Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany Part 10

We have in England a black Madonna, very ancient of course, and of immense value, in the cathedral of Wells in Somersets.h.i.+re; it is painted on gla.s.s, and stands in the middle pane of the upper window I think, is a profile face, and eminently handsome. My mind tells me that I have seen another somewhere in Great Britain, but cannot recollect the spot, unless it were Arundel Castle in Suss.e.x, but I am not sure: none was ever painted so since the days of Pietro Perugino I believe, so their antiquity is unquestionable: he and his few contemporaries drew her white, as Sir Joshua Reynolds and Pompeio Battoni.

Whilst I perambulated the palaces of the Bolognese n.o.bility, gloomy though s.p.a.cious, and melancholy though splendid, I could not but admire at Richardson's judgment when he makes his beautiful Bigot, his interesting Clementina, an inhabitant of superst.i.tious Bologna. The unconquerable attachment she shews to original prejudices, and the horror of what she has been taught to consider as heresy, could scarcely have been attributed so happily to the dweller in any town but this: where I hear nothing but the sound of people saying their rosaries, and see nothing in the street but people telling their beads. The Porretta palace is hourly presenting itself to my imagination, which delights in the a.s.surance that genius cannot be confined by place. Dear Richardson at Salisbury Court Fleet Street, and Parson's Green Fulham, felt all within him that travelling can tell, or experience confirm: he had seen little, and Johnson has often told me that he had read little; but what he did read never forsook a memory that was not contented with retaining, but fermented all that fell into it, and made a new creation from the fertility of his own rich mind.--These are the men for whom monuments need not be erected.

They in our pleasure and astonishment, Do build themselves a live long monument;

as Milton says of a much greater writer still.

But the King of Naples is arrived, and that attention which wits and scholars can retain for centuries, may not be unjustly paid to princes while they last.

Our Bolognese have hit upon an odd method of entertaining him however: no other than making a representation of Mount Vesuvius on the Montagnuola, or place of evening resort, hoping at least to treat him with something new I trow. Were the King of England to visit these _cari Bolognese_, surely they would shew him Westminster Bridge, with a view of the Archbishop's palace at Lambeth on one side the river, and Somerset-house on the other.

A pretty throne, or state-box, was soon got in order, _that it was_; and the motion excited by carrying the fire-works to have them prepared for the evening's show, gave life to the morning, which hung less heavily than usual; nor did the people recollect the church-yard at a distance, while the merry King of Naples was near them. His Majesty appeared perfectly contented and good-humoured, and happy with whatever was done for his amus.e.m.e.nt. I remember his behaviour at Milan though, too well to be surprised at his pleasantness of disposition, when my maid was delighted to see him dance among the girls at a Festa di Ballo, from whence I retired early myself, and sent her back to enjoy it all in my domino. He played at cards too when at Milan I recollect, in the common Ridotto Chamber at the Theatre, and played for common sums, so as to charm every one with his kindness and affability.

I am glad however that we shall now be soon released from this upon the whole disagreeable town, where there is the best possible food too for body and mind; but where the inhabitants seem to think only of the next world, and do little to amuse those who have not yet quite done with this. If they are sincere mean time, G.o.d will bless them with a long continuance of the appellation they so justly deserve; and those travellers who pa.s.s through will find some amends in the rich cream and incomparable dinners every day, for the insects that devour them every night; and will, if they are wise, seek compensation from the company of the half animated pictures that crowd the palaces and churches, for the half dead inhabitants who kneel in the streets of Bologna.

FLORENCE.

We slept no-where, except perhaps in the carriage, between our last residence at Bologna and this delightful city, to which we pa.s.sed apparently through a new region of the earth, or even air; clambering up mountains covered with snow, and viewing with amazement the little vallies between, where, after quitting the summer season, all glowing with heat and spread into verdure, we found cherry-trees in blossom, oaks and walnuts scarcely beginning to bud. These mountains are however much below those of Savoy for dignity and beauty of appearance, though high enough to be troublesome, and barren enough to be desolate. These Appenines have been called by some the Back Bone of Italy, as Varenius and others style the Mountains of the Moon in Africa, Back Bone of the World; and these, as they do, run in a long chain down the middle of the Peninsula they are placed in; but being rounded at top are supposed to be aquatick, while the Alps, Andes, &c. are of late acknowledged by philosophers to be volcanic, as the most lofty of _them_ terminate in points of granite, wholly devoid of horizontal strata, and without petrifactions contained in them,

_Here_ the tracts around display How impetuous ocean's sway Once with wasteful fury spread The wild waves o'er each mountain's head.

