_Letter from Sir Richard C---- to his Cousin_
ROME, _January 4, 1787_.
I have been here a fortnight and have been able more or less to look
round. I wrote a long letter to Horace yesterday in which I described
at great length the journey from Venice, so I will not repeat to you
what I have already written to him.
Rome is a great deal altered since I was here last, ten years ago. It
is being spoilt, and such damage as the Goths and Vandals left undone
is now being accomplished by the modern architects. I am afraid that
by the time the next generation is grown up the beautiful Rome that
we have known and loved will have entirely disappeared, and that when
our sons and daughters make the pilgrimage which we looked upon as the
reward of our studies and the greatest privilege of our youth, they
will find a new city, elegant no doubt, and not without grandeur,
but devoid of that special charm, that rare and solemn dignity, which
clothed the city as we knew it. Of course, certain of the monuments and
works of art will always remain, and nothing can prevent Nature from
performing her careless miracles. No defacing hand will be allowed to
touch the trees that grow in the Coliseum, or to desecrate the verdure
and the luxuriant vegetation which is allowed to run riot in the baths
of Caracalla. Again, no modern artist will be allowed to lay hands on
the grassy Forum, or to intrude upon the Gardens of the Borghese Palace
which remind one of the fabled meadows and parterres of Elysium. But
it is in the body of the city that the barbarians of the present day
are allowed to commit their impious sacrilege, and it is not only a
melancholy and bitter task to trace the remains of antiquity in the
Rome of to-day, but it is even difficult to recognize in what now
exists the city as she was when we were last here together.
The weather has so far not been very favourable. The _sirocco_ is
blowing, and daily brings with it a quantity of rain, but it is warm,
warmer than it ever is in London. Rome is, I need scarcely tell you,
very full of visitors at this moment, and it is especially crowded
with our dear countrymen, whom I sedulously try to avoid, for I have
not come to Rome, as do so many of our friends, for the purpose of
continuing London life, and of hearing and helping to increase the
scandal and the tittle-tattle with which we are only too familiar. It
is for this reason that I have thus far shunned society, and the only
people I have seen are artists and students, of whom there are many.
Most of them are Germans, and several of these have received me with
great civility and kindness, and afforded me much useful assistance in
visiting the museums and conducting my trifling researches.
So far I have not seen much. The new museum is a very fine institution,
and possesses many treasures. I have visited the ruins of the palace
of the Caesars, the Coliseum, which impressed me more than ever by its
size and solemnity, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s, on to the roof
of which I climbed in order to enjoy the view.
The theatres are opened once more, and a few nights ago I went to the
opera. Anfossi is here, and they gave “Alessandro nel Indie” (which is
tedious) followed by a ballet representing the Siege and Fall of Troy,
which I greatly enjoyed. I have also seen, since I have been here,
Goldoni’s “Locandiera.” As you know, all parts here are played by men;
and all the dancers in the ballet are men also. They act with ease and
naturalness, and their facial play is especially remarkable.
From the moment I arrived in Rome until yesterday I was oppressed and
somewhat saddened by the feeling--whether this was the result of the
sirocco or of the shock of seeing so many unexpected changes I do not
know--that I was not in any way in touch with Rome. I never seemed to
say to myself “This is Rome indeed!” nor to experience that peculiar
charm which I remember feeling so acutely when I was here last. It
was in vain that I brooded over the ruins, admired the monuments of
antiquity, and the masterpieces of the Italian painters; it was in
vain that I lingered on the Palatine in the twilight, or roamed in the
Baths of Diocletian. I admired with my reason, but I did not feel with
my heart as before. Something was wanting. But yesterday the magic
returned.
I went for a walk by myself along the Appian Way to the tomb of
Metella. It was a gray day; it had been raining nearly all the morning,
but by the time I started the rain had ceased, though a layer of high,
piled-up clouds remained; the air was mild and almost sultry.
I walked along the Appian Way, and the desolation of the Campagna,
with its fragments of broken arches, its ruined aqueducts and the
distant hills, which on a day like this seem curiously near and
distinct, came over me. In the distance, above Rome itself, the clouds
had slightly lifted, and St. Peter’s was lit up by a watery gleam of
light. I cannot describe to you the beauty and the melancholy of the
scene.
All at once, while I was standing by the grassy plain and looking
towards Rome, I became aware of a plaintive sound: a Roman shepherd boy
dressed in sheepskins was tootling one or two monotonous notes on a
wooden pipe. His music seemed to complete the landscape, and to express
the very spirit of the Campagna, which brings home to me the Rome of
ancient days more poignantly and more nearly than all monuments and
museums.
