history: the one a poor, warlike, virtuous republic, which emerges
into glory and freedom; the other a commonwealth, soft, opulent, and
corrupt; which, by just degrees, is precipitated from the abuse to
the loss of her liberty: both lessons are, perhaps, equally
instructive. This second subject is, The History of the Republic of
Florence under the House of Medicis: a period of one hundred and
fifty years, which rises or descends from the dregs of the
Florentine democracy, to the title and dominion of Cosmo de Medicis
in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. I might deduce a chain of
revolutions not unworthy of the pen of Vertot; singular men, and
singular events; the Medicis four times expelled, and as often
recalled; and the Genius of Freedom reluctantly yielding to the arms
of Charles V. and the policy of Cosmo. The character and fate of
Savanerola, and the revival of arts and letters in Italy, will be
essentially connected with the elevation of the family and the fall
of the republic. The Medicis (stirps quasi fataliter nata ad
instauranda vel fovenda studia (Lipsius ad Germanos et Galles,
Epist. viii.)) were illustrated by the patronage of learning; and
enthusiasm was the most formidable weapon of their adversaries. On
this splendid subject I shall most probably fix; but when, or where,
or how will it be executed? I behold in a dark and doubtful
perspective."
Res alta terra, et caligine mersas.
The youthful habits of the language and manners of France had left
in my mind an ardent desire of revisiting the Continent on a larger
and more liberal plan. According to the law of custom, and perhaps
of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English
gentleman: my father had consented to my wish, but I was detained
above four years by my rash engagement in the militia. I eagerly
grasped the first moments of freedom: three or four weeks in
Hampshire and London were employed in the preparations of my
journey, and the farewell visits of friendship and civility: my last
act in town was to applaud Mallet's new tragedy of Elvira; a
post-chaise conveyed me to Dover, the packet to Boulogne, and such
was my diligence, that I reached Paris on Jan. 28, 1763, only
thirty-six days after the disbanding of the militia. Two or three
years were loosely defined for the term of my absence; and I was
left at liberty to spend that time in such places and in such a
manner as was most agreeable to my taste and judgment.
In this first visit I passed three months and a half, (Jan. 28-May
9,) and a much longer space might have been agreeably filled,
without any intercourse with the natives. At home we are content to
move in the daily round of pleasure and business; and a scene which
is always present is supposed to be within our knowledge, or at
least within our power. But in a foreign country, curiosity is our
business and our pleasure; and the traveller, conscious of his
ignorance, and covetous of his time, is diligent in the search and
the view of every object that can deserve his attention. I devoted
many hours of the morning to the circuit of Paris and the
neighbourhood, to the visit of churches and palaces conspicuous by
their architecture, to the royal manufactures, collections of books
and pictures, and all the various treasures of art, of learning, and
of luxury. An Englishman may hear without reluctance, that in these
curious and costly articles Paris is superior to London; since the
opulence of the French capital arises from the defects of its
government and religion. In the absence of Louis XIV. and his
successors, the Louvre has been left unfinished: but the millions
which have been lavished on the sands of Versailles, and the morass
of Marli, could not be supplied by the legal allowance of a British
king. The splendour of the French nobles is confined to their town
residence; that of the English is more usefully distributed in their
country seats; and we should be astonished at our own riches, if the
labours of architecture, the spoils of Italy and Greece, which are
now scattered from Inverary to Wilton, were accumulated in a few
streets between Marylebone and Westminster. All superfluous
ornament is rejected by the cold frugality of the protestants; but
the catholic superstition, which is always the enemy of reason, is
often the parent of the arts. The wealthy communities of priests
and monks expend their revenues in stately edifices; and the parish
church of St. Sulpice, one of the noblest structures in Paris, was
built and adorned by the private industry of a late cure. In this
outset, and still more in the sequel of my tour, my eye was amused;
but the pleasing vision cannot be fixed by the pen; the particular
images are darkly seen through the medium of five-and-twenty years,
and the narrative of my life must not degenerate into a book of
travels.
