CHAPTER X.

A new home in Heidelberg;—and a last home beneath it.—What is Olympia Morata to us?

The distance to be traversed by the little family in their journey from Erbach to Heidelberg, is about ten leagues, through a country of wooded hills, then crossed by no roads except the bridle–paths that led from village to village. They were accompanied by guides provided by their noble hosts at Erbach, and made the little journey by easy stages. Their more pressing necessities had been relieved by the generosity of the same kind friends. Olympia especially records having received as a present from the Countess a dress worth a thousand crowns.[124] Moreover, it was in summer—the summer of 1554—fresh hopes were before them; and the journey was probably not a sad one.

[Sidenote: AN EVENING IN AN INN.]

A letter from Grünthler's friend Andreas Campanus,[125] schoolmaster at Mossbach, written to Curione at Bâle, after Olympia's death, records a pleasing little incident of this journey: The travellers had reached the little town of Hirschhorn, in the valley of the Neckar, where they were to pass the night. And there, in the common room of the inn, were the schoolmaster of the place, one Dominus Georgius Treuthuger, and his scholars, practising part–singing in German fashion. The "ludimagister" and his boys made, as it would seem, but a lame business of it. Whereupon Olympia, coming forward, helped them out of the difficulty, singing the notes with them, and encouraging them. Ludimagister Treuthuger was delighted, as he might well be, at so charming a "Deus ex machinâ;" and, entering into conversation with the strangers—in Latin, of course—passed most of the evening in learned discourse before discovering who the travellers were. On learning their names, he rushed off to his house, and returned with several pieces of Andreas Grünthler's music, which had, he said, long been favourites of his; "which infinitely delighted and surprised the Doctor and Olympia;"[126] the surprise, it must be supposed, being occasioned by the fact that Grünthler's music should have found its way to the obscure little town in the Neckar valley. "I have often heard him," says Campanus, "telling his scholars never to forget the lady who sang with them so beautifully, and that at sight, too."

On the following day they reached Heidelberg safely, and Grünthler at once entered on the duties of his office.

Hubert Thomas, who was secretary to the Elector Palatine, and a friend, as we have seen, of Grünthler and his wife, has written[127] that a professor's chair of the Greek language was offered to Olympia by the Elector, at the same time that he appointed her husband to one of medicine. He speaks of "Doctor Andreas Grünthler, whose wife Olympia, to describe her justly, should be called Sappho of Lesbos;" and goes on to say, that "Both of them were invited by our prince to be the ornaments of his University; he to be professor of medicine, she to teach the Greek language, which she hath hitherto deferred doing, on account of ill health." M. Bonnet thinks, that this offer of a Greek professorship must be deemed a mistake and rejected as incredible, because Olympia does not speak of it in her letters to the brothers Sinapi and Curione. These letters contain, he argues, even the smallest details of her life, and would not therefore have omitted a circumstance of such importance. But these letters, though containing many a little incident which happened to be in the mind of the writer at the moment, do not in any wise purport to give a journal, or even a general view of the history of her life. And even if they were of this nature, it appears to me far more easy to imagine reasons why Olympia may never have mentioned this offer, than to suppose that the Elector's secretary, writing annals at the time the events were passing,—(for the word "hactenus" in the passage quoted, "quod hactenus distulit (Olympia) morbo comprehensa," joined to the date of her death, show that the passage must have been written within a year, at least, of the circumstances recorded) could either have been mistaken, or have written wilfully what was false. Olympia knew but too well that she would never be able to avail herself of such a proposal. Her health and strength had been too much shattered. Probably enough, her reminiscences of public lecturing, and the applause of large auditories, may have made the idea of again presenting herself to such an ordeal altogether distasteful to her present tone of mind and feeling, even had her health permitted her to hope that she might ever again be physically able to do so. And she may have felt, that to give the physical reason for refusing to her kind friends, was to sadden them needlessly by dwelling on a subject which, in all her letters, she touches as lightly as possible; while to assign such a moral reason as has been suggested, would probably give rise to troublesome remonstrances and persuasions. Besides, we have no apparent means of knowing that she did not mention this circumstance to some one, or to all of these friends. Curione's title–page to her works expressly tells us that we have in that volume the writings of Olympia, "quæ hactenus inveniri potuerunt." Many of her letters may have been, and in all probability were, lost. To set aside, therefore, the direct assertion of a perfectly competent and perfectly trustworthy authority, on no other ground than the silence, on the subject, of these letters, seems altogether unreasonable and contrary to every principle of historical investigation.

[Sidenote: THE GREEK PROFESSORSHIP.]

There is, then, I think, no reason to discredit the assertion of Hubert Thomas, that a chair in Greek, which she was so eminently well qualified to occupy, was offered to Olympia by the Elector, who, finding that this celebrated and highly gifted Italian woman was to be his subject, and a resident in his capital, probably thought that he could in no manner contribute more to the renown and attractions of his University, than by imitating a step for which Italy, the great authority on matters of learning and literature, had already furnished more than one precedent.

In a letter from Olympia to her sister, written immediately after their arrival at Heidelberg, on the silence of which as to the Greek professorship M. Bonnet, who erroneously supposes it to be written to Curione, specially rests his disbelief of any such proposal having been made, she thus announces to her correspondent their new prospects.

"My husband," she writes, "has been called to Heidelberg, where we now are, by the most illustrious Prince Palatine, Elector of the Empire, to teach medicine in the public schools; although in this time of calamitous and turbulent tempest, arms are more in request than science."

Yet, had it not been for the consequences of the sufferings endured that fatal night of the flight from Schweinfurth, the aspects of the life now before them might have seemed brighter than any that had hitherto been their lot. Heidelberg was at that time, perhaps the most flourishing and important centre of intellectual movement and learning in Germany. Its University held the highest rank, and its professors numbered among them several of the most distinguished names of Transalpine Europe. A professional chair among such colleagues was no mean promotion.

Next to health, the most irreparable loss in the Schweinfurth catastrophe was that of the library. And we find their friends exerting themselves to repair, as far as possible, this disaster. By a singular chance, one volume, the Lives of Plutarch, belonging to their former library, was recovered to form the nucleus of a new collection. It had been found among the ruins at Schweinfurth, with the name of Olympia written on the last page; and John Sinapi had the pleasure of sending it to her with a letter of consolations and exhortations to fortitude under the calamities to which they had been exposed.

