[Footnote Q: You admire it, says she, only because you never saw the
fair at St. Ovid's in Paris; I assure you there is no comparison between
those gay illuminations and these dismal palaces the Venetians are so
fond of.]
General knowledge, however, it must be confessed (meaning that general
stock that every one recurs to for the common intercourse of
conversation), will be found more frequently in France, than even in
England; where, though all cultivate the arts of table eloquence and
assembly-room rhetoric, few, from mere shyness, venture to gather in the
profits of their plentiful harvest; but rather cloud their countenances
with mock importance, while their hearts feel no hope beat higher in
them, than the humble one of escaping without being ridiculed; or than
in Italy, where nobody dreams of cultivating conversation at all--_as an
art_; or studies for any other than the natural reason, of informing or
diverting themselves, without the most distant idea of gaining
admiration, or shining in company, by the quantity of science they have
accumulated in solitude. _Here_ no man lies awake in the night for
vexation that he missed recollecting the last line of a Latin epigram
till the moment of application was lost; nor any lady changes colour
with trepidation at the severity visible in her husband's countenance
when the chickens are over-roasted, or the ice-creams melt with the
room's excessive heat.
Among the noble Senators of Venice, meantime, many good scholars, many
Belles Lettres conversers, and what is more valuable, many thinking men,
may be found, and found hourly, who employ their powers wholly in care
for the state; and make their pleasure, like true patriots, out of _her
felicity_. The ladies indeed appear to study but _one_ science;
And where the lesson taught
Is but to please, can pleasure seem a fault?
Like all sensualists, however, they fail of the end proposed, from hurry
to obtain it; and consume those charms which alone can procure them
continuance or change of admirers; they injure their health too
irreparably, and _that_ in their earliest youth; for few remain
unmarried till fifteen, and at thirty have a wan and faded look. _On ne
goute pas ses plaisirs icy, on les avale_[Footnote: They do not taste
their pleasures here, they swallow them whole.], said Madame la
Presidente yesterday, very judiciously; yet it is only speaking
popularly that one can be supposed to mean, what however no one much
refuses to assert, that the Venetian ladies are amorously inclined: the
truth is, no check being put upon inclination, each acts according to
immediate impulse; and there are more devotees, perhaps, and more
doating mothers at Venice than any where else, for the same reason as
there are more females who practise gallantry, only because there are
more women there who _do their own way_, and follow unrestrained where
passion, appetite, or imagination lead them.
To try Venetian dames by English rules, would be worse than all the
tyranny complained of when some East Indian was condemned upon the
Coventry act for slitting his wife's nose; a common practice in _his_
country, and perfectly agreeable to custom and the _usage du pays_. Here
is no struggle for female education as with us, no resources in study,
no duties of family-management; no bill of fare to be looked over in the
morning, no account-book to be settled at noon; no necessity of reading,
to supply without disgrace the evening's chat; no laughing at the
card-table, or tittering in the corner if a _lapsus linguæ_ has
produced a mistake, which malice never fails to record. A lady in Italy
is _sure_ of applause, so she takes little pains to obtain it. A
Venetian lady has in particular so sweet a manner naturally, that she
really charms without any settled intent to do so, merely from that
irresistible good-humour and mellifluous tone of voice which seize the
soul, and detain it in despite of Juno-like majesty, or Minerva-like
wit. Nor ever was there prince or shepherd, Paris I think was both, who
would not have bestowed his apple _here_.
Mean while my countryman Howel laments that the women at Venice are so
little. But why so? the diminutive progeny of _Vulcan_, the _Cabirs_,
mysteriously adored of old, were of a size below that of the least
living woman, if we believe Herodotus; and they were worshipped with
more constant as well as more fervent devotion, than the symmetrical
goddess of Beauty herself.
A custom which prevails here, of wearing little or no rouge, and
increasing the native paleness of their skins, by scarce lightly wiping
the very white powder from their faces, is a method no Frenchwoman of
quality would like to adopt; yet surely the Venetians are not
behind-hand in the art of gaining admirers; and they do not, like their
painters, depend upon _colouring_ to ensure it.
