Chapter 4

At the Manfrini Palace there is the most valuable and splendid collection of pictures I have yet seen in Italy or elsewhere. I have no intention of turning my little Diary into a mere catalogue of names which I can find in every guide-book; but I cannot pass over Giorgione's beautiful group of himself, and his wife and child, which Lord Byron calls "love at full length and life, not love ideal," and it is indeed exquisite. A female with a guitar by the same master is almost equal to it. There are two Lucretias--one by Guido and one by Giordano: though both are beautiful, particularly the former, there was, I thought, an impropriety in the conception of both pictures: the figure was too voluptuous--too exposed, and did not give me the idea of the matronly Lucretia, who so carefully arranged her drapery before she fell. I remember, too, a St. Cecilia by Carlo Dolci, of most heavenly beauty,--two Correggios--Iphigenia in Aulis, by Padovanino: in this picture the figure of Agamemnon is a complete failure, but the lifeless beauty of Iphigenia, a wonderful effort of art: and a hundred others at least, all masterpieces.

The Barberigo Palace was the school of Titian. We were shown the room in which he painted, and the picture he left unfinished when he died at the age of 99. It is a David--as vigorous in the touch and style as any of his first pictures.

* * * * *

It is now some days since I had time to write; or rather the intervals of excitement and occupation found me too much exhausted to take up my pencil. Our stay at Venice has been rendered most agreeable by the kindness of Mr. H----, the British Consul, and his amiable and charming wife, and in their society we have spent much of the last few days.

One of our pleasantest excursions was to the Armenian convent of St. Lazaro, where we were received by Fra Pasquale, an accomplished and intelligent monk, and a particular friend of Mr. H----. After we had visited every part of the convent, the printing press--the library--the laboratory--which contains several fine mathematical instruments of English make; and admired the beautiful little tame gazelle which bounded through the corridors, we were politely refreshed with most delicious sweetmeats and coffee; and took leave of Fra Pasquale with regret.

There is no opera at present, but we have visited both the other theatres. At the San Luca, they gave us "Elizabeth, the Exile of Siberia," tolerably acted: but there was one trait introduced very characteristic of the place and people: Elizabeth in a tremendous snow storm, is pursued by robbers; and finding a crucifix, erected by the road side, embraces it for protection. The crucifix flies away with her in a clap of thunder, and sets her down safely at a distance from her persecutors. The audience appeared equally enchanted and edified by this scene: some of the women near me crossed themselves, and put their handkerchiefs to their eyes: the men rose from their seats, clapped with enthusiasm, and shouted "Bravo! Miracolo!"

At the San Benedetto we were gratified by a deep tragedy entitled "Gabrielle Innocente," so exquisitely absurd, and so grotesquely acted, that the best comedy could scarcely have afforded us more amusement,--certainly not more _merriment_. In the course of the evening, coffee and ices were served in our box, as is the custom here.

With Mrs. H---- this evening I had a long and pleasant conversation; she is really one of the most delightful and unaffected women I ever met with: and as there is nothing in my melancholy visage and shrinking reserve to tempt any person to converse with me, I must also set her down as one of the most good-natured. She talked much of Lord Byron, with whom, during his residence here she was on intimate terms. She spoke of him, not conceitedly as one vain of the acquaintance of a great character; nor with affected reserve, as if afraid of committing herself--but with openness, animation, and cordial kindness, as one whom she liked, and had reason to like. She says the style of Lord Byron's conversation is very much that of Don Juan: just in the same manner are the familiar, the brilliant, the sublime, the affecting, the witty, the ludicrous, and the licentious, mingled and contrasted. Several little anecdotes which she related I need not write down; I can scarcely forget them, and it would not be quite fair as they were told _en confiance_. I am no anecdote hunter, picking up articles for "my pocket book."

* * * * *

A little while ago Captain F. lent me D'Israeli's Essays on the Literary Character, which had once belonged to Lord Byron; and contained marginal notes in his hand-writing. One or two of them are so curiously characteristic that I copy them here.

The first note is on a passage in which D'Israeli, in allusion to Lord Byron, traces his fondness for oriental scenery to his having read Rycaut at an early age. On this Lord Byron observes, that he read _every book_ relating to the east before he was ten years old, including De Tott and Cantemir as well as Rycaut: at that age, he says that he _detested_ all poetry, and adds, "when I was in Turkey, I was oftener tempted to turn mussulman than poet: and have often regretted since that _I did not_."

At page 99 D'Israeli says,

"The great poetical genius of our times has openly alienated himself from the land of his brothers" (over the word _brothers_ Lord Byron has written _Cains_.) "He becomes immortal in the _language_ of a _people_ whom he would _contemn_, he accepts with ingratitude the fame he loves more than life, and he is only truly great on that _spot_ of _earth_, whose genius, when he is no more, will contemplate his shade in sorrow and in anger."

