Chapter 15

In Italy, so far at least as I have gone, there is no impertinent desire of appearing what one is _not_: no searching for talk, and torturing expression to vary its phrases with something new and something fine; or else sinking into silence from despair of diverting the company, and taking up the opposite method, contriving to impress them with an idea of bright intelligence, concealed by modest doubts of our own powers, and stifled by deep thought upon abstruse and difficult topics. To get quit of all these deep-laid systems of enjoyment, where

To take our breakfast we project a scheme, Nor drink our tea without a stratagem,

like the lady in Doctor Young; the surest method is to drop into Italy; where a conversazione at Venice or Florence, after the society of London, or _les petit soupers de Paris_, where, in their own phrase, _un tableau n'attend pas l'autre_[Footnote: One picture don't wait for another.], is like taking a walk in Ham Gardens, or the Leasowes, after _les parterres de Versailles ed i Terrazzi di Genoa_. We are affected in the house, but natural in the gardens. Italians are natural in society, affected and constrained in the disposition of their grounds. No one, however, is good or bad, or wise or foolish without a reason why. Restraint is made for man, and where religious and political liberty is enjoyed to its full extent, as in Great Britain, the people will forge shackles for themselves, and lay the yoke heavy on society, to which, on the contrary, Italians give a loose, as compensation for their want of freedom in affairs of church or state.

It is, I think, observable of uncontradicted, homebred, and, as we say, spoiled children, that when a dozen of them get together for the purpose of passing a day in mutual amusement, they will make to themselves the strictest laws for their game, and rigidly punish whatever breach of rule has been made while the time allotted for diversion lasts: but in a school of girls, strictly kept, at _their_ hours of permitted recreation no distinct sounds can be heard through the general clamour of joy and confusion; nor does any thing come less into their heads than the notion of imposing regulations on themselves, or making sport out of the harsh sounds of _rule and government_.

Ridicule too points her arrows only among highly-polished societies--_Paris_ and _London_, in the first of which all wit is comprised in the power of ridiculing one's neighbours, and in the other every artifice is put in practice to escape it. In Italy no such terrors restrain conversation; no public censure pursues that fantastical behaviour which leads to no public offence; and as it is only fear which can beget falsehood, these people seek such behavior as naturally suits them; and in our theatrical phrase, they let the character come to them, they do not go to the character.

Let us not fail to remember after all, that such severity as we use, quickens the desire of pleasing, and deadens the diffusion of immoral sentiments, or indelicate language, in England; where, I must add, for the honour of my country, that if such liberties were taken upon the stage as are frequent in the first ranks of Italian society, they would be hissed by those who paid only a shilling for their entrance: so that affectation and a forced refinement may be considered as the bad leaden statues still left in our delicately-neat and highly-ornamented gardens; of which elegance and science are the white and red roses: but to be possessed of their _sweets_, one must venture a little through the _thorns_.--_Thorns_, though figurative, remind one of the _cicala_, a creature which leaves nothing else untouched here. Surely their clamours and depredations have no equal. I used to walk in the Boboli Gardens, defying the heat, till they had eaten up the little shade some hedges there afforded me; and till, by their incessant noise, all thought is disturbed, and no line presented itself to my memory but

Sole sob ardenti resonant arbusta Cicadis[W];

[Footnote W: While in the scorching sun I trace in vain Thy flying footsteps o'er the burning plain, The creaking locusts with my voice conspire, They fried with heat, and I with fierce desire.

DRYDEN. ]

till Mr. Merry's sweet ode to summer here at Florence made one less discontented,

To hear the light cicala's ceaseless din, That vibrates shrill; or the near-weeping brook That feebly winds along, And mourns his channel shrunk.

MERRY.

