In our road hither we passed through what remains of Veia, once so
esteemed and liked by the Romans, that they had a good mind, after
they had driven Brennus back, to change the seat of empire and remove
it there; but a belief in augury prevented it, and that event was put
off till Constantine, seduced by beauties of situation, made the fatal
change, and broke the last thread which had so long bound tight together
the fasces of Roman sway. We did not taste the _Vinum Veientanum_
mentioned by Martial and Horace, but trotted on to Civita Castellana,
where Camillus rejected the base offer of the schoolmaster of Fescennium;
a good picture of his well-judged punishment is still preserved in the
Capitol.
The first night of our journey was spent at Otricoli, where I heard the
cuckoo sing in a shriller sharper note than he does in England. I had
never listened to him before since I left my own country, and his song
alone would have convinced me I was no longer in it. Porta di Fuga
at Spoleta gates, commemorating poor Hannibal’s precipitate retreat
after the battle of Thrasymene, may perhaps detain us a while upon this
Flaminian way; it was not Titus Flaminius though, whose negotiations
ruined Hannibal for ever, that gave name to the road, but Caius of the
same family; they had been Flamens formerly, and were therefore called
Flaminius, when drawn up by accident or merit into notice; the same
custom still obtains with us: we have _Dr. Priestley_ and _Mr. Parsons_.
Narni Bridge cost us some trouble in clambering, and more in disputing
whether it was originally an aqueduct or a bridge--or both. It is a
magnificent structure, irregularly built, the arches of majestic height,
but all unequal. There was water enough under it when I was there to take
off the impropriety apparent to many of turning so large an arch over
so small a stream. Yet notwithstanding that the river was much swelled
by long continuance of the violent rains which lately so overflowed the
city of Rome, assisted by the Tyber, that people went about the streets
in boats, notwithstanding the snows tumbled down from the surrounding
mountains, must have much increased the quantity, and lowered the colour
of the river:--We found it even _now_ yellow with brimstone, and well
deserving the epithet of _sulphureous Nar_.
The next day’s drive carried us forward to Terni, where a severe
concussion of the earth suffered only three nights since, kept all the
little town in terrible alarm; the houses were deserted, the churches
crowded, supplications and processions in every street, and people
singing all night to the Virgin under our window.
Well! the next morning we hired horses for our gentlemen; a little
cart, not inconvenient at all, for my maid and me; and scrambled over
many rocks to view the far-famed waterfall, through a sweet country,
pleasingly intersected with hedges and planted with vines; the ground
finely undulated, and rising by gradations of hill till the eye loses
itself among the lofty Appenines; surly as they seem, and one would
think impervious; but against human art and human ambition, the boundary
of rocks and roaring seas lift their proud heads in vain. Man renders
them subservient to his imperial will, and forces them to facilitate,
not impede his dominion; while ocean’s self supports his ships, and the
mountain yields marble to decorate his palace.
This is however no moment and no place to begin a panegyric upon the
power of man, and of his skill to subjugate the works of nature, where
the people are trembling at its past, and dreading its future effects.
The cascade we came to see is formed by the fall of a whole river, which
here abruptly drops into the Nar, from a height so prodigious, and by a
course so unbroken, that it is difficult to communicate, so as to receive
the idea: for no eye can measure the depth of the precipice, such is
the tossing up of foam from its bottom; and the terrible noise heard
long before one arrives so stunned and confounded all my wits at once,
that many minutes passed before I observed the horror in our conductors,
who coming with us, then first perceived how the late earthquake had
twisted the torrent out of its proper channel, and thrown it down another
neighbouring rock, leaving the original bed black and deserted, as a
dismal proof of the concussion’s force.
One of our English friends who had visited Schaffhausen, made no
difficulty to prefer this wonderful cascade to the fall of the Rhine
at that place; and what with the fissures made in the ground by recent
earthquakes, the sight of propt-up cottages which fright the fancy
more than those already fallen, and the roar of dashing waters driven
from their destined currents by what the people here emphatically term
palpitations of the earth; one feels a thousand sensations of sublimity
unexcited by less accidents, and soon obliterated by real danger.
Why the inhabitants will have this tumbling river be _Topino_, I know
not; but no suggestions of mine could make them name it Velino, as our
travellers uniformly call it: for, say they, _quello è il nome del
sorgente_[21]; and in fact Virgil’s line,
Sulfureâ Nar, albus acqua fontesque Velini,
says no more.
The mountains after Terni grow steep and difficult; no one who wishes to
see the Appenines in perfection must miss this road, yet are they not
comparable to the Alps at best, which being more lofty, more craggy, and
almost universally terminating in points of granite devoid of horizontal
strata, give one a more majestic idea of their original and duration.
Spoleto is on the top of one of them, and Porta della Fuga meets one at
its gates. Here as our coach broke (and who can wonder?) we have time to
talk over old stories, and _look for streams immortaliz’d in song_: for
being tied together only with ropes, we cannot hurry through a country
most delightful of all others to be detained in.
The little temple to the river god Clitumnus afforded matter of
discussion amongst our party, whether this was, or was not the very
one mentioned by Pliny: _Adjacet templum priscum et religiosum. Stat
Clitumnus ipse amictus ornatusque_[22].