Nothing can be a greater proof of the little consequence which dress
gives to a woman, than the reflection one must make on a Venetian lady's
mode of appearance in her zendalet, without which nobody stirs out of
their house in a morning. It consists of a full black silk petticoat,
sloped just to train, a very little on the ground, and flounced with
gauze of the same colour. A skeleton wire upon the head, such as we use
to make up hats, throwing loosely over it a large piece of black mode or
persian, so as to shade the face like a curtain, the front being trimmed
with a very deep black lace, or souflet gauze infinitely becoming. The
thin silk that remains to be disposed of, they roll back so as to
discover the bosom; fasten it with a puff before at the top of their
stomacher, and once more rolling it back from the shape, tie it
gracefully behind, and let it hang in two long ends.
The evening ornament is a silk hat, shaped like a man's, and of the
same colour, with a white or worked lining at most, and sometimes _one
feather_; a great black silk cloak, lined with white, and perhaps a
narrow border down before, with a vast heavy round handkerchief of black
lace, which lies over neck and shoulders, and conceals shape and all
completely. Here is surely little appearance of art, no craping or
frizzing the hair, which is flat at the top, and all of one length,
hanging in long curls about the back or sides as it happens. No brown
powder, and no rouge at all. Thus without variety does a Venetian lady
contrive to delight the eye, and without much instruction too to charm,
the ear. A source of thought fairly cut off beside, in giving her no
room to shew taste in dress, or invent new fancies and disposition of
ornaments for to-morrow. The government takes all that trouble off her
hands, knows every pin she wears, and where to find her at any moment of
the day or night.
Mean time nothing conveys to a British observer a stronger notion of
loose living and licentious dissoluteness, than the sight of one's
servants, gondoliers, and other attendants, on the scenes and circles
of pleasure, where you find them, though never drunk, dead with sleep
upon the stairs, or in their boats, or in the open street, for that
matter, like over-swilled voters at an election in England. One may
trample on them if one will, they hardly _can_ be awakened; and their
companions, who have more life left, set the others literally on their
feet, to make them capable of obeying their master or lady's call. With
all this appearance of levity, however, there is an unremitted attention
to the affairs of state; nor is any senator seen to come late or
negligently to council next day, however he may have amused himself all
night.
The sight of the Bucentoro prepared for Gala, and the glories of Venice
upon Ascention-day, must now put an end to other observations. We had
the honour and comfort of seeing all from a galley belonging to a noble
Venetian Bragadin, whose civilities to us were singularly kind as well
as extremely polite. His attentions did not cease with the morning show,
which we shared in common with numbers of fashionable people that filled
his ship, and partook of his profuse elegant refreshments; but he
followed us after dinner to the house of our English friends, and took
six of us together in a gay bark, adorned with his arms, and rowed by
eight gondoliers in superb liveries, made up for the occasion to match
the boat, which was like them white, blue and silver, a flag of the same
colours flying from the stern, till we arrived at the Corso; so they
call the place of contention where the rowers exert their skill and
ingenuity; and numberless oars dashing the waves at once, make the only
agitation of which the sea seems capable; while ladies, now no longer
dressed in black, but ornamented with all their jewels, flowers, &c.
display their beauties unveiled upon the water; and covering the lagoons
with gaiety and splendour, bring to one's mind the games in Virgil, and
the galley of Cleopatra, by turns.
