[Footnote J:
Here I Madam Fortune my favours bestow,
Some good and some ill to the high and the low.
]
[Footnote K:
The naked I clothe, and the pompous I strip;
If in me you confide, I may give you the slip.
]
This is a town full of beauties, wits, and rarities: numberless persons
of the first eminence have always adorned it, and the present
inhabitants have no mind to degenerate; while the Nobleman that is
immediately descended from that house which Giambattista della Torre
made famous for his skill in astronomy, employs himself in a much more
useful, if not a nobler study; and is completing for the press a new
system of education. It was very petulantly, and very spitefully said by
Voltaire, that Italy was now no more than _la boutique_[Footnote: The
old clothes shop.], and the Italians, _les merchands fripiers de
l'Europe_[Footnote: The slop-sellers of Europe]. The Greek remains here
have still an air of youthful elegance about them, which strikes one
very forcibly where so good opportunity offers of comparing them with
the fabrics formed by their destructive successors, the Goths; who have
left some fine old black-looking monuments (which look as if they had
stood in our _coal smoke_ for centuries) to the memory of the Scaligers;
and surely the great critic of that name could not have taken a more
certain method of proving his descent from these his barbarous
ancestors, than that which his relationship to them naturally, I
suppose, inspired him with--the avowed preference of birth to talents,
of long-drawn genealogy to hardly-acquired literature. We will however
grow less prejudiced ourselves; and since there are still whole nations
of people existing, who consider the counting up many generations back
as a felicity not to be exchanged for any other without manifest loss,
we may possibly reconcile the opinion to common sense, by reflecting
that one preconception of the sovereign good is, that it should
certainly be _indeprivable_ and except birth, what is there earthly
after all that may not drop, or else be torn from its possessor by
accident, folly, force, or malice?
James Harris says, that virtue answers to the character of
indeprivability, but one is left only to wish that his position were
true; the continuance of virtue depends on the continuance of reason,
from which a blow on the head, a sudden fit of terror, or twenty other
accidents may separate us in a moment. Nothing can make us not one's
father's child however, and the advantages of _blood_, such as they are,
may surely be deemed _indeprivable_.
Gothic and Grecian architecture resembles Gothic and Grecian manners,
which naturally do give their colour to such arts as are naturally the
result of them. Tyranny and gloomy suspicion are the characteristics of
the one, openness and sociability strongly mark the other--when to the
gay portico succeeded the sullen drawbridge, and to the lively corridor,
a secret passage and a winding staircase.
It is difficult, if not impossible however, to withhold one's respect
from those barbarians who could thus change the face of art, almost of
nature; who could overwhelm courage and counteract learning; who not
only devoured the works of wisdom and the labours of strength, but left
behind them too a settled system of feudatorial life and aristocratic
power, still undestroyed in Europe, though hourly attacked, battered by
commerce, and sapped by civilization.
When Smeathman told us about twelve years ago, how an immense body of
African ants, which appeared, as they moved forwards, like the whole
earth in agitation--covered and suddenly arrested a solemn elephant, as
he grazed unsuspiciously on the plain; he told us too that in eight
hours time no trace was left either of the devasters or devasted,
excepting the skeleton of the noble creature neatly picked; a standing
proof of the power of numbers against single force.
These northern emigrants the Goths, however, have done more; they have
fixed a mode of carrying on human affairs, that I think will never be so
far exterminated as to leave no vestiges behind: and even while one
contemplates the mischief they have made--even while one's pen engraves
one's indignation at their success; the old baron in his castle,
preceded and surrounded by loyal dependants, who desired only to live
under his protection and die in his defence, inspires a notion of
dignity unattainable by those who, seeking the beautiful, are by so far
removed from the sublime of life, and affords to the mind momentary
images of surly magnificence, ill exchanged perhaps by _fancy_, though
_truth_ has happily substituted a succession of soft ideas and social
comforts: knowledge, virtue, riches, happiness. Let it be remembered
however, that if the theme is superior to the song, we always find those
poets who live in the second class, celebrating the days past by those
who had their existence in the first. These reflections are forced upon
me by the view of Lombard manners, and the accounts I daily pick up
concerning the Brescian and Bergamase nobility; who still exert the
Gothic power of protecting murderers who profess themselves their
vassals; and who still exercise those virtues and vices natural to man
in his semi-barbarous state: fervent devotion, constant love, heroic
friendship, on the one part; gross superstition, indulgence of brutal
appetite, and diabolical revenge, on the other.
