What did Shelley, what does any one, mean by their raptures about
Florence? Never, surely, was the epithet of _La Bella_ more misapplied.
I can well understand the enthusiasm with which men call Genoa _Il
Superbo_. Its mountain background, its deep blue sea, its groves of
orange and acacia, the prickly aloe growing wild upon the very shore
in all the luxuriance of tropical vegetation, indicative of an almost
wasteful extravagance of production; while its amphitheatre of palaces,
proudly rising in terraced rows, are gorgeous remembrances of the
haughty Republic. But Florence! dark, dirty, and discordant! Palaces,
gaol-like and gloomy, stand in streets where wretchedness and misery
seem to have chosen their dwelling-place--the types of feudal tyranny
side by side with modern destitution. The boasted Arno, too, a
shrunk-up, trickling stream, not wide enough to be a river, not clear
enough to be a rivulet, winds along between hills hot and sun-scorched,
where the brown foliage has no touch of freshness, but stands parched
and shrivelled by the hot glare of eternal noon. The white-walled villas
glisten in the dazzling heat, not tempered by the slightest shade, but
reflecting back the scorching glow from rocks cracked and fissured by
the sun!
How disappointing is all this! and how wearisome is the endeavour,
from the scattered objects here and there, to make any approach to
that Florence one has imagined to himself! To me the abstraction is
impossible. I carry about with me, even into the galleries, before
the triumphs of Raf-faelle and the wonders of Michael Angelo, the sad
discordant scenes through which I have passed. The jarred senses are
rendered incapable of properly appreciating and feeling those influences
that should diffuse their effect upon the mind; and even the sight of
the “Guardia Civica,” strutting in solemn mockery beneath the archways
where the proud Medici have trod, are contrasts to suggest rather a
sense of sarcasm than of pleasure.
Here and there you do come upon some grand and imposing pile of
building, the very stones of which seem laid by giant hands; but even
these have the fortress character, the air of strongholds, rather
than of princely dwellings, as at Genoa. You see at once how much more
defence and safety were the guiding principles, than elegance of design
and beauty of proportion. No vestibule, peopled with its marble groups,
opens here to the passer-by a glimpse of a noble stair rising in
spacious amplitude between walls of marble. No gate of gilded fretwork
shews the terraced garden, with the plashing fountains, and the
orange-trees bending with their fruit.
Like all continental cities where the English congregate, the
inhabitants have a mongrel look, grafting English notions of dress and
equipage upon their own, and, like most imitators, only successful in
following the worst models. The Cascini, too, exhibits a very motley
assemblage of gaudy liveries and, dusky carriages, riding-grooms dressed
like footmen, their masters no bad resemblance to the “Jeunes Premiers”
of a vaudeville. The men are very inferior in appearance to the
Milanese; they are neither as well-built nor well-grown, and rarely
have any pretensions to a fashionable exterior. The women are mostly
ill-dressed, and, in no instance that I have seen, even well-looking.
They have the wearied look, without the seductive languor, of the South;
they are pale, but not fair; and their gestures are neither plastic
nor graceful. In fact, in all that I have seen here, I am sadly
disappointed-all, save the Raffaelle’s! they are above my conception of
them.
How much of this lies in myself I dare not stop to inquire; a large
share, perhaps, but assuredly not all. This climate should be avoided
by those of weak chest. Symptoms of further “breaking-up” crowd upon me
each day; and this burning sun and piercing wind make a sad conflict in
the debilitated frame. But where to go, where to seek out a quiet spot
to linger a few days and die! Rome is in all the agonies of its
mock liberty--Naples in open revolt: here, where I am, all rule and
government have ceased to exist; the mob have every thing at their
mercy: that they have not abused their power, is more owing to their
ignorance than their honour. When the Irish rebels carried the town
of Ross by storm, they broke into the grocers’ shops to eat sugar!
The Florentines having bullied the Duke, are only busied about the new
uniforms of their Civic Guard!
Hitherto the reforms have gone no further than in organising this same
National Guard, and in thrashing the police authorities wherever found.
