not too many for the road. The dyke, along which the road lay, had been burst by the water of the Canal Bianco, so that we were obliged to make a circuit of half a mile, between Kovigo and Lago-oscuro. From the latter place the road was, if pos- sible, still worse : I think I never saw mud so deep. We continued of course to travel with three horses, but even they were hard- ly able to drag us through the sloughs ; they stopped several times, and we thought we should never arrive at Ferrara. Had we known what we should have to go through, merely to see a very uninteresting tract of land, I think we should have taken ship at Venice, by which we should have saved time, trouble, and money. It cost us thus far one hundred and ten franks from Padua only. FERRARA. 165 It is true that we had three wide rivers to cross in barges, the Adige, the Canal bianco, and the Po, and we had to pass through some lines of custom-houses (three I be- lieve) all which considerably increased our expenses ; but these would have been in themselves additional reasons for preferring a short sea voyage. We had left Rovigo at a quarter-past nine in the morning, and we only reached Ferrara about four in the after- noon, having consumed nearly seven hours on four posts. Ferrara is, without comparison, the most melancholy town we have yet seen. It contains within its walls a great many mea- dows and gardens, and all the streets in the neighbourhood of the gates are deserted. The inhabitants look pale and emaciated ; nor are they in other respects at all like the Italians we have hitherto seen. But they surpass every nation in talkativeness, of which we had ample proof on our evening's visit to the opera. I never was so much vexed in any theatre by the intolerable lo- quacity of my neighbours. I changed my place five or six times, — begged, entreated lf)6 FERRARA. silence, — but all to no purpose ; though there was at the time an excellent set of singers, and a very good opera, Aurelian in Palmira, composed by Rossini. The musick of this piece is perhaps a little too similar to that of Tancredi, but it is very agree- able, and some parts are quite beautiful, — so far at least as I could judge, amidst the constant buzz around me ; for the talk- ing continued even during the finest pieces, which, I believe, would not have been the case in any other city on this side the Alps. The Prima Donna, Signora Carolina Bassi, who performed the part of the hero Arsaces, had a beautiful contralto voice, very like Catalani's in strength and mellowness of tone ; her upper notes are somewhat less brilliant, but she goes up to C without the least effort. The other prima Donna, la Signora Festa Mqffei, who per- formed the part of Zenobia, had likewise a beautiful voice, and reached the highest G of the grand piano with perfect ease ; both were truly good singers, and the same may be said of the ie?wr, Donzelli. I never saw any thing so extravagant as the hel- FERRARA. 167 mets of the two prime Donne ; each of them was adorned with twenty ostrich feathers of the largest size ; and they were so prodi- giously high, that the ladies under them could hardly keep their balance, whenever they had to move. Besides the opera there was a very pretty ballet ; and among the females one dancer, whose graceful, lively, enchanting coquetry, surpassed any thing I could have imagined. On the whole, this theatre seemed far preferable to any that we had yet seen in Italy ; and, if we had cared for nothing but this advantage, we should have determined to make a longer stay at Ferrara. But charms which were only for our eyes and ears, could not make us forget that we were come in quest of food for the mind, rather than of gratifica- tion for the senses. The public library contains, as might be expected, some manuscripts of Tasso and Ariosto ; but there is little else in the whole town worthy of a traveller's attention. Fer- rara lost every thing when she lost her old Lords of the house of Este, and fell into the hands of the Pope, by virtue of the famous 168 THE COUNTESS MATILDA AND THE POPES. Donation of that old fool, the Countess Matilda. That pretended Donation (for one may take the liberty to question the authenticity of what was called a pious Donation in the eleventh century) may serve as an eternal argument against leaving to females, and particularly to Roman Catho- lic females, the power of ruining their own families in behalf of intriguing confessors, or of the convents for which these insinuating agents try to procure such gifts. She was the daughter and only heiress of Boniface, of Este, Marquess of Tuscany, a cousin of the Marquess Azo, from whom the house of Brunswick draws its origin. She was mar- ried three times, first to Godfrey the Hump- back, Duke of Lorrain, with whom she never cohabited ; secondly, to Azo d'Este, her near relation, from whom she was di- vorced by order of the Pope ; and thirdly, to Welphus V., Duke of Bavaria, also her kinsman, whom she consented to marry only on condition that they should never live together ; — but for all these husbands Pope Gregory VII. indemnified her in his own person. It was for this holy man that she THE COUNTESS MATILDA AND THE POPES. 169 spurned chaster ties, and deprived her own relations of the possessions to which they were by birth entitled. In short, it is asserted, upon the faith of a charter, (of the authenti- city of which, however, there exists no cer- tain proof,) that she made a free and full donation of all her immense inheritance, not to her paramour in his individual capa- city, but to the Holy See of Rome. Among those possessions were Verona, Mantua, Lucca, Parma, Piacenza, Pisa, Spoleto, and Ancona ; in fact, the better half of Italy. Possibly her reputed possessions may have received considerable additions after her death ; for the Popes found it very con- venient, whenever they coveted a particular town or district in the north of Italy, to pretend that ithad belonged to the Countess Matilda, and that it now, consequently, belonged to them. Woe ! to those States which had lost the proofs of their indepen- dence, either through their own negligence, or the treacherous arts of the monks ! they were immediately said to be a part of Matil- da's inheritance ! The Emperors of Ger- many protested loudly against this pretend- 170 POLITICAL INTRIGUES OF THE POPES. ed Donation; and, as they had the power to enforce their protest, they saved a good part of what the Bishops of Rome had marked out for their prey. The house of Este itself, a collateral branch of Matilda's family, re- mained for ages in possession of Modena,to which fortunately their right could not be disputed, — and of Ancona and Ferrara, of which the Popes of the time were unable to dispossess them. At length, however, a circumstance occurred of which the latter determined to avail themselves. Alphonso I., Duke of Ferrara, had three wives, the last of whom was the daughter of a citizen of Modena. It is well known that she had been his mistress before he married her, but it is not doubted that she became his legitimate wife ; and it is clear that she was fully acknowledged as such by the whole family, since her son Alphonso inherited Montecchio, and his son Cesar was chosen heir by his cousin Alphonso II. But the Pope protested against Ferrara's falling into the hands of what he chose to call a spurious branch : — such a destinv was not to be tolerated for POLITICAL INTRIGUES OF THE POPES. 171 a city which had belonged to the Countess Matilda ! The old charter, which had re- mained undisturbed for five hundred years, was brought forward to justify the most in- solent pretensions ; and Cesar d'Este was compelled to resign his right in favour of Pope Clement VIII., who almost ran mad with joy at this success. He hastened to Ferrara, and spent several millions on a fortress which he raised in the centre of the town ; — a lasting monument of the base cowardice of the Sovereigns of his age, who could suffer the heir of an illustrious house, their ally and near relation, to be robbed of his property in the face of Europe, by a Pope, — a successor of the monster Alex- ander Borgia, and of his creature Paul III., the latter of whom purchased the ele- vation of his house by the dishonour of his sister, and afterwards had the shame- lessness to raise Peter Farnese, his natural child, to the rank of a duke of Parma and Piacenza, — parcels of the inheritance of the Countess Matilda ! And while this scan- dalous and disgusting profanation was yet fresh in the memorv of all, Clement VIII. 172 POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. had the astonishing impudence to assert that Ferrara could not be suffered to remain in the possession of a branch of the Countess Matilda's family, of the legitimacy of which he had any doubts ! And yet those Sovereigns who had been dastardly enough to consent to the eleva- tion of the bastard of a Pope upon the ruins of one of their allies, could still expect the rights of their posterity to be held sacred by succeeding generations ! Never was blindness so stupid and so despicable ! Let those who now raise such an outcry against usurpation, look to their own an- cestors who established the practice ; and who sanctioned the trampling upon decency, honour, justice, and the most sacred of ties, whenever their views of self-interest appeared to render it expedient. How often yet shall we have occasion to wonder at their profound, if not pretended, igno- rance of history ? What was it, — what can we call it, that induced the last Assembly of Sovereigns to recall to memory those shame- mi, those truly lamentable events, by throw- ing back into the greedy jaws of the Roman POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. 173 Church this unfortunate city, — alreaa\y bleeding and torn by its ravenous tooth, but capable yet of being restored to life and health under the fostering care of its na- tural parent ? Oh ! Italy ! fair and unfor- tunate Italy ! how long shall the leaden weight of superstition cramp thy limbs, and bend thy generous neck under the yoke of servitude? When shall the holy light of true religion kindle the fire of liberty, and appal thy oppressors ? Would that I could see the day when the land ot Desiderio shall be free and happy ; purged at once of Romish priests and foreign soldiers ; in the full and secure enjoyment of all the sweets of peace! Was it for a Protestant Prince, who has hitherto refused justice to one part of his subjects, because they are Roman Catholicks, to proclaim himself one of the restorers of the Pope's authority ? Was it for the British Parliament, who approved that Prince's scruples in one respect, to sanction his conduct in the other ? Can we, after such treaties, built upon such founda- tions, be surprised to see universal discon- tent take place of expected satisfaction and 174 POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. joy, at the conclusion of a peace which had been, during so long a period, the heart's desire of every Christian ? Certainly not. We must expect new revolutions, and new wars, until the affairs of Europe are settled upon honourable, manly, noble, and con- scientious principles, — the only true ele- ments of inter-national happiness. 175 CHAPTER X. Bologna — Paintings restored from the Louvre — Guido's Massacre of the Innocents — Private Col- lections — Musick — Operas — L'Agnese, by Paer, and Adeline, a Farce ; further Specimens of the Depravation of dramatic Taste — Personal Appear- ance of the Bolognese — Impudence of the Beg- gars — Badness of the Police — Political State of Bologna — Publick Buildings — Dialect — Money . VvE left Ferrara on Sunday, the 17th of November, at eleven o'clock in the fore- noon, and it was half-past five before we alighted at the Pilgrim, in Bologna ; our previous rate of travelling having been retarded by the bad management of the posts, which are not nearly so well regu- lated in the Pope's territory as in the north of Italy. Bologna is a very large and handsome city, full of fine palaces and noble churches. The latter were formerly enriched with great numbers of beautiful paintings, most of which were carried away by the French : who 170 PAINTINGS AT BOLOGNA. had been compelled, however, to restore thirteen of the best of them : the remain- der were either lost, or had been fixed up with so little care at Paris, that they could not have been taken down without being spoiled. These thirteen master-pieces were now deposited all together in a large room adjoining the church of the Holy Ghost ; and afforded to amateurs such a treat as no other room in the world can shew, since the Louvre has disgorged its ill-gotten riches. The following is a list of them : 1. Raphael's Santa Cecilia, with several other saints. It is perhaps the most cor- rect of his paintings, in his noblest and best style. 2. The Virgin Mary with an Angel, by Annihal Caracci, 3. The Ascension of St. Peter, by Agostino Caracci. 4. The Last Confession of St. Jerome, by the same. 5. Our Saviour with St. Thomas, by Ludo- vico Caracci. 6. The Martyrdom of St. Agnes, by Do- menichino; one of his very best works. PAINTINGS AT BOLOGNA. 177 7. The Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary, by the same ; not inferior to the preceding. 8. St. Eloy and St. Petronius, by Ca- vedonL 9. St. Bruno, the Virgin, and her Child, by Guercino. 10 and 11. St. Catherine, St. Apollonia, an Angel, and another Saint with the Virgin above, by Perugino. 12. The Four Protectors of Bologna (St. Proculus, St. Petronius, St. Francis, and St. Dominick), with St. Chaises Borromeo. Above them, the Virgin Mary weeping over the dead body of Christ : below them, the town of Bologna, with four little angels, by Guido Reni. The dead body and the Virgin are exquisitely beautiful. 13. The Massacre of the Innocents, by the same ; which I have reserved to the last, because I wish to give a slight idea of its composition to those who have not seen it. The others that I have enumerated are master-pieces of painting; this is a master- piece of poetical feeling ; and I can never forget the impression which it made upon me. vol. 1. N 178 GUIDO's " MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS.'' The piece is by no means crowded with figures, as is usually the case in repre- sentations of the same scene. There are only six mothers, six children, and two soldiers. The first woman is in the act of flying ; but one of the soldiers has seized hold of her garment. The second implores compassion for her child, which seems to shriek. The third, pale and di- shevelled, is carrying off her infant, who is dying. The fourth is fallen, and strug- gling to rise. The fifth and principal figure, is kneeling before two murdered innocents, evidently her twin children. Never did painting offer so beautiful, so melancholy, so deeply moving an object. The poor wretch thinks no more of flight, of cries, of prayers : to her danger no longer exists; for there they lie, the pride of her heart, the celestial little creatures who so lately were smiling at each other on her bosom. All is over for her in this world; horror and death have done their worst! Her silent despair chills the heart. Her beautiful eyes look up to heaven ; but pious resignation appears to stifle the reproach, GUIDO'S "MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS." 179 which her maternal feelings half suggested. Her grief is speechless and tearless; and it forms a striking contrast with the mad- dening terror of the other women. Their features are handsome but convulsed, par- ticularly the features of those who still de- fend their children. In the countenance of the mother who carries off her dying babe, the expression is quite of a different kind. She has seen the blow, but she has not yet observed the deathly paleness cast over her infant's features. She knows he is wounded, but she feels that he still breathes ; and she runs away with him in her arms. I never before was made so fully sensible of the power of painting ; and I prefer this wonderful piece to any that I have seen by more renowned masters. They may have surpassed the noble and feeling Guido in correctness and colour- ing ; but none has equalled him in the ex- pression of deep, yet religious, grief. — In all these female faces, except those of the two principal figures, (the third and fifth) there is a remarkable smallness of the un- der lip, which some criticks might per- N « 180 PAINTINGS AT BOLOGNA. haps find fault with ; but Guido had doubtless a reason for making it so. Is it that despair has the effect of contract- ing this feature ? It is probable that Guido thought so ; for he has not given this pe- culiarity in the face of the mother of the twins, in which no terror is expressed ; and it is but slightly perceptible in her who carries off her dying babe. However this be, let no man imagine that he has seen the finest paintings in the world, if he has not seen this and its noble compa- nions. There are several private collections at Bologna, which deserve to be visited. Amongst the best is that of Count Mares- calchi, son to the late minister of foreign affairs under Buonaparte. It contains a great many master-pieces of the Flemish, and several very good paintings of the Italian school. But what chiefly com- mands attention is Correggios first, or se- cond best work, — for the connoisseurs are divided in their opinions between this and the famous painting at Parma. To set the question at rest, if it were possible, were PAINTINGS AT BOLOGNA. 181 cruel; since it would take a great satisfac- tion from one side without adding any comparative happiness to the other; the Parmesans and the Count Marescalchi being equally sincere in their persuasion that each possesses the best. The Bologna painting represents our Saviour in his glory, and is truly admirable for design, colouring, and the truth of the details ; but it is extremely defective in that one point which the painter ought to have con- sidered as the most essential — I mean, in dignity. The face and attitude are far from exciting admiration or awe, and it seems as if the figure only extended his arms for fear of losing his balance. But the little angels who accompany him, are the most charming that can be imagined. Angels are within the sphere of Correggio's imagination and talents ; but it was a strange ignorance of his powers which could lead him to attempt a representation of the Deity. The Palazzo Magnani was formerly an object of curiosity for its frescoes by the Caracas ; but they are now quite spoilt. 182 PAINTINGS AT BOLOGNA. There are some works of merit in the Pa- lazzi Aldrovandi and Ercolani. Count Bian- chetti showed us his collection himself, with the most amiable politeness ; and had the further civility to invite us to an evening party at Countess Martinetti's, one of the most charming women in Italy. I was un- fortunately rather unwell, and could not avail my self of this very obliging invitation; but N went, and was enchanted with the Bolognese ladies. My regrets were the more lively, as we left Bologna the next day, and I could not have the plea- sure of repairing my loss. Among the paintings which pleased us best at Bologna, was one by Innocenza da Jtnola, in the church of St. James of the Augustins, representing the Holy Fa- mily, with St. Catherine, Mary Magdalen, St. John the Baptist, and St. John the Evangelist, The latter has, perhaps, the handsomest face that is to be found in any painting, or that was ever seen in nature. I think it impossible to con- ceive any thing more beautiful. The features are perfectly regular, the counte- PAINTINGS AT BOLOGNA. 183 nance extremely noble and expressive, the look full of prophetic fire and of dignity, and the general effect so very striking, that N and I were both rivetted to the picture the moment we saw it. Such a set of features, and such a countenance, could be met with no where but in Lom- bardy ; it is altogether a Lombard face in its greatest perfection. There is another painting in the same church, which the con- noisseurs value more highly, because it is accounted one of the best of Francesco Francias ; but I cannot admire a picture merely on account of the name of the painter. The Cathedral, dedicated to St. Petro- nius, contains a chapel painted a fresco in chiaro oscuro by Girolamo da Treviso, a young painter and engineer of very great merit, whose works are extremely scarce, in consequence of his premature death. The Academy of Arts possesses a great many very valuable paintings ; the most remarkable of which are Guido Reni's Christ on the Cross, and his St. Koch; a Man/ Magdalen, and a St. John the Evangelist, 184 BOLOGNA THE OPERA. by Guercino ; and a great many excellent pieces by the family of the Caracci, and by other painters of less renown but not much inferior talents. The city of Bologna is one of the most musical in Italy ; it contains several very distinguished amateurs,, and the private concerts are excellent. I cannot imagine by what fatality it happened that the opera was, at that time, extremely bad. The prima donna, a Bolognese, split my ears with her horrible national accent; there was no contralto, nor a single other good singer. I pay so very little attention, in general, to the words of an Italian opera, that it is seldom that I could men- tion the subject of the piece, if I had not seen the bill : but here, the musick being ill sung, I unfortunately listened to the poem. It was PAgnese, the musick by Paer. Never since I first saw or read plays, did I meet with any thing so abominably dis- gusting as this. Agnese has run away with her lover; grief for her flight has driven her father mad ; and this madness, which would THE OPERA OF " AGNESE." 185 be too horrible for the deepest tragedy has been chosen for the subject of the most vulgar brutal buffoonery. The old man will not believe that his daughter has run away ; he maintains that she is dead, and the walls of his room are covered with epitaphs and monumental draw- ings in charcoal ; the words — " Agnese e " morta," are written in more than twenty different places, and the phrase which begins or finishes every one of his speeches or songs, is — " No, non fuggi ; " Agnese spird frd queste braccia." Who could imagine that the idea of a jest could be associated with such a state of mind ? But he smokes his pipe on the stage, while singing a song which begins with these words — " La pipa fumando, mi pare," al- most immediately followed by these — " II solo riposo e nella tomba." Then he flings his pipe at the head of a friend who comes to see him, shakes his arms out of joint, pinches his fingers with the lid of his snuff- box, and in another scene, is on the point of strangling him, but is prevented by people armed with sticks, who treat him 186 " AGNESE" " ADELINE.'' like a furious bedlamite. It would be end- less to repeat all the tricks he plays, while insane ; but he recovers his reason, at last, and the seducer marries the creature he has dishonoured, as a matter of course in a German story. I shall not attempt to ex- press my disgust at this performance, for which no beauty in musick could possibly make amends. It is said to be one of Paer's very best compositions ; but had it been Cimarosa's, it could not have re- conciled me to such an infamous produc- tion. Nothing could have induced me to go to the theatre at the risk of seeing this scandalous opera a second time ; but the next day the play-bill announced " Ade- line, a farce" and I went to see it, in hopes that a little merry nonsense would in some measure dispel the gloomy impressions with which the last performance had filled my mind. The following is the subject of this farce •' Adeline is the daughter of an old Swiss hunter, who has so high an opinion of her virtue, that he is much prouder of it than a ADELINE, A FARCE. 187 German baron could be of his pedigree. But fathers are sometimes mistaken. Adeline has been seduced by a stranger in the neigh- bouring town, and she has even given birth to a living witness of her frailty, after which event she has been abandoned by her lover, and is now come back to her native vil- lage. The schoolmaster of the village is her good friend, and she requests him to inform her father of what she has done ; a very unnecessary communication, as it seems, since her paramour and his child have both disappeared, and nobody need know any thing of the adventure. The old hunter however learns it, and is nearly distracted with rage ; he seizes a gun, levels it at his daughter, and is on the point of shooting her. The schoolmaster saves her life for the moment; but, as her father gives her his malediction in the most tragical terms, she leaves him with the intention of putting a period to her existence. — Pretty well this for a farce! Hereupon the seducer arrives with an order lor the delivery of a house which he has bought in the neighbourhood, the keys of whirl) are in the hands ol 188 BOLOGNESE STAGE. the old hunter. The latter is quite happy in this opportunity of informing the stranger, whom he had never seen nor heard of before, that his daughter Adeline is a w — / (This confidence is in the true style of Kotzebue, and does honour to his school.) The natural consequence would be, that the lover should repent of his fault, and repair the injury he has done : but he im- mediately supposes that she has led a bad life with others, and when she comes to him, full of joy at his arrival, he treats her quite brutally. His mistake is, of course, eventually cleared up; and, of course too, their marriage and the father's pardon close this strange/arce, in which the only comick character is that of the schoolmaster. But as it is a play in one act, they call it a farce ; as they would, if it were in one act, call even the Stranger, — which is the real model of all these beastly and vulgar farces. This second trial was quite sufficient to prevent me from returning to see comick operas at the great theatre; and I turned my attention to the theatre of Contavalli, which BOLOGNESE STAGE 189 is very small, but handsome, and where plays were performed. In point of taste, I found myself as ill off as before ; but I saw nothing so nauseous as Agnese and Adeline. The first evening there was a lively, though somewhat licentious co- medy, called Platonic Love; with a strange play of the old Italian school, called The Escapes of Stenterello, Slave in Algiers , full of poniards, subterraneous prisons, and other tragical incidents and materials ; though the chief part, which gives its name to the play, is that of a Pulcmello, stuffed with the most vulgar jests imaginable. At another time, I saw another play of the same kind, in which the same Stenterello had very nearly the same escapes, in the midst of a whole troop of kings and queens, princes and princesses, sentences of death, imprisonments, clashing of swords, bowls of poison, attempts at stabbing, and God knows what more, quite in the style of Cerlone's Neapolitan plays, but not nearly so good. These strange compositions, though very musty indeed, were better than the dramas of the modern schools, which were per- 190 BOLOGNA — BEGGA RS. formed on the other evenings ; but I shall not detain the reader with any more ana- lyses of these performances ; having al- ready given sufficient specimens of the dramatic taste that now reigns in this part of Italy. There is a remarkable difference between the personal appearance of the Bolognese and that of either the Lombards or the Vene- tians. The former are not nearly so hand- some as either of the latter ; their features are harsh, the nose hooked, the mouth large and ungraceful, the eyes disagreeably pro- minent, the complexion dark and morbid, the hair black, and the countenance more expressive of cunning than good-nature. The exceptions, however, are numerous enough to prevent me from describing them as a positively ugly race. The beggars were still more numerous, and infinitely more importunate than we had any where found them. We really could have formed no conception of such astonishing impudence as we found amongst them ; but it must naturally grow to an alarming degree, whenever the beg- BOLOGNA PRISONS. 191 gars form so considerable a portion of the whole population. The coffee-houses are full of them, and they rush upon a stranger like harpies, the moment he takes out his purse. This assuredly is more than disa- greeable; but the ground was then covered with snow, and it was better to submit to this sort of violence than to drive the poor wretches from a shelter. One of the most insolent of the whole tribe was a young lad, whom the prisoners then lodged in the chief gaol, had chosen for their emis- sary. Whatever they got by his means was spent in wine, and they regularly got drunk every evening, at which time they made a most horrible noise. Never surely was there a more vile police! — which could tolerate such shocking riots amongst those whom their vices had placed under its immediate controul. There were at that time no less than three thousand men in the prisons of Bologna, one half of whom were said to be disbanded soldiers, most of them arrested for theft or murder. The worst amongst them are lodged at the tops of the three great prisons, from whence they 192 BOLOGNA. hold conversations with each other, and communicate their examinations and inter- rogatories. As they are more elevated than the rest of the town, they hear one another very well, without being heard in the streets below ; but there was a window at the top of our inn, from whence they were easily overheard. Bad indeed must they be, if worse than those who are lodged below ; who annoy the passengers by their outra- geous cries at all hours of the day, and by their beastly drunkenness in the evening. The Monachal Government has not yet been able to extinguish the last sparks of genius that have survived the republican era of Bologna. Its voluntary submission to the Pope had secured to it a great many privileges, of which it would not perhaps have been easy to deprive it previously to the Revolution ; but the French invasion having cancelled all charters of this sort, this noble city is now reduced to the same deep servitude as the most miserable little village in the Pope's oldest possessions ; so that in less than fifty years hence, it is most likely to sink even as low as Ferrara, — if BOLOGNA. 193 a new explosion do not restore it, with the rest of the Ecclesiastical States, to liberty and honour, — which it is my fervent prayer that it may ere long recover ! The Bolognese have had such a noble share in the civiliza- tion of Europe, that every thinking man must be shocked at their present humilia- tion. Unfortunately their piety, which more than bordered on superstition, has mainly facilitated their ruin. The town is full of monuments of their excessive prodigality to monasteries. Of these the most remarkable instance is without the Saragossa Gate ; it is a portico of two miles in length, which leads to the church of La Madonna del Monte dtlla Guardia, where they fancy that they possess a portrait of the Virgin Mary, painted by St. Luke the Apostle. This portico is composed of 667 arches, and was built entirely by voluntary donations ; it contains several chapels, the paintings in which do but little honour to their re- spective authors, and rather disfigure than embellish the walls. Another monument of the same sort of what was called piety, is the Certosa, or VOL. i. o 191. BOLOGNA. Charter-House, without the gate of San Felice; but its immense size is its principal beauty, and the paintings which are pre- served in its church, are not worth the trouble of going so far to see, unless for a walk in fine weather. The weather happen- ed to be exceedingly bad during the whole time of our stay at Bologna ; but one has less occasion to mind it in this city than any where else, as almost all the houses have porticoes, under which one may traverse the whole town without exposure to the wet. The Government-House is a very large, and in some of its parts, a noble building, but very irregular. The square before it is adorned with a fountain, in the middle of which is a brass statue of Hercules, by Giovanni da Bologna ; a work, in my opi- nion, of more reputation than real beauty. We had the pleasure to hear some very good musick at Bologna, ere we left it ; St. Cecilia's day having been celebrated in St. James's Church by the scholars of the Lycaeum. The vocal part, on the whole, was deficient in power ; the tenor and alto BOLOGNA — DIALECT. 195 were rather weak, and we heard neither soprano nor bass during an hour and an half that we spent there ; but the execution was excellent, and the chorusses extremely fine. The orchestra was remarkably good ; it was placed on a gallery facing that where the singers stood, on whose side there were trumpets and horns, beside the organs. The Pilgrim inn, where we lodged, was the best we had yet been at in Italy. Our dinners were excellent, and the wine very tolerable ; nor could we complain of the prices. We paid six franks for our two rooms, ten franks for our dinner (five franks a-head) and one frank and a-half for one fire, in the evening only. We used to breakfast at the coffee-house, where it cost us about one frank and a-half for both. The beggars cost me a good deal every day. The guides, servants, tyc 9 made the whole of our dailyexpense amount to near five-and-twenty franks. The Bolognese dialect is horrible; it dif- fers very much from the Milanese, still more from the Venetian, and resembles O 2 196 BOLOGNESE DIALECT. rather a language of savages, than that which has the reputation of being the most agreeable in Europe. Nobody could take it for Italian, or for any possible dialect of Italian, on hearing it spoken for the first time. The final syllables are pecu- liarly harsh and coarse. The last vowel is omitted, and the whole weight of a very heavy pronunciation falls on the preced- ing vowel, resting upon it as if it could not go further. They do not say palazzo, bu- tazzo, mezzo ; but buttdws, paldws, mats, which they write palass, butass, mess. They say iavdir, parldir, for lavare, parlare ; Ra, for Re ; assaitt, for eccetto ; vditcha, for vecchia ; Sgnduri, for Signori ; mdintr, for mentre; srize'ina, for srizina, fyc. tyc. ; thus changing the vowels, and often turning them into diphthongs, but always stretching the mouth wide open at the last syllable. They agree with the other northern Italians, in retaining all the nasal sounds of the French language. They never say cane, uno, nessuno, but can, on, nson; for they abhor final vowels, as too soft I suppose, and cut them off unmercifullv from every BOLOGNE8E DIALECT — MONEY. 197 word in order to make their language as harsh and rough as possible. Yet is there a certain coarse frankness and naivete in the Bolognese pronunciation, which partly redeem the faults I have mentioned, and which put me in mind of the evasive answer of a very polite gentleman I once met in company at St. Petersburgh. A German having asked him if he did not think the Ger- man language very beautiful, " Certainly, Sir/' said he, " languages are extremely beautiful things." Unquestionably the Bo- lognese is not the language in which I should choose to address a pretty woman ; but I took great pleasure in reading a collection of very entertaining fairy tales, translated from the Neapolitan into this dialect. The un- mannerly forwardness of mountaineers, from whence it perhaps in a great measure derives its rudeness of sound, makes it the fittest of all for burlesque compositions, and fills it with expressions the most laughable that can be imagined. A traveller must take care to exchange all his Lombard or French money at Bo- logna, otherwise he runs great risk of being 198 BOLOGNESE CURRENCY. shamefully cheated farther on ; to avoid which it is absolutely indispensable to be- come acquainted with the Papal currency. The coins are good, and their subdivisions very easy, since the scudo has ten paoli, and the paolo ten baiocchi : but then the value of the coin is never engraved upon it, so that a foreigner cannot distinguish the four from the five paoli pieces, the two from the three, and the one from the two, till practice has made them familiar to him. I was cheated of a considerable sum, ere I knew them all well enough to make up my post accounts by myself, for the postillions are not at all to be trusted in this part of the world. The scudo is worth about 4s. 6d. or 7d. Till we reached Fano we got ninety-three baiocchi for the five frank piece, but on the other side we got only ninety-two ; and from thence the twenty frank piece, which always bears an agioin the north, passes for no more than thirty-six paoli. The piece of five bai- occhi is called grosso, and is of silver ; the single baiocchi are copper. There is very little gold to be seen in the Pope's territo- ries. Each Pope was wont to coin zecchini BOLOGNESE CUUHENCY. 199 at his coronation, but the present Pope has not yet issued any; the value of the zecchino is twenty -two paoli, or two scudi and two paoli. 200 CHAPTER XI. Departurefrom Bologna — Faenza — Forli — Rimini — Examination of the Historical Accounts of Caesar's Passage of the Rubicon — Pesaro — Fano — Via Flaminia — Fossombrone — Quarries at the Furlo — Cascade of Terni—rNarni — Otricoli — Nepi — Feelings excited by the near approach to Rome. W E left Bologna on Sunday, the 24th November, and slept at Faenza, where the weather was too bad to admit of our seeing any thing. The inn is uncomfortable, and very dear. Although we had made our bargain before-hand, (having agreed to pay sixteen franks for dinner, beds, and fire,) an attempt was made the next day to add other charges to the account, for fire and registering our passes, — which we refused to pay. On Monday, the 25th, the rain continued with such violence that it was rather late before we started, though it was before our breakfast, which we took at Forli. There we visited the church of RIMINI — THE RUBICON. 