Lord Byron has underlined several words in this passage, and writes thus in the margin:

"What was rumoured of me in that language, if _true_, I was unfit for England; and if _false_, England was unfit for me. But 'there is a world elsewhere.' I have never for an instant regretted that country,--but often that I ever returned to it. It is not my fault that I am obliged to write in English. If I understood any present language, Italian, for instance, equally well, I would write in it:--but it will require ten years, at least, to form a style. No tongue so easy to acquire a little of, and so difficult to master thoroughly, as Italian."

The next note is amusing; at page 342 is mentioned the anecdote of Petrarch, who when returning to his native town, was informed that the proprietor of the house in which he was born had _often_ wished to make alterations in it, but that the town's-people had risen to insist that the house consecrated by his birth should remain unchanged;--"a triumph," adds D'Israeli, "more affecting to Petrarch than even his coronation at Rome."

Lord Byron has written in the margin--"It would have pained _me_ more that the proprietor should _often_ have wished to make alterations, than it would give me pleasure that the rest of Arezzo rose against his right (for _right_ he had:) the depreciation of the lowest of mankind is more painful, than the applause of the highest is pleasing. The sting of the scorpion is more in _torture_ than the possession of any thing short of Venus would be in rapture."

* * * * *

The public gardens are the work of the French, and occupy the extremity of one of the islands. They contain the only trees I have seen at Venice:--a few rows of dwarfish unhappy-looking shrubs, parched by the sea breezes, and are little frequented. We found here a solitary gentleman, who was sauntering up and down with his hands in his pockets, and a look at once stupid and disconsolate. Sometimes he paused, looked vacantly over the waters, whistled, yawned, and turned away to resume his solemn walk. On a trifling remark addressed to him by one of our party, he entered into conversation, with all the eagerness of a man, whose tongue had long been kept in most unnatural bondage. He congratulated himself on having met with some one who would speak English; adding contemptuously, that "he understood none of the outlandish tongues the people spoke hereabouts:" he inquired what was to be seen here, for though he had been four days in Venice, he had spent every day precisely in the same manner; viz. walking up and down the public gardens. We told him Venice was famous for fine buildings and pictures; he knew nothing of _them_ things. And that it contained also, "some fine statues and antiques"--he cared nothing about them neither--he should set off for Florence the next morning, and begged to know what was to be seen there? Mr. R----told him, with enthusiasm, "the most splendid gallery of pictures and statues in the world!" He looked very blank and disappointed. "Nothing else?" then he should certainly not waste his time at Florence, he should go direct to Rome; he had put down the name of that _town_ in his pocket-book, for he understood it was a very _convenient_ place: he should therefore stay there a week; thence he should go to Naples, a place he had also heard of, where he should stay another week: then he should go to Algiers, where he should stay _three weeks_, and thence to Tunis, where he expected to be very comfortable, and should probably make a long stay; thence he should return home, having seen every thing worth seeing. He scarcely seemed to know how or by what route he had got to Venice--but he assured us he had come "fast enough;"--he remembered no place he had passed through except Paris. At Paris he told us there was a female lodging in the same hotel with himself, who by his description appears to have been a single lady of rank and fashion, travelling with her own carriages and a suite of servants. He had never seen her; but learning through the domestics that she was travelling the same route, he sat down and wrote her a long letter, beginning "Dear Madam," and proposing they should join company, "for the sake of good fellowship, and the _bit of chat_ they might have on their way." Of course she took no notice of this strange billet, "from which," added he with ludicrous simplicity, "I supposed she would rather travel alone."

Truly, "Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time." After this specimen, sketched from life, who will say there are such things as caricatures?

* * * * *

We visited to-day the Giant's Staircase and the Bridge of Sighs, and took a last farewell of St. Mark--we were surprised to see the church hung with black--the festoons of flowers all removed--masses going forward at several altars, and crowds of people looking particularly solemn and devout. It is the "Giorno dei morte," the day by the Roman Catholics consecrated to the dead. I observed many persons, both men and women, who wept while they prayed, with every appearance of the most profound grief. Leaving St. Mark, I crossed the square. On the three lofty standards in front of the church formerly floated the ensigns of the three states subjects to Venice,--the Morea, Cyprus, and Candia: the bare poles remain, but the ensigns of empire are gone. One of the standards was extended on the ground, and being of immense length, I hesitated for a moment whether I should make a circuit, but at last stepped over it. I looked back with remorse, for it was like trampling over the fallen.

We then returned to our inn to prepare for our departure. How I regret to leave Venice! not the less because I cannot help it.

_Rovigo, Nov. 3._ We left Venice in a hurry yesterday, slept at Padua, and travelled this morning through a most lovely country, among the Enganean hills to Rovigo, where we are very uncomfortably lodged at the Albergo di San Marco.

