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Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. 1 (of 2)

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Title: Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Author: Hester Lynch Piozzi


        
Release date: August 5, 2005 [eBook #16445]
                Most recently updated: June 23, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS MADE IN THE COURSE OF A JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE, ITALY, AND GERMANY, VOL. 1 (OF 2) ***




OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS

MADE IN THE COURSE OF A

JOURNEY

THROUGH

_FRANCE, ITALY, AND GERMANY_.


By HESTER LYNCH PIOZZI.


IN TWO VOLUMES

Vol. I.


LONDON:

Printed for A. STRAHAN; and T. CADELL in the Strand,

MDCCLXXXIX.




PREFACE.


I was made to observe at Rome some vestiges of an ancient custom very
proper in those days--it was the parading of the streets by a set of
people called _Preciæ_, who went some minutes before the _Flamen Dialis_
to bid the inhabitants leave work or play, and attend wholly to the
procession; but if ill omens prevented the pageants from passing, or if
the occasion of the show was deemed scarcely worthy its celebration,
these _Preciæ_ stood a chance of being ill-treated by the spectators. A
Prefatory introduction to a work like this, can hope little better usage
from the Public than they had; it proclaims the approach of what has
often passed by before, adorned most certainly with greater splendour,
perhaps conducted too with greater regularity and skill: Yet will I not
despair of giving at least a momentary amusement to my countrymen in
general, while their entertainment shall serve as a vehicle for
conveying expressions of particular kindness to those foreign
individuals, whose tenderness softened the sorrows of absence, and who
eagerly endeavoured by unmerited attentions to supply the loss of their
company on whom nature and habit had given me stronger claims.

That I should make some reflections, or write down some observations, in
the course of a long journey, is not strange; that I should present them
before the Public is I hope not too daring: the presumption grew up out
of their acknowledged favour, and if too kind culture has encouraged a
coarse plant till it runs to seed, a little coldness from the same
quarter will soon prove sufficient to kill it. The flattering partiality
of private partisans sometimes induces authors to venture forth, and
stand a public decision; but it is often found to betray them too; not
to be tossed by waves of perpetual contention, but rather to sink in the
silence of total neglect. What wonder! He who swims in oil must be
buoyant indeed, if he escapes falling certainly, though gently, to the
bottom; while he who commits his safety to the bosom of the
wide-embracing ocean, is sure to be strongly supported, or at worst
thrown upon the shore.

On this principle it has been still my study to obtain from a humane and
generous Public that shelter their protection best affords from the
poisoned arrows of private malignity; for though it is not difficult to
despise the attempts of petty malice, I will not say with the
Philosopher, that I mean to build a monument to my fame with the stones
thrown at me to break my bones; nor yet pretend to the art of Swift's
German Wonder-doer, who promised to make them fall about his head like
so many pillows. Ink, as it resembles Styx in its colour, should
resemble it a little in its operation too; whoever has been once _dipt_
should become _invulnerable_: But it is not so; the irritability of
authors has long been enrolled among the comforts of ill-nature, and the
triumphs of stupidity; such let it long remain! Let me at least take
care in the worst storms that may arise in public or in private life, to
say with Lear,

                        --I'm one
    More sinn'd against, than sinning.

For the book--I have not thrown my thoughts into the form of private
letters; because a work of which truth is the best recommendation,
should not above all others begin with a lie. My old acquaintance rather
chose to amuse themselves with conjectures, than to flatter me with
tender inquiries during my absence; our correspondence then would not
have been any amusement to the Public, whose treatment of me deserves
every possible acknowledgment; and more than those acknowledgments will
I not add--to a work, which, such as it is, I submit to their candour,
resolving to think as little of the event as I can help; for the labours
of the press resemble those of the toilette, both should be attended to,
and finished with care; but once complete, should take up no more of our
attention; unless we are disposed at evening to destroy all effect of
our morning's study.




OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS

MADE IN A JOURNEY THROUGH

France, Italy, and Germany.

       *       *       *       *       *



FRANCE.



CALAIS.


September 7, 1784.

Of all pleasure, I see much may be destroyed by eagerness of
anticipation: I had told my female companion, to whom travelling was
new, how she would be surprized and astonished, at the difference found
in crossing the narrow sea from England to France, and now she is not
astonished at all; why should she? We have lingered and loitered six and
twenty hours from port to port, while sickness and fatigue made her feel
as if much more time still had elapsed since she quitted the opposite
shore. The truth is, we wanted wind exceedingly; and the flights of
shaggs, and shoals of maycril, both beautiful enough, and both uncommon
too at this season, made us very little amends for the tediousness of a
night passed on ship-board.

Seeing the sun rise and set, however, upon an unobstructed horizon, was
a new idea gained to me, who never till now had the opportunity. It
confirmed the truth of that maxim which tells us, that the human mind
must have something left to supply for itself on the sight of all
sublunary objects. When my eyes have watched the rising or setting sun
through a thick crowd of intervening trees, or seen it sink gradually
behind a hill which obstructed my closer observation, fancy has always
painted the full view finer than at last I found it; and if the sun
itself cannot satisfy the cravings of a thirsty imagination, let it at
least convince us that nothing on this side Heaven can satisfy them, and
_set our affections_ accordingly.

Pious reflections remind one of monks and nuns; I enquired of the
Franciscan friar who attended us at the inn, what was become of Father
Felix, who did the duties of the quête; as it is called, about a dozen
years ago, when I recollect minding that his manners and story struck
Dr. Johnson exceedingly, who said that so complete a character could
scarcely be found in romance. He had been a soldier, it seems, and was
no incompetent or mean scholar: the books we found open in his cell,
shewed he had not neglected modern or colloquial knowledge; there was a
translation of Addison's Spectators, and Rapin's Dissertation on the
contending Parties of England called Whig and Tory. He had likewise a
violin, and some printed music, for his entertainment. I was glad to
hear he was well, and travelling to Barcelona on foot by orders of the
superior.

After dinner we set out to see Miss Grey, at her convent of Dominican
Nuns; who, I hoped, would have remembered me, as many of the ladies
there had seized much of my attention when last abroad; they had however
all forgotten me, nor could call to mind how much they had once admired
the beauty of my eldest daughter, then a child, which I thought
impossible to forget: one is always more important in one's own eyes
than in those of others; but no one is of importance to a Nun, who is
and ought to be employed in other speculations.

When the Great Mogul showed his splendour to a travelling dervise, who
expressed his little admiration of it--"Shall you not often be thinking
of me in future?" said the monarch. "Perhaps I might," replied the
religieux, "if I were not always thinking upon God."

The women spinning at their doors here, or making lace, or employing
themselves in some manner, is particularly consolatory to a British eye;
yet I do not recollect it struck me last time I was over: industry
without bustle, and some appearance of gain without fraud, comfort one's
heart; while all the profits of commerce scarcely can be said to make
immediate compensation to a delicate mind, for the noise and brutality
observed in an English port. I looked again for the chapel, where the
model of a ship, elegantly constructed, hung from the top, and found it
in good preservation: some scrupulous man had made the ship, it seems,
and thought, perhaps justly too, that he had spent a greater portion of
time and care on the workmanship than he ought to have done; so
resolving no longer to indulge his vanity or fondness, fairly hung it up
in the convent chapel, and made a solemn vow to look on it no more. I
remember a much stronger instance of self-denial practised by a pretty
young lady of Paris once, who was enjoined by her confessor to wring off
the neck of her favourite bullfinch, as a penance for having passed too
much time in teaching him to pipe tunes, peck from her hand, &c.--She
obeyed; but never could be prevailed on to see the priest again.

We are going now to leave Calais, where the women in long white camblet
clokes, soldiers with whiskers, girls in neat slippers, and short
petticoats contrived to show them, who wait upon you at the
inn;--postillions with greasy night-caps, and vast jack-boots, driving
your carriage harnessed with ropes, and adorned with sheep-skins, can
never fail to strike an Englishman at his first going abroad:--But what
is our difference of manners, compared to that prodigious effect
produced by the much shorter passage from Spain to Africa; where an
hour's time, and sixteen miles space only, carries you from Europe, from
civilization, from Christianity. A gentleman's description of his
feelings on that occasion rushes now on my mind, and makes me half
ashamed to sit here, in Dessein's parlour, writing remarks, in good
time!--upon places as well known as Westminster-bridge to almost all
those who cross it at this moment; while the custom-house officers
intrusion puts me the less out of humour, from the consciousness that,
if I am disturbed, I am disturbed from doing _nothing_.



CHANTILLY.


Our way to this place lay through Boulogne; the situation of which is
pleasing, and the fish there excellent. I was glad to see Boulogne,
though I can scarcely tell why; but one is always glad to see something
new, and talk of something old: for example, the story I once heard of
Miss Ashe, speaking of poor Dr. James, who loved profligate conversation
dearly,--"That man should set up his quarters across the water," said
she; "why Boulogne would be a seraglio to him."

The country, as far as Montreuil, is a coarse one; _thin herbage in the
plains and fruitless fields_. The cattle too are miserably poor and
lean; but where there is no grass, we can scarcely expect them to be
fat: they must not feed on wheat, I suppose, and cannot digest tobacco.
Herds of swine, not flocks of sheep, meet one's eye upon the hills; and
the very few gentlemen's feats that we have passed by, seem out of
repair, and deserted. The French do not reside much in private houses,
as the English do; but while those of narrower fortunes flock to the
country towns within their reach, those of ampler purses repair to
Paris, where the rent of their estate supplies them with pleasures at no
very enormous expence. The road is magnificent, like our old-fashioned
avenue in a nobleman's park, but wider, and paved in the middle: this
convenience continued on for many hundred miles, and all at the king's
expence. Every man you meet, politely pulls off his hat _en passant_;
and the gentlemen have commonly a good horse under them, but certainly a
dressed one.

Sporting season is not come in yet, but, I believe the idea of sporting
seldom enters any head except an English one: here is prodigious plenty
of game, but the familiarity with which they walk about and sit by our
road-side, shews they feel no apprehensions.

Harvest, even in France, is extremely backward this year, I see; no
crops are yet got in, nor will reaping be likely to pay its own charges.
But though summer is come too late for profit, the pleasure it brings is
perhaps enhanced by delay: like a life, the early part of which has been
wasted in sickness, the possessor finds too little time remaining for
work, when health _does_ come; and spends all that he has left,
naturally enough, in enjoyment.

The pert vivacity of _La Fille_ at Montreuil was all we could find there
worth remarking: it filled up my notions of French flippancy agreeably
enough; as no English wench would so have answered one to be sure. She
had complained of our avant-coureur's behaviour. "_Il parle sur le bant
ton, mademoiselle_" (said I), "_mais il à le coeur bon_[A]:" "_Ouydà_"
(replied she, smartly), "_mais c'est le ton qui fait le chanson_[B]."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: He sets his talk to a sounding tune, my dear, but he is an
honest fellow.]

[Footnote B: But I always thought it was the tune which made the
musick.]

The cathedral at Amiens made ample amends for the country we passed
through to see it; the _Nef d'Amiens_ deserves the fame of a first-rate
structure: and the ornaments of its high altar seem particularly well
chosen, of an excellent taste, and very capital execution. The vineyards
from thence hither shew, that either the climate, or season, or both,
improve upon one: the grapes climbing up some not very tall
golden-pippin trees, and mingling their fruits at the top, have a mighty
pleasing effect; and I observe the rage for Lombardy poplars is in equal
force here as about London: no tolerable house have I passed without
seeing long rows of them; all young plantations, as one may perceive by
their size. Refined countries always are panting for speedy enjoyment:
the maxim of _carpe diem_[Footnote: Seize the present moment.] came into
Rome when luxury triumphed there; and poets and philosophers lent their
assistance to decorate and dignify her gaudy car. Till then we read of
no such haste to be happy; and on the same principle, while Americans
contentedly wait the slow growth of their columnal chesnut, our hot-bed
inhabitants measure the slender poplar with canes, anxiously admiring
its quick growth and early elegance; yet are often cut down themselves,
before their youthful favourite can afford them either pleasure or
advantage.

This charming palace and gardens were new to neither of us, yet lovely
to both: the tame fish, I remember so well to have fed from my hand
eleven or twelve years ago, are turned almost all white; can it be with
age I wonder? the naturalists must tell. I once saw a carp which weighed
six pounds and an half taken out of a pond in Hertfordshire, where the
owners knew it had resided forty years at least; and it was not white,
but of the common colour: Quere, how long will they live? and when will
they begin to change? The stables struck me as more magnificent this
time than the last I saw them; the hounds were always dirtily and ill
kept; but hunting is not the taste of any nation now but ours; none but
a young English heir says to his estate as Goliah did to David, _Come to
me, and I will give thee to the beasts of the field, and to the fowls of
the air_; as some of our old books of piety reproach us. Every trick
that money can play with the most lavish abundance of water is here
exhibited; nor is the sight of a _jet d'eau_, or the murmur of an
artificial cascade, undelightful in a hot day, let the Nature-mongers
say what they please. The prince's cabinet, for a private collection, is
not a mean one; but I was sorry to see his quadrant rusted to the globe
almost, and the poor planetarium out of all repair. The great stuffed
dog is a curiosity however; I never saw any of the canine species so
large, and withal so beautiful, living or dead.

The theatre belonging to the house is a lovely one; and the truly
princely possessor, when he heard once that an English gentleman,
travelling for amusement, had called at Chantilly too late to enjoy the
diversion, instantly, though past twelve o'clock at night, ordered a new
representation, that his curiosity might be gratified. This is the same
Prince of Condè, who going from Paris to his country-seat here for a
month or two, when his eldest son was nine years old, left him fifty
louis d'ors as an allowance during his absence. At his return to town,
the boy produced his purse, crying "_Papa! here's all the money safe, I
have never touched it once_"--The Prince, in reply, took him gravely to
the window, and opening it, very quietly poured all the louis d'ors into
the street; saying, "Now, if you have neither virtue enough to give away
your money, nor spirit enough to spend it, always _do this_ for the
future, do you hear; that the poor may at least have a _chance for it_."



PARIS.


The fine paved road to this town has many inconveniencies, and jars the
nerves terribly with its perpetual rattle; the approach however always
strikes one as very fine, I think, and the boulevards and guingettes
look always pretty too: as wine, beer, and spirits are not permitted to
be sold there, one sees what England does not even pretend to exhibit,
which is gaiety without noise, and a crowd without a riot. I was pleased
to go over the churches again too, and re-experience that particular
sensation which the disposition of St. Rocque's altars and ornaments
alone can give. In the evening we looked at the new square called the
Palais Royal, whence the Duc de Chartres has removed a vast number of
noble trees, which it was a sin and shame to profane with an axe, after
they had adorned that spot for so many centuries.--The people were
accordingly as angry, I believe, as Frenchmen can be, when the folly was
first committed: the court, however, had wit enough to convert the place
into a sort of Vauxhall, with tents, fountains, shops, full of frippery,
brilliant at once and worthless, to attract them; with coffeehouses
surrounding it on every side; and now they are all again _merry_ and
_happy_, synonymous terms at Paris, though often disunited in London;
and _Vive le Duc de Chartres_!

The French are really a contented race of mortals;--precluded almost
from possibility of adventure, the low Parisian leads a gentle humble
life, nor envies that greatness he never can obtain; but either wonders
delightedly, or diverts himself philosophically with the sight of
splendours which seldom fail to excite serious envy in an Englishman,
and sometimes occasion even suicide, from disappointed hopes, which
never could take root in the heart of these unaspiring people.
Reflections of this cast are suggested to one here in every shop, where
the behaviour of the matter at first sight contradicts all that our
satirists tell us of the _supple Gaul_, &c. A mercer in this town shews
you a few silks, and those he scarcely opens; _vous devez
choisir_[Footnote: Chuse what you like.], is all he thinks of saying, to
invite your custom; then takes out his snuff-box, and yawns in your
face, fatigued by your inquiries. For my own part, I find my natural
disgust of such behaviour greatly repelled, by the recollection that the
man I am speaking to is no inhabitant of

    A happy land, where circulating pow'r
    Flows thro' each member of th'embodied state--

    S. JOHNSON.


and I feel well-inclined to respect the peaceful tenor of a life, which
likes not to be broken in upon, for the sake of obtaining riches, which
when gotten must end only in the pleasure of counting them. A Frenchman
who should make his fortune by trade tomorrow, would be no nearer
advancement in society or situation: why then should he solicit, by arts
he is too lazy to delight in the practice of, that opulence which would
afford so slight an improvement to his comforts? He lives as well as he
wishes already; he goes to the Boulevards every night, treats his wife
with a glass of lemonade or ice, and holds up his babies by turns, to
hear the jokes of _Jean Pottage_. Were he to recommend his goods, like
the Londoner, with studied eloquence and attentive flattery, he could
not hope like him that the eloquence he now bestows on the decorations
of a hat, or the varnish of an equipage, may one day serve to torment a
minister, and obtain a post of honour for his son; he could not hope
that on some future day his flattery might be listened to by some lady
of more birth than beauty, or riches perhaps, when happily employed upon
a very different subject, and be the means of lifting himself into a
state of distinction, his children too into public notoriety.

Emulation, ambition, avarice, however, must in all arbitrary governments
be confined to the great; the _other_ set of mortals, for there are none
there of _middling_ rank, live, as it should seem, like eunuchs in a
seraglio; feel themselves irrevocably doomed to promote the pleasure of
their superiors, nor ever dream of sighing for enjoyments from which an
irremeable boundary divides them. They see at the beginning of their
lives how that life must necessarily end, and trot with a quiet,
contented, and unaltered pace down their long, straight, and shaded
avenue; while we, with anxious solicitude, and restless hurry, watch the
quick turnings of our serpentine walk; which still presents, either to
sight or expectation, some changes of variety in the ever-shifting
prospect, till the unthought-of, unexpected end comes suddenly upon us,
and finishes at once the fluctuating scene. Reflections must now give
way to facts for a moment, though few English people want to be told
that every hotel here, belonging to people of condition, is shut out
from the street like our Burlington-house, which gives a general gloom
to the look of this city so famed for its gaiety: the streets are narrow
too, and ill-paved; and very noisy, from the echo made by stone
buildings drawn up to a prodigious height, many of the houses having
seven, and some of them even eight stories from the bottom. The
contradictions one meets with every moment likewise strike even a
cursory observer--a countess in a morning, her hair dressed, with
diamonds too perhaps, a dirty black handkerchief about her neck, and a
flat silver ring on her finger, like our ale-wives; a _femme publique_,
dressed avowedly for the purposes of alluring the men, with not a very
small crucifix hanging at her bosom;--and the Virgin Mary's sign at an
alehouse door, with these words,

    Je suis la mere de mon Dieu,
    Et la gardienne de ce lieu[C].

[Footnote C:
    The mother of my God am I,
    And keep this house right carefully.
]

I have, however, borrowed Bocage's Remarks upon the English nation,
which serve to damp my spirit of criticism exceedingly: She had more
opportunities than I for observation, not less quickness of discernment
surely; and her stay in London was longer than mine in Paris.--Yet, how
was she deceived in many points!

I will tell nothing that I did not _see_; and among the objects one
would certainly avoid seeing if it were possible, is the deformity of
the poor.--Such various modes of warping the human figure could hardly
be observed in England by a surgeon in high practice, as meet me about
this country incessantly.--I have seen them in the galleries and
outer-courts even of the palace itself, and am glad to turn my eyes for
relief on the Duke of Orleans's pictures; a glorious collection! The
Italian noblemen, in whose company we saw it, acknowledged with candour
the good taste of the selection; and I was glad to see again what had
delighted me so many years before: particularly, the three Marys, by
Annibale Caracci; and Rubens's odd conceit of making Juno's Peacock peck
Paris's leg, for having refused the apple to his mistress.

The manufacture at the Gobelins seems exceedingly improved; the
colouring less inharmonious, the drawing more correct; but our Parisians
are not just now thinking about such matters; they are all wild for love
of a new comedy, written by Mons. de Beaumarchais, and called, "Le
Mariage de Figaro," full of such wit as we were fond of in the reign of
Charles the Second, indecent merriment, and gross immorality; mixed,
however, with much acrimonious satire, as if Sir George Etherege and
Johnny Gay had clubbed their powers of ingenuity at once to divert and
to corrupt their auditors; who now carry the verses of this favourite
piece upon their fans, pocket-handkerchiefs, &c. as our women once did
those of the Beggar's Opera.

