_By Mrs. Maria Callcott_.
The drawing from which our engraving is made, is one of the relics of
the late Mr. Bonington, whose early death has caused such great and just
regret to the lovers of painting. It represents one of those ancient
towers, and one of those magnificent palaces, (the Maffei Palace), which
distinguish the city of Verona, and, by their peculiar character mark it
both as the ancient Gothic capital of northern Italy, and as one of the
great principalities of the middle ages.
Verona is indebted to nature for part of the charms it possesses for a
traveller. It is nearly surrounded by the broad and rapid Adige: the
hills towards the Tyrol have a majestic character, which, as they
approach the city, is softened by vineyards, and fields, and gardens,
between agreeable villas or groves of cypress. The dress of the people
is picturesque; their habits are cheerful, and their manners kindly.
Besides all this, there is scarcely a city, even in Italy, to which we
attach a more romantic interest than to Verona. Under its ancient Gothic
name of Bern, it is the scene of many of the Teutonic tales which are
woven into the Book of Heroes, and the song of the Nibelung. The poets
and novelists of the middle ages have also laid the scenes of many of
their enchanting tales in this beautiful city; and our own Shakspeare
has brought Verona so home to every English reader, that we feel almost
to have a right of possession in the place.
Originally a city of the Rhetians, Verona became a Roman colony about
the time of Julius Caeser, who caused its inhabitants to be enrolled
among the number of Roman citizens. Its most flourishing periods under
the empire were the reigns of Vaspasian and of Hadrian, when various
temples, and other public buildings, of which some fragments still
remain, were erected, and the magnificent ampitheatre, which is still
used for scenic representations, was built. It was under the reign of
Trajan, that Verona received its first Christian Bishop, Euprepius; and
in that of Dioclesian, that its martyrs, Fermus and Rusticus, suffered.
The conquest of the city by Constantine, and the fearful battle fought
in its immediate neighbourhood between Stilicho and Attila, produced
little change in the condition of Verona, which continued to partake of
the general fortunes of the empire, until the reign of Theodoric the
Great.
After the invasion of Italy by the Ostrogoths, under Theodoric, and his
victory over Odoacer, which ensured him the sovereignty of the country,
from the Alps to Calabria, about the year 493, he fixed his capital at
Verona, or, as it was called by the Goths, Bern:[1] there he built a
magnificent palace, which communicated, by a continued portico,
with principal gate of the city. He renewed the Roman walls and
fortifications, repaired the aqueducts, and constructed commodious
baths and other public buildings.[2]
[1] See Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," chap. 39, for the general
conduct of Theodoric in Italy.
[2] Tiraboschi, book i.
After the death of Theodoric, A.D. 526, in the 37th year of his reign,
the disturbed reigns of his daughter Amalasontha and her son Athalaric
were an earnest of the distractions that Verona suffered, in common with
the rest of Italy, till the taking of the city by Charlemagne, when a
short period of tranquillity was enjoyed. Yet there a part of the great
family tragedy, which secured his possession of the empire, was acted.
He found in the town the widow and children of his brother Carloman, and
they were sacrificed to his security. His eldest son, Pepin Hunchback,
died at Verona, and was buried in St. Zeno's church, which he had
founded. The present magnificent temple stands nearly on the site of
Pepin's humbler foundation; and the great stone, now shown in the court,
called the tomb of King Pepin, is very possibly that of Charlemagne's
son.
During the disastrous period that followed, Verona underwent all the
evils that its situation (at the very entrance to Italy from Germany)
was so peculiarly calculated to draw upon it. The invasions of the
Othos, the wars of the Guelfs and Ghibelines, the struggles of the
people against oppression, and between the oppressors for power, from
time to time distressed the city and robbed the citizens. Yet the very
struggle for freedom and power ensured a portion of the former to the
people, who were courted by all parties; and Verona became rich by the
visits of her masters, and of such as courted her assistance. But it was
in the thirteenth century that she became the queen of northern Italy,
under the reign of the Scaligers, or della Scalas, who, from simple
citizens, were raised, by their valour, their humanity, and the free
choice of the people, to the sovereignty of the state.