I have not yet recovered my regret at leaving Venice so unexpectedly; though as a residence, I could scarce endure it; the sleepy canals, the gliding gondolas in their "dusk livery of woe"--the absence of all verdure, all variety--of all _nature_, in short; the silence, disturbed only by the incessant chiming of bells--and, worse than all, the spectacle of a great city "expiring," as Lord Byron says, "before our eyes," would give me the horrors: but as a visitor, my curiosity was not half gratified, and I should have liked to have stayed a few days longer--perhaps after all, I have reason to rejoice that instead of bringing away from Venice a disagreeable impression of satiety, disgust and melancholy, I have quitted it with feelings of admiration, of deep regret, and undiminished interest.

Farewell, then, Venice! I could not have believed it possible that it would have brought tears to my eyes to leave a place merely for its own sake, and unendeared by the presence of any one I loved.

As Rovigo affords no other amusement I shall scribble a little longer.

Nothing can be more arbitrary than the Austrian government at Venice. As a summary method of preventing robberies during the winter months, when many of the gondoliers and fishermen are out of employ, the police have orders to arrest, without ceremony, every person who has no permanent trade or profession, and keep them in confinement and to hard labour till the return of spring.

The commerce of Venice has so much and so rapidly declined, that Mr. H---- told us when first he was appointed to the consulship, a hundred and fifty English vessels cleared the port, and this year only five. It should seem that Austria, from a cruel and selfish policy, is sacrificing Venice to the prosperity of Trieste: but why do I call that a cruel policy, which on recollection I might rather term poetical and retributive justice?

The grandeur of Venice arose first from its trade in salt. I remember reading in history, that when the king of Hungary opened certain productive salt mines in his dominions, the Venetians sent him a peremptory order to shut them up; and such was the power of the Republic at that time, that he was forced to obey this insolent command, to the great injury and impoverishment of his states. The tables are now turned; the oppressor has become the oppressed.

The principal revenue derived from Venice is from the tax on houses, there being no _land tax_. So rapid was the decay of the place, that in two years seventy houses and palaces were pulled down; the government forbade this by a special law, and now taxes are paid for many houses whose proprietors are too poor to live in them.

There is no _society_, properly so called, at Venice; three old women of rank receive company now and then, and it is any thing rather than select.

Mr. F. told us at Venice, that on entering the states subject to Austria, he had his Johnson's Dictionary taken from him, and could never recover it; so jealous is the government of English principles and English literature, that _all_ English books are prohibited until examined by the police.

The whole country from Milan to Padua was like a vast garden, nothing could exceed its fertility and beauty. It was the latter end of the vintage; and we frequently met huge tub-like waggons loaded with purple grapes, reeling home from the vineyards, and driven by men whose legs were stained with treading in the wine-press--now and then, rich clusters were shaken to the ground, as I have seen wisps of straw fall from a hay-cart in England, and were regarded with equal indifference. Sometimes we saw in the vineyards by the road-side, groups of labourers seated among the branches of the trees, and plucking grapes from the vines, which were trailed gracefully from tree to tree and from branch to branch, and drooped with their luxurious burthen of fruit. The scene would have been as perfectly delightful, as it was new and beautiful, but for the squalid looks of the peasantry; more especially of the women. The principal productions of the country seem to be wine and silk. There were vast groves of mulberry-trees between Verona and Padua; and we visited some of the silk-mills, in which the united strength of men invariably performed those operations which in England are accomplished by steam or water. I saw in a huge horizontal wheel, about a dozen of these poor creatures labouring so hard, that my very heart ached to see them, and I begged that the machine might be stopped that I might speak to them:--but when it _Was_ stopped, and I beheld their half savage, half stupified, I had almost said _brutified_ countenances, I could not utter a single word--but gave them something, and turned away.

"Compassion is wasted upon such creatures," said R----; "do you not see that their minds are degraded down to their condition? they do not pity themselves:"--but therefore did I pity them the more.

* * * * *

_Bologna, Nov. 5._--I fear I shall retain a disagreeable impression of Bologna, for here I am again ill. I have seen little of what the town contains of beautiful and curious: and that little, under unpleasant and painful circumstances.