[Sidenote: LETTER FROM CURIONE.]

"Leave groaning," he says, "to those who have no hope save in this world. Your treasure is in heaven, where thieves cannot steal it, nor flames destroy it. Do you not, like the sage of old, carry all your goods with you,—your learning, your piety, your honour, your virtue, and your attainments? What are material misfortunes and ruin to such an one? 'Si fractus illabatur orbis, Impavidum ferient ruinæ.'"

Curione, from Bâle, writes; "I send you, my dear Olympia, the Homer you ask for, together with some publications of my own. The book of the _Lamentations_ of Jeremiah you will receive from Frankfurt; and you will all the more profitably study it, in the time of your mourning for your husband's native city. It is for you now to return to the studies which have been interrupted, to produce something worthy of Sophocles, and to obtain the laurel which has so long been your due."

All such brave talk must have been received by Olympia with a sad smile. For she felt surely enough, that her laurel–seeking days were over, and knew well that the night, "when no man can work" was coming very quickly. And, indeed, one can hardly help smiling now at honest Curione's expectation that "something worthy of Sophocles" should be generated by meditations on the Lamentations of Jeremiah!

But the misfortunes which had fallen on the learned physician and his celebrated wife at Schweinfurth, had attracted, it would seem, such attention, that others besides their own private friends were anxious to contribute towards replacing what had been lost. For we find Olympia charging Curione with her thanks to the eminent publishers, Oporinus, Hervagius, and Frobenius, for the valuable presents of books they had sent her. The incident is a pleasing trait of the feeling existing among the members of the guild of learning in those old German days, despite the volleys of sesquipedalian billingsgate, more or less ciceronian, with which they assailed each other on most occasions. And it is a proof of the high estimation in which Olympia was held, and of the extended reputation her name had attained.

Yet it was an uphill task, this recomposing a home in a strange city; and Olympia, weak and suffering as she was, had to busy herself with far other cares and labours than such as had rivalling Sophocles for their object.

One of her earliest letters from Heidelberg was to her old master John Sinapi. "My husband," she writes, "is preparing for his public lectures. I have been excessively busy all day in buying household gear, that we may be able to get into our new house." Emilio too was fully occupied "in domesticis negotiis," assisting his sister in her preparations for recommencing housekeeping, or he would write to his friend Theodora.

Then, from this and other letters of the same time, we find her much troubled on the subject of serving–maids. Ladies suffering from the same vexations in the nineteenth century, may extend their sympathy across the chasm of three hundred years, from poor dear Mrs. Blank in the next street, to poor dear Mrs. Grünthler in her home at Heidelberg. They may, perhaps, find materials for consolation in their torments, from the discovery, that "the pitch to which things have come now–a–days," had been arrived at three centuries ago, by this monotonously trundling world.

[Sidenote: TROUBLES ABOUT SERVANTS.]

"The weakness of my health," she writes to John Sinapi, "has within the last few days compelled me to engage the only woman I have been able to meet with. She asks a golden florin a month, reserving too the right to employ a portion of her time for her own profit. Under the pressure of necessity I have been obliged to submit. But all the wealth of Persia should not induce me to keep her any longer. I throw myself, therefore, on your charity for assistance. Do try, if you can send me a servant of some sort, young or old. I can give her five florins a year."

She had written to our friend Cremer at Schweinfurth to send her a cook, thinking, that many women might be found anxious to obtain some shelter among those unfortunates who had been made destitute and homeless by the destruction of that city;—"ex miseris illis pauperculis et vagis Suinfordiensibus." But another friend, only designated by the initial N.,[128] writes from that misery–stricken place, to say, that he finds it wholly impossible to send her either an old woman, or a girl,—"anum aut ancillam." All at Schweinfurth are either dead or dying. "The mother of your former maid Kungunga would come, but is laid up with fever. Possibly she may come, should she recover."

We find our old acquaintance Barbara come to the surface again, after the cataclysm which had submerged so much that was more valuable. Barbara was willing to return to her old mistress; but then those intolerable "mores" do not seem to have been mended by all that had come and gone since the quiet Schweinfurth days. And this proposal, even in Olympia's pressing need, seems to have been rejected. Though, as she writes to Andreas Campanus, the schoolmaster at Mossbach, she would rather be her own maid, than put up with any such as were to be found at Heidelberg.

Are there no ladies recently come from their virtuous shires to establish a home in the great Babylon, who can sympathise with her? Heidelberg was the seat of a brilliant court, and a large university. And, doubtless, the abigails partook of the vices and corruptions incidental to both these phases of social life. The good "ludimagister" of Mossbach would have sent Olympia his own maid under escort of the postman, "cum tabellario," but that she too was down with sickness, as indeed were also all the family of poor Andreas.

So difficult a matter was it to come by an eligible maid–of–all–work in the year 1554! These domestic perplexities will, no doubt, be to readers of her own sex, the one touch of nature that makes all the world akin. But it may seem strange to them that Mrs. Grünthler ("Domina Grünthlera," as friend N. at Schweinfurth, writing on these household matters, alone of all her other correspondents, addresses her) did not communicate with other mistresses of families on such matters, instead of always with the gentlemen. It must be remembered, however, that Olympia understood no German, and the ladies around her no Latin. Unlike her friend Francisca, John Sinapi's Italian wife, she had never thought it worth her while to acquire the language of her adopted country; betraying, one might fancy, thereby, some little pedantic affectation of classicality, the lees of the old Grecian–virgin nature. The result was, that when she wanted to speak of the price of a gown, she had to talk unintelligible stuff about "sestercium nummorum;" and when she wanted a maid, could only seek assistance from bearded doctors as classical as herself.

[Sidenote: HER CHARITY.]

Still, let any reader of an un–hero–worshipping turn of mind take notice, that our Olympia is no subject for quizzing of his, on the score of any such little eccentricity of the spectacled Minerva kind. A passage in the letter of N. of Schweinfurth proves,[129] that the difficulties of her ciceronian idiom did not prevent her from visiting, and with her small means comforting the misery in the poor–house at Schweinfurth, during those fearful days, when every man's thought was for himself; though she _did_ call the place a "Zenodochia." And when the "res angusta domi" was pressing her so hard, that Grünthler had to borrow money to meet the expenses of their first establishment at Heidelberg, she still found means to think of the poor she had left in miserable Schweinfurth. "If there is anyone in your neighbourhood," writes poor Grünthler to his friend the schoolmaster at Mossbach, "who could lend me twenty golden florins, I would send him a gold chain as a security, and would name a day for the repayment of the loan." Yet it is about the same time that "N." writes to say, that the poor she used to care for, had been all dispersed at the time of the sack and burning of the city, and it was impossible to know what had become of them. But he promises that the money sent shall be distributed in charity according to her wish.

