fever, which has brought on a violent return of my cough. It all came
from going out for one _instant_ upon the balcony at night without extra
clothing: in that instant I felt the seizure like a stab, and the most
violent shivering fits came on immediately. Perhaps the chill of these
rooms has something to do with it. I feel much the absence of the
sympathising help I have had here in illness before, especially of Lea’s
good food and attentions; and now, if I ask even for a cup of tea, the
commotion is enough to bring the house down.... I am especially sorry to
be shut up at this time, as there are so many pleasant people in Rome,
not least the really charming Prince Arthur, to whom I was presented the
other day, and whom I think most engaging, and hope--if I can only get
better--to see more of next week, when I have been asked, and have
promised, to go with him to several sights. Amongst his suite is Sir
Howard Elphinstone, a capital artist, who is quite a friend of mine, and
went out drawing with me before I was taken ill.
“The _old_ interest of Rome has wonderfully passed away, not only to me,
but I think also to many others. The absence of pope, cardinals, and
monks; the shutting up of the convents; the loss of the ceremonies; the
misery caused by the terrible taxes and conscription; the voluntary
exile of the Borgheses and many other noble families; the total
destruction of the glorious Villa Negroni and so much else of interest
and beauty; the ugly new streets in imitation of Paris and New York, all
grate against one’s former Roman associations. And to set against this
there is so very little--a gayer Pincio, a live wolf on the Capitol, a
mere scrap of excavation in the Forum, and all is said.
“Old Beppino (the beggar of the Trinità steps) escaped from a bad
accident the other day and announced it thus--‘Ho mancato póco d’andare
in Paradiso, che Dio me ne guarda!’”
* * * * *
“_Il Tempietto, Feb. 4._--Since I last wrote I have been terribly ill.
On Friday night I was seized with feverish convulsions, and with loss of
speech for four hours. The first night I was too ill to call for any
help, but next morning kind Dr. Grigor came, and I decided to forfeit
the rent of my other rooms and move up here to our dear old apartment,
having more than ever the immoral conviction I have always had, that one
never does anything economical without doing something very foolish
also. These dear rooms have all their old homelike charm. I sit in the
Mother’s chair with her little table by my side, and Madame da Monaca,
our old landlady, is perfectly charmed to have me back.”
* * * * *
“_Feb. 9._--I have still some sparks of life in me, which really two
days ago I did not feel, it has been such a suffering illness and the
cough has quite worn me out. I am sure, in thinking of dangerous illness
henceforward, I shall always remember the long nights here, nights of
pain and fever, tossing restlessly and longing for the morning, and
first knowing it had dawned by the tinkling bells of the goats coming to
be milked under the windows, followed by the familiar cry of--
‘Acqua Acetosa
Buona per la sposa.’
“Charlie Dalison, who has been in Rome, has been most kind, and the
Archbishop of Dublin and Mrs. Trench, living just underneath, have been
incessant in their attentions. Endless little comforts have also been
supplied to me by the constant kindness of two ladies who live together,
Miss Freeman Clarke, an American authoress, who has visited all the
places in Italy connected with Dante, and drawn and described them; and
Miss Foley, a most charming young sculptress, as clever as she is
attractive.”[39]
* * * * *
“_Feb. 16._--Last week I felt as if life was really passing away--such
was my utter exhaustion and suffering.... After a most kind touching
note about the ‘Memorials,’ I have had an hour’s visit from Lord
Chichester, and he is coming again often. I constantly see Lady
Ashburton, who rains her benefits upon me. I am doing all I can to be
able to go out with the Prince soon, having put him off again and again
with a greater pang each time, but I wish I could feel a little less
dreadfully weak.
“I think the ‘Memorials’ will soon reach a sale like that of the _Récit
d’une Sœur_. Hatchard is pushing the ‘Alton Sermons’ under its
shadow. ‘Wanderings in Spain’ also sells beyond all expectation.”
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE TEMPIETTO, ROME.]
It was on the 18th of February that I was first able to have one of my
lectures for Prince Arthur. It was arranged for the Palace of the
Cæsars. I had asked him if Lady Ashburton and her daughter might go with
us, and to this he had consented. Lady Ashburton insisted upon coming
to fetch me, but, knowing her unpunctual habits, I was most unwilling
she should do so. Nothing else would serve her, however, and she
promised again and again to be punctual. However, the time came and she
did not arrive. Having secured no other carriage I waited minute after
minute in an agony, and not till after the time at which we ought to
have been at the Palatine did Lady Ashburton appear on the Pincio. When
we reached the Palatine, the Prince and all his suite were still in the
road, unable to enter without my order. “I have been waiting ten
minutes,” he said, “and they wouldn’t let me in.” It was a terrible
beginning. However, his lively pleasure and active interest in all that
was to be seen soon made me at home with him. If anything especial
attracted his notice, he generally asked, “Do you think my brother and
sister (the Prince and Princess of Wales) saw this?”