But the principal end of my journey was to enjoy the society of a
polished and amiable people, in whose favour I was strongly
prejudiced, and to converse with some authors, whose conversation,
as I fondly imagined, must be far more pleasing and instructive than
their writings. The moment was happily chosen. At the close of a
successful war the British name was respected on the continent.
Clarum et venerabile nomen
Gentibus.
Our opinions, our fashions, even our games, were adopted in France,
a ray of national glory illuminated each individual, and every
Englishman was supposed to be born a patriot and a philosopher. For
myself, I carried a personal recommendation; my name and my Essay
were already known; the compliment of having written in the French
language entitled me to some returns of civility and gratitude. I
was considered as a man of letters, who wrote for amusement. Before
my departure I had obtained from the Duke de Nivernois, Lady Hervey,
the Mallets, Mr. Walpole, &c. many letters of recommendation to
their private or literary friends. Of these epistles the reception
and success were determined by the character and situation of the
persons by whom and to whom they were addressed: the seed was
sometimes cast on a barren rock, and it sometimes multiplied an
hundred fold in the production of new shoots, spreading branches,
and exquisite fruit. But upon the whole, I had reason to praise the
national urbanity, which from the court has diffused its gentle
influence to the shop, the cottage, and the schools. Of the men of
genius of the age, Montesquieu and Fontenelle were no more; Voltaire
resided on his own estate near Geneva; Rousseau in the preceding
year had been driven from his hermitage of Montmorency; and I blush
at my having neglected to seek, in this journey, the acquaintance of
Buffon. Among the men of letters whom I saw, D'Alembert and Diderot
held the foremost rank in merit, or at least in fame. I shall
content myself with enumerating the well-known names of the Count de
Caylus, of the Abbe de la Bleterie, Barthelemy, Reynal, Arnaud, of
Messieurs de la Condamine, du Clos, de Ste Palaye, de Bougainville,
Caperonnier, de Guignes, Suard, &c. without attempting to
discriminate the shades of their characters, or the degrees of our
connection. Alone, in a morning visit, I commonly found the artists
and authors of Paris less vain, and more reasonable, than in the
circles of their equals, with whom they mingle in the houses of the
rich. Four days in a week, I had place, without invitation, at the
hospitable tables of Mesdames Geoffrin and du Bocage, of the
celebrated Helvetius, and of the Baron d'Olbach. In these symposia
the pleasures of the table were improved by lively and liberal
conversation; the company was select, though various and voluntary.
The society of Madame du Bocage was more soft and moderate than that
of her rivals, and the evening conversations of M. de Foncemagne
were supported by the good sense and learning of the principal
members of the Academy of Inscriptions. The opera and the Italians
I occasionally visited; but the French theatre, both in tragedy and
comedy, was my daily and favourite amusement. Two famous actresses
then divided the public applause. For my own part, I preferred the
consummate art of the Claron, to the intemperate sallies of the
Dumesnil, which were extolled by her admirers, as the genuine voice
of nature and passion. Fourteen weeks insensibly stole away; but
had I been rich and independent, I should have prolonged, and
perhaps have fixed, my residence at Paris.