Never was locality so subservient to the purposes of pleasure as in this
city; where pleasure has set up her airy standard, and which on this
occasion looked like what one reads in poetry of Amphitrite's court; and
I ventured to tell a nobleman who was kindly attentive in shewing us
every possible politeness, that had Venus risen from the Adriatic sea,
she would scarcely have been tempted to quit it for Olympus. I was upon
the whole more struck with the evening's gaiety, than with the
magnificence in which the morning began to shine. The truth is, we had
been long prepared for seeing the Bucentoro; had heard and read every
thing I fancy that could have been thought or said upon the subject,
from the sullen Englishmen who rank it with a company's barge floating
up the Thames upon my Lord Mayor's day, to the old writers who compare
it with Theseus's ship; in imitation of which, it is said, this calls
itself the very identical vessel wherein Pope Alexander performed the
original ceremony in the year 1171; and though, perhaps, not a whole
plank of that old galley can be now remaining in this, so often
careened, repaired, and adorned since that time, I see nothing
ridiculous in declaring that it is the same ship; any more than in
saying the oak I planted an acorn thirty years ago, is the same tree I
saw spring up then a little twig, which not even a moderate sceptic will
deny; though he takes so much pains to persuade plain folks out of their
own existence, by laughing us out of the dull notion that he who dies a
withered old fellow at fourscore, should ever be considered as the same
person whom his mother brought forth a pretty little plump baby eighty
years before--when, says he cunningly, you are forced yourself to
confess, that his mother, who died four months afterwards, would not
know him again now; though while she lived, he was never out of her
arms.
Vain wisdom all! and false Philosophy,
Which finds no end, in wandering mazes lost.
And better is it to travel, as Dr. Johnson says Browne did, from one
place where he saw little, to another where he saw no more--than write
books to confound common sense, and make men raise up doubts of a Being
to whom they must one day give an account.
We will return to the Bucentoro, which, as its name imports, holds two
hundred people, and is heavy besides with statues, columns, &c. The top
covered with crimson velvet, and the sides enlivened by twenty-one oars
on each hand. Musical performers attend in another barge, while
foreigners in gilded pajots increase the general show. Mean time, the
vessel that contains the doge, &c. carries him slowly out to sea, where
in presence of his senators he drops a plain gold ring into the water,
with these words, _Desponfamus te mare, in fignum veri perpetuique
dominii_.[Footnote: We espouse thee, O sea! in sign of true and
perpetual dominion.]
Our weather was favourable, and the people all seemed happy: when the
ceremony is put off from day to day, it naturally damps their spirits,
and produces superstitious presages of an unlucky year: nor is that
strange, for the season of storms ought surely to be past in a climate
so celebrated for mildness and equanimity. The praises of Italian
weather, though wearisomely frequent among us, seem however much
confined to this island for aught I see; who am often tired with hearing
their complaints of their own sky, now that they are under it: always
too cold or too hot, or a seiroc wind, or a rainy day, or a hard frost,
_che gela fin ai pensieri_[Footnote: Which freezes even one's fancy.];
or something to murmur about, while their only great nuisances pass
unnoticed, the heaps of dirt, and crowds of beggars, who infest the
streets, and poison the pleasures of society. While ladies are eating
ice at a coffee-house door, while decent people are hearing mass at the
altar, while strangers are surveying the beauties of the place--no
peace, no enjoyment can one obtain for the beggars; numerous beyond
credibility, fancy and airy, and odd in their manners; and exhibiting
such various lamenesses and horrible deformities in their figure, that I
can sometimes hardly believe my eyes--but am willing to be told, what is
not very improbable, that many of them come from a great distance to
pass the season of ascension here at Venice. I never indeed saw any
thing so gently endured, which it appeared so little difficult to
remedy; but though I hope it would be hard to find a place where more
alms are asked, or less are given, than in Venice; yet I never saw
refusals so pleasingly softened, as by the manners of the high Italians
towards the low. Ladies in particular are so soft-mouthed, so tender in
replying to those who have their lot cast far below them, that one feels
one's own harsher disposition corrected by their sweetness; and when
they called my maid _sister_, in good time--pressing her hand with
affectionate kindness, it melted me; though I feared from time to time
there must be hypocrisy at bottom of such sugared words, till I caught a
lady of condition yesterday turning to the window, and praying fervently
for the girl's conversion to christianity, all from a tender and pious
emotion of her gentle heart: as notwithstanding their caresses, no man
is more firmly persuaded of a mathematical truth than they are of mine,
and my maid's living in a state of certain and eternal reprobation--_ma
fanno veramente vergogna a noi altri_[Footnote: But they really shame
_even us_.], say they, quite in the spirit of the old Romans, who
thought all nations _barbarous_ except their own.
