Chapter 11

Zingarelli, the great musical composer, was another occasional member of this charming society: his wit and repartie are famous, and his bons mots are repeated wherever one runs to. I cannot translate any of them, but will write one down, which will make such of my readers laugh as understand Italian.--The Emperor was at Milan, and asked Zingarelli his opinion of a favourite singer? "_Io penso maestà che non è cattivo suddito del principi,_" replied the master, "_quantunque farà gran nemico di giove._" "How so?" enquired the King.--"_Maestà,_" answered our lively Neapolitan, "_ella sà naturalmente che Giove_ tuona, _ma questo_ stuona." This we see at once was _humour_ not _wit_; and sallies of humour are scarcely ever capable of translation.

An odd thing to which I was this morning witness, has called my thoughts away to a curious train of reflections upon the animal race; and how far they may be made companionable and intelligent. The famous Ferdinand Bertoni, so well known in London by his long residence among us, and from the undisputed merit of his compositions, now inhabits this his native city, and being fond of _dumb creatures_, as we call them, took to petting a pigeon, one of the few animals which can live at Venice, where, as I observed, scarcely any quadrupeds can be admitted, or would exist with any degree of comfort to themselves. This creature has, however, by keeping his master company, I trust, obtained so perfect an ear and taste for music, that no one who sees his behaviour, can doubt for a moment of the pleasure he takes in hearing Mr. Bertoni play and sing: for as soon as he sits down to the instrument, Columbo begins shaking his wings, perches on the piano-forte, and expresses the most indubitable emotions of delight. If however he or any one else strike a note false, or make any kind of discord upon the keys, the dove never fails to shew evident tokens of anger and distress; and if teized too long, grows quite enraged; pecking the offender's legs and fingers in such a manner, as to leave nothing less doubtful than the sincerity of his resentment. Signora Cecilia Giuliani, a scholar of Bertoni's, who has received some overtures from the London theatre lately, will, if she ever arrives there, bear testimony to the truth of an assertion very difficult to believe, and to which I should hardly myself give credit, were I not witness to it every morning that I chuse to call and confirm my own belief. A friend present protested he should feel afraid to touch the harpsichord before so nice a critic; and though we all laughed at the assertion, Bertoni declared he never knew the bird's judgment fail; and that he often kept him out of the room, for fear of his affronting of tormenting those who came to take musical instructions. With regard to other actions of life, I saw nothing particular in the pigeon, but his tameness, and strong attachment to his master: for though never winged, and only clipped a very little, he never seeks to range away from the house or quit his master's service, any more than the dove of Anacreon:

While his better lot bestows Sweet repast and soft repose; And when feast and frolic tire, Drops asleep upon his lyre.

All the difficulty will be indeed for us _other_ two-legged creatures to leave the sweet societies of charming Venice; but they begin to grow fatiguing now, as the weather increases in warmth.

I do think the Turkish sailor gave an admirable account of a carnival, when he told his Mahometan friends at his return, That those poor Christians were all disordered in their senses, and nearly in a state of actual madness, while he remained among them, till one day, on a sudden, they luckily found out a certain grey powder that cured such symptoms; and laying it on their heads one Wednesday morning, the wits of all the inhabitants were happily restored at _a stroke_: the people grew sober, quiet, and composed; and went about their business just like other folks. He meant the ashes strewed on the heads of all one meets in the streets through many a Catholic country; when all masquerading, money-making, &c. subside for forty days, and give, from the force of the contrast, a greater appearance of devotion and decorous behaviour in Venice, than almost any where else during Lent.