This animal has four wings, four eyes, and two membranes like parchment under the hard scales he is covered with; and these, it is said, create the uncommon noise he makes, by blowing them somewhat like bellows, to sharpen the sound; which, whatever it proceeds from, is louder than can be guessed at by those who have not heard it in Tuscany. He is of the locust kind, an inch and a half long, and wonderfully light in proportion; though no small feeder, I should imagine, by the total destruction his noisy tribe make amongst the leaves, which are now wholly stript by them of all their verdure, the fibres only being left; and I observed yesterday evening, as we returned from airing, another strange deprivation practised on the mulberry leaves round the city, which being all forcibly torn away for the use of the silk-worms, make an odd fort of artificial winter near the town walls; and remind one of the wretched geese in Lincolnshire, plucked once a year for their feathers by their truly unfeeling proprietors. I am told indeed, that both revegetate, though I trust neither tree nor bird can fail to experience fatal effects one day or other in consequence of so unnatural an operation. Here is some ivy of uncommon growth, but I have seen larger both at Beaumaris castle in North Wales, and at the abbey of Glastonbury in Somersetshire: but the great pines in the Caseine woods have, I suppose, no rival nearer than the Castagno a Cento Cavalli, mentioned by Mr. Brydone. They afford little shade or shelter from heat however, as their umbrella-like covering is strangely small in proportion to their height and size; some of them being ten, and some twelve feet in diameter. These venerable, these glorious productions of nature are all now marked for destruction however; all going to be put in wicker baskets, and feed the Grand Duke's fires. I saw a fellow hewing one down to-day, and the rest are all to follow;--the feeble Florentines had much ado to master it;

Seemed the harmful hatchet to fear, And to wound holy Eld would forbear,

as Spenser says: I did half hope they could not get it down; but the loyal Tuscans (evermore awed by the name _principe_) told us it was right to get rid of them, as one of the cones, of which they bore vast quantities, might chance to drop upon the head of a _Principettino_, or little Prince, as he passed along.

I was observing that restraint was necessary to man; I have now learned a notion that noise is necessary too. The clatter made here in the Piazza del Duomo, where you sit in your carriage at a coffee-house door, and chat with your friends according to Italian custom, while _one_ eats ice, and _another_ calls for lemonade, to while away the time after dinner, the noise made then and there, I say, is beyond endurance.

Our Florentines have nothing on earth to do; yet a dozen fellows crying _ciambelli_, little cakes, about the square, assisted by beggars, who lie upon the church steps, and pray or rather promise to pray as loud as their lungs will let them, for the _anime sante di purgatorio_[Footnote: Holy souls in purgatory.]; ballad-singers meantime endeavouring to drown these clamours in their own, and gentlemen's servants disputing at the doors, whose master shall be first served; ripping up the pedigrees of each to prove superior claims for a biscuit or macaroon; do make such an intolerable clatter among them, that one cannot, for one's life, hear one another speak: and I did say just now, that it were as good live at Brest or Portsmouth when the rival fleets were fitting out, as here; where real tranquillity subsists under a bustle merely imaginary. Our Grand Duke lives with little state for aught I can observe here; but where there is least pomp, there is commonly most power; for a man must have _something pour se de dommages_[Footnote: To make himself amends.], as the French express it; and this gentleman possessing the _solide_ has no care for the _clinquant_, I trow. He tells his subjects when to go to bed, and who to dance with, till the hour he chuses they should retire to rest, with exactly that sort of old-fashioned paternal authority that fathers used to exercise over their families in England before commerce had run her levelling plough over all ranks, and annihilated even the name of subordination. If he hear of any person living long in Florence without being able to give a good account of his business there, the Duke warns him to go away; and if he loiter after such warning given, sends him out. Does any nobleman shine in pompous equipage or splendid table; the Grand Duke enquires soon into his pretensions, and scruples not to give personal advice, and add grave reproofs with regard to the management of each individual's private affairs, the establishment of their sons, marriage of their sisters, &c. When they appeared to complain of this behaviour to _me_, I know not, replied I, what to answer: one has always read and heard that the Sovereigns ought to behave in despotic governments like the _fathers of their family_: and the Archbishop of Cambray inculcates no other conduct than this, when advising his pupil, heir to the crown of France. "Yes, Madam," replied one of my auditors, with an acuteness truly Italian; "but this Prince is _our father-in-law_." The truth is, much of an English traveller's pleasure is taken off at Florence by the incessant complaints of a government he does not understand, and of oppressions he cannot remedy. Tis so dull to hear people lament the want of liberty, to which I question whether they have any pretensions; and without ever knowing whether it is the tyranny or the tyrant they complain of. Tedious however and most uninteresting are their accounts of grievances, which a subject of Great Britain has much ado to comprehend, and more to pity; as they are now all heart-broken, because they must say their prayers in their own language and not in Latin, which, how it can be construed into misfortune, a Tuscan alone can tell.