A woman of quality, near whom I sate at the fine ball Bragadin made two
nights ago in honour of this gay season, enquired how I had passed the
morning. I named several churches I had looked into, particularly that
which they esteem beyond the rest as a favourite work of Palladio, and
called the Redentore. "You do very right," says she, "to look at our
churches, as you have none in England, I know--but then you have so
many other fine things--such charming _steel buttons_ for example;"
pressing my hand to shew that she meant no offence; for, added she, _chi
pensa d'una maniera, chi pensa d'un altra_[Footnote: One person is of
one mind you know, another of another.].
Here are many theatres, the worst infinitely superior to ours; the best,
as far below those of Milan and Turin: but then here are other
diversions, and every one's dependance for pleasure is not placed upon
the opera. They have now thrown up a sort of temporary wall of painted
canvass, in an oval form, within St. Mark's Place, profusely illuminated
round the new-formed walk, which is covered in at top, and adorned with
shops round the right hand side, with pillars to support the canopy; the
lamps, &c. on the left hand. This open Ranelagh, so suited to the
climate, is exceedingly pleasing:--here is room to sit, to chat, to
saunter up and down, from two o'clock in the morning, when the opera
ends, till a hot sun sends us all home to rest--for late hours must be
complied with at Venice, or you can have no diversion at all, as the
earliest Casino belonging to your soberest friends has not a candle
lighted in it till past midnight.
But I am called from my book to see the public library; not a large one
I find, but ornamented with pieces of sculpture, whose eminence has not,
I am sure, waited for my description: the Jupiter and Leda particularly,
said to be the work of Phidias, whose Ganymede in the same collection
they tell us is equally excellent. Having heard that Guarini's
manuscript of the Pastor Fido, written in his own hand, was safely kept
at this place, I asked for it, and was entertained to see his numberless
corrections and variations from the original thought, like those of
Pope's Homer preserved in the British Museum; some of which I copied
over for Doctor Johnson to print, at the time he published his Lives of
the English Poets. My curiosity led me to look in the Pastor Fido for
the famous passage of _Legge humana_, _inhumana_, _&c._ and it was
observable enough that he had written it three different ways before he
pitched on that peculiar expression which caused his book to be
prohibited. Seeing the manuscript I took notice, however, of the
beautiful penmanship with which it was written: our English hand-writing
cotemporary to his was coarse, if I recollect, and very angular;--but
_Italian hand_ was the first to become elegant, and still retains some
privileges amongst us. Once more, every thing small, and every thing
great, revived after the dark ages--in Italy.
Looking at the Mint was an hour's time spent with less amusement. The
depuration of gold may be performed many ways, and the proofs of its
purity given by various methods: I was gratified well enough upon the
whole however, in watching the neatness of their process, in weighing
the gold, &c. and keeping it more free from alloy than any other coin of
any other state:--a zecchine will bend between your fingers from the
malleability of the metal--we may try in vain at a guinea, or louis
d'or. The operation of separating silver ore from gold by the powers of
aqua fortis, precipitating the first-named metal by suspension of a
copper plate in the liquid, and called _quartation_; was I believe
wholly unknown to the ancients, who got much earlier at the art of
weighing gold in water, testified by the old story of _King Hiero's
crown_.
Talking of kings, and crowns, and gold, reminds me of my regret for not
seeing the treasure kept in St. Mark's church here, with the motto
engraven on the chest which contains it:
Quando questo scrinio s'aprirà,
Tutto il mondo tremerà[R].
[Footnote R:
When this scrutoire shall open'd be,
The world shall all with wonder flee.