Yesterday we passed through Ferrara; only stopping to change horses and dine. We snatched a moment to visit the hospital of St. Anna and the prison of Tasso--the glory and disgrace of Ferrara. Over the iron gate is written "Ingresso alia prigione di Torquato Tasso." The cell itself is miserably gloomy and wretched, and not above twelve feet square. How amply has posterity avenged the cause of the poet on his tyrant!--and as we emerge from his obscure dungeon and descend the steps of the hospital of St. Anna, with what fervent hatred, indignation, and scorn, do we gaze upon the towers of the ugly red brick palace, or rather fortress, which deforms the great square, and where Alphonso feasted while Tasso wept! The inscription on the door of the cell, calling on strangers to venerate the spot where Tasso, "Infermo più di tristezza che delirio," was confined seven years and one month--was placed there by the French, and its accuracy may be doubted; as far as I can recollect. The grass growing in the wide streets of Ferrara is no poetical exaggeration; I saw it rank and long even on the thresholds of the deserted houses, whose sashless windows, and flapping doors, and roofless walls, looked strangely desolate.

I will say nothing of Bologna;--for the few days I have spent here have been to me days of acute suffering, in more ways than I wish to remember, and therefore dare not dwell upon.

_At Covigliajo in the Apennines._--O for the pencil of Salvator, or the pen of a Radcliffe! But could either, or could both united, give to my mind the scenes of to-day, in all their splendid combinations of beauty and brightness, gloom and grandeur? A picture may present to the eye a small portion of the boundless whole--one aspect of the every-varying face of nature; and words, how weak are they!--they are but the elements out of which the quick imagination frames and composes lovely landscapes, according to its power or its peculiar character; and in which the unimaginative man finds only a mere chaos of verbiage, without form, and void.

The scenery of the Apennines is altogether different in character from that of the Alps: it is less bold, less lofty, less abrupt and terrific--but more beautiful, more luxuriant, and infinitely more varied. At one time, the road wound among precipices and crags, crowned with dismantled fortresses and ruined castles--skirted with dark pine forests--and opening into wild recesses of gloom, and immeasurable depths like those of Tartarus profound; then came such glimpses of paradise! such soft sunny valleys and peaceful hamlets--and vine-clad eminences and rich pastures, with here and there a convent half hidden by groves of cypress and cedars. As we ascended we arrived at a height from which, looking back, we could see the whole of Lombardy spread at our feet; a vast, glittering, indistinct landscape, bounded on the north by the summits of the Alps, just apparent above the horizon, like a range of small silvery clouds; and on the east a long unbroken line of bluish light marked the far distant Adriatic; as the day declined, and we continued our ascent (occasionally assisted by a yoke of oxen where the acclivity was very precipitate), the mountains closed around us, the scenery became more wildly romantic, barren, and bleak. At length, after passing the crater of a volcano, visible through the gloom by its dull red light, we arrived at the Inn of Covigliajo, an uncouth dreary edifice, situated in a lonely and desolate spot, some miles from any other habitation. This is the very inn, infamous for a series of the most horrible assassinations, committed here some years ago. Travellers arrived, departed, disappeared, and were never heard of more; by what agency, or in what manner disposed of, could not be discovered. It was supposed for some time that a horde of banditti were harboured among the mountains, and the police were for a long time in active search for them, while the real miscreants remained unsuspected for their seeming insignificance and helplessness; these were the mistress of the inn, the camerière, and the curate of the nearest village, about two leagues off. They secretly murdered every traveller who was supposed to carry property--buried or burned their clothes, packages, and vehicles, retaining nothing but their watches, jewels, and money. The whole story, with all its horrors, the manner of discovery, and the fate of these wretches, is told, I think, by Forsyth, who can hardly be suspected of romance or exaggeration. I have him not with me to refer to; but I well remember the mysterious and shuddering dread with which I read the anecdote. I am glad no one else seems to recollect it. The inn at present contains many more than it can possibly accommodate. We have secured the best rooms, or rather the _only_ rooms--and besides ourselves and other foreigners, there are numbers of native travellers: some of whom arrived on horseback, and others with the Vetturini. A kind of gallery or corridor separates the sleeping rooms, and is divided by a curtain into two parts: the smaller is appropriated to us, as a saloon: the other half, as I contemplate it at this moment through a rent in the curtain, presents a singular and truly Italian spectacle--a huge black iron lamp, suspended by a chain from the rafters, throws a flaring and shifting light around. Some trusses of hay have been shaken down upon the floor, to supply the place of beds, chairs, and tables; and there, reclining in various attitudes, I see a number of dark looking figures, some eating and drinking, some sleeping; some playing at cards, some telling stories with all the Italian variety of gesticulation and intonation; some silently looking on, or listening. Two or three common looking fellows began to smoke their segars, but when it was suggested that this might incommode the ladies on the other side of the curtain, they with genuine politeness ceased directly. Through this motley and picturesque assemblage I have to make my way to my bed-room in a few minutes--I will take another look at them, and then--andiamo!

_Florence, Nov. 8._--"La bellisema e famosissima figlia di Roma," as Dante calls her in some relenting moment. Last night we slept in a blood-stained hovel--and to-night we are lodged in a palace. So much for the vicissitudes of travelling.