In all hot countries, however, flowers and weeds shoot up to enormous
growth: in colder climes, where poison can scarce be feared, perfumes
can seldom be boasted.
Verona is the gayest looking town I ever lived in; beautifully
situated, the hills around it elegant, the mountains at a distance
venerable: the silver Adige rolling through the Valley, while such a
glow of blossoms now ornament the rising grounds, and such cheerfulness
smiles in the sweet countenances of its inhabitants, that one is tempted
to think it the birth-place of Euphrosyne, where
Zephyr with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a maying, &c.
Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blythe, and debonair--
as Milton says. Here are vines, mulberries, olives; of course, wine,
silk, and oil: every thing that can seduce, every thing that ought to
satisfy desiring man. Here then in consequence do actually delight to
reside mirth and good-humour in their holiday dress. _A verona mezzi
matti_[Footnote: The people at Verona are half out of their wits], say
the Italians themselves of them, and I see nothing seemingly go forward
here but Improvisatori, reciting stories or verses to entertain the
populace; boys flying kites, cut square like a diamond on the cards, and
called Stelle; men amusing themselves at a game called Pallamajo,
something like our cricket, only that they throw the ball with a hollow
stick, not with the hand, but it requires no small corporal strength;
and I know not why our English people have such a notion of Italian
effeminacy: games of very strong exertion are in use among them; and I
have not yet felt one hot day since I left France.
They shewed us an agreeable garden here belonging to some man of
fashion, whose name I know not; it was cut in a rock, yet the grotto
disappointed me: they had not taken such advantages of the situation as
Lomellino would have done, and I recollected the tasteful creations in
my own country, _Pains Hill_ and _Stour Head_.
The Veronese nobleman shewed however the spirit of _his_ country, if we
let loose the genius of _ours_. The emperor had visited his improvements
it seems, and on the spot where he kissed the children of the house,
their father set up a stone to record the honour.
Our attendant related a tender story to _me_ more interesting, which
happened in this garden, of an English gentleman, who having hired the
house, &c. one season, found his favourite servant ill there, and like
to die: the poor creature expressed his concern at the intolerant
cruelty of that fact which denies Christians of any other denomination
but their own a place in consecrated ground, and lamented his distance
from home with an anxious earnestness that hastened his end: when the
humanity of his master sent him to the landlord, who kindly gave
permission that he might lie undisturbed under his turf, as one places
one's lap-dog in England; and _there_, as our Laquais de place observed,
_he did no harm_, though _he was a heretic_; and the English gentleman
wept over his grave.
I never saw cypress trees of such a growth as in this spot--but then
there are no other trees; _inter viburna cypressi_ came of course into
one's head: and this noble plant, rich in foliage, and bright, not dusky
in colour, looked from its manner of growing like a vast evergreen
poplar.
Our equipages here are strangely inferior to those we left behind at
Milan. Oil is burned in the conversation rooms too, and smells very
offensively--but they _lament our suffocation in England, and black
smoke_, while what proceeds from these lamps would ruin the finest
furniture in the world before five weeks were expired; I saw no such
used at Turin, Genoa, or Milan.
The horses here are not equal to those I have admired on the Corso at
other great towns; but it is pleasing to observe the contrast between
the high bred, airy, elegant English hunter, and the majestic, docile,
and well-broken war horse of Lombardy. Shall we fancy there is Gothic
and Grecian to be found even among the animals? or is not that _too_
fanciful?
That every thing useful, and every thing ornamental, first revived in
Italy, is well known; but I was never aware till now, though we talk of
Italian book-keeping, that the little cant words employed in
compting-houses, took their original from the Lombard language, unless
perhaps that of Ditto, which every moment recurs, meaning Detto or
Sudetto, as that which was already said before: but this place has
afforded me an opportunity of discovering what the people meant, who
called a large portion of ground in Southwark some years ago a _plant_,
above all things. The ground was destined to the purposes of extensive
commerce, but the appellation of a _plant_ gave me much disturbance,
from my inability to fathom the meaning of it. I have here found out,
that the Lombards call many things a _plant_; and say of their cities,
palaces, &c. in familiar discourse--_che la pianta è buona, la pianta è
cattiva_[Footnote: The _plant_ is a good or a bad one], &c.