During one hundred and twenty-seven years, ten princes of that
illustrious house reigned in Verona. The first six were men of
extraordinary talent, and, for the time in which they lived, of
extraordinary virtue. They not only enlarged the boundaries of the
Veronese, but subjected several distant cities. Albert della Scala added
Trent and Riva, Parma and Reggio, Belluno and Vicenza, to his dominions;
and Can Grande conquered Padua, Trevigi, Mantua, and Feltre. It is his
body that is laid in the plain sarcophagus over the door of the little
church of St. Mary of the Scaligers, only adorned with the figure of a
knight on horseback, of nearly the natural size, above it. The other
tombs, on which it looks down, are those of his successors: they are
gorgeous in ornament, and form a conspicuous group among the picturesque
buildings of the city; but they are built over the ashes of men under
whom their family and state declined, until the Visconti of Milan,
having overcome the princes, built the citadel, and fortified Castello
San Pietro.
We must not omit to state that under Bartolomeo, the third of the
Scaligers, that tragic end was put to the rivalry of the great families,
Capelletti and Montecchi, which served Bandello as the foundation of one
of his most popular novels, and Shakspeare as the plot of Romeo and
Juliet. The tomb now shown as that of Juliet, is an ancient sarcophagus
of red granite: it has suffered from the fire which, burnt down the
church where it was originally placed.
The Visconti did not long rule in Verona: about the year 1405, the
Veronese placed themselves under the protection of Venice, whose good
and ill fortune they partook of, until the period of the French
Revolution, when, in 1796, the Venetian Republic ceased to exist. In
1798, the German army occupied Verona, and thought itself secure behind
walls which had stood against Catinat, and which had been improved and
strengthened by Prince Eugene; but, in 1801, it fell into the hands of
the French, and became part of the kingdom of Italy. The events of 1814
placed the Veronese under the dominion of Austria; and, in 1822, this
ancient capital of the North of Italy was the scene of a congress,
wherein the divisions of Europe were remodelled, and its proportions
changed in a manner that it is to be hoped will, in the end, conduce to
its prosperity. Never had such a royal meeting taken place since the
days of Theodoric, whose companions were princes from every nation on
earth.
But they looked on the ruins of Verona. The Roman Amphitheatre is,
perhaps, the least injured of all the public buildings. On the walls,
the four bridges, the castles, and even the churches, the havoc of mines
and the disfiguring effects of bullets are every where visible. The
poverty that war leaves behind is to be seen in the neglected state of
the public buildings, the substitution of gilded and silvered wood for
the sacred golden candlesticks of the altar, and the destruction or
disappearance of pictures of great price. Yet enough remains to show
that Verona once partook of the riches, the polish, the luxury of
Venice. There are relics of her schools, and fragments of her beautiful
architecture. From the Gothic times to the present, we may trace,
step by step, the improvements and variations of public and private
buildings. The majestic San Zeno is at the head of the churches: there
is nothing but what is ancient, and nothing new or incongruous offends
the eye. The Cathedral still preserves one of Titian's most precious
works. In the portico are two figures in high relief, of white marble:
on the sword of one is the word Durindarda; is this the effigy of
Charlemagne's Orlando? The ancient church of San Fermo, restored in
1319, offers some of the earliest pictures after the first dawn of the
revival of painting, by Stefano da Zevio. To the church of St. George,
beyond the Adige, one of the great works of Paolo Veronese, which do so
much honour to himself and to his native city, has been restored, after
having been carried to Paris. Indeed, there is not one of the many
churches of Verona which is not interesting on account of its antiquity,
the works of art contained in it, or its story; and the public squares
and lordly palaces, and the towers that once served as watch-towers to
the proud nobles who guarded them, all force the spectator to look back
with wonder and admiration to the times when a sentiment of political
independence could produce such monuments of glory, even in the midst
of war and in a petty state.
* * * * *
The preceding extract has occupied so much space, that we can give
little more than an enumeration of the other contents of the _Gem_.
Among the prose, we have been most pleased with Walter Errick, a
touching tale, by the Hon. Mrs. Norton, (author of Sorrows of Rosalie;)
and the Mining Curate, by Mr. Carne; both of which, however, terminate
somewhat too gloomily. Next is the Man and the Lioness, by Lord
Nugent--not a "Lioness" of Exeter 'Change, but a cook and housekeeper
to a country gentleman, by all around called _the Lioness_ a name,
"in the strictest sense, _de guerre_." Knowing the noble author's
_forte_ in gastronomy, we are almost induced to think the cook,
or _Lioness_ a portrait from life. With respect to the name, his
lordship observes "it might have had some reference to those ample and
bushy ringlets, of a colour which by the friends of the wearer, is
generally called bright auburn, and which, on those high days when Mrs.
Grace was wont to stalk forth from her solitude, swelled around a
sanguine countenance, in volume, in texture, and in hue, not unlike the
mane of that awful animal." To our view, Mrs. Grace is a sort of Mrs.
