To hear birds it is however indispensably necessary that there should be
high trees; and except in these parts of Italy, and those about Genoa and
Sienna, no timber of any good growth can I find. The _roccolo_ too, and
other methods taken to catch small birds, which many delight in eating,
and more in taking, lessen the quantity of natural music vexatiously
enough; while gaudy insects ill supply their place, and sharpen their
stings at pleasure when deprived of their greatest enemies. We are here
less tormented than usual however, while the prospects are varied so that
every look produces a new and beautiful landscape.
Ancona is a town perfectly agreeable to strangers, from the good humour
with which every nation is received, and every religion patiently
endured: something of all this the scholars say may be found in the
derivation of its name, which being Greek I have nothing to do with.
Pliny tells us its original, and says;
A Siculis condita est colonia Ancona[24].
That Dalmatia should be opposite, yet to us at present inaccessible, we
all regret; I drank sea water however, so did not leave untasted the
waves which Lucan speaks of:
Illic Dalmaticis obnoxia fluctibus Ancon[25].
The fine turbots did not any of them fall to our share; but here are
good fish, and, to say true, every thing eatable as much in perfection
as possible: I could never since I arrived at Turin find real cause of
complaint--_serious_ complaint I mean except at that savage-looking place
called Radicofani; and some other petty town in Tuscany, near Sienna,
where I eat too many eggs and grapes, because there was nothing else.
Nice accommodations must not be looked for, and need not be regretted,
where so much amusement during the day gives one good disposition to
sleep sound at night: the worst is, men and women, servants and masters,
must often mess together; but if one frets about such things, it is
better stay at home. The Italians like travelling in England no better
than the English do travelling in Italy; whilst an exorbitant expence is
incurred by the journey, not well repaid to them by the waiters white
chitterlins, tambour waistcoats, and independent “_No, Sir_,” echoed
round a well-furnished inn or tavern; which puts them but in the place
of Socrates at the fair, who cried out--“_How many things have these
people gathered together that I do not want!_”--A noble Florentine
complained exceedingly to me once of the English hotels, where he was
made to help pay for those good gold watches the fellows who attended him
drew from their pockets; so he set up his quarters comically enough at
the waggoners full Moon upon the old bridge at Bath, to be quit of the
_schiavitù_, as he called it, of living like a gentleman, “where,” says
he, “I am not known to be one.” The truth is, a continental nobleman can
have little heart of a country, where, to be treated as a man of fashion,
he must absolutely behave as such: his rank is ascertained at _home_, and
people’s deportment to him regulated by long-established customs; nor can
it be supposed flattering to its prejudices, to feel himself jostled in
the street, or driven against upon the road by a rich trader, while he
is contriving the cheapest method of going to look over his manufactory.
Wealth diffused makes all men comfortable, and leaves no man splendid;
gives every body two dishes, but nobody two hundred. Objects of show are
therefore unfrequent in England, and a foreigner who travels through our
country in search of positive sights, will, after much money spent, go
home but poorly entertained:--“There is neither _quaresima_,” will he
say, “nor _carnovale_ in _any_ sense of the word, among those insipid
islanders.”--For he who does not love our government, and taste our
manners which result from it, can never be delighted in England; while
the inhabitants of our nation may always be amused in theirs, without
any esteem of it at all.
I know not how Ancona produced all these tedious reflexions: it is a
trading place, and a sea-port town. Men working in chains upon the new
mole did not please me though, and their insensibility shocks one:--“Give
a poor thief something, master,” says one impudent fellow;--“_Son stato
ladro padrone_[26];”--with a grin. That such people should be corrupt
or coarse however is no wonder; what surprised me most was, that when
one of our company spoke of his conduct to a man of the town--“Why,
what would you have, Sir?”--replies the person applied to--“when the
poor creature is _castigato_, it is enough sure, no need to make him be
melancholy too:”--and added with true Italian good-nature,--“_Siamo tutti
peccatori_[27].”
The mole is a prodigious work indeed; a warm friend to Venice can scarce
wish its speedy conclusion, as the useful and necessary parts of the
project are already nearly accomplished, and it would be pity to seduce
more commerce away from Venice, which has already lost so much.
The triumphal arch of Trajan, described by every traveller, and justly
admired by all; white as his virtue, shining as his character, and
durable as his fame; fixed our eyes a long time in admiration, and made
us, while we examined the beautiful structure, recollect his incomparable
qualities to whom it was dedicated,--“_Inter Cæsares optimus_[28],”--says
one of their old writers: nor could either column or arch be so sure a
proof that he was thought so, as the wish breathed at the inauguration of
succeeding emperors; _Sis tu felicior Augusto, melior Trajano_[29].
If these Ancona men were not proud of themselves, one should hate them;
descended as they are from those Syracusans liberated by Timoleon, who
freed them first from the tyranny of Dionysius; fostered afterwards by
Trajan, as peculiarly worth _his_ notice; and patronised in succeeding
times by the good Corsini Pope, Clement XII., whose care for them appears
by the useful _lazaretto_ he built, “to save,” said he, “our best
subjects, our subjects of Ancona.”
But we are hastening forward as fast as our broken carriage will permit,
to Padua, where we shall leave it: thither to arrive, we pass through
Senegallia, built by the Gauls, and still retaining the Gaulish name,
but now little remarkable. What struck me most was my own crossing the
_Rubicon_ in my way back to England, and our comfortable return to