Between the expensive style of Paris and of Italy it was prudent to
interpose some months of tranquil simplicity; and at the thoughts of
Lausanne I again lived in the pleasures and studies of my early
youth. Shaping my course through Dijon and Besancon, in the last of
which places I was kindly entertained by my cousin Acton, I arrived
in the month of May 1763 on the banks of the Leman Lake. It had
been my intention to pass the Alps in the autumn, but such are the
simple attractions of the place, that the year had almost expired
before my departure from Lausanne in the ensuing spring. An absence
of five years had not made much alteration in manners, or even in
persons. My old friends, of both sexes, hailed my voluntary return;
the most genuine proof of my attachment. They had been flattered by
the present of my book, the produce of their soil; and the good
Pavilliard shed tears of joy as he embraced a pupil, whose literary
merit he might fairly impute to his own labours. To my old list I
added some new acquaintance, and among the strangers I shall
distinguish Prince Lewis of Wirtemberg, the brother of the reigning
Duke, at whose country-house, near Lausanne, I frequently dined: a
wandering meteor, and at length a falling star, his light and
ambitious spirit had successively dropped from the firmament of
Prussia, of France, and of Austria; and his faults, which he styled
his misfortunes, had driven him into philosophic exile in the Pays
de Vaud. He could now moralize on the vanity of the world, the
equality of mankind, and the happiness of a private station. His
address was affable and polite, and as he had shone in courts and
armies, his memory could supply, and his eloquence could adorn, a
copious fund of interesting anecdotes. His first enthusiasm was
that of charity and agriculture; but the sage gradually lapsed in
the saint, and Prince Lewis of Wirtemberg is now buried in a
hermitage near Mayence, in the last stage of mystic devotion. By
some ecclesiastical quarrel, Voltaire had been provoked to withdraw
himself from Lausanne, and retire to his castle at Ferney, where I
again visited the poet and the actor, without seeking his more
intimate acquaintance, to which I might now have pleaded a better
title. But the theatre which he had founded, the actors whom he had
formed, survived the loss of their master; and, recent from Paris, I
attended with pleasure at the representation of several tragedies
and comedies. I shall not descend to specify particular names and
characters; but I cannot forget a private institution, which will
display the innocent freedom of Swiss manners. My favourite society
had assumed, from the age of its members, the proud denomination of
the spring (la society du printems). It consisted of fifteen or
twenty young unmarried ladies, of genteel, though not of the very
first families; the eldest perhaps about twenty, all agreeable,
several handsome, and two or three of exquisite beauty. At each
other's houses they assembled almost every day, without the
controul, or even the presence, of a mother or an aunt; they were
trusted to their own prudence, among a crowd of young men of every
nation in Europe. They laughed, they sung, they danced, they played
at cards, they acted comedies; but in the midst of this careless
gaiety, they respected themselves, and were respected by the men;
the invisible line between liberty and licentiousness was never
transgressed by a gesture, a word, or a look, and their virgin
chastity was never sullied by the breath of scandal or suspicion. A
singular institution, expressive of the innocent simplicity of Swiss
manners. After having tasted the luxury of England and Paris, I
could not have returned with satisfaction to the coarse and homely
table of Madame Pavilliard; nor was her husband offended that I now
entered myself as a pensionaire, or boarder, in the elegant house of
Mr. De Mesery, which may be entitled to a short remembrance, as it
has stood above twenty years, perhaps, without a parallel in Europe.
The house in which we lodged was spacious and convenient, in the
best street, and commanding, from behind, a noble prospect over the
country and the Lake. Our table was served with neatness and
plenty; the boarders were select; we had the liberty of inviting any
guests at a stated price; and in the summer the scene was
occasionally transferred to a pleasant villa, about a league from
Lausanne. The characters of Master and Mistress were happily suited
to each other, and to their situation. At the age of seventy-five,
Madame de Mesery, who has survived her husband, is still a graceful,
I had almost said, a handsome woman. She was alike qualified to
preside in her kitchen and her drawing-room; and such was the equal
propriety of her conduct, that of two or three hundred foreigners,
none ever failed in respect, none could complain of her neglect, and
none could ever boast of her favour. Mesery himself, of the noble
family of De Crousaz, was a man of the world, a jovial companion,
whose easy manners and natural sallies maintained the cheerfulness
of his house. His wit could laugh at his own ignorance: he
disguised, by an air of profusion, a strict attention to his
interest; and in this situation he appeared like a nobleman who
spent his fortune and entertained his friends. In this agreeable
society I resided nearly eleven months (May 1763--April 1764); and
in this second visit to Lausanne, among a crowd of my English
companions, I knew and esteemed Mr. Holroyd (now Lord Sheffield);
and our mutual attachment was renewed and fortified in the
subsequent stages of our Italian journey. Our lives are in the
power of chance, and a slight variation on either side, in time or
place, might have deprived me of a friend, whose activity in the
ardour of youth was always prompted by a benevolent heart, and
directed by a strong understanding.