A few days after, I had another lecture for the Prince on the Cœlian.
This time I refused altogether to go with Lady Ashburton, and when I
arrived ten minutes before the time at the steps of S. Gregorio, found
that she had already been there half-an-hour, walking up and down in the
dew! This time the Prince was even pleasanter than before. Generally he
begged that his name might not be mentioned, but this was necessary to
get into the garden of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, which at that time was
always closed. While we were in the church, a monk came up to me and
said that the General of the Passionists was coming to pay his respects
to the Prince. I said, “Sir, the General of the Passionists is coming to
have the honour of being presented to you.” The Prince began to say “No,
no, no,” but at that moment the white robes of the abbot appeared in the
doorway, followed by a whole train of monks. The Prince immediately did
the right thing, receiving them and speaking to them on the steps of the
tribune, and I have often thought what a picture the scene would have
made. In the shadow of royalty, Lady Ashburton was the first woman
allowed to visit the Passionist garden, but to the Prince’s great
annoyance, three Americans (probably not knowing who it was) got in too,
by pretending to belong to our party. They followed us afterwards to the
Villa Mattei. The Prince then asked Lady Ashburton to sit down near the
entrance, and we raced up and down the walks, with the Americans
cantering after us, and eventually slipped under one of the high box
hedges, returned by the concealed way, snapped up Lady Ashburton, and
escaped from the Villa, the gates of which were locked behind us; and
how those Americans got out I have never known.
I was truly sorry when the Prince went away to Naples. He sent me from
thence some friends of his--Colonel Crichton and his most sweet wife
Lady Madeleine (a daughter of Lord Headfort, who has died since), and
asked me to do what I could for them. I knew that this meant lectures of
the same kind which I had given for the Prince himself, and thus was
originated my long course of Roman lectures.
At one of my lectures at the Palace of the Cæsars a curious thing
happened. We were about forty in number, and I had taken my company all
over the palace, explaining and telling the story of the different rooms
as we went. Finally, as was my habit, I assembled them on the slope
towards the Forum for a sort of recapitulation and final discourse on
all we had seen. I had observed a stranger who had attached himself to
our party looking more and more angry every minute, but the “why” I
could not understand. When I had concluded, the stranger stepped
forward, and in a very loud voice addressed the whole party--“Gentlemen
and ladies, it is not my habit to push myself forward, and it is
excessively painful to me to do it on the present occasion; but there
are some things which no gentleman ought to pass unnoticed. All that
this _person_ has been telling you about the Palace of the Cæsars, he
has had the effrontery to relate to you as if it were his own. You will
be astounded, gentlemen and ladies, to hear that it is taken, word for
word--word for _word_, without the slightest acknowledgment, from Mr.
Hare’s ‘Walks in Rome!’”
I only said, “Oh, I am _so_ much obliged to you. I did not know there
was anybody in the world who would defend my interests so kindly. I am
Augustus Hare.”
* * * * *
_TO_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Il Tempietto, Rome, March 9, 1873._--I am much better, but still have
fever every three days. The weather is glorious, and Miss Wright, who
arrived ten days ago, is revelling in the hot sunshine.
“On Monday we had an enchanting expedition to Veii; there were twelve
riders and five carriages. I went with Miss Baring[40] and her
governess, and we had quite a banquet near the waterfall, with the old
castle of Isola Farnese opposite, and the woods around us carpeted with
cyclamen, violets, and blue and white anemones, while the cliffs were
snow-drifted with laurustinus. After luncheon, the adventurous part of
the company, the Sackvilles, Miss Wright, &c., went on with me to the
Ponte Sodo and the painted tombs--_such_ a hot walk through the woods,
but we came back to Rome before sunset.
[Illustration: ISOLA FARNESE.][41]
“At the end of this week I have a lecture on the Christian history of
the Trastevere.
[Illustration: VALLEY OF SUBIACO.]