Lord Corke has given us many pleasing anecdotes of those who were formerly Princes in this land. Had they a sovereign of the old Medici family, they would go to bed when _he_ bid them quietly enough I believe, and say their prayers in what language _he_ would have them: 'tis in our parliamentary phrase, the _men_, not the _measures_ that offend them; and while they pretend to whine as if despotism displeased them, they detest every republican state, feel envy towards Venice, and contempt for Lucca.

I would rather talk of their gallery than their government: and surely nothing made by man ever so completely answered a raised expectation, as the apparent contest between Titian's recumbent beauty, glowing with colour and animated by the warmest expression, and the Greek statue of symmetrical perfection and fineness of form inimitable, where sculpture supplies all that fancy can desire, and all that imagination can suggest. These two models of excellence seem placed near each other, at once to mock all human praise, and defy all future imitation. The listening slave appears disturbed by the blows of the wrestlers in the same room, and hearkens with an attentive impatience, such as one has often felt when unable to distinguish the words one wishes to repeat. You really then do not seem as if you were alone in this tribune, so animated is every figure, so full of life and soul: yet I commend not the representing of St Catharine with leering eyes, as she is here painted by Titian; that it is meant for a portrait, I find no excuse; some character more suited to the expression should have been chosen; and if it were only the picture of a saint, that expression was strangely out of character. An anachronism may be found in the Tobit over the door too, by acute observers, who will deem it ill-managed to paint the cross in the clouds, where it is an old testament story, and that story apocryphal beside; might I add, that Guido's meek Madonna, so divinely contrasted to the other women in the room, loses something of dignity by the affected position of the thumbs. I think I might leave the tribune without a word said of the St. John by Raphael, which no words are worthy to extol: 'tis all sublimity; and when I look on it I feel nothing but veneration pushed to astonishment. Unlike the elegant figure of the Baptist at Padua, covered with glass, and belonging to a convent of friars, who told me, and truly, That it had no equal; it is painted by Guido with every perfection of form and every grace of expression. I agree with them it has no equal; but in the tribune at Florence maybe found its superior.

We were next conducted to the Niobe, who has an apartment to herself: and now, thought I, dear Mrs. Siddons has never seen this figure: but those who can see it or her, without emotions equally impossible to contain or to suppress, deserve the fate of Niobe, and have already half-suffered it. Their hearts and eyes are stone.

Nothing is worth speaking of after this Niobe! Her beauty! her maternal anguish! her closely-clasped Chloris! her half-raised head, scarcely daring to deprecate that vengeance of which she already feels such dreadful effects! What can one do

But drop the shady curtain on the scene,

and run to see the portraits of those artists who have exalted one's ideas of human nature, and shewn what man can perform. Among these worthies a British eye soon distinguishes Sir Joshua Reynolds; a citizen of the world fastens his to Leonardo da Vinci.

I have been out to dinner in the country near Prato, and what a charming, what a delightful thing is a nobleman's seat near Florence! How cheerful the society! how splendid the climate! how wonderful the prospects in this glorious country! The Arno rolling before his house, the Appenines rising behind it! a sight of fertility enjoyed by its inhabitants, and a view of such defences to their property as nature alone can bestow.