]
Of this it was said in our Charles the First's time, that there was
enough in it to pay six kings' ransoms: when Pacheco, the Spanish
ambassador, hearing so much of it, asked in derision, If the chest had
any _bottom_? and being answered in the affirmative, made reply, That
_there_ was the difference between his master's treasures and those of
the Venetian Republic, for the mines of Mexico and Potosi had _no_
bottom.--Strange! if all these precious stones, metals, &c. have been
all spent since then, and nothing left except a few relics of no
intrinsic value.
It is well enough known, that in the year 1450, one of the natives of
the island of Candia, who have never been men of much character, made a
sort of mine, or airshaft, or rather perhaps a burrow, like those
constructed by rabbits, down which he went and got quite under the
church, stealing out gems, money, &c. to a vast amount; but being
discovered by the treachery of his companion, was caught and hanged
between the two columns that face the sea on the Piazzetta.
It strikes a person who has lived some months in other parts of Italy,
to see so very few clergymen at Venice, and none hardly who have much
the look or air of a man of fashion. Milan, though such heavy complaints
are daily made there of encroachments on church power and depredations
on church opulence, still swarms with ecclesiastics; and in an assembly
of thirty people, there are never fewer than ten or twelve at the very
least. But here it should seem as if the political cry of _fuori i
preti_[Footnote: Out with the clergy.], which is said loudly in the
council-chamber before any vote is suffered to pass into a law, were
carried in the conversation rooms too, for a priest is here less
frequent than a clergyman at London; and those one sees about, are
almost all ordinary men, decent and humble in their appearance, of a
bashful distant carriage, like the parson of the parish in North Wales,
or _le curé du village_ in the South of France; and seems no way related
to an _Abate of Milan or Turin_ still less to _Monsieur l' Abbé at
Paris_.
Though this Republic has long maintained a sort of independency from the
court of Rome, having shewn themselves weary of the Jesuits two hundred
years before any other potentate dismissed them; while many of the
Venetian populace followed them about, crying _Andate, andate, niente
pigliate, emai ritornate_[Footnote: Begone, begone; nothing take, nor
turn anon.]; and although there is a patriarch here who takes care of
church matters, and is attentive to keep his clergy from ever meddling
with or even mentioning affairs of state, as in such a case the Republic
would not scruple punishing them as laymen; yet has Venice kept, as they
call it, St. Peter's boat from sinking more than once, when she saw the
Pope's territories endangered, or his sovereignty insulted: nor is there
any city more eminent for the decency with which divine service is
administered, or for the devout and decorous behaviour of individuals
at the time any sacred office is performing. She has ever behaved like
a true Christian potentate, keeping her faith firm, and her honour
scrupulously clear, in all treaties and conventions with other
states--fewer instances being given of Venetian falsehood or treachery
towards neighbouring nations, than of any other European power,
excepting only Britain, her truly-beloved ally; with whom she never had
a difference, and whose cause was so warmly espoused last war by the
inhabitants of this friendly state, that numbers of young nobility were
willing to run a-volunteering in her defence, but that the laws of
Venice forbid her nobles ranging from home without leave given from the
state. It was therefore not an ill saying, though an old one perhaps,
that the government of Venice was rich and consolatory like its treacle,
being compounded nicely of all the other forms: a grain of monarchy, a
scruple of democracy, a dram of oligarchy, and an ounce of aristocracy;
as the _teriaca_ so much esteemed, is said to be a composition of the
four principal drugs--but can never be got genuine except _here_, at the
original _Dispensary_.
Indeed the longevity of this incomparable commonwealth is a certain
proof of its temperance, exercise, and cheerfulness, the great
preservatives in every body, _politic_ as well _natural_. Nor should the
love of peace be left out of her eulogium, who has so often reconciled
contending princes, that Thuanus gave her, some centuries ago, due
praise for her pacific disposition, so necessary to the health of a
commercial state, and called her city _civilis prudentiæ officina_.