PARSONS.

But the offspring of fire somehow _should_ be more striking than that of water, however violent might have been the concussion that produced them; and there is no comparison between the sensations felt in pa.s.sing the Roche Melon, and these more neatly-moulded Appenines; upon whose tops I am told too no lakes have been formed, as on Mount Cenis, or even on Snowdon in North Wales, where a very beautiful lake adorns the summit of the rock; which affords trout precisely such as you eat before you go down to Novalesa, but not so large.

Sir William Hamilton, however, is the man to be referred to in all these matters; no man has examined the peculiar properties and general nature of mountains, those which vomit fire in particular, with half as much application, inspired by half as much genius, as he has done.

We arrived late at our inn, an English one they say it is; and many of the last miles were pa.s.sed very pleasantly by my maid and myself, in antic.i.p.ating the comforts we should receive by finding ourselves among our own country folks. In good time! and by once more eating, sleeping, &c. _all in the English way_, as her phrase is. Accordingly, here are small low beds again, soft and clean, and down pillows; here are currant tarts, which the Italians scorn to touch, but which we are happy and delighted to pay not ten but twenty times their value for, because a currant tart is so much _in the English way_: and here are beans and bacon in a climate where it is impossible that bacon should be either wholesome or agreeable; and one eats infinitely worse than one did at Milan, Venice, or Bologna: and infinitely dearer too; but that makes it still more completely _in the English way_.

Mean time here we are however in Arno's Vale; the full moon s.h.i.+ning over Fiesole, which I see from my windows. Milton's verses every moment in one's mouth, and Galileo's house twenty yards from one's door,

Whence her bright orb the Tuscan artist view'd, At evening from the top of Fesole; Or in Val d'Arno to descry new lands, Rivers or mountains on her spotty globe.

Our apartments here are better than we hoped for, situated most sweetly on the banks of this cla.s.sical stream; a n.o.ble terrace underneath our window, broad as the south parade at Bath I think, and the fine Ponte della Santa Trinita within sight. Many people have a.s.serted that this is the first among all bridges in the world; but architecture triumphs in the art of building bridges, and, though this is a most exquisitely beautiful fabric, I can scarcely venture to call it an unrivalled one: it shall, if the fine statues at the corners can a.s.sist its power over the fancy, and if cleanliness can compensate for stately magnificence, or for the fire of original and una.s.sisted genius, it shall obliterate from my mind the Rialto at Venice, and the fine arch thrown over the Conway at Llanwrst in our North Wales.

I wrote to a lady at Venice this morning though, to say, however I might be charmed by the sweets of Arno's side, I could not forbear regretting the Grand Ca.n.a.l.

Count Manucci, a n.o.bleman of this city, formerly intimate with Mr.

Thrale in London and Mr. Piozzi at Paris, came early to our apartments, and politely introduced us to the desirable society of his sisters and his friends. We have in his company and that of Cavalier d'Elci, a learned and accomplished man, of high birth, deep erudition, and polished manners, seen much, and with every possible advantage.

This morning they shewed us La Capella St. Lorenzo, where I could but think how surprisingly Mr. Addison's prediction was verified, that these slow Florentines would not perhaps be able to finish the burial-place of their favourite family, before the family itself should be extinct.

This reflection felt like one naturally suggested to me by the place; Doctor Moore however has the original merit of it, as I afterwards found it in his book: but it is the peculiar property of natural thoughts well expressed, to sink into one's mind and incorporate themselves with it, so as to make one forget they were not all one's own.

_Poets, as well as jesters, do oft prove prophets:_ Prior's happy prediction for the female wits in one of his epilogues is come true already, when he says,

Your time, poor souls! we'll take your very money, Female _third nights_ shall come so thick upon ye, &c.

and every hour gives one reason to hope that Mr. Pope's glorious prophecy in favour of the Negroes will not now remain long unaccomplished, but that liberty will extend her happy influence over the world;

Till the _freed Indians_, in their native groves, Reap their own fruits, and woo their sable loves.

I will not extend myself in describing the heaps of splendid ruin in which the rich chapel of St. Lorenzo now lies: since the elegant Lord Corke's letters were written, little can be said about Florence not better said by him; who has been particularly copious in describing a city which every body wishes to see copiously described.