If my studies at Paris had been confined to the study of the world,
three or four months would not have been unprofitably spent. My
visits, however superficial, to the Academy of Medals and the public
libraries, opened a new field of inquiry; and the view of so many
manuscripts of different ages and characters induced me to consult
the two great Benedictine works, the Diplomatica of Mabillon, and
the Palaeographia of Montfaucon. I studied the theory without
attaining the practice of the art: nor should I complain of the
intricacy of Greek abbreviations and Gothic alphabets, since every
day, in a familiar language, I am at a loss to decipher the
hieroglyphics of a female note. In a tranquil scene, which revived
the memory of my first studies, idleness would have been less
pardonable: the public libraries of Lausanne and Geneva liberally
supplied me with books; and if many hours were lost in dissipation,
many more were employed in literary labour. In the country, Horace
and Virgil, Juvenal and Ovid, were my assiduous companions but, in
town, I formed and executed a plan of study for the use of my
Transalpine expedition: the topography of old Rome, the ancient
geography of Italy, and the science of medals. 1. I diligently
read, almost always with my pen in my hand, the elaborate treatises
of Nardini, Donatus, &c., which fill the fourth volume of the Roman
Antiquities of Graevius. 2. I next undertook and finished the
Italia Antiqua of Cluverius, a learned native of Prussia, who had
measured, on foot, every spot, and has compiled and digested every
passage of the ancient writers. These passages in Greek or Latin
authors I perused in the text of Cluverius, in two folio volumes:
but I separately read the descriptions of Italy by Strabo, Pliny,
and Pomponius Mela, the Catalogues of the Epic poets, the
Itineraries of Wesseling's Antoninus, and the coasting Voyage of
Rutilius Numatianus; and I studied two kindred subjects in the
Measures Itineraires of d'Anville, and the copious work of Bergier,
Histoire des grands Chemins de I'Empire Romain. From these
materials I formed a table of roads and distances reduced to our
English measure; filled a folio common-place book with my
collections and remarks on the geography of Italy; and inserted in
my journal many long and learned notes on the insulae and
populousness of Rome, the social war, the passage of the Alps by
Hannibal, &c. 3. After glancing my eye over Addison's agreeable
dialogues, I more seriously read the great work of Ezechiel Spanheim
de Praestantia et Usu Numismatum, and applied with him the medals of
the kings and emperors, the families and colonies, to the
illustration of ancient history. And thus was I armed for my
Italian journey.
I shall advance with rapid brevity in the narrative of this tour, in
which somewhat more than a year (April 1764-May 1765) was agreeably
employed. Content with tracing my line of march, and slightly
touching on my personal feelings, I shall waive the minute
investigation of the scenes which have been viewed by thousands, and
described by hundreds, of our modern travellers. ROME is the great
object of our pilgrimage: and 1st, the journey; 2d, the residence;
and 3d, the return; will form the most proper and perspicuous
division. 1. I climbed Mount Cenis, and descended into the plain of
Piedmont, not on the back of an elephant, but on a light osier seat,
in the hands of the dextrous and intrepid chairmen of the Alps. The
architecture and government of Turin presented the same aspect of
tame and tiresome uniformity: but the court was regulated with
decent and splendid oeconomy; and I was introduced to his Sardinian
majesty Charles Emanuel, who, after the incomparable Frederic, held
the second rank (proximus longo tamen intervallo) among the kings of
Europe. The size and populousness of Milan could not surprise an
inhabitant of London: but the fancy is amused by a visit to the
Boromean Islands, an enchanted palace, a work of the fairies in the
midst of a lake encompassed with mountains, and far removed from the
haunts of men. I was less amused by the marble palaces of Genoa,
than by the recent memorials of her deliverance (in December 1746)
from the Austrian tyranny; and I took a military survey of every
scene of action within the inclosure of her double walls. My steps
were detained at Parma and Modena, by the precious relics of the
Farnese and Este collections: but, alas! the far greater part had
been already transported, by inheritance or purchase, to Naples and
Dresden. By the road of Bologna and the Apennine I at last reached
Florence, where I reposed from June to September, during the heat of
the summer months. In the Gallery, and especially in the Tribune, I
first acknowledged, at the feet of the Venus of Medicis, that the
chisel may dispute the pre-eminence with the pencil, a truth in the
fine arts which cannot on this side of the Alps be felt or
understood. At home I had taken some lessons of Italian on the spot
I read, with a learned native, the classics of the Tuscan idiom: but
the shortness of my time, and the use of the French language,
prevented my acquiring any facility of speaking; and I was a silent
spectator in the conversations of our envoy, Sir Horace Mann, whose
most serious business was that of entertaining the English at his
hospitable table. After leaving Florence, I compared the solitude
of Pisa with the industry of Lucca and Leghorn, and continued my
journey through Sienna to Rome, where I arrived in the beginning of
October. 2. My temper is not very susceptible of enthusiasm; and
the enthusiasm which I do not feel, I have ever scorned to affect.