Thus do words which carry a forcible expression in one language, appear
ridiculous enough in another, till the true derivation is known. Another
reflection too occurs as curious; that after the overthrow of all
business, all knowledge, and all pleasure resulting from either, by the
Goths, Italy should be the first to cherish and revive those
money-getting occupations, which now thrive better in more Northern
climates: but the chymists say justly, that fermentation acts with a
sort of creative power, and that while the mass of matter is fermenting,
no certain judgment can be made what spirit it will at last throw up: so
perhaps we ought not to wonder at all, that the first idea of banking
came originally from this now uncommercial country; that the very name
of _bankrupt_ was brought over from their money-changers, who sat in
the market-place with a bench or _banca_ before them, receiving and
paying; till, unable sometimes to make the due returns, the enraged
creditors broke their little board, which was called making
_bancarotta_, a phrase but too well known in the purlieus, which because
they first settled there in London was called _Lombard Street_, where
the word is still in full force I believe.
--oh word of fear!
Unpleasing to commercial ear.
A visit to the collection of Signor Vincenzo Bozza best assisted me in
changing, or at least turning the course of my ideas. Nothing in natural
history appears more worthy the consideration of the learned world, than
does this repository of petrefactions, so uncommon that scarcely any
thing except the testimony of one's own eyes could convince one that
flying fish, natives, and intending to remain inhabitants, of the
Pacific Ocean, are daily dug out of the bowels of Monte Bolca near
Verona, where they must doubtless have been driven by the deluge, as no
less than omnipotent power and general concussion could have sufficed to
seize and fix them for centuries in the hollow cavities of a rock at
least seventy-two miles from the nearest sea. Their learned proprietor,
however, who was obligingly desirous to shew me every attention,
answering a hundred troublesome questions with much civility, told us,
that few of his numerous visitants gave that plain account of the
phenomenon, shewing greater disposition to conjure up more difficult
causes, and attribute the whole to the world's eternity: a notion not
less contrary to found philosophy and common sense, than it is repugnant
to faith, and the doctrines of Revelation; which prophesied long ago,
that in the last days should come _scoffers, walking after their own
lusts_, and saying, _Where is now the promise of his coming? for since
the time that our fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were
from the beginning of the creation._
Well! these are unpleasant reflections: I would rather, before leaving
the plains of Lombardy, give my country-women one reason for detaining
them so long there: it cannot be an uninteresting reason to us, when we
reflect that our first head-dresses were made by _Milaners_; that a
court gown was early known in England by the name of a _mantua_, from
_Manto,_ the daughter of Teresias, who founded the city so called; and
that some of the best materials for making these mantuas is still named
from the town it is manufactured in--a _Padua_ soy.
We are going thither immediately through Vicenza; where the works of
Palladio's immortal hand appear in full perfection; and nothing sure can
add to the elegancies of architecture displayed in its environs. I
fatigued myself to death almost by walking three miles out of town, to
see the famous villa from whence Merriworth Castle in Kent was modelled;
and drew incessant censures on his taste who built at the bottom of a
deep valley the imitation of a house calculated for a hill. Here I
pleased my eyes by glancing them over an extensive prospect, bounded by
mountains on the one side, on another by the sea, at so prodigious a
distance however as to be wholly undiscoverable by the naked eye; nor
could I, or any other unaccustomed spectator, have seen, as my Italian
companions did, the effect produced by marine vapours upon the
intermediate atmosphere, which they made me remark from the windows of
the palace, inferior in every thing _but_ situation to Merriworth, and
with that patriotic consolation I leave Vincenza.