Yet despite small means, past losses, and domestic troubles, a happy career of usefulness and honour might still have been before Grünthler and his highly gifted wife, if only the latter had retained sufficient vital force to have rallied from the Schweinfurth miseries. But the physician had the infinite pain of seeing her fade and perish daily, amid the manifold manifestations of the high place she occupied in the esteem and regard of her contemporaries.

The Elector, failing in his wish that she should reflect a lustre on his University by occupying one of its chairs, had wished to attach her to his court, as lady of honour to the Electress. But Olympia had had enough of courts! In a letter written in the year 1554 to her old friend and playmate Anne of Este, then Duchess of Guise, after regretting their total and inevitable separation, and wishing that she could be near her, she adds; "Not that I would again pass my life in a court; for I might have done so here had I wished it."

The same feeling is expressed in a letter to John Sinapi, written during the first days of her residence at Heidelberg. He had proposed again confiding his daughter Theodora to her care. Her presence will be in every respect agreeable, Olympia replies. Send her at once, but not with any idea of her frequenting the court; "for I purpose spending my days far from courts." But she will do all she can for her; will take her sometimes to the Countess of Erbach, where she may become acquainted with the three charming daughters of that excellent woman. She must bring her bed with her, "for we are unable at present to buy more beds, and they are extremely dear here." ... "Salute from me all your family, and the licentiate Faius, _if he has ceased to be a monk_."

In another letter to Chilian Sinapi, written about the same time, she regrets her inability to give assistance to some persons whom he had recommended to her. She had already charged herself with the keep of some utterly destitute poor; would fain do so for all the ruined unfortunates of Schweinfurth, were it possible. Poor Andreas Rosarius, the schoolmaster, had written to her too to say, that he was in great distress, and asked her whether there would be any chance of his finding any lessons in Heidelberg. But Olympia could give him no encouragement. There was no opening for a teacher in Heidelberg. It would seem that "professions were too full" in the world before the nineteenth century, as well as servants troublesome.

[Sidenote: HER RELIGIOUS LETTERS.]

These letters, from which a stray fragment of biographical interest has been gathered here and there, are mainly filled with fervent religious exhortations, conceived in a spirit that can leave no doubt of the heartfelt sincerity of the writer. They are for the most part free from any advocacy of the more revolting doctrines of Calvinism, and insist chiefly on the vanity of earthly interests, hopes, and pleasures, and the necessity of God's free grace, to enable us to choose the better path. Those especially to her sister, to Lavinia della Rovere, and to Anna d'Este, are long, urgent, and affectionate exhortations to hold all things nought for Christ's sake. They may be found at length, translated into French, in M. Bonnet's work. But it has seemed to me unnecessary to occupy the present pages with any specimen of these writings, inasmuch as any page of them, divested of the names of persons and places, which mark their authorship, would be absolutely undistinguishable from many millions of pages which have been, and are still being, written and printed on the same subjects. It may be remarked, however, that the manner is more that of the evangelical writers of the nineteenth than of the seventeenth century. It is wholly undisfigured by the undue familiarity, low imagery, and grotesque phraseology, which often marked the efforts of writers determined at any cost to rouse, at least, the attention of their readers, if they could not carry with them their intelligence.

As her health declined rapidly, she felt, and frequently expressed, that desire to quit this world and its toils, and to be at rest with God, which is deemed by religionists of the kind called evangelical, to be the most sure and satisfactory indication of a healthy and desirable condition of soul. Thinkers of a different class see only a proof of failing bodily powers in those manifestations, which, to the former, are assurances of increasing spiritual vigour. They find it quite in accordance with all the recognisable operations of the Creator, that in well–regulated minds the desire to live should become weakened, together with the physical incapacity for life; but wholly out of all analogy with His government of the world, that man's highest spiritual excellence should coincide with, or even be compatible with, a diseased condition of the machine, by means of which the spirit has to act and develop itself; and still more, if possible, inconsistent with the ways of God to man, that man's highest state of efficiency for duty should be specially marked by his desire to leave the scene of it.

Olympia's willingness to die, normally and mercifully (a tautological expression!) accompanied the increasing certainty that she could not live. It is true, that the world around her, in all that most nearly touched her affections, hopes, and fears, was becoming from day to day more cheerless and distasteful to her. The prospects of the Reformers were every where becoming more and more gloomy. Already internal schism was vexing Rome's schismatics!

[Sidenote: PERSECUTION INCREASES.]

"I am not ignorant,"[130] writes Olympia to Vergerius, "that a great controversy about the sacrament has arisen among the reformed. But this would easily have been put an end to before this, if men would think less of their own glory, and more of that of Christ, and the safety of his Church." Pope Paul IV. would have re–echoed the sentiment with most entire approbation!

Then, again, tidings of increasing persecution were coming in from all parts. In England, Mary had succeeded to the throne. And Olympia hears that Bernardino Ochino, of Siena, has been obliged to fly thence, and take refuge at Geneva. From France the news was even worse and worse. From Italy it was to Olympia the worst of all.

"My last letters from Italy," she writes to Chilian Sinapi,[131] "bring me the sad news that the Christians at Ferrara—(this is not the only passage of Olympia's writings in which she, by implication, denies that the Romanists are Christians)—are suffering from the most cruel persecution. The great and the little are equally exposed to suffering for conscience' sake. Some are loaded with chains. Some are condemned to exile. A remnant find their safety in flight. My mother has continued firm amid the storm. All honour be to God therefor. I entreat her to come out from that Babylon with my sisters, and to join me in this country."

To complete the gloom of the material horizon around her, pestilence broke out in Heidelberg in the early summer of 1555. And once again it became the physician's duty to be found in the van of the battle against it. Yet it was hard to be called on to leave the bedside of his now evidently dying wife, at every daily and nightly call. But he was strengthened in the path of his duty by the exhortations of Olympia.

