VENICE.

Our watery journey was indeed delightful; friendship, music, poetry

combined their charms with those of nature to enchant us, and make

one think the passage was too short, though longing to embrace our

much-regretted sweet companions. The scent of odoriferous plants, the

smoothness of the water, the sweetness of the piano forte, which allured

to its banks many of the gay inhabitants, who glad of a change in the

variety of their amusements, came down to the shores and danced or sang,

as we went by, seized every sense at once, and filled me with unaffected

pleasure. I longed to see the weeping willow planted along this elegant

stream; but the Venetians like to see nothing weep I fancy: yet the Salix

Babylonica would have a fine effect here, and spread to a prodigious

growth, like those on which the captive Israelites once hung their harps,

on the banks of the river Euphrates. “Of all Europe however,” Millar

says, “it prospers best in pensive Britain;”

Nor prov’d the bliss that lulls Italia’s breast,

When red-brow’d evening calmly sinks to rest.

These lines, quoted from Merry’s Paulina, remind me of the pleasure we

enjoyed in reading that glorious poem as we floated down the Brenta.

I have certainly read no poetry since; that would be like looking at

Sansovino’s sculpture, after having seen the Apollo, the Venus, and the

Flora Farnese. The view of Venice only made us shut the book. Lovely

Venice! wise in her councils, grave and steady in her just authority,

splendid in her palaces, gay in her casinos, and charming in all.

Fama tra noi Roma pomposa e santa,

Venezia ricca, saggia, e signorile[32],

says the Italian who celebrates all their towns by adding a well-adapted

epithet to each. But Sannazarius, who experienced in return for it more

than even British bounty would have bestowed, exalts it in his famous

epigram to a decided preference even over Rome itself.

Viderat Adriacis Venetam Neptunus in undis

Stare urbem, et toti ponere jura Mari;

Nunc mihi Tarpeias quantum vis Jupiter, arces

Objice, et illa tui mœnia Martis ait

Sit Pelago Tibrim præfers, urbem aspice utramque

Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse Deos.

And now really, if the subject did not bribe me to admiration of them, I

should have much ado to think these six lines better worth fifty pounds

a piece, the price Sannazarius was paid for them, than many lines I have

read; as mythological allusions are always cheaply obtained, and this can

hardly be said to run with any peculiar happiness: for if Mars built the

Wall, and Jupiter founded the Capitol, how could Neptune justly challenge

this last among all people, to look on both, and say, That men built

Rome, but the Gods founded Venice. Had he said, that after all their

pains, _this_ was the manner in which those two cities would in future

times strike all impartial observers, it would have been _enough_; and it

would have been _true_, and when fiction has done its best,

Le vray seul est aimable[33].

Here, however, is the best translation or imitation I can make, of the

best praise ever given to this justly celebrated city. Baron Cronthal,

the learned librarian of Brera, gave me, when at Milan, the epigram, and

persuaded me to try at a translation, but I never could succeed till I

had been upon the grand canal.

When Neptune first with pleasure and surprise,

Proud from her subject sea saw Venice rise;

Let Jove, said he, vaunt his fam’d walls no more,

Tarpeia’s rock, or Tyber’s fane-full shore;

While human hands those glittering fabrics frame,

By touch celestial beauteous Venice came.