Padua la dotta afforded me much pleasure, from the politeness of the
Countess Ferres, born a German; of the House of Starenberg: she thought
proper to shew me a thousand civilities, in consequence of a kind letter
which we carried her from Count Wiltseck, the Austrian minister at
Milan; called the literati of the town about us, and gave me the
pleasure of conversing with the Abate Cefarotti, who translated Offian;
and the Professor Statico, whose attentions I ought never to forget. I
was surprised at length to hear kind inquiries after English
acquaintance made in my native language by the botanical professor, who
spoke much of Doctor Johnson, and with great regard: he had, it seems,
spent much time in our island about thirty years before. When we were
shewn the physic garden, nicely kept and excellently furnished, the
Countess took occasion to observe, that transplanted trees never throve,
and strongly expressed her unfaded attachment to her native soil: though
she had more good sense than to neglect every opportunity of
cultivating that in which fortune had placed her.
The tomb of Antenor, supposed to be preserved in this town, has, I find,
but slight evidence to boast with regard to its authenticity: whosever
tomb it is, the antiquity of the monument, and dignity of the remains,
are scarcely questionable; and I see not but it _may_ be Antenor's.
There is no place assigned for it but the open street, because it could
not (say they) have contained a baptized body, as there are proofs
innumerable of its being fabricated many and many years before the birth
of Jesus Christ: yet I never pass by without being hurt that it should
have no better situation assigned it, till I recollect that the old
Romans always buried people by the highway, which made the _siste
viator_[Footnote: Stop traveller] proper for their tomb-stones, as Mr.
Addison somewhere remarks; which are foolishly enough engraven upon
ours: and till I consider too that the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the
Patriarch of Antioch, where Christians were first called such, would lie
no nearer a Christian Church than old Antenor does, were they
unfortunate enough to die, and be put under ground at Padua.
The shrine of St. Antonio is however sufficiently venerated; and the
riches of his church really amazed me: such silver lamps! such votive
offerings! such glorious sculpture! the bas relievos, representing his
life and miracles, are beyond any thing we have yet seen; one
compartment particularly, the workmanship, I think, of Sansovino, where
an old woman is represented to a degree of finished nicety and curiosity
of perfection which I knew not that marble could express.
The hall of justice, which they oppose to our Westminster-hall, but
between which there is no resemblance, is two hundred and fifty-six feet
long, and eighty-six broad; the form, of it a _rhomboid_: the walls
richly ornamented by Pietro d'Abano, who originally designed, and began
to paint the figures round the sides: they have however been retouched
by Giotto, who added the signs of the Zodiac to Peter's mysterious
performances, which meant to explain the planetary influences, as he was
a man deeply dipped in judicial astrology; and there is his own portrait
among them, dressed like a Zoroastrian priest, with a planet in the
corner. At the bottom of the hall hangs the famous crucifixion, for the
purpose of doing which completely well, it is told that Giotto fastened
up a real man, and justly incurred the Pope's displeasure, who coming
one day unawares to see his painter work, caught the unhappy wretch
struggling in the closet, and threatened immediately to sign the
artist's death; who with Italian promptness ran to the picture, and
daubed it over with his brush and colours;--by this method obliging his
sovereign to delay execution till the work was repaired, which no one
but himself could finish; mean time the man recovers of his wounds, and
the tale ends, whether true or false, according to the hearer's wish.
The debtor's stone at the opposite end of the hall has likewise many
entertaining stories annexed to it: the bankrupt is obliged to sit there
in presence of his creditors and judges, in a very disgraceful state;
and many accounts are told one, of the various effects such distresses
have had on the mind: but suicide is a crime rarely committed out of
England, and the Italians look with just horror on our people for being
so easily incited to a sin, which takes from him that commits it all
power and possibility of repentance.
A Frenchman whom I sent for once at Bath to dress my hair, gave me an
excellent trait of his own national character, speaking upon that
subject, when he meant to satirise ours. "You have lived some years in
England, friend, said I, do you like it?"--"Mais non, madame, pas
parfaitement bien[L]"--"You have travelled much in Italy, do you like
that better?"--"Ah, Dieu ne plaise, madame, je n'aime guères messieurs
les Italiens[M]." "What do they do to make you hate them so?"--"Mais
c'est que les Italiens se tuent l'un l'autre (replied the fellow), et
les Anglois se font un plaisir de se tuer eux mesmes: pardi je ne me
sens rien moins qu'un vrai gout pour ces gentillesses la, et j'aimerois
mieux me trouver a _Paris, pour rire un peu_."[N]