Bad news also came from Curione. Both he and his daughter were struck down by illness. He recovered shortly, however; and it would be strange, if the inconsistency were not generic rather than peculiar to Olympia, to observe, that she, who welcomed death as a spiritual blessing to herself, and deemed her so welcoming it to be a mark of spiritual grace, "wept with joy at hearing that her friend had been snatched from the tomb."

In the same letter[132] she writes: "As for me, my dear Celio, I must tell you that it is hardly probable that I should survive much longer. Medical treatment can do nothing for me. Each day and hour my friends see me perishing from before them. This letter is in all likelihood the last you will ever receive from me. My body and my strength are worn out. I have no appetite; and I am constantly, night and day, threatened with suffocation by my cough. A burning fever consumes me; and pain in every part of my body takes away the possibility of sleep. There is nothing further for me but to breathe my last sigh. But up to that last sigh I shall not forget those whom I have loved. Do not let the news of my death afflict you. I know that the reward of the just is reserved for me; and I long to quit this life to be with Jesus Christ."

[Sidenote: HER LAST HOURS.]

A letter from Grünthler[133] to Curione, gives a detailed account of her last hours.

"A short time before her end," he writes, "she waked from a short sleep, and smiled, as if moved by some pleasing thought. Hanging over her, I asked the cause of this sweet expression. 'I saw in my dream,' she said, 'a place illumined with the most brilliant and pure light.'—(She had lucidity and clear honesty enough to distinguish between 'dream' and 'vision.')—Her extreme weakness did not permit her to say more. I said 'Courage, my best beloved! Very soon you will be living amid that pure light.' She smiled again, and made a slight sign of assent. A little afterwards, she said, 'I am happy, perfectly happy;' and ceased speaking, just as her sight began to fail. 'I can scarcely see you, my loved ones,' she said; 'but all round me there seem to be beautiful flowers.' Those were her last words. An instant afterwards she seemed to fall asleep, and breathed her last."

She died, the same letter tells us, at four in the afternoon of the 26th of October, 1555; having not completed her twenty–ninth year.

Grünthler felt his loss to be the loss of all that made life desirable to him. But he had not to endure it long. The pestilence continued to decimate Heidelberg. The University was deserted; and the town was half emptied by death and by the flight of all who could escape. But the bereaved physician had no motive to shun the pestilence, even if his duty had not been to remain in the midst of it. He continued some two months at his post after the death of his wife, was then struck down by the sickness, and so followed her.

The boy Emilio, now in his thirteenth year, thus left alone in the plague–stricken city, must in all probability have taken the infection from his brother–in–law; for he also died within a few days.

All three were buried in a chapel of the Church of St. Peter at Heidelberg, at the expense of a French professor in the University, one Guillaume Rascalon; where the following inscription, recently restored, M. Bonnet says, may yet be read:—

"Deo Inmortali Sacrum et virtuti ac memoriæ Olympiæ Moratæ, Fulvii Morati Mantuani viri doctissimi, filiæ, Andreæ Grünthleri medici conjugis; lectissimæ feminæ, cujus ingenium ac singularis utriusque linguæ cognitio, in moribus autem probitas, summumque pietatis studium, supra communem modum semper existimata sunt. Quod de ejus vita hominum judicium, beata mors sanctissime ac pacatissime ab ea obita, divino quoque confirmavit testimonio. Obiit, mutato solo, a salute DLV supra mille, suæ ætatis XXIX. Hic cum marito et Emilio fratre sepulta."

The citizens of Schweinfurth resolved that the house Olympia had inhabited among them should be rebuilt at the public cost, and marked out to the respect of future generations by an inscription commemorative of her having dwelt on that spot. The inscription is indicative of the high esteem of the worthy burghers for their celebrated fellow–citizen, rather than of any æsthetic appreciation of her productions. For the hexameters and pentameters into which Schweinfurth has painfully packed its sentiments, are of a kind to make the classical ghost of Olympia shudder, if that erudite and gentle spirit may be supposed to have cognisance of them.

[Sidenote: HER HIGH REPUTE.]

Olympia Morata had in the course of this short life acquired a high European reputation. The loving care of Celio Curione, the editor of her works, has collected and appended to them, after the fashion of that day, an abundant selection of the "favourable notices" of her learned contemporaries. And M. Bonnet has gathered some further testimonies to the same effect. Many pages might be filled with the laudatory sayings of these high authorities. But it will probably be thought sufficient to state that the "eruditorum testimonia" do certainly prove that Olympia was very highly esteemed by the contemporary literary world of Europe. The most compendious and undeniable evidence of this may be found moreover in the fact, that four editions of her works were printed within twenty–five years after her death.[134]

To the present writer's thinking, the greatness of this reputation must appear to us of the nineteenth century a noticeable indication of a past and gone phase of literary history, rather than as a result that we should have anticipated from an examination of the works in question. In Curione's dedication of the volume to Queen Elizabeth, he says; "This book will prove the marvellous knowledge of Olympia, her zeal for religion, her patience under severe trials, and her unshakeable constancy in adversity." Understanding "marvellous knowledge" to mean very remarkable accuracy of classical scholarship, it is true, that the book _does_ prove all this. And there is every reason to think that nothing more would be proved if we were in possession of those other writings whose loss Curione and M. Bonnet deplore. "She had composed," her old friend goes on to say in his dedication, "many other writings which should have perpetuated the fame of her faith and her talents, but which perished in the destruction of her adopted country. That which remains will suffice to give you an idea of that which has been lost." In another passage of the dedication he tells us what these were.

"She had written observations on Homer; she had composed with great elegance many verses, especially on divine themes; and certain dialogues, both Latin and Greek had been elaborated by her with such a perfection of imitation of Plato and Cicero, that not Zoilus himself could have found any fault in them."

There is no reason to doubt that, as Curione says, the remaining writings give a very sufficient idea of those which have perished; and as little to question the very remarkable skill in classical imitation which marked them.

Nevertheless, the world will hardly be persuaded that it has sustained any loss by the destruction of these once so much prized manuscripts. The loss of the letters, which form the bulk of the volume that good Curione's care has given us, would have been more regrettable. These have still an historical interest, as contributing many graphic touches to the picture we are able to form for ourselves, of that complex, seething, labouring time. It may be added, that they offer also an ethical delineation which the world has still a use for. These letters _do_, as Curione says, show a lively picture of the writer's "zeal for religion, patience under trial, and unshakeable constancy in adversity;" one of these pictures which the world cannot wisely allow to be effaced.