201 San Filippo, where we saw a beautiful painting by Guercino, and another of very inferior merit, by Carlo Maratti. We were told that the best paintings had been taken by the French, and had not been restored. Our guide to the church was a nobleman, whom the loss of his fortune at cards had reduced to this sorry employment. From Forli we proceeded to Rimini, where we stopt for the night. The Roman bridge and the triumphal arch in this town, are interesting remains of antiquity. A stone, from which Julius Caesar is said to have harangued his troops after the passage of the Rubicon, is still shewn in the market- place, and cannot be an indifferent object to any one. Who could look atit, without having the whole scene pictured to his mind's eye ? As to this celebrated river, the learned have not yet settled which of the three modern candidates for the honour, is entitledto the reputation of the real histori- cal Rubicon. None of them bears this name : they are called the Pisatello, (which, higher up, is called the Rico,) the Runcone, and the Lusa. Mr. Eustace is of opinion that the *202 THE RUBICON. Rubicon could be none of the three, butthat it must have been the Fiumicino, formed by their junction. But it is difficult to imagine that a river, grown so very famous by that important event, could have lost every trace of its former name ; while it is easy enough to suppose that the name has been corrupted into Rico, or Rimco, by the Lombards. Mr. Eustace endeavours to meet the objection arising from the greater distance of the Fiumicino from Rimini, by supposing that the army made this long cir- cuit in order to pass over a bridge, which, he r presumes to have been built on the Fiumicino ; but surely he was not quite awake when he wrote this part of his clas- sical tour. What General could possibly think of preferring to cross a broad river on a bridge, rather than three small brooks on a few planks ? particularly when the passage by the bridge required a con- siderable circuit, and the road over the brooks lay in a straight line ? I think that he must have been misled by the be- lief, that a river which could stop Caesar for a moment, must have been a dangerous CESAR'S PASSAGE OF THE RUBICON. 203 one to cross. And so it was, undoubtedly, but not on account of its breadth, or of any physical difficulty. What might have appalled even a bolder man than Caesar, was the decree which declared an enemy to the Roman State whoever should dare to pass over it in arms : " Adjudicatus esto " hostis senates, populique Romani, ac si " contra patriam anna tulerit, penatesque e " sacris penetralibus asportaverit" Had the Rubicon been a mere furrow drawn across the road, this must have been sufficient to stop any Roman General and his army, be- fore the fall of the Republick, — or I am much mistaken in my notions of its history. Having said thus much in reply to Mr. Eustace's observations, and on the suppos- ed awe with which Caesar is said to have been struck at the sight of the Rubicon, I must add, that I wish to believe the circum- stance itself to be true, because it adds a great deal to the poetry of history ; but I really cannot help suspecting it to be a mere poetical embellishment ; for I could not find even the name of the Rubicon in Caesar's ac- count of his inarch from Ravenna to Ri- 20i Cesar's passage of the Rubicon. mini, nor the least indication of his having hesitated a moment on the way; and it seems strange that he should have omitted so very interesting an event, in the very opening of his books on the civil war. He says, on the contrary, that he addressed his soldiers at Ravenna on the state of publick affairs ; and that having made himself sure of their good-will, he set off with them for Rimini : " Cognitd militum vohmtate, Ari- " minium cum ed legione prqficiscitur, ibique " Tribunos plebis, qui ad eum confugerant, " convenit." There is not a syllable of a speech addressed to the soldiers, from a stone in the market-place of Rimini ! All his observations and appeals to them had been made at Ravenna, and Caesar was not so foolish as to shew hesitation at the head of his troops, after he had once resolv- ed to make war. All this pretty story is taken from Plutarch ; who was more bent upon relating extraordinary events, and describing momentous situations, than upon examining their truth or likelihood. So far is he from giving a correct account of this march in particular, that he supposes Caesar c;esar's passage of the rubicon. 205 to have been at a very great distance from Rirnini ; since, after the passage of the Rubicon, he is said to have used great dili- gence the remainder of that day (before the dawn of which he had set out) and the fol- lowing night, in order to reach Rimini early in the morning. Now Caesar himself in- forms us that he was at Ravenna, which is four miles distant, and which it will not be contended has been brought nearer since that time. — I cannot suffer this oppor- tunity to pass without suggesting how cau- tious we ought to be in giving credit to a mere biographer, on historical points, — which require a correct knowledge of geo- graphy and a great love of truth, as well as much critical acumen in the examina- tion of the materials. I might adduce in- numerable examples of the same careless- ness, and even of palpable falsehoods, which have been admitted as irrefragable histo- rical truths, and repeated as such by all the historians of every nation, since the time of the Romans. But it would lead me into too wide a digression. We left Rimini on Tuesday, the 26th 206 PESARO FANO. November. While we were waiting for horses at Pesaro, N — went to the Palazzo Almerigi, where he saw a magnificent pic- ture by Raphael. I regretted much not having gone with him, but I had thought it necessary to stay at the post-house, and secure the first pair of horses to be had, for it grew late, and we had yet eight miles to go to our night's lodging. It was quite dark when we arrived at Fano, where we had resolved to sleep. We spent our even- ing at the theatre, which is a very extraordi- nary one, both in its shape and ornaments ; the pit having very nearly the form of a trefoil. The ceiling is divided into a great number of single clouds, which might have had a good effect when it was first done, but which is now extremely ugly. The stage is uncommonly large, and the machinery excellent in rapid and sudden changes of scenery. Few of the 1,600 or 1,800 per- sons whom the theatre could admit, would indeed be able to see them, on account of the strange disposition of the boxes. But I dare say there are seldom so many spec- tators in the house, which is too large for THEATRE AT FANO. '207 the town. The principal performers at that time were an excellent set of rope- dancers ; and among their feats was that of a man and woman, running up from the stage to the gallery on two parallel ropes, without balancing poles, and dancing all the way with perfect ease. The evening's entertainment was closed with a very laugh- able farce, in which the lover disguised himself as a dog, and acquitted himself of all the functions of a dog with ridiculous, but disgusting, accuracy. Three young men of the town, seeing that we were strangers, shewed us every part of the theatre, and were our constant and very agreeable companions there. Would this have happened in England ? When will the generality of young Eng- lishmen acquire that politeness and cordia- lity, which are the most essential parts of good breeding ? When will they cease to be so stiff and formal towards each other, and so uncivil and inaccessible to foreign- ers ? When will they learn that a man of fashion may be civil, without being imper- tinently obtrusive ? It is really difficult to 208 FANO — VIA FLAMINIA. imagine that many of the self-conceited Da?idies, who continually fall in one's way, can have been born and bred in the same country as the Earl Fitzwilliam, the Mar- quess of Bute, and so many more patterns of true politeness, who move in that high sphere to which the former would fain make strangers believe that they belong, but which they would disgrace by belong- ing to it. At Fano there are several gentlemen of the name of Castrucci Castraccani, who are probably the descendants of Macchia- velli's darling hero ; but I had not time to ascertain the fact. We proceeded on our journey the next day, Wednesday, 27th November, a little before day-break. Our intention had been to take the road of Ancona ; but we now determined to give up that town and Loretto, for the Via Flaminia, a noble and interesting monument of Ro- man grandeur. The whole road from Rome to Rimini was formerly called by this name, which is now more exclusively applied to the mountainous part of it. It perpetuates the memory of two opposite events, one ol VIA PLAMINIA. 209 which has probably had a prodigious influence on the destiny of Europe. It received its appellation from the consul C. Flaminius, who was defeated by Han- nibal near the lake of Thrasymene ; and it passes through the field of battle where the defeat of Asdrubal effected the salvation of Rome. We breakfasted at Fossombrone, which contains several thousand inhabitants. Al- though it was not earlier than nine o'clock, we could not find a single drop of milk at the coffee-house, and were obliged to wait half an hour until they procured some from the country, for which they made us pay exorbitantly dear. At some distance from Fossombrone we passed the Furlo, where the quarries bear marks of the stupendous labours of the Romans, by whom one of the rocks of an enormous size has been pierced completely through. Works like these, effected so many ages before the invention of gun- powder, are surely fitter objects of admira- tion than the road across the Simplon, for which there existed not only patterns, but so VOL. i. p 210 THE METAURUS— SJIGILLO — NOCERA. many other helps, entirely unknown to the ancients. We repeatedly passed over the Metaurus; one of the bridges called il ponte grosso, is remarkable for its astonishing so- lidity, of which its great antiquity is the most convincing proof. Architects, engi- neers, generals, and historians, all find subjects for meditation on this road, so full of the memory of great events, and of monuments worthy to recal them to mind. We slept at Sigillo, a poor little village, in a poorer inn, miserably destitute of even the ordinary accommodations. But the landlord consoled us at once for all present inconveniencies, by assuring us that if we had come but a few days later, we should have been lodged in a superb new house, which was then nearly finished. We left this hopeful place at half-past six in the morning, and breakfasted at Nocera, where we could get no milk at all ; but nevertheless paid dearer for our meal than even at Fossombrone. Our impatience to arrive at Rome now increased at every step ; it seemed to work ( ASCAIJF of terni. ~>\ 1 upon us like the magnet on the needle, drawing us forward with accelerating power the nearer we approached to it. I had been extremely desirous to see Spoleto at leisure, as it was a place in which I felt a particu- lar and lively interest ; but N was so anxious to go on, that, being assured of sufficient leisure on our return 9 1 yielded to his impatience, and we made a long day's journey in order to reach Terni, where we arrived at about seven in the evening. The inn was so full that we could only get one room and one bed, with a sofa, on which fatigue made me sleep soundly. The next morning, Friday, 29th Novem- ber, we hired an open carriage at the inn, in order to visit the celebrated cascade, formed by the Vellino, five miles from Terni. It certainly deserves its great repu- tation ; but we could only see it very imper- fectly and from above, owing to our being accompanied by a stupid Cicerone, whose assistance we had not desired. The fellow took us up the mountain, instead of leading us into the valley. However, 1 met with a boy whom 1 requested to shew me the way 212 CASCADE OF TERNI. down ; and we had already proceeded a con- siderable distance through a very slippery and somewhat dangerous path, when the boy stopt short and assured me we could go no farther. He afterwards confessed, that he had been compelled to return by the me- naces of the Cicerone, who cried out to him that he would give him a sound beating if he did not immediately bring me back. This incident served to increase my aversion to that class of men. We returned to Terni, quite disappointed*, where we were obliged to breakfast without milk, and to pay dearer for it than we had done at any other place. The carriage to the cascade cost us fifteen franks, and our very bad supper and worse beds about an equal sum. Between Terni and Narni we fell in with a whole caravan of peasants from the March, who were going to Rome in quest of labour during the winter. One of them told me that this was his thirtieth journey, having gone every year since he could manage a shovel. How lazy must the * See Vol. II. for a more particular account ot Terni and its waterfall. NARNI APPROACH TO ROME. 213 Romans be, since, miserable and poverty- stricken as they are, the land-owners are obliged to hire foreign hands to cultivate their grounds, in the very season when la- bour is least oppressive ! Our postillion tried to persuade us that we could not ascend the mountain ofNarni, without oxen ; but, as we had alighted from our carriage to ascend on foot, and as our calash was very light, I would not consent to it ; and, after much useless discussion, he desisted. Nami is uncommonly picturesque, and it contains some remains of Roman anti- quities which were certainly entitled to arrest our attention, but the fever of impa- tience which now inflamed us, did not suf- fer us to pause any where ; it impelled us on in utter indifference to every object but one ; and the words — Roman bridge — Ro- man aqueduct — no longer excited any other idea in our minds than that of the Queen of the World, which we languished to see. It was as if we were hastening to the sick- bed of a dying friend, in anxious apprehen- sion of arriving too late to receive his part- •211 APPROACH TO ROME. ing farewell. Doubtless, Mr. de Bonstettens charming but deeply melancholy Journey to Latium, which we had just been reading, had taught us to consider Rome in some- thing of this light, and had exalted our imagination almost to the pitch of delirium. Besides, to stop before a Roman monu- ment, when on the eve of entering Rome itself, appeared a waste of time. So on we hastened, continually calling for horses. Our involuntary admiration was, however, excited, in spite of our impatience, by the beautiful prospect of the valley from the hi^h rocks on which Narni is situated. Indeed, the whole of this road, as far at least as Otricoli where it leaves the Apennines, is highly picturesque, and well deserves to be calmly enjoyed by travellers who are in a more reasonable frame of mind than we were when we passed over it. Still less had we any attention to bestow on Civita Castellana ; and we should really have travelled all night, if it had not been represented to us as excessively imprudent ; ana if we had not had just enough of rea- son remaining to feel that it would be bet- VEPI. 2\~) ter to see Rome with clear eyes and a cool head, the next day. We therefore slept at Nepi, where we arrived very late, and found a very poor inn ; but we were compen- sated for a bad supper, by a good fire, which was then more necessary to us than food, as the night was exceedingly cold. 216 CHAPTER XII. Dreary Road from Nepi to Rome — Entrance into Rome, and unexpected Cheerfulness of the Scene — Albergo Tedesco — Rossini, the Composer — His Talents and Operas — La Cenerentola — The Ro- mans not naturally musical — St. Peter's — Cri- tical Remarks on its Beauties and Defects — Re- flections on the extraordinary Vicissitudes of the ancient Mistress and Scourge of the World. 1 HE next day, Saturday, the 30th No- vember, we set off from Nepi, at half-past six in the morning, and were highly favour- ed by a beautiful day. There was nothing to induce us to loiter on this part of the road ; for the nearer the traveller approaches to Rome the more dreary he finds the scene around him, till at length he enters a perfect desert, without towns, villages, hamlets, palaces, houses, huts, or even ruins ; scarcely does he meet with a single peasant, or a solitary herds- man. The only things which seem to indi- cate the vicinity of a large city are the pave- ENTRANCE INTO ROME. 217 ment, which begins at Monterosi about six- teen miles from Rome, and half a dozen dried legs and arms of highwaymen, stuck in terrorem upon posts by the road-side. These, and a few carcases of horses, a hawk now and then, and clouds of carrion crows, were the only objects that we saw until we reached the suburbs, which we entered about noon. But as soon as we had passed the Porta del Popolo, a very different scene presented itself to us, — that of a very large, beautiful, populous, and cheerful City. It is true that much the greater number of the persons we met in the streets were fo- reigners ; but this distinction has nothing to do with the general effect and the first impression, of which I am now speaking. I had expected to find in Modem Rome a gloomy, deserted city, where it was not easy to move without stumbling over ruins ; and where we should meet ghastly figures, more like phantoms than living creatures, wan- dering amongst ruined templesand deserted palaces. We were agreeably surprised to see large and clean streets, ornamented with handsome palaces and churches, and filled 218 HOME HOTELS. with crowds of good-looking, well-dressed, lively people ; in short, a greater appear- ance of life and gaiety than even at Paris. We alighted at Frantz's Albergo Tedesco, Via dei Condotti, a street which joins the Piazza di Spagna to the Corso. There are other hotels close by on the Piazza, of greater celebrity and infinitely higher prices ; but as it did not form a part of our plan to acquire the privilege of complain- ing of the extravagant dearness of our apartments and table, we were glad to find tolerably good rooms at four paoli, and a very good table d'hote at six paoli a-head. A paolo, as I have said before, is worth about five pence halfpenny sterling. We had always abundance of game, fowls, fish, and meat, with pretty good wine ; the only un- pleasant circumstance was, that this table was not exclusively reserved for the lodgers, but was open to all strangers who chose to come to it, so that there was frequently too great a crowd. But even this had its good side, — by occasionally bringing us acquaint- ed with people whom we should not other- wise have met : and even alter leaving the ROME ROSSINI. 210 inn for private lodgings, we continued to take our dinner at Frantz's ; now and then dining at a Restaurateur s (and particularly at Armellmo's, which is the best,) either for the sake of variety, or when we had any reason for dining later than the usual hour. It was at Frantz's that I met the delight- ful composer Rossini, a young man full of life and genius; who immediately reminded me of Dussek, though, in fact, the only ex- ternal resemblance between them consists in their embonpoint. Rossini is not, however, quite so large as Dussek ; but he is yet young, — and will, I dare say, be equally corpulent when he reaches the age at which I knew the latter. His conversa- tion, like that of the admirable virtuoso and composer whom I have just mentioned, is that of a gentleman, — with a tint of levity and epicureanism which by no means misbecomes him. He may perhaps have been a 1 it I lo spoiled by his great success, but his self-esteem does not betray him into gross impertinencies. As an instance of what 1 mean, — an English lady of groat distinction having invited him to dinner, he 220 ROSSINI. refused to go ; and he gave me to under- stand that he did not think a verbal invita- tion sufficient, even though it specified a particular day. When afterwards I re- newed the request in her name, he accept- ed it in a very polite manner ; but still ne- vertheless he did not come. I am not dis- posed to find much fault with this touchi- ness in a man of talents; especially as there are so many of his profession who are mere greedy parasites! Rossini was at this time composing his opera of La Cenerentola, for the theatre of I' Argentina. When I told him that I longed to see a new work of his composition, he said that he hoped I should not take that upon which he was engaged as a standard of his powers, for it certainly would be the worst of his operas ; the Romans, he said, liked nothing but — (here he sung a lew bars of trivial musick) — and he must serve them to their taste, in order to be as gently hissed as possible. He seems to think, like all other composers, that his best pro- ductions are those on which he has spent the most time, and with which he has taken ROSSINI. 221 the greatest pains. He told me that Tan- credi, and The Italian in Algiers, were mere trifles, which he had composed in six weeks ; and he requested me not to judge him till I had heard Othello and Elizabeth, one of which had cost him six, and the other nine months' labour. This circumstance, I will own, did not give me a more favourable idea of those two operas. In composition, I look upon la prima intenzione as a most in- dispensable quality. An opera must bear the appearance of having been made at one dash, in a moment of inspiration ; nothing else can give it that smoothness of general effect, which is like the mellowness of co- louring in a fine picture. From the over- ture to the finale, there must be nothing that may make one start, as at the sudden appearance of an unknown and unwelcome stranger in an intimate family circle^ Germans may like these intruders, but they are utterly disagreeable to those who remain faithful to the Italian — the only good school. The airs which are composed for different voices ought, indeed, to be different in style, but still they should have that gene- ooo ROSSINI. ral family resemblance which may exist between a gigantic Irishman, and his de- licate and beautiful sister. It must have happened to every one to have seen a nu- merous family assembled, in which were old, middle-aged, and young persons, some tall, some short, some stout, some thin, and yet none that did not seem to belong to the rest. This is the very type which I would recommend for a good opera. When I speak of composing an opera in a moment of inspiration, I would not be understood to mean literally a moment in point of time ; the duration of this moment may be indefinite ; but then the mind must have been so warmed and exalted by the first conception, that nothing may have the power to divert or interrupt the composer, till he has completed his work ; and I be- lieve that one who is able to achieve a de- lightful opera in six weeks, cannot improve it by spending years upon it. The example of Rossini himself confirms me in this opi- nion. I afterwards saw those two operas which he called his master-pieces, and I found them much inferior to those which ROSSINI THE ROMANS MOT MUSICAL. 293 he considered insignificant trifles. La Cene- rentola is certainly not a composition of the highest class, but there are very pretty things in it, and it pleased the Romans ex- ceedingly. What Rossini said of the Romans was perfectly just; they are unmusical be- ings; and it is difficult to imagine anything more detestable than the noises which they produce when they try to give serenades in the streets. If there happen to be six dif- ferent voices, all the six sing the same part, with perhaps half a note's difference in the key. Of harmony they have not the slight- est notion. How unlike those natural con- certs of the common peasants and mecha- nics which delight a traveller in his even- ing walks in Sua bin. ! — I speak of course of the common people, and of the general mass of the nation at Rome ; not of ama_ teurs and professional men who have cul- tivated the science of musick, and who are as good here as elsewhere. I heard two amateur performers at Rome, who gave me very great pleasure in different ways. The first was the Countess Caradora, whose extraordinary powers of execution, 224 MUSICK ROME. grand voice, excellent method, and un- wearied complaisance, were all equally remarkable. The other was a young sculp- tor, named Trentanova, who executed every one of Catalani's most difficult variations with a very agreeable falsetto, and astonish- ing flexibility. I likewise met some very good singers at the Countess of W 's parties ; but she was the only one of the company, besideMrs. G.L ,who chose to listen to them ; the rest of the party made such a noise that we were obliged to wait till they had all retired, to be able to hear and enjoy some excellent musick. It may seem strange that I should dwell at such length on this subject, the moment that I have brought m}' readers to Rome ; but the fact is, that I really wanted a little repose, having run myself out of breath to arrive there ; and I did not choose to inter- rupt, by remarks on musick, the observa- tions which I should hereafter have to make on Rome itself, and on what I saw, heard, and felt there, during this my first residence within its walls. The weather, with the exception of a very few rainy days, was ROME — ST. PETER'S. 225 perfectly beautiful during the whole of the four months which we staid there ; so that we were able to visit comfortably and to enjoy every thing that deserved attention within the city, leaving the country around to be explored on our return from Naples in the spring. I shall begin with St. Peter's ; of which I had heard so much from my earliest in- fancy, that I ran to view it (as I fancy almost all travellers do,) the first moment of my ar- rival. I am bound to confess that it was very far from answering my expectations, which had been raised too high. I had been told that the objections which I had started at the sight of the engravings of this edifice, would disappear when I should see the object itself; nor indeed were the Jirst impressions those of disappointment. But after the first, overpowering, physical effect, which immensity always has upon the senses, was a little abated, I was struck with several obvious defects, which even the great beauties connected with them cannot disguise. The entrance-front of the church (I might say tin front, for there is in strict- VOL. i. o 22C> st. peter's. ness only one) is too much like that of a private house ; and even as a dwelling- house its architecture is open to criticism. There are small windows, as if for entresols, which are positively absurd in the front of a temple, where no entresols exist; nor do the large ones produce a much better ef- fect, as they are without glass and give the idea of an unfinished building. As to the colonnade, which forms a sort of broken circle in the place below, I do not hesi- tate to pronounce it the worst part of the whole. The proper use of such a struc- ture is to screen people from the sun, or from the rain ; but here it cannot answer the purpose, since you are obliged to en- dure almost as much sun or rain, ere you can reach either side of it, as if you went straight up to the church,- which indeed most people do. If, on the other hand, it be meant for a covered promenade, it does not much matter what shape is given to it ; though the circular is, in my opinion, the worst of all shapes, since it necessarily admits wind and rain into one part of it at least : but. in fact, nobody ever thinks ST. PETER'S. 227 of choosing this for a walk. If it be meant merely as an ornament to the church, I must say that, in the way in which it has been executed, it is the very worst or- nament that could have been devised. It might produce a better effect, if it were on a level with the church, like the portico of the Casan Church at St. Petersburgh ; but, as it is on much lower ground, it looks quite disproportionate. Its absurdity is most striking when it is seen from the top of the Castle of St. Angelo ; from whence it appears exactly as it does in the best en- gravings. The obelisk and the two fountains are ex- tremely beautiful; but the immense extent of the place in which they stand, detracts greatly from the effect they ought to produce. The cupola is noble ; but it would be much more striking, if the building below were more like a temple, and less like a palace. So much for the exterior. As to the in- side, it certainly is very grand and magni- ficent. Indeed, it could not well be other- wise, with such gigantic dimensions and Q a 228 st. peter's. such a profusion of the richest materials : and it does not prove enough for the archi- tect who had these means at his disposal, to say that they strike the beholder with astonishment, — unless it were possible to add that they produce all the effect which might be wrought by their combination, — which is certainly not the case. In the first place, the interior wants symmetry in the great outline. Some reason or other is given to account for this ; but a thousand reasons, however they might excuse the architect, could not cure the defect. It is besides heavily overloaded with ornaments, some of which are contrary to good taste, though the greater part are fine. In the third place it wants solidity ; since it has been necessary, five times already, to gird the cupola with iron hoops. An archi- tect ought to be able to calculate, with the utmost exactness, how far he may venture without endangering the safety of his fabrick : if he venture beyond that point, he deserves blame rather than praise ; especially in such a building as this, where so many thousands of lives might be the st. peter's. 229 victims of his vanity. The last and the greatest defect of all, though some connois- seurs call it a beauty, is, that St. Peter's ap- pears infinitely less than it really is ; owing, as it is asserted, to the admirable combina- tion of its proportions. Now, although I shall be ready to admire the Colossus of Rhodes (if it should ever be fished up) for that com- bination of parts, which I suppose made his head and his feet seem perfectly harmo- nious, though the former must have been large out of all proportion to the latter, being calculated to be seen at a greater distance, — I shall never be brought to believe, that in a building where the first of all requisites, solidity, has been sacri- ficed to immensity, it was a proof of talent to disguise this immensity, and to make the whole appear of an ordinary size. I cannot help thinking that talent would have been better displayed in making it appear even larger than it really is, and in exag- gerating its dimensions to the eye by all the optical illusions that could be imagined. What induced me to make these observa- tions was the extravagant enthusiasm ol 230 st. peteh's. some persons, who exalted St. Peter's far above any work of the ancients. It can no more be compared to the Coliseum, " than I to Hercules." It is true that one is a temple, the other a theatre ; and they may seem at first sight very unfit sub- jects of comparison ; but I think one may judge of the talent which an architect would have displayed in a temple, by that which he has actually displayed in so stu- pendous a theatre, and by the extreme faci- lity with which he has disposed of the enor- mous masses he employed. Who can doubt but that the artist who, with such rude materials and at so little expense, raised the noble and elegant temples of Paestum, would have put to shame all the architects of St. Peter's, in the tenth part of the time, and with the twentieth part of the money which they spent upon it? Having said thus much against the silly enthusiasm of those who blindly tread the path which others have blindly trodden before them, I should be sorry if it could be supposed that I saw this wonderful building without admiration. Quite the st. peter's. 231 contrary. And it was, perhaps, precisely because its defects had very early shocked me, that its beauties afterwards acted more fully and more exclusively on my imagination. My natural disposition does not lead me to seek for faults. I see them both in men and things, only because f cannot help it ; but then I am the more ardent in seeking for good qualities and beauties, which may afford me the satisfac- tion which hardly any object in the world can fail to yield in some point of view or other to any reasoning creature. There is a real and a high pleasure in the senti- ment of admiration, of which I always eagerly court the enjoyment. If the object be a Grecian statue, a picture by Guido Reni, a passage from such works as those of Homer, Sophocles, Tacitus, Burke, or Shakspeare, I am drawn along by an irre- sistible power, and delight runs away with me, long ere criticism can be roused to overtake us. I was struck, at the first sight of this immense edifice, with the grandeur it aimed at, as much as with that which it had 282 st. peter's. really attained. As soon as I had observed its defects, I endeavoured to shut my eyes to them, and to attend exclusively to its beauties; which are in fact a much more numerous class, and which I enjoyed with the greater security in consequence of hav- ing already received, heard, and dismissed that troublesome visitor, criticism; — who will have his hour and his day, and who gene- rally exercises a severer sway, the longer he has been refused admittance. Some of the Monuments which St. Peter's contains are noble and elegant. One of the finest things in this class is a sleeping lion, by Canova, which I am much disposed to place on a level, at the least, with his most suc- cessful productions. The Genius of Death, who sits behind him, is remarkably hand- some ; but I doubt the propriety of the re- presentation — doubting whether death itself ever can be attractive, even in the eyes of the most righteous. Religion, who stands on the other side, is as stiff and heavy as art could make it. These figures adorn the mo- nument erected to the memory of a Pope, whose name I have now forgotten, and ST. PETER'S. 233 whose statue is good. In the whole, there is no poetry of invention ; but the details are well executed, and the lion I have men- tioned is excellent. He inspires a sort of involuntary terror, even in that state of repose. Among the good and appropriate or- naments of St. Peter's, are copies in rao- saick, of the finest paintings of the great masters : several of them are already fi- nished and placed over different altars, and I understood that others were then in progress. But no accessaries are necessary to rouse the mind to solemn meditation in this place. Its name alone conveys the most awful lesson on the vicissitudes of the world. The church stands on a part of the gardens of Nero : it was on this very spot that St. Peter suffered martyrdom ; while several thousands of Christians were, at the same time, torn to pieces by wild beasts, or covered with pitch and set on fire, to amuse the atrocious Emperor of the Romans, and his equally barbarous subjects. And now, — Romans lie hum- 2-31* VICISSITUDES OF THE ROMANS. bly prostrate at the feet of a statue of St. Peter, and place their lives and for- tunes at the disposal of a bishop whose greatest boast is to be St. Peter's succes- sor ! Thousands implore the charity, or live on the alms, of those foreigners whom the meanest citizen of ancient Rome thought himself authorized to trample un- der foot. To such an excess of misery and humiliation has the opposite excess of ima- ginary glory and overweening pride re- duced the posterity of those celebrated conquerors, whom the most bloody dema- gogues, as well as the worst of despots, have chosen for their models! Could there be a more tremendous example of that Di- vine Justice, which, though it may remain suspended over individuals for years, over nations for ages, sooner or latter always strikes the guilty ? And is there any guilt more atrocious than that of aiming at uni- versal dominion ; and of depriving men of their liberty, and nations of their inde- pendence, for the gratification of a vanity as stupid as it is cruel? What is it that remains of all that splendour which has VICISSITUDES OF THE ROMANS. 235 filled volumes in every language for 2,000 years ? — An unutterable depth of wretch- edness ! — the rankest superstition, the most abject slavery, pinching hunger, and all those most intolerable of evils which excite contempt rather than pity ! Such are the ultimate results of those abominable rob- beries called conquests, and of that hor- rible thirst of blood and plunder which as- similates men to beasts, and which men have the impudence to call Love of Glory. What language can supply me with words strong enough to express my hatred and horror of the crime of Ambition ! As long as we do not brand it with infamy ; — as long as we do not chain up, and stifle those whom the infectious bite of that rabid mon- ster, has degraded to the class of savage and dangerous animals ; — as long as there shall be found amongst us cowards to obey and villains to praise them ; — so long will it be vain and foolish to boast of the lights of the age and of the progress of science. Of what avail are the new discoveries in che- mistry, geography or astronomy, on which we pride ourselves; when, in the most 236 VICISSITUDES OF THE ROMANS. essential points, we remain as ignorant and as stupid as the most barbarous inhabitants of the most uncivilized countries in the world ? 237 CHAPTER XIII. The Palace of the Vatican — Its prodigious Extent and inestimable Treasures of Art — Canova — Cri- ticism of his Talents and Works — Perseus — Pu- gilists — Naked Statue of the Princess Borghese, and Statues of the Buonaparte Family — Cupid and Psyche — King Ferdinand. 