We have enjoyed some very agreeable society here in the company of Comte
Turconi, a Milanese Nobleman who, desirous to escape all the frivolous,
and petty distinction which birth alone bestows, has long fixed his
residence in Paris, where talents find their influence, and where a
great city affords that unobserved freedom of thought and action which
can scarcely be expected by a man of high rank in a smaller circle; but
which, when once tasted, will not seldom be preferred to the attentive
watchfulness of more confined society.

The famous Venetian too, who has written so many successful comedies,
and is now employed upon his own Memoirs, at the age of eighty-four,
was a delightful addition to our Coterie, _Goldoni_. He is garrulous,
good-humoured, and gay; resembling the late James Harris of Salisbury in
person not manner, and seems justly esteemed, and highly, by his
countrymen.

The conversation of the Marquis Trotti and the Abate Bucchetti is
likewise particularly pleasing; especially to me, who am naturally
desirous to live as much as possible among Italians of general
knowledge, good taste, and polished manners, before I enter their
country, where the language will be so very indispensable. Mean time I
have stolen a day to visit my old acquaintance the English Austin Nuns
at the Fossée, and found the whole community alive and cheerful; they
are many of them agreeable women, and having seen Dr. Johnson with me
when I was last abroad, enquired much for him: Mrs. Fermor, the
Prioress, niece to Belinda in the Rape of the Lock, taking occasion to
tell me, comically enough, "That she believed there was but little
comfort to be found in a house that harboured _poets_; for that she
remembered Mr. Pope's praise made her aunt very troublesome and
conceited, while his numberless caprices would have employed ten
servants to wait on him; and he gave one" (said she) "no amends by his
talk neither, for he only sate dozing all day, when the sweet wine was
out, and made his verses chiefly in the night; during which season he
kept himself awake by drinking coffee, which it was one of the maids
business to make for him, and they took it by turns."

These ladies really live here as comfortably for aught I see as peace,
quietness, and the certainty of a good dinner every day can make them.
Just so much happier than as many old maids who inhabit Milman Street
and Chapel Row, as they are sure not to be robbed by a treacherous, or
insulted by a favoured, servant in the decline of life, when protection
is grown hopeless and resistance vain; and as they enjoy at least a
moral certainty of never living worse than they do to-day: while the
little knot of unmarried females turned fifty round Red Lion Square
_may_ always be ruined by a runaway agent, a bankrupted banker, or a
roguish steward; and even the petty pleasures of six-penny quadrille may
become by that misfortune too costly for their income.--_Aureste_, as
the French say, the difference is small: both coteries sit separate in
the morning, go to prayers at noon, and read the chapters for the day:
change their neat dress, eat their little dinner, and play at small
games for small sums in the evening; when recollection tires, and chat
runs low.

But more adventurous characters claim my present attention. All Paris I
think, myself among the rest, assembled to see the valiant brothers,
Robert and Charles, mount yesterday into the air, in company with a
certain Pilâtre de Rosier, who conducted them in the new-invented flying
chariot fastened to an air-balloon. It was from the middle of the
Tuilleries that they set out, a place very favourable and well-contrived
for such public purposes. But all was so nicely managed, so cleverly
carried on somehow, that the order and decorum of us who remained on
firm ground, struck me more than even the very strange sight of human
creatures floating in the wind: but I have really been witness to ten
times as much bustle and confusion at a crowded theatre in London, than
what these peaceable Parisians made when the whole city was gathered
together. Nobody was hurt, nobody was frighted, nobody could even
pretend to feel themselves incommoded. Such are among the few comforts
that result from a despotic government.

My republican spirit, however, boiled up a little last Monday, when I
had to petition Mons. de Calonne for the restoration of some trifles
detained in the custom-house at Calais. His politeness, indeed, and the
sight of others performing like acts of humiliation, reconciled me in
some measure to the drudgery of running from subaltern to subaltern,
intreating, in pathetic terms, the remission of a law which is at last
either just or unjust; if just, no felicitation should, methinks, be
permitted to change it; if unjust, what can be so grating as the
obligation to solicit?

We mean to quit Paris to-morrow; I therefore enquired this evening, what
was become of our aërial travellers. A very grave man replied, "_Je
crois, Madame, qu'ils sont dejá arrivès ces Messieurs là, au lieu ou
les vents se forment_[D]."

[Footnote D: I fancy, Ma'am, the gentlemen are gone to see the place
where all the winds blow from.]



LYONS.


Sept. 25, 1784.

We left the capital at our intended time, and put into the carriage, for
amusement, a book seriously recommended by Mr. Goldoni; but which
diverted me only by the fanfaronades that it contained. The author has,
however, got the premium by this performance, which the Academy of
Berlin promised to whoever wrote best this year on any Belles Lettres
subject. This gentleman judiciously chose to give reasons for the
universality of the French language, and has been so gaily insolent to
every other European nation in his flimsy pamphlet, that some will
probably praise, many reply to, all read, and all forget it. I will
confess myself so seized on by his sprightly impertinence, that I wished
for leisure to translate, and wit to answer him at first, but the want
of one solid thought by which to recollect his existence has cured me;
and I now find that he was deliciously cool and sharp, like the ordinary
wine of the country we are passing through, which having _no body_, can
neither keep its little power long, nor even use it while fresh to any
sensible effect.

The country is really beautiful; but descriptions are _so_ fallacious,
one half despairs of communicating one's ideas as they are: for either
well-chosen words do not present themselves, or being well-chosen they
detain the reader, and fix his mind on _them_, instead of the things
described. Certain it is that I had formed no adequate notion of the
fine river called the Yonne, with cattle grazing on its fertile banks:
those banks not clothed indeed with our soft verdure, but with royal
purple, proceeding from an autumnal daisy of that colour that enamels
every meadow at this season. Here small enclosures seem unknown to the
inhabitants, who are strewed up and down expansive views of a most
productive country; where vineyards swell upon the rising grounds, and
young wheat ornaments the valleys below: while clusters of aspiring
poplars, or a single walnut-tree of greater size and dignity unite in
attracting attention, and inspiring poetical ideas. Here is no tedious
uniformity to fatigue the eye, nor rugged asperities to disgust it; but
ceaseless variety of colouring among the plants, while the cærulean
willow, the yellow walnut, the gloomy beech, and silver theophrastus,
seem scattered by the open hand of lavish Nature over a landscape of
respectable extent, uniting that sublimity which a wide expanse always
conveys to the mind, with that distinctness so desired by the eye; which
cultivation alone can offer and fertility bestow. Every town that should
adorn these lovely plains, however, exhibits, upon a nearer approach,
misery; the more mortifying, as it is less expected by a spectator, who
requires at least some days experience to convince him that the squallid
scenes of wretchedness and dirt in which he is obliged to pass the
night, will prove more than equivalent to the pleasures he has enjoyed
in the day-time, derived from an appearance of elegance and
wealth--elegance, the work of Nature, not of man; and opulence, the
immediate gift of God, and not the result of commerce. He who should fix
his residence in France, lives like Sir Gawaine in our old romance,
whose wife was bound by an enchantment, that obliged her at evening to
lay down the various beauties which had charmed admiring multitudes all
day, and become an object of odium and disgust.

The French do seem indeed an idle race; and poverty, perhaps for that
reason, forces her way among them, through a climate that might tempt
other mortals to improve its blessings; but, as the motto to the arms
they are so proud of expresses it--"they _toil not, neither do they
spin_." Content, the bane of industry, as Mandeville calls it, renders
them happy with what Heaven has unsolicited shaken into their lap; and
who knows but the spirit of blaming such behaviour may be less pleasing
to God that gives, than is the behaviour itself?

Let us not, mean time, be forward to suppose, that whatever one sees
done, is done upon principle, as such fancies will for ever mislead one:
much must be left to chance, when we are judging the conduct either of
nations or individuals. And surely I never knew till now, that so little
religion could exist in any Christian country as in this, where they
drive their carts, and keep their little shops open on a Sunday,
forbearing neither pleasure nor business, as I see, on account of
observing that day upon which their Redeemer rose again. They have a
tradition among the meaner people, that when Christ was crucified, he
turned his head towards France, over which he pronounced his last
blessing; but we must accuse them, if so, of being very ungrateful
favourites.

This stately city, Lyons, is very happily and finely situated; the
Rhone, which flows by its side, inviting mills, manufactures, &c. seems
resolved to contradict and wash away all I have been saying; but we must
remember, it is five days journey from Paris hither, and I have been
speaking only of the little places we passed through in coming along.

The avenue here, which leads to one of the greatest objects in the
nation, is most worthy of that object's dignity indeed: the marriage of
two rivers, which having their sources at a prodigious distance from
each other, meet here, and together roll their beneficial tribute to the
sea. Howell's remark, "That the Saone resembles a Spaniard in the
slowness of its current, and that the Rhone is emblematic of French
rapidity," cannot be kept a moment out of one's head: it is equally
observable, that the junction adds little in appearance to their
strength and grandeur, and that each makes a better figure _separate_
than _united_.

La Montagne d'Or is a lovely hill above the town, and I am told that
many English families reside upon it, but we have no time to make minute
enquiries. L'Hotel de la Croix de Malthe affords excellent
accommodations within, and a delightful prospect without. The Baths too
have attracted my notice much, and will, I hope, repair my strength, so
as to make me no troublesome fellow-traveller. How little do those
ladies consult their own interest, who make impatience of petty
inconveniences their best supplement for conversation!--fancy themselves
more important as less contented; and imagine all delicacy to consist in
the difficulty of being pleased! Surely a dip in this delightful river
will restore my health, and enable me to pass the mountains, of which
our present companions give me a very formidable account.

The manufacturers here, at Lyons, deserve a volume, and I shall
scarcely give them a page; though nothing I ever saw at London or Paris
can compare with the beauty of these velvets, or with the art necessary
to produce such an effect, while the wrong side is smooth, not struck
through. The hangings for the Empress of Russia's bed-chamber are
wonderfully executed; the design elegant, the colouring brilliant: A
screen too for the Grand Signor is finely finished here; he would, I
trust, have been contented with magnificence in the choice of his
furniture, but Mr. Pernon has added taste to it, and contrived in
appearance to sink an urn or vase of crimson velvet in a back ground of
gold tissue with surprising ingenuity.

It is observable, that the further people advance in elegance, the less
they value splendour; distinction being at last the positive thing which
mortals elevated above competency naturally pant after. Necessity must
first be supplied we know, convenience then requires to be contented;
but as soon as men can find means after that period to make themselves
eminent for taste, they learn to despise those paltry distinctions
which riches alone can bestow.

Talking of Taste leads one to speak of gardening; and having passed
yesterday between two villas belonging to some of the most opulent
merchants of Lyons, I gained an opportunity of observing the disposal of
those grounds that are appropriated to pleasure; where the shade of
straight long-drawn alleys, formed by a close junction of ancient elm
trees, kept a dazzling sun from incommoding our sight, and rendering the
turf so mossy and comfortable to one's tread, that my heart never felt
one longing wish for the beauties of a lawn and shrubbery--though I
should certainly think such a manner of laying out a Lancashire
gentleman's seat in the north of England a mad one, where the heat of
the sun ought to be invited in, not shut out; and where a large lake of
water is wanted for his beams to sparkle upon, instead of a fountain to
trickle and to murmur, and to refresh one with the idea of coolness
which it excites. Here, however, where the Rhone is navigable up to the
very house, I see not but it is rational enough to form jet d'eaux of
the superfluous water, and to content one's self with a Bird Cage Walk,
when we are sure at the end of it to find ourselves surrounded by an
horizon, of extent enough to give the eye full employment, and of a
bright colouring which affords it but little relief. That among the gems
of Europe our island holds the rank of an _emerald_, was once suggested
to me, and I could never part with the idea; surely France must in the
same scale be rated as the _ruby_; for here is no grass, no verdure to
repose the sight upon, except that of high forest trees, the vineyards
being short cut, and supported by white sticks, the size of those which
in our flower gardens support a favourite carnation; and these placed
close together by thousands on a hill rather perplex than please a
spectator of the country, who must wait till he recollects the
superiority of their produce, before he prefers them to a Herefordshire
orchard or a Kentish hop-ground.

Well! well! it is better to waste no more words on places however, where
the people have done so much to engage and to deserve our attention.

Such was the hospitality I have here been witness to, and such the
luxuries of the Lyonnois at table, that I counted six and thirty dishes
where we dined, and twenty-four where we supped. Every thing was served
up in silver at both places, and all was uniformly magnificent, except
the linen, which might have been finer. We were not a very numerous
company--from eighteen to twenty-two, as I remember, morning and
evening; but the ladies played upon the pedal harp, the gentlemen sung
gaily, if not sweetly after supper: I never received more kindness for
my own part in any fortnight of my life, nor ever heard that kindness
more pleasingly or less coarsely expressed. These are merchants, I am
told, with whom I have been living; and perhaps my heart more readily
receives and repays their caresses for having heard so. Let princes
dispute, and soldiers reciprocally support their quarrels; but let the
wealthy traders of every nation unite to pour the oil of commerce over
the too agitated ocean of human life, and smooth down those asperities
which obstruct fraternal concord.

The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland lodge here at our hotel; I saw them
treated with distinguished respect to-night at the theatre, where _a
force de danser_[Footnote: By dint of dancing alone], I actually was
moved to shed many tears over the distresses of _Sophie de Brabant_.
Surely these pantomimes will very soon supplant all poetry, when, as
Gratiano says, "Our words will suddenly become superfluous, and
discourse grow commendable in none but parrots."

Some conversation here, however, struck me as curious; the more so as I
had heard the subject slightly touched upon at Paris; but faintly there,
as the last sounds of an echo, while here they are all loud, all in
earnest, and all their heads seemed turned, I think, about something, or
nothing, which they call _animal magnetism_. I cannot imagine how it has
seized them so: a man who undertakes to cure disorders by the touch, is
no new thing; our Philosophical Transactions make mention of Gretrex the
stroaker, in Charles the Second's reign. The present mountebank, it is
true, seems more hardy in his experiments, and boasts of being able to
cause disorders in the human frame, as well as to remove them. A
gentleman at yesterday's dinner-party mentioned, that he took pupils;
and, before I had expressed the astonishment I felt, professed himself a
disciple; and was happy to assure us, he said, that though he had not
yet attained the desirable power of putting a person into a catalepsy at
pleasure, he could throw a woman into a deep swoon, from which no arts
but his own could recover her. How difficult is it to restrain one's
contempt and indignation from a buffoonery so mean, or a practice so
diabolical!--This folly may possibly find its way into England--I should
be very sorry.

To-morrow we leave Lyons. I should have liked to pass through
Switzerland, the Derbyshire of Europe; but I am told the season is too
far advanced, as we mean to spend Christmas at Milan.




ITALY



TURIN.


October 17, 1784.

We have at length passed the Alps, and are safely arrived at this lovely
little city, whence I look back on the majestic boundaries of Italy,
with amazement at his courage who first profaned them: surely the
immediate sensation conveyed to the mind by the sight of such tremendous
appearances must be in every traveller the same, a sensation of fulness
never experienced before, a satisfaction that there is something great
to be seen on earth--some object capable of contenting even fancy. Who
he was who first of all people pervaded these fortifications, raised by
nature for the defence of her European Paradise, is not ascertained; but
the great Duke of Savoy has wisely left his name engraved on a monument
upon the first considerable ascent from Pont Bonvoisin, as being author
of a beautiful road cut through the solid stone for a great length of
way, and having by this means encouraged others to assist in
facilitating a passage so truly desirable, till one of the great wonders
now to be observed among the Alps, is the ease with which even a
delicate traveller may cross them. In these prospects, colouring is
carried to its utmost point of perfection, particularly at the time I
found it, variegated with golden touches of autumnal tints; immense
cascades mean time bursting from naked mountains on the one side;
cultivated fields, rich with vineyards, on the other, and tufted with
elegant shrubs that invite one to pluck and carry them away to where
they would be treated with much more respect. Little towns flicking in
the clefts, where one would imagine it was impossible to clamber; light
clouds often sailing under the feet of the high-perched inhabitants,
while the sound of a deep and rapid though narrow river, dashing with
violence among the insolently impeding rocks at the bottom, and bells in
thickly-scattered spires calling the quiet Savoyards to church upon the
steep sides of every hill--fill one's mind with such mutable, such
various ideas, as no other place can ever possibly afford.

I had the satisfaction of seeing a chamois at a distance, and spoke with
a fellow who had killed five hungry bears that made depredation on his
pastures: we looked on him with reverence as a monster-tamer of
antiquity, Hercules or Cadmus; he had the skin of a beast wrapt round
his middle, which confirmed the fancy--but our servants, who borrowed
from no fictitious records the few ideas that adorned their talk, told
us he reminded _them_ of _John the Baptist_. I had scarce recovered the
shock of this too sublime comparison, when we approached his cottage,
and found the felons nailed against the wall, like foxes heads or spread
kites in England. Here are many goats, but neither white nor large, like
those which browze upon the steeps of Snowdon, or clamber among the
cliffs of Plinlimmon.

I chatted with a peasant in the Haute Morienne, concerning the endemial
swelling of the throat, which is found in seven out of every ten persons
here: he told me what I had always heard, but do not yet believe, that
it was produced by drinking the snow water. Certain it is, these places
are not wholesome to live in; most of the inhabitants are troubled with
weak and sore eyes: and I recollect Sir Richard Jebb telling me, more
than seven years ago, that when he passed through Savoy, the various
applications made to him, either for the cure or prevention of blindness
by numberless unfortunate wretches that crowded round him, hastened his
quitting a province where such horrible complaints prevailed. One has
heard it related that the goîstre or gozzo of the throat is reckoned a
beauty by those who possess it; but I spoke with many, and all agreed to
lament it as a misfortune. That it does really proceed merely from
living in a snowy country, would be well confirmed by accounts of a
similar sickness being endemial in Canada; but of an American goîstre I
have never yet heard--and Wales, methinks, is snowy enough, and
mountainous enough, God knows; yet were such an excrescence to be seen
_there_, the people would never have done wondering, and blessing
themselves.

The mines of Derbyshire, however, do not very unfrequently exhibit
something of the same appearance among those who work in _them_; and as
Savoy is impregnated with many minerals, I should be apter to attribute
this extension of the gland to their influence over the constitution,
than to that of snow water, which can scarcely be efficacious in a
degree of power equal to the producing so very violent an effect.

The wolves do certainly come down from these mountains in large troops,
just as Thomson describes them:

    Burning for blood; boney, and gaunt, and grim.--

But it is now the fashionable philosophy every where to consider this
creature as the original of our domestic friend, the dog. It was a long
time before my heart assented to its truth, yet surely their hunting
thus in packs confirms it; and the Jackall's willingness to connect with
either race, shews one that the species cannot be far removed, and that
he makes the shade between the wolf and rough haired shepherd's cur.

Of the longevity of man this district affords us no pleasing examples.
The peasants here are apparently unhealthy, and they say--short-lived.
We are told by travellers of former days, that there is a region of the
air so subtle as to extinguish the two powers of taste and smell; and
those who have crossed the Cordilleras of the Andes say, that situations
have been explored among their points in South America, where those
senses have been found to suffer a temporary suspension. Our _voyageurs
aeriens_[Footnote: Our aerostatic travellers] may now be useful to
settle that question among others, and Pambamarca's heights may remain
untrodden.

As for Mount Cenis, I never felt myself more hungry, or better enjoyed a
good dinner, than I did upon it's top: but the trout in the lake there
have been over praised; their pale colour allured me but little in the
first place, nor is their flavour equal to that of trout found in
running water. Going down the Italian side of the Alps is, after all, an
astonishing journey; and affords the most magnificent scenery in nature,
which varying at every step, gives new impression to the mind each
moment of one's passage; while the portion of terror excited either by
real or fancied dangers on the way, is just sufficient to mingle with
the pleasure, and make one feel the full effect of sublimity. To the
chairmen who carry one though, nothing can be new; it is observable that
the glories of these objects have never faded--I heard them speak to
each other of their beauties, and the change of light since they had
passed by last time, while a fellow who spoke English as well as a
native told us, that having lived in a gentleman's service twenty years
between London and Dublin, he at length begged his discharge, chusing to
retire and finish his days a peasant upon these mountains, where he
first opened his eyes upon scenes that made all other views of nature
insipid to his taste.