A peasantry so rich too, that the wives and daughters of the farmer go dressed in jewels; and those of no small value. A pair of one-drop ear-rings, a broadish necklace, with a long piece hanging down the bosom, and terminated with a cross, all of set garnets clear and perfect, is a common, a _very_ common treasure to the females about this country; and on every Sunday or holiday, when they dress and mean to look pretty, their elegantly-disposed ornaments attract attention strongly; though I do not think them as handsome as the Lombard lasses, and our Venetian friends protest that the farmers at Crema in _their_ state are still richer.

La Contadinella Toscana however, in a very rich white silk petticoat, exceedingly full and short, to shew her neat pink slipper and pretty ancle, her pink _corps de robe_ and straps, with white silk lacing down the stomacher, puffed shirt sleeves, with heavy lace robbins ending at the elbow, and fastened at the shoulders with at least eight or nine bows of narrow pink ribbon, a lawn handkerchief trimmed with broad lace, put on somewhat coquettishly, and finishing in front with a nosegay, must make a lovely figure at any rate: though the hair is drawn away from the face in a way rather too tight to be becoming, under a red velvet cushion edged with gold, which helps to wear it off I think, but gives the small Leghorn hat, lined with green, a pretty perking air, which is infinitely nymphish and smart. A tolerably pretty girl so dressed may surely more than vie with a _fille d' opera_ upon the Paris stage, even were she not set off as these are with a very rich suit of pearls or set garnets, that in France or England would not be purchased for less than forty or fifty pounds: and I am now speaking of the women perpetually under one's eye; not one or two picked from the crowd, like Mrs. Vanini, an inn-keeper's wife in Florence, who, when she was dressed for the masquerade two nights ago, submitted her finery to Mrs. Greatheed's inspection and my own; who agreed she could not be so adorned in England for less than a thousand pounds.

It is true the nobility are proud of letting you see how comfortably their dependants live in Tuscany; but can any pride be more rational or generous, or any desire more patriotick? Oh may they never look with less delight on the happiness of their inferiors! and then they will not murmur at their prince, whose protection of _this_ rank among his subjects is eminently tender and attentive.

Returning home from our splendid dinner and agreeable day passed at Conte Mannucci's country-seat, while our noble friends amused me with various chat, I thought some unaccountable sparks of fire seemed to strike up and down the hedges as if in perpetual motion, but checked the fancy concluding it a trick of the imagination only; till the evening, which shuts in strangely quick here in Tuscany, grew dark, and exhibited an appearance wholly new to me; whose surprise that no flame followed these wandering fires was not small, when I recollected the state of desiccation that nature suffered, and had done for some months. My dislike of interrupting an agreeable conversation kept me long from enquiring into the cause of this appearance, which however I doubted not was electrick, till they told me it was the _lucciola_, or fire-fly; of which a very good account is given in twenty books, but I had forgotten them all. As the Florence Miscellany has never been published, I will copy out what is said of it _there_, because the Abate Fontana was consulted when that description was given.

"This insect then differs from every other of the luminous tribe, because its light is by no means continual, but emitted by flashes, suddenly striking out as it flies; when crushed it leaves a lustre on the spot for a considerable time, from whence one may conclude its nature is phosphorick."

Oh vagrant insect, type of our short life, 'Tis thus we shine, and vanish from the view; For the cold season comes, And all our lustre's o'er.

MERRY's Ode to Summer.

It is said I think, that no animal affords an acid except ants, which are therefore most quickly destroyed by lime, pot-ash, &c. or any strong alkali of course; yet acid must the lucciola be proved, or she can never be phosphorick surely; as upon its analysis that strangest of all compositions appears to be a union of violent acid with inflammable matter, whence it may be termed an animal sulphur, and is actually found to burn successfully under a common glass-bell; and to afford flowers too, which, by attracting the humidity of the air, become a liquor like _oleum sulphuris per campanam_[Footnote: Oil of sulphur by the bell.].