1 O give an idea of the prodigious extent of the Palace of the Vatican, it may be sufficient to state the number of rooms which it is said to contain. One author makes it exceed 13,000; another 11,500; and Mr. de la Lande says, there are 11,246. God forbid! that I should be able to vouch for their actual number on any calculation of my own. I would no more have counted them, than have spent forty years of my life in the dissection of a caterpillar. There ma}' be a few thousands more or less, for aught that I care. It is clear that the number must be enormous, since respect- able authors do not hesitate to rate it so 2tS8 THE VATICAN. high. It must also be observed, that if the smallest closets have been taken in to swell the account, there likewise figure in it some rooms large enough to contain a whole house. But with all this, it is so far from being comfortable as a residence, that the Pope's officers complain bitterly of their lodgings in it. Captain PfyfFer, the commander of his Swiss Guards, told me, that he had begged and obtained leave never to accompany the Pope to the Vati- can, but to remain at the Quirinal. Be- sides, the air is in summer extremely un- wholesome in this part of the town, and nobody could bear to reside in it for a continuance. The Pope only inhabits it during part of the winter. It was formerly a subject of much dispute where he ought always to reside : some pretended that he should not move from the Vatican ; — but these were probably young Cardinals, who wished all their elder brethren safe out of this wicked world. Others asserted that religion made it an indispensable duty to prefer San Giovanni Laterano, at the furthest end of the town in a complete desert ; — THE VATICAN. 239 and they, perhaps, had also their particular reasons for their opinion. It would have been a sad thing for the Chief, the infalli- ble Chief, of Christendom, not to have been allowed to choose his residence for him- self, and to have been obliged to submit to the decision of the most learned pedants of his Conclave ! But this interesting dis- cussion has been abandoned ; and the Pope is now allowed to live where he pleases, which is more frequently in the country than in the town. The access to the Palace of the Vatican has nothing majestic in it. Though it is built on higher ground than St. Peter's, to which it adjoins, and which it towers above, yet the only effect of this elevation is to in- terfere with and spoil the appearance of the church. The principal ascent to it is by a grand staircase, one side of whose first flights is formed by the northern or north-north-eastern wall of the church; but there are several other entrances. In architecture the Vatican has no preten- sions whatsoever to elegance, beauty, or regularity. There were too many very 24<0 THE VATICAN. eminent artists employed in raising its dif- ferent parts ; and as taste varies from age to age, none of them chose to conform himself to the plans of his predecessors. Each new architect preferred building something handsome of his own, according to the notions of his contemporaries, to con- sulting the harmony of the whole, at the risk of being suspected of approving an obsolete style. In short, there is nothing to praise in the general outward appearance of the Vatican. As to the inside, there is undoubtedly in that vast labyrinth, food for criticism to the end of time. Butas long as it shall contain the noble ornaments which it owes to Grecian and to Roman art, no other palace in the world, (though built by fairies, of solid gold, with bricks of ruby, and windows of sapphire) will be able to vie with it for the pre-eminence. My heart beat when 1 entered the gal- lery which leads to the Hall of the Bel- vedere. A thousand associations filled my mind, and exalted my fancy. I felt as if I had left all the earthly parts of my being ; and as if my soul moved on, THE VATICAN. *24-l alone, towards that sanctuary of the fine arts. I might have met my own brother without knowing him. Nor was I con- scious of the least sensation till after I had gone round the Hall, seen every thing .it contains, — and yet seen nothing of which I could retain a distinct impression. It was only when I began my second circuit that I recovered the free exercise of my facul- ties, and that I could really observe and enjoy these prodigies of human art. It would be foolish presumption in me to attempt to add any thing to what the immortal Winckelmann has written on this subject. Worthily to describe and to praise the master-pieces of antiquity, was an honour reserved for him ; to which no man of common abilities must ever think of attaining. I shall only offer a very few remarks ; of which some, I believe, have not yet been made, and others will well bear to be repeated. And first, I would protest against that inveterate practice of professional men, of attaching a specific name, and almost VOL. I. r 242 THE ANTINOUS. always the name of some well known charac- ter, to every statue which they happen to discover, although it is distinguished by none of the symbols or attributes which could afford plausible ground for their nomenclature. There is here one statue in particular, with respect to which this erroneous course has been pursued. It is always called Antino'ris, though it does not bear the least resemblance to the well- known and extremely numerous sculptured portraits of that youth. The features and the expression of the countenance of his genuine statues are so very peculiar, and though deeply interesting and beautiful are yet so far removed from the general standard of beauty, that I really cannot conceive how any one at all conversant with sculpture, could be mistaken in this instance. Whether Antinoiis appears under his own name, un- der that of Bacchus, of an Egyptian god covered with the most ungraceful ornaments, or of any other divinity ; whatever, in short, may be his disguise, he is instantly re- cognized and his name flies from your lips the moment you see him. It is very remark- THE ANTINOUS. 248 able that though some of his features are absolutely contrary to what is generally considered as forming the perfection of beauty, their union composes the hand- somest and most captivating face that ever was seen. His forehead is broad and short ; his eye-brows, so far from being like those beautiful arches sung by poets, are in a perfectly straight line ; his eyes are sunk and fireless ; the expression of his mouth remarkably serious ; his cheeks very broad and his neck short and thick. These are peculiarities which no sculptor could have thought of representing in a statue, except through a determination to adhere to strict resemblance ; and no- body who has any knowledge of draw- ing, can mistake this countenance for any thing but a portrait. It may be almost im- possible to those who have not seen it, to con- ceive that with such deviations as I have men- tioned, from the admitted rules of beauty, it can yet be so very handsome. But the hair is so graceful, the nose so exquisitely beautiful, the mouth and chin so expressive of noble feelings, the look so thoughtful, the K i '244 THE ANTINOUS. whole countenance so deeply melancholy, that no human mind could have invented any thing comparable to it. The melan- choly which it expresses is not that of grief or pain, it is a foreboding of his pre- mature death. His eyes seem to look for a grave, without any struggle with the love of life, without the least regret for its plea- sures : he seems to think no more of this world; he has bid adieu to all it contains; and fate itself could not now recall him. And yet he is in the full bloom of youth; and his chest, which is more prominent than that of any other antique, seems to indicate an inexhaustible fund of health. I can well conceive that people could gaze at this statue for hours ; but I am sure it must be with that sort of melancholy de- light which draws unconscious tears from the eye, rather than with the enlivening admiration which beauty commonly in- spires. Now, there is not the least trace of all this in that statue in the Vatican, which the catalogues name Antinous. Some an- tiquaries, indeed, have called it Mercury, THE ANTINOUS THE TORSO. 245 and others Mel eager, — not because it wants the peculiar features of Antinous, but be- cause the work is thought too perfect for the time of Adrian. To my conception the age in which the Antinous of the Capitol was made, might well produce a sculptor of sufficient talent to have made the other statue, — in which there are some very ob- vious defects; but I would not dispute the point with a real connoisseur, whose quick eye will often discern at a glance, what another person could hardly be taught to conceive at all. I shall only add, that the figure is not sufficiently aerial for Mercury, besides that it is very defective in point of dignity. It may be a Meleager, for aught I know — or care ; — but why must it abso- lutely have a specific name? Thus, likewise, the famous Torso, which has neither head nor arms nor legs, has been declared a Hercules after his Apo- theosis. So he may be. But 1 really can- not help thinking it absurd to pronounce a positive sentence in such a case. This fragment is undoubtedly a most astonish- ing specimen of Grecian sculpture, since 2-16 THE TORSO. all professional men agree in placing it amongst the most precious remains of an- tiquity. I am very far from impugning their decision, nor do I grudge them the pleasure which they take in examining and admir- ing the Torso; I only wish that they would keep within the reasonable bounds of clas- sical rapture, with regard to a fragment which cannot offer the least interest to the feelings or the passions. Some connois- seurs suppose he was leaning on his club ; while others assert that he must have been spinning : but the expression, in these two cases, must have been so prodigiously dif- ferent, that it is clear that the notions of the criticks as to the beauty of these remains are founded on very different views of the subject. All agree that it was an Her- cules, because of the lion's skin which he wears; and their opinion of his having already gone through the ceremony of his apotheosis is grounded on the circum- stance of the muscles and veins being too slightly indicated to belong to a person feed- ing on terrestrial food. This may be very ingenious, and it may very likely be true. CENSURE OF THE AFFECTATION OF CRITICISM. 247 Only it vexes me to see so many people who know nothing at all of muscles or veins, pretend to be struck with admiration at the sight of this mutilated trunk, and fix themselves for hours before it, repeating what they have read in books about it, in order to give themselves the reputa- tion of deep critical knowledge. I have seen more than fifty do this, and 1 do not believe that there are more than twenty in the world capable of estimating and feel- ing its beauty with so much enthusiasm. I freely own that 1 am not one of them. None but an artist who has deeply studied naked bodies, can know any thing about the veins and muscles which ought to mark the difference between a hero and a demi-god. Let not mere amateurs, or the common class of connoisseurs, pretend to deeper knowledge than they possess; it is the surest way never to rise above mediocrity, even in one's own opinion. The statues of Apollo, of Venus, of Mercury, of Laocoon, and so many more which are entire and exquisitely beautiful, are within the scope of our understandings and our admiration ; 248 THE VATICAN. and though men of higher qualifications than we possess, may find excellencies in them which we cannot discover, the excel- lencies which we can comprehend may on the whole strike our senses no less deeply, nor less agreeably than theirs. The agent, here, is positive beauty, of which even the dullest of men have some perception, and by which no man of common feeling can help being attracted. As to excellencies which are merely technical, and which even professional men admire only as such, it really is very silly to waste upon them so much of the time which may be more plea- santly and more reasonably employed in the contemplation of other works. Another remark which I will make, though it must have occurred already to thousands on viewing the Vatican, is how desirable it would be to separate the Statues from the Relievi, — the latter from the Urns, Vases, $c.,and so on, in order that the mind may be totally filled with but one class of ancient sculpture at a time, — which is very essential to a perfect enjoyment of the art. Instead of this, all these verv dif- THE VATICAN. 249 ferent classes are mixed and jumbled to- gether, for the most part in some sort of confusion. When you take off your eyes from a statue which has elevated your mind, and transported you into the imagi- nary world of ideal beauty, nothing can be more vexatious than to let them fall on a basso-relievo, which differs from a statue to such a degree that it is hardly possible to associate these two styles of sculpture in any general ideas of art. On the other hand, it would likewise be most desirable to bring to the Museum of the Vatican the finest of the 'statues kept in the Capitoline Museum, such as the real Antinous, the Dying Gladiator, the Faun, and the beautiful Venus; all which, with the statues of the Belvedere, would furnish out the most glorious, collec- tion in the world. I cannot help add- ing, that it would be better, even for the Marchese Canova himself, if his master- pieces were not exposed to an immediate comparison, which cannot be favourable to his reputation. One of the niches of the hall of the Belvedere has been allotted to 250 CANOVA. his works; viz., to his Perseus, and to his two Pugilists. The former is very handsome; but has too much the ap- pearance of having been copied from the Apollo who stands in the adjoining compartment. The Gorgon's Head is fine, and the whole is well executed, and has very great merit, though really not merit enough to entitle it to its present situation. The Pugilists arelikewise proofs of very rare talent ; but they are defective in some es- sential points, and principally in the in- equality of the limbs, which strikes almost every visitor at the first sight. Canova is the cleverest artist in Rome, and deserves all the encouragement which he has received ; but he is far, very far, from that perfection to which his flatterers persuade him he has attained. His very amiable and respect- able character has made him friends of almost every one of his acquaintance, and these friends are very partial judges of his worth. He excels in every thing that re- quires a light touch and gracefulness ; his women are all exceedingly pretty, and full of sweetness ; but few of them can be CANOVA. 251 called very handsome, and still fewer possess any dignity or elevation of character. They are besides in general rather too thin, and are especially deficient in the sexual full- ness of the hips. His heroes and young men are always exceedingly tall, and too slender: their faces regularly handsome and interesting, but without the desirable expression of energy and mind. On the whole, (if I may utter a bold opinion,) though Canova has great talent, he has no genius. — There is no poetry in his sculp- ture. His are not the statues to be studied for the intelligence of the Grecian poets, according to Mr. SchlegePs system; for though some of them give very great plea- sure, they afford no intelligence at all. When you have seen them once you know them thoroughly, and though you may look at them with great delight, the thought of studying them, and trying to discover latent beauties in them, never once occurs. Ca- nova's bassi relietl are almost quite flat, and are very inferior to those of Torwalsen, be- cause poetry is indispensable in this style of sculpture. His monuments also are par- 252 CANOYA. ticularly defective in invention. I have seen a great number of them without the least variety of idea, or stretch of imagina- tion. The task I am now fulfilling is the most disagreeable that I could undertake. No- thing is farther from my natural disposition than the wish to lower a reputation for ex- cellence which has been the result of long and meritorious exertions. It cannot be envy that prompts me, for I am no sculp- tor, and I have no interest in detracting from the universal admiration felt for Ca- nova. But I am of opinion, that exagge- ration in praise is much more pernicious than severity of criticism; and that the standard of perfection ought to be raised somewhat higher than even the highest pro- ficiency in mere mechanical labour. I would not have young artists imagine that they are great men. merely because they can copy individual nature, however closely. They should be taught that genius is the faculty of divining what nature might have produced, and of striking the fancy and the mind with new feelings, and with CANOVA. 253 the idea of invention, — rather than of pleas- ing the eye by the successful imitation of well-known objects. Can ova is more able than any of his contemporaries to copy what- ever he sees, either in nature or in works of art; but he cannot go farther* ; and I see no * The reader is desired to bear in mind that these criticisms, which may appear severe to those who have seen Canova's latest productions, were pronounced in the year 1816. It is generally allowed that the genius of Canova has, since that period, made a sudden and un- paralleled advance, — that he has purified his style from many of its meretricious graces, and has attained in three short years to new excellencies which a long life might have been well spent in acquiring. In confirmation of this opinion, the Editor is happy to be permitted to quote the language of his own distinguished countryman, Chan- trey; who, since his visit to Rome in the autumn of 1819, thus speaks, with all the generous warmth and liberality of exalted genius, of his eminent competitor and friend : " Above all modern art in Rome, Canova's works are the " chief attractions. His latter productions are of a far " more natural and exalted character than his earlier " works ; and his fame is even wronged by those masterly " statues which are now common in England. He is " excelling in .simplicity and grace every day. An En- " dymion, for the Duke of Devonshire ; a Magdalen, for " Lord Liverpool, and a Nymph, are his latest works, " and his best." This notice of the expanding powers of Canova seemed 254 THE PRINCESS BORGHESE. probability that he will ever be able to give to his statues that indescribable attraction which forces us to wish for a second sight, though we may not have been very agreeably struck with the first,— -for a third, though the second barely pleased us, — for a fourth, be- cause the third left us charmed with beau- ties which we did not discover before, and which only unveil themselves to persevering attention. Thus it is with even the second- rate productions of the Grecian sculptors; but with the best of modern artists it is far otherwise ; we see them with pleasure a first — very willingly a second — and with great indifference a third time ; after which we may remember them, but we seldom long to see them again. One of Canova's best statues is said to be that of Buonaparte's youngest sister, Princess Borghese, who sat naked for it ; and who replied to an English lady who asked how she could bear to do so. that due, at once, to the tame of the artist and to the reputation ofhis Critick, whose strictures in the text, it must be remembered, have no reterence to Canova's recent pro- ductions. — hi). CANOVA. 255 " there was a very good fire in the room* P Icannothelpseizingthisopportunity of ex- pressing, by the way, the astonishment with which I learnt, from unquestionable autho- rity, that some English ladies of great dis- tinction, whom respect for their families pre- vents me from naming, had paid their court most assiduously and in the meanest man- ner to this abandoned woman ; whose re- putation is worse than that of almost any other avowed lady of pleasure ; and whose conduct was so shameless that her brother was obliged several times to use serious threats to bring her to some shew of out- ward decorum. One of these ladies was seen to warm the princess's feet with her own hands. An English Countess ! and at home one of the haughtiest to her own countrywomen! I must in justice add, that this conduct roused the indignation of the Italians, and that it was highly disapproved of by her most intimate friends. What an * Prince Borghese has shut up this statue in a closet, oi which lit: keeps the key himself, ami does not allow anv l)odv, not even Cunova, to see it. 25() C A NOVA. idea might not this have given of the Bri- tish nobility, — if the Countess of W d who, fortunately for the nation, was the best known and the only one really looked up to by the Romans, had not most rigidly adhered to those principles of honour and decency, which ought to be the first rule of her rank ! Canova has executed statues of almost all the individuals of Buonaparte's family, some of which are still in his hands; that of Madame Murat is good-looking, that of Madame Bacciocchi, who was the most like her brother, very plain ; Madame Le- titia Buonaparte was represented in the attitude of Agrippina, whom she; was not unlike, though she had not the same ema- ciated thought-worn countenance. As to Buonaparte himself, every one acquainted with the ancient medals and busts of the Emperor Nero, was struck with their re- semblance. There is, on the portal of St. Peter's, in a basso relievo, a figure of the latter, which seems to have been made for Buonaparte. Lavater would have been charmed to find, that the same features be. CANOVA. 257 longed to two such striking instances of si- milarity of character in ancient and mo- dern history. One of Canova's most elegant produc- tions is Psyche, placing a butterfly on the hand of Cupid- The most disagreeable which I have seen is the statue of the pre- sent King of Naples. Nothing can be imagined more hideous and stupid. He certainly has not represented him con amove ; and iftheslatue be transmitted to posterity, poor Ferdinand's ugliness is more than likely to grow proverbial. Canova is an elderly man, of very gen- tlemanlike appearance, and polished man- ners ; fond of literature as well as of the arts. He makes a noble use of his riches, and is extremely beloved by his acquaintance. VOL. T. 258 CHAPTER XIV. Brief Notice of other Roman Artists, and of their Works — Torwalsen, in Sculpture — Lanti, Ca- muccini, V erstappen, Bassi, and Kaysermann, in Painting — Extraordinary Talent of an unin- structed Boy — Master-pieces of the Old Painters restored from the Louvre — Final Remarks on the Museums of the Vatican and the Capitol. JLlAVING thus freely given my opinion of Canova, it may be as well perhaps that I say a few words in this place of the other artists whose works I saw at Rome, instead of filling volumes with an attempt at de- scribing, or merely enumerating, the amaz- ing multitude of fine objects which the Vatican contains, and which are already before the world in a great number of very good books written for the special purpose of recording them. I have already mentioned Torwalsen as superior to Canova in bassi relievi ; nor do 1 think his statues very much inferior, though he sells them for four thousand scudi, while TORWALSEN. 259 those of his rival cost five or six thousand. His Adonis is more original and I had almost said handsomer, than any of Can ova's works ; but on the whole his style of execution is less noble, and less largely managed. Among his bassi relievi is a Triumphal March of Alexander, in which there is a great deal of very beautiful work, mixed with some errors that spoil its effect, the most striking of which is the having introduced elephants, on which men lean as they might on ponies. He is a great favourite with the English, and is often employed in making busts, which, if I am not mistaken, generally cost five hundred scudi. Two of Lord Lucan's beautiful daughters have sat for theirs, in which he has been extremely successful. Amongst the painters, who are, as might be expected, infinitely more numerous than the sculptors, five deserve to be mentioned with particular respect by me. I say by mc, because I doubt not but there may be other clever artists whose works I had not an opportunity of seeing. I shall mention Mr. Lanti first, because his compositions have the highest of all S £ 200 ROMAN PAINTERS — LANTI. qualities in a very eminent degree : they are extremely poetical. His Jesus disputing with the Doctors in the Temple, is in this re- spect at least, equal to the finest paintings that I have seen. There are six doctors, all of them remarkably expressive, but quite different from one another. The first is evidently a subtle, villanous man, who seeks to entangle our Saviour. The second is talking with his neighbour, apparently in explanation of something that the youth has just said ; and yet you may see that he is on the point of turning back towards the latter, to listen to his reply to a new question. This intended motion is so evident, that it gives an uncommon degree of animation to the scene. The third doctor seems asto- nished at the justness of the young disput- ant's arguments. The fourth is shewing him some Hebraick lines in a book or table which he has fetched, and to which it seems as if some allusion had been made. The fifth is the very picture of good faith and honesty. The last is a fine old man, with a venerable silver beard, in the deepest me- ditation, whose features bespeak a inind LANTl's PAINTINGS. 201 well-stored with knowledge, and a heart ennobled by sound philosophy. Jesus is supposed to be twelve years old ; his sta- ture and face are not above his age, but there is in his countenance a mixture of serene and modest self-possession, of gen- tleness and noble candour, which do great honour to the conception and skill of the painter. The Virgin Mary and Joseph are just come in, in search of Jesus; and the former seems to say, that she has been looking for him every where, but without the least intention of conveying a tacit re- proach in this observation. There is a sweet expression of motherly pride in her countenance. This picture, on the whole, afforded me infinite delight ; though the Virgin's countenance might have been more dignified ; the head of one of the doctors is moreover a little too large. Another beautiful painting of Mr. Lanti's is his Antigone, at the moment that Creon has ordered his guards to seize her. After a supposed struggle, which has partially removed her drapery and exposed to view the most beautiful bosom that can be iina- 262 LANTI'S PAINTINGS. gined, she is fallen backwards on the arm of a soldier, who forms a very skilful con- trast. Her sister is endeavouring to defend her. Old CEdipus has heard her shriek, and rushes towards her, offering his hand ; he seems to have forgotten for an instant his blindness, and to feel the very excess of despair at finding himself incapable of protecting his children. The subject is a noble one, and is executed in a masterly manner. Mr. Lanti excels in females ; and the less his figures are covered, the more talent does he display in the representation of them. He showed us two other paint- ings of females, which I thought exquisitely beautiful ; the first represents a Young Bride, to whom her mother is introducing a husband : the other is Antiope, whom Love discovers sleeping to Jupiter, under the form of a Satyr. The latter has the colour of his disguise, and two small horns, but he has not the cloven feet, which Mr. Lanti considers as too much below the dignity of a God. The child is really charming, and would have done honour to the greatest painter known. ROMAN PAINTERS CAMUCCINI. 263 Mr. Camuccini is, perhaps, more correct than Mr. Land in his designs, but he is not equal to him in colouring ; and his sketches, which are remarkably fine, end in very indifferent pictures. He is, besides, much inferior to Mr. Lanti in poetical spirit, and seems to have no idea of a sub- ject but that which the historical fact po- sitively specifies. In this respect he is very much like Canova. We saw in his study two grand pieces, one of which, The Death of Virginia, had received his last touches. The other, The Death of Julius Ccesar, was merely sketched. The figure of Virginia is extremely beautiful, but she is too pale and livid, considering that she has only just been struck by the knife which her father still holds in his hand. Virginius is utterly destitute of dignity, and even of that sort of elevation which the scene could not fail to have given him, although he had been naturally as vulgar as the picture re- presents him. The people around express surprise and grief, but nothing else. There is nothing of poetry in all this ; it is like the argument of a chapter of Roman history. 264 CAMUCCINI VERSTAPPEN. Caesar is represented at the moment when Brutus is on the point of striking him, and he says, " Et tu, Brute /" Mr. Camuccini seems to have treated this sub- ject in a much better style than the former ; but he will perhaps spoil it in the colouring as he is said to do most of his composi- tions. Mr. Verstappen is, I presume, the first landscape painter in Europe. His colour- ing is admirable for truth, warmth, and luxuriant beauty. I never saw water re- presented with such striking effect ; his trees show a vigour of vegetation which equals nature itself; and his goats are the most charming animals that ever were pro- duced on canvas. Mr. Verstappen was born in Holland, but he left that country twelve years ago, and is not disposed ever to return thither. He looks upon Rome as his own country, because it is that of the arts and of artists. Switzerland he allows to be a very fine and picturesque country, but a much less fertile ground than Italy for a painter. His genius seems full of that »-low which he admires in nature and trans- ROMAN PAINTERS — BASS!. '205 fuses so faithfully into his works. He is just the man to have said " Ed io son pit- tore P A remarkable particularity in him is, that he paints with the left hand ; the right has either been cut off, or possibly he may have been born without it, but he does not like to have it observed, and always keeps it wrapt up in a handkerchief, or hid under his pallet. The price of Mr. Verstappen's largest paintings is one hun- dred and twenty pounds, and they are cer- tainly very cheap. The smaller ones cost only from thirty to fifty pounds. Mr. Bassi is a very clever young artist of about thirty years of age, of gentlemanlike deportment, and of great modesty in his estimation of his own performances, which might well inspire him with some vanity. He is perhaps a little too fond of represent- ing the sunshine playing on the ground, through the foliage of his trees ; this is very pretty in nature, because there is mo- tion in it, but in a painted landscape where it remains fixed and immoveable, it pro- duces a good effect only at the first glance. When viewed long together it gives a spot- 266 BASSI KAYSERMANN. tiness to the picture, which far from being beautiful, is even disagreeable. But such caprices very easily lay hold on the fancy of young men, from whose after-works a maturer taste will as easily banish them. Mr. Kaysermann paints in water-colours, and is undoubtedly one of the first, if not the very first, in that style. His port-folio is the richest I ever saw, and worth a very large sum of money. His views of Terni, where he spends part of every summer, are admir- able; and those of Rome beyond the Capi- tol, uncommonly fine. But in the latter I think he extends the poetical license a little too far, — omitting such buildings as would spoil the general effect of his pic- tures, completing others which are only imperfectly seen from the place whence he takes the view, introducing trees where no trees grow, and displacing those which partly conceal any object worthy of his pencil. But then the antiquities are always religiously respected, and are represented exactly as they exist ; so that though the liberties he takes may seem defects to those who live on the spot, and who set a ROMAN PAINTERS. 267 high value on a minute resemblance, — to strangers, who prefer a fine painting, com- prising accurate representations of the most remarkable monuments of ancient Rome, they are real recommendations. The price of one of his very beautiful pieces is eighteen pounds, and will probably be much higher when they become more scarce. Mr. Kaysermann is a Swiss, and an elderly man of very agreeable conver- sation and indefatigable kindness. There was, at Rome, while we were there, a lad of fourteen or sixteen years of age, who surprised every foreigner, and many of the natives, by his natural talent for drawing. He used to walk about the streets and publick places with a piece of charcoal in his hand, and wherever he met with a convenient clean place, he im- mediately drew figures which shewed un- common talent, and groups in which though there might sometimes be confu- sion, there was always taste and genius. As those who passed by and stopped to sec him draw, (which he did with remark- able rapidity,) generally gave him a few 268 INSTANCE OF NATURAL TALENT. baiocchi, and now and then even paoli, he lived entirely upon what he got by those means. Canova had once taken him un- der his care, but he found it impossible to do any thing with him, as he could not bring him to study soberly the first rudi- ments of the art. The boy assured me, that he was very sorry to have left Canova, and that he would like of all things to re- turn to him ; but I understood that these assurances deserved little credit. One day, after drawing a pretty numerous group of warriors and women, on the wall of a house, he saw a vacant space in the middle of his design, which he rilled up by inserting an arm. I told him he had made a mistake, and wished him to find it out by himself; but he declared he could not. I then showed him that this new right arm belonged to a figure which had one already, and that it ought of course to have been a left arm ; but he was quite indifferent to the criti- cism, said it was no matter, and seemed not to care a straw about it. It is a great pity that nobody would take care of him : he mav have left Canova in a mo- PAINTINGS IN THE VATICAN. 269 mcnt of impatience, when he was hardly more than a mere child ; but now that he is growing up, I dare say reason would have some influence upon him ; and if he could be brought to study diligently for a i'ew years, there can be little doubt but he would highly distinguish himself. After this digression on modern painters, I must return to the Vatican, to say some- thing of the great masters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whose works have been brought back to Rome after passing some time in Paris, in the com- pany of so many of their near relations. The first of these in rank is Raphael's Trans- figuration, which is accounted his most per- fect production. I must confess, that it did not fully answer my expectation. Nothing can be more correct, than the drawing and painting, (provided the enormous limbs of the exorcised child can be reasonably ac- counted for by the effect of the disorder that overpowers him) ; but the general effect of the picture did not appear to me to be very poetical, and though I have seen it se- veral times since.it never struck me as being 270 PAINTINGS IN THE VATICAN. equal to its prodigious reputation, and to what I expected from the name of Raphael. His Santa Cecilia at Bologna really pleased me better. I must, however, confess, that my fancy had been exalted to the very highest pitch by the idea of the best work of the Author of the School of Athens; and nothing short of supernatural perfection could perhaps have satisfied me entirely. It was moreover absurd to expect much poe- try in a subject which seems to preclude invention ; and I deserved to be disap- pointed for having forgotten that the painter's style, in a subject taken from scriptural history, must necessarily be very different from that which he adopts for a work of fancy. The next painting in point of reputation, is Domenichino's last Communion of St. Jerome. If I had not seen it, I never should have been able to conceive that an old man, painted naked, in the last stage of decrepi- tude, with all his wrinkles, could produce any other effect than that of disgust or pity. It certainly is a proof of wonderful talent, to have vanquished such a diffi- PAINTINGS IN THE VATICAN. "271 culty ; but I must confess, I still wish that he had employed it on a more graceful subject. The Santa Petronilla of Guercino is full of admirable details ; but the figures are rather too large, and the composition too crowd- ed to produce a very good effect, or at least so good an effect as the beauty of the execution ought to have produced. I think, however, that the effect of the picture suf- fers from the bad light in which it was placed when I saw it, and which never allowed me to seethe whole of it from the same point of view. Guido Reni's Fortune, is not one of his best works, though it had been carried away by the French, and has since been restored as such. The other paintings are by Parocci (by whom there is a very beautiful Descent from the Cross,) Perugino, Garqfalo, M. Angelo da Caravaggio, Poussiji, and Parme- giano, all very line ; but I think inferior, on the whole, to the paintings in the Hall of the Santo Spirito, at Bologna. The celebrated rooms of Raphael are so 272 THE VATICAN — RAPHAEL. well known, from the numberless descrip- tions which have been given of them, that it would be mere waste of time to write about them again. I shall only observe, that the pictures are so ill preserved, and in such dark situations, that the real pleasure felt in seeing these originals of admired copies, is mixed with no inconsiderable share of vex- ation and disappointment at seeing them so imperfectly. In spite of all that has been said and written, I persist in thinking that the School of Athens is Raphael's most glo- rious work, and his first title to immorta- lity. I never can bring myself to consider drawing and colouring alone as sufficient qualifications for a great painter. He must above all things be a poet; and I had rather see a poetic composition in mere chalk, with due expression in the figures, than the most magnificent finished portraits of unin- teresting persons. It would renew the extreme pleasure which I felt in the rooms appropriated to the Museum, to give an account of them all ; of the extraordinary beauty of some, of the elegance of others, and above all of THE VATICAN AND CAl'ITOLINE MUSEUMS. 