But, at the distance of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor
express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first
approached and entered the eternal city. After a sleepless night, I
trod, with a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum; each memorable spot
where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell, was at once
present to my eye; and several days of intoxication were lost or
enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and minute investigation.
My guide was Mr. Byers, a Scotch antiquary of experience and taste;
but, in the daily labour of eighteen weeks, the powers of attention
were sometimes fatigued, till I was myself qualified, in a last
review, to select and study the capital works of ancient and modern
art. Six weeks were borrowed for my tour of Naples, the most
populous of cities, relative to its size, whose luxurious
inhabitants seem to dwell on the confines of paradise and hell-fire.
I was presented to the boy-king by our new envoy, Sir William
Hamilton; who, wisely diverting his correspondence from the
Secretary of State to the Royal Society and British Museum, has
elucidated a country of such inestimable value to the naturalist and
antiquarian. On my return, I fondly embraced, for the last time,
the miracles of Rome; but I departed without kissing the feet of
Rezzonico (Clement XIII.), who neither possessed the wit of his
predecessor Lambertini, nor the virtues of his successor Ganganelli.
3. In my pilgrimage from Rome to Loretto I again crossed the
Apennine; from the coast of the Adriatic I traversed a fruitful and
populous country, which could alone disprove the paradox of
Montesquieu, that modern Italy is a desert. Without adopting the
exclusive prejudice of the natives, I sincerely admire the paintings
of the Bologna school. I hastened to escape from the sad solitude
of Ferrara, which in the age of Caesar was still more desolate. The
spectacle of Venice afforded some hours of astonishment; the
university of Padua is a dying taper: but Verona still boasts her
amphitheatre, and his native Vicenza is adorned by the classic
architecture of Palladio: the road of Lombardy and Piedmont (did
Montesquieu find them without inhabitants?) led me back to Milan,
Turin, and the passage of Mount Cenis, where I again crossed the
Alps in my way to Lyons.
The use of foreign travel has been often debated as a general
question; but the conclusion must be finally applied to the
character and circumstances of each individual. With the education
of boys, where or how they may pass over some juvenile years with
the least mischief to themselves or others, I have no concern. But
after supposing the previous and indispensable requisites of age,
judgment, a competent knowledge of men and books, and a freedom from
domestic prejudices, I will briefly describe the qualifications
which I deem most essential to a traveller. He should be endowed
with an active, indefatigable vigour of mind and body, which can
seize every mode of conveyance, and support, with a careless smile,
every hardship of the road, the weather, or the inn. The benefits
of foreign travel will correspond with the degrees of these
qualifications; but, in this sketch, those to whom I am known will
not accuse me of framing my own panegyric. It was at Rome, on the
15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the
Capitol, while the bare-footed fryars were singing vespers in the
temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of
the city first started to my mind. But my original plan was
circumscribed to the decay of the city rather than of the empire:
and though my reading and reflections began to point towards that
object, some years elapsed, and several avocations intervened,
before I was seriously engaged in the execution of that laborious
work.