Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents Part 7

"O giorno, o ora, o ultimo momento, O stelle congiurate a 'mpoverirme!

O fido sguardo, or che volei tu dirme, Partend' io, per non esser mai contento?"

September 9th.--You may imagine how I felt when the hour of leaving Padua drew near. It happened to be a high festival, and ma.s.s celebrated at the grand church of St. Anthony, with more than ordinary splendour. The music drawing us thither, we found every chapel twinkling with lights, and the choir filled with a vapour of incense. Through its medium several cloth of gold figures discovered themselves, ministering before the altar, and acting their parts with a sacred pomposity, wonderfully imposing. I attended very little to their functions, but the plaintive tones of the voices and instruments, so consonant with my own feelings, melted me into tears, and gave me, no doubt, the exterior of exalted piety. Guadazni sang amongst the other musicians, but seemed to be sinking apace into devotion and obscurity. The ceremony ended, I took leave of M. de R.

with sincere regret, and was driven away to Vicenza. Of my journey I scarce know any more than that the evening was cold and rainy, that I s.h.i.+vered and was miserable.

September 10th.--The morning being overcast, I went, full of the spirit of AEschylus, to the Olympic Theatre, and vented my evil temper in reciting some of the most tremendous verses of his furies.

The august front of the scene, and its three grand streets of fanes and palaces, inspired me with the loftiest sentiments of the Grecian drama; but the dubious light admitted through windows, scarce visible between the rows of statues which crown the entablature, sunk me into fits of gloom and sadness. I mused a long while in the darkest and most retired recess of the edifice, fancying I had penetrated into a real and perfect monument of antiquity, which till this moment had remained undiscovered. It is impossible to conceive a structure more truly cla.s.sical, or to point out a single ornament which has not the best antique authority. I am not in the least surprised that the citizens of Vicenza enthusiastically gave in to Palladio's plan, and sacrificed large sums to erect so beautiful a model. When finished, they procured, at a vast expense, the representation of a Grecian tragedy, with its chorus and majestic decorations. You can enter into the rapture of an artist, who sees his fondest vision realized; and can easily conceive how it was, that Palladio esteemed this compliment the most flattering reward. After I had given scope to the fancies which the scene suggested, we set out for Verona.

The situation is striking and picturesque. A long line of battlement walls, flanked by venerable towers, mounts the hill in a grand irregular sweep, and incloses many a woody garden and grove of slender cypress. Beyond rises an awful a.s.sembly of mountains; opposite to which a fertile plain presents itself, decked with all the variety of meads and thickets, olive-grounds and vineyards.

Amongst these our road kept winding till we entered the city gate, and pa.s.sed (the post knows how many streets and alleys in the way!) to the inn, a lofty, handsome-looking building; but so full that we were obliged to take up with an apartment on its very summit, open to all the winds, like the magic chamber Apuleius mentions, and commanding the roofs of half Verona. Here and there a pine shot up amongst them, and the shady hills, terminating the perspective with their walls and turrets, formed a romantic scene.

Placing our table in a balcony, to enjoy the prospect with greater freedom, we feasted upon fish from the Lago di Garda, and the delicious fruits of the country,--grapes worthy of Canaan, and peaches such as Eden itself might have gloried in producing. Thus did I remain, solacing myself, breathing the cool air, and remarking the evening tints of the mountains. Neither the paintings of Count this, nor the antiquities of the Marquis t'other, could tempt me from my aerial situation; I refused hunting out the famous Paolos scattered over the town, and sat like the owl in the Georgics,

"Solis et occasom servans de culmine summo."