If impressions of beauty remain, however, those of danger die away by
frequent reiteration; the men who carried me seemed amazed that I should
feel any emotions of fear. _Qu'est ce donc, madame_?[Footnote: What's
the matter, my lady?] was the coldly-asked question to my repeated
injunction of _prenez garde_[Footnote: Take care.]: not very apparently
unnecessary neither, where the least slip must have been fatal both to
them and me.

Novalesa is the town we stopped at, upon entering Piedmont; where the
hollow sound of a heavy dashing torrent that has accompanied us
hitherto, first grows faint, and the ideas of common life catch hold of
one again; as the noise of it is heard from a greater distance, its
stream grows wider, and its course more tranquil. For compensation of
danger, ease should be administered; but one's quiet is here so
disturbed by insects, and polluted by dirt, that one recollects the
conduct of the Lapland rein-deer, who seeks the summit of the hill at
the hazard of his life, to avoid those gnats which sting him to madness
in the valley.

Suza shewed nothing that I took much interest in, except its name; and
nobody tells me why it is honoured with that old Asiatick appellation.
At the next town, called St. Andrè, or St. Ambroise, I forget which, we
got an admirable dinner; and saw our room decorated with a large map of
London, which I looked on with sensations different from those ever
before excited by the same object, Amsterdam and Constantinople covered
the other sides of the wall; and over the door of the chamber itself was
written, as our people write the Lamb or the Lion, "_Les trois Villes
Heretiques_[Footnote: The three Heretical Cities]."

The avenue to Turin, most magnificently planted, and drawn in a wide
straight line, shaded like the Bird-cage walk in St. James's Park, for
twelve miles in length, is a dull work, but very useful and convenient
in so hot a country; it has been completed by the taste, and at the sole
expence, of his Sardinian majesty, that he may enjoy a cool shady drive
from one of his palaces to the other. The town to which this long
approach conveys one does not disgrace its entrance. It is built in form
of a star, with a large stone in its centre, on which you are desired to
stand, and see the streets all branch regularly from it, each street
terminating with a beautiful view of the surrounding country, like spots
of ground seen in many of the old-fashioned parks in England, when the
etoile and vista were the mode. I think there is[5] still one
subsisting even now, if I remember right, in Kensington Gardens. Such
symmetry is really a soft repose for the eye, wearied with following a
soaring falcon through the half-sightless regions of the air, or darting
down immeasurable precipices, to examine if the human figure could be
discerned at such a depth below one. Model of elegance, exact Turin!
where Italian hospitality first consoled, and Italian arts first repaid,
the fatigues of my journey: how shall I bear to leave my new-obtained
acquaintance? how shall I consent to quit this lovely city? where, from
the box put into my possession by the Prince de la Cisterna, I first saw
an Italian opera acted in an Italian theatre; where the wonders of
Porporati's hand shewed me that our Bartolozzi was not without a
competitor; and where every pleasure which politeness can invent, and
kindness can bestow, was held out for my acceptance. Should we be
seduced, however, to waste time here, we should have reason in a future
day to repent our choice; like one who, enamoured of Lord Pembroke's
great hall at Wilton, should fail to afford himself leisure for looking
over the better-furnished apartments.

This charming town is the _salon_ of Italy; but it is a
finely-proportioned and well-ornamented _salon_ happily constructed to
call in the fresh air at the end of every street, through which a rapid
stream is directed, that _ought_ to carry off all nuisances, which here
have no apology from want of any convenience purchasable by money; and
which must for that reason be the choice of inhabitants, who would
perhaps be too happy, had they a natural taste for that neatness which
might here be enjoyed in its purity. The arches formed to defend
passengers from the rain and sun, which here might have even serious
effects from their violence, deserve much praise; while their
architecture, uniting our ideas of comfort and beauty together, form a
traveller's taste, and teach him to admire that perfection, of which a
miniature may certainly be found at Turin, when once a police shall be
established there to prevent such places being used for the very
grossest purposes, and polluted with smells that poison all one's
pleasure.

It is said, that few European palaces exceed in splendour that of
Sardinia's king; I found it very fine indeed, and the pictures
dazzling. The death of a dropsical woman well known among all our
connoisseurs detained my attention longest: the value set on it here is
ten thousand pounds. The horse cut out of a block of marble at the
stairs-foot attracted me not a little; but we are told that the
impression it makes will soon be effaced by the sight of greater
wonders. Mean time I go about like Stephano and his ignorant companions,
who longed for all the glittering furniture of Prospero's cell in the
Tempest, while those who know the place better are vindicated in crying,
"_Let it alone, thou fool, it is but trash_."

Some letters from home directed me to enquire in this town for Doctor
Charles Allioni, who kindly received, and permitted me to examine the
rarities, of which he has a very capital collection. His fossil fish in
slate--blue slate, are surprisingly well preserved; but there is in the
world, it seems, a chrystalized trout, not flat, nor the flesh eaten
away, as I understand, but round; and, as it were, cased in chrystal
like our _aspiques_, or _fruit in jelly_: the colour still so perfect
that you may plainly perceive the spots upon it, he says. To my
enquiries after this wonderful petrefaction, he replied, "That it might
be bought for a thousand pounds;" and added, "that if he were a _Ricco
Inglese_[Footnote: Rich Englishman], he would not hesitate for the
price:" "Where may I see it, Sir?" said I; but to that question no
intreaties could produce an answer, after he once found I had no mind to
buy.

That fresh-water fish have been known to remain locked in the flinty
bosom of Monte Uda in Carnia, the Academical Discourse of Cyrillo de
Cremona, pronounced there in the year 1749, might have informed us; and
we are all familiar, I suppose, with the anchor named in the fifteenth
book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Strabo mentions pieces of a galley found
three thousand stadii from any sea; and Dr. Allioni tells me, that Monte
Bolca has been long acknowledged to contain the fossils, now diligently
digging out under the patronage of some learned naturalists at
Verona.--The trout, however, is of value much beyond these productions
certainly, as it is closed round as if in a transparent case we find,
hermetically sealed by the soft hand of Nature, who spoiled none of her
own ornaments in preserving them for the inspection of her favourite
students.

The amiable old professor from whom these particulars were obtained, and
who endured my teizing him in bad Italian for intelligence he cared not
to communicate, with infinite sweetness and patience grew kinder to me
as I became more troublesome to him: and shewing me the book upon botany
to which he had just then put the last line; turned his dim eyes from
me, and said, as they filled with tears, "You, Madam, are the last
visitor I shall ever more admit to talk upon earthly subjects; my work
is done; I finished it as you were entering:--my business now is but to
wait the will of God, and die; do you, who I hope will live long and
happily, seek out your own salvation, and pray for mine." Poor dear
Doctor Allioni! My enquiries concerning this truly venerable mortal
ended in being told that his relations and heirs teized him cruelly to
sell his manuscripts, insects, &c. and divide the money amongst _them_
before he died. An English scholar of the same abilities would be apt
enough to despise such admonitions, and dispose at his own liking and
leisure of what his industry alone had gained, his learning only
collected; but there seems to be much more family fondness on the
Continent than in our island; more attention to parents, more care for
uncles, and nephews, and sisters, and aunts, than in a commercial
country like ours, where, for the most part, each one makes his own way
separate; and having received little assistance at the beginning of
life, considers himself as little indebted at the close of it.

Whoever takes a long journey, however he may at his first commencement
be tempted to accumulate schemes of convenience and combinations of
travelling niceties, will cast them off in the course of his travels as
incumbrances; and whoever sets out in life, I believe, with a crowd of
relations round him, will, on the same principle, feel disposed to drop
one or two of them at every turn, as they hang about and impede his
progress, and make his own game single-handed. I speak of _Englishmen_,
whose religion and government inspire rather a spirit of public
benevolence, than contract the social affections to a point; and
co-operate, besides, to prompt that genius for adventure, and taste of
general knowledge, which has small chance to spring up in the
inhabitants of a feudal state; where each considers his family as
himself, and having derived all the comfort he has ever enjoyed from his
relations, resolves to return their favours at the end of a life, which
they make happy, in proportion as it _is_ so: and this accounts for the
equality required in continental marriages, which are avowedly made here
without regard to inclination, as the keeping up a family, not the
choice of a companion, is considered as important; while the lady bred
up in the same notions, complies with her _first_ duties, and considers
the _second_ as infinitely more dispensable.



GENOA.


Nov. 1, 1784.

It was on the twenty-first of last month that we passed from Turin to
Monte Casale; and I wondered, as I do still, to see the face of Nature
yet without a wrinkle, though the season is so far advanced. Like a
Parisian female of forty years old, dressed for court, and stored with
such variety of well-arranged allurements, that the men say to each
other as she passes.--"Des qu'elle à cessée d'estre jolie, elle n'en
devient que plus belle, ce me semble[E]."

[Footnote E: She's grown handsomer, I think, since she has left off
being pretty.]

The prospect from St. Salvadore's hill derives new beauties from the
yellow autumn; and exhibits such glowing proofs of opulence and
fertility, as words can with difficulty communicate. The animals,
however, do not seem benefited in proportion to the apparent riches of
the country: asses, indeed, grow to a considerable size, but the oxen
are very small, among pastures that might suffice for Bakewell's bulls;
and these are all little, and almost all _white_; a colour which gives
unfavourable ideas either of strength or duration.

The blanche rose among vegetables scatters a less powerful perfume than
the red one; whilst in the mineral kingdom silver holds but the second
place to gold, which imbibing the bright hues of its parent-sun, becomes
the first and greatest of all metallic productions. One may observe too,
that yellow is the earliest colour to salute the rising year, the last
to leave it: crocuses, primroses, and cowslips give the first earnest of
resuscitating summer; while the lemon-coloured butterfly, whose name I
have forgotten, ventures out, before any others of her kind can brave
the parting breath of winter's last storms; stoutest to resist cold, and
steadiest in her manner of flying. The present season is yellow indeed,
and nothing is to be seen now but sun-flowers and African marygolds
around us; _one_ bough besides, on every tree we pass--_one_ bough at
least is tinged with the golden hue; and if it does put one in mind of
that presented to Proserpine, we may add the original line too, and say,

    Uno avulfo, non deficit alter[F].

[Footnote F:
    Pluck one away, another still remains.
]

The sure-footed and docile mule, with which in England I was but little
acquainted, here claims no small attention, from his superior size and
beauty: the disagreeable noise they make so frequently, however, hinders
one from wishing to ride them--it is not braying somehow, but worse; it
is neighing out of tune.

I have put nothing down about eating since we arrived in Italy, where no
wretched hut have I yet entered that does not afford soup, better than
one often tastes in England even at magnificent tables. Game of all
sorts--woodcocks in particular. Porporati, the so justly-famed engraver,
produced upon his hospitable board, one of the pleasant days we passed
with him, a couple so exceedingly large, that I hesitated, and looked
again, to see whether they were really woodcocks, till the long bill
convinced me.

One reads of the luxurious emperors that made fine dishes of the little
birds brains, phenicopter's tongues, &c. and of the actor who regaled
his guests with nightingale-pie, with just detestation of such curiosity
and expence: but thrushes, larks, and blackbirds, are so _very_ frequent
between Turin and Novi, I think they might serve to feed all the
fantastical appetites to which Vitellius himself could give
encouragement and example.

The Italians retain their tastes for small birds in full force; and
consider beccafichi, ortolani, &c. as the most agreeable dainties: it
must be confessed that they dress them incomparably. The sheep here are
all lean and dirty-looking, few in number too; but the better the soil
the worse the mutton we know, and here is no land to throw away, where
every inch turns to profit in the olive-yards, vines, or something of
much higher value than letting out to feed sheep.

Population seems much as in France, I think: but the families are not,
in either nation, disposed according to British notions of propriety;
all stuffed together into little towns and large houses, _entessées_, as
the French call it; one upon another, in such a strange way, that were
it not for the quantity of grapes on which the poor people live, with
other acescent food enjoined by the church, and doubtless suggested by
the climate, I think putrid fevers must necessarily carry off crowds of
them at once.

The head-dress of the women in this drive through some of the northern
states of Italy varied at every post; from the velvet cap, commonly a
crimson one, worn by the girls in Savoia, to the Piedmontese plait round
the bodkin at Turin, and the odd kind of white wrapper used in the
exterior provinces of the Genoese dominions. Uniformity of almost any
sort gives a certain pleasure to the eye, and it seems an invariable
rule in these countries that all the women of every district should
dress just alike. It is the best way of making the men's task easy in
judging which is handsomest; for taste so varies the human figure in
France and England, that it is impossible to have an idea how many
pretty faces and agreeable forms would lose and how many gain admirers
in those nations, were a sudden edict to be published that all should
dress exactly alike for a year. Mean time, since we left Deffeins, no
such delightful place by way of inn have we yet seen as here at Novi. My
chief amusement at Alexandria was to look out upon the _huddled_
marketplace, as a great dramatic writer of our day has called it; and
who could help longing there for Zoffani's pencil to paint the lively
scene?

Passing the Po by moon-light near Casale exhibited an entertainment of a
very different nature, not unmixed with ill-concealed fear indeed;
though the contrivance of crossing it is not worse managed than a ferry
at Kew or Richmond used to be before our bridges were built. Bridges
over the rapid Po would, however, be truly ridiculous; when swelled by
the mountain snows it tears down all before it in its fury, and
inundates the country round.

The drive from Novi on to Genoa is so beautiful, so grand, so replete
with imagery, that fancy itself can add little to its charms: yet, after
every elegance and every ornament have been justly admired, from the
cloud which veils the hill, to the wild shrubs which perfume the valley;
from the precipices which alarm the imagination, to the tufts of wood
which flatter and sooth it; the sea suddenly appearing at the end of
the Bocchetta terminates our view, and takes from one even the hope of
expressing our delight in words adequate to the things described.

Genoa la Superba stands proudly on the margin of a gulph crowded with
ships, and resounding with voices, which never fail to animate a British
hearer--the Tailor's shout, the mariner's call, swelled by successful
commerce, or strengthened by newly-acquired fame.

After a long journey by land, such scenes are peculiarly delightful; but
description tangles, not communicates, the sensations imbibed upon the
spot. Here are so many things to describe! such churches! such palaces!
such pictures! one would imagine the Genoese possessed the empire of the
ocean, were it not well known that they call but fix galleys their own,
and seventy years ago suffered all the horrors of a bombardment.

The Dorian palace is exceedingly fine; the Durazzo palace, for ought I
know, is finer; and marble here seems like what one reads of silver in
King Solomon's time, which, says the Scripture, "_was nothing counted
on in the days of Solomon_" Casa Brignoli too is splendid and
commodious; the terraces and gardens on the house-tops, and the fresco
paintings outside, give one new ideas of human life; and exhibits a
degree of luxury unthought-on in colder climates. But here we live on
green pease and figs the first day of November, while orange and lemon
trees flaunt over the walls more common than pears in England.

The Balbi mansion, filled with pictures, detained us from the churches
filled with more. I have heard some of the Italians confess that Genoa
even pretends to vie with Rome herself in ecclesiastical splendour. In
devotion I should think she would be with difficulty outdone: the people
drop down on their knees in the street, and crowd to the church doors
while the benediction is pronouncing, with a zeal which one might hope
would draw down stores of grace upon their heads. Yet I hear from the
inhabitants of other provinces, that they have a bad character among
their neighbours, who love not the _base Ligurian_ and accuse them of
many immoralities. They tell one too of a disreputable saying here, how
there are at Genoa men without honesty, women without modesty, a sea
with no fish, and a wood with no birds. Birds, however, here certainly
are by the million, and we have eaten fish since we came every day; but
I am informed they are neither cheap nor plentiful, nor considered as
excellent in their kinds. Here is macaroni enough however!--the people
bring in such a vast dish of it at a time, it disgusts one.

The streets of the town are much too narrow for beauty or
convenience--impracticable to coaches, and so beset with beggars that it
is dreadful. A chair is therefore, above all things, necessary to be
carried in, even a dozen steps, if you are likely to feel shocked at
having your knees suddenly clasped by a figure hardly human; who perhaps
holding you forcibly for a minute, conjures you loudly, by the sacred
wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ, to have compassion upon _his_; shewing
you at the same time such undeniable and horrid proofs of the anguish he
is suffering, that one must be a monster to quit him unrelieved. Such
pathetic misery, such disgusting distress, did I never see before, as I
have been witness to in this gaudy city--and that not occasionally or
by accident, but all day long, and in such numbers that humanity shrinks
from the description. Sure, charity is not the virtue that they pray
for, when begging a blessing at the church-door.

One should not however speak unkindly of a people whose affectionate
regard for our country shewed itself so clearly during the late war: a
few days residence with the English consul here at his country seat gave
me an opportunity of hearing many instances of the Republic's generous
attachment to Great Britain, whose triumphs at Gibraltar over the united
forces of France and Spain were honestly enjoyed by the friendly
Genoese, who gave many proofs of their sincerity, more solid than those
clamorous ones of huzzaing our minister about wherever he went, and
crying _Viva il General_ ELIOTT; while many young gentlemen of
high station offered themselves to go volunteers aboard our fleet, and
were with difficulty restrained.

We have been shewed some beautiful villas belonging to the noblemen of
this city, among which Lomellino's pleased me best; as the water there
was so particularly beautiful, that he had generously left it at full
liberty to roll unconducted, and murmur through his tasteful pleasure
grounds, much in the manner of our lovely Leasowes; happily uniting with
English simplicity, the glowing charms that result from an Italian sky.
My eyes were so wearied with square edged basons of marble, and jets
d'eaux, surrounded by water nymphs and dolphins, that I felt vast relief
from Lomellino's garden, who, like me,

    Tir'd with the joys parterres and fountains yield,
    Finds out at last he better likes a field.

Such felicity of situation I never saw till now, when one looks upon the
painted front of this gay mansion, commanding from its fine balcony a
rich and extensive view at once of the sea, the city, and the snow-topt
mountains; while from the windows on the other side the house, one's eye
sinks into groves of cedar, ilex, and orange trees, not apparently
cultivated with incessant care, or placed in pots, artfully sunk under
ground to conceal them from one's sight, but rising into height truly
respectable.

The sea air, except in particular places where the land lies in some
direction that counteracts its influence, is naturally inimical to
timber; though the green coasts of Devonshire are finely fringed with
wood; and here, at Lomellino's villa, in the Genoese state, I found two
plane trees, of a size and serious dignity, that recalled to my mind the
solemn oak before our duke of Dorset's seat at Knowle--and chesnuts,
which would not disgrace the forests of America. A rural theatre, cut in
turf, with a concealed orchestra and sod seats for the audience, with a
mossy stage, not incommodious neither, and an admirable contrivance for
shifting the scenes, and savouring the exits, entrances, &c. of the
performers, gave me a perfect idea of that refined luxury which hot
countries alone inspire--while another elegantly constructed spot, meant
and often used for the entertainment of tenants and dependants who come
to rejoice on the birth or wedding day of a kind landlord, make one
suppress one's sighs after a free country--at least suspend them; and
fill one's heart with tenderness towards men, who have skill to soften
authority with indulgence, and virtue to reward obedience with
protection.

A family coming last night to visit at a house where I had the honour
of being admitted as an intimate, gave me another proof of my present
state of remoteness from English manners. The party consisted of an old
nobleman, who could trace his genealogy unblemished up to one of the old
Roman emperors, but whose fortune is now in a hopeless state of
decay:--his lady, not inferior to himself in birth or haughtiness of air
and carriage, but much impaired by age, ill health, and pecuniary
distress; these had however no way lessened her ideas of her own
dignity, or the respect of her cavalier servente and her son, who waited
on her with an unremitted attention; presenting her their little dirty
tin snuff-boxes upon one knee by turns; which ceremony the less
surprised me, as having seen her train made of a dyed and watered
lutestring, borne gravely after her up stairs by a footman, the express
image of Edgar in the storm-scene of king Lear--who, as the fool says,
"_wisely reserv'd a blanket, else had we all been 'shamed_."

Our conversation was meagre, but serious. There was music; and the door
being left at jar, as we call it, I watched the wretched servant who
staid in the antichamber, and found that he was listening in spight of
sorrow and starving.