[Illustration: PONTE DELL’ ISOLA, VEII.][42]
“I think a Republic here will soon follow that of Spain. Victor Emmanuel
is so hated, and the profligacy of the Court and the cruel taxes are
hastening the end. People already shout ‘Viva la Republica’ and bawl
Garibaldian hymns all night. I wonder whether you would think the
freedom of religious worship a compensation for the moral changes
here--the shops always open on Sundays, which were formerly so strictly
closed, the churches deserted, stalls for infidel books in the streets,
and an ostentatious immorality which was formerly unknown. In the
Carnival, in insulting reference to the Pope, a pasteboard dome of St.
Peter’s was made to travel up and down the Corso in a car, with a
parrot imprisoned in a cage on the top, ‘_pappagallo_’ being Italian for
a parrot, and ‘Papa Gallo’ a nickname given to Pio Nono during the
French occupation. The parrot struggled and fluttered through the first
day, but it died of sea-sickness in the evening, and afterwards it
appeared stuffed. The Pope has felt bitterly the confiscation of the
convents and other religious institutions which the Sardinian
Government, when it first entered Rome, promised so strictly to respect;
and _triduos_ have been held at St. Peter’s and at S. Ignazio to implore
that the spoliation may be averted, or that a judgment may follow the
spoiler. In St. Peter’s twenty thousand persons were collected on Sunday
afternoon to join with one voice in this supplication. Pius IX. took no
part in the manifestation: on Sunday afternoon he is quietly occupied as
a bishop in the Sala Regia, in explaining the Epistle and Gospel for
the day, and praying with the people of the different Roman parishes,
who come to him in turn, attended by their priests. Amongst the nuns who
have suffered most are the Poor Clares of S. Lorenzo Panisperna, who,
when they were driven out of the greater part of their convent in
February 1872, were allowed to retain and fit up a few small rooms, from
which they are now forcibly ejected altogether. The nuns of S. Antonio
on the Esquiline, who plaited all the palms used in the processions at
St. Peter’s, were driven out more than a year ago, though their convent
has never hitherto been used for anything else. The nuns of S. Giacomo
alla Lungara are reduced to absolute beggary. The Carmelites of S. Maria
Vittoria have been driven out, and their Superior died of a broken heart
on the day of their ejection. The nuns of S. Teresa, when driven out of
their convent, were permitted to take refuge in that of Regina Cœli,
where they were allowed to fit up a corridor with canvas partitions: now
they are driven out again, in spite of solemn promises, and without any
compensation. If the dowries of all these ladies, given to them by their
parents exactly as marriage portions are given, were restored,
comparatively little could be said, but their fortunes are all
confiscated by the Government. A pitiful allowance is promised, just
sufficient to keep body and soul together, but even this is seldom paid;
for instance, in the case of the nuns of S. Teresa, the ‘_assegno_’ for
the first half of 1871 was not paid till October 1872, and since then
nothing has been paid. In the same way it is supposed that the
conventual buildings and gardens are paid for at a valuation, yet the
real value of those of the Cappuccini, in one of the most important
situations of the town, is £40,000, and it is expropriated at 4000
francs (£160), while even this is to be paid in paper and at great
intervals of time. Amongst the last institutions seized are the Orphan
Asylum of the Quattro Incoronati, and the Conservatorio Pio, an especial
and beloved institution of Pio Nono, intended as a school for servants
and for instructing young girls in household work.[43]
“The heads of the clerical schools have inquired from Pius IX. whether
their pupils were to salute Queen Margaret when she passed them.
‘Certainly,’ answered the Pope; ‘is she not a member of the royal house
of Savoy?’
“There is a stall for Bibles now opposite S. Carlo. A great dog manages
it, such a fine beast. He cannot be expected to do all the business, so
he just receives the customers, and, when any one wants a Bible, he puts
his feet up and barks.
“I am very glad to hear of Sir George Grey having given the ‘Memorials’
to the Queen, and I have a most kind letter from Lord Stanhope,
delighted with ‘Wanderings in Spain.’”
* * * * *
“_March_ 17.--Yesterday I drove with Lady Ashburton to Castel Fusano;
Miss Wright, Miss Howard, and Walter Jekyll going in another carriage,
and we picnicked under the grand old pine-trees, and had a delicious
day, wandering through the labyrinths of sweet daphne and rosemary, and
over carpets of cyclamen in fullest bloom.
[Illustration: CASTEL FUSANO.][44]
“I have had several more lectures. There was a party of forty, which is
the largest I can manage, at the one on the Early Christian Church in
the Trastevere. We met on the Island, where I gave a sort of preliminary
discourse, and led my troop to everything connected with the Christian
martyrs. To-morrow I have the same kind of lecture on the Esquiline.