I do not for my own part think well of all that violence, that strong light and shadow in matters of religion; which requires rather an even tenour of good works, proceeding from sound faith, than any of these staring testimonials of repentance, as if it were a work to be done _once a year only_. But neither do I think any Christian has a right to condemn another for his opinions or practice; when St. Paul expressly says, that "_One man esteemeth one day above another, another man esteemeth every day alike; let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. But who art thou, that judgest another man's servant[Footnote: Romans, chap. xiv.]?_"

The Venetians, to confess the truth, are not quite so strenuously bent on the unattainable felicity of finding every man in the same mind, as others of the Italians are; and one great reason why they are more gay and less malignant, have fewer strong prejudices than others of their countrymen, is merely because they are happier. Most of the second rank, and I believe _all_ of the first rank among them, have some share in governing the rest; it is therefore necessary to exclude ignorance, and natural to encourage social pleasures. Each individual feels his own importance, and scorns to contribute to the degradation of the whole, by indulging a gross depravity of manners, or at least of principles. Every person listed one degree from the lowest, finds it his interest as well as duty to love his country, and lend his little support to the general fabric of a state they all know how to respect; while the very vulgar willingly perform the condition exacted, and punctually pay obedience for protection. They have an unlimited confidence in their rulers, who live amongst them; and can desire only their utmost good. _How_ they are governed, comes seldom into their heads to enquire; "_Che ne pensa lù_[Footnote: Let _him_ look to that.]," says a low Venetian, if you ask him, and humourously points at a Clarissimo passing by while you talk. They have indeed all the reason to be certain, that where the power is divided among such numbers, one will be sure to counteract another if mischief towards the whole be intended.

Of all aristocracies surely this is the most rationally and happily, as well as most respectably founded; for though one's heart revolts against the names of Baron and Vassal, while the petty tyrants live scattered far from each other, as in Poland, Russia, and many parts of Germany, like lions in the desert, or eagles in the rock, secure in their distance from equals or superiors; yet _here_ at Venice, where every nobleman is a baron, and all together inhabit one city, no subject can suffer from the tyranny of the rest, though all may benefit from the general protection: as each is separately in awe of his neighbour, and desires to secure his client's tenderness by indulgence, instead of wishing to disgust him by oppression: unlike the state so powerfully delineated by our incomparable poet in his Paulina,

Where dwelt in haughty wretchedness a lord, Whose rage was justice, and whose law his word: Who saw unmov'd the vassal perish near, The widow's anguish, and the orphan's tear; Insensible to pity--stern he stood, Like some rude rock amid the Caspian flood, Where shipwreck'd sailors unassisted lie, And as they curse its barren bosom, die.

And it is, I trust, for no deeper reason that the subjects of this republic resident in the capital, are less savage and more happy than those who live upon the Terra Firma; where many outrages are still committed, disgraceful to the state, from the mere facility offenders find, either in escaping to the dominion of other princes, or of finding shelter at home from the madly-bestowed protection these old barons on the Continent cease not yet to give, to ruffians who profess their service, and acknowledge dependence upon _them_. In the _town_, however, little is known of these enormities, and less is talked on; and what information has come to my ears of the murders done at Brescia and Bergamo, was given me at _Milan_; where Blainville's accounts of that country, though written so long ago, did not fail to receive confirmation from the lips of those who knew perfectly well what they were talking about. And I am told that _Labbia_, Giovanni Labbia, the new Podestà sent to Brescia, has worked wonderful reformation among the inhabitants of that territory; where I am ashamed to relate the computation of subjects lost to the state, by being killed in cold blood during the years 1780 and 1781.

The following sonnet, addressed to the new Magistrate, by the elegant and learned Abbé Bettolini, will entertain such of my readers as understand Italian:

No, Brenne, il popol tuo non è spietato, Colpa non è di clima, o fuol nemico: Ma gli inulti delitti, e'l vezzo antico D'impune andar coi ferro e fuoco a lato,

Ira noi finor nudriro un branco irato D'Orsi e di lupi, il malaccorto amico Ti svenava un fellon sgherro mendico, E per cauto timor n'era onorato.

Al primiero spuntar d'un fausto lume Tutto cangiò: curvansi in falci i teh, Mille Pluto perdè vittime usate.

Viva l'Eroe, il comun padre, il nume Gridan le gentè a si bei dì ferbate. E sia ché ardisca dir che siam crudelé.

_Imitation_.