With this slight sketch of national manners I finish my chapter, and
proceed to the description of, or rather observations and reflections
made during a winter's residence at



MILAN.


For we did not stay at Pavia to see any thing: it rained so, that no
pleasure could have been obtained by the sight of a botanical garden;
and as to the university, I have the promise of seeing it upon a future
day, in company of some literary friends. Truth to tell, our weather is
suddenly become so wet, the roads so heavy with incessant rain, that
king William's departure from his own foggy country, or his welcome to
our gloomy one, where this month is melancholy even, to a proverb, could
not have been clouded with a thicker atmosphere surely, than was mine to
Milan upon the fourth day of dismal November, 1784.

Italians, by what I can observe, suffer their minds to be much under the
dominion of the sky; and attribute every change in their health, or even
humour, as seriously to its influence, as if there were no nearer causes
of alteration than the state of the air, and as if no doubt remained of
its immediate power, though they are willing enough here to poison it
with the scent of wood-ashes within doors, while fires in the grate seem
to run rather low, and a brazier full of that pernicious stuff is
substituted in its place, and driven under the table during dinner. It
is surprising how very elegant, not to say magnificent, those dinners
are in gentlemen's or noblemen's houses; such numbers of dishes at once;
not large joints, but infinite variety: and I think their cooking
excellent. Fashion keeps most of the fine people out of town yet; we
have therefore had leisure to establish our own household for the
winter, and have done so as commodiously as if our habitation was fixed
here for life. This I am delighted with, as one may chance to gain that
insight into every day behaviour, and common occurrences, which can
alone be called knowing something of a country: counting churches,
pictures, palaces, may be done by those who run from town to town, with
no impression made but on their bones. I ought to learn that which
before us lies in daily life, if proper use were made of my
demi-naturalization; yet impediments to knowledge spring up round the
very tree itself--for surely if there was much wrong, I would not tell
it of those who seem inclined to find all right in me; nor can I think
that a fame for minute observation, and skill to discern folly with a
microscopic eye, is in any wise able to compensate for the corrosions of
conscience, where such discoveries have been attained by breach of
confidence, and treachery towards unguarded, because unsuspecting
innocence of conduct. We are always laughing at one another for running
over none but the visible objects in every city, and for avoiding the
conversation of the natives, except on general subjects of
literature--returning home only to tell again what has already been
told. By the candid inhabitants of Italian states, however, much honour
is given to our British travellers, who, as they say, _viaggiono con
profitto_[Footnote: Travel for improvement], and scarce ever fail to
carry home with them from other nations, every thing which can benefit
or adorn their own. Candour, and a good humoured willingness to receive
and reciprocate pleasure, seems indeed one of the standing virtues of
Italy; I have as yet seen no fastidious contempt, or affected rejection
of any thing for being what we call _low_; and I have a notion there is
much less of those distinctions at Milan than at London, where birth
does so little for a man, that if he depends on _that_, and forbears
other methods of distinguishing himself from his footman, he will stand
a chance of being treated no better than him by the world. _Here_ a
person's rank is ascertained, and his society settled, at his immediate
entrance into life; a gentleman and lady will always be regarded as
such, let what will be their behaviour.--It is therefore highly
commendable when they seek to adorn their minds by culture, or pluck out
those weeds, which in hot countries will spring up among the riches of
the harvest, and afford a sure, but no immediately pleasing proof of the
soil's natural fertility. But my country-women would rather hear a
little of our _interieur_, or, as we call it, family management; which
appears arranged in a manner totally new to me; who find the lady of
every house as unacquainted with her own, and her husband's affairs, as
I who apply to her for information.--No house account, no weekly bills
perplex _her_ peace; if eight servants are kept, we will say, six of
these are men, and two of those men out of livery. The pay of these
principal figures in the family, when at the highest rate, is fifteen
pence English a day, out of which they find clothes and eating--for
fifteen pence includes board-wages; and most of these fellows are
married too, and have four or five children each. The dinners drest at
home are, for this reason, more exactly contrived than in England to
suit the number of guests, and there are always half a dozen; for dining
_alone_ or the master and mistress _tête-à-tête_ as _we_ do, is unknown
to them, who make society very easy, and resolve to live much together.
No odd sensation then, something like shame, such as _we_ feel when too
many dishes are taken empty from table, touches them at all; the common
courses are eleven, and eleven small plates, and it is their sport and
pleasure, if possible, to clear all away. A footman's wages is a
shilling a day, like our common labourers, and paid him, as they are
paid, every Saturday night. His livery, mean time, changed at least
_twice a year_, makes him as rich a man as the butler and valet--but
when evening comes, it is the comicallest sight in the world to see them
all go gravely home, and you may die in the night for want of help,
though surrounded by showy attendants all day. Till the hour of
departure, however, it is expected that two or three of them at least
sit in the antichamber, as it is called, to answer the bell, which, if
we confess the truth, is no light service or hardship; for the stairs,
high and wide as those of Windsor palace, all stone too, run up from the
door immediately to that apartment, which is very large, and very cold,
with bricks to set their feet on only, and a brazier filled with warm
wood ashes, to keep their fingers from freezing, which in summer they
employ with cards, and seem but little inclined to lay them down when
ladies pass through to the receiving room. The strange familiarity this
class of people think proper to assume, half joining in the
conversation, and crying _oibò_[Footnote: Oh dear!], when the master
affirms something they do not quite assent to, is apt to shock one at
beginning, the more when one reflects upon the equally offensive
humility they show on being first accepted into the family; when it is
exposed that they receive the new master, or lady's hand, in a half
kneeling posture, and kiss it, as women under the rank of Countess do
the Queen of England's when presented at our court.--This
obsequiousness, however, vanishes completely upon acquaintance, and the
footman, if not very seriously admonished indeed, yawns, spits, and
displays what one of our travel-writers emphatically terms his flag of
abomination behind the chair of a woman of quality, without the
slightest sensation of its impropriety. There is, however, a sort of odd
farcical drollery mingled with this grossness, which tends greatly to
disarm one's wrath; and I felt more inclined to laugh than be angry one
day, when, from the head of my own table, I saw the servant of a
nobleman who dined with us cramming some chicken pattés down his throat
behind the door; our own folks humorously trying to choak him, by
pretending that his lord called him, while his mouth was full. Of a
thousand comical things in the same way, I will relate one:--Mr.
Piozzi's valet was dressing my hair at Paris one morning, while some man
sate at an opposite window of the same inn, singing and playing upon the
violoncello: I had not observed the circumstance, but my perrucchiere's
distress was evident; he writhed and twisted about like a man pinched
with the cholic, and pulled a hundred queer faces: at last--What is the
matter, Ercolani, said I, are you not well? Mistress, replies the
fellow, if that beast don't leave off soon, I shall run mad with rage,
or else die; and so you'll see an honest Venetian lad killed by a French
dog's howling.

The phrase of _mistress_ is here not confined to servants at all;
gentlemen, when they address one, cry, _mia padrona_[Footnote: My
mistress], mighty sweetly, and in a peculiarly pleasing tone. Nothing,
to speak truth, can exceed the agreeableness of a well-bred Italian's
address when speaking to a lady, whom they alone know how to flatter,
so as to retain her dignity, and not lose their own; respectful, yet
tender; attentive, not officious; the politeness of a man of fashion
_here_ is _true_ politeness, free from all affectation, and honestly
expressive of what he really feels, a true value for the person spoken
to, without the smallest desire of shining himself; equally removed from
foppery on one side, or indifference on the other. The manners of the
men here are certainly pleasing to a very eminent degree, and in their
conversation there is a mixture, not unfrequent too, of classical
allusions, which strike one with a sort of literary pleasure I cannot
easily describe. Yet is there no pedantry in their use of expressions,
which with us would be laughable or liable to censure: but Roman notions
here are not quite extinct; and even the house-maid, or _donna di gros_,
as they call her, swears by _Diana_ so comically, there is no telling.
They christen their boys _Fabius_, their daughters _Claudia_, very
commonly. When they mention a thing known, as we say, to _Tom o'Styles
and John o'Nokes_, they use the words, _Tizio and Sempronio_. A lady
tells me, she was at a loss about the dance yesterday evening, because
she had not been instructed in the _programma_; and a gentleman,
talking of the pleasures he enjoyed supping last night at a friend's
house, exclaims, _Eramo pur jeri sera in Appolline[G]!_ alluding to
Lucullus's entertainment given to Pompey and Cicero, as I remember, in
the chamber of Apollo. But here is enough of this--more of it, in their
own pretty phrase, _seccarebbe pur Nettunno_[H]. It was long ago that
Ausonius said of them more than I can say, and Mr. Addison has
translated the lines in their praise better than I could have done.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote G: We passed yester evening as if we had been in the Apollo.]

[Footnote H: Would dry up old Neptune himself.]

    "Et Mediolani mira omnia copia rerum:
    Innumeræ cultæque domus facunda virorum
    Ingenia et mores læti."

    Milan with plenty and with wealth overflows,
    And numerous streets and cleanly dwellings shows;
    The people, bless'd by Nature's happy force,
    Are eloquent and cheerful in discourse.

What I have said this moment will, however, account in some measure for
a thing which he treats with infinite contempt, not unjustly perhaps;
yet does it not deserve the ridicule handed down from his time by all
who have touched the subject. It is about the author, who before his
theatrical representation prefixes an odd declaration, that though he
names Pluto, and Neptune, and I know not who, upon the stage, yet he
believes none of those fables, but considers himself as a Christian, a
Catholick, &c. All this _does_ appear very absurdly superfluous to _us_;
but as I observed, _they_ live nearer the original feats of paganism;
many old customs are yet retained, and the names not lost among them, or
laid up merely for literary purposes as in England. They swear _per
Bacco_ perpetually in common discourse; and once I saw a gentleman in
the heat of conversation blush at the recollection that he had said
_barba Fove_, where he meant God Almighty.

It is likewise unkind enough in Mr. Addison, perhaps unjust too, to
speak with scorn of the libraries, or state of literature, at Milan. The
collection of books at Brera is prodigious, and has been lately much
increased by the Pertusanian and Firmian libraries falling into it: a
more magnificent repository for learning, a more comfortable situation
for students, so complete and perfect a disposition of the books, will
scarcely be found in any other city not professedly a university, I
believe; and here are professors worthy of the highest literary
stations, that do honour to learning herself. I will not indulge myself
by naming any one, where all deserve the highest praise; and it is so
difficult to restrain one's pen upon so favourite a subject, that I
shall only name some rarities which particularly struck me, and avoid
further temptations, where the sense of obligation, and the recollection
of partial kindness, inspire an inclination to praises which appear
tedious to those readers who could not enter into my feelings, and of
course would scarcely excuse them.

Thirteen volumes of MS. Psalms, written with wonderful elegance and
manual nicety, struck me as very curious: they were done by the
Certosini monks lately eradicated, and with beautiful illuminations to
almost every page. A Livy, printed here in 1418, fresh and perfect; and
a Pliny, of the Parma press, dated 1472; are extremely valuable. But the
pleasure I received from observing that the learned librarian had not
denied a place to Tillotson's works, was counteracted by finding
Bolingbroke's philosophy upon the same shelf, and enjoying exactly the
same reputation as to the truth of the doctrine contained in either; for
both were English, and of course _heretical_.

But I must not live longer at Milan without mentioning the Duomo, first
in all Europe of the Gothic race; whose solemn sadness and gloomy
dignity make it a most magnificent cathedral; while the rich treasures
it conceals below exceeded my belief or expectation.

We came here just before the season of commemorating the virtues of the
immortal Carlo Borromeo, to whose excellence all Italy bears testimony,
and Milan _most_; while the Lazaretto erected by him remains a standing
monument of his piety, charity, and peculiar regard to this city, which
he made his residence during the dreadful plague that so devasted it;
tenderly giving to its helpless inhabitants the consolation of seeing
their priest, provider, and protector, all united under one incomparable
character, who fearless of death remained among them, and comforted
their sorrows with his constant presence. It would be endless to
enumerate the schools, hospitals, infirmaries, erected by this
surprising man. The peculiar excellence of his lazaretto, however,
depends on each habitation being nicely separated from every other, so
as to keep infection aloof; while uniformity of architecture is still
preserved, being built in a regular quadrangle, with a chapel in the
middle, and a fresh stream flowing round, so as to benefit every
particular house, and keep out all necessity of connection between the
sick. I am become better acquainted with these matters, as this is the
precise time when the immortal Carlo Borromeo's actions are rehearsed,
and his praises celebrated, by people appointed in every church to
preach his example and record his excellence.

A statue of solid silver, large as life, and resembling, as they hope,
his person, decorated with rings, &c. of immense value, is now exposed
in church for people to venerate; and the subterranean chapel, where his
body lies, is all wainscoted, as I may say, with silver; every separate
compartment chased, like our old-fashioned watch-cases, with some story
out of his life, which lasted but forty-seven years, after having done
more good than any other person in ninety-four; as a capuchin friar said
this morning, who mounted the pulpit to praise him, and seemed to be
well thought on by his auditors. The chanting tone in which he spoke
displeased me, however, who can be at last no competent judge of
eloquence in any language but my own.

There is a national rhetoric in every country, dependant on national
manners; and those gesticulations of body, or depressions of voice,
which produce pity and commiseration in one place, may, without censure
of the orator or of his hearers, excite contempt and oscitancy in
another. The sentiments of the preacher I heard were just and vigorous;
and if that suffices not to content a foreign ear, woe be to me, who now
live among those to whom I am myself a foreigner; and who at best can
but be expected to forgive, for the sake of the things said, that accent
and manner with which I am obliged to express them.

By the indulgence of private friendship, I have now enjoyed the uncommon
amusement of seeing a theatrical exhibition performed by friars in a
convent for their own diversion, and that of some select friends. The
monks of St. Victor had, it seems, obtained permission, this carnival,
to represent a little odd sort of play, written by one of their
community chiefly in the Milanese dialect, though the upper characters
spoke Tuscan. The subject of this drama was taken, naturally enough,
from some events, real or fictitious, which were supposed to have
happened in, the environs of Milan, about a hundred years ago, when the
Torriani and Visconti families disputed for superiority. Its
construction was compounded of comic and distressful scenes, of which
the last gave me most delight; and much was I amazed, indeed, to feel my
cheeks wet with tears at a friar's play, founded on ideas of parental
tenderness. The comic part, however, was intolerably gross; the jokes
coarse, and incapable of diverting any but babies, or men who, by a kind
of intellectual privation, contrive to perpetuate babyhood, in the vain
hope of preferring innocence: nor could I shelter myself by saying how
little I understood of the dialect it was written in, as the action was
nothing less than equivocal; and in the burletta which was tacked to it
by way of farce, I saw the soprano fingers who played the women's parts,
and who see more of the world than these friars, blush for shame, two or
three times, while the company, most of them grave ecclesiastics,
applauded with rapturous delight.

The wearisome length of the whole would, however, have surfeited me, had
the amusement been more eligible; but these dear monks do not get a
holiday often, I trust; so in the manner of school-boys, or rather
school-girls in England (for our boys are soon above such stuff), they
were never tired of this dull buffoonery, and kept us listening to it
till one o'clock in the morning.

Pleasure, when it does come, always bursts up in an unexpected place; I
derived much from observing in the faces of these cheerful friars, that
intelligent shrewdness and arch penetration so visible in the
countenances of our Welch farmers, and curates of country villages in
Flintshire, Caernarvonshire, &c. which Howel (best judge in such a case)
observes in his Letters, and learnedly accounts for; but which I had
wholly forgotten till the monks of St. Victor brought it back to my
remembrance.

The brothers who remained unemployed, and clear from stage occupations,
formed the orchestra; those that were left _then_ without any immediate
business upon their hands, chatted gaily with the company, producing
plenty of refreshments; and I was really very angry with myself for
feeling so cynically disposed, when every thing possible was done to
please me. Can one help however sighing, to think that the monastic
life, so capable of being used for the noblest purposes, and originally
suggested by the purest motives, should, from the vast diversity of
orders, the increase of wealth and general corruption of mankind,
degenerate into a state either of mental apathy, as among the
sequestered monks, or of vicious luxury, as among the more free and open
societies?

Yet must one still behold both with regret and indignation, that rage
for innovation which delights to throw down places once the retreats of
Piety and Learning--Piety, who fought in vain to wall and fortify
herself against those seductions which since have sapped the venerable
fabric that they feared to batter; and Learning, who first opened the
eyes of men, that now ungratefully begin to turn them only on the
defeats of their benefactress.

The Christmas functions here were showy, and I thought well-contrived;
the public ones are what I speak of: but I was present lately at a
private merrymaking, where all distinctions seemed pleasingly thrown
down by a spirit of innocent gaiety. The Marquis's daughter mingled in
country-dances with the apothecary's prentice, while her truly noble
parents looked on with generous pleasure, and encouraged the mirth of
the moment. Priests, ladies, gentlemen of the very first quality, romped
with the girls of the house in high good-humour, and tripped it away
without the incumbrance of petty pride, or the mean vanity of giving
what they expressively call _foggezzione_, to those who were proud of
their company and protection. A new-married wench, whose little fortune
of a hundred crowns had been given her by the subscription of many in
the room, seemed as free with them all, as the most equal distribution
of birth or riches could have made her: she laughed aloud, and rattled
in the ears of the gentlemen; replied with sarcastic coarseness when
they joked her, and apparently delighted to promote such conversation as
they would not otherwise have tried at. The ladies shouted for joy,
encouraged the girl with less delicacy than desire of merriment, and
promoted a general banishment of decorum; though I do believe with full
as much or more purity of intention, than may be often met with in a
polished circle at Paris itself.

Such society, however, can please a stranger only as it is odd and as it
is new; when ceremony ceases, hilarity is left in a state too natural
not to offend people accustomed to scenes of high civilization; and I
suppose few of us could return, after twenty-five years old, to the
coarse comforts of _a roll and treacle._

Another style of amusement, very different from this last, called us
out, two or three days ago, to hear the famous Passione de Metastasio
sung in St. Celso's church. The building is spacious, the architecture
elegant, and the ornaments rich. A custom too was on this occasion
omitted, which I dislike exceedingly; that of deforming the beautiful
edifices dedicated to God's service with damask hangings and gold lace
on the capitals of all the pillars upon days of gala, so very
perversely, that the effect of proportion is lost to the eye, while the
church conveys no idea to the mind but of a tattered theatre; and when
the frippery decorations fade, nothing can exclude the recollection of
an old clothes shop. St. Celso was however left clear from these
disgraceful ornaments: there assembled together a numerous and
brilliant, if not an attentive audience; and St. Peter's part in the
oratorio was sung by a soprano voice, with no appearance of peculiar
propriety to be sure; but a satirical nobleman near me said, that
"Nothing could possibly be more happily imagined, as the mutilation of
poor St. Peter was continuing daily, and in full force;" alluding to the
Emperor's rough reformations: and he does not certainly spare the coat
any more than Jack in our Tale of a Tub, when he is rending away the
embroidery. Here, however, the parallel must end; for Jack, though
zealous, was never accused of burning the lace, if I remember right,
and putting the gold in his pocket. It happened oddly, that chatting
freely one day before dinner with some literary friends on the subject
of coat armour, we had talked about the Visconti serpent, which is the
arms of Milan; and the spread eagle of Austria, which we laughingly
agreed ought to _eat double _ because it had _two necks_: when the
conversation insensibly turned on the oppressions of the present hour;
and I, to put all away with a joke, proposed the _fortes Homericæ_ to
decide on their future destiny. Somebody in company insisted that _I_
should open the book--I did so, at the omen in the twelfth book of the
Iliad, and read these words:

    Jove's bird on sounding pinions beat the skies;
    A bleeding serpent of enormous size
    His talons trussed; alive and curling round
    She stung the bird, whose throat receiv'd the wound.
    Mad with the smart he drops the fatal prey,
    In airy circles wings his painful way,
    Floats on the winds, and rends the heavens with cries:
    Amid the hosts the fallen serpent lies;
    They, pale with terror, mark its spires unroll'd,
    And Jove's portent with beating hearts behold.