[Sidene: HER CLASSICAL SKILL.]

But it was not the manifestation of these fine qualities which obtained for Olympia that great reputation among her contemporaries which is itself an historical phenomenon of no slight importance. It was not her patience under trial, and constancy in adversity, that caused Europe so to ring with her name that the echo of it has reached these days. Fine and noble things as these are, the world has at no time been so poor in them, as not to have possessed many noteworthy examples of them, which fame has had no time to note. Olympia's reputation was due to her learning, exclusive, be it observed, of any of the affectionate sympathy with which she was regarded by her co–religionists on account of her steady adherence to her religious convictions. For Tiraboschi, Quadrio, and other Romanist writers, while lamenting her heresy, speak as warmly as any of her literary merits. Her fame was the reward of such skilful "perfection in the imitation of Cicero and Plato, that not even Zoilus could pick out a fault in her compositions." Many a scholar of mature age enjoyed the respect of his contemporaries in that century, in virtue of a life spent in obtaining that proficiency of which Olympia was mistress in her teens. And though such an amount of admiration for scholarship must seem strange and excessive to an age which considers similar proficiency in young gentlemen in their teens quite sufficiently rewarded by the presentation of a handsomely bound volume with some school–founder's arms stamped in gold on the side; still it must be borne in mind, that the difficulties overcome by the sixteenth century young lady were of a very far more formidable kind, than those, which lie in the way of the nineteenth century young gentleman. Corrupt texts, and scarcity of them, inexperienced and but partially competent teachers, unsettled and very little understood principles of exegesis and criticism, the absence of all that luxury of philological apparatus, which waits on the modern scholar, made the path of the medieval explorers into the jungle of the ancient literature, a very different thing from that of the traveller along its roads, cleared and embellished by the assiduous labour of three hundred years.

Much indefatigable industry, many long and weary hours passed in bending over books, while others were spending youthful hours in youthful enjoyments, and very considerable aptitude for appreciating the beauties, analogies, and delicacies of language, must have gone to the acquirement of that amount of scholarship which Olympia possessed at sixteen. But the same amount of industry and talent expended on any other subject would not have produced any such meed of enthusiastic admiration. And the position she occupied in her own day, must be considered as a curious indication of the avidity with which the cultivated minds of Europe seized on the new field opened to them, and seemed to think that it might be made to yield all that the human intelligence was then thirsting for.

But Olympia's classical successes, her Greek psalms, her Platonic dialogues, and her Ciceronian Latin, would not have made her more to the nineteenth century than one of the remarkable figures in the great picture of her time, worth preserving the outline of for the sake of the completeness of the general representation. And in truth she is something more than this;—something more interesting to us, as a "representative woman," than a miracle of scholarly learning, an example of adversity nobly endured, or even a sufferer for conscience' sake.

[Sidenote: NOT SPOILED BY LEARNING.]

The especial interest of Olympia Morata's story lies, for us, in the very remarkable contradiction it gives to the theories of those who object to learnedly—or as the habits of our time unfortunately make it correct to say—masculinely educated women. If ever there was a case in which adventitious circumstances contributed to bring about a result which would have furnished a moral on the other side of the question, it was that of Olympia. The advocates of the knitting needle and Lindley Murray may well have thought that the case was going all their own way, when that Greek verse exultation over abandoned feminalities was declaimed to an applauding court circle. Learning surely never had better vantage ground for effecting the mischief dreaded from it.

Yet how closely within call the while was all that is most valuable and womanly in woman! How promptly it was all forthcoming at the first touch of softening sorrow, or the first awakening thrill of maidenly love—those master agents in completing and perfecting woman's moral nature! Did Olympia's learning make her a less loving, or even a less housewifely wife? Did her competency to correspond with the scholars of Europe render her less capable of gaining the affection of friends of her own sex? Her Homeric studies did not keep her from visiting the poor in the plague–stricken poor–house of Schweinfurth; or detain her from her solitary watch by her sick husband's bedside. No Ciceronian paradoxes were running in her head when all her energies had to be devoted to the reconstructing her own and her husband's home in a strange city; nor did love of study make her forget that "a household was sure to go wrong when the mistress's back was turned."

Vittoria Colonna was learned, and a good womanly woman to boot, though she was far less learned, and of far shallower moral nature than Olympia. But then Vittoria was a princess, and therefore much less to the purpose as a sample of the compatibility of high education and intellectual pursuits, with the exemplary discharge of all a woman's ordinary duties. Olympia was the wife of a poor man, and one struggling with difficulties of no ordinary kind. Yet it would be difficult to imagine for him a fitter, more helpful, or more wifely helpmate than Andreas Grünthler found in his reclaimed "Grecian virgin."

ISABELLA ANDREINI.

(1562.–1604.)

Italian love for the theatre.—Italian dramatic literature.—Tragedy.—Comedy.—Tiraboschi's notion of it.—Macchiavelli's Mandragola.—Isabella's high standing among her contemporaries.—Her husband.—Her high character.—Death and epitaph.—Her writings.—Nature and value of histrionic art.

Isabella Andreini, say her Italian biographers,[135] was one of the greatest actresses who ever lived. She was also a writer of dramatic and other works, much esteemed by her contemporaries.

She was born in 1562, two years before the birth of Shakspeare; and was therefore delighting the courts of Italy and France at the same time that he was catering for the amusement of a more mixed audience at the Globe. It is true that Shakspeare is ... Shakspeare, by virtue of his creative genius, and not of his histrionic talent; while Isabella owed the larger portion of her fame to the latter source. Besides, it would be of course unjust to the Italian actress, as well as preposterous, to dream of instituting any comparison between her and nature's unique master–piece; though her reputation among her contemporaries was probably greater and more noisy than any which testified that the England of Elizabeth's time had a suspicion that a poet for all time had been born among them.

No such comparison is meant even to be hinted. But the contemporaneousness of the English and Italian dramatic artist suggests an inquiry into the materials with which the latter had to work.