273 the immense riches which they contain in monuments of the different sorts of sculpture among the ancients, and in modern works executed with the most precious materials. But it would fill volumes, and would after all be of much less value than the cata- logues and descriptions given by profes- sional men, whose works are in everv body's hands. I shall only say, that I have seen the palaces of several powerful Sove- reigns ; and that all of them together, even including that of the Emperor of Russia which is by far the richest, cannot give even a faint idea of the Vatican. Nor shall I at- tempt to give a description of the Museum of the Capitol, some of whose chief orna- ments 1 have mentioned above*. It has been already frequently and well described. Besides, common statues are not objects of * I would recommend to every amateur of the fine arts to endeavour to see the Museum by torch-light. I went once with a party, accompanied, or rather led by a man who held a bunch of eight or ten wax candles, tied together so as to form a line torch. Not only are the statues seen to much better effect in this manner; but the spectator has this great advantage, that his attention is not di- verted nor fatigued by the surrounding objects. VOL. I I 274 THE VATICAN AND CAPITOLINE MUSEUMS. interest, and excellent ones I am not com- petent adequately to describe. The mas- ter-pieces may be praised, — they may be sung ; nothing is more capable of exalting and inspiring a poet's imagination ; but not even Winckelmanns descriptions give an ade- quate idea of their perfection. A man may travel during the better half of a long life, and form his taste and ideas for the enjoy- ment of every thing that is elegant in ancient and modern art ; but as long as he has not seen the wonders of ancient sculp- ture, let hirn be assured that he has yet very much to study and to learn. 275 CHAPTER XV. Account of some of the best Paintings at Rome, in Churches, and in the Palazzi Colonna, Sciarra, Corsini, Yamese, Doria, Barberini, fyc. fyc. — Le Nozze Aldobrandine — Notice of the JEgina Marbles ; and of the Statues on the Monte Cavallo. 1 SHALL now mention some of the finest paintings which I saw at different times in different parts of Rome, in order to com- bine as much as possible in one mass all that I have to say on this branch of the arts ; but if in the course of the remainder of my account of this labyrinth, I happen to remember any very interesting work omit- ted here, I shall not scruple to introduce it in some other place. Mr. de la Lande's method of dividing the city into separate quarters, which he visited and described one after another, was extremely good and convenient for such a work as his ; but it would have required a much longer resi- t 2 *27() PAINTINGS BY GUIDO RENI. dence in Rome than the limits of my time allowed me to make, and a much more voluminous journal than I had leisure to record. Besides, my intention is chiefly to describe Italy and its Inhabitants, such as they were at the time of my visit, and such, in many respects, as I hope they will not long continue to be. It is not an essential part of my plan to speak of monuments of art, which ages ago were the same as they are now, and which will remain without any very sensible alteration as long as proper care is taken of them. Of these, one de- scription is quite sufficient for all the nations of Europe. My design in mentioning some of them, is to give useful directions to those readers who may have but a few months, perhaps weeks, to devote to Rome, and who may happen not to have prepared them- selves for their visit, by the perusal of more copious accounts of its most interesting cu- riosities. Whenever I think of paintings, the name of Guido Keni is the first that occurs to me. I do not, by any means, pretend to place him in the same rank with Raphael, but I GUIDO UENI'S PAINTINGS. 277 love and admire him as the deepest of elegiac painters, who has surpassed all others in the expression of noble, decent, and religious grief. He never attempted to torment his spectators by horrid images. It was his peculiar skill to penetrate into the inmost recesses of the heart by the gentlest of all means, — Compassion and Love; love of the purest sort; compassion totally different from pity, for those who in- spire it in his works always seem superior to those who feel it. He was so perfect a gentleman, and had such refined notions of decorum, that it seems to have been impos- sible for him to represent grief or pain otherwise than guarded and dignified by a pious and majestic resignation. One of Guido's most striking composi- tions is the Archangel Michael treading on Satan, whom he is going to bind in chains. The countenance of the angel is so full of dignity, and at the same time so gentle; there is in it such an union of nobleness, sweetness and severity, that he seems to master the evil spirit rather by the supe- riority of his being, than by any effort or 278 GUIDO RENl's PAINTINGS. exertion of his strength. His features are at the same time exquisitely beautiful. This admirable picture is in the church of the Capuchin Friars, on Monte Pincio (Mount Esquiline.) Another piece of the highest merit is his Christ on the Cross, in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina. I will venture to as- sert, that our Saviour was never represent- ed in a more becoming or more worthy manner. The most interesting of his portraits, is that of Beatrice Cenci, in the Palazzo Co- lonna. Beatrice was the daughter of a Roman senator, and she was so unfortunate as to inspire her own father with incestuous love. Struck with horror at this discovery, and with terror at the idea of the constant and almost inevitable danger to which she was exposed, she joined with her step-mo- ther in a conspiracy against her father's life; and he was actually killed, if not by them, at least by their contrivance. The crime was proved, and Beatrice was condemned to lose her head on the scaffold. Guido Reni was in the crowd assembled to see her pass. THE COLONNA AND SCIARRA PALACES. 279 and as she turned towards him drew a hasty sketch of her countenance, which he afterwards finished and perfected into a portrait. It is uncommonly beautiful, without the slightest expression of ferocity or guilt. It is very probable that the step- mother, enraged at her husband's abomi- nable love for his own child, worked upon her fancy, and contrived to persuade her that this blow alone could save her virtue. Beatrice was at that time but seventeen years of age. The palace of Prince Colonna is extremely magnificent, and more like that of a Sove- reign than of a private nobleman. It contains a great many other fine paintings by different masters, and is well worth vi- siting. That of Prince Sciarra, of the same fa- mily, is much less grand, but it contains one room immensely rich in the most valu- able paintings. We saw there Michael An- gela da Caravaggio's master-piece, repre- senting a Youth cheated at Cards, Leonardo da I inc'is Vanity and Modesty, Guercino'.s St. John and St. Mark, a beautiful portrait of a 280 THE CORSINI PALACE. lady by Titian, and two very fine Magda- lens, original and copy, by Guido Reni, — of which the original pleased me best. The two first of these paintings are so beautiful, that a real amateur would be well recom- pensed for a very long journey, by the sight of them alone. The palace of Prince Corsini is likewise extremely rich ; there are in it nine rooms full of very valuable and beautiful pictures, amongst which a head of St. John the Baptist, by Guido Cagnacci, particularly caught our attention, — not so much in consequence of any uncommon excellence of its own, as for its striking resemblance to his brother Guido Reni's St. John of the Remitani, at Padua. It is evident that the brothers painted from the same model, though with unequal success. This pa- lace is now on sale. If the collection goes with it, it will be worth the attention of Sovereigns. Prince Corsini is gone to Flo- rence, and seems to have left Rome for ever. The celebrated gallery shown in the Farnesina, struck me as very inferior to its THE FARNESINA, 281 great reputation : I saw nothing in it that I should have particularly remarked, except a beautiful group of the Graces, which is so very different from all the rest, that I im- mediately asked our guide if the same hand had really painted the whole. He informed me that the group I admired was Raphael's own ; but that his scholars had painted all the rest under his direction : the whole, however, goes under his name, and it really is doing him very little honour. It was in the next room, that Raphael painted the Triumph of Galatea, and that Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who secretly gained admission to see it, in spite of Raphael's positive injunctions for his exclusion, sketched a large head on the wall, with a piece of charcoal, whose author Raphael guessed the instant he saw it. The Farnedna was to have been joined to the palace of Farjiese, by an arch cast over the Tiber, but this work has not been ac- complished. The latter is, in point of archi- tecture, one of the most magnificent in Rome. It was built with materials taken from the Coliseum ; and is in the same 282 THE FARNESE PALACE. style, having three different orders one above the other, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian ; but with all its ill-gotten wealth, it does not produce a very good effect. Its greatest beauty consists in a room painted mfresco, by Annibal Caracci, and which, I think, an amateur of painting might be justified in calling the most beautiful in the world. There are some mere outlines, others shaded in chiaro scuro, and others finished in colours ; the whole most elegantly in- termingled, and as perfect as imagination can conceive them. They had been hi- therto kept in the most admirable state of preservation, while the remainder of the palace was abandoned ; but now unfor- tunately, the Neapolitan Ambassador lives there, and having no other drawing-room fitted up for the reception of company, it is but too likely that this apartment will be spoilt by the smoke of lamps and candles. His Excellency gave a ball, during our stay in Rome, to which we went ; and though I was well entertained, and glad to see the fete, it grieved me to the heart to see so many lights in that place. They THE FARNESE AND DORIA PALACES. 2HS had, however, been very carefully dis- posed ; and were placed so much lower than the paintings, that they could not have done them great damage on that single even- ing, but frequent repetition might hurt them seriously. There was additional rea- son for placing the lights at some distance from the paintings ; several of the subjects being extremely free, and some even inde- cent. How could it be otherwise, in a pa- lace of the house of Farnese ? Is it not very glorious for the branch of the Bour- bon family that reigns at Naples and in Spain, to owe a great part of its riches to an alliance with such an house? When So- vereigns are base enough to choose the most corrupt blood to be poured into the veins of their children, and the most dis- gusting monsters and abandoned women to blot their heraldry, they must not ex- pect to be revered as the Vicegerents of the Almighty on earth. The palace of Prince Doria is one of the most interesting in Rome in respect of its gallery, which contains many very beauti- ful paintings ; and, in particular, some of "2Sl LE NOZZE ALDOBHANDINE. the most admirable landscapes of Claude Lorraine. I should be sorry to omit mentioning one very curious remain of ancient art, which we had some difficulty in discovering, as it is in a private house of no great appear- ance, in the Corso, not far from the Rus- poli palace, but on the opposite side of the way : unfortunately I cannot recollect the exact number of the house. The picture is called Le Nozze Aldobra?idine, from the name of the first proprietor at the time of its discovery It is a very curious re- presentation of a wedding night. The co- lours have sadly suffered from damp, and no judgment can at present be formed of them ; but the drawing is masterly, the subject significantly but not indelicately treated, and the composition really admi- rable. Since I have mentioned several modern palaces, I ought not to pass over that of the Braschi, the staircase of which is one of the most elegant, and most magnificent in the world. I may take this opportunity of observing, that when the weather is damp PALACE OF ST. MARK. 285 all the staircases and pillars of all the pa- laces I saw in Rome are dripping with wa- ter, though not exposed to the rain. I should think this a very strong indication of an unwholesome climate ; but I made no observations on the subject. I only mention it as a circumstance which struck me par- ticularly, when I visited some of these pa- laces. The palace of St. Mark, or of Venice, is very remarkable for its Gothic construc- tion, amongst all these modern buildings. It is in a state of decay, which will pro- bably cause it to be abandoned ere long, unless the Austrian Government choose to sacrifice a considerable sum to repair it, — which they are not very likely to do. It was inhabited at the time by Count Appo?ii, the Austrian Ambassador, who gave a splendid ball there; but I understood that the two rooms where we were received were the only ones that could be made use of for company. Its finest ornament un- doubtedly was the ambassador's lady, an exceedingly pretty and most amiable wo- man, and one of the most accomplished 286 GUIDO RENI'S AURORA. that I ever met with. She is a native of Verona brought up I believe, at Vienna : the Count is an Hungarian, — and a very young man for such a post. How could I forget to speak of Guido Reni's Aurora, in the Barberini Palace ? It is a most classical production, and one of the most celebrated in Italy ; but I confess, that I like this artist better in melancholy compositions — in which he surpasses all competitors, than in such subjects as this, in which though excellent, he is yet sur- passed in some points by Raphael and by Annibal Caracci. I am very far from noticing these as the only galleries and palaces that deserve to be visited in Rome ; but people who have but a short time to spend there, will find those which I have mentioned quite suffi- cient to fill up the intervals of their visits to the ancient monuments, which should always be considered as their first object. Those who are fortunate enough to have years at their disposal, may take an anti- quary or Cicerone to accompany them about the city, trusting to him for the THE jEGINA marbles. 287 choice of the objects of curiosity ; and there are some of this class who are very clever and well-bred persons. I cannot, however, omit to say a few words of a very wonderful collection of statues, which I have purposely refrained from speaking of hitherto, because they were not Roman property, but belonged to the Hereditary Prince of Bavaria, in whose palace at Munich they are now probably deposited. I mean the JEgina Marbles]; which are uncommonly interesting, as the most ancient monuments of Grecian sculp- ture known to us. I shall attempt to de- scribe them for the satisfaction of those who may not have an opportunity of see- ing them, or who may not be able to pro- cure a better description of them than mine, — which I am sensible must be very imperfect, especially as I was prevented from seeing the marbles so often as I could have wished. Some artists were at that time busied in restoring them, which they were doing with such astonishing skill, as really to deceive the eyes of any but very practised connoisseurs; and it was on 298 THE iEGINA MARBLES. this account impossible to gain admit- tance except at particular hours, of which for several weeks, we were not aware. No- body that I have heard of, has yet been able to form any probable conjecture as to the subject which they were intended to re- present ; which seems to be some trait, unknown to us, of heroic and fabulous history. There is a figure of Minerva in all her martial attire, which stood in the pedi- ment of an ancient temple, in the midst of the other figures : at least that is the ac- count which was given us of them; but then it is strange, that all the figures should be so completely finished on every side. There are seventeen figures of men armed with bows and arrows, some in the act of shooting, others dying, one pulling an ar- row out of his bosom ; but every one of them exactly alike in features and counte- nance, and smiling in a rather foolish man- ner. Their noses are tolerably good, but their eyes and mouths are by no means well formed, and the whole face is rather disagreeable than otherwise. This is a very remarkable circumstance, and it must THE iEGINA MARBLES. 289 have proceeded from some particular cause ; for the bodies are very handsome, and extremely well executed. Notwith- standing the extraordinary resemblance which I have noticed in the features of all the men, their dresses and arms are not the same, so that they are not likely to have represented one family. Some of them have handsome helmets, and are represented as wearing iron corslets of curious workman- ship, with small leathern thongs hanging over one another. But the lower part of the body, as well as the arms, are entirely naked : and the left arm holds a smooth, round shield. This is likewise the dress of Pallas, except that in her figure the thighs are covered : her helmet had been coloured sky-blue, her corslet had had scales painted upon it, and her robe was edged with scarlet. One of the men is very differently dressed from all the others : he wears pan- taloons closely fitted to the shape, and an equally tight coat, which is very plainly marked at all its extremities and in parti- cular at the ends of the sleeves. One strange circumstance, however, is, thai VOL. I. U 21)0 THE ^2GINA MARBLES. this coat seems to be of one piece with his skin, for there is not the least mark of se- paration at the neck. Was this done on purpose, or was it an omission of the sculptor? The latter seems most im- probable, when the extreme nicety of the finishing in other respects is considered. The hair, both of Pallas and of all the male figures, is most curiously dressed in uncom- monly minute curls. It is clear, from the manner in which the bodies are executed, that the art of sculpture had already attained a very high degree of perfection ; what, then, could be the meaning of making seventeen faces perfectly alike, and every one of them smiling or grinning in that strange manner, even when dying, and under the impression of acute pain ? This seems quite incomprehensible, and will probably furnish no little employment to the most ingenious antiquaries. I was extremely sorry that I could not see these Marbles more frequently, for they had awakened my curiosity, and I should have been delighted to examine them, one by one, with the most careful attention. THE STATUES ON THE MONTE CAVALLO. 291 I have purposely reserved to the last what struck me as the most beautiful sta- tue I had ever seen, without excepting even the most celebrated in the Vatican : I mean the statue attributed to Praxiteles, which was formerly called Alexander taming Buce- phalus, and which Mr. Winckelmann called Pollux. The statue by Phidias, to which he gave the name of Castor, is not nearly so handsome; and the horses of both are wretchedly bad. These two groups are placed on the Monte Cavallo (the Quirinal,) which has taken its name from them. I am decidedly of opinion that the former is superior even to the Apollo of the Bel- videre. 292 CHAPTER XVI Ancient Rome — Reasons of the present Depopula- tion of the Country around — Defence of the Popes from the Charge of neglecting to preserve the Monuments of Antiquity, and of degrading them to modem Uses. The Coliseum, Pantheon, and Columns of Trajan and Antonine — Censure of a class of English Travellers — Difficulty of settling the Topography of Ancient Rome, without further Excavations — Few Remains of the Ages of the Republick. -DEFORE I enter upon the ancient clas- sical ground which I am now about to tread with my readers, I must apologize to them for the very imperfect manner in which I am but too conscious that I shall treat this portion of the subject. I never could succeed to my wish in my attempts to describe objects even of ordinary inte- rest ; and the crowd of associations which every monument of ancient Rome excited in my mind, could not but tend to prevent me from giving sufficient attention to ex- DEPOPULATION OF THE ENVIRONS OF ROME. 2D3 ternal details. Viewing those monuments with the deepest interest myself, I had no room for the consideration of how I might best convey the impression of that interest to others. But I shall make my account of them as clear, and as little deficient in essential points, as I can. Modern Rome extends over a very con- siderable part of the ancient capital of the empire, — though not over the most inte- resting part of it, with the exception only of the immediate vicinity of the Ca- pitol. Several of the hills are now com- pletely abandoned, or are inhabited only by gardeners, peasants, and a few pro- prietors of villas. This is the real cause of the strange disappearance of population in the outskirts and neighbourhood of Home. The husbandmen and country- people left their villages or hamlets, where numerous banditti kept them in constant fear and real danger, and retired within the walls, where they found more ground to cultivate than they had really occasion for. These arc the people who supply the mar- kets'; and little is wanted beyond what thev 294' DEPOPULATION OF THE ENVIRONS OF ROME. have to sell. The man who farms the Far- nese Gardens, on Mount Palatine, told me that he had a yearly crop of thirty thousand artichokes, and other vegetables in propor- tion. This instance is sufficient to convey a notion of the rest ; and whoever has given the subject a moment's thought, needs not be astonished to see the country around so completely deserted. In a walk which I took one beautiful day, with Mr. Edward Bankes, we went out of the Porta Appia, (now called Porta di Sa?i Sebastiano) round the walls, and in again at the Porta di S. Giovanni Laterano, without having met with any living creature save one man and some hogs he was driving, though the distance was at least a mile and a half. It appeared expedient to begin with this obvious reflection (which I do not recol- lect to have heard mentioned before) be- cause it affords, I think, a very sufficient answer to the ever-renewing lamentations, in which so many writers indulge on this subject. I cannot suppose that any one can seriously regret the diminution of the tremendous population of that sink of all VINDICATION OF THE POPES. 295 imaginable vices, ancient Rome. A man may be carried away by a love of the arts, so far as to think it a pity that such and such a monument should have been de- stroyed ; but he must be literally out of his senses to wish that Rome still existed as the sovereign mistress of the world. The sight of ruins cannot but dispose the mind to a train of interesting and melancholy thoughts; but these thoughts ought to be inspired by reason and virtue, not by a childish longing after baubles which could only amuse us, without procuring happi- ness or comfort to any one. I must likewise say a word in defence of the Popes, (and nobody will imagine that I do so from a blind predilection for them,) against what appear to me very unjust and unreasonable imputations. People in general are extremely ready to accuse them of the devastation of an- cient Rome, and to abuse them in the most scurrilous manner for not having preserved the monuments of art with greater care. One might really imagine that not a roof, not a stone of any building had fallen to the '296 VINDICATION OF THE POPES. ground, or had been removed, except by permission of the Popes ; and that they felt a malicious pleasure in destroying temples, theatres, and whatever most parti- cularly deserved to be respected. I shall first observe, that this carelessness about old buildings, even about those which were most respected, was a striking feature of the Republick of Rome. Livy says, that the temple of Jupiter Feretrius was fallen to pieces through old age — vetustate dilapsum — when Augustus rebuilt it ; and Cornelius Nepos, in the life of Atticus, assigns an additional reason for this dilapidation, namely, neglect, — " vetustate atque incu- ria detecta cedes." Such witnesses as Livy and Cornelius Nepos, when they speak of their own times and of objects which they saw with their own eyes, are as- suredly most unexceptionable. Here then we see, that those very Romans whose meanest edifices it is held to be " a shame to abandon to decay? did not themselves take care of their noblest and most vene- rable monuments and temples ; for what could be more venerable in their eves than VINDICATION OF THE POPES. 297 this temple of Jupiter Feretrius, built by their founder himself, in memory of his first very important victory ? It is really too absurd to expect that a Christian bishop should take better care of the heathen temples, than the heathens themselves did. In the next place, we ought never to forget, that some of those noble edifices of ancient Rome had been completely in- undated with Christian blood. Several thousands of martyrs were torn to pieces by wild beasts in the Coliseum, which is without comparison the grandest of all the monuments still existing. The Coliseum, too, perpetuates the memory of other hor- rors committed by the conquering nation, for it was built by twelve thousand pri- soners of war reduced to slavery : they ac- complished the work in the space of five years, a period within which nothing but the most cruel treatment could have com- pelled them to finish the task ; — though the time may seem sufficient to those who never saw that giant-theatre, which contained places tor more than one hun- 298 VINDICATION OF THE POPES. dred thousand spectators, and in which five thousand beasts were destroyed in a single day, for the amusement of the models of freemen, I should have thought that it had been well for the honour of the ancient Romans, if this monument of barbarous turpitude had been levelled with the ground ; but I frequently met with Eng- lish travellers gravely asserting, that the Popes deserved the curses of mankind for having permitted a few altars to be raised, and a cross to be erected, in the Arena ! — where, by-the-bye, they do not in the least interfere with the amphi- theatre, and are even intended to protect it against new depredations. Indeed, so far is the Pope from being neglectful of these remains, that he has built a buttress to support the outer walls, in a place where they threatened to fall. Besides, he con- stantly keeps guards there ; and as he cannot afford to employ as many guards as would be necessary to defend this and all the other monuments effectually, he has de- vised the very best of all plans for that ob- ject, in making them consecrated ground. CARE AND USE OF THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS. 299 It is thus that the Pantheon has been turned into a Christian church, to the great scandal of those same philosophical ad- mirers of antiquity, who think it a real abomination. Who shall deny that their indignation is just? — when it is recollected how noble a feature in that Roman cha- racter which they so deeply venerate, this temple perpetuates! it was built by one of those great men who showered felicity on mankind, in honour of his master, his em- peror, and his God, — the virtuous Augustus, then living ! Such a compliment, if paid to the King of England, or indeed to any modern Sovereign, by one of his ministers, would be called the very depth of con- temptible flattery; but in a Roman, it was a sublime thought ! and the mere idea of it is sufficient to inspire the liveliest enthu- siasm ! " But what can be said in defence of the statues of St. Peter and St. Paul, which have been placed upon the noble columns of Trajan and Antonine?" Why, that these two apostles are much more truly the Sovereigns of modern Rome, than those •$00 STRICTURES ON ENGLISH TRAVELLERS. whom they have supplanted were of the an- cient city : and that when the Religion for which they suffered martyrdom, fixed its seat here, and exacted tributes in their names from all the Sovereigns in Europe, disposing of crowns and empires at the pleasure of the servant of its servants *, it might seem natural enough that they should be exalted on the very highest and most con- spicuous places in the capital — no longer merely of the ancientRoman Empire, but of the wider Christian world. But no apology (it seems) is to be listened to for such hor- rible profanations. I have seen gentlemen's hair stand on end at the mere mention of them. Their sensitive indignation was ex- cited and their feeling hearts cruelly torment- ed by every modern object. Sometimes in- deed the character of their indignation seem- ed perfectly brutal ; but that brutality was in fact only an excess of liberality ! For ex- ample, if the reader had seen an humble in- dividual prostrating himself before the altar * The Popes very humbly call themselves " Servi H'rvorutu Dei," and then seals bear the heads of St. Petti and St. Paul- STRICTURES ON ENGLISH TRAVELLERS. o()l of God, he would have thought perhaps (as I did) that it might possibly be an afflicted father praying for the life of his only child, or a tender husband seeking consolation for the loss of a beloved wife, or a dutiful son offering the sacrifice of his own life to pro- long that of his parents : and the question revolved in the mind of the spectator, might have suggested a series of deeply- affecting scenes, while he sympathized in sufferings which all cannot view with in- difference. But the gentlemen I have al- luded to were not so childish ; they did not merely conjecture, but were at once convinced^ that it was some murderer, who feigned devotion in order to obtain the absolution of his crimes ! But to speak seriously: I should not have taken notice of this class of indivi- duals, if it had not been so numerous at Rome as to form a considerable body ; and if many young men had not been drawn into it by mere levity, and by a wish to appear thoroughly classical, agree- ably to the false notions they had been taught to entertain on this subject. When 302 STRICTURES ON ENGLISH TRAVELLERS. Englishmen talk nonsense, they are more intolerable than any nation on earth, be- cause they talk it methodically, and with a provoking degree of pedantic assurance. When they are reasonable and sensible, and not less modest and well-bred than well-informed, they are the most delightful people with whom one can associate. I had the good fortune to meet several of the latter description in Italy, and I derived as much enjoyment from their society as from any thing that I saw and admired there ; but there were others, I am sorry to say, whom I met with in still greater numbers, and who are unfortunately a much more communicative class, who really contrived to destroy the pleasure I should have taken in visiting the antiqui- ties, by the silly observations and vexatious ill-nature with which they continually in- terrupted my reflections. I would warn young travellers against this sad disposi- tion to find fault with every thing that does not agree with their own habits and pre-conceived opinions ; and against the adoption of contemptuous and abusive STRICTURES ON ENGLISH TRAVELLERS. 303 modes of expression, which they are too apt to think are indications of superior knowledge and penetration, while they are, in fact, infallible symptoms of ignorance and perverseness of mind. The advice which I give them is both for their good and for their pleasure: they will find much greater delight in sincere admiration than in a surly habit of railing against parti- cular persons and things, not to be in- fluenced or affected by either their censure or their praise. I have seen to my regret even ladies sneer at the religious ceremo- nies of the Catholicks in so open a man- ner as to draw on themselves not only se- vere and well-merited rebukes, but even threats, which nothing but a precipitate re- treat could have prevented from being rea- lized. What excuse can we frame for insult- ing individuals in the exercise of the religion in which they have been educated? Let us join in ardent wishes for the triumph of an enlightened religion over degrading superstition, and for the speedy suppres- sion of the Pope's temporal power : but let us never lose sight of those prin- 304 TOPOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT ROME. ciples of chanty, forbearance and equity, without which the name either of Christian or of Philosopher is a mere idle sound. I shall now endeavour to take my readers along with me, in my excursions over the classical ground of ancient Rome. The ruins of Rome would afford the most delightful entertainment to a person well versed in the poetry and the prose of its ancient authors, if the places which those authors mention had retained their origi- nal names, and could be known again with any degree of certainty. But this is very far from being the case. A great many of the ancient streets have lost every trace of their former appellations, and are only known by the name of some Saint. This circumstance is certainly very provoking. But the same thing happens in every country that has experienced great changes; and those who approved of the proceed- ings of the French in giving revolutionary names to the streets and bridges of Paris, ought not to be so very severe with the Popes or the Romans, for having done the same at Rome. It is a stupid thing enough TOPOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT ROME -305 in either; but the thing is done, and we must takeitas we find it. The ancient names of an immense number of streets, which by their situation might have enabled us to form an accurate conception of the old plan of Rome, have been so changed as to leave us no clue out of these labyrinths. When you fancy you have made out a very plausible map, some passage or other in an ancient writer shows you that you have been mistaken ; and to reconcile all authorities seems nearly im- possible. What increases the difficulty is, that a great many ruins have been mis- named by the earliest antiquaries ; that the wrong denominations still survive; and that it seldom occurs to you to inquire into the truth of their history, till they have led you astray in your attempts to discover other objects and situations by their means. Even the Seven Hills are so completely changed, that you feel quite puzzled at some pas- sages in the historians, which \ou would O 'J have imagined were plain enough to enable you to draw a correct map of Rome, without having seen it. The buildings erected upon them were pulled down, and VOL I N 306 TOPOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT ROME. thrown into the valleys between them ; where they filled up to the very roofs whole streets of deserted houses. This was par- ticularly the case with the Capitoline Hill, when that chief of banditti, Robert Guiscard, came to Rome towards the end of the eleventh century. The whole space between the Capitol and St. John Lateran was laid waste by the soldiers, or robbers, under his command; and it has hardly been inhabited since, except so far as it might suit people who had no other asylum, to take posses- sion of some part of the ruins. We may easily perceive, from the crowded remains of temples on that side of the Capitol, that the streets were astonishingly narrow, and the publick buildings so very near one another, as to cause a real confusion, rather than grand and noble scenery. Judge then of the appearance of the place, when all the houses, and palaces, and temples, and pub- lick buildings of every description were pulled down, and their materials cast into these narrow lanes. It must, for a longtime, have been absolutely impossible to pass that way ; till at length the rubbish smoothed TOPOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT ROME. 307 itself in some degree, by the effect of the rain and dust which formed a sort of plas- ter over it, and a foot-path was established by the peasants, who had no other pas- sage into or out of town. That foot-path became in time a road ; and nobody, for ages, ever thought of looking for the houses below. On the other hand, there can be no doubt but that the Emperors, when they built their immense palaces, their theatres, their Thermce, levelled considerable parts of the ancient hills, so as completely to change their former shape and elevation. It would therefore be vain to try to find out the very spots, which, according to Livy, were illustrated by the first kings of Rome. Indeed, if we could trace the scenes which Livy describes, it would only give us an idea of Rome in his time, not in theirs , for no man, in our days, can be so credulous as to receive as fact what he says of the early ages of Roman history. The number of parrots who have repeated these fables after him, and the number of pe- dants who have forced them into the weak brains of boys at school and at college, is X 2 308 TOPOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT ROME. now I trust nearly exhausted ; as well as that race of