Now, bad as this police was, it was still the only protection to the
public peace. It exists no longer; and Tuscany has made her first step
in liberty “_en Américaine_” by adopting “Lynch Law.”
I was about to note down a singular instance of this indignant justice
of the people, when the arrival of a letter, in a hand unknown to
me, suddenly-routed all my intentions. If I am able to record the
circumstance here, calmly and without emotion, it is neither from that
philosophy the world teaches, nor from any higher motive--it is merely
on the same principle that one would bear with tolerable equanimity the
break-down of a carriage when within a few miles of the journey’s end!
The fact, then, is simply this, that I, Horace Templeton, whose draughts
a few days back might have gone far into the “tens of thousands,”
without fear of “dishonour,” am now ruined! When we read this solemn
word in the newspapers, we at once look back to the rank and station of
him whose ruin is predicated. A Duke is “ruined” when he must sell
three packs of hounds, three studs of horses, four of his five or six
mansions, part with his yacht at Cowes, and his racers at Newmarket,
and retire to the Continent with a beggarly pittance of some fifteen
thousand per annum. A Merchant is ruined when, by the sudden convulsions
of mercantile affairs, he is removed from the unlimited command of
millions to pass his days, at Leamington or Cheltenham, on his wife’s
jointure of two thousand a-year.
His clerk is ruined when he drops his pocket-book on his way from the
Bank, and loses six hundred pounds belonging to the firm. His is more
real ruin, for it implies stoppages, suspicion--mayhap loss of place,
and its consequences.
But I have lost every thing! Hamerton and Scott, my bankers, have
failed; their liabilities, as the phrase is--meaning thereby what they
are liable to be asked for, but cannot satisfy--are enormous. My only
landed property is small, and so heavily mortgaged as to be worth
nothing. I had only waited for the term of an agreement to redeem
the mortgage, and clear off all encumbrances; but the “crash” has
anticipated me, and I am now a beggar!
Yes, there is the letter, in all cold and chilling civility, curtly
stating that “the unprecedented succession of calamities, by which
public credit has been affected, have left the firm no other alternative
but that of a short suspension of payment! Sincerely trusting, however,
that they will be enabled----” and so forth. These announcements have
but one burden--the creditors are to be mulcted, while the debtor
continues to hope!
And now for my own share in the misfortune. Is it the momentary access
of excitement, or is it some passing rally in my constitution? but I
certainly feel better, and in higher spirits, than I have done for many
a day. It is long since I indulged in my old habit of castle-building;
and yet now, at every instant, some new notion strikes me, and I fancy
some new field for active labour and exertion. To the present Ministers
I am slightly known--sufficiently to ask for employment, if not in my
former career, in some other. Should this fail, I have yet powerful
friends to ask for me. Not that I like either of these plans--this
playing “_antichambre_” is a sore penance at my time of life. Had I
health and strength, I’d emigrate. I really do wonder why men of a
certain rank, younger sons especially, do not throw their fortunes into
the colonies. Apart from the sense of enterprise, there is an immense
gain, in the fact that individual exertion, be it of head or hand, can
exercise, free from the trammels of conventional prejudices, which
so rule and restrain us at home. If we merely venture to use the
pruning-knife in our gardens here, there, we may lay the axe to the root
of the oak; and yet, in this commonwealth of labour, the gentleman,
if his claim to the title be really well founded, is as certain of
maintaining a position of superiority as though he had remained in his
own country. The Vernons, the Greys, and the Courtenays, have never
ceased to hold a peculiar place among their fellow-citizens of the
United States; and so is it observable in our colonies, even where mere
wealth was found in the opposite scale.
But let me not longer dwell on these things, nor indulge in speculations
which lead to hope! Let me rather reflect on my present position, and
calculate calmly by what economy I may be able to linger on, and not
exhaust the means, till the lamp of life is ready to be quenched.
I am sure that most men of easy, careless temperament, could live as
well on one half of their actual incomes, having all that they require,
and never feeling any unusual privation; that the other half is
invariably “_mangé_” by one’s servants, by tradespeople, by cases of
mock distress, by importunity, and by indolence. I well know how I
am blameable upon each of these several counts. Now, for a note to my
banker here, to ascertain what sum he holds of mine; and then, like the
shipwrecked sailor on his raft, to see how long life may be sustained on
half or quarter rations!
