Chapter 4

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

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

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

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

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

MILAN.

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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