scribblers who profess to write history without giving themselves the trouble of examining the materials they employ. A man might as well be called an architect for building a house of cards, as the writers of the two last centuries, historians, for the Mother-Goose Tales which they have translated into French, German, English, Italian, or any other modern language. It is high time that such works should be sent to the grocers*; and fortunate would it have been had they never reached other hands ! But this digression, if I were to indulge in it further, might carry me too far from the subject under consideration, — which is, the impossibility of making the present vestiges of Rome agree with the partial de- scriptions of it, scattered through the works of the Classicks. The situation even of the Forum Romanum, undoubtedly the most interesting spot of the ancient city, is * " \endentein thus et odores, " Et piper, et quicquid chartis hmicitiir inept is.' 1 TOPOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT HOME. 309 far from being precisely ascertained. Mo- dern antiquaries say, that it extended from the foot of the Capitol towards the arch of Janus Quadrifrons : but I am persuaded that it extended from the arch of Septimus Se- verus to that of Titus. They must doubt- less have had some good reasons (besides the pleasure of broaching a new system) for the opinion which they profess : I, on the contrary, am satisfied with my reasons for adhering to the old belief on this sub- ject. Nothing short of the excavation of both places will, I fancy, be able to settle the question. On this subject, therefore, I shall say no more at present: — except that if my readers should disapprove of my suppression of the details of the really- laborious inquiries which I instituted into this matter, I should be ready to com- municate them in a supplement. It cer- tainly is an extremely interesting ques- tion to those who have been at Rome, but the discussion of it might appear tedious and useless to those who nei- ther have been, nor intend to go, there. For the latter it will be sufficient to 310 TOPOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT HOME. know, that no one can yet positively show the place formerly occupied by the Forum Romanum ; that besides the Coliseum and the Pantheon, whose noble destinations I have mentioned, we are assured of the identity of the temple built in honour of the Empress Faustina, one of the most abominable prostitutes that ever disho- noured a throne ; — of the Thermce of the fratricide Caracalla ; — of the gardens of Nero ; — and of several other places equally calculated to awaken those grands souve- nirs which novel writers may talk of, but to which sober critics find it extremely dif- ficult to assign a proper point of action, in all that wide and waste ground. There is a small street near the Capitol (on the side of modern Rome) called Vi- colo di Madama Lucrezia ; but I never could ascertain that it had received its name from the chaste victim of S. Tar- quinius ;—nor was I able to make out the meaning of the title of Madama, which is so uncommon in Italian, and has so un- classical a sound. There is also a small fragment remaining of the bridge on which RUINS OF THE REPUBLICAN AGE. 311 Horatius Cocks is said to have performed such wonders ; but it must be observed that the bridge has been rebuilt and de- stroyed several times; that it was a wooden one in the hero's days ; and that what is left of it, in ours, is of stone; so that ro- mantick visitors, who are very anxious to credit the story (of the truth of which I will not venture to utter a suspicion any more than of that of some of our own Helvetian legends,) need not regret its being covered by the yellow Tiber. The family vault of the Scipios had also been discovered, of late years, in the private ground of a pea- sant. I went to examine it; and having, after a great deal of trouble, gained admis- sion, 1 was shewn into a dark, subter- raneous place, by a man who carried a candle, but who could not explain any thing whatsoever; so that I knew just as much after undergoing the dampness of the vault as I did before, viz., that several individuals of the Scipio family were believed to have been buried there, but that the only interesting Sarcopha- gus, that of Cneius Cornelius Scipio, had S\2 RUINS OF ANCIKNT.UOME. been taken out and carried to the Vati- can. Of any other antiquities in Rome, that can recall to mind the times of the Re- publick, I have no present recollection; if any such should occur to my memory hereafter, I shall not fail to mention them. All the monuments extant are the works of the seven Kings, or of the Emperors. Let not my readers imagine that I took no inte- rest in them on that account : quite the reverse. They entertained and interested exceedingly. But I wish particularly to show, that those stubborn republicans of our days, who breathe nothing but Ro- man virtue* and whose democratic feel- ings are exalted into rapture at the sight of Roman monuments, never saw any thing in Rome but what bore the print of servi- tude under the Kings, and of servility under the Emperors. I, at least, could see nothing else there ; and I am, therefore, not at all prepared to exhaust myself in lamentations upon the sad changes which have taken place in this glorious portion of the civilized world. RUINS OF ANCIENT HOME. 3\H I must beg the forgiveness of such of mv readers as love romance, for the disap- pointment of which I may thus be the cause, for which they shall be compensated in the first novel that I may publish on Italy. In the present work I must be al- lowed to say nothing but what I believe to be the truth, and to express none but na- tural and rational feelings. 311 CHAP. XVII. View of the State of Society in Rome under the Kings, as accounting for the Stupendous Publfc Works of that Early Age, of which the Remains exist at the present day. IF we were to judge of the state of so- ciety in Rome under the kingly power, from the Tales which so many writers have dignified with the title of Roman History, we should find it very difficult indeed to account for the astonishing mag- nificence of its earliest monuments. The Cloaca Maxima, built by the elder Tarquin, is I believe the most stupendous work known in Europe, — a work which even Egyptian kings might have admired. The Curia Hostilia offers remains of similar architecture ; walls and vaults, built with stones of such enormous size, and so closely joined, that they are likely enough to en- dure to the end of the world. From these remains alone it would be easy to shew HOME UNDER THE KINGS. 315 how ridiculous is the supposition that the Common People were of any considera- tion in the State under the Kings of Rome : they were slaves, and could be nothing else. It is clear that they had no votes to give ; that they were never con- sulted ; that the publick resolutions were not even communicated to them, except in so far as it was necessary that they should know what duties were prescribed for their performance ; in short, that they were very nearly on the same footing as the Russian peasants in our days, — perhaps rather worse than better. On the other hand, I have no doubt that the Aristocracy had a much higher degree of power and dig- nity than they are generally represented and supposed to have possessed. All those Lords who were called Patricians, were very nearly on a level with their Chief, whom they called King, or (as I shall explain it when I come to speak of the language) Orator. Their more im- mediate, armed followers, very probably formed that part of the nation called Po- pulus in the general assemblies. The Pkbs 31 f> ROME INDER THE KINGS. was considered as far below the Populus, which its name indeed implied, — a name (as I shall also shew,) more expressive than polite ; but politeness to that portion of the inhabitants of Rome was then quite out of the question. Under such a government, the private houses even of the wealthiest individuals must have been built on a very moderate scale, because each great man had only a portion of the general riches and a cer- tain number of servile hands at his disposal : but the publick buildings were likely to be exceedingly grand, because in them every individual was equally interested, and yet they cost to no one any distinct personal sacrifice. There is no doubt that these Chiefs had great, and what we generally call he- roick, qualities: military skill, courage, and an independent spirit. They were, it may be presumed, very like the Poles of the last century. But nothing can be more absurd than to imagine that the common people had republican principles, and feelings of pa- triotic love. Every plebeian family was ap- ROME UNDER THE KINGS. 317 pcnded to their patrician chief or patron, whose house or estate was their real Coun- try : for him they worked, for him they prayed, for him they fought, him they obeyed ; and it would have been impossible to separate their interests from his by any appeal to their loyalty to their king and country. King and Country were words, — patriotic attachment a feeling — exclusively engrossed by the higher classes, and which the lower ones never thought or heard of, except when their lords spoke of them in their presence. The plays of Corneille and Voltaire on Roman subjects in those early ages are the most ridiculous productions that fancy could dictate, at least as far as historical truth is involved in them ; and all those declamations scattered through so many books of various descriptions, on the high-spirited republican sentiments of the first Romans, arc no better than arrant nonsense ! The worst of all those fables is that which represents the elder Brutus as sacri- ficing his own blood to liberty : while it is clear from all the known circumstances of 318 THE ELDER BRUTUS. that too celebrated part of pretended Ro- man History, that he was actuated by the most furious and the most disgusting spirit of personal ambition. Liberty was a thing which he never dreamt of, and which his countrymen would probably not have known for a very long period after him, if he had not died ere his plans could be brought to full maturity. A man, who banished the very person whose wrongs he had pre- tended to revenge by the overthrow of the Royal Family, — who banished him upon the mere pretext of his name, — while he himself, the last king's own nephew, as- sumed the supreme authority, — was un- questionably not a friend to liberty. His atrocious condemnation of his own sons, if really true, is but an additional proof of the most savage and tyrannical disposition. Nobody can ever persuade me that a man capable of such an outrage against nature, could mean well to his fellow-citizens. It was the death of this Brutus that opened the eyes of Rome to the first dawn of liberty. The other patricians being very nearly equal amongst themselves, could not long agree in GRADUAL PROGRESS OF ROMAN LIBERTY'. 319 confiding too much power to the hands of any one individual. They chose therefore two ; and they limited themselves to that number, because the idea of an aristocra- tical republic was not yet grown familiar to them, and because they all wished to enjoy the supreme authority in their turn. They conferred this power only for short periods ; and they gradually reduced it within certain limits, which left open the privilege of free discussions in the Senate: for it could not well be expected, that those who had already been Consuls, should, after laying down that office, completely renounce the management of public af- fairs. At first, therefore, their opinions were invited as a matter of compliment to their late dignity ; then they came to be given as a matter of right. The whole Senate, on whose choice the election of Consuls de- pended, soon acquired the same privilege of free discussion ; and the Aristocracy was, by these means, fully established. But the People had nothing whatsoever to do with these first changes, except in so far as their leaders had occasion for their co-operation 320 GRADUAL PROGRESS OF ROMAN LIBERTY. in the field. They had no share, however small, in the elections, much less in the publick resolutions. Nay, they were not even considered as beings of the same species as their lords : since the children born of a mixed marriage (between a patrician and a plebeian) were considered as bastards, such marriages being completely contrary to law. How could it be otherwise, since marriage was a ceremony exclusively re- served for the nobles, and denied to the plebeians ? Until a positive law was ex- torted from the former, authorizing the latter to have their conjugal unions duly solemnized with the same rites, and conse- crated by the same ceremony (confarreatio,) the children of a client were not more truly citizens of Rome, than the puppies or kittens of his patron. It was not till very long after the expulsion of the Kings, that the plebeians began to feel that they were human beings and that the distance at which they were kept by their lords began to wound their feelings. And it is pro- bable, that they would never have dared to make the least attempt to raise them- ROME UNDER THE KINGS. 321 selves above the condition of their mas- ters' cattle, if their services in war had not, by slow degrees, opened their eyes to their disgraceful situation. In time of peace they had either no leisure to make, or no means to circulate, observations of this nature ; but in camps, where the clients of different patrons were necessarily often lodged together, and were led to compare their respective leaders, to talk of their deeds, and to discuss their private as well as publick conduct, they could not fail, sooner or later, to make serious reflections on the extreme difference which existed between themselves and their masters ; a difference not to be sufficiently accounted for by any disparity of natural means ; notwithstanding that the habit of command on the one side, and that of blind obedience and low obsequiousness on the other, might have established a perceptible, and even a striking diversity of features as well as of temper between them. That diversity, be- sides, must have gradually diminished, as every succeeding war augmented the con- sequence, and at the same time enlarged VOL. i. Y 322 DECLINE OF THE PATRICIAN POWER. the feelings and the understandings, of the lower classes. It is probable, however, that the captives in war contributed more than any other cause, to awaken sentiments — first of surprise, and at length of indigna- tion, — in those classes with which they mingled ; for there is every reason to be- lieve that the Italian nations which the Romans subdued around them, had go- vernments of a much more liberal nature than the latter, and were strangers to their degrading division of society into demi-gods, and demi-brutes. Every new conquest augmented the population of a lower rank, and was a real blow to the nobles ; who still went on priding them- selves in their victories, and indulging in that food which was poison to their prerogatives ; till at length the disorder broke out, and produced a series of forced concessions. These concessions are the pro- per authorities to be consulted, as to the social state which preceded them : we may safely judge of what was wanted, by what was extorted : and the great mode- ration of the people in the earliest dissen- DECLINE OF THE PATRICIAN POWER. 323 sions, is no indifferent proof of the awe with which they had been taught to look up to the Patricians. This account of the progress of the Ro- man people in the unfolding of their moral faculties, may seem tedious by its length ; but the progress itself was extremely slow ; since it was only about 150 years after the expulsion of the Kings, that they could ac- complish the election of a Plebeian to the Consular Chair. The end of the fourth century from the foundation of Rome, was then fast approaching. From that time, indeed, the form of her government was democratical enough ; yet there were still strong traces of its former ex- clusive nature ; for the Patricians retained for 65 years longer the very important office of Pontiffs, or High Priests: which, how- ever, they were eventually compelled also to share with the Plebeians ; and after that all their rights were equal. But this did not happen till the 453d year of Rome, more than 200 years after the establish- ment of the Consulate. The levellers of every country are therefore more enter- y » •324 REASONS OK THE DECLINE OF ARCHITECTURE. taining than they wish to be, when they refer to the earliest ages of Rome for the exemplification of their principles, and when they change their own and their children's names for those of Junius Brutus, Valerius Publicola, Horatius, tyc. $c, as they did during the French Revolution. The fall of the Monarchy was accompa- nied by the fall of that noble style of architecture, which strikes the beholder with astonishment and admiration, and which could not exist under any other form of government. The Kings wanted only the assent of a majority of the nobles, for the undertaking of any publick works which their love of magnificence, or their views of publick utility, might suggest to them ; and as they contributed largely for their own share, and had sundry means of influencing others, that assent was easily obtained. The Consuls had great power also, but of too short duration to allow them to engage in works of such mag- nitude, or even to think of proposing them, amidst the continual though success- ful wars with which they were occupied, DECLINE OF ARCHITECTURE. 325 during that first epoch of the republic. Nor is it probable, that they could have in- duced the other senators to consent to such works. Private interest, jealousy, envy, avarice, militated against it. In short, it could not be expected that any thing of the sort would be done under the Consular au- thority : that nothing was actually done is sufficiently evident ; otherwise some part of the works of those times would surely have subsisted to our days, as well as what remains of the monuments of more ancient periods. 326 CHAPTER XVIII. Rome as a Republick — Continuation of the Political Sketch commenced in the precedi7ig Chapter, as bearing upon the Examination of the Monuments of the different ages of Rome. WHEN the Plebeians had achieved a complete equality of rights with the Patri- cians, the progress of the Roman Republic towards universal dominion became, from the mere nature of things, excessively rapid. The lower classes of society are every where loud enough in their invectives against the upper ones ; and as long as they talk in the abstract, every one of them is ready to protest that he will give his vote to none but a man of his own rank. When, however, an election comes on, he is so unwilling to raise his acknowledged equal above himself, that he always prefers voting for one who is already exalted either by birth, riches, or talents. This ROME AS A HEPUBLICK. 327 rule of the human heart meets with so few exceptions, that it may be considered as a standing axiom in politicks. There must be great qualities and great resources of mind in a man, in whose fa- vour the first exception is made to this gene- ral rule. And though we may not be able to ascertain that the first Plebeian who was made Consul did any thing in particular to prove himself deserving of that distinc- tion, we may be pretty sure that none were raised to the dignity but men capable of illustrating their name by their deeds, — at least in the earlier times ; — afterwards, indeed, it was grown into a custom, and the election of a Plebeian Consul had ceased to be a party-stroke. On the other hand, the Patricians were deeply inte- rested in rivalling and excelling their Ple- beian colleagues ; so that this double motive of action gave prodigious strength to the government, and such an impetus to the whole nation, that none of the radical defects of its constitution could impede its progress through a long series of conquests. But those defects stuck closely to it, though 328 ROME AS A REPUBUCK. concealed by the very triumphs which seemed to disprove their existence ; and they penetrated into its core, and gnawed its vital parts, while its outward appearance inspired terror even in the nations amongst whom it had not yet carried destruction. It is not consistent with the plan of my work to carry this digression so far as to give it the appearance of a regular history. I shall therefore only briefly refer to what has been written by several very ingenious, if not profound, authors, on the causes of the downfal of the Roman Republick ; and chiefly to the observations of my own countryman, Mr. de Lolme, who, though he has said but little on the subject, has yet said more in effect than all his predecessors and his followers. And I shall add only a few very obvious truths which do not seem to have been sufficiently attended to, and which I consider to be of immense im- portance. The Religion of the first Romans seems to have been more simple, and more serious than that of other heathen nations. They were strangers to that immense multitude RELIGION OF THE EARLY ROMANS. 329 of gods, which the over-luxuriant imagina- tion ofthe Greeks and Asiatickshad created. Their gods were few in number ; and as they were believed to be virtuous and severe, they were accordingly respected and feared. Religious fear too frequently produces superstition ; and the Romans were extremely superstitious. But if the excess of their credulity made them attach a high degree of importance to ceremonies, which certainly were infinitely more absurd than even the most extravagant practices of the most superstitious sects of Christians, the perfect sincerity of bel ief which ani mated every class, gave them a moral strength which has never been sufficiently appre- ciated. Let it be remembered, that in those early times their priests were not a stipen- diary class : they were the Chiefs who led the people to war, and who maintained them in peace ; without whose permission and interference nothing material could be done, and who introduced some particular religious rites into every action of life. This mixture of civil and ecclesiastical power in the chief of every noble family, 330 RELIGION OF THE EARLY ROMANS. over his children and clients, formed such a bond of union between them, that no ex- ternal influence could have broken it ; and even long after the Plebeians had acquired a rank in society, and a considerable de- gree of influence in the State, they hardly dared to think thatthose religious rites could be performed by any but an hereditary Patrician. As soon as they began to discover that they could perform them with equal efficacy themselves (and it was an unpar- donable error in the Patricians to have made them wish for it, by unseasonably refusing their assistance when it was requested), their deep respect for religion received a wound from which it never recovered. All the divinities of the conquered countries, however immoral and impure, were freely admitted and adopted ; and they com- pletely changed the nature as well as the form of publick and private worship. The great men began to be as free in their speeches on the subject, as the same class in France affected to be during the last two reigns of the Bourbons. Indifference and incredulity glided down from the SELF-LOVE OF THE EARLY ROMANS. 331 higher to the lower classes ; and that Rome which conquered Carthage, had long ceased to exist, when Caesar made himself master of its corpse. The winding-sheet was in- deed more brilliant than any imperial robe, and seemed an object well worthy of his ambition. Although I doubt not but the loss of that severe religious spirit in Rome gave a mortal stab to the Republick, yet there was another very strong vital principle in the moral character of its citizens, by which, if it had outlived the former, the Repub- lick might still have been saved. The first Romans being surrounded by hostile nations on every side, felt much more exclusively attached to their own small country, than if they had lived on friendly terms with those around them. The phi- losophical title of Citizen of the World did not exist in their time; and even if it had been in use, it could not possibly have found its application among them ; since they were not able to pass over the boundaries of Rome without being accompanied by a whole army lo protect them against jealous, and perhaps 332 SELF-LOVE OF THE EARLY ROMANS. justly irritated, neighbours. All their affec- tions were therefore concentrated within the precincts of their own city ; and the conti- nual dangers to which it was exposed, the incessant sacrifices of every sort which its safety and honour required, endeared it to them beyond all conception. No child ever loved its mother, no mother ever loved her child, as they loved Rome. This powerful, I had almost said this al- mighty feeling, which animated the Patri- cians under the Kings, must have acquired new vigour when they established their aristocracy. It certainly received a severe shock, when the Patricians were deprived of their prerogatives ; but then the new- made Romans adopted it with all the ani- mating enthusiasm of youth, and it still produced wonders. Every moment of life is a step towards the grave. It is necessary that the heart should beat to keep off death, and yet every one of its pulsations brings us nearer to our end. This is no less true of nations than of the individuals who compose them; and the fatal hour ay// strike, in spite of all that States- NATIONAL PRIDE OF THE EARLY ROMANS. 333 men or Physicians may do to retard it] The most active life is the quickest spent and our tranquil Glaciers have outlived!* tremendous Volcanoes. The same exercises which powerfully contribute to strength in youth, become fatiguing exertions in man- hood, and killing excesses in a more advanc- ed age.- — The conquests of the Romans un- questionably increased all their faculties at first; but after a certain period, they agitated and exhausted, and at length destroyed them. It was a wise policy in the citizens of Rome to communicate their own rights to so many nations. Since they chose to invade the whole world, it was necessary that they should associate many partners in such an enterprise. But any privilege which we share with numbers, loses proportion- ably of its estimated value ; and the love of Rome, which had been a passion, ceased at length to be even a feeling. Even in the time of their greatest prosperity, this sentiment had already become a mere boast. People were proud, or rather they were vain-glorious, of the title of Roman citizens, which involved in it that of Lords of the 334 LUXURIES OF THE REPUBLICAN ROMANS. Universe ; but, far from inspiring enthu- siasm, it did not even impart a sentiment ■ of satisfaction. As soon as national pride degenerates into arrogance and vain-glory, it becomes a distemper of so malignant a | nature, that nothing but the bitter medi- cament of extreme calamity can penetrate .the public sore, and check the gangrene. During this period, the luxury of the Romans was gradually carried to so extra- vagant a pitch, that the wise and the think- ing even of their own nation were shocked at, and condemned it ; but idle declama- tions can do no good in such cases. Do not our modern people of fashion every morning rail at the lateness of their hours of assembly, and every evening still more retard them ? Many of those who were accounted the most virtuous and the best citizens, were infected with this disorder, and delighted in it hardly less than the worst. But it does not appear that it was a part of their luxury to employ their riches in raising splendid edifices, for the astonishment of posterity. Posterity was nothing to them ; present enjoyment was their only care. LUXURIES OF THE REPUBLICAN ROMANS. 335 They levelled mountains, they digged or filled up lakes, they sent to the extremi- ties of the earth for every delicacy of the table for which each country was renowned; they filled a great number of elegant but small villas with the most costly furniture, they kept an immense num- ber of servants and slaves, and thus they squandered thousands of millions, of which hardly any trace remains except the names of the places from whence they dated ele- gant, philosophical epistles to their friends ! But, suppose Mr. Hastings had met no Burke in the English Parliament, on his return from India ; suppose his wealth had been employed in building the most mag- nificent palace that had ever been seen, — could any man of common feeling have looked at it without horror? Would not every honest friend of the British nation have wished for the annihilation of such a shameful monument of violence and ra- pine, exercised under the sanction of the British name*? Verres was not the only * The writer here falls into a common error of foreigners that of taking our party declamations for truth. No 336 LUXURIES OF THE REPUBLICAN ROMANS. Roman of his stamp, nor was he perhaps the most guilty, though his crimes happen to be the best known to us. man on earth was ever more unjustly accused, or more cruelly treated, than Mr. Hastings ; who had certainly accumulated no money to build " magnificent palaces," and who was supported by a pension. Does not the eloquent and ingenious writer know that Mr. Hastings was acquitted, by the first tribunal in the world, of every charge? — Ed. 33' CHAPTER XJX. Rome under the Emperors — Emminatio?i of the Boundaries of Roma Quadrata ; and Remarks on the Monuments of that Age of Rome —Inferiority of the Romans to the Greeks in good Taste and the Fine Arts. HAVING thus treated of the state of Rome under her Kings, and as a Repub- lick, we come next to the consideration of Rotne under the Emperors. We are now arrived on the real classical ground of Roman Antiquities : for ninety- nine hundredths at least of the fine ruins still extant, belong to that glorious epoch which Tacitus, the greatest writer and the best historian that ever lived, has made so familiar to us, and on which so much light has been thrown by Suetonius. Time has not respected the most curious and interesting monuments of that memor- able era. No trace is left, or at least no trace has yet been discovered of the marble vol. i /, 338 ROiME UNDER THE EMPERORS. house which Caligula built for his horse, and which he decorated with gold and ivory furniture, when he made him Pontiff, and promised to make him Consul. Though there are forty thousand manuscripts in the Vatican library, it would be vain to look amongst them for the letter of congratula- tion addressed by the Roman Senate to Nero, on the murder of his mother. Nor does the Museum of Antique Kitchen Utensils contain the mould of that cele- brated pie for which Vitellius paid three thousand pounds. Alas ! they are lost ! — irretrievably lost I fear, are these, and many more such memorials of the piety, honour, and magnificence of the " Peupk Roi" the " Grande Nation !" Very fortunately, how- ever, enough is left to feed the admiration of our modern philosophers with a splendid banquet of grands souvenirs. The whole space on the farther side of the Capitol is full of ruins ; and those ruins are the more interesting, as the names of but very few of them are known ; so that a man of imagina- tion may choose that which he likes best, amongst all the conjectured ones with ANTIQUITIES OF IMPERIAL ROME 339 which each fragment of Roman antiquities has been so liberally furnished by the men of learning who have written on the subject. The study of antiquities is really one of the most entertaining I ever undertook. Had I been perfect master of my time, I should assuredly not have left Rome until I had ascertained, by the most irrefragable proofs, the site of the Roman Forum ; for though I settled this point entirely to the satisfaction of my own mind, I am not so obstinately wedded to my theory as to deny that very plausible objections may be urged against it. I shall adhere to my promise oi' abstaining from a long disser- tation on this subject, but I must be per- mitted to lay before my readers a single page or two devoted to an investigation upon which I wrote more than fifty on the spot. There is a passage in Tacitus which solved my doubts, and which I think will appear equally conclusive to those who ex- amine it with the same attention that I did. He says: " A foro Boario sulcus designandi " oppidi coeptus, ut magnam Herculis aram 340 ROMA yU ADR AT A. 1 complecteretur : Inde certis spatiis inter- ' jecti lapides per ima Montis Palatini ad 1 a ram Consi: mox ad Curias veteres: turn * ad Sacellum Larium, Forum^aze Roma- ' num." These were the four sides of Roma quadruta on the Palatine Hill. The Forum Boarium all agree to have been situated be- tween the Capitol and the Tiber ; the only difference between the antiquaries on either side of the question, is about its length, which some suppose to have divided that line with theForum Romanum, while others (under whose banners I range myself) con- tend that the latter made a right angle with it. So that this first side, that of the Fo- rum Boarium cannot be doubted to have been in that line which stretches from the Capitol towards the Arch of Janus Quadri- frons and the Tiber, — between the modern town on the right, and the Mount Palatine on the left. The second line is more clearly indicated by the words, " Per ima " Montis Palatini ad aram Consi." The Ara Consi we know to have been in the Circus Maximus, between the Palatine and Aventine Hills. The third line went from thence to ROMA QUADRAT A. 3tl the Curia Veteres, which were near the Arch of Constantine, still extant. These three lines once known, leave no room for disputing about the fourth, which extended from thence to the Sacellum Larium, close to the Arch of Titus, also still extant, and con- tinued from thence through the Forum Ro- manum, in a straight line — for Tacitus places these two objects in the same line on the fourth side of the square, by the particle que (" forumque*') while each side of the square is distinguished from that which precedes it by an adverb, " hide," " Moa," " Turn." I shall say no more on the Forum, hav- ing even outstepped the limit I had pre- scribed to myself: but as 1 have entered into no engagement against speaking of the temples which still embellish it by their ruins, T shall add a few lines respecting them, in answer to some objections grounded on their situation. Of these the Temple of Peace is the larg- est and most conspicuous. l\Iy adversaries say that it was near the Forum ; but that it would have been actually mil, if the forum 342 ANTIQUITIES OF IMPERIAL ROME. had been where I place it. / say it would have been far from the Forum, if the Forum had been on the other side of Roma Qua- dratic, and it need not necessarily have been in the Forum, where I place it ; for the Forum occupied the very narrow valley formed by the Palatine and Esquiline hills, and the Temple of Peace might be situated on its verge, without being actually in it. But as soon as these gentlemen are answered thus, they will perhaps protest against granting to these ruins the name of the Temple of Peace, of which they have been in undisturbed possession time im- memorial ; and they may say that the Temple of Peace was burnt. Very well ; but surely the fire may have spared a part of its walls. — " True ! but you can shew us no trace of fire." That may be, but those traces may have been obliterated by time, and by the dust and rain of so many ages : so, pray, let the temple stand where it is. There is another temple a little farther on, or rather a couple of temples turned with their backs to each other, separated only by a single wall which serves equally for both ANTIQUITIES OF IMPERIAL ROME. 313 of them. This particularity alone would seem sufficient to authorize the conjecture that it was consecrated to the Sun and the Moon, who were supposed to be brother and sister, and yet opposed to each other. And so it has been called, because it is known that there was a temple of that de- nomination in this part of Rome ; but my antiquaries declare that this cannot be, because there was a temple of Diana in another place. A strange argument this! As if Diana, who had three very different attributes, could not have more than one temple in such a city ! These objectors should choose their proofs with a little more care, in a city which contains so many churches in honour of the Virgin Mary, besides one in honour of Giesu e Maria. A great deal has been said on the situa- tion of the temple of Faustina, but the edi- fice which is known by that name in our days, bears an inscription in honour of M. A. Antoninus and Faustina; and it may be — nay, it is very likely to have been — a different building, erected, not by Marcus •344 ANTIQUITIES OF IMPERIAL ROME. Aurelius for his virtuous wife, but by Corn- modus for both his parents. The temple formerly supposed to have been that of Jupitor Stator, was discovered, during my stay in Rome, to have been hi- therto misnamed. It is now asserted to have been that of Castor and Pollux ; but further excavations may possibly procure it even another title. The temple of Jupiter Stator must, in my opinion, have been much nearer the Arch of Titus. Nor is the temple of Concord likely to have been the same which now bears that name. It was built on the declivity of the Capitol, and the present ruins are in the part called Inter- moniium, rather nearer the Tarpeian Rock, which w r as on the other side. The real Ca- pitoline Hill stood between the Intermontium and the Quirinal, and the Clivus Capitolinus was on that side where the prisons still exist, and which is covered with modern buildings. These buildings have deceived antiquaries, who thought the ruins they were in quest of must stand isolated. But it is needless to lose time in enume- rating the places which have no clear title TRANSFORMATION OF ROME. 345 to the names affixed to them ; suffiee it to say, that there are almost none that can be spoken of with any degree of certainty. The form as well as the height of the hills, has been completely changed by the immense heaps of ruins which were thrown down into the lower parts of the town, and which in many places rose up to the level of those buildings which towered above them before. Houses have been built in places where none existed in ancient times ; just because those places happened to be less encumbered with ruins, and because the ground was more solid. Trees have been planted on the top of the rubbish which filled up some streets, and more particularly in the Forum Romanum. All the ancient au- thors are full of declamatory passages men- tioning the temples which overlooked the Forum — " imminentia templa — ," and those temples are now on a perfect level with the Campo Vaccino, some of them even lower. In such a confusion of things, it will be im- possible ever to obtain a clear idea of the ancient disposition of the streets and pub- lick buildings, unless the excavations be 346 EXPEDIENCY OF FURTHER EXCAVATIONS. carried on, upon a much grander scale and upon a proper system. At present, they really answer no very useful purpose. The earth which is taken up from one place, is thrown in a heap on the edge of the excavation, where it is left. If the dis- coveries below require the excavation to be widened, the people employed in it have first to remove all the earth newly deposited there, which nearly doubles their task. The earth and rubbish taken out of the ex- cavations ought immediately to be carried out of town, or to some spot where it could not interfere with similar operations. The Forum Romanum, or Campo Vaccina, might be completely cleared in a few years, and would then afford the greatest satisfaction to its numerous visitors. We should then probably ascertain the precise situation of several landmarks, by which many circum- jacent streets might be known, and which might render possible those classical walks amidst the ruins, which modern poets and novel writers alone can represent as form- ing, or as having formed, part of their en- tertainment iit Rome. In its present shape, RUINS OF THE COLISEUM. 