So, here is the banker’s letter:--“I have the honour to acknowledge,”
and so on. The question at issue is the sum--and here it stands: Three
hundred and forty-two pounds, twelve shillings, and fourpence. I really
thought I had double the amount; but here I find checks innumerable. I
have, no doubt, given to many, now far richer than I am. Be it so.
The next point is--How long can a man live on three hundred and forty
pounds? One man would say, Three weeks--another, as many months--and
another, as many years, perhaps. I am totally ignorant what guidance to
follow.
In this difficulty I shall send for Dr. Hennesy--he is the man in repute
here--and try, if it may be, to ascertain what length of tether he
ascribes to my case. Be it a day, a week, or a month, let me but know
it. And now to compose myself, and speak calmly on a theme where the
slightest appearance of excitement would create erroneous suspicions
against me. If H. be the man of sense I deem him, he will not
misconstrue my meaning, even should he guess it.
Gilbert reminds me of what I had quite forgotten--that yesterday
I signed an agreement for a villa here: I took it for six months,
expecting to live one! It struck me, when driving out on the Bologna
road, both for architecture and situation; I saw nothing equal to
it--an old summer-palace of the Medici, and afterwards inhabited by the
Salviati, whose name it bears.
A princely house in every way is this; but how unsuited to ruined
fortunes! I walked about the rooms, now stopping to examine a picture or
a carved oak cabinet; now to peep at the wild glens, which here are seen
dividing the hills in every direction; and felt how easy it would be
to linger on here, where objects of taste and high art blend their
influence with dreams of the long past. Now, I must address my mind to
the different question--How to be released from my contract?
H. has just been here. How difficult it was to force him into candour!
A doctor becomes, by the practice of his art, as much addicted to
suspicion as a police agent. Every question, every reply of the patient,
must be a “symptom.” This wearies and worries the nervous man, and
renders him shy and uncommunicative.
For myself, well opining how my sudden demand, “How long can I live?”
might sound, if uttered with abrupt sincerity, I submitted patiently
to all the little gossip of the little world of this place,--its envy,
hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness--which certainly are prime
features in an English colony on the Continent--all, that I might
at last establish a character for soundness of mind and calmness of
purpose, ere I put my _quore_.
The favourable moment came at last, and I asked in full earnest, but
with a manner that shewed no sign of dread,--“Tell me, _Dottore mio_,
how long may such a chest as mine endure? I mean, taking every possible
care, as I do; neither incurring any hazard nor neglect; and, in fact,
fighting the battle bravely to the last?”
He tried at first, by a smile and a jocular manner, to evade the
question; but seeing my determination fixed, he looked grave, felt my
pulse, percussed my chest, and was silent.
“Well,” said I, after a very long pause, “I await my sentence, but in
no mood of hope or fear. Is it a month?--a week?--a day?--nay, surely
it can hardly be so near as that? Still silent! Come, this is scarcely
fair; I ask simply--”
“That which is perfectly impossible to answer, did I concede that I
ought to reply, as categorically as you ask.”
“Were I to tell my reasons, doctor, you might judge more harshly of
my intelligence than I should like; besides, you would certainly
misinterpret my meaning. Tell me, therefore, in the common course of
such changes as my disease involves, can I live a year? You shake your
head! Be it so. Six months?--Three, then?--Have I three? The winter,
you say, is to be feared. I know it. Well, then, shall I own that
my convictions anticipate you at each negative? I feel I have not a
month--nay, not half of one--a week will do it, doctor; and now excuse
scant ceremony, and leave me.”
Alone--friendless--homeless--ruined, and dying! Sad words to write, each
of them; sadder when thus brought in brotherhood together. The world
and its pageants are passing fast by me, like the eddies of that stream
which flows beneath my window. I catch but one glimpse and they are
gone, beneath the dark bridge of Death, to mingle in the vast ocean of
Eternity.