Twilight drawing on, I left my haunt, and stealing downstairs, inquired for a guide to conduct me to the amphitheatre, perhaps the most entire monument of Roman days. The people of the house, instead of bringing me a quiet peasant, officiously delivered me up to a professed antiquary, one of those diligent plausible young men, to whom, G.o.d help me! I have so capital an aversion. This sweet spark displayed all his little erudition, and flourished away upon cloacas and vomitoriums with eternal fluency. He was very profound in the doctrine of conduits, and knew to admiration how the filthiness of all the amphitheatre was disposed of; but perceiving my inattention, and having just grace enough to remark that I chose one side of the street when he preferred the other, and sometimes trotted through despair in the kennel, he made me a pretty bow, I threw him half-a- crown, and seeing the ruins before me, traversed a gloomy arcade and emerged alone into the arena. A smooth turf covers its surface, from which a s.p.a.cious row of gradines rises to a majestic elevation. Four arches, with their simple Doric ornament, alone remain of the grand circle which once lifted itself above the highest seats of the amphitheatre; and, had it not been for Gothic violence, this part of the structure would have equally resisted the ravages of time.

Nothing can be more exact than the preservation of the gradines; not a block has sunk from its place, and whatever trifling injuries they may have received have been carefully repaired. The two chief entrances are rebuilt with solidity and closed by portals, no pa.s.sage being permitted through the theatre except at public shows and representations, sometimes still given in the arena.

When I paced slowly across it, silence reigned undisturbed amongst the awful ruins, and nothing moved, save the weeds and gra.s.ses which skirt the walls and tremble with the faintest breeze.

I liked the idea of being thus shut in on every side by endless gradines, abandoned to a stillness and solitude I was so peculiarly disposed to taste. Throwing myself upon the gra.s.s in the middle of the arena, I enjoyed the freedom of my situation; and pursued the last tracks of light, as they faded behind the solitary arches, which rose above the rest. Red and fatal were the tints of the western sky; the wind blew chill and hollow, and something more than common seemed to issue from the withering herbage on the walls. I started up, fled through a dark arcade, where water falls drop by drop, and arrived, panting, in the great square before the ruins. Directing my steps across it, I reached an ancient castle, once inhabited by the Scaligeri, sovereigns of Verona. Hard by appeared the ruins of a triumphal arch, which most antiquarians ascribe to Vitruvius, enriched with delicate scrolls and flowery ornaments. I could have pa.s.sed half-an-hour very agreeably in copying these elegant sculptures; but night covering them with her shades, I returned home to the Corso; where the outlines of several palaces, designed by Michel San Michele, attracted my attention. But it was too dusky to examine their details.

September 11th.--Traversing once more the grand piazza, and casting a last glance upon the amphitheatre, we pa.s.sed under a lofty arch which terminates the perspective, and left Verona by a wide, irregular, picturesque street, commanding, whenever you look back, a striking scene of towers, cypress, and mountains.

The country, between this beautiful town and Mantua, presents one continued grove of dwarfish mulberries, among which start up innumerable barren hills. Now and then a knot of poplars diversify their craggy summits, and sometimes a miserable shed. Mantua itself rises out of a mora.s.s formed by the Mincio, whose course, in most places, is so choked up with reeds as to be scarcely discernible. It requires a creative imagination to discover any charms in such a prospect, and a strong prepossession not to be disgusted with the scene where Virgil was born. For my own part, I approached this neighbourhood with proper deference, and began to feel the G.o.d, but finding no tufted tree on which I could suspend my lyre, or verdant bank which invited to repose, I abandoned poetry and entered the city in despair.

The beating of drums, and sight of German whiskers, finished what croaking frogs and stagnant ditches had begun. Every cla.s.sic idea being scared by such sounds and such objects, I dined in dudgeon, and refused stirring out till late in the evening.

A few paces from the town stand the remains of the palace where the Gonzagas formerly resided. This I could not resist looking at, and was amply rewarded. Several of the apartments, adorned by the bold pencil of Julio Romano, merit the most exact attention; and the grotesques, with which the stucco ceilings are covered, equal the celebrated loggios of the Vatican. I don't recollect ever having seen these elegant designs engraven, and believe it would be perfectly worth the pains of some capital artist to copy them. Being in fresco upon damp neglected walls, each year diminishes their number, and every winter moulders some beautiful figure away.

