Sept. 25, 1784.
We left the capital at our intended time, and put into the carriage, for
amusement, a book seriously recommended by Mr. Goldoni; but which
diverted me only by the fanfaronades that it contained. The author has,
however, got the premium by this performance, which the Academy of
Berlin promised to whoever wrote best this year on any Belles Lettres
subject. This gentleman judiciously chose to give reasons for the
universality of the French language, and has been so gaily insolent to
every other European nation in his flimsy pamphlet, that some will
probably praise, many reply to, all read, and all forget it. I will
confess myself so seized on by his sprightly impertinence, that I wished
for leisure to translate, and wit to answer him at first, but the want
of one solid thought by which to recollect his existence has cured me;
and I now find that he was deliciously cool and sharp, like the ordinary
wine of the country we are passing through, which having _no body_, can
neither keep its little power long, nor even use it while fresh to any
sensible effect.
The country is really beautiful; but descriptions are _so_ fallacious,
one half despairs of communicating one's ideas as they are: for either
well-chosen words do not present themselves, or being well-chosen they
detain the reader, and fix his mind on _them_, instead of the things
described. Certain it is that I had formed no adequate notion of the
fine river called the Yonne, with cattle grazing on its fertile banks:
those banks not clothed indeed with our soft verdure, but with royal
purple, proceeding from an autumnal daisy of that colour that enamels
every meadow at this season. Here small enclosures seem unknown to the
inhabitants, who are strewed up and down expansive views of a most
productive country; where vineyards swell upon the rising grounds, and
young wheat ornaments the valleys below: while clusters of aspiring
poplars, or a single walnut-tree of greater size and dignity unite in
attracting attention, and inspiring poetical ideas. Here is no tedious
uniformity to fatigue the eye, nor rugged asperities to disgust it; but
ceaseless variety of colouring among the plants, while the cærulean
willow, the yellow walnut, the gloomy beech, and silver theophrastus,
seem scattered by the open hand of lavish Nature over a landscape of
respectable extent, uniting that sublimity which a wide expanse always
conveys to the mind, with that distinctness so desired by the eye; which
cultivation alone can offer and fertility bestow. Every town that should
adorn these lovely plains, however, exhibits, upon a nearer approach,
misery; the more mortifying, as it is less expected by a spectator, who
requires at least some days experience to convince him that the squallid
scenes of wretchedness and dirt in which he is obliged to pass the
night, will prove more than equivalent to the pleasures he has enjoyed
in the day-time, derived from an appearance of elegance and
wealth--elegance, the work of Nature, not of man; and opulence, the
immediate gift of God, and not the result of commerce. He who should fix
his residence in France, lives like Sir Gawaine in our old romance,
whose wife was bound by an enchantment, that obliged her at evening to
lay down the various beauties which had charmed admiring multitudes all
day, and become an object of odium and disgust.
The French do seem indeed an idle race; and poverty, perhaps for that
reason, forces her way among them, through a climate that might tempt
other mortals to improve its blessings; but, as the motto to the arms
they are so proud of expresses it--"they _toil not, neither do they
spin_." Content, the bane of industry, as Mandeville calls it, renders
them happy with what Heaven has unsolicited shaken into their lap; and
who knows but the spirit of blaming such behaviour may be less pleasing
to God that gives, than is the behaviour itself?
Let us not, mean time, be forward to suppose, that whatever one sees
done, is done upon principle, as such fancies will for ever mislead one:
much must be left to chance, when we are judging the conduct either of
nations or individuals. And surely I never knew till now, that so little
religion could exist in any Christian country as in this, where they
drive their carts, and keep their little shops open on a Sunday,
forbearing neither pleasure nor business, as I see, on account of
observing that day upon which their Redeemer rose again. They have a
tradition among the meaner people, that when Christ was crucified, he
turned his head towards France, over which he pronounced his last
blessing; but we must accuse them, if so, of being very ungrateful
favourites.
This stately city, Lyons, is very happily and finely situated; the
Rhone, which flows by its side, inviting mills, manufactures, &c. seems
resolved to contradict and wash away all I have been saying; but we must
remember, it is five days journey from Paris hither, and I have been
speaking only of the little places we passed through in coming along.
The avenue here, which leads to one of the greatest objects in the
nation, is most worthy of that object's dignity indeed: the marriage of
two rivers, which having their sources at a prodigious distance from
each other, meet here, and together roll their beneficial tribute to the
sea. Howell's remark, "That the Saone resembles a Spaniard in the
slowness of its current, and that the Rhone is emblematic of French
rapidity," cannot be kept a moment out of one's head: it is equally
observable, that the junction adds little in appearance to their
strength and grandeur, and that each makes a better figure _separate_
than _united_.
La Montagne d'Or is a lovely hill above the town, and I am told that
many English families reside upon it, but we have no time to make minute
enquiries. L'Hotel de la Croix de Malthe affords excellent
accommodations within, and a delightful prospect without. The Baths too
have attracted my notice much, and will, I hope, repair my strength, so
as to make me no troublesome fellow-traveller. How little do those
ladies consult their own interest, who make impatience of petty
inconveniences their best supplement for conversation!--fancy themselves
more important as less contented; and imagine all delicacy to consist in
the difficulty of being pleased! Surely a dip in this delightful river
will restore my health, and enable me to pass the mountains, of which
our present companions give me a very formidable account.