It is now time to talk a little of the theatre; and surely a receptacle
so capacious to contain four thousand people, a place of entrance so
commodious to receive them, a show so princely, so very magnificent to
entertain them, must be sought in vain out of Italy. The centre front
box, richly adorned with gilding, arms, and trophies, is appropriated to
the court, whose canopy is carried up to what we call the first gallery
in England; the crescent of boxes ending with the stage, consist of
nineteen on a side, _small boudoirs_, for such they seem; and are as
such fitted up with silk hangings, girandoles, &c. and placed so
judiciously as to catch every sound of the fingers, if they do but
whisper: I will not say it is equally advantageous to the figure, as to
the voice; no performers looking adequate to the place they recite upon,
so very stately is the building itself, being all of stone, with an
immense portico, and stairs which for width you might without hyperbole
drive your chariot up. An immense sideboard at the first lobby, lighted
and furnished with luxurious and elegant plenty, as many people send for
suppers to their box, and entertain a knot of friends there with
infinite convenience and splendour. A silk curtain, the colour of your
hangings, defends the closet from intrusive eyes, if you think proper to
drop it; and when drawn up, gives gaiety and show to the general
appearance of the whole: while across the corridor leading to these
boxes, another small chamber, numbered like _that_ it belongs to, is
appropriated to the use of your servants, and furnished with every
conveniency to make chocolate, serve lemonade, &c.

Can one wonder at the contempt shewn by foreigners when they see English
women of fashion squeezed into holes lined with dirty torn red paper,
and the walls of it covered with a wretched crimson fluff? Well! but
this theatre is built in place of a church founded by the famous
Beatrice de Scala, in consequence of a vow she made to erect one if God
would be pleased to send her a son. The church was pulled down and the
playhouse erected. The Arch-duke lost a son that year; and the pious
folks cried, "A judgment!" but nobody minded them, I believe; many,
however, that are scrupulous will not go. Meantime it is a beautiful
theatre to be sure; the finest fabric raised in modern days, I do
believe, for the purposes of entertainment; but we must not be partial.
While London has twelve capital rooms for the professed amusement of the
Public, Milan has but one; there is in it, however, a ridotto chamber
for cards, of a noble size, where some little gaming goes on in carnival
time; but though the inhabitants complain of the enormities committed
there, I suppose more money is lost and won at one club in St. James's
street during a week, than here at Milan in the whole winter.

Every nation complains of the wickedness of its own inhabitants, and
considers them as the worst people in the world, till they have seen
others no better; and then, like individuals with their private sorrows,
they find change produces no alleviation. The Mount of Miseries, in the
Spectator, where all the people change with their neighbours, lay down
an undutiful son, and carry away with them a hump-back, or whatever had
been the source of disquiet to another, whom he had blamed for bearing
so ill a misfortune thought trifling till he took it on himself, is an
admirably well constructed fable, and is applicable to public as well
as private complaints.

A gentleman who had long practised as a solicitor, and was retired from
business, stored with a perfect knowledge of mankind so far as his
experience could inform him, told me once, that whoever died before
sixty years old, if he had made his own fortune, was likely to leave it
according as friendship, gratitude, and public spirit dictated: either
to those who had served, or those who had pleased him; or, not
unfrequently, to benefit some charity, set up some school, or the like:
"but let a man once turn sixty," said he, "and his natural heirs _are
sure of him_:" for having seen many people, he has likewise been
disgusted by many; and though he does not love his relations better than
he did, the discovery that others are but little superior to them in
those excellencies he has sought about the world in vain for, he begins
to enquire for his nephew's little boy, whom as he never saw, never
could have offended him; and if he does not break the chain of a
favourite watch, or any other such boyish trick, the estate is his for
ever, upon no principle but this in the testator.

So it is by those who travel a good deal; by what I have seen, every
country has so much in it to be justly complained of, that most men
finish by preferring their own.

That neither complaints nor rejoicings here at Milan, however, proceed
from affectation, is a choice comfort: the Lombards possess the skill to
please you without feigning; and so artless are their manners, you
cannot even suspect them of insincerity. They have, perhaps for that
very reason, few comedies, and fewer novels among them: for the worst of
every man's character is already well known to the rest; but be his
conduct what it will, the heart is commonly right enough--_il luon cuor
Lombardo_ is famed throughout all Italy, and nothing can become
proverbial without an excellent reason. Little opportunity is therefore
given to writers who carry the dark lanthorn of life into its deepest
recesses--unwind the hidden wickedness of a Maskwell or a Monkton,
develope the folds of vice, and spy out the internal worthlessness of
apparent virtue; which from these discerning eyes cannot be cloked even
by that early-taught affectation which renders it a real ingenuity to
discover, if in a highly polished capital a man or woman has or has not
good parts or principles--so completely are the first overlaid with
literature, and the last perverted by refinement.

       *       *       *       *       *

April 2, 1785.

The cold weather continues still, and we have heavy snows; but so
admirable is the police of this well-regulated town, that when
over-night it has fallen to the height of four feet, no very uncommon
occurrence, no one can see in the morning that even a flake has been
there, so completely do the poor and the prisoners rid us of it all, by
throwing immense loads of it into a navigable canal that runs quite
round the city, and carries every nuisance with it clearly away--so that
no inconveniencies can arise.

Italians seem to me to have no feeling of cold; they open the
casements--for windows we have none (now in winter), and cry, _che bel
freschetto_![Footnote: What a fresh breeze!] while I am starving
outright. If there is a flash of a few faggots in the chimney that just
scorches one a little, no lady goes near it, but sits at the other end
of a high-roofed room, the wind whistling round her ears, and her feet
upon a perforated brass box, filled with wood embers, which the
_cavalier fervente_ pulls out from time to time, and replenishes with
hotter ashes raked out from between the andirons. How sitting with these
fumes under their petticoats improves their beauty of complexion I know
not; certain it is, they pity _us_ exceedingly for our manner of
managing ourselves, and enquire of their countrymen who have lived here
a-while, how their health endured the burning _fossils_ in the chambers
at London. I have heard two or three Italians say, _vorrei anch' io
veder quell' Inghilterra, ma questo carbone fossile_![Footnote: I would
go see this same England myself I think, but that fuel made of minerals
frights me!] To church, however, and to the theatre, ladies have a great
green velvet bag carried for them, adorned with gold tassels, and lined
with fur, to keep their feet from freezing, as carpets are not in use
here. Poor women run about the streets with a little earthen pipkin
hanging on their arm, filled with fire, even if they are sent on an
errand; while men of all ranks walk wrapped up in an odd sort of white
riding coat, not buttoned together, but folded round their body after
the fashion of the old Roman dress that one has seen in statues, and
this they call _Gaban_, retaining many Spanish words since the time that
they were under Spanish government. _Buscar_, to seek, is quite familiar
here as at Madrid, and instead of Ragazzo, I have heard the Milanese say
_Mozzo_ di Stalla, which is originally a Castilian word I believe, and
spelt by them with the _c con cedilla_, Moço. They have likewise Latin
phrases oddly mingled among their own: a gentleman said yesterday, that
he was going to Casa _Sororis_, to his sister's; and the strange word
_Minga_, which meets one at every turn, is corrupted, I believe, from
_Mica_, a crumb. _Piaz minga_, I have not a crumb of pleasure in it, &c.

The uniformity of dress here pleases the eye, and their custom of going
veiled to church, and always without a hat, which they consider as
profanation of the _temple_ as they call it, delights me much; it has an
air of decency in the individuals, of general respect for the place, and
of a resolution not to let external images intrude on devout thoughts.
The hanging churches, and even public pillars, set up in the streets or
squares for purposes of adoration, with black, when any person of
consequence dies, displeases me more; it is so very dismal, so paltry a
piece of pride and expiring vanity, and so dirty a custom, calling bugs
and spiders, and all manner of vermin about one so in those black
trappings, it is terrible; but if they remind us of our end, and set us
about preparing for it, the benefit is greater than the evil.

The equipages on the Corso here are very numerous, in proportion to the
size of the city, and excessively showy: the horses are long-tailed,
heavy, and for the most part black, with high rising forehands, while
the sinking of the back is artfully concealed by the harness of red
Morocco leather richly ornamented, and white reins. To this magnificence
much is added by large leopard, panther, or tyger skins, beautifully
striped or spotted by Nature's hand, and held fast on the horses by
heavy shining tassels of gold, coloured lace, &c. wonderfully handsome;
while the driver, clothed in a bright scarlet dress, adorned and trimmed
with bear's skin, makes a noble figure on the box at this season upon
days of gala. The carnival, however, exhibits a variety unspeakable;
boats and barges painted of a thousand colours, drawn upon wheels, and
filled with masks and merry-makers, who throw sugar-plums at each other,
to the infinite delight of the town, whose populousness that show
evinces to perfection, for every window and balcony is crowded to
excess; the streets are fuller than one can express of gazers, and
general mirth and gaiety prevail. When the flashing season is over, and
you are no longer to be dazzled with finery or stunned with noise, the
nobility of Milan--for gentry there are none--fairly slip a check case
over the hammock, as we do to our best chairs in England, clap a coarse
leather cover on the carriage top, the coachman wearing a vast brown
great coat, which he spreads on each side him over the corners of his
coach-box, and looks as somebody was saying--like a sitting hen.

The paving of our streets here at Milan is worth mentioning, only
because it is directly contrary to the London method of performing the
same operation. They lay the large flag stones at this place in two
rows, for the coach wheels to roll smoothly over, leaving walkers to
accommodate themselves, and bear the sharp pebbles to their tread as
they may. In every thing great, and every thing little, the diversity of
government must perpetually occur; where that is despotic, small care
will be taken of the common people; where that is popular, little
attention will be paid to the great ones. I never in my whole life heard
so much of birth and family as since I came to this town; where blood
enjoys a thousand exclusive privileges, where Cavalier and Dama are
words of the first, nay of the only importance; where wit and beauty are
considered as useless without a long pedigree; and virtue, talents,
wealth, and wisdom, are thought on only as medals to hang upon the
branch of a genealogical tree, as we tie trinkets to a watch in England.

I went to church, twenty yards from our own door, with a servant to wait
on me, three or four mornings ago; there was a lady particularly well
dressed, very handsome, two footmen attending on her at a distance, took
my attention. Peter, said I, to my own man, as we came out, _chi è
quella dama? who is that lady? Non è dama_, replies the fellow,
contemptuously smiling at my simplicity--_she is no lady_. I thought
she might be somebody's kept mistress, and asked him whose? _Dio ne
liberi_, returns Peter, in a kinder accent--for there _heart_ came in,
and he would not injure her character--God forbid: _è moglie d'un ricco
banchiere_--she is a rich banker's wife. You may see, added he, that she
is no lady if you look--the servants carry no velvet stool for her to
kneel upon, and they have no coat armour in the lace to their liveries:
_she_ a lady! repeated he again with infinite contempt.

I am told that the Arch-duke is very desirous to close this breach of
distinction, and to draw merchants and traders with their wives up into
higher notice than they were wont to remain in. I do not _think_ he will
by that means conciliate the affection of any rank. The prejudices in
favour of nobility are too strong to be shaken here, much less rooted
out so: the very servants would rather starve in the house of a man of
family, than eat after a person of inferior quality, whom they consider
as their equal, and almost treat him as such to his face. Shall we then
be able to refuse our particular veneration to those characters of high
rank here, who add the charm of a cultivated mind to that situation
which, united even with ignorance, would ensure them respect? When
scholarship is found among the great in Italy, it has the additional
merit of having grown up in their own bosoms, without encouragement from
emulation, or the least interested motive. His companions do not think
much the more of him--for _that_ kind of superiority. I suppose, says a
friend of his, he must be fond of study; for _chi pensa di una maniera,
chi pensa d' un altra, per me sono stato sempre ignorantissimo_[I].

[Footnote I: One man is of one mind, another of another: I was always a
sheer dunce for my own part.]

These voluntary confessions of many a quality, which, whether possessed
or not by English people, would certainly never be avowed, spring from
that native sincerity I have been praising--for though family
connections are prized so highly here, no man seems ashamed that he has
no family to boast: all feigning would indeed be useless and
impracticable; yet it struck me with astonishment too, to hear a
well-bred clergyman who visits at many genteel houses, say gravely to
his friend, no longer ago than yesterday--that friend a man too eminent
both for talents and fortune--"Yes, there is a grand invitation at such
a place to-night, but I don't go, because _I am not a gentleman--perche
non sono cavaliere_; and the master desired I would let you know that
_it was for no other reason_ that you had not a card too, my good
friend; for it is an invitation of none but _people of fashion you
see_." At all this nobody stares, nobody laughs, and nobody's throat is
cut in consequence of their sincere declarations.

The women are not behind-hand in openness of confidence and comical
sincerity. We have all heard much of Italian cicisbeism; I had a mind to
know how matters really stood; and took the nearest way to information
by asking a mighty beautiful and apparently artless young creature, _not
noble_, how that affair was managed, for there is no harm done _I am
sure_, said I: "Why no," replied she, "no great _harm_ to be sure:
except wearisome attentions from a man one cares little about: for my
own part," continued she, "I detest the custom, as I happen to love my
husband excessively, and desire nobody's company in the world but his.
We are not _people of fashion_ though you know, nor at all rich; so how
should we set fashions for our betters? They would only say, see how
jealous he is! if _Mr. Such-a-one_ sat much with me at home, or went
with me to the Corso; and I _must_ go with some gentleman you know: and
the men are such ungenerous creatures, and have such ways with them: I
want money often, and this _cavaliere servente_ pays the bills, and so
the connection draws closer--_that's all_." And your husband! said
I--"Oh, why he likes to see me well dressed; he is very good natured,
and very charming; I love him to my heart." And your confessor! cried
I.--"Oh, why he is _used to it_"--in the Milanese dialect--_è assuefaà_.

Well! we will not send people to Milan to study delicacy or very refined
morality to be sure; but were the crust of British affectation lifted
off many a character at home, I know not whether better, that is
_honester_, hearts would be found under it than that of this pretty
girl, God forbid that I should prove an advocate for vice; but let us
remember, that the banishment of all hypocrisy and deceit is a vast
compensation for the want of _one great virtue_.--The certainty that
the worst, whatever that worst may be, meets your immediate inspection,
gives great repose to the mind: you know there is no latent poison
lurking out of sight; no colours to come out stronger by throwing water
suddenly against them, as you do to old fresco paintings: and talking
freely with women in this country, though you may have a chance to light
on ignorance, you are never teized by folly.

The mind of an Italian, whether man or woman, seldom fails, for ought I
see, to make up in _extent_ what is wanted in _cultivation_; and that
they possess the art of pleasing in an eminent degree, the constancy
with which they are mutually beloved by each other is the best proof.

Ladies of distinction bring with them when they marry, besides fortune,
as many clothes as will last them seven years; for fashions do not
change here as often as at London or Paris; yet is pin-money allowed,
and an attention paid to the wife that no Englishwoman can form an idea
of: in every family her duties are few; for, as I have observed,
household management falls to the master's share of course, when all
the servants are men almost, and those all paid by the week or day.
Children are very seldom seen by those who visit great houses: if they
_do_ come down for five minutes after dinner, the parents are talked of
as _doting_ on them, and nothing can equal the pious and tender return
made to fathers and mothers in this country, for even an apparently
moderate share of fondness shewn to them in a state of infancy. I saw an
old Marchioness the other day, who had I believe been exquisitely
beautiful, lying in bed in a spacious apartment, just like ours in the
old palaces, with the tester touching the top almost: she had her three
grown-up sons standing round her, with an affectionate desire of
pleasing, and shewing her whatever could sooth or amuse her--so that it
charmed me; and I was told, and observed indeed, that when they quitted
her presence a half kneeling bow, and a kind kiss of her still white
hand, was the ceremony used. I knew myself brought thither only that she
might be entertained with the sight of the foreigner--and was equally
struck at her appearance--more so I should imagine than she could be at
mine; when these dear men assisted in moving her pillows with emulative
attention, and rejoiced with each other apart, that their mother looked
so well to-day. Two or three servants out of livery brought us
refreshments I remember; but her maid attended in the antichamber, and
answered the bell at her bed's head, which was exceedingly magnificent
in the old style of grandeur--crimson damask, if I recollect right, with
family arms at the back; and she lay on nine or eleven pillows, laced
with ribbon, and two large bows to each, very elegant and expensive in
any country:--with all this, to prove that the Italians have little
sensation of cold, here was no fire, but a suffocating brazier, which
stood near the door that opened, and was kept open, into the maid's
apartment.

A woman here in every stage of life has really a degree of attention
shewn her that is surprising:--if conjugal disputes arise in a family,
so as to make them become what we call town-talk, the public voice is
sure to run against the husband; if separation ensues, all possible
countenance is given to the wife, while the gentleman is somewhat less
willingly received; and all the stories of past disgusts are related to
_his_ prejudice: nor will the lady whom he wishes to serve look very
kindly on a man who treats his own wife with unpoliteness. _Che cuore
deve avere!_ says she: What a heart he must have! _Io non mene fido
sicuro_: I shall take care not to trust him sure.

National character is a great matter: I did not know there had been such
a difference in the ways of thinking, merely from custom and climate, as
I see there is; though one has always read of it: it was however
entertaining enough to hear a travelled gentleman haranguing away three
nights ago at our house in praise of English cleanliness, and telling
his auditors how all the men in London, _that were noble_, put on a
clean shirt every day, and the women washed the street before his
house-door every morning. "_Che schiavitù mai!_" exclaimed a lady of
quality, who was listening: "_ma natural mente farà per commando del
principe_."--"_What a land of slavery!_" says Donna Louisa, I heard her;
"_but it is all done by command of the sovereign, I suppose_."

Their ideas of justice are no less singular than of delicacy: but those
are more easily accounted for; so is their amiable carriage towards
inferiors, calling their own and their friends servants by tender names,
and speaking to all below themselves with a graciousness not often used
by English men or women even to their equals. The pleasure too which the
high people here express when the low ones are diverted, is
charming.--We think it vulgar to be merry when the mob is so; but if
rolling down a hill, like Greenwich, was the custom here, as with us,
all Milan would run to see the sport, and rejoice in the felicity of
their fellow-creatures. When I express my admiration of such
condescending sweetness, they reply--_è un uomo come un altro;--è
battezzato come noi_; and the like--Why he is a man of the same nature
as we: he has been christened as well as ourselves, they reply. Yet do I
not for this reason condemn the English as naturally haughty above their
continental neighbours. Our government has left so narrow a space
between the upper and under ranks of people in Great Britain--while our
charitable and truly Christian religion is still so constantly employed
in raising the depressed, by giving them means of changing their
situation, that if our persons of condition fail even for a moment to
watch their post, maintaining by dignity what they or their fathers have
acquired by merit, they are instantly and suddenly broken in upon by the
well-employed talents, or swiftly-acquired riches, of men born on the
other side the thin partition; whilst in Italy the gulph is totally
impassable, and birth alone can entitle man or woman to the society of
gentlemen and ladies. This firmly-fixed idea of subordination (which I
once heard a Venetian say, he believed must exist in heaven from one
angel to another) accounts immediately for a little conversation which I
am now going to relate.

Here were two men taken up last week, one for murdering his
fellow-servant in cold blood, while the undefended creature had the
lemonade tray in his hand going in to serve company; the other for
breaking the new lamps lately set up with intention to light this town
in the manner of the streets at Paris. "I hope," said I, "that they will
hang the murderer." "I rather hope," replied a very sensible lady who
sate near me, "that they will hang the person who broke the lamps: for,"
added she, "the first committed his crime only out of revenge, poor
fellow! because the other had got his mistress from him by treachery;
but this creature has had the impudence to break our fine new lamps, all
for the sake of spiting _the Arch-duke_." The Arch-duke meantime hangs
nobody at all; but sets his prisoners to work upon the roads, public
buildings, &c. where they labour in their chains; and where, strange to
tell! they often insult passengers who refuse them alms when asked as
they go by; and, stranger still! they are not punished for it when they
do.

Here is certainly much despotic power in Italy, but, I fancy, very
little oppression; perhaps authority, once acknowledged, does not
delight itself always by the fatigue of exertion. _Sat est prostrasse
leoni_ is an old adage, with which perhaps I may be the better
acquainted, as it is the motto to my own coat of arms; and unless
sovereignty is hungry, for ought I see, he does not certainly _devour_.