We know what quality of dramatic literature was provided for the actors who plied their calling at the Globe and the Bankside. And it is certain that no one of them has left that histrionic reputation among us which Isabella Andreini has left in Italy.

With this in one's mind, then, one is surprised to find at the first glance that Italian literature in its Augustan age was especially weak in the department of the drama. Quite the reverse might have been anticipated from the national characteristics. No people are at the present day more passionately fond of theatrical representation. The theatre is with them almost a necessary of life to all classes of citizens, and takes rank among the articles of an Italian's budget, if not absolutely side by side with sufficient food, yet in very many cases, immediately after it, and always has precedence of very many matters that with us would be considered necessaries. And the impressionable nature of the people makes this very intelligible. Every Italian is an actor more or less,—has a natural talent for "externating" the feelings that are in him, to use a very expressive Italian phrase,—a talent that Englishmen are perhaps more deficient in than any other people under the sun. To us how often is it distasteful, how often impossible to "externare,"—to make outwardly manifest—that which is inside us. How frequently is the act of another doing so revolting to us; especially in matters which touch the deeper and more powerful sentiments of the heart! To an Italian it is never either difficult or distasteful in real life; and he is ever ready to sympathise with and be pleased by a very moderate amount of histrionic skill on the stage.

[Sidenote: ITALIAN DRAMATIC LITERATURE.]

It might naturally be expected that the dramatic literature of a people so constituted would be a prominent feature in the intellectual produce of the national mind at its period of greatest vigour; and would have exercised a notable influence in the moulding and fashioning its habits of thought and turns of expression. Such is, however, far from being the case. The poets, the novelists, the historians, the moralists of Italy in the sixteenth century time of its high tide, have all left their marks deeply and visibly enough stamped on the national character, while that of the dramatists of the same period is barely, if at all, perceptible.

It needs but a cursory examination of the Italian drama of the sixteenth century, to remove all wonder that its authors should have exercised no such influence. The wonder is, that when literature in its other branches was so vigorous and full of sap, drama should have been so sapless and of such little worth. From the earliest years of the sixteenth century there was no lack of either tragedies or comedies in Italy. But the mention of them and their authors would be little more for the most part than a roll–call of names forgotten, at least on our side of the Alps, and destined never more to be remembered.

Tragedy was paralysed by the influence of the Greek models, which the sixteenth century writers made it their chief aim to copy. The servility of imitation, which was pernicious in every department of literature, was fatal to that, which above all others needs to be the expression of life, when it strove to force it into the forms of a social existence long since dead. A very cursory examination of the "Sophonisba" of Trissino, of the "Rosmonda" and the "Orestes" of Rucellai, or of the more celebrated "Canacci" of Speroni—works which attained a higher celebrity in their time than most of their contemporaries or followers—will be sufficient to show why such productions could never be to the Italians what the Elizabethan dramatic literature has been to us.

As to comedy, Tiraboschi[136] complains that the comic writers and actors of that period "strove to obtain that applause which they had no hope of so easily gaining in any other way, by a brazen–faced impudence of words, gestures, and action; so that in those free and dissolute times, it was too much the case that a comedy was the more applauded the more filthy it was." And Giglio Gregorio Giraldi (Olympia Morata's gouty old friend) exclaims in one of his dialogues:[137] "O tempora! O mores! Every abomination is again reproduced upon the stage. Everywhere stories are represented, which the general feeling of the Christian world had rejected, banished, and abolished. And these are now recalled and placed upon the stage by prelates and bishops, not to speak of princes!" But a more cogent reason why these indecent productions, as well as those not deserving of condemnation on this ground, could never have taken any real hold on the national mind, may be found in worthy Tiraboschi's notion of what was necessary to make such works all that could be wished.

[Sidenote: ITALIAN NOTION OF COMEDY.]

"Comedy," says he,[138] "the personages of which are for the most part plebeian, or at least of private station, and the action of which is generally familiar and domestic in its character, is of its own nature low and trivial. And if it is not sustained by a certain elegance of style—which is all the more difficult to attain, in that it must be natural—and by an ingenious, and at the same time probable plot, abounding in movement and surprising turns, it altogether falls to earth; and it is almost impossible to endure either the representation or the perusal of it."

The learned historian of Italian literature does not seem to have the remotest suspicion, that a large and deep knowledge of human nature, that the wide and penetrating observation of its similitudes and dissimilitudes, its contrasts, inconsistencies, and analogies, which supply wit with its material, and the genial power of sympathising with its thousand moods, which generates humour, may be either necessary or desirable to a comic writer. If Tiraboschi may be accepted as spokesman for his countrymen in this matter, we have an abundantly sufficient explanation of the small share, which the Muses of the sock and buskin have had in forming that portion of the national mind which takes its shape from the national literature, and to which their sisters of the Nine have notably contributed.

But even comedy, though not in the same degree as tragedy, laboured under the additional disqualification inflicted on it by the prevailing mania for classical imitation. In this case the model worked from was Latin instead of Greek, and generally rather Plautus than Terence. An instance worthy of note may be cited in the "Sporta" or "Money–bag" of Giambattista Gelli, the celebrated Florentine shoemaker, who became Consul of the Academy of Florence. In the prologue to this comedy he urges, in excuse for all shortcomings, that "it is surely a wonder that he has accomplished so much, having all day long to ply scissors and needle, which, womanly tools though they be, were never, as far as his reading tells him, taken in hand by the Muses." Here we have a man of the people, from whom some original conceptions drawn from native popular life might have been expected. But the shoemaker was as classical as his superiors; and his "Sporta" is little more than a disguisement of Plautus in Florentine costume.

Macchiavelli's well known comedy, the "Mandragola," is the most notable exception to what has been said of the plays of Isabella Andreini's day. A genuine type of character altogether belonging to his own time, and full of the elements of high comedy, was embodied in Frà Timoteo, the tartuffe monk, by the daring Secretary. But it is an exception, which but proves the rule.

What then are the sort of characters, in which we are to suppose that Isabella produced an effect so extraordinary? The testimonies of the extent of her power over her audiences are abundant. Padua, her native city, enrolled her at an early age in the list of the "Intenti" academicians. Among these "Intent" votaries of literature, her nickname, according to the puerile practice of such bodies, was "l'Accesa"—"the Inflamed one." The company of comedians, to which she, and her husband Francesco Andreini, also an actor and writer, belonged, were called the "Gelosi"—"Jealous ones." So that Isabella's full style and titles, as they stand in the title pages of her works, run thus; "Isabella Andreini, Comica Gelosa, Accademica Intenta, detta l'Accesa."