The subjects, mostly from antique fables, are treated with all the purity and gracefulness of Raphael. Amongst others the story of Polypheme is very conspicuous. Acis appears, reclined with his beloved Galatea, on the sh.o.r.e of the ocean, whilst their gigantic enemy, seated above on the brow of AEtna, seems by the paleness and horrors of his countenance to meditate some terrible revenge.

When it was too late to examine the paintings any longer, I walked into a sort of court, or rather garden, which had been decorated with fountains and antique statues. Their fragments still remain amongst weeds and beds of flowers, for every corner of the place is smothered with vegetation. Here nettles grow thick and rampant: there, tuberoses and jessamine cling around mounds of ruins, which during the elegant reign of the Gonzagas led to grottos and subterranean apartments, concealed from vulgar eyes, and sacred to the most refined enjoyments. I gathered a tuberose that sprang from a sh.e.l.l of white marble, once trickling with water, now half filled with mould, and carrying it home, shut myself up for the rest of the night, inhaled its perfume, and fell a-dreaming.

September 12th.--A shower having fallen, the air was refreshed, and the drops still glittered upon the vines, through which our road conducted us. Three or four miles from Mantua the scene changed to extensive grounds of rice, and meads of the tenderest verdure watered by springs, whose frequent meanders gave to the whole prospect the appearance of a vast green carpet shot with silver. Further on we crossed the Po, and pa.s.sing Guastalla, entered a woody country full of inclosures and villages; herds feeding in the meadows, and poultry parading before every wicket.

The peasants were busied in winnowing their corn; or, mounted upon the elms and poplars, gathering the rich cl.u.s.ters from the vines that hang streaming in braids from one branch to another. I was surprised to find myself already in the midst of the vintage, and to see every road crowded with carts and baskets bringing it along; you cannot imagine a pleasanter scene.

Round Reggio it grew still more lively, and on the other side of that agreeable little city, I remarked many a cottage that t.i.tyrus might have inhabited, with its garden and willow hedge in flower, swarming with bees. Our road, the smoothest conceivable, led us, perhaps too rapidly, by so cheerful a landscape. I caught glimpses of fields and copses as we fled along, that could have afforded me amus.e.m.e.nt for hours, and orchards on gentle acclivities, beneath which I could have walked till evening. The trees literally bent under their loads of fruit, and innumerable ruddy apples lay scattered upon the ground -

"Strata jacent pa.s.sim sus quaeque sub arbore poma."

Beyond these rich ma.s.ses of foliage, to which the sun lent additional splendour, at the utmost extremity of the pastures, rose the irregular ridge of the Apennines, whose deep blue presented a striking contrast to the glowing colours of the foreground. I fixed my eyes on the chain of distant mountains, and indulged, as usual, my conjectures of what was going forward on their summits; of those who tended goats on the edge of the precipice; traversed, at this moment, the dark thickets of pines, and pa.s.sed their lives in yonder sheds, contented and unknown. Such were the dreams that filled my fancy, and kept it incessantly employed till it was dusk, and the moon began to show herself; the same moon which, but a few days ago, had seen me so happy at Fiesso. Her soft light reposed upon the meads, that had been newly mown, and the shadows of tall poplars were cast aslant them. I left my carriage, and running into the dim haze, abandoned myself to the recollection it inspired. During an hour, I kept continually flying forwards; bounding from enclosure to enclosure like a hunted antelope, and forgetting where I was or whither I was going. One sole idea filled my mind, and led me on with such heedless rapidity, that I stumbled over stones and bushes, and entangled myself on every wreath of vines which opposed my progress.

At length, having wandered where chance or the wildness of my fancy led, till the lateness of the evening alarmed me, I regained the chaise as fast as I could, and arrived between ten and eleven at the place of my destination.