The libraries here are exceedingly magnificent; and we were called just now to that which goes under Magliabechi's name, to hear an eulogium finely p.r.o.nounced upon our circ.u.mnavigator Captain Cook; whose character has attracted the attention, and extorted the esteem of every European nation: far less was the wonder that it forced my tears; they flowed from a thousand causes: my distance from England! my pleasure in hearing an Englishman thus lamented in a language with which he had no acquaintance!

By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourn'd!

Every thing contributed to soften my heart, though not to lower my spirits. For when a Florentine asked me, how I came to cry so? I answered, in the words of their divine Mestastasio:

"Che questo pianto mio Tutto non e dolor; E meraviglia, e amore, E riverenza, e speme, Son mille affetti a.s.sieme Tutti raccolti al cor."

'Tis not grief alone, or fear, Swells the heart, or prompts the tear; Reverence, wonder, hope, and joy, Thousand thoughts my soul employ, Struggling images, which less Than falling tears can ne'er express.

Giannetti, who p.r.o.nounced the panegyric, is the justly-celebrated improvisatore so famous for making Latin verses _impromptu_, as others do Italian ones: the speech has been translated into English by Mr.

Merry, with whom I had the honour here first to make acquaintance, having met him at Mr. Greatheed's, who is our fellow-lodger, and with whom and his amiable family the time pa.s.ses in reciprocations of confidential friends.h.i.+p and mutual esteem.

Lord and Lady Cowper too contribute to make the society at this place more pleasing than can be imagined; while English hospitality softens down the stateliness of Tuscan manners.

Sir Horace Mann is sick and old; but there are conversations at his house of a Sat.u.r.day evening, and sometimes a dinner, to which we have been almost always asked.

The fruits in this place begin to astonish me; such cherries did I never yet see, or even hear tell of, as when I caught the Laquais de Place weighing two of them in a scale to see if they came to an ounce. These are, in the London street phrase, _cherries like plums_, in size at least, but in flavour they far exceed them, being exactly of the kind that we call bleeding-hearts, hard to the bite, and parting easily from the stone, which is proportionately small. Figs too are here in such perfection, that it is not easy for an English gardener to guess at their excellence; for it is not by superior size, but taste and colour, that _they_ are distinguished; small, and green on the outside, a bright full crimson within, and we eat them with raw ham, and truly delicious is the dainty. By raw ham, I mean ham cured, not boiled or roasted. It is no wonder though that fruits should mature in such a sun as this is; which, to give a just notion of its penetrating fire, I will take leave to tell my countrywomen is so violent, that I use no other method of heating the pinching-irons to curl my hair, than that of poking them out at a south window, with the handles shut in, and the gla.s.ses darkened to keep us from being actually fired in his beams. Before I leave off speaking about the fruit, I must add, that both fig and cherry are produced by standards; that the strawberries here are small and high-flavoured, like our _woods_, and that there are no other. England affords greater variety in _that_ kind of fruit than any nation; and as to peaches, nectarines, or green-gage plums, I have seen none yet. Lady Cowper has made us a present of a small pine-apple, but the Italians have no taste to it. Here is sun enough to ripen them without hot-houses I am sure, though they repeatedly told us at Milan and Venice, that _this_ was the coolest place to pa.s.s the summer in, because of the Appenine mountains shading us from the heat, which they confessed to be intolerable with _them_.

_Here_ however, they inform us, that it is madness to retire into the country as English people do during the hot season; for as there is no shade from high timber trees, one is bit to death by animals, gnats in particular, which here are excessively troublesome, even in the town, notwithstanding we scatter vinegar, and use all the arts in our power; but the ground-floor is coolest, and every body struggles to get themselves a _terreno_ as they call it.

Florence is full just now, and Mr. Jean Figliazzi, an intelligent gentleman who lives here, and is well acquainted with both nations, says, that all the genteel people come to take refuge _from_ the country to Florence in July and August, as the subjects of Great Britain run _to_ the country from the heats of London or Bath.

The flowers too! how rich they are in scent here! how brilliant in colour! how magnificent in size! Wall-flowers perfuming every street, and even every pa.s.sage; while pinks and single carnations grow beside them, with no more soil than they require themselves; and from the tops of houses, where you least expect it, an aromatic flavour highly gratifying is diffused. The jessamine is large, broad-leaved, and beautiful as an orange-flower; but I have seen no roses equal to those at Lichfield, where on one tree I recollect counting eighty-four within my own reach; it grew against the house of Doctor Darwin. Such a profusion of sweets made me enquire yesterday morning for some scented pomatum, and they brought me accordingly one pot impelling strong of garden mint, the other of rue and tansy.