How strange to see the whole business of the world going on, the moving
multitude, the tumult of active minds and bodies,--at the very moment
when the creeping chill of ebbing life tells of days and hours numbered!
I am alone--not one to sit by me to combat thoughts that with the
faintest help I could resist, but which unaided are too strong for me.
In this window-seat where now I rest, who shall sit this day week? The
youth, perhaps, in gushing pride of heart and buoyancy, now entering
upon life, ardent and high-souled--or the young bride, gazing on that
same river that now I watch, and reading in its circles wreathed smiles
of happy promise. Oh, may no memories of him, whose tears fall fast now,
haunt the spot and throw their gloom on others!
I am friendless--and yet, which of those I still call friends would I
now wish beside me. To drink of the cup of consolation? I must first
offer my own of misery--nay, it is better to endure alone!
Homeless am I, too--and this, indeed, I feel bitterly. Old familiar
objects, associated with ties of affection, bound up with memories of
friends, are meet companions for the twilight hours of life. I long to
be back in my own chosen room--the little library, looking out on the
avenue of old beeches leading to the lake, and the village spire rising
amid the dark yew-trees. There was a spot there, too, I had often
fancied--when I close my eyes I think I see it still--a little declivity
of the ground beneath a large old elm, where a single tomb stood
surrounded by an iron railing; one side was in decay, and through which
I often passed to read the simple inscription--“Courtenay Temple-ton,
Armiger, aetatis 22.”
This was not the family burying-place--why he was laid there was a
family mystery. His death was attributed to suicide, nor was his memory
ever totally cleared of the guilt. The event was briefly this:--On
the eve of the great battle of Fontenoy he received an insult from an
officer of a Scotch regiment, which ended in a duel. The Scotchman fell
dead at the first fire. Templeton was immediately arrested; and instead
of leading an attack, as he had been appointed to do, spent the hours of
the battle in a prison. The next morning he was discovered dead; a great
quantity of blood had flowed from his mouth and nose, which, although
no external wound was found, suggested an idea of self-destruction.
None suspected, what I have often heard since from medical men, that
a rupture of the aorta from excessive emotion--a broken heart, in
fact--had killed him: a death more frequently occurring than is usually
believed.
“Ruined and dying” are the last words in my record; and yet neither
desirous of fortune nor life! At least, so faint is my hope that I
should use either with higher purpose than I have done, that all wish is
extinguished.
Seriously I believe, that love of life is less general than the habit
of projecting schemes for the future--a vague system of castle-building,
which even the least speculative practises; and that death is thus
accounted the great evil, as suddenly interrupting a chain of events
whose series is still imperfect. The very humblest peasant that rises
to daily toil has his gaze fixed on some future, some period of rest
or repose, some hour of freedom from his lifelong struggle. Now, I have
exhausted this source; the well, that once bubbled with eddying fancies
of days to come, is dry. High spirits, health, and the buoyancy
that result from both, when joined to a disposition keenly alive to
enjoyment, and yet neither cloyed by excess nor depraved by corrupt
tastes, will always go far to simulate a degree of ability. The very
freedom a mind thus constituted enjoys is a species of power; and its
liberty exaggerates its range, just as the untrammelled paces of the
young colt seem infinitely more graceful and noble than the matured
regularity of the trained and bitted steed.
It was thus that I set out in life--ardent, hopeful, and enthusiastic:
if my mental resources were small, they were always ready at hand, like,
a banker with a weak capital, but who could pay every trifling demand on
the spot, I lived upon credit; and upon that credit I grew rich. Had I
gone on freely as I began, I might still enjoy the fame of wealth and
solvency, but with the reputation of affluence came the wish to be rich.
I contracted my issues, I husbanded my resources, and from that hour
I became suspected. To avoid a “run” for gold, I ceased to trade and
retired. This, in a few words, is the whole history of my life.
Gilbert comes to say that the carriage is waiting to convey me to the
villa--our luggage is already there. Be it so: still I must own to
myself, that going to occupy a palace for the last few hours of life and
fortune is very much like good Christopher Sly’s dream of Lordliness.