After admiring the high forehead and innocent simper of Baroccio’s
beauties at Pesaro, where the best European silk now comes from; against
which the produce of Rimini vainly endeavours to vie. That town was once
an Umbrian colony I think, and there is a fine memorial there where
_Diocletianus reposuit_, resolving perhaps to end where Julius Cæsar had
begun; he died at Salo however in Dalmatia,
Quâ maris Adriaci longas ferit unda Salones.
Ravenna l’Antica tired more than it pleased us; _Fano_ is a populous
pretty little town; but I know no reason why it was originally dedicated
to Fortune. Truth is, we are weary of these sacred _fanes_, and long to
see once more our amiable friends at Venice and at Milan.
I have missed San Marino at last, but receive kind assurances every day
that the loss is small; being now little more than a convent seated on
a hill, which affords refuge for robbers; and that the present Pope
meditates its destruction as a nuisance to the neighbouring towns. There
never was any coin struck there it seems; I thought there had: but the
train of reflections excited by even a distant view of it are curious
enough as opposed to its protectress Rome; which, founded by robbers and
banditti, ends in being the seat of sanctity and priestly government;
while San Marino, begun by a hermit, and secluded from all other states
for the mere purposes of purer devotion, finishes by its necessary
removal as a repository for assassins, and a refuge for those who break
the laws with violence.
Such is this variable and capricious world! and so dies away my desire to
examine this political curiosity; the extinction of which I am half sorry
for. Privation is still a melancholy idea, and were one to hear that the
race of wasps were extirpated, it would grieve one.
Bologna affords one time for every meditation. No inn upon the Bath road
is more elegant than the Pellegrino; and we regretted our broken equipage
the less as it drew us slowly through so sweet a country. The medlar
blossoms adorn the hedges with their blanche roses; the hawthorn bushes,
later here than with us, perfume them; and the roads, little travelled,
do not torment one with the dust as in England, where it not only offends
the traveller, but takes away some beauty from the country, by giving a
brown or whitish look to the shrubs and trees. We shall repose here very
comfortably, or at least change our mode of being busy, which refreshes
one perhaps more than positive idleness. “But life,” says some writer,
“is a continual fever;” and sure ours has been completely so for these
two years. A charming lady of our country, for whom I have the highest
esteem, protests she shall be happy to get back to London if it is only
for the relief of sitting still, and resolving to see no more sights:
exchanging fasto, fiera, and frittura, for a muffin, a mop, and a
morning newspaper: three things equally unknown in Italy, as the other
three among us.
With regard to pictures however, _l’Appetit vient en mangeant_[30], as I
experienced completely when traversing the Zampieri palace with eagerness
that increased at every step. I once more half-worshipped the works of
divine Guercino. Nothing shall prevent my going to his birth-place at
Cento, whether in our way or out of it.
We ran about the Specola again, and received a thousand polite attentions
from the gentleman who shewed it. The piece of native gold here is much
finer than that we saw among the treasures of Loretto, which being
_du nouveau continent_ is always inferior. “But every thing does,” as
Mons. de Buffon observes, “degenerate in the West except birds;” and
the Brazilian plumage seems to surpass all possibility of further glow.
The continent however shews us no specimens preserved half as well as
those of Sir Ashton Lever. The marine rarities here at Bologna are very
capital; but I saw them to advantage now, in company of Mr. Chappelow.
We find this city at once hot, and loud, and pious; less empty of
occupation though than last time; for here is a new Gonfaloniere chosen
in to-day, and the drums beat, and the trumpets sound, and some donations
are distributed about, much in the proportions Tom Davis describes
Garrick’s to have been; small pieces of money, and large pieces of cake,
with quantities of meat, bread, and birds, borne about the town in
procession, to make display of _his_ bounty, who gives all this away at
the time he is elected into office. Kids dressed with ribbon therefore,
alive and carried on men’s shoulders showily adorned, lambs washed white
as snow, and pretty red and white calves hanging their simple faces out
of fine gilt baskets, paraded the streets all day. What struck us most
however was an ox, handsomer and of a more silvery coat than I thought an
ox’s hide capable of being brought to; his horns gold, and a garland of
roses between them. This was beautiful; reminded one of all one had ever
read and heard of victims going to sacrifice; and put in our heads again
the old stories of Hercules, Eurystheus, &c.
At Bologna though, every thing puts people in mind of their _prayers_;
so a few good women nothing doubting but when shows were going forward,
religious meanings must be near at hand, dropt down on their knees in
the street, and recommended themselves, or their dead friends perhaps,
to heaven, with fervent and innocent earnestness, while the cattle
passed along. An English clergyman in our company, hurt and grieved, yet
half-disposed to laugh, cried, _What are these dear creatures muttering
about now for, as if their salvation depended upon it?_--It was absurd
enough to be sure; but in order to check our tittering disposition,
I recollected to him, that I had once heard an ignorant woman in
Hertfordshire repeat the absolution herself after the priest, with
equally ill-placed fervour: for which he reprimanded her, and afterwards
explained to her the grossness of the impropriety. When we have added to
our stock of connoisseurship the graceful Sampson, drinking after his
victory, by Guido, in this town, we shall quit it, and proceed through
empty and deserted Ferrara to