The certainty of their irrevocable doom, softened by kind usage from
their superiors, makes, in the mean time, an odd sort of humorous
drollery spring up among the common people, who are much happier here at
Milan than I expected to find them: every great house giving meat,
broth, &c. to poor dependents with liberal good-nature enough, so that
mighty little wandering misery is seen in the streets; unlike those of
Genoa, who seem mocked with the word _liberty_, while sorrow, sickness,
and the most pinching want, pine at the doors of marble palaces, whose
owners are unfeeling as their walls.

Our ordinary people here in Lombardy are well clothed, fat, stout, and
merry; and desirous to divert themselves, and their protectors, whom
they love at their hearts. There is however a degree of effrontery among
the women that amazes me, and of which I had no idea, till a friend
shewed me one evening from my own box at the opera, fifty or a hundred
low shop-keepers wives, dispersed about the pit at the theatre, dressed
in men's clothes, _per disimpegno_ as they call it; that they might be
more _at liberty_ forsooth to clap and hiss, and quarrel and jostle,
&c. I felt shocked. "_One who comes from a free government need not
wonder so_," said he: "On the contrary, Sir," replied I, "where every
body has hopes, at least possibility, of bettering his station, and
advancing nearer to the limits of upper life, none except the most
abandoned of their species will wholly lose sight of such decorous
conduct as alone can grace them when they have reached their wish:
whereas your people know their destiny, future as well as present, and
think no more of deserving a higher post, than they think of obtaining
it." Let me add, however, that if these women _were_ a little riotous
during the Easter holidays, they are _dilletantes_ only. In this city no
female _professors_ of immorality and open libertinage, disgraceful at
once, and pernicious to society, are permitted to range the streets in
quest of prey; to the horror of all thinking people, and the ruin of all
heedless ones.

With which observation, to continue the tour of Italy, we this day
leave, for a twelvemonth at least, Milano il grande, after having spent,
though not quite finished the winter in it; as there fell a very heavy
snow last Saturday, which hindered our setting out a week ago, though
this is the sixth of April; and exactly five months have now since last
November been passed among those who have I hope approved our conduct
and esteemed our manners. That they should trouble themselves to examine
our income, report our phrases, and listen, perhaps with some little
mixture of envy, after every instance of unshakable attachment shewn to
each other, would be less pleasing; but that I verily believe they have
at last dismissed us with general good wishes, proceeding from innate
goodness of heart, and the hope of seeing again, in a year's time or so,
two people who have supplied so many tables here with materials for
conversation, when the fountain of talk was stopt by deficiencies, and
the little stream of prattle ceased to murmur for want of a few pebbles
to break its course.

We are going to Venice by the way of Cremona, and hope for amusement
from external objects: let us at least not deserve or invite
disappointment by seeking for pleasure beyond the limits of innocence.



FROM MILAN TO PADUA.


The first evening's drive carried us no farther than Lodi, a place
renowned through all Europe for its excellent cheese, as out well-known
ballad bears testimony:

    Let Lodi or Parmesan bring up the rear.

Those verses were imitated, I fancy, from a French song written by
Monsieur des Yveteaux, of whose extraordinary life and death much has
been said by his cotemporary wits, particularly how some of them found
him playing at shepherd and shepherdess in his own garden with a pretty
Savoyard wench, at seventy-eight years old, _en habit de berger, avec un
chapeau couleur de rose_[Footnote: In a pastoral habit, and a hat turned
up with pink], &c. when he shewed them the famous lines, _Avoir peu de
parens, moins de train que de rente_, &c. which do certainly bear a very
near affinity to our Old Man's Wish, published in Dryden's
Miscellanies; who, among other luxuries, resolves to eat Lodi cheese, I
remember.

The town, however, bringing no other ideas either new or old to our
minds, we went to the opera, and heard Morichelli sing: after which they
gave us a new dramatic dance, made upon the story of Don John, or the
Libertine; a tale which, whether true or false, fact or fable, has
furnished every Christian country in the world, I believe, with some
subject of representation. It makes me no sport, however; the idea of an
impenitent sinner going to hell is too seriously terrifying to make
amusement out of. Let mythology, which is now grown good for little
else, be danced upon the stage; where Mr. Vestris may bounce and
struggle in the character of Alcides on his funeral pile, with no very
glaring impropriety; and such baubles serve beside to keep old classical
stories in the heads of our young people; who, if they _must_ have
torches to blaze in their eyes, may divert themselves with Pluto
catching up Ceres's daughter, and driving her away to Tartarus; but let
Don John alone. I have at least _half a notion_ that the horrible
history is _half true_; if so, it is surely very gross to represent it
by dancing. Should such false foolish taste prevail in England (but I
hope it will not), we might perhaps go happily through the whole book of
God's Revenge against Murder, or the Annals of Newgate, on the stage, as
a variety of pretty stories may be found there of the same cast; while
statues of Hercules and Minerva, with their insignia as heathen deities,
might be placed, with equal attention to religion, costume, and general
fitness, as decorations for the monuments of _Westminster Abbey_.

The country we came through to Cremona is rich and fertile, the roads
deep and miry of course; very few of the Lombardy poplars, of which I
expected to see so many: but Phaeton's sisters seem to have danced all
away from the odoriferous banks of the Po, to the green sides of the
Thames, I think; meantime here is no other timber in the country but a
few straggling ash, and willows without end. The old Eridanus, however,
makes a majestic figure at Cremona, and frights the inhabitants when it
overflows. There are not many to be frighted though, for the town is
thinly peopled; but exquisitely clean, perhaps for that very reason;
and the cathedral, of a mixed Grecian and Gothic architecture, has a
respectable appearance; while two enormous lions, of red marble, frown
at its door, and the crucifixion, painted by Pordenone, with a rough but
powerful pencil, strikes one at the entrance: I have seen nothing finer
than the figure of the Centurion upon the fore-ground, who seems to cry
out, with soldier-like courage and apostolic fervour, Truly this is the
Son of God.

The great clock here too is very curious: having, besides the
twenty-four hours, a minute and second finger, like a stop watch, and
shews the phases of the moon, with her triple rotation clearly to all
who walk across the piazza. Yet I trust the dwellers at Cremona are no
better astronomers than those who live in other places; to what purpose
then all these representations with which Italy is crowded; processions,
paintings, &c. besides the moral dances, as they call them now? One word
of solid instruction to the ear, conveys more knowledge to the mind at
last, than all these marionettes presented to the eye.

The tower of Cremona is of a surprising height and elegant form; we
climbed, not without some difficulty, to its top, and saw the flat
plains of Lombardy stretched out all round us. Prospects, however, and
high towers have I seen; that in Mr. Hoare's grounds, dedicated to King
Alfred, is a much finer structure than this, and the view from it much
more variegated certainly; I think of greater extent; though there is
more dignity in these objects, while the Po twists through them, and
distant mountains mingle with the sky at the end of a lengthened
horizon.

What I have never seen till now, we were made to observe in the octagon
gallery which crowns this pretty structure, where in every compartment
there are channels cut in the stone to guide the eye or rest the
telescope, that so a spectator need not be fruitlessly teized, as one
almost always is, by those who shew one a prospect, with _Look there!
See there!_ &c. At this place nothing needs be done but lay the glass or
put the eye even with the lines which point to Bergamo, Mantua, or where
you please; and _look there_ becomes superfluous as offensive.

The bells in the tower amused us in another way: an old man who has the
care of them, delighted much in telling us how he rung tunes upon them
before the Duke of Parma, who presented him with money, and bid him ring
again: and not a little was the good man amazed, when one of our company
sate down and played on them himself: a thing he had never before been
witness to, he said, except once, when a surprising musician arrived
from England, and performed the like seat: by his description of the
person, and the time of his passing through Cremona, we conjectured he
meant Dr. Burney.

The most dreadful of all roads carried us next morning to Mantua, where
we had letters for an agreeable friend, who neglected nothing that could
entertain or instruct us. He shewed me the field where it is supposed
the house stood in which Virgil was born, and told me what he knew of
the evidence that he was born there: certain it is that much care is
taken to keep the place fenced, from an idea of its being the identical
spot, and I hope it is so.

The theatres here are beautiful beyond all telling: it is a shame not to
take the model of the small one, and build a place of entertainment on
the plan. There cannot surely be any plan more elegant.

We had a concert of admirable music at the house of our new
acquaintance, in the evening, and were introduced by his means to many
people of fashion; the ladies were pretty, and dressed with much taste;
no caps at all, but flowers in their heads, and earrings of silver
fillagree finely worked; long, light, and thin: I never saw such before,
but it would be an exceeding pretty fashion. They hung down quite low
upon the neck and shoulders, and had a pleasing effect.

Mantua stands in the middle of a deep swampy marsh, that sends up a
thick foggy vapour all winter, a stench intolerable during the summer
months. Its inhabitants lament the want of population; and indeed I
counted but five carriages in the streets while we remained in the town.
Seven thousand Jews occupy a third part of the city, founded by old
Tiresias's daughter, where they have a synagogue, and live after their
own fashion. The dialect here is closer to that Italian which foreigners
learn, and the ladies speak more Tuscan, I think, than at Milan, but it
is a _lady's_ town as I told them.

    "Ille etiam patriis agmen ciet Ocnus ab oris
    Fatidicæ _Mantûs_ et Tusci filius amnis,
    Qui muros matrisque dedit tibi. _Mantua_ nomen."

    Ocnus was next, who led his native train
    Of hardy warriors thro' the wat'ry plain,
    The son of Manto by the Tuscan stream,
    From whence the _Mantuan_ town derives its name.

    DRYDEN.

The annual fair is what contributes most to keeping their folks alive
though, for such are the roads it is scarce possible any strangers
should come near them, and our people complain that the inns are very
extortionate: here is one building, however, that promises wonders from
its prodigious size and magnificence; I only wonder such accommodation
should be thought necessary.

The gentleman who shewed us the Ducal palace, seemed himself much struck
with its convenience and splendour; but I had seen Versailles, Turin,
and Genoa. What can be seen here, and here alone, are the numerous and
incomparable works of Giulio Romano; of which no words that I can use
would give my readers any adequate idea.--For such excellence language
has no praise, and of such performances taste will admit no criticism.
The giants could scarcely have been more amazed at Jupiter's thunder,
than I was at their painted fall. If Rome is to exhibit any thing beyond
this, I shall really be more dazzled than delighted; for imagination
will stretch no further, and admiration will endure no more.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sunday, April 10.

Here is no appearance of spring yet, though so late in the year; what
must it be in England? One almond and one plum tree have I seen in
blossom; but no green leaf out of the bud: so cheerless has been the
road between Mantua and Verona, which, however, makes amends for all on
our arrival. How beautiful the entrance is of this charming city, how
grand the gate, how handsome the drive forward, may all be read here in
a printed book called _Verona illustrata_: but my felicity in finding
the amphitheatre so well preserved, can only be found in my own heart,
which began sensibly to dilate at the seeing an old Roman colisseum kept
so nicely, and repaired so well. It is said that the arena here is
absolutely perfect; and if the galleries are a little deficient, there
can be no dispute concerning the _podium_, or lower seats, which remain
exactly as they were in old times: while I have heard that the building
of the same kind now existing at Nismes, shews the manner of entering
exceeding well; and the great one built by Vespasian has every thing
else: so that an exact idea of the old Circus may be obtained among them
all. That something should always be left to conjecture, is however not
unpleasing; various opinions animate the arguments on both sides, and
bring out fire by collision with the understanding of others engaged in
the same researches.

A bull-feast given here to divert the Emperor as he passed through, must
have excited many pleasing sensations, while the inhabitants sate on
seats once occupied by the masters of the world; and what is more worth
wonder, sate at the feet of a Transalpine _Cæsar_, for so the sovereign
of Germany is even now called by his Milanese subjects in common
discourse; and when one looks upon the arms of Austria, a spread eagle,
and recollects that when the Roman empire was divided, the old eagle was
split, one face looking toward the East, the other toward the West, in
token of shared possession, it affects one; and calls up classic imagery
to the mind.

The collection of antiquities belonging to the Philharmonic society is
very respectable; they reminded me of the Arundel marbles at Oxford, and
I said so. "_Oh!_" replied the man who shewed these, "_that collection
was very valuable to be sure, but the bad air, and the smoke of coal
fires in England, have ruined them long ago_." I suspected that my
gentleman talked by rote, and examining the book called _Verona
illustrata_, found the remark there; but that is _malasede_, and a very
ridiculous prejudice. I will confess however, if they please, that our
original treaty between Mardonius and the Persian army, at the end of
which the Greek general Aristides, although himself a Sabian, attested
the fun as witness, in compliance with their religion who worshipped
that luminary, at least held it in the highest veneration, as the
residence of Oromasdes the good Principle, who was considered by the
Magians as for ever clothed with light: I will consider _that_, I say,
if they insist upon it, as a marble of less consequence than the last
will and testament of an old inhabitant of Sparta which is shewn at
Verona, and which _they say_ disposes of the iron money used during the
first of many years that the laws of Lycurgus lasted.

Here is a very fine palace belonging to the Bevi-l'acqua family, besides
the Casa Verzi, as famous for its elegant Doric architecture, as the
charming mistress of it for her Attic wit.

St. Zeno is the church which struck me most: the eternal and all-seeing
eye placed over the door; Fortune's wheel too, composed of six figures
curiously disposed, and not unlike our man alphabet, two mounting, two
sitting, and two tumbling, over against it: on the outside of the wheel
this distich,

    En ego Fortuna moderor mortalibus usum,
    Elevo, depono, bona cunctis vel mala dono[J]--

this other on the inside of the wheel, less plainly to be read:

    Induo nudatos, denudo veste paratos,
    In me confidit, si quis derisus abibit[K].

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote J:
    Here I Madam Fortune my favours bestow,
    Some good and some ill to the high and the low.
]

[Footnote K:
    The naked I clothe, and the pompous I strip;
    If in me you confide, I may give you the slip.
]

This is a town full of beauties, wits, and rarities: numberless persons
of the first eminence have always adorned it, and the present
inhabitants have no mind to degenerate; while the Nobleman that is
immediately descended from that house which Giambattista della Torre
made famous for his skill in astronomy, employs himself in a much more
useful, if not a nobler study; and is completing for the press a new
system of education. It was very petulantly, and very spitefully said by
Voltaire, that Italy was now no more than _la boutique_[Footnote: The
old clothes shop.], and the Italians, _les merchands fripiers de
l'Europe_[Footnote: The slop-sellers of Europe]. The Greek remains here
have still an air of youthful elegance about them, which strikes one
very forcibly where so good opportunity offers of comparing them with
the fabrics formed by their destructive successors, the Goths; who have
left some fine old black-looking monuments (which look as if they had
stood in our _coal smoke_ for centuries) to the memory of the Scaligers;
and surely the great critic of that name could not have taken a more
certain method of proving his descent from these his barbarous
ancestors, than that which his relationship to them naturally, I
suppose, inspired him with--the avowed preference of birth to talents,
of long-drawn genealogy to hardly-acquired literature. We will however
grow less prejudiced ourselves; and since there are still whole nations
of people existing, who consider the counting up many generations back
as a felicity not to be exchanged for any other without manifest loss,
we may possibly reconcile the opinion to common sense, by reflecting
that one preconception of the sovereign good is, that it should
certainly be _indeprivable_ and except birth, what is there earthly
after all that may not drop, or else be torn from its possessor by
accident, folly, force, or malice?

James Harris says, that virtue answers to the character of
indeprivability, but one is left only to wish that his position were
true; the continuance of virtue depends on the continuance of reason,
from which a blow on the head, a sudden fit of terror, or twenty other
accidents may separate us in a moment. Nothing can make us not one's
father's child however, and the advantages of _blood_, such as they are,
may surely be deemed _indeprivable_.

Gothic and Grecian architecture resembles Gothic and Grecian manners,
which naturally do give their colour to such arts as are naturally the
result of them. Tyranny and gloomy suspicion are the characteristics of
the one, openness and sociability strongly mark the other--when to the
gay portico succeeded the sullen drawbridge, and to the lively corridor,
a secret passage and a winding staircase.

It is difficult, if not impossible however, to withhold one's respect
from those barbarians who could thus change the face of art, almost of
nature; who could overwhelm courage and counteract learning; who not
only devoured the works of wisdom and the labours of strength, but left
behind them too a settled system of feudatorial life and aristocratic
power, still undestroyed in Europe, though hourly attacked, battered by
commerce, and sapped by civilization.

When Smeathman told us about twelve years ago, how an immense body of
African ants, which appeared, as they moved forwards, like the whole
earth in agitation--covered and suddenly arrested a solemn elephant, as
he grazed unsuspiciously on the plain; he told us too that in eight
hours time no trace was left either of the devasters or devasted,
excepting the skeleton of the noble creature neatly picked; a standing
proof of the power of numbers against single force.

These northern emigrants the Goths, however, have done more; they have
fixed a mode of carrying on human affairs, that I think will never be so
far exterminated as to leave no vestiges behind: and even while one
contemplates the mischief they have made--even while one's pen engraves
one's indignation at their success; the old baron in his castle,
preceded and surrounded by loyal dependants, who desired only to live
under his protection and die in his defence, inspires a notion of
dignity unattainable by those who, seeking the beautiful, are by so far
removed from the sublime of life, and affords to the mind momentary
images of surly magnificence, ill exchanged perhaps by _fancy_, though
_truth_ has happily substituted a succession of soft ideas and social
comforts: knowledge, virtue, riches, happiness. Let it be remembered
however, that if the theme is superior to the song, we always find those
poets who live in the second class, celebrating the days past by those
who had their existence in the first. These reflections are forced upon
me by the view of Lombard manners, and the accounts I daily pick up
concerning the Brescian and Bergamase nobility; who still exert the
Gothic power of protecting murderers who profess themselves their
vassals; and who still exercise those virtues and vices natural to man
in his semi-barbarous state: fervent devotion, constant love, heroic
friendship, on the one part; gross superstition, indulgence of brutal
appetite, and diabolical revenge, on the other.

In all hot countries, however, flowers and weeds shoot up to enormous
growth: in colder climes, where poison can scarce be feared, perfumes
can seldom be boasted.

Verona is the gayest looking town I ever lived in; beautifully
situated, the hills around it elegant, the mountains at a distance
venerable: the silver Adige rolling through the Valley, while such a
glow of blossoms now ornament the rising grounds, and such cheerfulness
smiles in the sweet countenances of its inhabitants, that one is tempted
to think it the birth-place of Euphrosyne, where

    Zephyr with Aurora playing,
    As he met her once a maying, &c.
    Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
    So buxom, blythe, and debonair--

as Milton says. Here are vines, mulberries, olives; of course, wine,
silk, and oil: every thing that can seduce, every thing that ought to
satisfy desiring man. Here then in consequence do actually delight to
reside mirth and good-humour in their holiday dress. _A verona mezzi
matti_[Footnote: The people at Verona are half out of their wits], say
the Italians themselves of them, and I see nothing seemingly go forward
here but Improvisatori, reciting stories or verses to entertain the
populace; boys flying kites, cut square like a diamond on the cards, and
called Stelle; men amusing themselves at a game called Pallamajo,
something like our cricket, only that they throw the ball with a hollow
stick, not with the hand, but it requires no small corporal strength;
and I know not why our English people have such a notion of Italian
effeminacy: games of very strong exertion are in use among them; and I
have not yet felt one hot day since I left France.

They shewed us an agreeable garden here belonging to some man of
fashion, whose name I know not; it was cut in a rock, yet the grotto
disappointed me: they had not taken such advantages of the situation as
Lomellino would have done, and I recollected the tasteful creations in
my own country, _Pains Hill_ and _Stour Head_.

The Veronese nobleman shewed however the spirit of _his_ country, if we
let loose the genius of _ours_. The emperor had visited his improvements
it seems, and on the spot where he kissed the children of the house,
their father set up a stone to record the honour.

Our attendant related a tender story to _me_ more interesting, which
happened in this garden, of an English gentleman, who having hired the
house, &c. one season, found his favourite servant ill there, and like
to die: the poor creature expressed his concern at the intolerant
cruelty of that fact which denies Christians of any other denomination
but their own a place in consecrated ground, and lamented his distance
from home with an anxious earnestness that hastened his end: when the
humanity of his master sent him to the landlord, who kindly gave
permission that he might lie undisturbed under his turf, as one places
one's lap-dog in England; and _there_, as our Laquais de place observed,
_he did no harm_, though _he was a heretic_; and the English gentleman
wept over his grave.