34 7 and with the present lights on the antiqui- ties, it is impossible not only to take such walks, but even to imagine them. Since we must renounce this enjoyment, let us at least turn to the best account, those which are within our reach; and which Rome as it is, offers in sufficient abundance to occupy the leisure hours of a man of taste for years. The Coliseum alone is so vast, so noble, so grand (notwithstanding some serious defects in its architecture) and especially so uncommonly picturesque in so many points of view, that it well deserves to be visited, at least twice or thrice a-week. Nor is it necessary to admire the Romans of former times, and to hate their present go- vernors, in order to take a lively interest in this magnificent fragment of antiquity. I thought neither of Emperors nor of Popes, in the frequent visits which I paid there at every hour of the day — or of the night (for moonlight spreads an inconceivable charm over these ruins.) If the theatre had been entire in all its parts, and just as it existed when it served lor the horrible entertain- 3!<8 RUINS OF THE COLISEUM. ments which I have mentioned, it certainly would not have afforded me the hundredth part of the delight I took in examining it in all its details. Ruins please me for their own sake, not merely in consequence of what they have been, or might be ; and I could never feel particularly angry with those who have removed so considerable a part of the materials for the erection of three or four of the largest palaces, since they have left quite enough to render it the finest thing in the world. In its present state, none of its original defects can produce a very bad, or a strikingly unpleasant, im- pression. We may indeed on the first or second visit be struck with the difference between the mode of its construction, and that which we admire in the works of Tar- quin and his family. The walls of the Coliseum are a mixed mass of stones, bricks, iron, and cement, which will not bear a comparison with the astonishing style of architecture observable in the Curia Hostilia, and particularly in the Cloaca Maxima. The three different orders of pillars and pilasters which are raised over COLUMNS OF THAJAN AND ANTONINE. 34-9 one another, and whose proportions are far from elegant or majestick, do not re- cord the best style of Grecian architec- ture, and they must have produced a disagreeable effect when the building was new. But now, we look for picturesque ruins, not for models of architectural per- fection. The Coliseum is, however, the only piece of antiquity that can be seen so often with the same pleasure : the other ruins have no such picturesque merit, and are only remarkable for partial considerations, such as painted ceilings, the distribution, size, and form of rooms, §c. There are twelve obelisks in Rome; and five grand pillars, the two finest of which are those called the columns of Trajan and Ant of line. The first gives its name to a square, the middle of which has been ex- cavated as low down as the level of the ancient place, which is, if I remember well, about eight or ten feet lower than that of the buildings around. The other stands in the middle of the Piazza Colonna ; there is a staircase within it, as in the London 350 THE CAPITOL. Monument. The general appearance of these columns is very agreeable as well as grand, and they are noble decorations to a square. The Capitol is so very different from what it was in ancient times, that it affords but little satisfaction at first sight ; it is however, far from being so insignificant as some would have it, and it grows more in- teresting on a nearer examination. What people call the Capitol at present, was only the Intermontium of ancient Rome, a sort of midway hill, which joined the Tarpeian Rock to the real Capitoline Mount. The lat- ter is extremely high, as one may easily perceive from the church of Ara Cceli on its top. The Tarpeian Rock is lower, but yet quite lofty enough for its known desti- nation. The Intermontium is lower still, but much higher than it seems. It is oc- cupied by the palace of the Senators of Rome, and contains a collection of paint- ings on one side, and the famous assem- blage of antique statues on the other, both of them extremely interesting. The great difficulty of arriving at this glorious part THE CAPITOL. 351 of ancient Rome, from the Corso, which is the Bond-street of the modern town, is a very remarkable circumstance. It seems as if even chance opposed itself to the too frequent sight, by the present inhabitants, of a monument which they could not well view with the necessary indifference, — .and as if it joined with many other circumstances, to bar their way back to the eminence from whence their ancestors issued their proud commands for the government of the world. The houses on that side are disposed in such a strange manner as to form a real labyrinth, out of which it requires a great deal of practice to find the way. And yet the In- termontium, which in former times had its chief front towards the forum, now has its greatest ascent on the side of modern Rome. It is not without magnificence ; the staircase is grand, and well decorated, and the square on which the Senator's Palace and the Museums stand, adorned as it is with the fine equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, produces a fine effect ; but there does not seem to be room on this 35*2 THE ROMANS DEFICIENT IN TASTE. spot, and on the two summits of the Capi- toline Hill, for the tenth part of the temples and statues which ancient authors mention as having stood on this space. It must, however, be observed, that the Romans were exceedingly far from pos- sessing any well-founded pretensions to elegance ; they imitated the Greeks as closely as they could, without ever attain- ing to their pitch of excellence. They thought there could never be too much of a good or a fine thing ; and they crowded temples, houses, statues, obelisks, and every sort of ornament, in a manner that must have seemed absurd to a person of taste. Rome must have had the ap- pearance of those very rich, but vulgar ladies of fortune, who cover themselves with every description of jewels and gaudy finery that money can purchase : and when Roman writers speak of the admiration with which strangers were struck at the sight, I am much disposed to think that they mistook mere gazing for admiration. It is utterly impossible that a Greek artist could have felt any thing like pleasure, at THE ROMANS DEFICIENT IN TASTE. 353 seeing a dozen temples squeezed together in a space which he would have thought too small for one. Another proof of the want of taste in the ancient Romans, is the ridiculous practice of placing in their temples pillars which they brought from Greece, Egypt, or other countries, and which of course could hardly ever perfectly agree with the architecture with which they were associated. This was done in so many instances, that we may take it for granted they never lost a single oppor- tunity of adding to their supposed riches in that way. In general, the Romans were not formed for the fine arts. They had strong and coarse ideas of things, which completely disqualified them from ever imagining those delicate touches which they sometimes per- ceived and felt in Grecian works, and which they strove to imitate, but never could express with the same elegance and correctness as their models, because they were not of their own growth. Some per- sons have indeed set Virgil on a level with Homer ; but J believe their number to be VOL. 1. v A 354 THE ROMANS AND THE GREEKS. exceedingly small, and to consist only of people who did not understand Greek so well as Latin. But no one, I pre- sume, ever thought of comparing Seneca to Euripides or Sophocles, though some of Seneca's tragedies have great merit. The Romans themselves were so sensible of their inferiority, that they did not think they could do better than to trans- late, or to copy. Their excessive humility in this respect, was probably one of the most efficient causes of that prodigious number of falsehoods, which the Gre- cian philosophers succeeded in intro- ducing into the history of Rome, and which bear strong and evident marks of their origin. The Greeks completely outwitted their new lords, and kept them in a state of subjection with respect to every thing relative to the arts and sciences, more complete than that which they themselves suffered in political cir- cumstances. The Roman arms had con- quered the territory of Greece, but the Grecian accomplishments subdued the Romans themselves ; and the latter victory THE ROMANS AND THE GREEKS. 355 was certainly more glorious than the for- mer ; which was only the inevitable conse- quence of an enormous disproportion of mere physical force between the com- batants. \ i :m CHAPTER XX. On the Origin and Language of Ancient Rome. JtSEFORE I proceed to speak of the other most remarkable ruins, I shall devote a single chapter to an inquiry into the Origin and Language of Ancient Rome ; a part of my work which, if to some of my readers, it may appear an uncalled-for digression from my general plan, will be found at least original ; and which I am not without hopes will attract the attention and excite the further inquiries of the learned. The first question which presents itself in this inquiry is, — who were Romulus and his followers ? • That Romulus and Remus should have been the illegitimate sons of a princess, is a circumstance too natural to stagger belief; neither is it at all incredible that the princess should have accused the God Mars of being the father of her children. That her story gained little credit at first, and that the bovs were exposed. I should not hesi- ROMULUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS. -357 tate to think very probable ; nor should I think it utterly incredible that they were suckled by a she-wolf, (however romantick the whole of this beginning must appear,) if the story rested upon any respectable authority. But that these children, brought up and educated by a simple shepherd, and accustomed to tend his flocks and to per- form all the other peaceful duties of a pas- toral life, should grow up such prodigies of military skill and valour, as, with only a small band of friends, to subdue all the nations around them, seems more than ex- traordinary. — That, after being acknow- ledged as his grandsons and his heirs by the King of Alba (the descendant of ifcmeas through a long line of royal aucestors) they should have rejected their legitimate subjects and their hereditary kingdom, for the honour of commanding a troop of ban- ditti, and for the pleasure of building a new town in the most unwholesome spot that could be chosen, — this, I confess, is rather too much for my credulity ; and every further step that 1 advance in this strange talc, appears to me to disclose a new absur- 358 ROMULUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS. dity. A young prince, at the head of a prosperous colony, within a few leagues of his own hereditary state, is obliged to employ cunning, treachery, and force, to obtain a wife for himself, and wives for his followers ! This colony never receives any assistance from its parent state, in the wars in which it engages itself; seems to have dropped all intercourse with that state ; and the first time that the name of Alba occurs in its history, is to mention its entire de- struction! — and all this in an age when a colony always exhibited towards its metro- polis the affection and deep respect of a child towards its parent! It is next affirmed that Romulus, who was so ambitious, had resigned his right to the throne of Alba, a kingdom of four hundred vears standing, for a few barracks on the Palatine Hill. And, after all, we are told that his compa- nions were not turbulent young men impa- tient of control, but venerable old men, who, from their great age alone, obtained the appellation of Senators. It is really impossible not to admire the believing powers of those who can receive origin of homl;. 359 as history such a heap of wonders and con- tradictions. But I do not think, as other disbelievers do, that the whole of the first traditions on the origin of Rome ouojht to be discarded as mere fables. Some of them bear marks of truth, by which they must be distin- guished from the rest. Five principal points deserve particular attention, because they form a compact and consistent body of history, without the least mixture of the marvellous, — without the least contradiction between its component parts, and with a very close and natural connexion and re- lation to what still existed, or had only re- cently ceased to exist, when the first histo- rian wrote his work. 1 ivy says, that Fabius Pictor was this first historian ; but I cannot believe, that Rome had existed five hun- dred years, and achieved many great ex- ploits, without producing a single writer tempted to transmit its history to posterity. As to the poems, which a German author talks of as if he had read them, I shall be- lieve in their existence as soon as he shall shew me some proofs of it; but, even then, 360 FOUNDERS OF ROME. I shall not regard them more than the old songs, ballads, and romances of the early ages of other countries. The five points to which I allude are the following : 1. The first founders of the Roman Power, whether they be brought to Alba Longa, and thence to Rome, as in Livy, — or to Rome immediately, as in Sallust, — were foreigners. 2. They were feared and shunned by the natives, who would not consent to form alliances with them : they were conse- quently obliged to take wives by force, which is a proof that they had brought none with them. 3. They experienced numerous and great difficulties in forming their settlement; they had to carry on several wars, or at least to fight several battles with their neighbours ; whom they overpowered, by opposing the personal strength and military skill of warriors, to the undisciplined numbers of shepherds unused to arms. 4. They spoke a language which was not understood by the natives. 5. They established a very unequal di- FOUNDERS OF ROME. 3()l vision of rights ; by placing the Plebeians, who were numerous, under the absolute and despotic control of the Patricians, who were few. From this solid, homogeneous mass of information I think the following inferences may be drawn. A body of warriors, who had escaped by sea from some great national disaster, landed near the spot where Rome now stands, and encamped on one of its hills, not as a matter of free choice, but because it was the first place that they found convenient for their purpose. That hill, and some others about it, had been left uninhabited by the na- tives on account of the known insalubrity of the air, and of the want of wholesome water ; defects of which these strangers could not be informed, and which they very probably did not discover till long afterwards *. * We may see in Strabo, that the cattiva aria, which some modern authors consider as peculiar to modern Rome, existed there at all times. It may be further observed that the earlier inhabitants of Italy, the founders of those towns to which Rome itself 362 FOUNDERS OF ROME. These warriors were of two distinct classes : Princes, or Chieftains — and their Followers; the latter not being slaves or common servants, but companions, such as the history of heroick times informs us that princes had near their persons. The former were the Patricians, the latter formed that Equestrian Order which seems one of the most puzzling problems in the constitution of the Roman state. The subdued natives were called Plebs, and were divided amongst the Patricians, whose property conceded without any contradiction, the distinction of greater antiquity, were all built on mountains, in situations protected as much by nature as by those Cyclopian walls of which the construction is so remarkable ; and-it seems most improbable that one of their colonies should have departed from this general rule, and have formed its set- tlement on a low hill, surrounded by marshes, and sepa- rated from the nearest line of mountains by an extensive plain. If J were to yield to the temptation of pushing the argument as far as it would go, 1 might add that some remains of Cyclopian walls must have been observable at Rome, if the city had been founded by Italians. For it is not probable that the Romans would have destroyed those walls at home, while they left them remaining even in the towns which they otherwise destroyed, — of which there are innumerable proofs extant. FOUNDERS OF ROME. 3()3 they became, by the right of conquest in those days. This part of the nation, (the Plebs), though by far the most numerous, had not, and could not possibly have the least share in the government; since they were, if not strictly, slaves, at least very low depend- ants. Besides they could be of no manner of use in counsel, to people who did not understand their language ; nor is it pro- bable that the advice of simple clowns or shepherds, completely ignorant of political or military affairs, would have been asked, even if their language had been perfectly understood. Those nations in the neighbourhood, who had more regular forms of government and better means of defence must have been alarmed at this sudden invasion, and vet might be so far allured by curiosity to ob- serve the new maimers and customs and sports of the strangers, as to make the circumstances attending the Rape of the Sabines by no means improbable. Wo- men are inclined by nature to admire those men in whom they observe the greatest 361 ORIGIN OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE. power to protect them ; and as the Sabine wives of the first Romans were doubtless tenderly beloved and kindly treated by their husbands, they were very likely to effect a reconciliation and a close alliance between their late and their present fa- milies. The children born of these marriages must have learnt to mix the language of their mothers, which was the first they heard, with that of their fathers, of which they only caught a few words in their earliest infancy, but which they were ob- liged to speak more constantly as soon as they were able to carry a sword- This mix- ture produced the Latin language ;" which, we must observe, was never called Italian, even when it was the language of the capi- tal of Italy. The women's contribution to it must have been much the most considerable with respect to the number of words ; but the men must have imprinted on the lan- guage its grammatical form, and must have furnished the names of their political and civil establishments and institutions, of their instruments of war, and of the terms used in ORIGIN OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE. -3()5 battles, <5f-c. $c. This language was exclu- sively that of Rome alone till after the time when Spain and Provence had been peopled with colonies from Italy ; and it was otherwise never spoken out of Rome except by native Romans, for none of the nations that are supposed to have taken their language from the Latin, have adopt- ed its grammar, or at least that most re- markable peculiarity of it, the total absence of articles, which abound in all European languages — except the Russian. I shall now proceed to shew that the Russian really was the language of the founders of Rome. I was in Holland when I first began to reflect on the extreme absurdity of what I had been taught at school, as the history of the early ages of Rome. I compared Livy with Sallust, and both with Plutarch ; and I saw quite enough to persuade me that the Romans were themselves as igno- rant on the subject as we are. This seemed to me very extraordinary, and induced me to bestow upon the question much more of my attention than 1 had yet had leisure #()(> ORIGIN OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE. to give to it : and I revolved it in my mind for a long time, without being able to solve it. I had then lost a help which would have been likely to shorten my labour very considerably. An intimate friend whose classical taste and ardent application to study, eminently qualified him to assist me in such an investigation, had lately left Amsterdam, where his society had made the charm of my life, and his conversation the delight of all my leisure hours. It was impossible to know him without growing better — by his example rather than by his advice : and though I did not profit by either as I ought to have done, he had so far succeeded in my reform, as to make me capable of perseverance in what 1 under- took, as well as more scrupulous in the choice of my pursuits. He had the art of turning me, without any apparent effort or exhortation on his part, from the unpro- fitable desultory discussions in which it was too much my habit to indulge, and of unconsciously exciting a fondness for use- ful investigations. If ever I feel myself bold enough to write a treatise on friend- ORIGIN OK THE LATIN LANGUAGE. 367 ship, he will inspire me better than the Muses. In the mean time, I must be par- doned for paying this passing tribute to the best of men, as well as to the most ac- complished scholar I ever knew. Deprived of his assistance, my struggle with the difficulty was much longer and more laborious than I should otherwise have found it. At last, as by a flash of light, my attention was suddenly turned to etymologies. I was surprised to find that whenever the Roman writers attempted to give the etymology of the name of any one of theirearliest institutions, the mostsensible and acute of them grew perfectly absurd. They said, lor instance, that Romulus had but a very inconsiderable number of com- panions, young adventurers like himself, in the formation of his settlement; and yet they traced the etymology of his Senators from SeneX) an old man ! They said that the Comualia were games in honour of Ncptwius Equestris ; and yet they derived the word from Consus, a supposed god of Counsel! — That in the Lupercalia, a goat was sacrificed, and also a dog ; and SOS ORIGIN OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE. that the name was taken from lupus, a wolf! From all this, and much more like this, I concluded that the language of the earliest Romans must have been so differ- ent from that of their successors, that the latter did not understand it all; that this was the real cause which had deprived them of the knowledge of their history, be- cause books written in a language unknown to them were neglected and lost ; that this language could not have been Greek, nor any of those with which the learned men of Rome were in any degree acquainted, be- cause some analogies in it must, or at least very probably would, have awakened their curiosity and produced very interesting re- searches ; lastly, that it must have been used by a nation with which the Romans had little or no intercourse, yet from which they were not so remotely situated, but that a ship might have brought their founders to Italy. It struck me that the Scythians were the least known to both the Greeks and the Romans, and that one of the numerous subdivisions of that nation was ORIGIN OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE. 309 the most likely to have sent forth those stout warriors who founded Rome. Nestor, the oldest historian of Russia, says that the ancient Sclavonians were driven out of Mysia and Pannonia by the Bulga- rians. We are told that the latter established themselves in Mysia in the fourth or fifth century of the Christian era, but Nestor may have been deceived by two narrations, or traditions, which coincided in some points ; and he mav have blended them into one. It is highly probable that the Sclavonians inhabited Mysia in the most ancient times, and that some national disaster forced them to abandon that country ; that the greatest number emigrated by land, but that a part of them embarked on the zEgean Sea, and were tossed about till they arrived on the Latin shore. It may be observed, that Mysia was so very near Troy, that this famous town was very possibly the real spot from which they started alter its siege. This would recon- cile all the chief traditions of both people, — which, in such researches, ought never to be losl sight of. But [ am not at all prepared to VOL I. K 370 RUSSIAN AN ORIGINAL LANGUAGE. assert, that it was ^Eneas, or that they were Trojans, who came to Rome. This alone is the point for the probability of which I contend, — that its founders whoever they might be, spoke the Russian language. I must here warn my readers against a mistaken notion, which is very current even amongst well-informed people in Russia, (so that we must not be astonished at its having been adopted throughout the rest of Europe,) that the Russians took their language from the Sclavonians, from whom they drew their origin. The language of the Russians in our days is unquestion- ably the original language ; what is called Sclavonian is only a dialect of it. But I have unawares anticipated somewhat of the regular account which I meant to give of my progressive advancement in this in- quiry, — to which I now return. Seeing then that the Trojans and Phrygians and other nations of Asia Minor, were num- bered amongst the subdivisions of the an- cient Scythians, I conceived that the lan- guage spoken by the latter must throw crreat light on the question; and that the STUDY OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE. -371 most important step to take, was to acquire a know ledge of that which, of all the modern tongues was the most likely to have been spoken by them, or at least to bear some close analogy to their language *. The Rus- sian of course, immediately occurred to me, and I became exceedingly anxious to learn it ; but all the assistance in that study whichl could obtain in Amsterdam was that of an old Archangel gentleman who was book-keeper in a mercantile house, and who kindly undertook to give me lessons, though he very frankly confessed that his knowledge did not go much beyond the alphabet, and the names of Russian mer- chandise. I very early learnt, however, one circumstance, which was sufficient to spur me on through any difficulties and obstacles. This was the very singular co- incidence between the Russian and the * If it were not digressing in a manner which I deem inexpedient, I would shew the extreme absurdity of Mr. Pinkerton's opinions on the origin of the Scythians and the Goths. L do not remember having ever read a book. so full of gross contradictions, amidst the highest pre- tensions to sound criticism, :iud the most indecent abuse of those whose opinions tin' writer attacks. i \\ > 872 THE RUSSIAN AND LATIN LANGUAGES. Latin languages, in respect of their want of articles. This peculiarity in the Latin language had already frequently surprised me. I could not conceive how it could have arisen, seeing that all the languages de- rived from the Latin, as well as the Greek, had articles ; and I had now no longer the least doubt, but that it involved a very in- teresting historical fact, which I grew more and more anxious to develope. I therefore took the first favourable opportunity of visit- ing Russia, where I applied myself to the study of the language with as much assidu- ity as my occupations of a more import- ant nature allowed me. The Russian is so exceedingly difficult, that in spite of a fa- cility of acquiring foreign languages which has been of the greatest service to me with respect to those of other countries, it cost me greater pains than any three of those which I had previously learnt. However, after two j r ears' residence there, I had pretty well mastered it ; and as soon as I thought myself sufficiently expert in it, I resumed the investigation which I had laid bv for this pursuit. SPECIMENS OF RUSSIAN NAMES. 373 I cannot express the delight I felt at the discovery of the first very clear etymology which presented itself to my notice, that of Senator, from Znaten, which means noble. The next was Populus, from Po Polou, or (writing agreeably to Italian pronuncia- tion,) Popolu, which means about the plain, or the fields. The story of Valerius Publicola illustrates this etymology remarkably well ; in teaching us that building his residence on a hill, was a circumstance which distin- guished a chieftain from the common mass of the nation. Plebs was but too likely to have been de- rived from Pleva (spittle, scum.) Hex was probably taken from Recii (1 harangue,) for the first king was little more than an orator; — and the verb rego must have had the same origin. Civis may come from Chi (liberal,) pro- nounced as in Italian, Cheevy. Milites may be drawn from Mily (my friends,) for this word was only applied to those who were near the chief, and had a right to bear arms. I ;iuli (games) may very reasonably l>r 874 RUSSIAN ETYMOLOGIES. supposed to have had its origin in the Rus- sian Ludi (a great many people :) Ludno means populous, and crowded. Ludi s'con 'svalit (to fling people down off horseback,) was a proper etymology enough for the Ludi Consualia, without the interference of a god, Co?isus, who could have nothing at all to do with the games. In the Lupercalia, a goat was killed, and the priest touched with the bloody knife the forehead of a boy, whose office it was to laugh during the ceremony. Very pro- bably the lad was obliged to smile and say, Lobpereeali " Do pierce my forehead " which was afterwards taken, for the vocative case of Lupercalis, the priest who celebrated these games. In the Palilia, heaps of straw were set on fire, and people leaped over them : the signal given was doubtless Palili " the fire is lighted," — and there was no oc- casion for the interference of a goddess Pales, who owed her origin to the same compendious principle of creation as the god Consus. But 1 have a still better rea- son to bring forward in support of my etv- RUSSIAN ETYMOLOGIES. 375 mology ; for these games are celebrated up to the present time by the Russians, on St. John's day, in the month of June. I might doubtless easily find Russian ety- mologies for other Roman games, but those which I have selected are particularly striking. I shall now proceed to the com- parison of a variety of Roman words, with the words in the Russian language from which I believe them to be derived. I have already suggested what proportions it might naturally be expected that the warlike strangers who founded Rome, and their Italian wives, would respectively con- tribute to the formation of the new and mixed language of their descendants; and that if the larger portion of it, consisting generally of the ordinary language of peace- ful and domestic life, was likely to be sup- plied by the women, it was still more pro- bable that all the terms of war and of go- vernment, the names of their deities, re- ligious ceremonies, c^-c, would be furnished by the men. It will be seen by the follow- ing list how far my theory is borne out by the fact, and how great a proportion of 376 RUSSIAN ETYMOLOGIES. the names which I have succeeded in tracing to their Russian origin, belong to the latter class. The antiquaries inform us that the first Roman banners bore the figure of a Hog : they were called Signa; — Suinia in Russian, is a Hog. Tributum, comes from Trebuto, exacted. Hostis, an enemy, — from Hosti, strangers. J it gum; I go, yoke. Fasces or faskes : Svaski, bundles. Secwis , Sekira, an axe. Spolia, prey : Spolia, from the field of battle. Strages ; — Sragenie, a defeat, Strah, fear, terror. Cruor, blood violently spilt ; Crov, blood : the old word was Sanguis, which was retained for the fluid. Moiior, I die, — Morii, I kill. Fugo ; — Vuigonat, to put to flight. Vibro ; — Vuibrosat, to dart. Rapio ; — Hrabit, to plunder. Labo, I fall ; — Slaboy, weak ; Slabo, weakly. Flaco, I appease ; — Flacat, to cry, to weep. Mollio, I soften ;-~Moliu, I beg, I pray. RUSSIAN ETYMOLOGIES. 377 Immolo, I sacrifice ; — Vuimoliu, I obtain by my prayers. Pugno, I fight ; Pinaiu, I drive, — I push. Seco ; Secu, I cut. Vapulo, I am beaten ; Pabili, they have beaten me. Mors, Mortis; Smert, Smerti, death. Malum, bad ; Malo, too little. Trepidare; Trepetat, to tremble. Micare, to glitter YMec (pronounce Ma- Dimicart, to fight.] che,) a sword. Magistrates; Magustrashit, I may inspire fear. Magister ; Magilsteretch, I may take care of. Hramnenses, or TLhamnenses, name of one of the three tribes of Rome; Ilram- noy, belonging to the temples. lAikeri, or Luceri, another tribe ; from Lac, a bow ; the legion, or Company of Archers. Azylum ; Atsylat, to banish. Moznia, town walls ; Minuyu, I stop, I cut short. Dotnus ; Dam, a house. Pons, a bridge : Ponesti, to bear up. 878 RUSSIAN ETYMOLOGIES. Arare ; Arat, to plough. Struo ; Strou, (pronounce Strovou) I build. Pascere ; Past, to feed. Affari; Havarit, to speak. Videre ; Videt, to see. Validare ; Hvalit, to approve. Esse ; est, (pronounced yest, as Cicero said it was pronounced in Latin) to eat. Est; Est, it is. Lubet, it pleases ; Lubit, to love, or to like. Nox ; Noch, night, Dies ; Den, day. Somnus ; Son, sleep. Sal; Sol, salt. Vinum ; Vino, wine, and brandy. Gener, a son-in-law ;] ~ , , > ixena, a wife. henerosus, noble ; Vadum ; Vada, water. Mare ; More, the sea. Nubes, clouds ; Nebesa, heaven. Mensis ; Mesiats, month. JEther, air; vaetr, wind. Boreas ; Burac, tempest, storm. Carnufex, an Executioner ; Carnal, to cut off the ears. I might add a great many more, tor 1 RUSSIAN ETYMOLOGIES. 379 collected above five hundred similar in- stances which I communicated to Mr. Ka- ramzin, a great many years ago, when he was writing his history of Russia. But I suppose the preceding will be deemed sufficient. I must however add a few, which are intended to prove that this branch, at least, of the great Scythian family, has made a greater progress in civilization, than some writers are willing to allow. Scribo, I write ; Screbu, I scratch, I en- grave. Pijigo, pijixi, pingere, to paint, to draw ; pishu, pisat, to write. Recitare, to recite ; citat (pronounced chitat, as the Italians) to read. I shall close this article with a transla- tion of the principal proper names of the first Romans. Roma ; Hrom, hroma, thunder. Romulus; Htwna-losk, light of thunder, glittering of thunder. Remus; Ilremu, 1 roar, or rumble, like thunder. Tulliis ; Tul, quiver, luc, a bow. Tarpeius ; Tcrpeyou, I sutler. 380 RUSSIAN ETYMOLOGIES. Flaminii ; Plameniy, blazing. Atratinus ; Atraten, armed cap-a-pe. Sempronins ; Sempronitsayou, I pierce seven through. Mucins; Muciu (pronounced like the Ita- lian) I torment. Marcius; Marshcius, (id.) I frown. Cassius ; Cossius, I look awry. Spurius ; Sporius, I quarrel. I think fitter names could not be chosen for such people. To these I must add those of some of their Divinities. Feretrius ; Pe?etria, who beats to atoms, who crushes. Mars, Mart is ; Smert, Smerty, death. Gradivus; Gradivoy, of towns. Ceres; Zreya, who ripens. Neptuuus ; Neftonut, who cannot be drowned. Jupiter ; Jimpitat, to feed life, to support it. Caelum ; Tselo, the whole. Saturnus ; Satuomoy, created. Pluto ; Boh Plutof, the god of thieves, mis- creants, knaves. Pallas; Palacli, a tent. RUSSIAN ETYMOLOGIES. 