Mrs. Locke and her pretty charming little grand-daughter[45]
unexpectedly joined us at S. Cecilia, and seemed much interested, never
having visited the Roman sights before. I dined with them last night--an
exceptionally pleasant party, as Mrs. Locke, the Duchess, and the little
Countess move about constantly all evening, and do their utmost to amuse
their guests, unlike most stiff Italian hostesses. They seem to me to
have three grades of beauty, the grandmother’s being the highest.”
“_14 Trinità de’ Monti, March 29._--There are many quiet hours here,
such as one gets nowhere else, and yet endless society of the most
interesting kind; troops of visitors of every sort, and what contrasts
those of a single day furnish--Madama de Bonis at breakfast, for help
with her photographs; then Rosina the poor donna; then Lady Howard de
Walden and a daughter; then Signor Monachesi, the Italian master; then
the Marchese Carcolo, fresh from Perugia; then three ugly old ladies,
whose names I failed to discover, who wanted to be told where to live,
how to live, and what to live upon; then Mrs. Foljambe from Villa
Savorelli; then Signor Altini the sculptor, to ask for recommendations:
and this is only an ordinary Roman day, yet I cannot feel it is a
_useless_ life.”
“_Albano, April 6._--Yesterday, after dining with Mrs. Lockwood, I went
to meet Princess Alice at the S. Arpinos’. They have a beautiful suite
of rooms in the Bonaparte Palace, the same in which ‘Madame Mère’ died.
Many ambassadors and Roman princes and princesses were there, but only
five English. I was presented at once to Prince Louis, who is very
German and speaks very broken English, but is much better-looking than
his photographs. He talked for a long time about Rome and my book. Later
in the evening I was presented to the Princess. She said at once, ‘Oh, I
know your face, I have seen you before,’ and with royal memory
recollected all about coming to see my Mother, &c. She said, ‘I have
gone about everywhere with your book, and I am so pleased to be able to
say that I have found out a mistake in it: you say that the church at
the Navicella was designed by Michelangelo, and it was not; it was
designed by Raffaelle: I know all about it, for my dear father had the
original plan and sketch for it. My dear father always took a great
interest in the Navicella. I have been to see the martyrdoms at S.
Stefano: they are quite shocking.’ She talked for some time, then some
one else was brought up. She is grown much fatter and prettier, and was
very simply dressed in high slate-coloured silk with a pearl necklace.
We all stayed till she left at 11 P.M., and then made an avenue down the
reception rooms, through which she passed, saying a little separate word
to each lady.
“Mrs. Locke[46] said Princess Margherita was deep in ‘Walks in
Rome,’[47] and had desired her to get me to tell _her_ (Mrs. Locke) a
ghost-story, and then come and retail it immediately!
“Yesterday I went with Lady Howard and her daughter and Miss Wright to
Tusculum and Frascati. I never saw the Villa Mondragone before. How
_very_ grand it is, and the view was exquisitely lovely--such blue
shadows cast by the clouds upon the pink campagna. All the ascent to
Tusculum was fringed with cyclamen, large purple violets, laurustinus,
and blue and white anemones, also the loveliest little blue squills.
“On Wednesday I met Miss Wright and Miss Howard at Albano, and we had an
interesting afternoon amongst the huge Cyclopean remains of Alatri,
driving on in the beautiful gloaming to Ferentino, where we slept at a
primitive but clean Italian tavern. The next day we reached Segni, a
Pelasgic city on the very highest peak of the Volscian mountains. On
Friday I joined Lady Howard de Walden and her two daughters, and with
them revisited the glorious old Papal citadel of Anagni, where Boniface
VIII. was imprisoned, and where there are many relics of him, though to
me Anagni has an even deeper interest, because from its walls you can
see, on the barren side of the mountain, the brown building of Acuto,
where my sister’s revered friend Maria di Matthias preached the sermons
which had such an extraordinary influence throughout this wild
country.”
[Illustration: CYCLOPEAN GATE OF ALATRI.][48]
* * * * *
“_Subiaco, April 16._--We spent Good Friday on the seashore at Porto
d’Anzio, a delightful place, overgrown with gorgeous pink
mesembryanthemum, and with huge remains of Nero’s palace projecting far
into the sea. For Easter we were at Velletri, and on Monday drove
through the blooming country to Cori, where, after seeing the beautiful
temple, we rode along the edge of stupendous precipices to Norba, and
the man-deserted flower-possessed fairy-like town of Ninfa, returning
by the light of the stars--‘le Ninfe eterne’ of Dante. Tuesday we went
to Palestrina, an extraordinary place with a perfectly savage
population; and Wednesday we came hither through Olevano, which is a
paradise of beauty. This place seems quite as grandly beautiful as we
thought it fifteen years ago.”