I never saw cypress trees of such a growth as in this spot--but then
there are no other trees; _inter viburna cypressi_ came of course into
one's head: and this noble plant, rich in foliage, and bright, not dusky
in colour, looked from its manner of growing like a vast evergreen
poplar.

Our equipages here are strangely inferior to those we left behind at
Milan. Oil is burned in the conversation rooms too, and smells very
offensively--but they _lament our suffocation in England, and black
smoke_, while what proceeds from these lamps would ruin the finest
furniture in the world before five weeks were expired; I saw no such
used at Turin, Genoa, or Milan.

The horses here are not equal to those I have admired on the Corso at
other great towns; but it is pleasing to observe the contrast between
the high bred, airy, elegant English hunter, and the majestic, docile,
and well-broken war horse of Lombardy. Shall we fancy there is Gothic
and Grecian to be found even among the animals? or is not that _too_
fanciful?

That every thing useful, and every thing ornamental, first revived in
Italy, is well known; but I was never aware till now, though we talk of
Italian book-keeping, that the little cant words employed in
compting-houses, took their original from the Lombard language, unless
perhaps that of Ditto, which every moment recurs, meaning Detto or
Sudetto, as that which was already said before: but this place has
afforded me an opportunity of discovering what the people meant, who
called a large portion of ground in Southwark some years ago a _plant_,
above all things. The ground was destined to the purposes of extensive
commerce, but the appellation of a _plant_ gave me much disturbance,
from my inability to fathom the meaning of it. I have here found out,
that the Lombards call many things a _plant_; and say of their cities,
palaces, &c. in familiar discourse--_che la pianta è buona, la pianta è
cattiva_[Footnote: The _plant_ is a good or a bad one], &c.

Thus do words which carry a forcible expression in one language, appear
ridiculous enough in another, till the true derivation is known. Another
reflection too occurs as curious; that after the overthrow of all
business, all knowledge, and all pleasure resulting from either, by the
Goths, Italy should be the first to cherish and revive those
money-getting occupations, which now thrive better in more Northern
climates: but the chymists say justly, that fermentation acts with a
sort of creative power, and that while the mass of matter is fermenting,
no certain judgment can be made what spirit it will at last throw up: so
perhaps we ought not to wonder at all, that the first idea of banking
came originally from this now uncommercial country; that the very name
of _bankrupt_ was brought over from their money-changers, who sat in
the market-place with a bench or _banca_ before them, receiving and
paying; till, unable sometimes to make the due returns, the enraged
creditors broke their little board, which was called making
_bancarotta_, a phrase but too well known in the purlieus, which because
they first settled there in London was called _Lombard Street_, where
the word is still in full force I believe.

              --oh word of fear!
    Unpleasing to commercial ear.

A visit to the collection of Signor Vincenzo Bozza best assisted me in
changing, or at least turning the course of my ideas. Nothing in natural
history appears more worthy the consideration of the learned world, than
does this repository of petrefactions, so uncommon that scarcely any
thing except the testimony of one's own eyes could convince one that
flying fish, natives, and intending to remain inhabitants, of the
Pacific Ocean, are daily dug out of the bowels of Monte Bolca near
Verona, where they must doubtless have been driven by the deluge, as no
less than omnipotent power and general concussion could have sufficed to
seize and fix them for centuries in the hollow cavities of a rock at
least seventy-two miles from the nearest sea. Their learned proprietor,
however, who was obligingly desirous to shew me every attention,
answering a hundred troublesome questions with much civility, told us,
that few of his numerous visitants gave that plain account of the
phenomenon, shewing greater disposition to conjure up more difficult
causes, and attribute the whole to the world's eternity: a notion not
less contrary to found philosophy and common sense, than it is repugnant
to faith, and the doctrines of Revelation; which prophesied long ago,
that in the last days should come _scoffers, walking after their own
lusts_, and saying, _Where is now the promise of his coming? for since
the time that our fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were
from the beginning of the creation._

Well! these are unpleasant reflections: I would rather, before leaving
the plains of Lombardy, give my country-women one reason for detaining
them so long there: it cannot be an uninteresting reason to us, when we
reflect that our first head-dresses were made by _Milaners_; that a
court gown was early known in England by the name of a _mantua_, from
_Manto,_ the daughter of Teresias, who founded the city so called; and
that some of the best materials for making these mantuas is still named
from the town it is manufactured in--a _Padua_ soy.

We are going thither immediately through Vicenza; where the works of
Palladio's immortal hand appear in full perfection; and nothing sure can
add to the elegancies of architecture displayed in its environs. I
fatigued myself to death almost by walking three miles out of town, to
see the famous villa from whence Merriworth Castle in Kent was modelled;
and drew incessant censures on his taste who built at the bottom of a
deep valley the imitation of a house calculated for a hill. Here I
pleased my eyes by glancing them over an extensive prospect, bounded by
mountains on the one side, on another by the sea, at so prodigious a
distance however as to be wholly undiscoverable by the naked eye; nor
could I, or any other unaccustomed spectator, have seen, as my Italian
companions did, the effect produced by marine vapours upon the
intermediate atmosphere, which they made me remark from the windows of
the palace, inferior in every thing _but_ situation to Merriworth, and
with that patriotic consolation I leave Vincenza.

Padua la dotta afforded me much pleasure, from the politeness of the
Countess Ferres, born a German; of the House of Starenberg: she thought
proper to shew me a thousand civilities, in consequence of a kind letter
which we carried her from Count Wiltseck, the Austrian minister at
Milan; called the literati of the town about us, and gave me the
pleasure of conversing with the Abate Cefarotti, who translated Offian;
and the Professor Statico, whose attentions I ought never to forget. I
was surprised at length to hear kind inquiries after English
acquaintance made in my native language by the botanical professor, who
spoke much of Doctor Johnson, and with great regard: he had, it seems,
spent much time in our island about thirty years before. When we were
shewn the physic garden, nicely kept and excellently furnished, the
Countess took occasion to observe, that transplanted trees never throve,
and strongly expressed her unfaded attachment to her native soil: though
she had more good sense than to neglect every opportunity of
cultivating that in which fortune had placed her.

The tomb of Antenor, supposed to be preserved in this town, has, I find,
but slight evidence to boast with regard to its authenticity: whosever
tomb it is, the antiquity of the monument, and dignity of the remains,
are scarcely questionable; and I see not but it _may_ be Antenor's.

There is no place assigned for it but the open street, because it could
not (say they) have contained a baptized body, as there are proofs
innumerable of its being fabricated many and many years before the birth
of Jesus Christ: yet I never pass by without being hurt that it should
have no better situation assigned it, till I recollect that the old
Romans always buried people by the highway, which made the _siste
viator_[Footnote: Stop traveller] proper for their tomb-stones, as Mr.
Addison somewhere remarks; which are foolishly enough engraven upon
ours: and till I consider too that the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the
Patriarch of Antioch, where Christians were first called such, would lie
no nearer a Christian Church than old Antenor does, were they
unfortunate enough to die, and be put under ground at Padua.

The shrine of St. Antonio is however sufficiently venerated; and the
riches of his church really amazed me: such silver lamps! such votive
offerings! such glorious sculpture! the bas relievos, representing his
life and miracles, are beyond any thing we have yet seen; one
compartment particularly, the workmanship, I think, of Sansovino, where
an old woman is represented to a degree of finished nicety and curiosity
of perfection which I knew not that marble could express.

The hall of justice, which they oppose to our Westminster-hall, but
between which there is no resemblance, is two hundred and fifty-six feet
long, and eighty-six broad; the form, of it a _rhomboid_: the walls
richly ornamented by Pietro d'Abano, who originally designed, and began
to paint the figures round the sides: they have however been retouched
by Giotto, who added the signs of the Zodiac to Peter's mysterious
performances, which meant to explain the planetary influences, as he was
a man deeply dipped in judicial astrology; and there is his own portrait
among them, dressed like a Zoroastrian priest, with a planet in the
corner. At the bottom of the hall hangs the famous crucifixion, for the
purpose of doing which completely well, it is told that Giotto fastened
up a real man, and justly incurred the Pope's displeasure, who coming
one day unawares to see his painter work, caught the unhappy wretch
struggling in the closet, and threatened immediately to sign the
artist's death; who with Italian promptness ran to the picture, and
daubed it over with his brush and colours;--by this method obliging his
sovereign to delay execution till the work was repaired, which no one
but himself could finish; mean time the man recovers of his wounds, and
the tale ends, whether true or false, according to the hearer's wish.

The debtor's stone at the opposite end of the hall has likewise many
entertaining stories annexed to it: the bankrupt is obliged to sit there
in presence of his creditors and judges, in a very disgraceful state;
and many accounts are told one, of the various effects such distresses
have had on the mind: but suicide is a crime rarely committed out of
England, and the Italians look with just horror on our people for being
so easily incited to a sin, which takes from him that commits it all
power and possibility of repentance.

A Frenchman whom I sent for once at Bath to dress my hair, gave me an
excellent trait of his own national character, speaking upon that
subject, when he meant to satirise ours. "You have lived some years in
England, friend, said I, do you like it?"--"Mais non, madame, pas
parfaitement bien[L]"--"You have travelled much in Italy, do you like
that better?"--"Ah, Dieu ne plaise, madame, je n'aime guères messieurs
les Italiens[M]." "What do they do to make you hate them so?"--"Mais
c'est que les Italiens se tuent l'un l'autre (replied the fellow), et
les Anglois se font un plaisir de se tuer eux mesmes: pardi je ne me
sens rien moins qu'un vrai gout pour ces gentillesses la, et j'aimerois
mieux me trouver a _Paris, pour rire un peu_."[N]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote L: Why no truly ma'am, not much.]

[Footnote M: Oh, God forbid--no, I cannot endure those Italians.]

[Footnote N: Why, really, the Italians have such a passion for murdering
each other, ma'am, and the English such an odd delight in killing
themselves, that I, who have acquired no taste for such agreeable
amusements, grow somewhat impatient to return to Paris, and get a good
laugh among my old acquaintance.]

The Lucrezia Padovana, who has a monument erected here in this justice
hall to her memory, is the only instance of self-murder I have been told
yet; and her's was a very glorious one, and necessary to the
preservation of her honour, which was endangered by the magistrate, who
made that the barter for her husband's life, in defence of which she was
pleading; much like the story of Isabella, Angelo, and Claudio, in
Shakespear's Measure for Measure. This lady, whole family name I have
forgotten, stabbed herself in presence of the monster who reduced her to
such necessity, and by that means preserved her husband's life, by
suddenly converting the heart of her hateful lover, who from that
dreadful day devoted himself to penitence and prayer.

The chastity of the Patavian ladies is celebrated by some old Latin
poet, but I cannot recollect which. Lucrezia, however, was a Christian.
I could not much regard the monument of Livy though, for looking at
her's, which attracted and detained my attention more particularly.

The University of Padua is a noble institution; and those who have
excelled among the students, are recorded on tablets, for the most part
brass, hung round the walls, made venerable by their arms and
characters. It was pleasing to see so many British names among
them--Scotchmen for the most part; though I enquired in vain for the
admirable Crichton. Sir Richard Blackmore was there, but not one native
of France. We were spiteful enough to fancy, that was the reason that
Abbè Richard says nothing of the establishment.

Besides the civilities shewn us here by Mr. Bonaldi and his agreeable
lady, Signora Annetta, we were recommended by letters from the Venetian
resident at Milan, to Abate Toaldo, professor of astronomy; who wished
to do all in his power to oblige and entertain us. His observatory is a
good one; but the learned amiable scholar, who resides in the first
floor of it, complained to us that he was sickly, old, and poor; three
bad qualifications, as he observed, for the amusement of travellers, who
commonly arrive hungry for novelty, and thirsty for information. His
quadrant was very fine, the planetarium or orrery quite out of repair;
and his references of course were obliged to be made to a sort of map or
chart of the heavenly bodies (a solar system at least with comets) that
hung up in his room as a substitute. He had little reverence for the
petrefactions of Monte Bolca I perceived, which he considered as mere
_lufus naturæ_. He shewed me poor Petrarch's tomb from his observatory,
bid me look on Sir Isaac's full-length picture in the room, and said,
the world would see no more such men. Of our Maskelyne, however, no man
could speak with more esteem, or expressions of generous friendship. His
sitting chamber was a pleasant one; and I should not have left it so
soon, but in compassion to his health, which our company was more likely
to injure than assist. He asked me, if I did not find _Padua la dotta_ a
very stinking nasty town? but added, that literature and dirt had long
been intimately acquainted, and that this city was commonly called among
the Italians, _"Porcil de Padua," Padua the pig-stye._

Fire is supposed to be the greatest purifier, and Padua has gone through
that operation twice completely, being burned the first time by Attila;
after which, Narses the famous eunuch rebuilt and settled it in the year
558, if my information is good: but after her protector's death, the
Longobards burned her again, and she lay in ashes till Charlemagne
restored her to more than original beauty. Under Otho she, like many
other cities of Italy, was governed by her own laws, and remained a
republic till the year 1237, when she received the German yoke,
afterwards broken by the Scaligers; nor was their treacherous
assassination followed by less than the loss both of Verona and this
city, which was found in possession of the Emperor Maximilian some years
after: but when the State of Venice recovered their dominion over it in
1409, they fortified it so strongly that the confederate princes united
in the league of Cambray assaulted it in vain.

Santa Giustina's church is the most beautiful place of worship I have
ever yet seen; so regularly, so uniformly noble, uncrowded with figures
too: the entrance strikes you with its simple grandeur, while the small
chapels to the right and left hand are kept back behind a colonade of
pillars, and do not distract attention and create confusion of ideas,
as do the numerous cupolas of St. Anthony's more magnificent but less
pleasing structure. The high altar here at Santa Giustina's church
stands at the end, and greatly increases the effect on entering, which
always suffers when the length is broken. Nothing, however, is to be
perfect in this world, and Paul Veronese's fine view of the suffering
martyr has not size enough for the place; and is beside crowded with
small unconsequential figures, which cannot be distinguished at a
distance. Some carvings round the altar, representing, in wooden
bas-reliefs, the history of the Old and New Testament, are admirable in
their kind; and I am told that the organ on which Bertoni, a blind
nephew of Ferdinand, our well-known composer, played to entertain us, is
one of the first in Italy: but an ordinary instrument would have charmed
us had he touched it.

I must not leave the Terra Firma, as they call it, without mentioning
once more some of the animals it produces; among which the asses are so
justly renowned for their size and beauty, that _come un afino di Padua_
is proverbial when speaking of strength among the Italians: how should
it be otherwise indeed, where every herb and every shrub breathes
fragrance; and where the quantity as well as quality of their food
naturally so increases their milk, that I should think some of them.
might yield as much as an ordinary cow?

When I was at Genoa, I remember remarking something like this to Doctor
Batt, an English physician settled there; and expressed my surprise that
our consumptive country-folks, with whom the Italians never cease to
reproach us, do not, when they come here for health, rely much on the
beneficial produce of these asses for a cure; which, if it is hastened
by their assistance in our island, must surely be performed much quicker
in this. The answer would have been better recollected, I fancy, had it
appeared to me more satisfactory; but he knew what he was talking of,
and I did not; so conclude he despised me accordingly.

The Carinthian bulls too, that do all the heavy work in this rich and
heavy land, how wonderfully handsome they are! Such symmetry and beauty
have I never seen in any cattle, scarcely in those of Derbyshire, where
so much attention has been bestowed upon their breeding. The colour
here is so elegant; they are almost all blue roans, like Lord
Grosvenor's horses in London, or those of the Duke of Cestos at Milan:
the horns longer, and much more finely shaped, than those of our bulls,
and white as polished ivory, tapering off to a point, with a bright
black tip at the end, resembling an ermine's tail. As this creature is
not a native, but only a neighbour of Italy, we will say no more about
him.

A transplanted Hollander, carried thither originally from China, seems
to thrive particularly well in this part of the world; the little pug
dog, or Dutch mastiff, which our English ladies were once so fond of,
that poor Garrick thought it worth his while to ridicule them for it in
the famous dramatic satire called Lethe, has quitted London for Padua, I
perceive; where he is restored happily to his former honours, and every
carriage I meet here has a _pug_ in it. That breed of dogs is now so
near extirpated among us, that I recoiled: only Lord Penryn who
possesses such an animal; and I doubt not but many of the under-classes
among brutes do in the same manner extinguish and revive by chance,
caprice, or accident perpetually, through many tracts of the inhabited
world, so as to remain out of sight in certain districts for centuries
together.

This town, as Abbé Toaldo observed, is old, and dirty, and
melancholy-looking, _in itself_; but Terence told us long ago, and
truly, "that it was not the walls, but the company, made every place
delightful:" and these inhabitants, though few in number, are so
exceedingly cheerful, so charming, their language is so mellifluous,
their manners so soothing, I can scarcely bear to leave them without
tears.

Verona was the first place I felt reluctance to quit; but the Venetian
state certainly possesses uncommon, and to me almost unaccountable,
attractions. Be that as it will, we leave these sweet Paduans to-morrow;
the coach is disposed of, and we are to set out upon our watry journey
to their wonderfully-situated metropolis, or as they call it prettily,
_La Bella Dominante_.



VENICE.


We went down the Brenta in a barge that brought us in eight hours to
Venice, the first appearance of which revived all the ideas inspired by
Canaletti, whose views of this town are most scrupulously exact; those
especially which one sees at the Queen of England's house in St. James's
Park; to such a degree indeed, that we knew all the famous towers,
steeples, &c. before we reached them. It was wonderfully entertaining to
find thus realized all the pleasures that excellent painter had given us
so many times reason to expect; and I do believe that Venice, like other
Italian beauties, will be observed to possess features so striking, so
prominent, and so discriminated, that her portrait, like theirs, will
not be found difficult to take, nor the impression she has once made
easy to erase. British charms captivate less powerfully, less certainly,
less suddenly: but being of a softer sort increase upon acquaintance;
and after the connexion has continued for some years, will be
relinquished with pain, perhaps even in exchange for warmer colouring
and stronger expression.

St. Mark's Place, after all I had read and all I had heard of it,
exceeded expectation: such a cluster of excellence, such a constellation
of artificial beauties, my mind had never ventured to excite the idea of
within herself; though assisted with all the powers of doing so which
painters can bestow, and with all the advantages derived from verbal and
written description. It was half an hour before I could think of looking
for the bronze horses, of which one has heard so much; and from which
when one has once begun to look, there is no possibility of withdrawing
one's attention. The general effect produced by such architecture, such
painting, such pillars; illuminated as I saw them last night by the moon
at full, rising out of the sea, produced an effect like enchantment; and
indeed the more than magical sweetness of Venetian planners, dialect,
and address, confirms one's notion, and realizes the scenes laid by
Fenelon in their once tributary island of Cyprus. The pole set up as
commemorative of their past dominion over it, grieves one the more, when
every hour shews how congenial that place must have been to them, if
every thing one reads of it has any foundation in truth.

The Ducal palace is so beautiful, it were worth while almost to cross
the Alps to see that, and return home again: and St. Mark's church,
whose Mosaic paintings on the outside are surpassed by no work of art,
delights one no less on entering, with its numberless rarities; the
flooring first, which is all paved with precious stones of the second
rank, in small squares, not bigger than a playing card, and sometimes
less. By the second rank in gems I mean, carnelion, agate, jasper,
serpentine, and verd antique; on which you place your feet without
remorse, but not without a very odd sensation, when you find the ground
undulated beneath them, to represent the waves of the sea, and
perpetuate marine ideas, which prevail in every thing at Venice. We were
not shewn the treasury, and it was impossible to get a sight of the
manuscript in St. Mark's own hand-writing, carefully preserved here, and
justly esteemed even beyond the jewels given as votive offerings to his
shrine, which are of immense value.

The pictures in the Doge's house are a magnificent collection; and the
Noah's Ark by Bassano would doubtless afford an actual study for natural
historians as well as painters, and is considered as a model of
perfection from which succeeding artists may learn to draw animal life:
scarcely a creature can be recollected which has not its proper place in
the picture; but the pensive cat upon the fore-ground took most of my
attention, and held it away from the meeting of the Pope and Doge by the
other brother Bassano, who here proves that his pencil is not divested
of dignity, as the connoisseurs sometimes tell us that he is. But it is
not one picture, or two, or twenty, that seizes one's mind here; it is
the accumulation of various objects, each worthy to detain it. Wonderful
indeed, and sweetly-satisfying to the intellectual appetite, is the
variety, the plenty of pleasures which serve to enchain the imagination,
and fascinate the traveller's eye, keeping it ever on this _little
spot_; for though I have heard some of the inhabitants talk of its
vastness, it is scarcely bigger than our Portman Square, I think, not
larger at the very most than Lincoln's-Inn-Fields.