No, Brennus, no longer thy sons shall retain Of their founder ferocious, th'original stain; It cannot be natural cruelty sure, The reproaches for which from all men we endure; Nor climate nor soil shall henceforth bear the blame, 'Tis custom alone, and that custom our shame: While arm'd at all points men were suffer'd to rove, And brandish the steel in defence of their love; What wonder that conduct or caution should fail, And horrid Lycanthropy's terrors prevail? Now justice resumes her insignia, we find New light breaking in on each nebulous mind; While commission'd from Heaven, a parent, a friend Sees our swords at his nod into reaping-hooks bend, And souls snatch'd from death round the hero attend.

From these verses, written by a native of Brescia, one may see how matters stood there very, _very_ little while ago: but here at Venice the people are of a particularly sweet and gentle disposition, good-humoured with each other, and kind to strangers; little disposed to public affrays (which would indeed be punished and put a sudden end to in an instant), nor yet to any secret or hidden treachery. They watch the hour of a Regatta with impatience, to make some merit with the woman of their choice, and boast of their families who have won in the manly contest forty or fifty years ago, perhaps when honoured with the badge and livery of some noble house; for here almost every thing is hereditary, as in England almost every thing is elective; nor had I an idea how much state affairs influence the private life of individuals in a country, till I left trusting to books, and looked a little about me. The low Venetian, however, knows that he works for the commonwealth, and is happy; for things go round, says he, _Il Turco magna St. Marco; St. Marco magna mi, mi magna ti, e ti tu magna un'altro_[S].

[Footnote S: The Turk feeds on St. Mark, St. Mark devours me; I eat thee, neighbour, and thou subsistest on somebody else.]

Apropos to this custom of calling Venice (when they speak of it) San Marco; I heard so comical a story yesterday that I cannot refuse the pleasure of inserting it; and if my readers do not find it as pleasant as I did, they may certainly leave it out, without the smallest prejudice either to the book, the author, or themselves.

The procurator Tron was at Padua, it seems, and had a fancy to drive forward to Vicenza that afternoon, but being particularly fond of a favourite pair of horses which drew his chariot that day, would by no means venture if it happened to rain; and took the trouble to enquire of Abate Toaldo, "Whether he thought such a thing likely to happen, from the appearance of the sky?" The professor, not knowing why the question was asked, said, "he rather thought it would _not_ rain for four hours at most." In consequence of this information our senator ordered his equipage directly, got into it, and bid the driver make haste to Vicenza: but before he was half-way on his journey, such torrents came down from a black cloud that burst directly over their heads, that his horses were drenched in wet, and their mortified master turned immediately back to Padua, that they might suffer no further inconvenience. To pass away the evening, which he did not mean to have spent there, and to quiet his agitated spirits by thinking on something else, he walked under the Portico to a neighbouring coffee-house, where fate the Abate Toaldo in company of a few friends; wholly unconscious that he had been the cause of vexing the Procuratore; who, after a short pause, cried out, in a true Venetian spirit of anger and humour oddly blended together, "_Mi dica Signor Professore Toaldo, chi è il più gran minchion di tutti i fanti in Paradiso?_" Pray tell me Doctor (we should say), who is the greatest blockhead among all the saints of Heaven? The Abbé looked astonished, but hearing the question repeated in a more peevish accent still, replied gravely, "_Eccelenza non fon fatto io per rispondere a tale dimande_"--My lord, I have no answer ready for such extraordinary questions. Why then, replies the Procuratore Tron, I will answer this question myself.--_St. Marco ved'ella--"e'l vero minchion: mentre mantiene tanti professori per studiare (che so to mi) delle stelle; roba astronomica che non vale un fico; è loro non sanno dirli nemmeno s'hà da piovere o nò._"--"Why it is St. Mark, do you see, that is the true blockhead and dupe, in keeping so many professors to study the stars and stuff; when with all their astronomy they cannot tell him whether it will rain or no."