Mr. Greatheed was angry with me for admiring spiral columns, as he
said pillars were always meant to support something, and spiral lines
betrayed weakness. Mr. Chappelow quoted every classic author that had
ever mentioned the white cattle; and I said that so far as they were
whiter than other beasts of the same kind, so far were they worse; for
that whiteness in the works of nature shewed feebleness still more than
spirals in the works of art perhaps. So chatting on--but on no Flaminian
way, we arrived at Foligno; where the people told us that it was the
quality of those waters to turn the clothing of many animals white, and
accordingly all the fowls looked like those of _Darking_. I had however
no taste of their beauty, recollecting that when I kept poultry, some
accident poisoned me a very beautiful black hen, the breed of Lord
Mansfield at Caen Wood: she recovered her illness; but at the next
moulting season, her feathers came as white as the swans. “Let us look,”
says Mr. Sh----, “if all the women here have got grey hair.”
Tolentino and Macerata we will not speak about, while Loretto courts
description, and the richest treasures of Europe stand in the most
delicious district of it. The number of beggars offended me, because
I hold it next to impossibility that they should want in a country so
luxuriantly abundant; and their prostrations as they kneel and kiss the
ground before you, are more calculated to produce disgust from British
travellers, than compassion. Nor can I think these vagabonds distressed
in earnest at _this_ time above all others; when their sovereign provides
them with employment on the beautiful new road he is making, and insists
on their being well paid, who are found willing to work. But the town
itself of Loretto claims my attention; so clear are its streets, so
numerous and cheerful and industrious are its inhabitants: one would
think they had resolved to rob passengers of the trite remark which the
sight of dead wealth always inspires, _that the money might be better
bestowed upon the living poor_. For here are very few poor families, and
fewer idlers than one expects to see in a place where not business but
devotion is the leading characteristic. So quiet too and inoffensive are
the folks here, that scarcely any robberies or murders, or any but very
petty infringements of the law, are ever committed among them. Yet people
grieve to see that wealth collected, which once diffused would certainly
make many happy; and those treasures lying dead, which well dispersed
might keep thousands alive. This observation, not always made perhaps by
those who feel it most, or that would soonest give their share of it
away, if once possessed, is now, from being so often repeated, become
neither _bright_ nor _new_. We will not however be petulantly hasty to
censure those who first began the lamentation, remembering that our
blessed Saviour’s earliest disciples, and those most immediately about
him too, could not forbear grudging to see precious ointment poured
upon his feet, whom they themselves confessed to be the Son of God. We
should likewise recollect his mild but grave reproof of those men who
gave so decided a preference to the poor over his sacred person, so soon
to be sacrificed _for them_, and his testimony to the woman’s earnest
love and zeal expressed by giving him the finest thing she had. Such
acceptance as she met with, I suppose prompted the hopes of many who
have been distinguished by their rich presents to Loretto; and let not
those at least mock or molest them, who have been doing nothing better
with their money. Upon examination of the jewels it is curious to observe
that the intrinsic value of the presents is manifestly greater, the
more ancient they are; but taste succeeds to solidity in every thing,
and proofs of that position may be found every step one treads. The
vestments, all embroidered over with picked pearl, are quite beyond my
powers of estimation. The gold baby given at the birth of Louis Quatorze,
of size and weight equal to the real infant, has had its value often
computed; I forget the sum though. A rock of emeralds in their native
bed presented by the Queen of Portugal, though of Occidental growth, is
surely inestimable; and our sanguinary Mary’s heart of rubies is highly
esteemed. I asked if Charles the Ninth of France had sent any thing; for
I thought _their_ presents should have been placed together: far, far
even from the wooden image of _her_ who was a model of meekness, and
carried in her spotless bosom the Prince of Peace. Many very exquisite
pieces of art too have found their way into the Virgin’s cabinet; the
pearl however is the striking rarity, as it exhibits in the manner of
a blot on marble, the figure of our blessed Saviour sitting on a cloud
clasped in his mother’s arms. Princess Borghese sent an elegantly-set
diamond necklace no longer ago than last Christmas-day; it is valued at a
thousand pounds sterling English: but the riches of that family appear
to me inexhaustible. Whoever sees it will say, she might have spent the
money better; but let them reflect that one may say that of _all_ expence
almost; and it is not from the state of Loretto these treasures are
taken at last: they _bring_ money there; and if any person has a right
to complain, it must be the subjects of distant princes, who yet would
scarcely have divided among _them_ the sapphires, &c. they have sent in
presents to Loretto.
It was curious to see the devotees drag themselves round the holy house
upon their knees; but the Santa Scala at Rome had shewn me the same
operation performed with more difficulty; and a written injunction at
bottom, less agreeable for Italians to comply with, than any possible
prostration; viz. That no one should spit as he went up or down, except
in his pocket-handkerchief. The lamps which burn night and day before the
black image here at Loretto are of solid gold, and there is such a crowd
of them I scarcely could see the figure for my own part; and that one may
see still less, the attendant canons throw a veil over one’s face going
in.