It is indeed observable that few people know how to commend a thing so
as to make their praises enhance its value. One hears a pretty woman not
unfrequently admired for her wit, a woman of talents wondered at for her
beauty; while I can think on no reason for such perversion of language,
unless it is that a small share of elegance will content those whose
delight is to hear declamation; and that the most hackeyed sentiments
will seem new, when uttered by a pair of rosy lips, and seconded by the
expression of eyes from which every thing may be expected.

To return to St. Mark's Place, whence _we have never strayed_: I must
mention those pictures which represent his miracles, and the carrying
his body away from Alexandria: events attested so as to bring them
credit from many wise men, and which have more authenticity of their
truth, than many stories told one up and down here. So great is the
devotion of the common people here to their tutelar saint, that when
they cry out, as we do _Old England for ever_! they do not say, _Viva
Venezia_! but _Viva San Marco_! And I doubt much if that was not once
the way with _us_; in one of Shakespear's plays an expiring prince being
near to give all up for gone, is animated by his son in these words,
"_Courage father_, cry _St. George_!"

We had an opportunity of seeing _his_ day celebrated with a very grand
procession the other morning, April 23, when a live boy personated the
hero of the show; but fate so still upon his painted courser, that it
was long before I perceived him to breathe. The streets were vastly
crowded with spectators, that in every place make the principal part of
the _spectacle_.

It is odd that a custom which in contemplation seems so unlikely to
please, should when put in practice appear highly necessary, and
productive of an effect which can be obtained no other way. Were the
houses in Parliament Street to hang damask curtains, worked carpets,
pieces of various coloured silks, with fringe or lace round them, out of
every window when the King of England goes to the House, with numberless
well-dressed ladies leaning out to see him pass, it would give one an
idea of the continental towns upon a gala day. But our people would be
apt to cry out, _Monmouth Street!_ and look ashamed if their neighbours
saw the same deckerwork counterpane or crimson curtain produced at
Easter, which made a figure at Christmas the December before; so that no
end would be put to expence in our country, were such a fancy to take
place. The rainy weather beside would spoil all our finery at once; and
_here_, though it is still cold enough to be sure, and the women wear
sattins, yet still one shivers over a bad fire only because there is no
place to walk and warm one's self; for I have not seen a drop of rain.
The truth is, this town cannot be a wholesome one, for there is scarcely
a possibility of taking exercise; nor have I been once able to circulate
my blood by motion since our arrival, except perhaps by climbing the
beautiful tower which stands (as every thing else does) in St. Mark's
Place. And you may drive a garden-chair up _that_, so easy is the
ascent, so broad and luminous the way. From the top is presented to
one's sight the most striking of all prospects, water bounded by
land--not land by water.--The curious and elegant islets upon which, and
into which, the piles of Venice are driven, exhibiting clusters of
houses, churches, palaces, every thing--started up in the midst of the
sea, so as to excite amazement.

But the horses have not been spoken of, though one pair drew Apollo's
car at Delphos. The other, which we call modern, and laugh while we call
them so, were made however before the days of Constantine the Great.
They are of bright yellow brass, not black bronze, as I expected to find
them, and grace the glorious church I am never weary of admiring; where
I went one day on purpose to find out the red marble on which Pope
Alexander III. sate, and placed his foot upon the neck of the Emperor:
the stone has this inscription half legible round it, _Super aspidem et
basiliscum ambulabis_[Footnote: Thou shalt tread on the asp and the
basilisk]. How does this lovely Piazza di San Marco render a
newly-arrived spectator breathless with delight! while not a span of it
is unoccupied by actual beauty; though the whole appears uncrowded, as
in the works of nature, not of art.

It was upon the day appointed for making a new chancellor, however, that
one ought to have looked at this lovely city; when every shop, adorned
with its own peculiar produce, was disposed to hail the passage of its
favourite, in a manner so lively, so luxuriant, and at the same time so
tasteful--there's no telling. Milliners crowned the new dignitary's
picture with flowers, while columns of gauze, twisted round with
ribband, in the most elegant style, supported the figure on each side,
and made the prettiest appearance possible. The furrier formed his skins
into representations of the animal they had once belonged to; so the
lion was seen dandling the kid at one door, while the fox stood courting
a badger out of his hole at the other. The poulterers and fruiterers
were by many thought the most beautiful shops in town, from the variety
of fancies displayed in the disposal of their goods; and I admired at
the truly Italian ingenuity of a gunsmith, who had found the art of
turning his instruments of terror into objects of delight, by his
judicious manner of placing and arranging them. Every shop was
illuminated with a large glass chandelier before it, besides the wax
candles and coloured lamps interspersed among the ornaments within. The
senators have much the appearance of our lawyers going robed to
Westminster Hall, but the _gentiluomini_, as they are called, wear red
dresses, and remind me of the Doctors of the ecclesiastical courts in
Doctors Commons.

It is observable that all long robes denote peaceful occupations, and
that the short cut coat is the emblem of a military profession, once the
disgrace of humanity, now unfortunately become its false and cruel
pride.

When the enemies of King David meant to declare war against him, they
cut the skirts of his ambassador's clothes off, to shew him he must
prepare for battle; and the Orientals still consider short dresses as a
disgraceful preparation for hostile proceedings; nor could any thing
have reconciled Europe to the custom, except our horror of Turkish
manners, and desire of being distinguished from the Saracens at the time
of the Holy War.

I have said nothing yet about the gondolas, which every body knows are
black, and give an air of melancholy at first sight, yet are nothing
less than sorrowful; it is like painting the lively Mrs. Cholmondeley
in the character of Milton's

    Pensive Nun, devout and pure,
    Sober, stedfast, and demure--

As I once saw her drawn by a famous hand, to shew a Venetian lady in her
gondola and zendaletto, which is black like the gondola, but wholly
calculated like that for the purposes of refined gallantry. So is the
nightly rendezvous, the coffee-house, and casino; for whilst Palladio's
palaces serve to adorn the grand canal, and strike those who enter
Venice with surprise at its magnificence; those snug retreats are
intended for the relaxation of those who inhabit the more splendid
apartments, and are fatigued with exertions of dignity, and necessity of
no small expence. They breathe the true spirit of our luxurious Lady
Mary, who probably learned it here, or of the still more dissolute
Turks, our present neighbours; who would have thought not unworthy a
Testa Veneziana, her famous stanza, beginning,

    But when the long hours of public are past,
    And we meet with champagne and a chicken at last;

Surely she had then present to her warm imagination a favourite Casino
in the Piazza St. Marco. That her learned and highly-accomplished son
imbibed her taste and talents for sensual delights, has been long known
in England; it is not so perhaps that there is a showy monument erected
to his memory at Padua, setting forth his variety and compass of
knowledge in a long Latin inscription. The good old monk who shewed it
me seemed generously and reasonably shocked, that such a man should at
last expire with somewhat more firm persuasions of the truth of the
Mahometan religion than any other; but that he doubted greatly of all,
and had not for many years professed himself a Christian of any sect or
denomination whatever.

    So have I seen some youth set out,
    Half Protestant, half Papist;
    And wand'ring long the world about,
    Some new religion to find out,
    Turn Infidel or Atheist.

We have been told much of the suspicious temper of Venetian laws; and
have heard often that every discourse is suffered, except such as tends
to political conversation, in this city; and that whatever nobleman,
native of Venice, is seen speaking familiarly with a foreign minister,
runs a risque of punishments too terrible to be thought on.

How far that manner of proceeding may be wise or just, I know not;
certain it is that they have preserved their laws inviolate, their city
unattempted, and their republic respectable, through all the concussions
that have shaken the rest of Europe. Surrounded by envious powers, it
becomes them to be vigilant; conscious of the value of their unconquered
state, it is no wonder that they love her; and surely the true _Amor
Patriæ_ never glowed more warmly in old Roman bosoms than in theirs, who
draw, as many families here do, their pedigree from the consuls of the
Commonwealth. Love without jealousy is seldom to be met with, especially
in these warm climates--let us then permit them to be jealous of a
constitution which all the other states of Italy look on with envy not
unmixed with malice, and propagate strange stories to its disadvantage.

That suspicion should be concealed under the mask of gaiety is neither
very new nor very strange: the reign of our Charles the Second was
equally famous for plots, perjuries, and cruel chastisements, as for
wanton levity and indecent frolics: but here at Venice there are no
unpermitted frolics; her rulers love to see her gay and cheerful; they
are the fathers of their country, and if they _indulge_, take care not
to _spoil_ her.

With regard to common chat, I have heard many a liberal and eloquent
disquisition upon the state of Europe in general, and of Venice in
particular, from several agreeable friends at their own Casino, who did
not appear to have more fears upon them than myself, and I know not why
they should. Chevalier Emo is deservedly a favourite with them, and we
used to talk whole evenings of him and of General Elliott; the
bombarding of Tunis, and defence of Gibraltar. The news-papers spoke of
some fireworks exhibited in England in honour of their hero; they were
"vrayment _feux de joye_" said an agreeable Venetian, they were not
_feux d'artifice._

The deep secrecy of their councils, however, and unrelenting steadiness
of their resolutions, cannot be better explained than by telling a
little story, which will illustrate the private virtue as well as the
public authority of these extraordinary people; for though the tale is
now in abler hands (intending as I am told, to form a tragedy upon its
basis), the summary may serve to adorn my little work; as a landscape
painter refuses not to throw the story of Phaeton's petition for
Apollo's car into his picture, for the purpose of illuminating the back
ground, though Ovid has written the story and Titian has painted it.

Some years ago then, perhaps a hundred, one of the many spies who ply
this town by night, ran to the state inquisitor, with information that
such a nobleman (naming him) had connections with the French ambassador,
and went privately to his house every night at a certain hour. The
_messergrando_, as they call him, could not believe, nor would proceed,
without better and stronger proof, against a man for whom he had an
intimate personal friendship, and on whose virtue he counted with very
particular reliance. Another spy was therefore set, and brought back the
same intelligence, adding the description of his disguise; on which the
worthy magistrate put on his mask and bauta, and went out himself; when
his eyes confirming the report of his informants, and the reflection on
his duty stifling all remorse, he sent publicly for _Foscarini_ in the
morning, whom the populace attended all weeping to his door.

Nothing but resolute denial of the crime alleged could however be forced
from the firm-minded citizen, who, sensible of the discovery, prepared
for that punishment he knew to be inevitable, and submitted to the fate
his friend was obliged to inflict: no less than a dungeon for life, that
dungeon so horrible that I have heard Mr. Howard was not permitted to
see it.

The people lamented, but their lamentations were vain. The magistrate
who condemned him never recovered the shock: but Foscarini was heard of
no more, till an old lady died forty years after in Paris, whose last
confession declared she was visited with amorous intentions by a
nobleman of Venice whose name she never knew, while she resided there as
companion to the ambassadress. So was Foscarini lost! so died he a
martyr to love, and tenderness for female reputation! Is it not
therefore a story fit to be celebrated by that lady's pen, who has
chosen it as the basis of her future tragedy?--But I will anticipate no
further.

Well! this is the first place I have seen which has been capable in any
degree of obliterating the idea of Genoa la superba, which has till now
pursued me, nor could the gloomy dignity of the cathedral at Milan, or
the striking view of the arena at Verona, nor the Sala de Giustizia at
lettered Padua, banish her beautiful image from my mind: nor can I now
acknowledge without shame, that I have ceased to regret the mountains,
the chesnut groves, and slanting orange trees, which climbed my chamber
window _there_, and at _this_ time too! when

    Young-ey'd Spring profusely throws
    From her green lap the pink and rose.

But whoever sees St. Mark's Place lighted up of an evening, adorned with
every excellence of human art, and pregnant with pleasure, expressed by
intelligent countenances sparkling with every grace of nature; the sea
washing its walls, the moon-beams dancing on its subjugated waves, sport
and laughter resounding from the coffee-houses, girls with guitars
skipping about the square, masks and merry-makers singing as they pass
you, unless a barge with a band of music is heard at some distance upon
the water, and calls attention to sounds made sweeter by the element
over which they are brought--whoever is led suddenly I say to this scene
of seemingly perennial gaiety, will be apt to cry out of Venice, as Eve
says to Adam in Milton,

    With thee conversing I _forget all time_,
    All _seasons_, and their _change_--all please _alike_.

For it is sure there are in this town many astonishing privations of all
that are used to make other places delightful: and as poor Omai the
savage said, when about to return to Otaheite--_No horse there! no ass!
no cow, no golden pippins, no dish of tea!--Ah, missey! I go without
every thing--I always so content there though_.

It is really just so one lives at this lovely Venice: one has heard of a
horse being exhibited for a show there, and yesterday I watched the poor
people paying a penny a piece for the sight of a _stuffed one_, and am
more than persuaded of the truth of what I am told here, That
numberless inhabitants live and die in this great capital, nor ever find
out or think of enquiring how the milk brought from Terra Firma is
originally produced. When such fancies cross me I wish to exclaim, Ah,
happy England! whence ignorance is banished by the diffusion of
literature, and narrowness of notions is ridiculed even in the lowest
class of life. Candour must however confess, that while the possessor of
a Northern coal-mine riots in that variety of adulation which talents
deserve and riches contrive to obtain, those who labour in it are often
natives of the dismal region; where many have been known to be born, and
work, and die, without having ever seen the sun, or other light than
such as a candle can bestow. Let such dark recollections give place to
more cheerful imagery.

We have just now been carried to see the so justly-renowned arsenal, and
unluckily missed the ship-launch we went thither chiefly to see. It is
no great matter though! one comes to Italy to look at buildings,
statues, pictures, people! The ships and guns of England have been such
as supported her greatness, established her dominion, and extended her
commerce in such a manner as to excite the admiration and terror of
Europe, whose kingdoms vainly as perfidiously combined with her own
colonies against that power which _they_ maintained, in spite of the
united efforts of half the globe. I shall hardly see finer ships and
guns till I go home again, though the keeping all together on one island
so--that island walled in too completely with only a single door to come
in and out at--is a construction of peculiar happiness and convenience;
while dock, armoury, rope-walk, all is contained in this space, exactly
two miles round I think.

What pleased me best, besides the _whole_, which is best worth being
pleased with, was the small arms: there are so many Turkish instruments
of destruction among them quite new to me, and the picture commemorating
the cruel death of their noble gallant leader Bragadin, so inhumanly
treated by the Saracens in 1571. With infinite gratitude to his amiable
descendant, who shewed me unmerited civility, dining with us often, and
inviting us to his house, &c. I leave this repository of the Republic's
stores with one observation, That however suspicious the Venetians are
said to be, I found it much more easy for Englishmen to look over
_their_ docks, than for a foreigner to find his way into ours.

Another reflection occurs on examination of this spot; it is, that the
renown attached to it in general conversation, is a proof that the world
prefers convenience to splendour; for here are no superfluous ornaments,
and I am apt to think many go away from it praising beauties by which
they have been but little struck, and utilities they have but little
understood.

From this show you are commonly carried to the glass manufactory at
Murano; once the retreat of piety and freedom, when the Altinati fled
the fury of the Huns: a beautiful spot it is, and delightfully as oddly
situated; but these are _gems which inlay the bosom of the deep_, as
Milton says--and this perhaps, the prettiest among them, is walked over
by travellers with that curiosity which is naturally excited, in one
person by the veneration of religious antiquity; in another, by the
attention justly claimed by human industry and art. Here may be seen a
valuable library of books, and here may be seen glasses of all colours,
all sorts, and all prices, I believe: but whoever has looked much upon
the London work in this way, will not be easily dazzled by the lustre of
Venetian crystal; and whoever has seen the Paris mirrors, will not be
astonished at any breadth into which glass can be spread.

We will return to Venice, the view of which from the Zueca, a word
contracted from Giudecca, as I am told, would invite one never more to
stray from it--farther at least than to St. George's church, on another
little opposite island, whence the prospect is surely wonderful; and one
sits longing for a pencil to repeat what has been so often exquisitely
painted by Canaletti, just as foolishly as one snatches up a pen to tell
what has been so much better told already by Doctor Moore. It was to
this church I was sent, however, for the purpose of seeing a famous
picture painted by Paul Veronese, of the marriage at Cana in
Galilee--where our Saviour's first miracle was performed; in which
immense work the artist is well known to have commemorated his own
likeness, and that of many of his family, which adds value to the piece,
when we consider it as a collection of portraits, besides the history it
represents. When we arrived, the picture was kept in a refectory
belonging to friars (of what order I have forgotten), and no woman could
be admitted. My disappointment was so great that I was deprived even of
the powers of solicitation by the extreme ill-humour it occasioned; and
my few intreaties for admission were completely disregarded by the good
old monk, who remained outside with me, while the gentlemen visited the
convent without molestation. At my return to Venice I met little
comfort, as every body told me it was my own fault, for I might put on
men's clothes and see it whenever I pleased, as nobody then would stop,
though perhaps all of them would know me.

If such slight gratifications however as seeing a favourite picture, can
be purchased no cheaper than by violating truth in one's own person, and
encouraging the violation of it in others, it were better surely die
without having ever procured to one's self such frivolous enjoyments;
and I hope always to reject the temptation of deceiving mistaken piety,
or insulting harmless error.

But it is almost time to talk of the Rialto, said to be the finest
single arch in Europe, and I suppose it is so; very beautiful too when
looked on from the water, but so dirtily kept, and deformed with mean
shops, that passing over it, disgust gets the better of every other
sensation. The truth is, our dear Venetians are nothing less than
cleanly; St. Mark's Place is all covered over in a morning with
chicken-coops, which stink one to death; as nobody I believe thinks of
changing their baskets: and all about the Ducal palace is made so very
offensive by the resort of human creatures for every purpose most
unworthy of so charming a place, that all enjoyment of its beauties is
rendered difficult to a person of any delicacy; and poisoned so
provokingly, that I do never cease to wonder that so little police and
proper regulation are established in a city so particularly lovely, to
render her sweet and wholesome. It was at the Rialto that the first
stone of this fair town was laid, upon the twenty-fifth of March, as I
am told here, with ideal reference to the vernal equinox, the moment
when philosophers have supposed that the sun first shone upon our earth,
and when Christians believe that the redemption of it was first
announced to _her_ within whose womb it was conceived.

The name of _Venice_ has been variously accounted for; but I believe our
ordinary people in England are nearest to the right, who call it _Venus_
in their common discourse; as that goddess was, like her best beloved
seat of residence, born of the sea's light froth, according to old
fables, and partook of her native element, the gay and gentle, not rough
and boisterous qualities. It is said too, and I fear with too much
truth, that there are in this town some permitted professors of the
inveigling arts, who still continue to cry _Veni etiam_, as their
ancestors did when flying from the Goths they sought these sands for
refuge, and gave their lion wings. Till once well fixed, they kindly
called their continental neighbours round to share their liberty, and to
accept that happiness they were willing to bestow and to diffuse; and
from this call--this _Veni etiam_ it is, that the learned men among them
derive the word _Venetia_.

I have asked several friends about the truth of what one has been always
hearing of in England, that the Venetian gondoliers sing Tasso and
Ariosto's verses in the streets at night; sometimes quarrelling with
each other concerning the merit of their favourite poets; but what I
have been told since I came here, of their attachment to their
respective masters, and secrecy when trusted by them in love affairs,
seems far more probable; as they are proud to excess when they serve a
nobleman of high birth, and will tell you with an air of importance,
that the house of Memmo, Monsenigo, or Gratterola, has been served by
their ancestors for these eighty or perhaps a hundred years;
transmitting family pride thus from generation to generation; even when
that pride is but reflected only like the mock rainbow of a summer
sky.--But hark! while I am writing this peevish reflection in my room, I
hear some voices under my window answering each other upon the Grand
Canal. It is, it _is_ the gondolieri sure enough; they are at this
moment singing to an odd sort of tune, but in no unmusical manner, the
flight of Erminia from Tasso's

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