381 Minerva ; Mir ne rva, who does not break peace. Vulcanus ; Volk agnia, the magician of fire. Venus ; Veno, a bride's portion, her mar- riage money. Rhea; Hreya, heating. Smintheus ; Zminny, of a serpent. Divus, godlike ; Divoy, wonderful. I shall be glad if this opening should induce some learned man to go much deeper into this subject than I had leisure to do. There are many dialects of the Russian language, of which I know no- thing but the names, and which might throw greater light on this matter. I suppress a great many observations, which might possibly be interesting, but which as the} r do not immediately belong to my subject, may with greater propriety be introduced into another work. I shall only just hint in this place how very probable it is, that the first Romans had either brought over with them, or had composed, songs, and heroic poems, de- scribing the wonderful feats of fictitious warriors ; to whom thev $>ave (as lias 382 ABSURD NOTIONS OF ROMAN FREEDOM. been usual at all times,) names of their own invention, but which had some re- ference to their history. These names were perhaps applied afterwards in jest to real persons, who retained them and transmit- ted them to their posterity. Those fictions, of which traces remained in stories told by nurses to amuse little children, were after- wards taken up as historical traditions, by writers who were much more anxious to amuse others than to get sound informa- tion for themselves ; and they have been handed down to us as real history, from an absurd admiration for every thing that was Roman, or that came from Rome. If in what I have said in this and the preceding Chapters of the origin of Rome, and of the spirit of its early governments, I have succeeded in demonstrating the excessive absurdity of the enthusiasm with which our great demagogues speak of the Romans, as of a nation which enjoyed a higher degree of liberty than any other, and which owed its greatness and its glory to the liberality of its constitution and laws, 1 shall be satisfied. The prejudices which 1 MISCHIEVOUS NOTIONS OF ROMAN VIRTUE. 383 have endeavoured to dispel produce the worst effect imaginable, by giving a false colour to principles, as well as to facts. They have done unspeakable mischief in France. For, the monsters who succeeded one another in the usurpation of her go- vernment, committed crime upon crime, and finally drowned themselves in the blood of their fellow-citizens, in the name of liberty and of their country ! always in- voking the soul of the elder Brutus, whom they supposed to have sacrificed his own sons, and of the younger Brutus who was said to have sacrificed his own father, to that phantom ! 3HI CHAP. XXI. ■Further Notice of Antiquities of Rome — Grotto of Egeria — Tomb of Cecilia Metella — Pyramid of Cains Sestius — Thermo? of Titus — Baths of Caracalla — Catacombs of St. Sebastian — Mau- soleum of Adrian, or Castle of St. Angelo — Other antique Remains of lesser note — Remarks on the Architecture of St. John Lateran, and other mo- dern Churches. ONE of the most entertaining things at Rome, is to watch the excavations ; but there were few in progress during our stay there. The Duchess of Devonshire had obtained leave to open one at the foot of the Capitol, in a spot which promised but little satisfaction, because it was very likely to have been dug up before. The Pope was himself then examining a much more interesting place, a part of the ancient Forum ; which led to the discovery of some fragments of consular tables, and to the ascertaining of the fact, that tiie pillars hitherto supposed to have made part of the UROTTO OF EGERIA. 385 Temple of Jupiter Stator could not have belonged to it. To this I have indeed already alluded. Amongst the most remarkable antiquities of Rome, the Grotto where the nymph Egeria is supposed to have given such good advice to Numa Pompilius is still shewn, and is reverently visited by every traveller. Though at the risk of being thought insen- sible and unromantick, I must confess that I went to this grotto chiefly because others went ; and like others I gathered some of the plants which grow in this hoi}/ cave, as precious relicks to be preserved with pious care. With respect to Numa Pompilius, though I do not consider it as unquestion- ably certain that he was the second King of Rome, — I am not on the other hand prepared to deny his very existence, and to consider all the seven kings as a mere alle- gory, having reference to the magical num- ber seven. This number, it has been ob- served, multiplied by itself, and the product multiplied by the other magical number of five, makes 245, — the precise number of years which some writers allot to the VOL. I '■ C 386 GROTTO OF EGERIA. joint reigns of the Kings : though others make the period shorter by two years. I admit the inventor of this allegorical scheme, M. Court de Gebelin, to be an uncommonly clever man ; but it really requires a warm imagination, to conceive the possibility of such fanciful contrivances having any thing to do with the history of any part of the world ; and it is Hying a little too freely in the face of all the traditions of ancient Rome, to apply them as he has done. If every thing were to be deemed an allegory, to which some accidental co- incidence of figures multiplied by other figures, could be made to appear to apply, what would become of the whole body of ancient history ? Three is considered a magical number as well as seven and five; and I dare say every body will be ready to ascribe the same quality to the number two; but one is the very source of magick ; and what numbers could not we make out with 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 1 1, and 13, each of which is as full of magick as its neighbour ? It is impossible to deny, that there really does sometimes appear to be a sort of fatal TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 387 magick in numbers ; but it is going rather too far, to try to establish a positive system upon such coincidences, and to apply it to past history as an argument against its truth. The Grotto of the Nymph is not so beau- tiful now, as it doubtless was when she chose it for the place of her rendezvous with the King of Rome. It is rather a dirty place, and the road to itis most disagreeable; but it lies near some other places on that side of Rome which deserve to be seen, and it may be taken in the same circuit. The tomb of Ccecilia Metella, is remark- able for the enormous size of the stones which have been used in its construction, and which might mislead one as to the date of this monument. It is a tower, whose walls are about thirty feet thick, and in the middle of which there is a small round room. The solidity of this building having pointed it out during the civil wars as a proper place for a fortress, considerable fortifica- tions were added to it, and must have made it a very safe residence before the invention of gunpowder. The inscription is — " Cce- " cilice Q. Cretici f. Metellce Crassi," which t C 2 388 TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. I should have translated thus, " To Ccecilia " Metella, daughter qf'Quintus Creticus Cras- " sus Metellus ;" but others have settled that it means " To Caecilia Metella, daugh- " ter of Q. Creticus Metellus, wife of Cras- " sus ;" and the Roman antiquaries must doubtless have some good reasons for this interpretation. Creticuswas a surname of the Mttelli. But supposing the names of both father and husband to be intended, I can- not conceive why the several names of the former should be specified, and only the sur- name of the latter. Crassus is a name which was common to several distinct families of ancient Rome, to the Claudii, the Papirii, the Veturii, the Otacilii, and the Licinii; and itisvery unlikely that suchan epitaph should make no mention of the particular family to which this Crassus belonged. A more pro- bable conjecture than this, would have been that this tomb was erected to the memory of Caecilia Metella by the Crassi. Howbeit, the surname of Cre/zcws having been given to a Metellus for the conquest of Crete, in the first years of the Christian iEra, this monu- ment cannot be of older date : and il may MONUMENT OF CATUS SESTIUS. 389 be ascribed to the reign of Augustus, or to the first years of that of Tiberius. The pyramid of Caius Sestius, or Cestius, has a very diminutive appearance, and seems to have been built only as an orna- ment for a garden ; but it is said to be no less than 1 13 feet high. I can well conceive that it may be much higher than it seems to be, though, if this measurement be correct, I was never so much mistaken before. The aperture through which the body had been let down into it, was so un- commonly well closed, that it was impossible to discover it from the outside. Alexander VII. ordered an entrance to be opened at the bottom of the pyramid ; and the original opening was then found out, and turned into a window again, through which the light now enters into a room of fifteen or sixteen feet by ten or eleven. It contains some fresco paintings on the walls, particu- larly four figures of Victory in a pretty good state of preservation, but not re- markable for any particular excellence. This monument, like the preceding, belongs to the reign of Augustus. Though it does 390 MONUMENT OF CAIUS SESTIUS. not answer the expectation of those who have read descriptions of the Egyptian py- ramids, it is still well worth attention ; but there is no doubt that the same materials and the same expense might have produced something more elegant and more grand ; for the pyramid is one of the least striking and attractive of architectural forms. This structure is, however, remarkable for the perfection of the workmanship, and does honour to the age to which it belongs. This perfection seems to have been so momen- tary in its duration, that I should think it must have been peculiar to a single artist, who may perhaps have been called to Rome by the Emperor Augustus, and who left neither pupil nor rival after him ; for I have seen no other edifice of that a^ra, like this, or like the tomb of Caecilia Metella; and those, or at least great part of those, of the succeeding reigns, are totally differ- ent in their mode of construction. The ThermcB of Titus are of the latter kind ; but they are in another respect ex- ceedingly interesting : they contain some painted ceilings which seem, when viewed BATHS OF TITUS. 391 from the floor of the apartments, to be ex- ecuted with admirable delicacy and cor- rectness ; but which, upon a close inspec- tion, are discovered to be done in so rough a manner, that it is hardly possible to ima- gine how they can produce so charming an effect from below. The prodigious variety, the elegance, and the neatness of the Ara- besques, are also truly wonderful. Raphael is said to have copied the latter in secret, and then to have induced the Pope to shut, or rather to fill up these rooms again, in order that he might the more easily usurp the merit of invention. I am sorry to say, that nothing is more probable : Raphael's Arabesques are strikingly like these ; and it is not creditable to his understanding (if the imputation of meaner motives must be avoided, out of respect to the memory of this great man) to have advised his Sove- reign wilfully to hide, if not to spoil, these noble and admirable remains of ancient art. 'This was done by uncovering the apertures at the tops of the rooms, and then pouring an immense quantit}- of earth into the open- ing. Now, they have been opened again 392 BATHS OK TIT ITS. from below, and it is by climbing on that earth, that the visitors are enabled to exa- mine the paintings so closely. As the earth is exceedingly soft, and the place in such utter darkness that you see nothing but by means of the light borne by your guide, there is a good deal of trouble to be encoun- tered, besides the dirtying of your clothes ; but the compensation is more than adequate to the inconvenience. The Thernue contain many rooms ; one of which must have been very magnificent, — the ceiling being paint- ed and gilt, the walls covered with yellow marble, and the floor formed with incrus- tations of marbles of various colours. It was in one of these large rooms that the Laocoon was found ; and as many rooms have not yet been cleared, there is reason to hope that other treasures of a similar na- ture may be discovered by prosecuting the excavations. It is extremely probable that during one of those cruel invasions by which Rome was punished for the violent oppres- sion she had so long exercised with impunity over other nations, a great many unfortu- nate families took refuee in these subterra- BATHS OF TITUS AND OF LIVIA. 393 neous apartments, and perhaps fortified and intrenched themselves so as to make it difficult and dangerous to attack them ; but that the enemy made holes on the top, through which they poured down stones and earth, in order either to stifle the refugees, or to force them to leave their asylum. The whole seems to have been a series of vaults built to support a part of the Thermae on a level with the Esquiline Hill ; Me- caenas's house, which lay here, not being large enough to answer the purpose of Titus. These vaults, having no windows, were completely dark ; but the beauty of their decorations shows that they w r ere made use of, — probably for baths, or for rooms to repose in after the bath. The Baths of Livia on Mount Palatine are likewise under ground, and painted in the same manner. The gilding is uncom- monly well preserved : but unfortunately the paintings cannot be seen without torches, the smoke of which must very soon spoil them. There is only one room left entire ; or at least only one entire room yet discovered, in these latter baths. •394 BATHS OF CARACALLA. The Baths of Caracalla on Mount Aven- tine, occupied an immense space, and their ruins are among the most noble and the most picturesque of Rome. A great many beautiful pieces of ancient sculpture were discovered there; but the excavations have long since been discontinued. It would be highly interesting to resume them ; but the undertaking is expensive and precarious. One third of the discoveries belongs to the Pope, another to the proprietor of the ground on which the excavations are carried on, and the remaining third is not sufficient to tempt many amateurs. There is no doubt but that the ruins of the palace of the Emperors, on the Pala- tine Hill, would afford the richest field for excavations ; but none were carried on there during my stay. If I had been rich, I could not have resisted the tempta- tion of purchasing for that purpose a very promising piece of ground, which was then to be sold : and I can easily understand how a man might be led on to sink a large fortune in these seducing investigations. The Prince of Peace, the famous Godoy, VILLA MATTEL 395 has purchased a handsome villa on Mount Coelius, the late Villa Mattei, which is sup- posed to occupy the same ground as one of Cicero's, if it be not the very house that he used to inhabit. It seems to have been inhabited by other philosophers and au- thors since, for a great many busts have been discovered, whose chief merit is that they bear the names of some well-known men. Among the rest is one of Seneca, which is quite different in feature from that which had hitherto been supposed to repre- sent him. Such discoveries are undoubtedly very interesting ; but they are at the same time very provoking; inasmuch as they in- duce a habit of doubting of every thing of which you have not the proofs before you. M. Godoy has undertaken further excava- tions which promise to be very productive ; but 1 could not learn that he had yet dis- covered any thing remarkably beautiful. In the gardens of his villa is an altar in very bad taste, but pleasingly situated in the midst of a grove of ilex and laurel. The Catacombs of St. Sebastian are highly interesting in the eye of the philoso- 396 CATACOMBS. plier, as well as of the Christian. They are subterraneous passages, in which the Chris- tians of the first ages buried the martyrs and their friends ; and in which they themselves sometimes found an asylum against death, during the worst moments of the cruel perse- cutions to which they were exposed. They opened on either side of these passages ca- vities of the size required to admit the bodies which they had to deposit in them ; and, after the insertion of the bodies, the open- ings were closed again with a white stone,on which were engraved the initials of the de- ceased, and the instruments of their mar- tyrdom, together with a branch of palm. The discoveries made here of the bodies of several Saints, known or supposed to be known by these means, afford to the Ro- man Catholicks no less satisfaction, and that of a more romantick nature, than those of mutilated statues among the ruins to the amateurs of the fine arts ; nor is it necessary to be a Roman Catholick, to feel deeply moved at the sight of these noble proofs of the constancy, courage, and independent spirit of those to whose per- CATACOMBS. 397 severance we owe the greatest of all bles- sings, — a religion which teaches us to ap- peal from earthly power to Divine goodness, -and which setting us free from the most inveterate, rooted prejudices, raises us to that equality of rights, and to that spirit of universal charity, of which the ancients had not the slightest notion. It is said that one may walk fifteen miles underground in these catacombs, — I do not mean in direct distance but, — through vari- ous passages, cut in various directions. I was prevented from going very far by per- ceiving several bats sticking with their ex- panded wings on the walls. The guide assured me that they were asleep, and that they remained motionless during the whole winter ; but the involuntary horror with which this ambiguous monster always in- spires me, overpowered my curiosity, and I was obliged to effect a very inglorious retreat before a sleeping enemy. I had, however, seen enough to give me a correct idea of the whole. I went through several passages, and some square rooms, which probably were chapels, and which put me strongly 398 MAUSOLEUM OF ADRIAN. in mind of those horrible and much more infamous persecutions, which obliged the French Protestants to retire within similar caves, for the exercise of their religion, under the reign of that execrable tyrant, Louis XIV., whom even modern philoso- phers have decorated with the epithet of Great, for qualities that ought to have branded him with that of Oppressor. The immense Mausoleum raised to him- self by the Emperor Adrian, (which has been converted into a considerable fortress under the title of the Castle of St. Angela) is one of those monuments which must im- mediately strike the mind with the idea of astonishing vicissitudes. When Adrian built it, he little thought it would be used as a fortress by a Bishop of Rome ; that the Christians, who hardly durst shew them- selves in the streets of Rome in his time, would then be masters of the town, and their Spiritual Chief acknowledged as the head of all the sovereigns of the civilized world. The view of St. Peter's, from the top of the Castle of St. Angelo, is the most com- MAUSOLEUM OF ADRIAN. 399 plete that can be had from any part of Rome, but it is likewise for that very rea- son the most unfavourable, as the defects of both the church and the colonnade are extremely striking from thence. The Mausoleum is perfectly round, like that of Augustus, and of Ca3cilia Metella*. Besides the ruins which I have noticed, there are others of which none of the " Traveller's Guides" of Rome, at least none of those published previous to our journey, gave any account, and which we found out by mere chance, in one of our walks. They lie behind St. Peter's Church, and were probably part of Nero's gardens ; several passages and chambers are cut in the rock to a great depth ; the entrance into the deepest is through round holes cut in the stone floor, and it is probable that many victims of the tyrant's cruelty were let down into these horrible dungeons, out of which there was no possibility to escape. What * Of the thousand men who formed the garrison of the Castle of St. Angelo, one hundred or more had the itch, and there were never less than fifteen or twenty kept in irons tor theft or murder. 400 THE JANICULE. makes this supposition most plausible is, that a quantity of human bones had been found in the gardens. The latter are the property of a priest, who employed about twenty labourers in them, every one of them a stranger in Rome. His gardener told me that the Roman beggars were too much of gentlemen to dig the ground. This man had been a prisoner of war in England for seven years, and when we asked him what these men earned a day, he answered in English, " seven-pence halfpenny." From thence we ascended the Janicule, and traversed a great many gardens with- out meeting a single living creature ; they are very pretty and well wooded, and the prospect from them is most magnificent, — comprising the whole of modern and an- cient Rome. The most grand and beautiful point of view is from the top of a palace, which we entered without difficult v, as it was entirely abandoned, and left open, though modern enough, and requiring only a few inconsiderable repairs to be very fit to be inhabited. We went through it, and then ascended to the stone terrace on the AQUA PAOLO. 401 roof, where we staid a good while, in rap- tures at the astonishing prospect before us. This palace and its gardens lie within the town, but close to the walls, to the right of the gate of St. Pancrazio, and of the Aqua Paolina. Nobody could inform us to whom they belonged, but as the larger plan of Rome calls them (if I am not mis- taken) the Farnese Gardens, 'I presume they must be the property of the King of Naples. The absolute desertion of such a noble villa seems at first quite incon- ceivable ; one cannot help asking one's self why the proprietor should not sell it, at however low a price ; but the fact is, that nobody would buy it, because nobody would choose to inhabit this part of Rome. As to the gardens, I suppose they are farmed by some one, for they did not bear the same marks of desolation as the house ; though they also were open, and without any person to guard them. The Aqua Paola is one of the most mag- nificent fountains in the world, and one of the noblest monuments of modern Rome : the water is brought thither in full abun- vol. 1. ? n 402 MOUNT AVENTINE. dance from Bracciano, wliich is thirty-live miles off, in very fine aqueducts, partly ancient and partly restored. Near the fountain is the very neat little botanical garden, delta Sapienza, where we saw many flowers in full bloom, on the 23d January ; the gardener gave us large, and what would have been in Lon- don, very costly nosegays, for which he thought himself liberally paid by a few baiocchi. But the most delightful walk which 1 took during my stay in Rome was on the next day, January 24th, with Mr. Edward Bankes, whom I have mentioned elsewhere. We entered a garden on Mount Aventine, and having ascended a hillock from whence the prospect was very beautiful, we found there a very large building, which appeared to be completely deserted. We climbed into it through a broken window, and found that it was a convent, with a dozen of very handsome cells, the painting of which seem- ed quite recent, though the building had neither doors nor windows. After regretting that such a charming place should not be MOUNT AVENTINE. 403 inhabited, and particularly admiring the beauty of the prospect, we continued ex- ploring the building, and found a grand stair- case by which we descended into another range of rooms below, where our appearance surprised, if it did not terrify, a woman who was sitting in the kitchen with her child, and who little expected to see any one come in from above. She informed us that this place belonged to the Canons of St. Peter, who had entirely abandoned it ; and that her husband and she had established themselves in this part of the building, be- cause it lay near their garden. As for ourselves, after running over so many ex- cellent rooms without seeing the least trace of an inhabitant, we were little less sur- prised at the sight of her, than if we had really thought the place to be one of those enchanted palaces in fairy tales, in which some radiant Princess is discovered over- powered by the wicked device of a Giant or Magician. From thence we went to the family-vault of the Scipios, which I have already men- tioned ; and afterwards climbed up to a 2 n •! 404 ARCH OF DRUSUS GERMANICUS. sort of fortress, which seemed to have form- ed a part of the walls; the ruins of which, though of brick, had an imposing ap- pearance. Then we went out of the Porta Appia, now called St. Sebastian's Gate ; and observing a triumphal arch, we in- quired its name of a well-dressed man who we concluded would know it, as he appeared to belong to that neighbour- hood. He said it must be the arch of San Sebastian, since the neighbouring gate bore the name of that Saint. We were walking off, much edified to learn that Saints had triumphal arches ; but we were stopt at a little distance by perceiving that a man was running after us. (A Roman running was so extraordinary a phenome- non, that it was well worth stopping for.) When he came up to us he informed us that it was an arch of the Scipios. From the map we afterwards learnt that it was the arch of Di-asus Germtmicus : but that was a matter of little consequence; the most surprising thing was, to have seen a Roman run, and to have heard him speak without being urged, and paid for it ! ST. JOHN LATERAN. 405 We went from thence round the walls, as far as the gate of St. John Lateran, where we entered the town again . The church of St. John Lateran, like St. Peter's, has externally much more of the air of a dwelling-house than of a temple. This is the case with so many other churches in Rome, that there must be some particular cause for it. I think it not unlikely that the first meet- ings of Christians having been held in private houses, and their first places of worship having been decorated in the same simple manner in order that they might not attract the attention of their ad- versaries or of the common people, this practice continued long after the settled and safe establishment of their creed allowed them to dispense with this pre- caution. At Venice, where they thought themselves secure against such dangers, the temples have at all times had a very different, and a much grander ap- pearance. ]3ut the inside of St. John Lateran is very fine, and deserves every traveller's attention. 1 shall not attempt to de- MX) ST. JOHN LATER AN. scribe it, since I have already declared such minute descriptions to be out of my plan. We saw several persons in the act of climbing the holy stairs (la Scala Santa) upon their knees ; and were more disposed to view with admiration, than with con- tempt or pity, this painful effort of mis- directed devotion. 407 CHAPTER XXJ1. State of polished Society in Rome — Improvvisa tore — The Roman Theatres: Argentina, La Valle, Apollo, Delia Pace, and Capranica, — Pulcinello — The Theatres of Pallacorda, Fiano, and Aliberti. 1 HAVE now done with the Ancients; and shall henceforward present to the rea- der those parts of my Journal which may give an insight into the existing state of society in modern Rome, and into the cha- racter of its inhabitants. The number of families of the higher classes of the modern llomans, who give entertainments at their own houses, is ex- ceedingly small; and had it not been for the parties of several English travellers of dis- tinction, and of the Foreign Ambassadors, 1 should hardly have had an opportunity of forming any judgment of these classes of the natives, from personal observation. Bnl even to those parties the ladies came 408 ROMAN SOCIETY. very sparingly ; and still fewer thought it necessary to return the civilities which they received. The greatest number that I met was at the balls given by Count Apponi and Mr. Fuscaldo, the Austrian and Neapolitan Ambassadors Those whom I saw, however, did not excite in me any very strong desire to see the rest. The Duchess of F is certainly a most agreeable, cheerful woman, and her daughter Miss O , a charming girl ; but these, and Mrs. M — , the wife of an English gentle- man established here, were the only Roman ladies who seemed accustomed to the man- ners of the world. The Princess Ch — is lady-like in appearance, but her whole ex- istence is in cards. Princess D is very handsome, but nothing more ; she is besides not a Roman, but a Neapolitan by birth. Of the Countess N •, who is a fine wo- man, I saw too little to judge ; Princess Sta. C is very pretty, but of extremely childish manners. These I think were the only Roman ladies of high family and fa- shion whom strangers Avere in the habit of meelino: at balls or assemblies. For 1 do ROMAN SOCIETY. 409 not mention the Duchess of B in this class, as she was herself a person of humble connexions, and her present husband's title was of very recent date — purchased, it is said, by wealth not very creditably ac- quired. This lady gave weekly parties, to which all the Englishmen who had credit upon her husband's bank, considered them- selves invited. At the head of the English ladies at Rome, who gave very agreeable parties, were the Countess of W , the Du- chess of D , Mrs. General R •, the Ladies F , the Countess of J , the Earl of C , and others. The other houses which I frequented were those of Princess E , a most accomplished and very agreeable Bolognese, and of the Mar- chesa S , of the same country, a very clever, well-informed, entertaining woman. These ladies were at home every evening ; but the only female visitors I ever met there were the Countess C , (whom I mentioned before) at the house of the latter, and at that of the former a lady from Spoleto, who was only come for a lew days, and was to ilO ROMAN SOCIETY. be considered as an accidental visitor for a single evening. On other occasions, the guests consisted entirely of gentlemen and distinguished artists, such as Canova,Lanti, Bassi, tyc, whose conversation was ex- tremely entertaining. Several Cardinals attended now and then, and made them- selves as agreeable as they could, by laying aside all ceremony and formality. The other gentlemen frequently came in boots, and even in their great coats. There is no country where a man's dress is so little at- tended to as at Rome; nor does title or high rank obtain any particular distinction. The best informed man is the most welcome: but all are well received. No refreshments of any sort are given at these parties ; the lady of the house sometimes calls for a glass of lemonade, or a cup of coffee or chocolate for herself; but even then none is offered to the company. This being an established rule, every one knows it, is prepared for it, and cannot therefore think it at all uncivil. Prince E regularly played 'dtTarocciiw with some Bologncse gentlemen; while the Princess sal in an arm-chair, with a sofa ROMAN SOCIETY. -I'll (which she allotted to strangers) on her right hand, and a few chairs to the left for her more particular friends. There is nothing but conversation at these parties ; but that is more than one can find in the fashionable London routs ; and I confess I liked this small circle of reasonable beings, a thou- sand times better than the most brilliant assemblies of the English bon ton. The unrivalled ornament of all the balls was the young Princess Yablonofska, who was at Rome with her husband and her mo- ther-in-law. I do not think I ever saw so delightful a little figure. Every feature was divinely pretty, and the ensemble the most captivating that could be imagined. The Marchioness of L , the Countesses of VV , C , and J , the Ladies H , B , Lady K , Miss C , the Misses C ,(Lord S — 's daughters,) Mrs. G. L — , made these assemblies brilliant and gay ; but, as I said before, the Roman ladies did not contribute any thing to them by their personal charms, or their elegant appearance ; excepting only the Misses ()- - jthcDuehessof F-— -'s daughters- 412 ROMAN SOCIETY. The musick was the worst without compa- rison that I had ever heard ; it really was such as would not have been expected from the blind fiddlers who split the ears of Englishmen in some of the lanes adjoining the Strand. Three waltzes, two French quadrilles, and a country-dance generally made up the whole of the dancing. At Mr. Fuscaldo's, however, they added the Grandmother, which lasted till the leader's invention was completely exhausted, ac- companied with such vulgar mirth, such shouts, such loud bursts of laughter, that I thought I had been transported into some alehouse; and I looked up once or twice at the beautiful paintings of Annibal Caracci on the ceiling, and at some of my acquaint- ance around, to convince myself that I was at a grand ball, given in a noble pa- lace, by an ambassador, in honour of his master's birth-day. An Italian lady of rank distinguished herself in this dance above all others by her extravagant vi- vacity. She really looked more like a tipsy Bacchante, than a woman of fashion. She was the more remarkable on account ROMAN SOCIETY. 413 of her figure, being very tall, extremely plain, and about forty years of age. Such as she was, however, she made a con- quest of a young German of my acquaint- ance, who tried every means to get intro- duced to her. I assured him he might introduce himself without the least appre- hension ; and I was not mistaken : for she selected him in one of the figures of the Grandmother, to place him on his knees before her, sat by him when the dance was over, and informed him that her husband was eighty years old. I would not have my readers imagine that such hints are frequently given by the Italian ladies : quite the reverse ; this was an exception (and the only one that came to my knowledge) to the very decent, reserved manners of other ladies. It may not be amiss to observe, that the Ambassador, who had received the company in full dress, had changed it at midnight, and had thus given the signal to banish restraint and ceremony, ere the Grandmother began. The rooms bein<> paved with marble, are far from agreeable for dancing upon; in some other houses 414 ROMAN SOCIETY — IMPROVVISATORE. they preferred dancing on a foot-cloth, but then the dust is extremely troublesome: and on the whole, Rome is not the proper place for balls. Assemblies or routs are much more agreeable. The Duchess of D had one every Friday, which Her Grace contrived to make as interesting as it was brilliant, by inviting the most distinguished artists of that Capital of Arts. The Countess of W — , who occupied the splendid pa- lace of Giusti?iiani, gave grand dinners, and very pleasant evening parties. Mrs. M likewise gave several enter- tainments, at one of which I met an improv- visatore, named Ferretti, who is accounted one of the best in Italy ; but I was on the whole much disappointed with him. He sung two subjects, — the Farewell of Andro- mache and death of Hector ; — and the Al- liance of the Vine with theCy press; after which he recited two, — the Sacrifice of' Jephtha, — and William Tell. As to the singing, it is the most tiresome thing in the world to hear thirty stanzas in the same lamentable tune; particularly when the voice is bad, as was IMPROVVISATORE. 415 the case in this instance. Recitation is undoubtedly much preferable, and there were some very good things in the history ofJephtha: but it is a melancholy amuse- ment, to hear any history spun out in this manner, with an accompanimentof grimaces of every description. In a dialogue between the judge and his daughter, Mr. Ferretti changed places just like Amphitryon's Sosia when he talks to his lantern, in the dia- logue which he supposes he shall hold with Alcmena. As to " William Tell/' it was a very unwise choice : how could a modern Italian make any thing good of it? There was an ice-cold invocation to Liberty : Tell spoke of the wheel of Ixion, of the rock of Sisyphus, and other objects, of which the real Tell certainly did not even know the names. The poem began with a most extraordinary simile — " In like man- " ner as Nebuchadnezzar bent his body " over a brook, to look into it, — so did " Gessler require that people should bow " to his hat." The likeness between the two members of this comparison it will be admitted, is not very obvious If Mr. Fer- 410 ROMAN SOCIETY. retti be really one of the best improwisatori, Heaven forbid ! that I should ever be con- demned to listen to one of the second class. There was a Mr. Ruffini, a Roman mer- chant, who gave a grand concert every Wednesday, to which the English who had been there once, thought themselves entitled to carry all their friends for ever afterwards ; a license of which I never heard that the master of the house had complained, but which I really thought extraordinary in persons who adhere so punctiliously to etiquette in their own country. The musick was in general well selected, and well sung by a Signora Tras- mondi, Signor Moncada, and some others. Miss Rtiffini, the daughter of the host, had a good voice and considerable flexibility ; but the musick assigned to her was often of too difficult execution for her age. Countess Moroni played beautifully on the harp, though her instrument was very in- different. The Theatres at Rome are never open except during the Carnival, that is to say, from Christmas to Lent. There are several ROMAN THEATRES. 