The confessionals, where all may be heard in their own language, is not
peculiar to this church; I met with it somewhere else, but have forgotten
where, though I much esteemed the establishment. It is very entertaining
here too, to see inscriptions in twelve different tongues, giving an
account of the miraculous removal and arrival here of the _Santa Casa_: I
was delighted with the Welch one; and our conductor said there came not
unfrequently pilgrims from the vale of Llwydd, who in their turns told
the wonders of their _holy well_. In Latin then, and Greek, and Hebrew,
Syriac, Phœnician, Arabic, French, Spanish, German, Welch, and Tuscan,
may you read a story, once believed of equal credit, and more revered I
fear, than even the sacred words of God speaking by the scriptures; but
which is now certainly upon the wane. I told a learned ecclesiastic at
Rome, that we should return home by the way of Loretto:--“There is no
need,” said he, “to caution a native of your island against credulity;
but pray do not believe that we are ourselves satisfied with the tale you
will read there; no man of learning but knows, that Adrian destroyed
every trace and vestige of Christianity that he could find in the East;
and he was acute, and diligent, and powerful. The empress Helena long
after him, with piety that equalled even his profaneness, could never
hear of this holy house; how then should it have waited till so many
long years after Jesus Christ? Truth is, Pope Boniface the VIIIth, who
canonized St. Louis, who instituted the jubilee, who quarrelled with
Philippe le Bel about a new crusade, and who at last fretted himself
to death, though he had conquered all his enemies, because he feared
some loss of power to the church;--desired to give mankind a new object
of attention, and encouraged an old visionary, in the year 1296, to
propagate the tale he half-believed himself; how the blessed Virgin
had appeared to him, and related the story you will read upon the
walls, which was then first committed to paper. In consequence of this
intelligence, Boniface sent men into the East that he could best depend
upon, and they brought back just such particulars as would best please
the Pope; and in those days you can scarce think how quick the blaze of
superstition caught and communicated itself: no one wished to deny what
his neighbour was willing to believe, and what he himself would then
have gained no credit by contradicting. Positive evidence of what the
house really was, or whence it came, it was in a few years impossible
to obtain; nor did Boniface the VIIIth know it himself I suppose, much
less the old visionary who first set the matter a-going. Meantime the
house itself has _no foundation_, whatever the story may have; it is a
very singular house as you may see; it has been venerated by the best
and wisest among Christians now for five hundred years: even the Turks
(who have the same method of honouring their Prophet with gifts, as we
do the Virgin Mary) respect the very name of Loretto:--why then should
the place be to any order of thinking beings a just object of insult or
mockery?”--Here he ended his discourse, the recollection of which never
left me whilst we remained at the place.
What Dr. Moore says of the singing chaplains with _soprano_ voices,
who say mass at the altars of Loretto, is true enough, and may perhaps
have been originally borrowed from the Pagan celebration of the rites
of Cybele. When Christianity was young, and weak, and tender, and
unsupported by erudition, dreadful mistakes and errors easily crept in:
the heathen converts hearing much of _Mater Dei_, confounded her idea
with that of their _Mater Deorum_; and we were shewn, among the rarities
of Rome, a _bronze Madonna_, with a tower on her head, exactly as Cybele
is represented.
That the jewels are taken out of this treasury and replaced with false
stones, is a speech always said over fine things by the vulgar: I have
heard the same thing affirmed of the diamonds at St. Denis; and can
recollect the common people saying, when our King of England was crowned,
that all the real precious stones were locked up, or sold for state
expences; while the jewels shewn to _them_ were only calculated to dazzle
for the day. As there is always infinite falsehood in the world, so there
is always wonderful care, however ill applied, to avoid being duped; a
terror which hangs heavily over weak minds in particular, and frights
them as far from truth on the one side, as credulity tempts them away
from it on the other.
But we must visit the apothecary’s pots, painted by Raphael, and leave
Loretto, to proceed along the side of this lovely sea, hearing the
pilgrims sing most sweetly as they go along in troops towards the town,
with now and then a female voice peculiarly distinguished from the
rest: by this means a new image is presented to one’s mind; the sight
of such figures too half alarm the fancy, and give an air of distance
from England, which nothing has hitherto inspired half so strongly. This
charming Adriatic gulph beside, though more than delicious to drive by,
does not, like the Mediterranean, convey homeish or familiar ideas; one
feels that it belongs exclusively to Venice; one knows that ancient
Greece is on the opposite shore, and that with a quick sail one should
soon see Macedonia; and descending but a little to the southward, visit
Athens, Corinth, Sparta, Thebes--seats of philosophy, freedom, virtue;
whence models of excellence and patterns of perfection have been drawn
for twenty succeeding centuries!
Here are plenty of nightingales, but they do not sing as well as in
Hertfordshire: birds gain in colour as you approach the tropic, but they
lose in song; under the torrid zone I have heard they never sing at all;
with us in England the latest leave off by midsummer, when the work of
incubation goes forward, and the parental duties begin: the nightingale
too chuses the coolest hour; and though I have yet heard her in Italy
only early in the mornings, Virgil knew she sung in the night: