and Sir James Graham had the mortification to find himself opposed in
East Cumberland by Major Aglionby, formerly his fastest friend. He
received, on the other hand, but a doubtful support from the
Conservatives, and on the day of nomination the mob refused to hear him.
Naturally proud, and perhaps a little dissatisfied with himself, he
quitted the hustings, and went to the poll in bad heart. He was defeated
by a majority of upwards of 500 votes, and withdrew, full of
indignation, to Netherby. He had suffered not long before this a heavy
domestic affliction in the death of his mother; and mortified ambition,
coming on the back of private sorrow, wellnigh broke him down. He took
no further part in county business; he shut himself out from county
society, and spent his time chiefly in reading every new book that came
out, and corresponding on important subjects with Sir Robert Peel. It
was the interval between his defeat for East Cumberland and his return
to Parliament as member for the Welsh borough of Pembroke which made
him, what he ever after continued to be, a Peelite to the backbone.
In 1838 Sir James Graham was elected Lord Rector of the University of
Glasgow, in opposition to the Duke of Sussex. He delivered an inaugural
address, which is probably still remembered in consequence of the uproar
which it called forth by certain allusions to the necessity of keeping
the Church in alliance with the State; for then the fever of Free-Kirk
folly was at its height in Scotland. But in 1839 he had graver matters
to attend to. That systematic agitation against the Corn Laws having
already begun of which Mr Charles Villiers, and not Mr Cobden, was the
author. Sir James spoke in his place against interference with the
sliding-scale; at the same time he guarded himself from the charge of
desiring to secure a monopoly in the corn-market for the English
landowner, and went out of his way to warn the House that nothing could
be more perilous to English interests than that monopoly in the supply
of cotton which had been conceded to America. He was anxious even then
that steps should be taken to encourage the better cultivation of the
plant in India, and pressed upon the President of the Board of Control
the wisdom of originating such a scheme. Words of warning which,
disregarded at the moment, come back upon us now with a melancholy echo!
The progress of the struggle, which ended in the withdrawal of the
Appropriation Clause and the passing of the Irish Municipal Reform Bill
through both Houses of Parliament, is of too recent date to require that
we should speak of it in detail. So is the contest which arose about
softening down some of the clauses in the New Poor-Law, of which Sir
James, though advocating the law itself, was a strenuous advocate. His
speech on that occasion, as well as his censure of the job which
pensioned Sir John Newport and raised Mr Spring Rice to the peerage,
more and more drew towards him the sympathies of the Conservative party,
which indeed had already begun to look to him as one of its future
leaders. He was equally efficient in his attacks on the Whig
mismanagement of affairs in India and in China, and certainly did not
spare his old friends when stirred by their rebukes into invective. At
last the collapse came, and in 1841 the country declared against the
Whigs. A new Administration was formed, with Sir Robert Peel at its
head. Sir James Graham accepted the seals of the Home Office, and for
five years public affairs were carried on, if not smoothly in all
respects, with remarkable success upon the whole. No doubt, Lord
Aberdeen’s legislation in the matter of the Church of Scotland proved
unfortunate, and there was little in Sir James Graham’s manner to
reconcile the discontented portion of the Scottish clergy to the law as
it stood. Indeed, it is a remarkable fact, that almost all the failures
in Sir Robert Peel’s policy occurred on points of which the management
devolved upon Sir James Graham. To him, in a great degree, was
attributed the disruption in the Scottish Church. His bill for the
amendment of the Factory Act of 1833 hung fire, and was withdrawn; while
his attempt to reform the ecclesiastical courts in England utterly broke
down.
In 1843 the difficulties of the Administration really began. Ireland was
the rock ahead which they found it impossible to weather. They brought
in one bill, which they ultimately abandoned, and were content to
appoint a Commission, with Lord Devon at its head, to inquire into the
state of the country with a view to future legislation. To some of their
adherents, moreover, they appeared to be shaken in their adhesion to the
sliding scale of duties on the importation of foreign corn; and day by
day the great fact became more obvious that Parliamentary government,
based on a widely-extended suffrage, is scarcely compatible with the
continuance of monarchy. Fortunately, perhaps, for them, Mr O’Connell
chose this moment to reawaken the demand in Ireland for the dissolution
of the Union, and to inflame the passions of the people by his monster
meetings. Great, we should now say unnecessary, forbearance was
exhibited in dealing with this movement; but at last a manifesto
appeared, which, besides calling upon the masses to assemble at
Clontarf, invited the “Repeal cavalry” to attend in troops of
twenty-five,—each under its own officers. The Lord-Lieutenant and Lord
Chancellor of Ireland happened both to be in London at the time. They
met Sir James Graham at the Home Office with the law officers of the
Crown, and that decisive step was taken which not only dispersed the
meeting of Clontarf, but shut up Mr O’Connell in jail.
We believe that Sir James Graham did nothing more than his duty to the
Crown and to the country throughout these proceedings. He contrived,
however, to concentrate all the bile of the Opposition on his own head,
and a manner, not always very gracious, repelled, if it did not
positively disgust, not a few of the supporters of the Administration.
It so happened also, that his bill for limiting the hours of labour in
the factories did not meet the views either of the mill-owners or of
Lord Ashley (the present Lord Shaftesbury) and his friends. The result
was, that being defeated on one point by Lord Ashley, and on another by
the mill-owners, he withdrew his measure, and sustained, as unsuccessful
legislators usually do, some loss of character from the process. But the
most damaging event in the course of his Administration was his having
authorised, by warrant, the letters of Mazzini and other refugees to be
opened at the General Post-Office. A dead set was made at him; and
though he showed clearly enough that the law bore him out, he escaped by
a majority of only forty-two in a full House—a narrow one, considering
the state of parties—the mortification of having his conduct inquired
into by a committee of the House of Commons. It is not for us to say why
Lord Aberdeen maintained a profound silence in the House of Lords when
the subject came to be discussed there. His Lordship was never famous
for excess of pluck; and it was generally believed at the time, and is
indeed highly probable, that Lord Aberdeen, being Minister for Foreign
Affairs, had at least as much to do with the transaction as the Home
Secretary. The truth, however, is, that a great deal too much was made
of the matter. Lord John Russell and Mr Macaulay, with other leaders of
the Opposition, supported Tom Duncombe in his demand; while Sir Robert
Peel resisted it, though with his usual caution. At last, on the
suggestion of Sir James himself, a committee was named to inquire
privately, when it came out that there had not been a Secretary of State
for the last hundred years but had signed warrants similar to that
issued by Sir James, and that, in doing as he had done, he acted upon
precedent, with, as it happened, more than common moderation.
We come now to the Peel policy of 1845, the renewal of the income-tax
and the “further lightening of the springs of industry,” by striking out
430 out of 813 articles on which customs duties still continued to be
levied. It would be satisfactory to know what share Sir James Graham had
in the inauguration and adoption of that policy. Suspicion was rife at
the moment, and it still remains, that he took a very active part in
pressing its adoption on the Cabinet. But Mr Torrens throws no light
whatever upon the subject. He reminds us, indeed, of some witty sayings
uttered on the occasion, such as “that the old leaven of Holland House
would work till it produced a thorough fermentation,” &c., and
chronicles the beginnings of Mr Disraeli’s influence, by quoting his
cutting remarks, “that Protection in 1845 was in the same position with
Protestant ascendancy in 1828;” and that “a Conservative Government was
an organised hypocrisy.” But not a line is given of private
correspondence to show what Sir James’s opinions really were with
reference to the present or the past. So it is when Mr Torrens comes to
describe the course of legislation which led to the permanent endowment
of Maynooth, and the setting up of what Sir Robert Inglis called
“Godless Colleges” in Ireland. We have a not uninteresting digest of
each debate as it occurred, the names of the speakers on both sides
being duly recorded; but of Sir James Graham is said no more than of Mr
George Bankes or of Mr Ward, or of others even less worthy of notice
than the latter gentlemen. This is the more to be regretted that Mr
Torrens speaks feelingly of the enormous amount of labour which the
subject of his biography underwent, and which, we may venture to add,
from our own personal knowledge of the man, the biographer has by no
means overrated. The fact is, that Sir James Graham was what has been
termed a glutton of work. Such was the constitution of his mind, that
before deciding upon any point, whether practical or theoretical, he
looked round and round for argument on both sides, and not unfrequently
continued to doubt after he had arrived at a judgment. One thing,
however, is certain: he had already, in 1845, become a convert to the
doctrines of free trade, and was very urgent in his recommendations to
the chief of the Cabinet to inaugurate an entire change of system. Now,
Sir Robert Peel, as his famous Elbing letter showed, scarcely stood in
need of such pressure. Thrown by mere accident into the Tory party, he
never made common cause with it, and seemed to rejoice that the time was
at length come for humbling the aristocrats who had so long made use of
his talents while affecting socially to look down upon him.
We need not stop to repeat the thrice-told tale of the anti-corn-law
agitation, or of the potato blight in the autumn of 1846, and its
consequences. Enough is done when we state, that from the first
appearance of that disease Sir James Graham saw but one remedy for the
evil. In the discussions which ensued he ranged himself with Lord
Aberdeen and Mr Sidney Herbert on the side of the Premier, and never, as
he subsequently declared, gave a vote with greater satisfaction in his
life than that which broke up the Peel Government, and dislocated the
great party which it had taken years to consolidate. Not very popular at
any time either with the Whigs or their rivals; disliked by the former
for his desertion on the Irish Church question; distrusted by the latter
because of the political creed of his youth,—he now drew down upon his
own head an amount of obloquy, more enduring, if not, for the moment,
more intense, than that with which the recreant Tory chief was
overwhelmed; and the time shortly arrived when, partly on this account,
partly because his proud heart rebelled against the dictates of his
contemporaries, public life, especially official, if not Parliamentary
life, became to him intolerable.
We must hurry over what remains to be told of this versatile yet
vigorous statesman. When Lord Aberdeen formed his Coalition Cabinet, Sir
James Graham returned to the Admiralty, where the Crimean war took him
by surprise, as it did all the other members of the Administration. Sir
James, however, put a bold face upon the matter, and having selected Sir
Charles Napier to command the worst-found and worst-manned fleet that
ever quitted the English shores, he sent him, at the worst season of the
year, to try what could be done for the destruction of Russian power in
the Baltic. It was unfortunate, both for the First Lord and for the
Admiral, that the Reform Club chose to give the latter a dinner. The
speeches uttered on that occasion, and especially Sir James Graham’s
speech, resembled more the pæans of victors after the strife, than the
statements of men about to incur the hazard of a campaign; and the
abortive issue of the expedition covered both with ridicule. It did
more, however, than this. A bitter quarrel ensued, which was prosecuted
not very decorously, sometimes in the House of Commons, sometimes
through the press, and which had no other result than to damage both
parties very seriously in the estimation of the public.
The break-up of the Aberdeen Cabinet—to which, by the by, Sir James
greatly contributed—may be said to have brought his public life to a
close. He retained, indeed, his seat in Parliament—Carlisle having
returned him as a good Radical member on two separate occasions. And
though he seldom spoke, it was always in angry opposition to the
Conservative party, once more reunited under Lord Derby and Mr Disraeli.
Private sorrows, however, began to tame him down. In 1857 Lady Graham
died—a terrible blow, from which he never recovered; and the death of
Lord Herbert in August 1861 affected him deeply. To that excellent man,
and at heart most Conservative politician, Sir James Graham was much
attached. It seemed, indeed, as if to him had been transferred the
entire stock of love and respect of which Sir Robert Peel, while living,
had engrossed the larger share; and now, when the grave closed over Lord
Herbert, life appeared to have no more interest for Sir James Graham. He
made a long journey, in very inclement weather, to attend the funeral of
his friend at Wilton, and, returning immediately afterwards to the
north, scarcely smiled again. Our latest recollection of him is in
church—a tall, handsome, yet shattered man, earnest in his devotions,
but bearing upon his brow the cloud which was never to be raised on this
side the grave. He died at Netherby, surrounded by his children, on the
25th of October 1861.
It has been said of Sir James Graham that he narrowly escaped being a
great man. Certainly he possessed some of the qualities which contribute
to build up greatness. He was patient, for example, of labour; careful
in coming to conclusions; not at all over-scrupulous in changing or
retaining opinions; and a first-rate administrator. But there was not a
touch of genius about him, nor one shade of originality. His moral
timidity was greater than the world supposed it to be. He often shrank
from taking a step which his deliberate judgment approved; he often did
what he had resolved not to do, and repented afterwards. Such a man was
not fit to lead; and the inward consciousness of his own weakness,
perhaps, hindered him from ever aspiring to become the head of an
administration. His usefulness, on the other hand, as the second or
confidential supporter of a great minister, cannot be over-estimated. He
had much improved in later years as a speaker, and commanded the
attention of the House; but the style of his oratory continued to the
last in perfect accord with his intellectual organisation. On ordinary
occasions it was stiff, perhaps pedantic; when anything occurred to
ruffle or excite, it became sharp and personal—more, perhaps, than the
speaker intended it to be. Taking all this into account, we arrive at
the conclusion, that the position which he achieved among the statesmen
of the passing age was exactly that which nature intended him to fill.
He stood neither in the front rank nor perhaps in the second, but took a
very prominent place in the third. In private life he was highly
estimable, possessing, however, few of those qualities which gather
round their owner troops of devoted friends. His manners were reserved,
except with those who knew him intimately; his nature was proud, but he
was kind-hearted, charitable, and deeply religious—being free from the
two extremes of silly mannerism on the one hand, and pharisaical
austerity on the other. He was buried in the churchyard of his own
village, only the members of his family and a few old friends following
him to the grave.
THE INEXHAUSTIBLE CAPITAL.[3]
Footnote 3:
‘Roba di Roma.’ By William W. Story. 2 vols. London, 1863.
If, at some future day, perhaps still remote, when the present wearer of
the triple tiara shall have descended into the tomb, and when the power
of some who now support him shall be numbered with the things that were,
Rome, in compliance with the wishes of Italy, shall become the capital
of that fairest of European kingdoms, there will be one class of persons
who, although they may not regret it, will be losers by the change, and
those are the foreigners, especially English, who, for six months of the
year, take possession of all that is best in the papal metropolis. In
addition to its garrison of French troops, that renowned city has now
for many years submitted—with a far better will than it does to the
presence of Gallic legions—to a foreign occupation of a more agreeable
and profitable description. Combining more varied attractions than any
other city in the world, Rome has become the first watering-place in
Europe. Its waters of Trevi are as fascinating to votaries of pleasure
and lovers of art as the most salutary springs to seekers after health.
Its galleries and antiquities offer years of occupation, even to the
most sedulous of visitors, before these can say that they have
sufficiently seen and studied them; its winter gaieties and amusements
are abundant to satisfy the greediest of such enjoyments; during its
long spring (and much of what is winter elsewhere is spring at Rome)
lovers of pleasant rides and delightful scenery discover that in such
does the Campagna abound. But still, to that majority of its foreign
visitors which soon become sated with pictures and statues and classical
remains, Rome’s chief attraction is unquestionably the pomps and
ceremonies, the splendour and the shrines of that Church whose
headquarters the Italians so earnestly desire to see transported beyond
the limits of Italy. Remove the Pope, and of course there is an end to
the grand solemnities in which he is the most prominent figure; to the
magnificent _funzioni_ of Holy Week, to witness which thousands annually
flock to Rome, filling to the roof every hotel and lodging-house; to
gorgeous ceremonials, brilliant processions, and high festivals; to the
chairing of the Pontiff and the feeding of the beggars; the washing of
feet and the sounding of silver trumpets and the benediction from the
balcony, with its magnificent scenic effect, with the golden chair and
the peacock fans, and the rest of the sumptuous and dazzling
paraphernalia. All this must of course depart whenever the Italian
Government takes its seat at Rome, unless there should then be found
some member of the college of cardinals willing to accept the Pontiff’s
spiritual heritage without his temporal sway, and to retain his chair at
the Vatican whilst a King of Italy thrones it at the Quirinal. The
installation of a commonplace lay government could hardly fail to
diminish Rome’s present attractions for foreigners. Everything is now
done to render it pleasant to them in all ways. The utmost consideration
and regard for their comfort and convenience are shown by the government
whose capital they enrich, and by the people, who look upon them as
their principal source of profit. Rome has little industry or commerce
to live by; what prosperity she still enjoys is due solely to the
_forestieri_; and, as these are chiefly heretics, the anomaly ensues
that the heretic is made much more of in the city of the Pope than in
any other capital. For him the best places everywhere—the utmost
possible immunity from police annoyances—the blandest smiles of
doorkeepers and guardians of galleries—the convenient place of public
worship, still denied to him in that bigoted Spain which out-herods
Herod, and is more papist than the Pope; and, to crown all these
advantages, should death overtake him whilst sojourning in Rome, he has
the satisfaction of being buried amongst hundreds of his countrymen,
some of them of no mean repute, in one of the prettiest flower-grown
English cemeteries that can anywhere be found. The favour shown to him
is a standing joke in Rome. “I am off to the Sistine, to hear the
music,” says Marforio to Pasquin. “Spare yourself the trouble,” is the
reply; “the Swiss and the noble guards will not let you in.” “Never
fear,” answers Marforio; “I have turned heretic.” There is truth in the
jest. To heretics, Rome is indeed the most tolerant of cities, as the
Romans are the most supple and complaisant of hosts.
It seems incredible that, in the second half of the nineteenth century,
it should be found possible to write two copious volumes about Rome, in
which most persons, even of those who fancied they knew the place
thoroughly, might find not only much to interest and amuse them, but
also a great many novel facts and much original appreciation of things
and topics which they thought had long since been worn threadbare. A
book, too, neither critical nor political; neither playing the cicerone
through Roman galleries, nor meddling, otherwise than by such passing
allusions as sufficiently show the author’s sympathies with the
much-discussed Roman question. Since there still remained so much to be
written on so attractive a theme, how can we explain its not having been
done years ago, by some of the many English of literary tastes who
annually abide in Rome? The answer is soon found. The English in
Rome—or, it may truly be said, in Italy generally—do not, except in very
rare cases, get below the superficial crust which veils from them the
richness of the mine beneath. They work in a beaten track, and he who
arrives to-day does neither more nor less than he who yesterday
departed. They may conscientiously visit every object mentioned in their
guide-book—they may reiterate those visits until they can tell you from
memory the place of every picture or statue in the Vatican or elsewhere,
and until they can fairly say that they have thoroughly “done” Rome in
the vulgar acceptation of the word. Still they have explored, and seen,
and heard but a portion of what lies at their disposal, and would well
repay research; they have scrutinised the Rome of the past, but are
ignorant of the Rome of the present; they have pondered over the graves
of the dead, but of the living they know little or nothing. To a real
knowledge and enjoyment of Rome, two things are essential—familiarity
with the language and intercourse with the people—the former being, of
course, indispensable to the latter. Comparatively few of the thousands
of English who annually pass several months in the shadow of St
Peter’s—many of them returning year after year to that which is
undeniably the most seductive of Continental residences—obtain familiar
admission to the highest circle of Roman society; and still fewer care
to seek an entrance into any other, or to trouble themselves to converse
with natives of lower degree. They treat Rome as they would an extremely
agreeable watering-place in England;—they go there to see the lions, to
enjoy a delightful climate and pleasant environs, and to give each other
dinners and balls. They form an English colony, according to the usage
of our countrymen; and their circles are often as exclusive in their way
as that of the Roman princes, to which only the highest connections or
most potent recommendations insure access. Very few, indeed, are the
Italians who find admission into the many pleasant English houses each
winter sees opened in Rome. The English live amongst themselves; they
have their own quarter (the best, as usual, in the city), their own
club, hotels, shops, and habits; the men scarcely ever enter an Italian
_osteria_ or _café_, where they might glean some notion of the manners
and customs of the natives, but they appropriate two or three
establishments of the kind, which they Anglicise to the utmost extent
possible in those latitudes, and which the Romans soon learn to shun,
scared by the foreign invasion and by the fancy prices charged for base
imitations of British viands. Not one in a hundred of the English who
visit Rome are there after May or before November; they see the place
and people only in their winter and spring aspects; summer and autumn
are unknown to them. Many complete their five or six months’ term of
residence without acquiring even a smattering of Italian; and when they
leave, all they know of the people is what they may have learned from
lying _ciceroni_, or from native servants and shopkeepers possessed of
sufficient English to gull the _forestieri_. Now, let us suppose a
contrary case—that of an Englishman (or American) of more than average
intelligence and cultivation, with a keen appreciation of art, a quick
perception of the characteristic, and a warm love for Rome, who should
abide for six years in that city and its environs, not invariably flying
north from summer heats, but contenting himself with temporary retreats
to one of the charming nooks the neighbouring hills afford, and who,
thoroughly familiar with the language, should lose no opportunity of
mingling and conversing with the people, chatting with all he met—with
the peasant in the field, the mendicant by the road-side, the itinerant
musician who played beneath his window, as well as with the physician,
the lawyer, the trader, and the artist, with whom he might more
frequently and naturally be brought in contact. Such a man, we
apprehend, would be well qualified to write a fresh and pleasant and
instructive book concerning a city whose fame must live for ever, and
which may appropriately be surnamed the Inexhaustible as well as the
Eternal.
Nobody who visited the great Exhibition of 1862 will have failed to
observe and admire two pieces of sculpture which the most competent
critics declared to be second to none, even if they were equalled by any
of those there collected together. The author of ‘Roba di Roma,’ the
foreign and fantastical name of a very English and sensible book, might
have placed upon its title-page, had it so pleased him, “by the author
of ‘Cleopatra’ and the ‘Lybyan Sybil,’” and the advertisement would have
been no bad one; for everybody who had admired the sculptor’s beautiful
statues would have been curious to see if he were as clever with the pen
as he was cunning with the chisel. Mr Story, however, was above seeking
any such side-wind of popularity, and proposed allowing his literary
labours to stand upon their own merits. This they are well able to do.
As pleasant reading, his book at once takes its place in the foremost
rank of its class, whilst the information it contains gives it a more
solid and permanent value than can be attained by a work intended for
mere amusement. Without being in any degree a guide-book, it contains a
vast deal which every visitor to Rome would be glad to find in one.
There exists a series of Red Books, much more generally studied than the
Blue ones, and with which every Englishman is familiar who pushes his
Continental explorations beyond Paris. Unequal in degree of merit, the
Briton abroad yet can ill do without the worst of them. Amongst the best
must be reckoned that for Rome—a work performed conscientiously and _con
amore_ by a genial and accomplished citizen of the world, to whom the
Eternal City has become almost a second _patria_. But the very best of
handbooks cannot exhaust its subject, when that subject is Rome; and so
we counsel every visitor to the papal capital to associate with his
Murray Mr Story’s ‘Roba.’
“Every Englishman,” says this gentleman, “carries a Murray for
information and a Byron for sentiment, and finds out by them what he
is to know and feel at every step. Pictures and statues have been
staled by copy and description, until everything is stereotyped, from
the Dying Gladiator, with his ‘young barbarians all at play,’ down to
the Beatrice Cenci, the Madame Touson of the shops, that haunts one
everywhere with her white turban and red eyes. Every ruin has had its
score of _immortelles_ hung upon it. The soil has been almost
overworked by antiquarians and scholars, to whom the modern flower was
nothing, but the antique brick a prize. Poets and sentimentalists have
described to death what the antiquaries have left, and some have done
their work so well that nothing remains to be done after them. All the
public and private life of the ancient Romans, from Romulus to
Constantine, is perfectly well known. But the common life of the
modern Romans—the games, customs, and habits of the people—the
everyday of to-day—has been only touched upon here and
there,—sometimes with spirit and accuracy, as by Charles M‘Farlane;
sometimes with grace, as by Hans Christian Andersen; and sometimes
with great ignorance, as by Jones, Brown, and Robinson, who see
through the eyes of their courier and the spectacles of their
prejudices. There may be, among the thousands of travellers that
annually winter at Rome, some to whom the common out-door pictures of
modern Roman life would have a charm as special as the galleries and
antiquities, and to whom a sketch of many things, which wise and
serious travellers have passed by as unworthy their notice, might be
interesting.”
This last reflection suggested itself to Mr Story as he drove into Rome,
somewhat more than six years ago, on his third visit to that capital,
which has been his residence ever since; and, as he is evidently a man
who likes to carry out a good idea, he at once commenced to hoard his
observations for future use and public benefit. The impression made upon
us by his two copious volumes is, that they have been composed _con
amore_, and at perfect leisure—conditions eminently conducive to success
in authorship. That Mr Story loves Rome he need not tell us; his
attachment is manifest in his pages. Who, indeed, that has dwelt there
long enough to fall under its fascination, does not love it and desire
to return thither? Everybody would fain visit Rome, but those only who
have been there can fully appreciate the charm it exercises. There are
places whose attractions imagination is apt to overcolour, and which
consequently disappoint on near acquaintance; but if there be persons
who thus find Rome fall short of their expectations, they usually are
wise enough to keep it to themselves, and so avoid the charge of
extravagance. Doubtless those whose mind, education, and previous
pursuits and studies enable them fully to appreciate and enjoy the
treasures of art, and of classical and historical associations there
heaped up, are few compared to the visitors who form but an imperfect
and superficial estimate of what they behold, and who soon are glad to
fall back upon less intellectual pleasures. Of these there is no lack.
Agreeable society, pleasant promenades, carnival diversions—theatres
which, if not uniformly good, at least are sufficiently attractive to
audiences which go as much to talk as to listen—the vicinity of a
picturesque country, tempting to excursions, which may be compressed
into a day or extended to weeks, according as one keeps within the
present limits of the Papal territory, or stretches out into Umbria, to
Terni and Narni, Perugia and Spoleto,—these varied resources and
advantages combine to make Rome delightful, at least in winter and
spring, to almost every class of visitors. Considering how many who have
visited it have also written about it, it seems scarcely possible, at
this time, for anybody to fill seven hundred close pages with matter
relating to it without becoming prolix. That, however, is a reproach no
one can address to Mr Story. His work shows extensive reading, happily
made use of, close observation, and the eye of a true artist. It admits
of a broad division into two parts—one of these comprising solely what
he himself has seen, heard, and thought; the other including much for
which he is indebted to many books, studied to good purpose. As a
specimen of the last-named portion, we may cite the chapter entitled
“The Colosseum”—the romantic chronicle of that marvellous structure. Its
opening is a good specimen of the author’s vivid, rapid manner of
placing before us pictures painted in words:—
“Of all the ruins in Rome, none is at once so beautiful, so imposing,
and so characteristic as the Colosseum.[4] Here throbbed the Roman
heart in its fullest pulses. Over its benches swarmed the mighty
population of the centre city of the world. In its arena, gazed at by
a hundred thousand eager eyes, the gladiator fell, while the vast
_velarium_ trembled as the air was shaken by savage shouts of
‘_Habet_,’ and myriads of cruel hands, with upturned thumbs, sealed
his unhappy fate. The sand of the arena drank the blood of African
elephants, lions, and tigers—of _Mirmilli_, _Laqueatores_, _Retiarii_,
and _Andabatæ_—and of Christian martyrs and virgins. Here emperor,
senators, knights, and soldiers, the lowest populace and the proudest
citizens, gazed together on the bloody games, shouted together as the
favourite won, groaned together fiercely as he fell, and startled the
eagles sailing over the blue vault above with their wild cries of
triumph. Here might be heard the trumpeting of the enraged elephant,
the savage roar of the tiger, the peevish shriek of the grave-rifling
hyena; while the human beasts above, looking on the slaughter of the
lower beasts beneath, uttered a wilder and more awful yell.
Rome—brutal, powerful, bloodthirsty, imperial Rome—built in its days
of pride this mighty amphitheatre, and, outlasting all its works, it
still stands, the best type of its grandeur and brutality. What St
Peter’s is to the Rome of to-day, is the Colosseum to the Rome of the
Cæsars. The baths of Caracalla, grand though they be, sink into
insignificance beside it. The Cæsars’ palaces are almost level with
the earth. Over the pavement where once swept the imperial robes now
slips the gleaming lizard; and in the indiscriminate ruins of those
splendid halls the _contadino_ plants his potatoes, and sells for a
_paul_ the oxidised coin which once may have paid the entrance fee to
the great amphitheatre. The golden house of Nero is gone. The very
Forum where Cicero delivered his immortal orations is all but
obliterated, and antiquarians quarrel over the few columns that
remain. But the Colosseum still stands; despite the assault of time
and the work of barbarians it still stands, noble and beautiful in its
decay—yes, more beautiful than ever.”
Footnote 4:
We preserve Mr Story’s orthography, which, although unusual, is
doubtless correct. “The name Colosseum, or Coliseum as it is
improperly called, seems to have been derived from its colossal
proportions, and not, as has been supposed by some writers, from a
colossal statue of one of the emperors placed within it” (‘Roba,’ i.
222). A correspondent of the ‘Athenæum’ (7th February 1863) says that,
“in volume II. of the ‘Lives of the Roman Empresses,’ p. 50 (Edit.
Naples, 1768), there is a note which gives the reason why the correct
orthography is Colosseum. Referring to the completion of the great
amphitheatre by Titus, the note has the following: ‘Nel mezzo del
Anfiteatro si sorgeva una grande statua rappresentante Nerone,
chiamata il Colosso di Nerone, da cui quel luogo prese il nome di
Colosseo.’” Mr Story remarks that the present name is comparatively
modern, and first occurs in the writings of the venerable Bede. To the
ancient Romans the Colosseum was known as the Amphiteatrum Flavium.
How profound a calm has now replaced the rush and roar of conflict! You
walk down to the Colosseum on one of those soft sunny mornings common in
Rome in the early months of the year, and you find it kept by two or
three French sentries, and untenanted save by as many dilapidated
_ciceroni_, who crawl out of their secret recesses as you enter the
arena, and vie with each other for the honour of conducting you over the
mighty remains, in which, as Mr Story happily expresses it, “Nature has
healed over the wounds of time with delicate grasses and weeds.” The
last time we visited the Colosseum, the drummers of a French regiment
were out for practice in its immediate vicinity, startling the echoes of
the wondrous old edifice with a diabolical clatter of stick against
sheepskin. Saw-sharpening, or the simultaneous tuning of one hundred and
fifty fiddles, is hardly more vexatious to the nerves than the
discordant rub-a-dub of a dozen squads of apprentice drummers, pounding
their instruments with a deafening disregard to harmony. Persons are
differently affected by the Colosseum, Mr Story assures us—some with
horror, some with sentiment, some with statistics. Persons who go there
on drum-practice days are doubtless affected with a vehement desire to
get out of earshot. Apart from the unpleasant nature of the noise, it,
and the sight of its originators, are destructive of the day-dreams to
which solitude and quiet in that great dilapidated structure are so
eminently favourable. Most persons will admit that nothing in Rome has
impressed them so strongly as the Colosseum. A German writer has said
that the Americans are particularly affected by it, more so than most
Europeans; and if this be the case, it is doubtless attributable to the
striking contrast the tourist from beyond the Atlantic finds between
those ruins of a mighty past and the upstart edifices of his own
bran-new country. The Americans, it is said, were the first to light up
the Colosseum with Bengal fires. A number of Germans, artists and
others, attempted it with torches on a dark winter night, but the means
were insufficient: the torches, although numerous, struggled in vain to
dispel the deep nocturnal gloom which seemed condensed in the giant
ruin. The attempt, however, gave the idea to the Americans, who quickly
found the money for something on a grander scale; and the Roman
pyrotechnists, who are first-rate in skill and experience, produced an
illumination with coloured fires which drew out to the Colosseum not
only the _forestieri_ but the Romans themselves, usually very careless
of the sights the foreigners most run after. Since then such
illuminations have become comparatively common, and have been witnessed
by most persons who have remained any time in Rome. The effect is very
striking, and should be seen once, just as one goes to see the statuary
at the Vatican by torchlight; but, for both, the preference will
generally be given to daylight, and also, as regards the Colosseum, to
moonlight. For the best description of its appearance when lighted in
this last-named manner, Mr Story refers us to a book entitled, ‘Rome and
its Rulers,’ by that impartial Irish M.P., Mr John Francis Maguire, who,
when in the Pope’s dominions, was so peculiarly fortunate as to find
there nothing which was not in the highest degree admirable and
praiseworthy. Truly a book “in which many things are scented with
rose-water,” as Mr Story remarks, and which may also justly be said to
abound in moonshine. Of this latter commodity, as collected in the
Colosseum, the eloquent Maguire thus discourses:—
“The moon was slowly pursuing her way up the blue sky, and gradually
rising, _foot by foot_, to the height of the unbroken wall of the
building, _now and then_ peeping in through arch or window....
Patiently we awaited the higher elevation and full splendour of the
chaste Dian, enjoying each new effect as she sported with the
venerable ruin, and imparted to its grim antiquity a youthful
flush—mocking but delightful illusion.”
Nothing can be more striking than this picture of the moon going
up-stairs at a steady, composed pace, fearful, probably, of losing
breath by speed, and occasionally pausing at a hole in the wall to
squint through it at her Hibernian admirer. But your thoroughpaced Irish
or British Ultramontane is very liable to lunar influences when he gets
to Rome; and if he chance to be in Parliament, or in a position to make
his voice heard in his own country, he is apt to have his head
completely turned by the interested attentions shown to him in the
highest quarters. We have happened more than once to see gentlemen of
that class, devoted supporters of the Pope, by the influence of whose
Irish adherents they had been carried into Parliament, arrive in Rome
during the recess to seek materials for their speeches in the
approaching session. They stay but a short time, and generally know no
Italian and little French, but that is a very trifling drawback. They
find countrymen amongst the immediate friends and daily visitors of his
Holiness, are made much of at the Vatican, are crammed to their hearts’
content with carefully-prepared statistics and fabulous facts, and
depart convinced, or seeming to be so, that they have a thorough
knowledge of the state of the country, and that all that has been said
about Papal misrule is sheer malignant invention. They are taken to see
the prisons, and find them far better and more humane in their
arrangements than those they looked into as they passed through
Piedmont. Of course they do. In Piedmont there is little attempt at
concealment. Whatever its faults, the Government there does not take
much pains to appear better than it is. In Rome the confiding M.P. sees
the model prisons—those kept for inspection. Does he imagine he has seen
those where political prisoners are confined? Surely Messrs Maguire,
Hennessey, Bowyer, and Co., are not so credulous as that. The Vatican is
far too knowing not to ease the consciences of its advocates. Why should
they be reduced to the cruel alternative of silence or of speaking in
opposition to what they know to be fact? In the Roman prisons there are
rooms set apart for favoured prisoners, who there enjoy light and air,
and are well fed and treated. Mr Maguire was delighted with the Prison
of San Michele, where, “instead of gloom, horror, and noisome dungeons,
I beheld a large, well-lighted, well-ventilated, and (could such a term
be properly applied to any place of confinement) cheerful-looking hall.”
He goes on to talk of “the bright sun streaming in; the superior size
and arrangement of the cells,” &c. &c. Mr Story, who dwells a good deal
on the subject of Roman and Neapolitan prisons (as the latter were under
the Bourbons), and supplies various documents justificatory of the view
which he and every unbiassed and rightly-informed person cannot do
otherwise than take of them, refers to the well-known Casanova case—that
of an unfortunate young Italian who, on his return from a residence in
America, was arrested at Viterbo on the sole ground that he had no
passport, and subjected to the most barbarous treatment in the Carcere
Nuovo at Rome. Thence he was transferred to Naples, and, after a
captivity of five or six years, was released by the arrival of
Garibaldi. “Oh, Mr Maguire,” exclaims the author of the ‘Roba,’ “did you
never suspect that if you had the mischance to be a poor Italian without
parents or passport, instead of a member of Parliament, you might have
been shown into other rooms than the _‘Salone dei Preti?’ Via!_” Why
should Mr Maguire trouble himself with such inconvenient suspicions? He
and those who resemble him seek their information in the highest
quarter—namely, from the Government; and having, beforehand, an
excellent opinion of that Government, they cannot think of suspecting it
of fraud or misstatement. Moreover he might find in Rome countrymen of
his own, and possibly even some Englishmen, ready to support him in the
belief that everything is for the best under the pious and enlightened
rule of Antonelli. There are always a few bitter Irish bigots and
zealous British perverts to be met with in the Papal capital, prompt to
deny the existence of abuses, and to extol the excellent working of the
priest-government under which the unfortunate Romans groan. They are
made much of by the Monsignori, and graciously received by the Pope; and
occasionally they find means of making some sort of demonstration which
may be magnified in partisan journals into that of an important section
of the British residents in Rome. It was an insignificant clique of this
kind which, about two years ago, scandalised their countrymen in that
capital by waiting upon Francis II. of Naples with expressions of
sympathy and good wishes.
The author of the ‘Roba,’ who does not dislike a good-natured hit at his
own countrymen’s peculiarities, is amusing with respect to their
criticisms of the Colosseum, the Campagna, and other principal features
of Rome and its environs. One young lady told him she thought the
Colosseum “pretty, but not so pretty as Naples;” and a gentleman was of
opinion that it was less well built than the custom-house in his native
city, of which the correct lines, sharp angles, and whitewashed
superficies were doubtless more grateful to his view than the ruins
whose abundance constitutes one of Rome’s chief charms. There are people
who would be more struck with the excellent workmanship and first-rate
bricks of the tall modern scarp which supports a part of the Colosseum
that threatened to crumble away, than they would be with its ruined
arches, its broken travertine blocks, its time-worn cornices and
flower-draped benches, or than with the lovely ruins of Caracalla’s
baths, concerning which Mr Story quotes Shelley, whilst himself
describing them with much poetry of expression, and a warm perception of
the beautiful. “Come with me,” he says, “to the massive ruins of
Caracalla’s baths—climb its lofty arches and creep along the broken
roofs of its perilous terraces. Golden gorses and wallflowers blaze
there in the sun, out of reach; fig-trees, whose fruit no hand can
pluck, root themselves in its clefts; pink sweetpeas and every variety
of creeping vetch here bloom in perfection; tall grasses wave their
feathery plumes out on dizzy and impracticable ledges; and nature seems
to have delighted to twine this majestic ruin with its loveliest
flowers. Sit here, where Shelley wrote the ‘Prometheus Unbound,’ and
look out over the wide-stretching Campagna.” And if you have with you,
as you ought to have, when wandering over those giddy arches and broken
platforms, the second volume of ‘Roba di Roma,’ turn to page 97, and
read its accomplished author’s graphic and glowing description of the
view thence obtained. Unfortunately not all his countrymen possess the
same feeling for the beautiful in nature—not all can find a charm in a
time-stained marble block, moss-mantled and weed-entwined. To one of Mr
Story’s countrymen the Colosseum was simply “an ugly, pokerish place,”
whilst another was chiefly struck by its circular form, and a third by
the advantages it offered for love-making—this last being a
recommendation, doubtless, but one that can hardly have been reckoned
upon by the original designers of the edifice. One gentleman (we need
not ask from which side of the Atlantic) was liberal enough to say, “I
do not _object_, sir, to the carnival at Rome;” and Mr Story assures us
that he knows several who are equally indulgent to the Colosseum and to
St Peter’s. He grieves to admit that English and Americans too often
speak ill of the Campagna, which seems to him, he declares, the most
beautiful and touching in its interest of all places he has ever seen;
but he pillories a Frenchman who ventures to despise it. The confident
Gaul had just come up from Naples, and was asked if he had seen the
grand old temples at Pæstum. “_Oui, monsieur_,” was his answer, “_j’ai
vu le Peste. C’est un pays détestable; c’est comme la Campagne de
Rome_.” Detestable enough, no doubt, says Story, after the fine military
landscape that surrounds Paris; “where low bounding hills are flattened
like earthworks and bastions, and stiff formal poplars are drawn up in
squares and columns on the wide parade of its level and monotonous
plains. It is also a peculiarity of the Frenchman that he underrates
everybody and everything except himself and his country.” Mr Story is
too much in love with the Campagna not to be jealous of its fame. It is
quite certain that, with many, this is not so good as it deserves.
People who have not explored it are apt to picture it to themselves as a
desolate tract, affording pasturage but little wood, and exhaling fever
from every cleft in its soil. When once they have driven and ridden or
walked (for much cannot be done on wheels) over its varied and
picturesque surface, and seen it in the fresh springtime, when its green
copses and hedges scent the air, and its sward is diapered with
wild-flowers innumerable, many of which are amongst the choice ones of
our English gardens, they are lost in astonishment at the beauty of the
tract that surrounds Rome. Our own original notion of the Campagna was
based on a picture of a dreary expanse, over which the first shades of
night were spreading, chasing thence the last deep red glow of sunset;
whilst in the centre of the melancholy, treeless plain, a peasant lad,
in goat-skin breeks and elf-locks, and suffering, apparently, under a
severe attack of jaundice, tended a herd of pallid cattle, which gave
one the idea of having just risen from the straw of sickness in some
bovine fever hospital. How different this unprepossessing picture was
from the reality need not be told to any who have taken the trouble to
visit the vicinity of Rome, instead of limiting their daily exercise (as
some of the visitors to that city most unwisely, both as regards health
and enjoyment, are prone to do) to the small but agreeable garden on the
Pincian Hill, and to the more extensive and certainly most delightful
grounds of the Villas Borghese, Doria Pamphili, Albani, and other
residences of the Roman princes. It would be tedious to enumerate even
the half of the charming rides which are to be had within twenty miles
of Rome, and which, it must be owned, the younger portion of the
floating British population, both male and female, generally make the
most of during the early spring months, much more to their own pleasure
and benefit than to those of the unfortunate hacks the Roman
livery-stable keepers annually provide for the use of the _forestieri_.
A regard for truth compels us also to declare that it is not the male
portion of the English at Rome that those Campagna Rosinantes would,
could they speak their minds, most object to carry. Rome—whose climate,
by the by, has been thought by some to be generally more favourable to
women than to men—seems to give our fair countrywomen strength and
endurance for an amount of horse exercise they would seldom take in
England. Acting upon the principle put into their mouths by ‘Punch,’
“He’s a hoss, and he must go,” they may be seen daily urging their hired
chargers across the plain, and performing their twenty-five or thirty
miles, chiefly at a canter, to and from the various points of
attraction, noted sites, favourite picnic spots, and the like, in the
neighbourhood of Rome, and coming in, glowing with health, to dance half
the night or more at the numerous pleasant parties given there during
the first three or four months of every year. There used to be a
subscription pack of hounds in Rome, but the sport was put a stop to, a
few seasons ago, in consequence of a young member of the Roman
aristocracy having broken his neck over a small ditch. Thereupon Pio
Nono forbade the sport, which was considered rather hard upon the
English, who, as heretics, might surely have been allowed to fracture
themselves to any extent without causing much pain to his Holiness; and,
indeed, this feeling was so general, that some were rather inclined to
attribute the interdiction to Cardinal Antonelli’s sympathy with the
foxes. However that may have been, there was no obtaining a revocation
of the edict, and the hounds were sold—to be re-purchased, perhaps, at a
future day, when the White Cross of Savoy shall have replaced the Cross
Keys on the pinnacles of a liberated Rome. The loss was a great one,
however, to the English; and even many of the Italians deplored the
stoppage of the _mita_, as they called “the meet,” which, however, with
most of the foreigners (that is to say, of the non-English), was little
more than a pretext for picnics and flirtations. Mr Story, with a few
humorous touches, gives us an excellent idea of the _modus operandi_:—
“The hounds bay and the hunt sweeps off in the distance—now lost to
sight, and now emerging from the hollows. The volunteers soon begin to
return, and are seen everywhere straggling about over the slopes. The
carriages move on, accompanying, as they can, the hunt by the road,
till it strikes across the country and is lost. The sunshine beats on
the mountains that quiver in soft purple; larks sing in the air;
Brown, Jones, and Robinson ride by the side of the carriages as they
return, and Count Silinini smiles, talks beautiful Italian, and says,
‘Yas.’ He is a _guardia nobile_, and comes to the house twice a week
if there are no balls, and dances with Marianne at all the little
hops. Signor Somarino pays his court meanwhile to Maria, who calls him
Prince, emphasising the title when she meets her friends the Goony
Browns. And so the hunting picnic comes back to Rome.”
As a writer, Mr Story’s strong point is description of scenery, both
rural and urban. He is excellent at a landscape; and, in the graphic
views he presents to us of Rome’s streets and squares and fountains and
markets, beggars and models, washerwomen and _pifferari_, he is a
compound of Prout and Pinelli. From the very first page of the book, one
is attracted by the freshness of his vocabulary and the vividness of his
style. With his Cleopatra and Sybil bright in our memory, we cannot
think he mistook his vocation when devoting himself to sculpture; but
certainly the glow and choice of his literary tints incline us to the
belief that, as a painter, he might have been even more successful. We
are unwilling to quote extensively from a book that will doubtless have
been read by many of our readers ere this notice of it gets into their
hands, but there are fifty passages that we are tempted to extract
instead of merely referring to them. The first short chapter,
“Entrance,” contains more than one of these. At page 11 we have a sketch
of a couple of the Abruzzi _pifferari_, piping and blowing on their
primitive instruments before one of the fifteen hundred Madonna shrines
of Rome—images of the Virgin, with burning lamps, found in all manner of
places, at street corners, down little lanes, in the heart of the Corso,
in the interior courts of palaces, or on the staircases of private
houses—which places the itinerants before us, in flesh and blood, in
their conical hats with frayed feathers, red waistcoats and skin
sandals, _wie sie leibten und lebten_, as the Germans say, the old man
with a sad amiable face, droning out bass and treble in an earnest and
deprecatory manner, and the younger vigorous player on the _piffero_,
“with a forest of tangled black hair, and dark quick eyes that were
fixed steadily on the Virgin, while he blew and vexed the little brown
pipe with rapid runs and nervous _fioriture_, until great drops of sweat
dripped from its round open mouth. Sometimes, when he could not play
fast enough to satisfy his eagerness, he ran his finger up and down the
vents; then, suddenly lowering his instrument, he would scream, in a
strong peasant voice, verse after verse of the _novena_, to the
accompaniment of the _zampogna_ (bagpipe). One was like a slow old
Italian _vettura_, all lumbered with luggage and held back by its drag;
the other panting and nervous at his work as an American locomotive, and
as constantly running off the rails. As they stood there playing, a
little group gathered round. A scamp of a boy left his sport to come and
beat time with a stick on the stone step before them; several children
clustered near; and one or two women, with black-eyed infants in their
arms, also paused to listen and sympathise.”
Every one who has been in Rome during Advent has seen this group, or one
mighty like it and equally characteristic. Turn to the book (chapter on
“Street Music in Rome”) for the little scene that follows, for the music
of the _pifferari_ song, and for Mr Story’s conversation with the
enthusiastic piper, whom, with his companions, he invited up into his
house, where they agreeably stunned him with their noisy music, to the
delight of his children and the astonishment of his servants, for whom
_piffero_ and _zampogna_ had long since lost all charm, and who
doubtless looked upon their introduction with somewhat of the same
feeling of disgust with which London flunkies would behold that of a
couple of organ-grinders and a cage of white mice into a Grosvenor
Square drawing-room. However, Mr Story took down the words of their
quaint song, which we find printed, probably for the first time, in his
book, and he also got from them some curious particulars of their
wanderings. The man who blew the little brown pipe was quite a
character. He and his companion had played together for three-and-thirty
years, and their sons, who presently came up, were to play together with
them. “For thirty-three years more, let us hope,” said Mr Story.
“‘_Eh! Speriamo_’ (let us hope so), was the answer of the _pifferaro_,
as he showed all his teeth in the broadest of smiles. Then, with a
motion of his hand, he set both the young men going, he himself
joining in, straining out his cheeks, blowing all the breath of his
body into the little pipe, and running up and down the vents with a
sliding finger, until finally he brought up against a high, shrill
note, to which he gave the full force of his lungs, and after holding
it in loud blast for a moment, startled us by breaking off, without
gradation, into a silence as sudden as if the music had snapped short
off like a pipe-stem.”
There are a great many stories and incidents of and relating to Rome and
its inhabitants scattered through the ‘Roba;’ and although to us “old
Romans,” not all of these may be new, the majority of them will be so to
most readers, and they are generally well told and _ben trovate_.
Amongst them we prefer those little anecdotes and traits of character
which are evidently derived from the writer’s personal observation, and
which, therefore, as might be expected, are amongst the most racy
morsels in the book. Take the following as an excellent specimen of
quiet humour—a strain in which we like Mr Story better than in his more
buoyant mood:—
“My friend Count Cignale is a painter—he has a wonderful eye for
colour and an exquisite taste. He was making me a visit the other day,
and in strolling about the neighbourhood we were charmed with an old
stone wall of as many colours as Joseph’s coat: tender greys, dashed
with creamy yellows and golden greens and rich subdued reds, were
mingled together in its plastered stonework; above towered a row of
glowing oleanders covered with clusters of roseate blossoms. Nothing
would do but that he must paint it, and so secure it at once for his
portfolio; for who knows, said he, that the owner will not take it
into his head to whitewash it next week, and ruin it? So he painted
it, and a beautiful picture it made. Within a week the owner made a
call on us. He had seen Cignale painting his wall with surprise, and
deemed an apology necessary. ‘I am truly sorry,’ he said, ‘that the
wall is left in such a condition. It ought to be painted all over with
a uniform tint, and I will do it at once. I have long had this
intention, and I will no longer omit to carry it into effect.’
“‘Let us beseech you,’ we both cried at once, ‘_caro conte mio_, to do
no such thing, for you will ruin your wall. What! whitewash it
over!—it is profanation, sacrilege, murder, and arson.’
“He opened his eyes. ‘Ah! I did not mean to whitewash it, but to wash
it over with a pearl colour,’ he answered.
“‘Whatever you do to it you will spoil it. Pray let it alone. It is
beautiful now.’
“‘Is it, indeed?’ he cried. ‘Well, I hadn’t the least idea of that.
But if you say so, I will let it alone.’
“And thus we saved a wall.”
The preceding scrap reminds us of a passage from Alphonse Karr, one of
the most quietly-humorous of living French writers, who relates, in one
of his quaint, dreamy, desultory books, how a neighbour of his, who
lived in a poor thatched cottage on the fringe of a wood, embowered in
flowers, shaded by venerable trees, refreshed by the balmiest of
breezes, and enlivened by the songs of countless birds, suddenly
disappeared from the countryside. Karr, who had long admired the sylvan
retreat, and almost envied its occupant, inquired his fate. He had
become rich, he was told; a legacy had enabled him to go and live in the
town. He could afford to rent two rooms with new furniture and a gaudy
paper, and he looked out upon a dirty street, along which omnibuses
continually rolled. “Poor rich man!” Karr pitying exclaims. He had
whitewashed his wall.
The Roman Ghetto furnishes the theme of one of Mr Story’s longest and
most lively chapters; Fountains and Aqueducts, Saints and Superstitions,
the Evil Eye, are the titles of three others. He begins his second
volume with a vivid and characteristic sketch of the Markets of Rome,
which are well worth the attention of foreign visitors, especially of
Englishmen, who will find their arrangements, and much of what is there
sold, to contrast strikingly with what they are accustomed to in their
own country. Carcasses of pigs and goats adorned with scraps of
gold-leaf and tinsel, blood puddings of a brilliant crimson, poultry
sold by retail—that is to say, piecemeal, so that you may buy a wing, a
leg, or even the head or gizzard of a fowl, if so it please you. There
is game of all sorts, and queer beasts and fowls of many kinds are also
there; the wild boar rough and snarling—the slender tawny
deer—porcupines (commonly eaten in Rome)—most of our English
game-birds—ortolans, beccaficoes, and a great variety of singing-birds.
Passing into the fruit and vegetable market, one comes upon mushrooms of
many colours, and some of them of enormous size, most of which would in
England be looked upon as sudden death to the consumer, although in
Italy they are found both savoury and harmless. “Here are the grey
_porcini_, the foliated _alberetti_, and the orange-hued _ovole_; some
of the latter of enormous size, big enough to shelter a thousand fairies
under their smooth and painted domes. In each of these is a cleft stick,
bearing a card from the inspector of the market, granting permission to
sell; for mushrooms have proved fatal to so many cardinals, to say
nothing of popes and people, that they are naturally looked upon with
suspicion, and must all be officially examined to prevent accidents.”
Besides the fruits common in England, figs are very abundant, and of
many kinds; and when the good ones come in, in September, the Romans of
the lower classes assemble in the evenings, in the Piazza Navona, for
great feeds upon them. Five or six persons surround a great basket and
eat it empty, correcting possible evil results by a glass of strong
waters or a flask of red wine. But figs are a wholesome fruit—much more
so than one which at Rome, and in many parts of Southern Europe, is the
most popular of all—namely, the water-melon. What millions of people,
from the Danube’s banks to the Portuguese coast, are daily refreshed the
summer through by those huge green gourds, hard and unpromising in
outward aspect, but revealing, at stroke of knife, rich store of rosy
pulp, dotted with sable seeds! Pesth is a great place for them; and
daily, when morning breaks, so long as they are in season, they are to
be seen piled, all along the river-side, in heaps like those of shot and
shell in an arsenal, only much broader and higher. All through the hot
months, in Hungary’s pleasant and interesting capital, few persons think
of dining without associating with the more heating viands a moiety or
enormous segment of one of those great cold fruits—a strange digestive,
as we Northerners should consider it, but found to answer well in sultry
climes. At Rome they are equally appreciated, and are set above the
choicest grapes. People make parties to go out of the city and eat them;
and this was especially the case some years ago, when the authorities
forbade their entrance on account of the cholera, but were unable to
prevent their extramural consumption. In ordinary times you find heaps
of them in the streets, especially in the Piazza Navona, that great mart
of fruit and frippery, vegetables, old books, brilliant handkerchiefs,
and other finery for the market-women—old iron, old bottles, and rubbish
of all kinds—amongst which miscellany the patient investigator may
sometimes discover valuable copies of the classic authors and precious
antique _intagli_, to be purchased for a mere song. Here, as the story
goes, a poor priest once bought, for a few _baiocchi_, a large cut-glass
bead which took his fancy, and which a friend, more knowing than
himself, afterwards discovered to be a diamond of great value, now
belonging, we are told, to the Emperor of Russia. The priest
disappeared, which leaves any ingenious and inventive writer full
liberty to build a romantic tale upon the incident. The natural finale
of the affair, Mr Story opines, would have been for the priest to have
married the Emperor’s daughter, but his being in orders was an
impediment; and so we are justified in presuming that some less
agreeable means was found of easing him of his jewel, which, when he
first possessed it, he took to be a drop from a chandelier, but to which
he of course clung with desperate tenacity when enlightened as to the
quality of the gem. Rome ought to be a good preserve for
fiction-writers, there are so many family histories, traditions, and
anecdotes current there, which would serve the novelist’s turn. Edmund
About availed himself of one such in his tale of ‘Tolla;’ and another
over-true tale was interwoven, not very long since, in a pleasant
novelet of Roman life in the pages of this Magazine. Mr Story’s volumes
abound in suggestive passages of the kind. If Rome be an admirable
residence for an artist (and for some of the reasons why it is so, see
the ‘Roba,’ i. p. 66, 67), it ought also to be an excellent one for a
writer, were it not that it is found by many unfavourable to mental
exertion. This is said to be particularly exemplified in the case of
diplomatists, many of whom, after a certain time passed in the Papal
capital, are apt to conceive an intense dislike to despatch-writing, and
to keep their Governments extremely uninformed concerning the state of
the Holy City and the prospects of Pontifical politics. We remember to
have been told, when in Rome, the names of more than one foreign
minister who had been recalled, it was asserted, for no other reason but
that nothing could induce him to write despatches. Rome is certainly one
of the places where there is most temptation, at least for one half of
the year, to neglect business for pleasure; but there is possibly also
something in the climate which disinclines many people to headwork. It
is much the fashion to abuse the Roman climate; and this has been done,
especially of late, by persons desirous to show that Rome is an
undesirable, because a highly insalubrious, capital for united Italy. It
is to be feared the grapes are sour, and that the yellow flag now
hoisted would be struck at the same time with the French tricolour. Our
own experience and observations induce us very much to concur with those
passages of Mr Story’s book which relate to this question. “Rome has,
with strangers, the reputation of being unhealthy; but this opinion I
cannot think well founded—to the extent, at least, of the common
belief.” Many maladies, virulent and dangerous elsewhere, are very light
in Rome; and for lung complaints it is well known that people repair
thither. The “Roman fever,” as it is commonly called (intermittent and
_perniciosa_), is seldom suffered from by the better classes of Romans;
and Mr Story (who speaks with authority after his many years’ residence
in Rome) believes that, with a little prudence, it may easily be
avoided. The peasants of the Campagna are, it is well known, those who
chiefly suffer from it, and why? “Their food is poor, their habits
careless, their labour exhausting and performed in the sun, and they
sleep often on the bare ground or a little straw. And yet, despite the
life they lead and their various exposures, they are, for the most part,
a very strong and sturdy class.” Mr Story gives it as a fact that the
French soldiers who besieged Rome in ‘48, during the summer months,
suffered very little from fever, although sleeping out on the Campagna;
but they were better clothed and fed, and altogether more careful of
themselves, than the native peasants. Generally speaking, the foreigners
who visit Rome are less attentive than the Romans to certain common
rules for the preservation of health. They eat and drink too much, and
of the wrong things. They get hot, and then plunge into cold churches or
galleries; whereas an Italian flies from a chill or current of air as
from infection. Mr Story gives a few simple rules, by following which he
declares you may live twenty years in Rome without a fever. He cautions
Englishmen against copious dinners, sherry and brandy, and his own
countrymen against the morning-dinner which they call a breakfast; and
supplies other useful hints and practical remarks. The subject is one
which interests many, and such are referred to the ‘Roba,’ i. p.
156–161, and to the chapter on the Campagna, in which high authorities
and ingenious arguments are brought to prove that in old times it was
not insalubrious, and that in our own it need not be so. Population and
cultivation are perhaps all that are needed to render tracts healthy
that now are pestilential, but which assuredly were not so in the time
of the ancient Romans, since many of them, we know, were their favourite
sites for patrician villas. Much might be done by an intelligent and
active government, and especially by a good sanitary commission. There
was one clever gentleman who wrote that Rome was ill fitted to be the
capital of Italy on account of its deficiency in buildings suitable for
government offices! Where good reasons are not to be found silly ones
may be resorted to, but they of course only weaken the cause they are
intended to prop. And if it were to be urged that all the worst plagues
flesh is heir to, combine to render Rome for the present impossible as
capital of Italy, the most we could admit, by way of compromise, and
borrowing a well-known answer, would be, “_non tutti, ma Buona parte_.”
CAXTONIANA:
A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON LIFE, LITERATURE, AND MANNERS.
By the Author of ‘The Caxton Family.’