The veil which had hung over me during all these days was abruptly
lifted. The old spell and the old charm returned, and I could say to
myself: “This is Rome! I have at last found what I was seeking.”
I had remained for some time musing, when I suddenly noticed that a man
was sitting not far from me, seated on a stool and making a sketch in
water-colour of a broken archway. He had been there the whole time,
but I had not noticed him. I do not know why, but I felt a desire to
speak to some one, and I approached him and asked in French if he could
tell me the time. He answered me civilly, and by his accent I perceived
that he was a German, one of the artists no doubt who are here so
numerous, although I did not remember having seen him before. He was
extremely handsome--I should say between thirty and forty--and though
his face was young, his eyes had a penetrating sadness about them, an
almost tragic expression, as though they had sounded bitter depths of
experience.
We fell into conversation, and he told me that he was a German, that
his name was Müller, and that he was spending some months in Rome. I
said that I presumed he was an artist; he replied that he was only now
learning the rudiments of the art of drawing, but that he had begun too
late, and that he would never be anything but a dilettante.
As he spoke he folded up his sketching-book, for it was already too
dark to draw, and we walked towards the city together. He said he had
never been to Rome before, but that he had been steeped ever since his
youth in the culture of antiquity, and the monuments and the pictures
which he had seen since his arrival were to him like old friends with
whom he had frequently corresponded, but whom he had never seen in the
flesh. But all previous study, he said, as far as Rome was concerned,
struck him as being ineffectual as soon as he arrived in the city,
because he was sure that it is only in Rome itself that one can prepare
oneself to study Rome. He had not been here many weeks, but so far, the
three things which had impressed him most were the Rotunda, which he
considered the thing most _spiritually_ great he had seen, St. Peter’s,
and the Apollo Belvidere, which he thought, as a work of genius, was
the greatest of all; for although he had seen innumerable casts of this
work, and indeed possessed one himself, it was as though he had never
seen the statue before.
I told him that he was to be congratulated on never having seen Rome
before, since his impressions would not be marred by the memories of
a Rome more unspoiled and more charming. He said that he was only too
keenly aware of the havoc which the modern architects had wrought, and
that he feared that in twenty years’ time Rome would be unrecognizable.
“But perhaps,” he added, “we are mistaken. Rome has an assimilative
power so great that it is able to suffer any amount of alteration,
vandalism, superstructure, and addition, without losing anything of
its eternal character and divinity. In Rome there is a continuity with
which nothing can interfere.” And he added that he thought there was
something in the atmosphere, the vegetation, the very grass and the
weeds of the place which acted like a spell and softened what was ugly
and modern, reconciled all differences, and reduced all discords into
an eternal harmony which was the genius of the city.
We talked of other matters also, and I found that he was well versed
in ancient and modern literature, and had an intimate knowledge of
English. He admired the plays of Shakespeare; with Dryden he was
less well acquainted, but he possessed a knowledge very striking in
a foreigner of the untrodden byways of our literature. For instance,
he told me that he had read the plays of Marlowe with great interest,
especially the tragical history of Dr. Faustus. This, he told me, was
a favourite theme for German writers; in the last few years there had
been almost a hundred plays written on the subject.
I asked him if he wrote himself. He said he had done so, and had begun
many books, but that he found it difficult to finish them.
“I have dabbled,” he said, “in art, in science, and in literature; they
all interest me equally. But I am affected by the malady of our age,
which is dilettantism, and I fear I shall be nothing but a dilettante
all my life.”
I asked him if he was engaged on any literary labour at present. He
said he was thinking of writing a poem on the subject of Dr. Faustus,
and that he had indeed already written fragments of it. I expressed my
surprise that he should choose a subject which he had himself told me
had already been used by a multitude of writers. He then smiled, and
said:
“Everything has been thought and everything has been said already. What
we have to do is to think it and to say it again. The Greeks,” he went
on, “never bothered themselves to search for new subjects. They wrote
new plays on old themes. Likewise many generations of painters found
sufficient subject-matter in the Madonna and Child. I mean,” he said,
“to follow their example. Dr. Faustus shall be for me what the Madonna
and Child were to them.”
We separated at the gate, after a most pleasant conversation. Herr
Müller expressed a wish to see me again, and he told me that he was
staying with an artist called Tishbein.
_January 6._
I received this morning your letter dated December 18. I shall stay
here until the Carnival, and then to Naples, where, they say, Vesuvius
is in eruption. The German artist whom I met the other day turns out to
be a celebrity. His real name is _Goethe_, and he is the author of “The
Sorrows of Werther,” a book which you have probably not read, but of
which you must certainly have heard, for it created a considerable stir
about (I think) twelve years ago.