[Illustration: THE INN AT FERENTINO.][49]
* * * * *
“_Rome, April 28._--I parted with my kind Miss Wright at Tivoli, and
next day returned to Rome in the public omnibus.”[50]
[Illustration: PAPAL PALACE, ANAGNI.][51]
[Illustration: TEMPLES OF CORI.][52]
[Illustration: NINFA.][53]
A few days later I left Rome again with Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot Feilden
and the Misses Crawford (daughters of Mrs. Terry, and sisters of Marion
Crawford) for a tour in the Ciminian Hills, which always comes back to
me as a dream of transcendent loveliness.
We left the railway at Civita Castellana, an unspeakably beautiful
place, which I drew in the early dewy morning, sitting on the edge of
its tremendous rocky gorge, above which Soracte, steeped in violet
shadows, rises out of the tender green of the plain. On May-day we
ascended Soracte, queen of lovely mountains, mounting gradually from the
rich lower slopes into the excelsior of olives, and thence to steeps of
bare grey rock, crowned--in the most sublime position--by the ruined
monastery of S. Silvestro. It is the most exquisite drive from Civita
Castellana, by Nepi, with a great machicolated castle overhanging a
foaming waterfall, and Sutri--“the key of Etruria”--with its solemn
Roman amphitheatre surrounded by some of the grandest ilexes in the
world, to Ronciglione. Hence we visited Caprarola, and I will insert a
little extract from “Days near Rome” about this expedition, it reminds
me of so wondrously beautiful and delightful a day.
[Illustration: S. ORESTE, FROM SORACTE.][54]
* * * * *
“From the little deep-blue lake of Vico it is a long ascent, and oh!
what Italian scenery, quite unspoilt by the English, who never come here
now. The road is generally a dusty hollow in the tufa, which, as we
pass, is fringed with broom in full flower, and all the little children
we meet have made themselves wreaths and gathered long branches of it,
and wave them like golden sceptres. Along the brown ridges of thymy
tufa by the wayside, flocks of goats are scrambling, chiefly white, but
a few black and dun-coloured creatures are mingled with them, mothers
with their little dancing elf-like kids, and old bearded patriarchs who
love to clamber to the very end of the most inaccessible places, and to
stand there embossed against the clear sky, in triumphant quietude. The
handsome shepherd dressed in white linen lets them have their own way,
and the great rough white dogs only keep a lazy eye upon them as they
themselves lie panting and luxuriating in the sunshine. Deep down below
us, it seems as if all Italy were opening out, as the mists roll
stealthily away, and range after range of delicate mountain distance is
discovered. Volscian, Hernican, Sabine, and Alban hills, Soracte nobly
beautiful--rising out of the soft quiet lines of the Campagna, and the
Tiber winding out of the rich meadow-lands into the desolate wastes,
till it is lost from sight before it reaches where a great mysterious
dome rises solemnly through the mist, and reminds one of the times when,
years ago, in the old happy _vetturino_ days, we used to stop the
carriage on this very spot, to have our first sight of St. Peter’s.
[Illustration: CONVENT OF S. SILVESTRO, SUMMIT OF SORACTE.][55]
“Near a little deserted chapel, a road branches off on the right, a
rough stony road enough, which soon descends abruptly through chestnut
woods, and then through deep clefts cut in the tufa and overhung by
shrubs and flowers, every winding a picture, till in about half-an-hour
we arrive at Caprarola. Why do not more people come here? it is so very
easy. As we emerge from our rocky way, the wonderful position of the
place bursts upon us at once. The grand, tremendous palace stands backed
by chestnut woods, which fade into rocky hills, and it looks down from a
high-terraced platform upon the little golden-roofed town beneath, and
then out upon the whole glorious rainbow-tinted view, in which, as
everywhere we have been, lion-like Soracte, couching over the plain, is
the most conspicuous feature. The buildings are so vast in themselves,
and every line so noble, every architectural idea so stupendous, that
one is carried back almost with awe to the recollections of the
great-souled Farnese who originated the design, and the grand architect
who carried it out. S. Carlo Borromeo, the great patron of idle
almsgiving, came hither to see it when it was completed, and complained
that so much money had not been given to the poor instead. ‘I have let
them have it all little by little,’ said Alessandro Farnese, ‘but I have
made them earn it by the sweat of their brows.’
[Illustration: SUTRI.][56]
* * * * *