Thus do the inhabitants of every place forfeit or fling away those pleasures, which the inhabitants of another place think _they_ would use in a much wiser manner, had Providence bestowed the blessing upon _them_.

A young Milanese once, whom I met in London, saw me treat a hatter that lives in Pallmall with the respect due to his merit: when the man was gone, "Pray, madam," says the Italian, "is this a _gran riccone[Footnote: Heavy-pursed fellow.]?"_ "He is perhaps," replied I, "worth twenty or thirty thousand pounds; I do not know what ideas you annex to a _gran riccone_" "_Oh santissima vergine!_" exclaims the youth, "_s'avessi io mai settanta mila zecchini! non so pur troppo cosa nesarei; ma questo e chiaro--non venderei mai cappelli_"--"Oh dear me! had I once seventy thousand sequins in my pocket, I would--dear--I cannot think myself _what_ I should do with them all: but this at least is certain, I would not _sell hats_"

I have been carried to the Laurentian library, where the librarian Bandi shewed me all possible, and many unmerited civilities; which, for want of deeper erudition, I could not make the use I wished of. We asked however to see some famous ma.n.u.scripts. The Virgil has had a _fac simile_ made of it, and a printed copy besides; so that it cannot now escape being known all over Europe. The Bible in Chaldaic characters, spoken of by Langius as inestimable, and brought hither, with many other valuable treasures of the same nature, by Lascaris, after the death of Lorenzo de Medici, who had sent him for the second time to Constantinople for the purpose of collecting Greek and Oriental books, but died before his return, is in admirable preservation. The old geographical maps, made out in a very early age, afforded me much amus.e.m.e.nt; and the Latin letters of Petrarch, with the portrait of his Laura, were interesting to me perhaps more than many other things rated much higher by the learned, among those rarities which adorn a library so comprehensive.

Every great nation except ours, which was immersed in barbarism, and engaged in civil broils, seems to have courted the residence of Lascaris, but the university of Paris fixed his regard: and though Leo X. treated with favour, and even friends.h.i.+p, the man whom he had encouraged to intimacy when Cardinal John of Medicis; though he made him superintendant of a Greek college at Rome; it is said he always wished to die in France, whither he returned in the reign of Francis the First; and wrote his Latin epigrams, which I have heard Doctor Johnson prefer even to the Greek ones preserved in Anthologia; and of which our Queen Elizabeth, inspired by Roger Ascham, desired to see the author; but he was then upon a visit to Rome, where he died of the gout at ninety-three years old.

June 24, 1785.

St. John the Baptist is the tutelary Saint of this city, and upon this day of course all possible rejoicings are made. After attending divine service in the morning, we were carried to a house whence we could conveniently see the procession pa.s.s by. It was not solemn and stately as that I saw at Bologna, neither was it gaudy and jocund like the show made at Venice upon St. George's day; but consisted chiefly in vast heavy pageants, or a sort of temporary building set on wheels, and drawn by oxen some, and some by horses; others carried upon things made not unlike a chairman's horse in London, and supported by men, while priests, in various coloured dresses, according to their several stations in the church, and to distinguish the parishes, &c. to which they belong, follow singing in praise of the saint.

Here is much emulation shewed too, I am told, in these countries, where religion makes the great and almost the sole amus.e.m.e.nt of men's lives, who shall make most figure on St. John the Baptist's day, produce most music, and go to most expence. For all these purposes subscriptions are set on foot, for ornamenting and venerating such a picture, statue, &c.

which are then added to the procession by the managers, and called a Confraternity, in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Angel Raphael, or who comes in their heads.

The lady of the house where we went to partake the diversion, was not wanting in her part; there could not be fewer than a hundred and fifty people a.s.sembled in her rooms, but not crowded as we should have been in England; for the apartments in Italy are all high and large, and run in suits like Wanstead house in Ess.e.x, or Devons.h.i.+re house in London exactly, but larger still: and with immense balconies and windows, not sashes, which move all away, and give good room and air. The ices, refreshments, &c. were all excellent in their kinds, and liberally dispensed. The lady seemed to do the honours of her house with perfect good-humour; and every body being full-dressed, though so early in a morning, added much to the general effect of the whole.