September 13th.--Having but a moment or two at liberty, I hurried early in the morning to the palace, and entered an elegant Ionic court, with arcades of the whitest stone, through which I caught peeps of a clear blue sky and groves of cypresses. Some few good paintings still adorn the apartments, but the best part of the collection has been disposed of, for a hundred thousand sequins, amongst which was that inestimable picture, the Notte of Corregio.

An excellent copy remained and convinced me the original was not undeservedly celebrated. None but the pencil of Corregio ever designed such graceful angels, nor imagined such a pearly dawn to cast around them. Ten thousand times, I dare say, has the subject of the Nativity been treated, and as many painters have failed in rendering it so pleasing. The break of day, the first smiles of the celestial infant, and the truth, the simplicity of every countenance, cannot be too warmly admired. In the other rooms, no picture gave me more pleasure than Jacob's Vision by Domenico Feti. I gazed several minutes at the grand confusion of clouds and seraphim descending around the patriarch, and wished for a similar dream.

Having spent the little time I had remaining in contemplating this object, I hastened from the palace and left Modena.

We traversed a champagne country in our way to Bologna, whose richness and fertility increased in proportion as we drew near that celebrated mart of lap-dogs and sausages. A chain of hills commands the city, variegated with green inclosures and villas innumerable, almost every one of which has its grove of chestnuts and cypresses.

On the highest acclivity of this range appears the magnificent convent of Madonna del Monte, embosomed in wood, and joined to the town by a corridor a league in length. This vast portico, ascending the steeps and winding amongst the thickets, sometimes concealed and sometimes visible, produces an effect wonderfully grand and singular.

I longed to have mounted the height by so extraordinary a pa.s.sage; and hope on some future day to be better acquainted with Saint Maria del Monte.

At present I thought of little else, to say truth, but what I had seen at Fiesso; and what I was to hear at Lucca. The anxiety inspired by the one, and impatience by the other, rendered me shamefully insensible to the merits of Bologna (where I pa.s.sed near two hours), and of which I can add nothing but that it is very much out of humour, an earthquake and Cardinal Buoncompagni having disarranged both land and people. For half-a-year the ground continued trembling; and for these last months, the legate and senators have grumbled and scratched incessantly; so that, between natural and political commotions, the Bolognese must have pa.s.sed an agreeable summer.

Such a report of the situation of things, you may suppose, was not likely to r.e.t.a.r.d my journey. I put off delivering my letters to another opportunity; ran up a tall slender tower as high as the Campanile di San Marco, by way of exercise; and proceeded immediately after dinner towards the mountains. We were soon in the midst of crags and stony channels, that stream with ten thousand rills in the winter season, but during the summer months reflect every sunbeam, and harbour half the scorpions in the country.

For many a toilsome league our prospect consisted of nothing but dreary hillocks and intervening wastes, more barren and mournful than those to which Mary Magdalene retired. Sometimes a crucifix or chapel peeped out of the parched fern and gra.s.ses, with which these desolate fields are clothed; and now and then we met a goggle-eyed pilgrim trudging along, and staring about him as if he waited only for night and opportunity to have additional reasons for hurrying to Jerusalem.

During three or four hours that we continued ascending, the scene increased in sterility and desolation; but, at the end of our second post, the landscape began to alter for the better: little green valleys at the base of tremendous steeps, discovered themselves, scattered over with oaks, and freshened with running waters, which the nakedness of the impending rocks set off to advantage. The sides of the cliffs in general consist of rude misshapen ma.s.ses; but their summits are smooth and verdant, and continually browsed by herds of white goats, which were gambolling on the edge of the precipices as we pa.s.sed beneath.

I joined one of these frisking a.s.semblies, whose shadows were stretched by the setting sun along the level herbage. There I sat a few minutes whilst they shook their beards at me, and tried to scare me with all their horns; but I was not to be frightened, and would offer up my adorations to departing day, in spite of their caperings.

Being tired with skipping and b.u.t.ting at me in vain, the whole herd trotted away, and I after them. They led me a dance from crag to crag and from thicket to thicket.