[Sidenote: IN FRANCE.]

Her son, Giovanni Battista Andreini, himself an actor and voluminous play–wright, has collected an entire volume entitled "Apollo's Lament," composed of the pieces of poetry by his mother's contemporaries, written in her praise. Another numerous selection of such tributes from most of the leading literary men and women of that day written on the occasion of her death, is prefixed to a volume of her poetry, printed at Milan in 1605.

Having acted with the greatest applause before most of the Italian courts, we find that she passed with her husband's company of players into France, where the "Gelosi" enjoyed under the patronage of the French court a very high reputation, until Isabella's death deprived them of their principal support and attraction. A letter from Henry IV. is recorded,[139] in which he addresses her in the most flattering and at the same time respectful terms.

A fine medal, not unfrequently met with in the cabinets of collectors, was struck in her honour, having on the obverse her portrait, with the words "D. Isabella Andreini, C. G."—_Comica Gelosa_, that is to say; and on the reverse a full length figure of Fame with the legend "Æterna fama."

The celebrated Ericio Puteano wrote the following inscription for her portrait.

"Hanc vides, et hanc audis; Tu disputa, Argus esse malis ut videas An Midas, ut audias. Tantum enim sermonem vultus Quantum sermo vultum commendat; Quorum alterutro æterna esse potuisset, Cum vultum omnibus simulacris emendatiorem Et sermonem omni Suada venustiorem possideat."

"See her, and hear her!" as one may say; "and then doubt, whether you would rather be Argus to see the more, or Midas to hear the more. For face and voice contribute equally to increase the bewitchment of either. Both should have been eternal; for the face was more perfect than any likeness can present it, and the voice sweeter than that of Persuasion's self."

Under another portrait was written; "You admire, reader, this portrait of the histrionic Muse! What would be your feelings, if you could hear her!"

The Cardinal Cinthio Aldobrandini, nephew of Pope Clement VIII., wrote a number of poems in her praise, and dedicated his works to her.

Franciscus Pola of Verona, and Leonardo Tedesco, who wrote himself "physician and philosopher," made Anagrams on her name, one discovering that she was "Alia blanda sirena;" and the other questioning whether she were "lira ne, an labris Dea." A panel was painted with Isabella on one side and Pallas on the other; and of course the wits discovered in verses more complimentary to Isabella than to Minerva, that

"Utraque est Pallas, atq. Isabella utraque est."

Torquato Tasso wrote a sonnet on her; Charles Emanuel of Savoy, admired and patronised her; and she was generally spoken of as "Decoro delle Muse;" and "Ornamento dei Teatri." Ventura of Bergamo in a dedicatory letter declares that she "joined beauty to propriety, freedom to modesty, excellent speech with virtuous deeds, lofty intelligence with affable manners, and in short all that is most charming to all that is most solid." Of Italy she was, he says, "nothing less than the absolute queen, seeing that she was the mistress (in no ill sense, _padrona_) of the princes who ruled it." He adds that "the olive of Pallas was on her lips, in her face the gardens of Adonis, in her bosom the banquet of the Gods, around her waist the girdle of Venus, in her arms chaste love and the celestial Venus. So that one must conclude," says this moderate gentleman, that "she was the most choice product of all that the past had brought forth, or the present was blessed with."

[Sidenote: HER HUSBAND.]

But what is more satisfactory and remarkable is, that Isabella's husband entertained as high an idea of her merits as the rest of the world, and when he lost her, was inconsolable. This Francesco Andreini must have been a remarkable man in his profession himself. He understood the French, Spanish, Polish, Greek, and Turkish languages; and was the author of various plays, dialogues, &c. His professional nickname was "Il Capitano Spavento," Captain Terror; and his favourite parts, we are told, were swaggering and braggadocio swashbucklers. But poor Capitano Spavento had no more heart for the business after he had lost his Isabella. His occupation was gone; and the stage became distasteful to him. The troop of the "Gelosi," went to the dogs, and he took to writing instead of acting. In the preface to one of his books he says; "after the death of my dearly loved wife Isabella, I was advised by many of my friends to write and publish something that I might preserve my name from oblivion, and might worthily follow in the honoured steps of my wife."

All this gifted woman's contemporaries are unanimous in testifying to her perfect propriety of conduct. In an age when the relaxation of morals was extreme and general, when princesses led the lives of courtesans, when nunneries were scenes of disorder, and princes of the church were noticeable among other princes for greater dissoluteness, this beautiful and universally flattered and courted actress won her way through all the difficulties, dangers, and snares that must have beset her path, without a stain on her character. We know that much of what she must have been obliged to touch, was pitch; and yet she remained undefiled. Mazzuchelli writes; "what was most remarkable in her was, that in a profession universally judged to be dangerous to female honour, she joined to a rare beauty, the most perfect correctness, and a most blameless life." And he adds, oddly enough, "the value of these good gifts was increased by her skill in singing, and music, and by her knowledge of Spanish!"

On the 10th of June, 1604, Isabella died in childbirth at Lyons, in the forty–second year of her age, and was buried by the municipality of that city with much pomp, and all sorts of honours. Her husband placed the following inscription over her tomb.

D. O. M.

"Isabella Andreina, Patavina, Mulier magnâ virtute prædita, Honestatis Ornamentum, maritalisque Pudicitiæ Decus, Ore facunda, Mente fœcunda, religiosa, pia, Musis amica, et Artis scenicæ Caput, hic Resurrectionem expectat. Ob Obortum obiit iv. Idus Junii, MDCIV. annum agens XLII. Franciscus Andreinus Conjux mœstissimus posuit."

In English, freely rendered—

"Isabella Andreini, of Padua, a most highly gifted woman, the Soul of Honour, a model of conjugal chastity, eloquent of tongue, fertile of genius, religious, pious, beloved by the Muses, and a most distinguished member of the histrionic profession, here awaits her Resurrection. She died from a miscarriage on the 10th of June, 1604, in the 42nd year of her age. Francesco Andreini, her deeply afflicted husband, placed this monument."

[Sidenote: CHURCH BIGOTRY.]