Subtle, but who, with better luck than the housekeeper in the play,
marries the old gentleman, and after an odd adventure at a masquerade,
buries him in the Abbey Church, Bath. It is pleasantly told, and there
are in it many genuine touches of humour. Miss Mitford has next Little
Miss Wren, a beautiful trifle for old and young; and last is the Count
of Trionto, as deep a piece of Italian romance as need accompany one of
Mr. Martin's designs.
The poetical pieces, which are numerous, are of a less lugubrious cast
than usual. Mr. Kenney, the playwright, has a rustic plaint:
Dear Tom, my brave free-hearted lad,
Where'er you go, God bless you!
You'd better speak than wish you had,
If love for me distress you.
To me they say, your thoughts incline,
And possibly they may so;
Then, once for all, to quiet mine,
Tom, if you love me, say so.
--All this is mighty pleasant for a plaint, and just such as Mr. Kenney
would write on one of the garden-seats of the Tuileries, or in the
green-room of the little theatre in the Haymarket. The lines on a young
collegian and his "dearest Lily," are equally playful:
Farewell to the hound and the cover,
Farewell to the heath and the glen!
But when _Term_ and the _Little-go's_ over,
He'll be with you, dear Lily again.
--But these are hardly polished enough for the _Gem_. In another
vein, Dr. Bowring has some fine stanzas "to GOD," from the Dutch. A few
lines by the unfortunate John Keats strongly tell his frenzied hours. A
Legend of the Mirror has too much chivalry to belong to our lists, but
is very pretty. The Lone Old Man, by the Hon. Mrs. Norton, has all the
pathos of her best compositions. Still, the most striking of the poetry
are the Tichborne Dole, a ballad of rare antique beauty, by Lord
Nugent--and a Highland Eclogue, by the Ettrick Shepherd--both which are
too long for extract.
In its Illustrations, the _Gem_ is more than usually fortunate, and
their selection and execution is honourable to the taste and talent of
R. Cooper, Esq. R.A. The Frontispiece, Rose Malcolm, from his pencil,
by C. Rolls, is extremely beautiful. Wilkie's Saturday Night is ably
engraved by J. Mitchell; and Tyre, by S. Lacy, from a picture by T.
Creswick contended for our choice with Verona, which we have adopted.
Three or four of the plates have much fun and humour: the Stolen
Interview, after Stephanoff--an old lady being asleep at noonday in an
easy chair, her daughter profits by the nap to return the attentions
of her devoted admirer at the open door; the girl's expression is
admirable. Another, the Coquette, after Chalon, is engraved in a light,
sprightly style by Humphreys; a beautiful French flirt, at her toilet,
is repelling with her fan--that wand of coquetry--a French Abbe on
bended knee, whilst her other hand is rapturously seized by a second
suitor, just peeping from behind a screen: if such be
A sample of the _old régime_,
I hope the new one's better.
Another pretty piece of intrigue--a girl stealing an opened love-letter
from a fair one dozing on a sofa, and a third advancing on tiptoe from
the door of the room, is highly creditable to Mr. Smirke, the painter,
and A.W. Warren, the engraver. Among the more elaborate plates is an
exquisite creation of Howard's pencil, the Infant Bacchus engraved
by J.C. Edwards; and last, though not least in effect, is Trionto,
a mountain wild and chaos of storm, from a drawing by Martin; but
the engraving hardly approaches the design.
There is much novelty in the present _Gem:_ the prints, prose, and
poetry sparkle most characteristically, and are just such as the title
of the work would lead one to expect to find in it; which is a rare
merit among new books.
* * * * *
Friendship's Offering.
We believe the editor of the present volume to be Mr. Thomas Pringle,
of whose taste and fitness for the task, we spoke in our "Spirit of the
Annuals" for 1829. It contains five or six striking prose articles, and,
we think, fewer poetical pieces than the former volume. Among the tales
entitled to special mention, as evincing considerable talent and more
than the ordinary interest of mere sketches--are Il Vesuviano, a
Neapolitan Story--the Voyage Out, by Mrs. Bowdich--the Lover's Leap,
a Highland Legend, by Leigh Ritchie--a tale of the White Bristol,
(30 pages) from the powerful pen of Mr. Banim--the Fords of Callum,
by the Ettrick Shepherd--Mourad and Euxabeet, a Persian Tale, by Mr.
Fraser--and Whatever betide--for the right, a tale of Old London--the
titles of which will give the reader some idea of the rich and varied
contents of the prose department. The Outline of a Life, by Mr. Kennedy
has all the "fitful fancy" of his earlier productions, but the piece
selected by us for quotation, is