_The cemetery at Bologna_
Bologna, 7 _June_, 1819.
... I have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino
and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterwards went to the
beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls, and found, besides
the superb burial-ground, an original of a Custode, who reminded me
of the grave-digger in _Hamlet_. He has a collection of capuchins'
skulls, labelled on the forehead, and taking down one of them, said,
'This was Brother Desiderio Berro, who died at forty--one of my best
friends. I begged his head of his brethren after his decease, and they
gave it me. I put it in lime, and then boiled it. Here it is, teeth
and all, in excellent preservation. He was the merriest, cleverest
fellow I ever knew. Wherever he went, he brought joy; and whenever any
one was melancholy, the sight of him was enough to make him cheerful
again. He walked so actively, you might have taken him for a
dancer--he joked--he laughed--oh! he was such a Frate as I never saw
before, nor ever shall again!'
He told me that he had himself planted all the cypresses in the
cemetery; that he had the greatest attachment to them and to his dead
people; that since 1801 they had buried fifty-three thousand persons.
In showing some older monuments, there was that of a Roman girl of
twenty, with a bust by Bernini. She was a princess Bartorini, dead two
centuries ago: he said that, on opening her grave, they had found
her hair complete, and 'as yellow as gold'. Some of the epitaphs at
Ferrara pleased me more than the more splendid monuments at Bologna;
for instance:--
'_Martini Luigi
Implora pace.'
'Lucrezia Picini
Implora eterna quiete_.'
Can anything be more full of pathos? Those few words say all that can
be said or sought: the dead had had enough of life; all they wanted
was rest, and this they _implore_! There is all the helplessness,
and humble hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the
grave--'_implora pace_'. I hope, whoever may survive me, and shall
see me put in the foreigners' burying-ground at the Lido, within the
fortress by the Adriatic, will see those two words, and no more, put
over me. I trust they won't think of 'pickling, and bringing me home
to Clod or Blunderbuss Hall'. I am sure my bones would not rest in
an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I
believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed, could I suppose
that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back
to your soil. I would not even feed your worms, if I could help it.
So, as Shakespeare says of Mowbray, the banished Duke of Norfolk, who
died at Venice (see _Richard II_), that he, after fighting
Against black Pagans, Turks, and Saracens,
And toiled with works of war, retired himself
To Italy, and there, at _Venice_, gave
His body to that _pleasant_ country's earth,
And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
Under whose colours he had fought so long.
Before I left Venice, I had returned to you your late, and Mr.
Hobhouse's sheets of _Juan_. Don't wait for further answers from
me, but address yours to Venice, as usual. I know nothing of my own
movements; I may return there in a few days, or not for some time.
All this depends on circumstances. I left Mr. Hoppner very well....
My daughter Allegra was well too, and is growing pretty; her hair is
growing darker, and her eyes are blue. Her temper and her ways, Mr.
Hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features: she will make,
in that case, a manageable young lady.
I have never heard anything of Ada, the little Electra of my
Mycenae.... But there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should
not live to see it.... What a long letter I have scribbled!
PS. Here, as in Greece, they strew flowers on the tombs. I saw a
quantity of rose-leaves, and entire roses, scattered over the graves
at Ferrara. It has the most pleasing effect you can imagine.