It was growing dusky apace, and wreaths of smoke began to ascend from the mysterious depths of the valleys. I was ignorant what monster inhabited such retirements, so gave over my pursuit, lest some Polypheme or other might make me repent it. I looked around, the carriage was out of sight; but hearing the neighing of horses at a distance, I soon came up with them, and mounted another rapid ascent, whence an extensive tract of cliff and forest land was discernible.

The rocks here formed a s.p.a.cious terrace; along which I continued surveying the distant groves, and marking the solemn approach of night. The sky was hung with storms, and a pale moon seemed to advance with difficulty amongst broken and tempestuous clouds. It was an hour to reap plants with brazen sickles, and to meditate upon revenge.

A chill wind blew from the highest peak of the Apennines, inspiring evil, and making a dismal rustle amongst the woods of chestnut that hung on the mountain's side, through which we were forced to pa.s.s. I never heard such fatal murmurs; nor felt myself so gloomily. I walked out of the sound of the carriage, where the glimmering moonlight prevailed, and began interpreting the language of the leaves, not greatly to my own advantage or that of any being in the universe. I was no prophet of good, but full of melancholy bodings, and something that bordered upon despair. Had I but commanded an oracle, as ancient visionaries were wont, I should have thrown whole nations into dismay.

How long I continued in this strange temper I cannot pretend to say, but believe it was midnight before we emerged from the oracular forest, and saw faintly before us the huts of Lognone, where we were to sleep. This blessed hamlet is suspended on the brow of a bleak mountain, and every gust that stirs shakes the whole village to its foundations. At our approach two hags stalked forth with lanterns and invited us with a grin, which I shall always remember, to a dish of mustard and crow's gizzards, a dish I was more than half afraid of tasting, lest it should change me to some bird of darkness, condemned to mope eternally on the black rafters of the cottage.

After repeated supplications we procured a few eggs, and some f.a.ggots to make a fire. Its blaze gave me courage to hear the hollow blasts that whistled in the crevices; and pitching my bed in a warm corner, I soon fell asleep, and forgot all my cares and inquietudes.

September 14th.--The sun had not been long above the horizon, before we set forward upon a craggy pavement hewn out of the rough bosom of the cliffs and precipices. Scarce a tree was visible, and the few that presented themselves began already to shed their leaves. The raw nipping air of this desert with difficulty spares a blade of vegetation; and in the whole range of these extensive eminences I could not discover a single corn-field or pasture. Inhabitants, you may guess, there were none. I would defy even a Scotch highlander to find means of subsistence in so rude a soil.

Towards midday, we had surmounted the dreariest part of our journey, and began to perceive a milder landscape. The climate improved as well as the prospect, and after a continual descent of several hours, we saw groves and villages in the dips of the hills, and met a string of mules and horses laden with fruit. I purchased some figs and peaches from this little caravan, and spreading my repast upon a bank, baked in the suns.h.i.+ne, and gathered large spikes of lavender in full bloom.