It is a sweet place sure enough, and the caged[34] nightingales who,

when men are most silent, answer each other across the canals, increase

the enchantments of Venetian moonlight; while the full gondolas skimming

over the tide with a lanthorn in their stern, like glow-worms of a dark

evening, dashing the cool wave too as they glide along, leave no moments

unmarked by peculiarity of pleasure. The Doge’s wedding has however been

less brilliant this year; his galleys have been sent to fight the Turks

and Corsairs, and the splendor at home of course suffers some temporary

diminution; but the corso of boats in the evening must be for ever

charming, and the musical parties upon the water delightful. We passed

this morning in Pinelli’s library, a collection so valuable from the

frequence of old editions, particularly the old fourteen hundreds as we

call them, that it is supposed they will be purchased by some crowned

head; and here are specimens of Aldus’s printing too, very curious; but

there are too many curiosities,

I’m strangled with the waste fertility,

as Milton says. Pinelli had an excellent taste for pictures likewise,

and here at Venice there are paintings to satisfy, nay satiate

connoisseurship herself. Tintoret’s force of colouring at St. Rocque’s,

displayed in the crucifixion, can surely be exceeded by no disposition of

light and shade; but the Scuola Bolognese has hardened my heart against

merit of any other sort, so much more easy to be obtained, than that

of character, dignity, and truth. Paul Veronese forgets too seldom his

original trade of _orefice_, there is too much gold and silver in his

drapery; and though Darius’s ladies are judiciously adorned with a great

deal of it here at Palazzo Pisani, I would willingly have abated some

brocade, for an addition of expressive majesty in the Alexander. What a

striking difference there is too between Guercino’s prodigal returned,

and a picture at some Venetian palace of the same story treated by

Leandro Bassano! yet who can forbear crying out Nature, nature! when in

the last named work one sees the faithful spaniel run out to meet and

acknowledge his poor young master though in rags, while the cook admiring

the uncommon fatness of the calf, seems to anticipate the pleasure of

a jolly day: so if the old father does look a little like pantaloon,

why one forgives him, for we are not told that the fable had to do with

_nobiltà_, though Guercino has made _his_ master of the house a rich

and stately oriental, who meets and consoles, near a column of Grecian

architecture, his penitent son, whose half-uncovered form exhibits beauty

sunk into decay, and whose graceful expression of shame and sorrow

shew the dignity of his original birth, and little expectation of the

ill-endured pains his poverty has caused: the elder brother, meantime,

glowing with resentment, and turning with apparent scorn away from the

sight of a scene so little to the honour of the family. Basta! as the

Italians say; when we were at Rome we purchased a fine view of St. Mark’s

Place Venice; now we are at Venice we have bought a sketch of Guido’s

Aurora. The Doge’s dinner was magnificent, the plate older and I think

finer than the Pope’s; I forget on what occasion it was given, I mean

the feast, but had it been an annual ceremony our kind friends would

have shewn it us last year. We must leave them once more, for a long

time I fear, but I part with less regret because the heat grows almost

insupportable; and either the stench of the small canals, or else the

too great abundance of sardelline, a fresh anchovy with which these seas

abound, keep me unwell and in perpetual fear of catching a putrid fever,

should I indulge in eating once again of so rich but dangerous a dainty.

Besides that one may be tired of exertion, and fatigued with festivity,

purchased at the price of sleep and quiet.

Non Hybla non me specifer capit Nilus,

Nec quæ paludes delicata Pomptinus

Ex arce clivi spectat uva Sestini.

Quid concupiscam? quæris ergo,--_dormire_[35].

To PADUA.

Then we returned the twelfth of June, and surely it is too difficult to

describe the sweet sensations excited by the enjoyment of

Each rural sight, each rural sound;

as the dear banks of the Brenta first saluted our return to _terra firma_

from the watery residence of our _bella dominante_. We dined at a lovely

villa belonging to an amiable friend upon the margin of the river, where

the kind embraces of the Padrona di Casa, added to the fragrance of her

garden, and the sweet breath of oxen drawing in her team, revived me once

more to the enjoyment of cheerful conversation, by restoring my natural

health, and proving beyond a possibility of doubt, that my late disorder

was of the putrid kind. We dined in a grotto-like room, and partook

the evening refreshments, cake, ice, and lemonade, under a tree by the

river side, whilst my own feelings reminded me of the sailors delight

described in Anson’s voyages when they landed at Juan Fernandez. Night

was best disposed of in the barge, and I observed as we entered Padua

early in the morning, how surprisingly quick had been the progress of

summer; but in these countries vegetation is so rapid, that every thing

makes haste to come and more to go. Scarce have you tasted green pease or

strawberries, before they are out of season; and if you do _not_ swallow

your pleasures, as Madame la Presidente said, you have a chance to miss

of getting any pleasures at all. Here is no mediocrity in any thing, no

moderate weather, no middle rank of life, no twilight; whatever is not

night is day, and whatever is not love is hatred; and that the English

should eat peaches in May, and green pease in October, sounds to Italian

ears as a miracle; they comfort themselves, however, by saying that they

_must_ be very insipid, while _we_ know that fruits forced by strong

fire are at least many of them higher in flavour than those produced by

sun; the pine-apple particularly, which West Indians confess eats better

with us than with them. Figs and cherries, however, defy a hot-house,

and grapes raised by art are worth little except for shew; peaches,

nectarines, and ananas are the glory of a British gardener, and no

country but England can shew such. Our morning, passed at the villa of

the senator Quirini, set us on this train of thinking, for every culled

excellence adorned it, and brought to my mind Voltaire’s description

of Pococuranti in Candide, false only in the ostentation, and _there_

the character fails; misled by a French idea, that pleasure is nothing

without the delight of shewing that you are pleased, like the old adage,

or often-quoted passage about learning:

Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter[36].

A Venetian has no such notions; by force of mind and dint of elegance

inherent in it, he pleases himself first, and finds every body else

delighted of course, nor would quit his own country except for paradise;

while an English nobleman clumps his trees, and twists his river, to

comply with his neighbour’s taste, when perhaps he has none of his own;

feels disgusted with all he has done, and runs away to live in Italy.

The evening of this day was spent at the theatre, where I was glad the

audience were no better pleased, for the plaudits of an Italian Platea

at an air they like, when one’s nerves are weak and the weather very

hot, are all but totally insupportable. What then must these poor actors

have suffered, who laboured so violently to entertain us? A tragedy in

rhyme upon the subject of Julius Sabinus and his wife Epponina was the

representation; and wonderfully indeed did the players struggle, and

bounce, and sprunt, like vigorous patients resisting the influence of

a disease called opisthotonos, or dry gripes of Jamaica; “Were their

jaws once locked we should do better,” said Mr. Chappelow. “Che spacca

monti mai!” exclaimed the gentle Padovani. _Spacca monte_ means just our

English Drawcansir, a fellow that splits mountains with his bluster, a

captain _Blowmedown_.

The fair at Padua is a better place for spending one’s time than the

theatre; it is built round a pretty area, and I much wonder the middle

is not filled by a band of music. Our Astley is expected to shine here

shortly, and the ladies are in haste to see _il bel Inglese a Cavallo_;

but we must be seduced to stay no longer among those whom I must ever

leave with grateful regret and truly affectionate regard. Our carriage is

repaired, and the man says it will now carry us safely round the world

if we please; our first stage however will be no farther than to pretty