Bayle remarks on the close juxtaposition of the statement of her profession, and her expectation of resurrection; and observes that the circumstance may serve to prove, that the severity of the Church on the subject of the sepulture of comedians had been much exaggerated. But it would be more correct to say, that it proves the action of the Church in carrying out its views and principles to have been fitful, irregular, and subordinated to circumstances, as it in truth ever has been. In the long, ceaseless battle of the Church through century after century, against all that is not–church, it has always known how to retire temporarily from a point likely to be too hotly contested, without by any means abandoning the hope of reconquering the ground at a more favourable moment. Always pushing on the advanced posts of its pretentions in accurate correspondence with the amount of resistance it has been met by, the polemical battle–front which it has shown to its enemies from Pekin to Peru, has never been straight drawn by the rule of immutable principles, but ever a wavy line, with undulations constantly in movement. And the startling fact that at Lyons, in the year 1604, Isabella Andreini, avowing her calling, was at the same time permitted to assert publicly, that she hoped for resurrection to life eternal, shows only, that so audacious a solecism was overlooked, because her standing in the public esteem, and the mood of the Lyons world at the moment, made it unwise to select that occasion for asserting the ecclesiastical claims.

Isabella's published works consist of a pastoral drama called "Mirtilla," written when she was very young, and of which she herself speaks slightingly at a later period of her life;—a volume of poems, some of which are declared by Italian critics to have much merit;—a collection of "Letters," (not real correspondence, unfortunately, but essays written for the press);—and lastly, some dialogues collected, as the title–page tells us, by "Francesco Andreini, comico geloso, detto il Capitano Spavento."

In a dedication of the "Letters" to the Duke of Savoy, she says, that they are the fruit of long vigils, and of hours snatched with difficulty from the avocations of her most laborious profession, and that her object in the composition of them was, as far as in her lay, to preserve her name from oblivion after death. With this view she has written some hundred and fifty little treatises on such subjects as "The force of friendship," "Of the constancy of women," "Lovers' prayers," "Prayers of an honourable lover," "Of jealousy," "Of marriage," "Of love and war," "Of lovers' suspicions," and the like.

Poor Isabella! How desperately she must have struggled during those long night hours, after the labours of the day, against weariness and want of rest, as she toiled on in pursuit of immortal fame!

A given number of hours on the treadmill would probably be deemed by most extant men far more endurable, than a similar number spent in reading the pages thus industriously put together. Nevertheless, if these sentences can help her on for a year or two more in her fight against oblivion, she is heartily welcome to the lift.

[Sidenote: HER IMMORTALITY.]

The dialogues are on similar themes, and of exactly similar quality. I have read one (being probably the only living man who has done so), between Palamedes and Cleopatra, entitled, "An amorous dispute respecting a fainting fit caused by love." It is truly wonderful to consider, that human beings, with minds similarly constituted to our own, did read these writings with admiration and delight! And when one looks on the long, long road that human intellect must have travelled over, since that was possible, one cannot but reflect on the probability, that a yet more extended career must lie before it.

These are the means by which the beautiful Isabella Andreini sought to "avoid death," as she phrases it in one of her prefaces, and to live in the memory of mankind; means which have been successful, so far as to insure the registering of her name in the folio pages of those gatherers of literary crumbs, who have been more abundant in Italy than in any other country.

But it is evident that in the day when she was really famous, her fame was that of a great actress. Of all the modes by which one mind may influence its fellows and obtain their admiration, it has been said that that of the histrionic artist is, from its nature, necessarily the most evanescent and perishable. The poet's song, the sculptor's statue, the architect's building, the historian's history, the painter's picture, remain to us, and their authors "being dead, yet speak" to after generations. But the actor, whose immediate power over his public is more intense, perhaps, than that of any of these! His triumphs, however much involving the necessity of intellectual power, having been achieved by means of a perishable machine, are condemned to be equally mortal. The only manner in which some memory of his power, and some conception of its working may be retained in the minds of men, is by attaching his name to that of the characters he has represented. It is thus that the great names of our own dramatic annals have still a real meaning and significance.

But Isabella Andreini has left us no such memorial. Of all the very numerous contemporaries who speak in rapture of her performances, not one has recorded a single hint as to the characters in which she enchanted them. The omission seems a most singular one, and can be accounted for on no other supposition, than that the written words which the actress was to speak were considered a comparatively insignificant part of her performance: and the nature of the praises lavished on her acting seem to point to the same conclusion. We hear much of voice, action, grace, and charm of elocution, but nothing of those higher matters of histrionic art which raise it to the level of an intellectual profession. Nothing is said of the effect produced on the minds of the audience, nothing of conception and interpretation of character, nothing of empire over the sources of smiles and tears.

And these facts seem to furnish an explanation of the difficulty of accounting for a great dramatic reputation, at a time when dramatic literature was such as has been described.

[Sidenote: TASSO'S AMINTA.]

There was indeed one form of dramatic composition, not properly to be classed with either tragedy or comedy, that has not been mentioned. These were the pastoral pieces, "favole boschereccie," poems rather than dramas, of which Tasso's "Aminta" is the great example, and to which Isabella's own "Mirtilla" also belonged. From the circumstance of her having herself written in that style, and more still from the high place which the "Aminta" occupied in the public favour, it may be deemed almost certain that the leading actress of the day must have appeared in the part of Silvia. The superiority of this charming little gem of Tasso's to the generality of the contemporary dramatic writings is very marked. But its charms, its idyllic elegance, its Theophrastic echoes, its melodious verse, are not dramatic charms. And though we may fancy a beautiful woman, mistress of graceful elocution, and skilled in drawing all its music from polished Italian verse, uttering Silvia's disclaimer,

"Pianto d'amor non già, ma di pietade,"

with infinite charm of expression, still, any pleasure to be derived from the stage presentation of such a poem as the "Aminta," and any histrionic excellences to be manifested by the exponents of it, must be deemed to be of a very inferior rank indeed, to aught that modern times have learned to expect from those whom the world now considers great actors. And on the whole, this record of a great Italian actress contemporary with Shakspeare, must be considered to indicate that even if the great master's works be left out of the question as exceptional, drama stood higher, and was more appreciated in the great sixteenth century among the "toto divisos orbe Britannos," than in Italy, the metropolis of literary culture.

BIANCA CAPPELLO.

(1548–1587.)