The manufacturers here, at Lyons, deserve a volume, and I shall
scarcely give them a page; though nothing I ever saw at London or Paris
can compare with the beauty of these velvets, or with the art necessary
to produce such an effect, while the wrong side is smooth, not struck
through. The hangings for the Empress of Russia's bed-chamber are
wonderfully executed; the design elegant, the colouring brilliant: A
screen too for the Grand Signor is finely finished here; he would, I
trust, have been contented with magnificence in the choice of his
furniture, but Mr. Pernon has added taste to it, and contrived in
appearance to sink an urn or vase of crimson velvet in a back ground of
gold tissue with surprising ingenuity.
It is observable, that the further people advance in elegance, the less
they value splendour; distinction being at last the positive thing which
mortals elevated above competency naturally pant after. Necessity must
first be supplied we know, convenience then requires to be contented;
but as soon as men can find means after that period to make themselves
eminent for taste, they learn to despise those paltry distinctions
which riches alone can bestow.
Talking of Taste leads one to speak of gardening; and having passed
yesterday between two villas belonging to some of the most opulent
merchants of Lyons, I gained an opportunity of observing the disposal of
those grounds that are appropriated to pleasure; where the shade of
straight long-drawn alleys, formed by a close junction of ancient elm
trees, kept a dazzling sun from incommoding our sight, and rendering the
turf so mossy and comfortable to one's tread, that my heart never felt
one longing wish for the beauties of a lawn and shrubbery--though I
should certainly think such a manner of laying out a Lancashire
gentleman's seat in the north of England a mad one, where the heat of
the sun ought to be invited in, not shut out; and where a large lake of
water is wanted for his beams to sparkle upon, instead of a fountain to
trickle and to murmur, and to refresh one with the idea of coolness
which it excites. Here, however, where the Rhone is navigable up to the
very house, I see not but it is rational enough to form jet d'eaux of
the superfluous water, and to content one's self with a Bird Cage Walk,
when we are sure at the end of it to find ourselves surrounded by an
horizon, of extent enough to give the eye full employment, and of a
bright colouring which affords it but little relief. That among the gems
of Europe our island holds the rank of an _emerald_, was once suggested
to me, and I could never part with the idea; surely France must in the
same scale be rated as the _ruby_; for here is no grass, no verdure to
repose the sight upon, except that of high forest trees, the vineyards
being short cut, and supported by white sticks, the size of those which
in our flower gardens support a favourite carnation; and these placed
close together by thousands on a hill rather perplex than please a
spectator of the country, who must wait till he recollects the
superiority of their produce, before he prefers them to a Herefordshire
orchard or a Kentish hop-ground.
Well! well! it is better to waste no more words on places however, where
the people have done so much to engage and to deserve our attention.
Such was the hospitality I have here been witness to, and such the
luxuries of the Lyonnois at table, that I counted six and thirty dishes
where we dined, and twenty-four where we supped. Every thing was served
up in silver at both places, and all was uniformly magnificent, except
the linen, which might have been finer. We were not a very numerous
company--from eighteen to twenty-two, as I remember, morning and
evening; but the ladies played upon the pedal harp, the gentlemen sung
gaily, if not sweetly after supper: I never received more kindness for
my own part in any fortnight of my life, nor ever heard that kindness
more pleasingly or less coarsely expressed. These are merchants, I am
told, with whom I have been living; and perhaps my heart more readily
receives and repays their caresses for having heard so. Let princes
dispute, and soldiers reciprocally support their quarrels; but let the
wealthy traders of every nation unite to pour the oil of commerce over
the too agitated ocean of human life, and smooth down those asperities
which obstruct fraternal concord.
The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland lodge here at our hotel; I saw them
treated with distinguished respect to-night at the theatre, where _a
force de danser_[Footnote: By dint of dancing alone], I actually was
moved to shed many tears over the distresses of _Sophie de Brabant_.
Surely these pantomimes will very soon supplant all poetry, when, as
Gratiano says, "Our words will suddenly become superfluous, and
discourse grow commendable in none but parrots."
Some conversation here, however, struck me as curious; the more so as I
had heard the subject slightly touched upon at Paris; but faintly there,
as the last sounds of an echo, while here they are all loud, all in
earnest, and all their heads seemed turned, I think, about something, or
nothing, which they call _animal magnetism_. I cannot imagine how it has
seized them so: a man who undertakes to cure disorders by the touch, is
no new thing; our Philosophical Transactions make mention of Gretrex the
stroaker, in Charles the Second's reign. The present mountebank, it is
true, seems more hardy in his experiments, and boasts of being able to
cause disorders in the human frame, as well as to remove them. A
gentleman at yesterday's dinner-party mentioned, that he took pupils;
and, before I had expressed the astonishment I felt, professed himself a
disciple; and was happy to assure us, he said, that though he had not
yet attained the desirable power of putting a person into a catalepsy at
pleasure, he could throw a woman into a deep swoon, from which no arts
but his own could recover her. How difficult is it to restrain one's
contempt and indignation from a buffoonery so mean, or a practice so
diabolical!--This folly may possibly find its way into England--I should
be very sorry.
To-morrow we leave Lyons. I should have liked to pass through
Switzerland, the Derbyshire of Europe; but I am told the season is too
far advanced, as we mean to spend Christmas at Milan.