Well, _pax tibi, Marce!_ I see that I have said more about Venice, where I have lived five weeks, than about Milan, where I stayed five months; but

Si placeat varios hominum cognoscere vultus, Area longa patet, sancto contermina Marco, Celsus ubi Adriacas, Venetus Leo despicit undas, Hic circum gentes cunctis e partibus orbis, Æthiopes, Turcos, Slavos, Arabésque, Syrósque, Inveniésque Cypri, Cretæ, Macedumque colonos, Innumerósque alios varia regione profectos: Sæpe etiam nec visa prius, nec cognita cernes, Quæ si cuncta velim tenui describere versu, Heic omnes citiùs nautas celeresque Phaselos, Et simul Adriaci pisces numerabo profundi.

_Imitated loosely_.

If change of faces please your roving sight, Or various characters your mind delight, To gay St. Mark's with eagerness repair; For curiosity may pasture there. Venetia's lion bending o'er the waves, There sees reflected--tyrants, freemen, slaves. The swarthy Moor, the soft Circassian dame, The British sailor not unknown to fame; Innumerous nations crowd the lofty door, Innumerous footsteps print the sandy shore; While verse might easier name the scaly tribe, } That in her seas their nourishment imbibe, } Than Venice and her various charms describe. }

It is really pity ever to quit the sweet seducements of a place so pleasing; which attracts the inclination and flatters the vanity of one, who, like myself, has received the most polite attentions, and been diverted with every amusement that could be devised. Kind, friendly, lovely Venetians! who appear to feel real fondness for the inhabitants of Great Britain, while Cavalier Pindemonte writes such verses in its praise. Yet _must_ the journey go forward, no staying to pick every flower upon the road.

On Saturday next then am I to forsake--but I hope not for ever--this gay, this gallant city, so often described, so certainly admired; seen with rapture, quitted with regret: seat of enchantment! head-quarters of pleasure, farewell!

Leave us as we ought to be, Leave the Britons rough and free.

It was on the twenty-first of May then that we returned up the Brenta in a barge to _Padua_, stopping from time to time to give refreshment to our conductors and their horse, which draws on the side, as one sees them at Richmond; where the banks are scarcely more beautifully adorned by art, than here by nature; though the Brenta is a much narrower river than the Thames at Richmond, and its villas, so justly celebrated, far less frequent. The sublimity of their architecture however, the magnificence of their orangeries, the happy construction of the cool arcades, and general air of festivity which breathes upon the banks of this truly _wizard stream_, planted with _dancing_, not _weeping_ willows, to which on a bright evening the lads and lasses run for shelter from the sun beams,

Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri[T];

[Footnote T: While tripping to the wood my wanton hies, She wishes to be seen before she flies. ]

are I suppose peculiar to itself, and best described by Monsieur de Voltaire, whose Pococurante the Venetian senator in Candide that possesses all delights in his villa upon the banks of the Brenta, is a very lively portrait, and would be natural too; but that Voltaire, as a Frenchman, could not forbear making his character speak in a very unItalian manner, boasting of his felicity in a style they never use, for they are really no puffers, no vaunters of that which they possess; make no disgraceful comparisons between their own rarities and the want of them in other countries, nor offend you as the French do, with false pity and hateful consolations.

If any thing in England seem to excite their wonder and ill-placed compassion, it is our coal fires, which they persist in thinking strangely unwholesome--and a melancholy proof that we are grievously devoid of wood, before we can prevail upon ourselves to dig the bowels of old earth for fewel, at the hazard of our precious health, if not of its certain loss; nor could I convince the wisest man I tried at, that wood burned to chark is a real poison, while it would be difficult by any process of chemistry to force much evil out of coal. They are steadily of opinion, that consumptions are occasioned by these fires, and that all the subjects of Great Britain are consumptively disposed, merely because those who are so, go into Italy for change of air: though I never heard that the wood smoke helped their breath, or a brazierfull of ashes under the table their appetite. Mean time, whoever seeks to convince instead of persuade an Italian, will find he has been employed in a Sisyphean labour; the stone may roll to the top, but is sure to return, and rest at his feet who had courage to try the experiment. Logic is a science they love not, and I think steadily refuse to cultivate; nor is argument a style of conversation they naturally affect--as Lady Macbeth says, "_Question enrageth him_;" and the dialogues of Socrates would to them be as disgusting as the violence of Xantippe.