The colour of the sky viewed, when one dares to look at it, through this pure atmosphere is particularly beautiful; of a much more brilliant and celestial blue I think, than it appeared from the tower of St. Mark's Place, Venice. Were I to affirm that the sea is of a more peculiar transparent brightness upon the coast of North Wales than elsewhere, it would seem prejudice perhaps, and yet is strictly true: I am not less persuaded that the sky appears of a finer tint in Tuscany than any other country I have visited:--Naples is however the vaunted climate, and that yet remains to be examined.

I have been shewed, at the horse-race, the theatre, &c. the unfortunate grandson of King James the Second. He goes much into publick still, though old and sickly; gives the English arms and livery, and wears the garter, which he has likewise bestowed upon his natural daughter. The Princess of Stoldberg, his consort, whom he always called Queen, has left him to end a life of disappointment and sorrow by _himself_, with the sad reflection, that even conjugal attachment, and of course domestic comfort, was denied to _him_, and fled--in defiance of poetry and fiction--fled with the crown, to its powerful and triumphant possessors.

The Duomo, or Cathedral, has engaged my attention all to-day: its prodigious size, perfect proportions, and exquisite taste, ought to have detained me longer. Though the outside does not please me as well as if it had been less rich and less magnificent. Superfluity always defeats its own purpose, of striking you with awe at its superior greatness; while simplicity looks on, and laughs at its vain attempts. This wonderful church, built of striped marbles, white, black, and red alternately, has scarcely the air of being so composed, but looks like painted ivory to _me_, who am obliged to think, and think again, before I can be sure it is of so ponderous and massy, as well as so inestimable a substance: nor can I, without more than equal difficulty, persuade myself to give its sudden view the decided preference over St. Paul's in London, which never, never misses its immediate effect on a spectator,

But stands sublime in simplest majesty.

The Battisterio is another structure close to the church, and of surprising beauty; Michael Angelo said the gates of it deserved to be those which open Paradise: and that speech was more the speech of a good workman, than of a man whose mind was exalted by his profession. The gates are of brass, divided into ninety-six compartments each, and carved with such variety of invention, such elaboration of art and ingenuity, that no praise except that which he gave them could have been too high. The font has not been used since the days when immersion in baptism was deemed necessary to salvation; a ceremony still considered by the Greek church as indispensable. Why the disputes concerning _this_ sacrament were carried on with more decency and less lasting rancour among Christians, than those which related to the other great pledge of our pardon, the communicating with our Saviour Christ in his last Supper, I know not, nor can imagine. Every page of ecclesiastical history exhibits the tenaciousness with which the smallest attendant circumstance on this last-mentioned sacrament has been held fast by the Romanists, who dropped the immersion at baptism of themselves; and in so warm a climate too! it moves my wonder; when nothing is more obvious to the meanest understanding, than that if the first sacrament is not rightly and duly administered, we never shall arrive at receiving the other at all. I hope it is impossible for any one less than myself to wish the continuance or revival of contentions so disgraceful to humanity in general; so peculiarly repugnant to the true spirit of Christianity, which consists chiefly in charity, and that brotherly love we know to have been cemented by the blood of our blessed Lord: yet very strange it is to think, that while other innovations have been resisted even to death, scarcely any among the many sects we have divided into, retain the original form in that ceremony so emphatically called _christening_.

These observations suggested by the sight of the old font at Florence shall now be succeeded by lighter subjects of reflection; among which the first that presents itself is the superior elegance of the language; for till we arrive _here_, all is dialect; though by this word I would not have any one mistake me, or understand it as meant in the limited sense of a provincial jargon, such as Yorkshire, Derbyshire, or Cornwall, present us with; where every sound is corruption, barbarism, and vulgarity.