417 of them, but only one — the Argentina — that is much frequented by people of fashion. It is spacious and handsome. It has six rows of boxes, and may contain about fifteen hundred spectators ; the orna- ments are in good taste, and it is less gloomy than the Italian theatres we have hitherto seen, — being lighted by a large chande- lier. Each of the tickets for the pit bears a number corresponding with that of the particular seat to which it entitles the pos- sessor ; and being marked at the two extre- mities, they are torn down the middle when delivered, — the doorkeeper retaining one half, and returning the other to the visitor, to enable him to find his proper place ; there is besides a person within the theatre, whose business it is to guide the company to their seats. All this is well arranged ; but the theatre is built of wood, and in case of sudden fire, a great part of the audience must inevitably perish. Two companies of players performed at it this winter. The first was an indifferent set; and the musick of Tancredi, which they pretended to per- form, was so sadly mangled, that it could VOL. I. »K 418 ROMAN THEATRES. hardly be recognised. I saw only the first act, which was bad enough ; but Rossini who saw the second, assured me that it con- tained only one piece of his composition ; and that the rest, though it bore his name, was perfectly unknown to him. The second company was infinitely better, and per- formed Quinto Fabio, with excellent music. The price of a ticket is five paoli for the first evenings, and three paoli afterwards. The next theatre is called La Valle, and has room for eighteen hundred or two thousand spectators. The performances were mixed, comedy and opera : and the singers much better than the first company at the Argentina. The Prima Donna, Signora Georgi, was much too large in person, and of a vulgar appearance, but she had a fine voice. The second had, on the contrary, hardly any voice, but a charming face and figure. The tenor was tolerable ; and there was besides a young actor of great promise. They began with Romani's Qui pro Quo, a pretty thing enough ; after which they gave Rossini' sCenere?itola, which attracted crowd- ed houses. The dramas were tolerably well ROMAN THEATRES. 419 performed. It is true that they had no very great actors, but they had no very bad ones ; and there was a certain accord amongst them which is more agreeable, and produces on the whole a better effect, than extraordinary talents in a single individual, seconded by a number of stupid blockheads. I saw Maf- fei's Merope; which though it certainly con- tains great beauties, deserves on the whole the severe criticism which Voltaire has passed upon it. The price of tickets at La Valle is only two paoli. The theatre of Apollo is the largest of all ; there is very convenient room in it for two thousand spectators, and it is built of stone; so that 1 was rather surprised at its being given up to the lower classes. But I after- wards learnt that people thought it very- unsafe, on account of its situation on the Tiber, which they fancied might some time or other carry it off. The performances here were likewise diversified; but dramas, comedies, farces, and operas, were all equally bad. The price of a ticket is only one paolo. The theatre Delia Pace is the ugliest 1 ■J F. 2 420 ROMAN THEATRES. ever saw : it is long and narrow ; there are only eleven places in the whole breadth of the pit, — ten sitting, and one, in the middle standing ; and there are four rows of twenty-one boxes each. Nothing can be imagined more wretched and vulgar than the performances, unless it be the audience that applauded them, and who seemed de- lighted with their entertainment : the latter consisted of such ill-looking, ill-dressed, dirty people, that it was really no indifferent part of a stranger's amusement to see such an assemblage sitting at a play. Here also the tickets cost one paolo. The theatre Capranica is large, and may contain about sixteen hundred spec- tators. There are six rows of boxes, the uppermost of which forms the Loggione, or gallery. This theatre is the most dangerous of all in case of fire ; it is not only built entirely of wood, but there is not the least mixture of plaster on the walls, and the passages are so low, that a tall man could not stand erect with his hat on ; and so narrow, that we were obliged to remain stationary for more than ten minutes, without the least ROMAN THEATRES PULCINELLO. 421 -* possibility of moving on, until those who were before us had cleared the only outlet that there is. The company was not good, but they sometimes performed entertaining comedies, — such as Le Donne Awocate, — and some strange farces. One of the latter (of which the following is a sketch,) seemed to have been composed on purpose to en- courage thieves. — Pulcinello is out of place and very hungry, when he accident- ally meets with a friend of his who has just embraced the honourable trade of thief, and who persuades him to form an asso- ciation with him, protesting that the life of a galley-slave, which must be the ultimate result of it, is the most agreeable that a rea- sonable man can wish for. Poor Pulcinello believes every thing that is said, as firmly as if he had read it in the Bible; and he is constantly cheated by his partner in the di- vision of their stolen property, in the most comical manner imaginable, to the great amusement of the audience. Several spe- cimens of ingenious robbery occur on the stage. At length the two friends take advan- taged a gentleman's absence, to plunder his 422 PULCINELLO. house. Pulcinello applies a ladder to a win- dow, goes in, and throws down all the furni- ture to his partner in the street, who runs away with the best part of it: meanwhile the proprietor arrives with his friends (those who have been robbed in the preceding part of the play) and is much surprised at seeing first a basket fly out of the window, then a tea-pot and china cups, and afterwards all sorts of earthen ware; for Pulcinello having been told he must take every thing, cares little to save his booty from break- ing. The thieves are of course caught ; but there is another thing, which may not seem quite so natural, — they are all par- doned. — It is clear that the Censorship is not very scrupulous, or that the government thinks it not amiss to give good examples to its very moral subjects ! This character of Pulcinello is represented in a much more agreeable and more entertaining light, in some comedies which I saw performed at the theatre of Apollo. Shakspeare would have been delighted with him ; and would doubtless have introduced him into his plays, if lie had known him. PULCINELLO. 423 Pulcinello is a Neapolitan, and talks the dialect used by his countrymen, the Lazza- roni; which it is therefore necessary to study in order to understand him : but 1 really think the study well worth the while. His dress is a very ample shirt, hanging down on every side, but particularly before, over a pair of white trowsers. The meaning of this, I suppose, is to shew the capacity he could fill, if he had but a sufficient provi- sion of maccaroni; of which he is as fond as an Irishman is of potatoes. He wears (like Harlequin) on the upper part of his face, a black half-maskof which I could neverguess the origin. His character is a strange mix- ture of the deepest ignorance and natural wit; malice and simplicity; keen repartees and naivetes : cunning and stupidity. He is always a thief and a pickpocket ; but at the same time, is himself the easiest of dupes; a great braggadocio, but a complete coward. Whenever questions are put to him to which he cannot reply without danger, he affects downright idiocy, and pretends not to un- derstand a v\ord. He does not bear ill-will toothers, but he has a particular fondness 424 PULCINELLO — ROMAN THEATRES. for himself; and he has an enormous appe- tite, without the means of feeding it. In short, he is like Caliban in some things, like Sancho in others, like Falstaff in many, but yet different from all of them. When the part is ill performed, it seems intoler- able stuff; but in the hands of a good actor, it is extremely entertaining. None but Italians, however, can be so passionately fond of it as to be pleased with Pulcinello's acting a part in serious dramas or the deepest tragedies. The theatre of Pullacorda is just of the same form as the theatre Delia Pace, but much smaller, having only two rows of boxes. Its passages are abominable, being exceedinglj T narrow and low ; and the stair- case is a mere assemblage of broken planks. It really is a horrid place, but the puppet- show which occupied it was highly admired by the connoisseurs. I certainly thought it far superior to that which I had seen at Milan, but tiresome for a whole evening's amusement. There is another very small theatre on the ground-floor oi the Palazzo Fiano< ROMAN THEATRES. 425 where the admission costs only three baioc- chi : it was not so very bad as the lowness of the price had led me to anticipate. The performances were abbreviations of well-known pieces, and were tolerably adapted to the size of the theatre ; not so the actors, — who looked preposterously tall, and were obliged to exert considerable dexterity in order to cross the stage without pulling down the scenery. The theatre Aliberti, which is by far the handsomest of all, was not made use of in my time ; and I only saw it on the even- ings of the carnival balls. I shall therefore mention it when I speak of those festivi- ties ; as I shall also mention that which is built in the tomb of the Emperor Au- gustus, when I speak of the Fochetti. One thing is truly shocking in all the theatres of Rome, — their disgusting filthi- ness, and the horrible stench which per- vades them, — of which no one who has not experienced them, can have any idea. 4£6 CHAPTER XXIII. Amusements of the Carnival at Rome — The Pope's Soldiers. 1 HE Carnival begins in most parts of Italy at Christmas ; but it does not take place at Rome until the Saturday se'nnight before Ash-Wednesday. For some days previous to the com- mencement of the festival, considerable bustle and agitation begin to be per- ceptible in the city. A great number of new faces make their appearance on the Corso : the shops exhibit a gay and varie- gated display of masquerade equipments: the horses destined to run for the prizes are daily exercised : the Romans begin to cast off their sullen looks, and to shew a disposition to be social and cheerful : some laughter is occasionally heard ; and (what at other times appeared impossible for a Roman) an individual may now and then be seen walking at a quick pace. Seats are prepared, and placed in the widest parts THE CARNIVAL AT ROME. 42? of the Corso ; the bills announcing the balls which are about to take place are stuck up ; and a greater or less degree of impatience is visible on every countenance. At length the great day arrives. At three o'clock P. M. the bell of the Capitol gives the signal; and the Pope's body-guard, consisting of two hundred foot soldiers, fifty dragoons, and fifty musicians, making in all three hundred men, immediately march from the Porta del Popolo, through the whole line of the Corso, to the place of San Marco, close to the Capitol ; that is, nearly the whole length of the modern town. As soon as this procession is over, the Corso is filled with carriages, which re- main there (with only a short interrup- tion during the race) till six o'clock in the evening, moving on in two lines, in opposite directions, as slowly as in Hyde Park on a crowded Sunday. The whole intervening space between the carriages and the houses, and in the middle of the street, (which is very scanty indeed, the street being extremely narrow 7 ) is occu- pied by people on foot. Chairs are to 428 THE CARNIVAL AT ROME. be hired at different prices, from one grosso or five baiocchi, to five paoli, according to the greater or less convenience of the place ; those under the Palazzo Ruspoli being the best and the dearest, because they are more elevated than the street, which is in this place rather wider than elsewhere. Many of the crowd are masked, and ex- hibit some very comical figures and amu- sing groups ; but on the whole, they are rather noisy than gay, and their dresses are more gaudy than elegant. A great many coachmen and some of the tallest footmen are dressed in women's clothes. The chief part of the general amusement consists in throwing at each other small figures of plumbs made of chalk or of plas- ter, — which imitations have succeeded to real sugar-plumbs, as modern has succeeded to ancient Rome. They do no hurt to any one, unless they are purposely and violently thrown at the face ; a species of brutal sport, of which I am sorry to acknowledge 1 have seen some English travellers guilty. As these missiles whiten every thing they strike, black clothes are usually the prin- THE CARNIVAL AT ROME. 429 cipal objects of attack. But in carrying on this warfare against the ladies of their ac- quaintance, it is the fashion for gentlemen to use real sugar- plumbs. Nor are the ladies wholly idle, many of them being- engaged in throwing similar substances at the balconies and into the windows of their friends on the Corso. However trifling this amusement may appear in description, it is really not unentertaining when carried on (as it invariably is by the natives) with cheerfulness and good-humour. In this friendly warfare, the pedestrians have an advantage over those who are in carriages ; because the motion of the latter is intolerably slow, and exposes those who are in them to the unmitigated violence of the bombardment from the balconies above. But the Corso is so narrow, that it re- quires great prudence, and uncommon care in those who are on foot, to avoid fall- ing under the horses' feet. I witnessed these amusements very conveniently from the balcony of our lodgings in the Corso ; but I afterwards descended into the street, and mixed with the walkers, where I re- 4-30 THE CARNIVAL AT ROME. ceived several severe blows from the poles of the carriages. At this time the Count de Blacas, the French Ambassador, drew upon himself the hearty curses of the people, by a proceeding for which he deserved to have had his carriage broken to pieces, — as it certainly would have been in any other place than Rome. Choosing to make a parade of his privilege, he drove rapidly down the middle of the street, between the two files of other carriages, to the great peril of the crowd. When Mr. Funchal, the Portuguese Am- bassador Extraordinary saw this, he thought his master's honour required that he also should assert his right, and he therefore ordered his coachman to attempt to over- take and to pass Count de Blacas's car- riage. Count de Blacas's man not knowing Mr. Funcbal's equipage, as the latter was but lately arrived, would not allow his car- riage to pass, until the Count, being made aware of the dispute, and seeing who it was, ordered his coachman to desist from the race. Mr. de Funchal, after his vic- tory, immediately withdrew : but the stu- THE CARNIVAL AT ROME. 431 pid pride of the Frenchman was not satis- fied with a momentary exercise of this most senseless and absurd of all privileges, but he drove thus three times along the whole length of the Corso. It must be ob- served, that there were several kings and queens, and royal princes, in the two files of coaches, none of whom shewed the least disposition thus contemptuously to break in upon the pleasures of a people, who are al- lowed only twenty-four hours in each year for their amusements. I cannot believe that a man capable of indulging in such a paltry triumph, would act with dignity and energy in cases of real moment ; and 1 can well conceive the hatred which he inspired in France, of which I saw some very curious specimens at Paris. But let us return to the Carnival, — which I trust he will not again presume to inter- rupt by such a stupid display of senseless pride. Upon a signal given by two cannon, every coach is obliged to turn into the nearest street to the right. As soon as they have left the Corso, the foot-guards clear \%1 THt CARNIVAL AT ROME. the middle of the street, by forcing all the spectators on foot to stand close to the houses ; after which two other guns are fired, and a detachment of dragoons, start- ing from the Porta del Popolo, pass along the Corso at full gallop, up to the place of San Marco. Immediately after them, five or six race horses, or more, are let loose from the same spot at the lower end of the Corso, without riders, but with spurs fas- tened in such a manner as to prick their sides ail the way; and the first that reaches the place of San Marco gains the chief prize, the second a smaller prize, and some- thing 1 believe falls to the lot of the third. This race, along so narrow a street, is the most ridiculous thing that ran be imagined : it very seldom happens, that a horse's in- stinct or emulation leads him to out-run that which precedes him, and when one of them is fairly a-head, the others usually follow, without attempting to pass by him. There are, now and then, it is true, some exceptions : but they are scarce, and the race is almost, always more ludicrous than interesting As soon as it is ovcj the are allowed to return fane t ~ C : the v sta t till darknet After six o'clock no-bod j is safe : - ::—♦:. tbot s pcof .-.".-' lj . ~ e : to keep oq their nki^^^ ie : resse*. 7 real duration of fe dbe lo~ tbreE Fi : . - ; - - - : -_i_ - """ITT rrr i* ! ~ ~ - z ii if zz _ i _ rcozi 434 THE CARNIVAL AT ROME. night, and last till day-break ; the three others begin at seven, and are over punctu- ally at eleven. The moment that the clock has struck, a detachment of the guards, at the furthest end of the stage, forms in line, and advancing gradually towards the door, drives out the whole company before them. I never saw any thing like this in any other country. The soldiers being exceedingly tired of their duty, and impa- tient to put an end to it, perform this last part of their functions with as little ceremony or politeness as possible. The ball-room is cleared in a very short time, and the whole company is then crowded into narrow, low, and uncomfortable pas- sages, in which, in case of fire, three quar- ters, atleast,of the number would inevitably be stifled or burnt to death: the rather, as owing to the most absurd arrangement that ever was contrived for a wooden, or indeed for any theatre, you are obliged to go up two pair of stairs to find the outlet, where you have to descend as many more ere you reach the street. The manager of the theatre, or of the balls, was so anxious to THE CARNIVAL AT ROME. 435 save his candle-ends, that one night, on which I had mistaken the right passage with the Princess E , whom I was lead- ing to her carriage with several other ladies of the highest rank, when we regained the right way, we found the lights extinguished, and the passage crowded with the guards, who were rushing out as fast as the utter darkness of the place would allow them ; although we had not been among the latest to leave the room, and had not lost ten minutes in seeking out the way. Nothing can be imagined so infamously ill-ma- naged and ill-regulated. The police seems to interfere for the sole purpose of shorten- ing and spoiling the entertainment, and of introducing confusion where they ought to have no other object than that of prevent- ing it. The nobility (at least the females) only go to the ball on two nights, probably for this reason. Those two balls are amu- sing enough ; the Italian ladies understand the art of teasing from under a mask, better than any but the French, and con- trive to preserve their concealment much belter than the latter. 1-30 THE CARNIVAL AT ROME. The last day of the Carnival is the most entertaining of all : its burial really is a curious ceremony. Immediately after the race (which I ought to have observed is not confined to the first day), every one whether in carriages or on foot, lights a small candle or torch ; other lights are also put up in the windows of all the houses on the Corso, which produce a very pretty effect. Then every one tries to put out his neighbour's light, which is quickly re- kindled at first, but they disappear, by degrees, until the most complete darkness prevails throughout. But as long as this play lasts, a sort of humming is heard, which is meant to imitate the prayers mut- tered by the monks and priests at a real burial. This is without comparison the most amusing part of the whole festivity : only it becomes at last dangerous for the people on foot, because the carriages no longer keep their places in the file, and as you neither see nor hear them, on account of the increasing darkness and of the noise around you, it is almost impossible to avoid accidents. One pole tore off the upper pari THE CARNIVAL AT ROME. IS7 of the sleeve of my coat ; another nearly knocked me down by a violent blow in the back ; and I suppose I was not the most unfortunate of the walkers. It really seems very absurd not to allow the people at least a couple of days, during which carriages should be excluded from the Corso. In the evening the principal Roman fa- milies subscribe for pic-nic suppers. For example, there was one this year at the Ar- mellino, consisting of Princess Doria, Prince Sciarra, and twelve other noblemen and ladies of the highest distinction. They paid twenty-five paoli a-head (a little more than eleven shillings,) which included the cost of claret, liqueurs, coffee, tyc. in short, every thing but champagne, which was to be paid for separately. This price may seem very low for such an occasion, but the sup- per is more splendid than it would be in London for twice or thrice the money, even without the wines. In consequence of this arrangement all the upper rooms or'the Armellino were shut against the [nib- lick at an early hour. 438 THE CARNIVAL AT ROME. The last ball, which on that evening closes at half-past ten, is the most crowded. After retiring from it, we supped at Prince Ercolani's, where the party consisted of twenty-one men with only two ladies, — the Hostess, and Signora Marignoli a very handsome woman from Spoleto, whose hus- band, one of the magistrates of that place and a well informed, liberal man, interested me extremely by the account he gave me of Umbria. On the whole, the Roman Carnival is a very melancholy festivity. If it lasted from morning to night, during a certain time, though even shorter than it is, I have no doubt but it would, or, at least, might be as agreeable here as any where else ; but to be apprized by cannon, horse-guards, and soldiers with fixed bayonets, that you must be merry for a few hours, at the expiration of which the same brutal means are em- ployed to put a sudden stop to your amuse- ment, is almostworse than the uninterrupted indulgence of ennui, without any interfer- ence on the part of government with the manner in which you may choose to yawn MILITARY FORCE OF THE POPE. 4<39 it away. Nothing can be more odious than a police obtruding itself upon you at every step which you take in pursuit of lawful pleasure. There is, in general, at Rome an excessive, an unseasonable, and therefore a ridiculous affectation of mi- litary pomp on every trifling occasion. Swiss clowns mix in every solemnity ; every theatre is guarded by at least thirty bayo- nets ; and though I certainly love my countrymen sufficiently well to be extremely glad to see the poorest of them snug and comfortable abroad, yet I must own that my blood boiled with indignation when I saw them treat the natives, even females, in the most brutal manner, beating them off from the entrances of the chapels, — into which we, as foreigners, were immediately admitted not only without the least diffi- culty but even with politeness, though most of us were Protestants, brought there by mere curiosity. The garrison of Rome consists of about tour thousand men, and the total amount of the Pope's army of between nine and ten thousand. I have often heard people 140 MILITARY FORCE OF THE POPE. talk of these soldiers, as a set of idle effeminate beings, armed with parasols and fans. They may have been so for- merly, but now they are principally men who have seen service abroad, and who have an exceedingly hard duty to perform at home ; harder indeed during the festivals and religious ceremonies than that of any other troops in the world. They mount guard every day, and stand at their posts in the theatres from seven till twelve o'clock, without being relieved. I have frequently seen them sleep, from "excess of fatigue, while standing under arms. Nor have they any chance of fighting, except with the banditti ; a warfare in which they reap no honour if successful, and in which they must expect barbarous treatment and a cruel death if they fail. During my stay at Rome, a detachment of three or four hundred set off on an expedition against the banditti in the neighbourhood of Ter- racina. 141 CHAPTER XXIV. Instances of the Wretchedness of the Lower Classes at Rome — Remarks on the decline of the charitable Disposition of English Travellers. On Tuesday, 11th Feb., in the height of the festivities of the Carnival, I left my bal- cony, to mix amongst the walkers below ; but finding the Corso too crowded to be agreeable, I turned into the Vicolo della Vite, to go to another lodging which we had taken in the Via de Condotti. A small group of persons at a little distance led me to sup- pose that there might be some entertain- ing mask to be seen, and going up to en- joy the expected merriment, I saw — the corpse of a poor woman, who had died of hunger in the street, a few minutes be- fore ! She lay stretched on her back, with her head reclining on a clean apron, which some good creature of the neigh- bourhood had rolled up into the fashion of i\ bolster : a small lamp was placed at her 442 MISERY OF THE ROMAN POOR. feet, and by her side a plate, into which some devout individuals had thrown a few copper pieces, for the purpose of paying the priests for performing the last ceremo- nies over the senseless corpse, — a bounty which, if earlier applied, might have pro- tracted the poor creature's days. A man who had just turned from the scene, being asked what was the matter, answered " an old worn an, starved to death," as coolly as if he had said, " an ass that has dropt his burden." But alas ! such a scene as this, though rendered peculiarly shocking by its con- trast with that which the neighbouring Corso then presented, was too common at Rome to excite any lively or lasting im- pression amongst its inhabitants. Two days afterwards another poor woman dropped down, apparently lifeless, at the door of our lodging in the Viadei Condotti, and was the first object that I saw on go- ing out to the Corso. I restored her to ani- mation again, though not without trouble. The poor creature was pregnant. Such scenes were not well calculated to make me take a very joyful interest in the gaieties of MISERY OF THE ROMAN POOR. 443 the season. I shall mention only two other cases of a similar kind, which occurred during my short stay in Rome. I was one day returning through the Capitol, from a long ramble amongst the ruins beyond it, when I saw several women assembled round a poor girl, whom they were endeavouring to raise from the ground. She had fallen down from mere inanition on the ascent of that once celebrated hill ; her eyes were closed, and her exhausted frame and trembling jaws but too clearly shewed the cause of her situation. I ran to a baker's from whence I brought a small loaf; some charitable soul had in the mean- time gone for water, which revived her so far that she was enabled to swallow a very small piece of bread, then another, and by de- grees a few larger pieces, till she was suffi- ciently recovered to walk to an inn, with the assistance of two of the by-standers. There ] called for meat and wine, but as soon as she had eaten a morsel of bread she was satisfied, and entreated to be al- lowed not to touch the meat, but to carry it home to her lather, who was old and 444 MISERY OF THE HUMAN TOOK. impotent. I shewed her a small parcel of provisions which I had already ordered to be packed up for her, and pressed her to eat what was before her ; but she insisted upon adding it to the parcel, and immediately carrying it home, and this wish proceeded from too noble a feel- ing to be thwarted. The wretched family to which she belonged had been five whole days without a mouthful of bread, and for the last three days without even the cabbage-leaves and stalks, which they used to pick up in the streets or on the dunghills, and which it seems other more vigilant paupers had taken away. I cannot express what I felt on hearing this account. The extremity of hunger is not one of those evils, the momentary relief of which can be a source of enjoyment to the reliever. There is something in it so humiliating to human nature, and so quickly penetrating into our inmost heart, — so very shocking in the mere imagination of it, and so horrible in its details, that it harrows up the soul at the same time that it opens it to sympathy. Long alter I had seen poor Vrsula walk oft' MISERY OF THE ROMAN POOR. 445 with recovered strength, taking with her victuals sufficient for two or three days, I was so far from feeling any thing like a satisfaction or delight, in having been able to relieve such sufferings, that my eyes were full of tears during the rest of the day, and I saw nothing but her distresses in my dreams. The next morning I went to the address which the poor creature had given me, and I found much more misery than I had even been led to expect. She had only mentioned her father, whom a cruel accident prevent- ed from working, and who could do no- thing but walk about the streets, to pick up rags and scraps of paper, which he sold at the rate of a halfpenny a pound. He was not at home ; the food she had brought him had enabled him to go out in quest of this sad means of existence. But her step- mother was industriously occupied in spin- ning some flax which a charitable lady- had [riven her, whilst tears of anguish flowed down a lace which bore marks of once flourishing beauty. Never did 1 see a countenance so expressive of the very 446 MISERY OF THE ROMAN POOR. excess of mortal suffering. When I asked her why she thus yielded to despair, now that she saw she had some friends who tried to assist her ? she directed my eyes to a cor- ner of the room, where a small infant lay on some shavings of wood, instead of straw, in such a state that I could not attempt to describe it without shuddering. It was already too ill to cry ; a cold sweat covered its face, and its eyes were fixed as if at the point of death. Two other very young, emaciated children, were trying to warm themselves in the sun, out of doors. Ursula was gone out for some sticks to make a fire, for they had none, and the weather was frosty, — (it was on the 28th Jan., and a cold day for the climate.) The poor wo- man informed me that Ursula always worked in the vineyards when she could find employment, but that she had had none for some time, and was ashamed to beg. Being strangers in Rome (but not in the Roman states, for they were from Rieti,) they could claim no share of the publick charities, which (though all the provinces around are made to contribute to them,') MISERY OF THE ROMAN POOR. 447 are exclusively reserved for the natives of the town ; and when I met her, she had left the house to weep and die without grieving her father with this horrible sight. The poor creature was but fourteen, and re- markably handsome; but here the excess of her wretchedness had shielded her inno- cence, though in other countries it would very probably have led to her certain ruin. There was no bed, no table, no chair in the room, nothing whatsoever but the few shavings on which the poor little child lay stark naked, in the coldest days of that winter ! And there are men, who call them- selves Christians, who make it a principle never to give a single penny to a beggar, on the plea that it would be encouraging beg- gary ! Is it not better to feed a thousand idle vagabonds, than lo suffer a single fellow- creature to be starved to death 1 Let us reflect that our own children may be re- duced by adversity to the same abyss of misery ; and let us try to imagine what we should feel, if we were tosee them perishing tor want of that assistance which in our days ot abundance we had denied to others ! 448 MISERY OF THE ROMAN POOR. The last case of starvation which I met with was likewise on the Capitol. It was a young man, in the last horrible struggle with death. Five or six persons were around him, and expressed their grief and pity in a very natural manner, but without giving him the least assistance. A Priest passed by, threw him two baiocchi, and went on without troubling himself any far- ther about him. I requested two young men who were there, to take him up and carry him to an inn. " What can he do there without money V asked one of them, with a sorrowful shrug of his shoulders ; but as soon as I said that I would pay his expenses, they immediately took him in their arms with great alacrity and compas- sion, and we soon reached the door of an inn. It was on a Sunday (9th Feb.) and unfortunately not yet five, or according to the Roman calculation of time, 23 o'clock, before which hour it is strictly forbidden to admit any one into an eating-house ; so that the landlady would not open her door, though there were two gens tf amies with us, who told her il was for a poor wretch who MISERY OF THE ROMAN POOR. 449 was dying for want. While the discussion was carried on, with equal earnestness on my part and obstinacy on hers, the unfor- tunate youth was in an agony which made us all shudder at the thought of seeing him expire in our arms, a victim to a cowardly or a superstitious observance of the law. It is highly probable that a few minutes more would have put a period to his exist- ence, had not the landlord just then arrived ; who, seeing the truth of the case, and being assured by the gens d'armes that he had nothing to fear, at length opened the door, and gave us what we wanted. 1 shall forbear exhibiting further instan- ces of such horrible scenes, though I might quote others from my own ocular obser- vation, to shew how inhuman it is to refuse the alms of a few halfpence to the miserable beings who beg in the streets of Rome. ] own it lies very near my heart to cure tra- vellers, and particularly English travellers, of their barbarous and ungrounded preju- dices against Italian beggars. Let them be as lazy, as thoughtless, as unworthy, as they are represented to be by those who choose voi,. I. 1 (. 450 DECLINE OF ENGLISH BENEVOLENCE. to disguise their hard-heartedness under the specious appearance of a rigid attach- ment to morals : — are those reasons for suf- fering them to expire from hunger ? Good God ! what would become of these severe moralists, if their sins were judged with the same inflexibility by Him who has recom- mended charity as the chiefest of virtues ? A Quaker (how often this name recalls to mind excellent men, and truly charitable deeds !) an English Quaker tried to move his countrymen to compassion for Roman distress, and was at first very unsuccessful. They exclaimed that it was absurd, that it was a shame to give money to paupers abroad, while the lower classes in England were suffering so severely, as all the letters from thence uniformly reported. I was in hopes that their indignation would produce at least one fortunate result, that of induc- ing them to open a liberal subscription for their own fellow-citizens ; but I much fear the greater part only sought for an excuse to give as little at Rome as they trans- mitted to their countrymen at home. Mr. Arthur's proposal was however again in- DECLINE OF ENGLISH BENEVOLENCE. 451 troduced, and he succeeded in procur- ing a meeting to be held on the subject. A great number of arguments were urged against the measure, but in spite of the plea of misery and sedition at home, it was resolved to set a subscription on foot. As long as it was supposed that it would be accompanied with a printed list of the names of all the subscribers and the amount of their contributions, there was great en- thusiasm in many, who spoke of fifteen or twenty pounds as the smallest sum that a gentleman could give in such cir- cumstances. But when it was resolved to omit this most essential stimulus to their charity, these same gentlemen thought one dollar quite handsome, two more than suf- ficient, four exceedingly generous ; and Mr. Arthur's noble plan did not produce the twentieth part of what might have been collected by means of the accustomed list of subscribers. Far be it from me, however lo assert that all his countrymen were equally unfeeling in their conduct on this occasion. 1 know there were some, I hope there were many, who did honour to theii 452 DECLINE OF ENGLISH BENEVOLENCE. humanity. I really feel as deeply mor- tified when I find myself obliged to speak ill of the British nation, or of any part of it, as if I were forced to confess, some shameful trait in my own character ; but I cannot forbear adding a few lines more, which may possibly appear very severe, but which are only strictly true. Several of those who contributed to this subscription, did so from interested motives, rather than from real charity. Some wished to avoid meeting with dis- gusting misery in their walks about Rome ; and thought it a very good and cheap spe- culation to enable government to sweep all the beggars from the streets into those mis- named Asylums, where they were kept un- der strict confinement, debarred of the sweet liberty to breathe the open air, crowd- ed together into rooms where their very numbers engendered vice and disease ; where they had just enough to prevent them from literally dying of hunger, but far from enough to enable them to consider their imprisonment as a necessary evil, much less their asulum as a blessing. 1 saw DECLINE OF ENGLISH BENEVOLENCE. 453 some of those temporary Lazarettos, and I declare to God, I thought starving in the streets much preferable to lingering there. Others again contributed merely because they thought their rank or character re- quired it ; but they little cared what was to be done with their money, provided they heard no more on the subject. In short, there was enough to inspire a true friend of Great Britain with very melancholy thoughts on the alarming decay of those generous, and charitable feelings, which, once characterized the travelling English, and made them beloved and admired all over the Continent. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. LONDON: Printed by W. CLOWES, Northumberland-court. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Aneeles University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. JU For JAN 1- 2 m uiur'inn T iiiiiiii 3 1158 00641 2919 DG h26 G 13i v.l UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A A 000 33 859 9