Well, here we are at Padua again! where I will run, and see once more the places I was before so pleased with. The beautiful church of Santa Giustina, the ancient church adorned by Cimabue, Giotto, &c. where you fancy yourself on a sudden transported to Dante's Paradiso, and with for Barry the painter, to point your admiration of its sublime and extraordinary merits; but not the shrine of St. Anthony, or the tomb of Antenor, one rich with gold, the other venerable with rust, can keep my attention fixed on _them_, while an Italian _May_ offers to every sense, the sweets of nature in elegant perfection. One view of a smiling landschape, lively in verdure, enamelled with flowers, and exhilarating with the sound of music under every tree,

Where many a youth and many a maid Dances in the chequer'd shade; And young and old come forth to play, On a sun-shine holiday;

drives Palladio and Sansovino from one's head; and leaves nothing very strongly impressed upon one's heart but the recollection of kindness received and esteem reciprocated. Those pleasures have indeed pursued me hither; the amiable Countess Ferris has not forgotten us; her attentions are numerous, tender, and polite. I went to the play with her, where I was unlucky enough to miss the representation of Romeo and Juliet, which was acted the night before with great applause, under the name of _Tragedia Veronese_. Monsieur de Voltaire was then premature in his declarations, that Shakespear was unknown, or known only to be censured, except in his native country. Count Kinigl at Milan took occasion to tell me that they acted Hamlet and Lear when he was last at Vienna; and I know not how it is, but to an English traveller each place presents ideas originally suggested by Shakespear, of whom nature and truth are the perpetual mirrors: other authors remind one of things which one has seen in life--but the scenes of life itself remind one of Shakespear. When I first looked on the Rialto, with what immediate images did it supply me? Oh, the old long-cherished images of the pensive merchant, the generous friend, the gay companion, and their final triumph over the practices of a cruel Jew. Anthonio, Gratiano, met me at every turn; and when I confessed some of these feelings before the professor of natural history here, who had spent some time in London; he observed, that no native of our island could sit three hours, and not speak of Shakespear: he added many kind expressions of partial liking to our nation, and our poets: and l'Abate Cesarotti good-humouredly confessed his little skill in the English language when he translated their so much-admired Ossian; but he had studied it pretty hard since, he said, and his version of Gray's Elegy is charming.

Gray and Young are the favourite writers among us, as far as I have yet heard them talked over upon the continent; the first has secured them by his residence at Florence, and his Latin verses I believe; the second, by his piety and brilliant thoughts. Even Romanists are disposed to think dear Dr. Young very _near_ to Christianity--an idea which must either make one laugh or cry, while

Sweet peace, and heavenly hope, and humble joy, Divinely beam on _his_ exalted soul.

But I must tell what I have been seeing at the theatre, and should tell it much better had not the charms of Countess Ferris's conversation engaged my mind, which would otherwise perhaps have been more seized on than it _was_, by the sight of an old pantomime, or wretched farce (for there was speaking in it, I remember), exploded long since from our very lowest places of diversion, and now exhibited here at Padua before a very polite and a very literary audience; and in a better theatre by far than our newly-adorned opera-house in the Hay-market. Its subject was no other than the birth of Harlequin; but the place and circumstances combined to make me look on it in a light which shewed it to uncommon advantage. The storm, for example, the thunder, darkness, &c. which is so solemnly made to precede an incantation, apparently not meant to be ridiculous, after which, a huge egg is somehow miraculously produced upon the stage, put me in mind of the very old mythologists, who thus desired to represent the chaotic state of things, when Night, Ocean, and Tartarus disputed in perpetual confusion; till _Love_ and _Music_ separated the elements, and as Dryden says,

Then hot and cold, and moist and dry, In order to their stations leap, And music's power obey.