Continuing our route, we bid adieu to the realms of poverty and barrenness, and entered a cultivated vale sheltered by woody acclivities. Among these we wound along, the peasants singing upon the hill, and driving their cattle to springs by the road's side; near one of which we dined in a patriarchal manner, and afterwards pursued our course through a grove of taper cypresses, waving with the cool gales of the evening. The heights were suffused with a ruddy glow, proceeding from the light pink clouds which floated on the horizon. No others were to be seen. All nature seemed in a happy tranquil state; the herds penned in their folds, and every rustic going to repose. I shared the general calm for the first time this many a tedious hour; and traversed the dales in peace, abandoned to flattering hopes and gay illusions. The full moon shone propitiously upon me as I ascended a hill, and discovered Florence at a distance, surrounded with gardens and terraces, rising one above another. The serene moonlight on the pale grey tints of the olive, gave an Elysian, visionary appearance to the landscape. I never beheld so mild a sky, nor such soft gleams: the mountains were veiled in azure mists, which concealed their rugged summits; and the plains in vapours, that smoothed their irregularities, and diffused a faint aerial hue, to which no description can render justice. I could have contemplated such scenery for hours, and was sorry when I found myself shut up from it by the gates of Florence. We pa.s.sed several lofty palaces of the true Tuscan order, with rustic arcades and stout columns, whose solidity and magnificence were not diminished by the shades of midnight. Whilst these grand ma.s.ses lay dark and solemn, the smooth flagstone, with which every street is paved, received a chequered gleam, and the Arno, the brightest radiance. Though tired with my jumble over the Apennines, I could not resist the temptation of walking upon the banks of so celebrated a river, and crossing its bridges, which still echoed with music and conversation. Having gratified the first impulse of curiosity, I returned to Vaninis, and slept as well as my impatience would allow, till it was time next morning (September 15th), to visit the gallery, and wors.h.i.+p the Venus de Medicis. I felt, upon entering this world of taste and elegance, as if I could have taken up my abode in it for ever; but confused with the mult.i.tude of objects, I knew not where to turn myself, and ran childishly by the ample ranks of sculptures, like a b.u.t.terfly in a parterre, that skims before it fixes, over ten thousand flowers.

Having taken my course down one side of the gallery, I turned the angle and discovered another long perspective, equally stored with prodigies of bronze and marble; paintings on the walls, on the ceilings, in short, everywhere. A minute brought me, vast as it was, to the extremity of this range; then, flying down a third, adorned in the same delightful manner, I paused under the bust of Jupiter Olympius; and began to reflect a little more maturely upon the company in which I found myself. Opposite, appeared the majestic features of Minerva, breathing divinity; and Cybele, the mother of the G.o.ds.

I bowed low to these awful powers, but seeing a black figure just by, whose att.i.tude seemed to announce the deity of sleep, I made immediately up to it. You know my fondness for this drowsy personage, and that it is not the first time I have quitted the most splendid society for him. I found him, at present, of touchstone, with the countenance of a towardly brat, sleeping ill through indigestion. The artist had not conceived such high ideas of the G.o.d as live in my bosom, or else he never would have represented him with so little grace or dignity.

Displeased at finding my favourite subject profaned, I perceived the lively transports of enthusiasm began in some degree to be dissipated, and I felt myself calm enough to follow the herd of guides and spectators from chamber to chamber and cabinet to cabinet, without falling into errors of rapture and inspiration. We were led slowly and moderately through the large rooms, containing the portraits of painters, good, bad, and indifferent, from Raffaelle to Liotard; then into a museum of bronzes, which would afford both amus.e.m.e.nt and instruction for years.

To one who can never behold an ancient lamp or tripod without the a.s.sociations of those who sacrificed on the one and meditated by the other, imagine what pleasures such a repository must have communicated.

When I had alarmed, not satisfied, my curiosity by rapidly running over this mult.i.tude of candelabra, urns, and sacred utensils, we entered a small luminous apartment, surrounded with cases richly decorated, and filled with the most exquisite models of workmans.h.i.+p in bronze and various metals, cla.s.sed in exact order. Here are crowds of diminutive deities and tutelary lars, to whom the superst.i.tion of former days attributed those midnight murmurs which were believed to presage the misfortunes of a family. Amongst these now neglected images are preserved a vast number of talismans, cabalistic amulets, and other grotesque relics of ancient credulity.

In the centre of the room, I remarked a table, beautifully formed of polished gems, and, hard by it, the statue of a genius with his familiar serpent, and all his attributes; the guardian of the treasured antiquities. From this chamber we were conducted into another, which opens to that part of the gallery where the busts of Adrian and Antinous are placed. Two pilasters, delicately carved in trophies and cl.u.s.ters of ancient armour, stand on each side of the entrance; within are several perfumed cabinets of miniatures, and a single column of Oriental alabaster about ten feet in height,