Another reason may be found for the long-continued prosperity of Venice,
in her constant adherence to a precept, the neglect of which must at
length shake, or rather loosen the foundations of every state; for it is
a maxim here, handed down from generation to generation, that change
breeds more mischief from its novelty, than advantage from its
utility:--quoting the axiom in Latin, it runs thus: _Ipsa mutatio
consuetudinis magis perturbat novitate, quam adjuvat utilitate_. And
when Henry the Fourth of France solicited the abrogation of one of the
Senate's decrees, her ambassador replied, That _li decreti di Venezia
rassomigli avano poca i Gridi di Parigi_[Footnote: The decrees of Venice
little resemble the _edicts_ of Paris.], meaning the declaratory
publications of the Grand Monarque,--proclaimed to-day perhaps, repealed
to-morrow--"for Sire," added he, "our senate deliberates long before it
decrees, but what is once decreed there is seldom or ever recalled."
The patriotism inherent in the breads of individuals makes another
strong cause of this state's exemption from decay: they say themselves,
that the soul of old Rome has transmigrated to Venice, and that every
galley which goes into action considers itself as charged with the fate
of the commonwealth. _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_, seems a
sentence grown obsolete in other Italian states, but is still in full
force here; and I doubt not but the high-born and high-fouled ladies of
this day, would willingly, as did their generous ancestors in 1600, part
with their rings, bracelets, every ornament, to make ropes for those
ships which defend their dearer country.
The perpetual state of warfare maintained by this nation against the
Turks, has never lessened nor cooled: yet have their Mahometan
neighbours and natural enemies no perfidy to charge them with in the
time of peace or of hostility: nor can Venice be charged with the mean
vice of sheltering a desire of depredation, under the hypocritical cant
of protecting that religion which teaches universal benevolence and
charity to all mankind. Their vicinity to Turkey has, however, made them
contract some similarity of manners; for what, except being imbued with
Turkish notions, can account for the people's rage here, young and old,
rich and poor, to pour down such quantities of coffee? I have already
had seven cups to-day, and feel frighted lest we should some of us be
killed with so strange an abuse of it. On the opposite shore, across the
Adriatic, opium is taken to counteract its effects; but these dear
Venetians have no notion of sleep being necessary to their existence I
believe, as some or other of them seem constantly in motion; and there
is really no hour of the four and twenty in which the town seems
perfectly still and quiet; no moment in which it can be said, that
Night! fable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty here stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world.
Accordingly I never did meet with any description of Night in the
Venetian poets, so common with other authors; and I am persuaded if one
were to live here (which could not be _long_ I think) he should forget
the use of sleep; for what with the market folks bringing up the boats
from Terra Firma loaded with every produce of nature, neatly arranged in
these flat-bottomed conveyances, the coming up of which begins about
three o'clock in a morning and ends about six;--the Gondoliers rowing
home their masters and ladies about that hour, and so on till
eight;--the common business of the town, which it is then time to
begin;--the state affairs and _pregai_, which often like our House of
Commons sit late, and detain many gentlemen from the circles of morning
amusements--that I find very entertaining;--particularly the street
orators and mountebanks in Piazza St. Marco;--the shops and stalls where
chickens, ducks, &c. are sold by auction, comically enough, to the
highest bidder;--a flourishing fellow, with a hammer in his hand,
shining away in character of auctioneer;--the crowds which fill the
courts of judicature, when any cause of consequence is to be tried;--the
clamorous voices, keen observations, poignant sarcasms, and acute
contentions carried on by the advocates, who seem more awake, or in
their own phrase _svelti_ than all the rest:--all these things take up
so much time, that twenty-four hours do not suffice for the business and
diversions of Venice; where dinner must be eaten as in other places,
though I can scarcely find a minute to spare for it, while such fish
wait one's knife and fork as I most certainly did never see before, and
as I suppose are not to be seen in any sea but this, in such perfection.
Fresh sturgeon, _ton_ as they call it, and fresh anchovies, large as
herrings, and dressed like sprats in London, incomparable; turbots, like
those of Torbay exactly, and plentiful as there, with enormous pipers,
are what one principally eats here. The fried liver, without which an
Italian can hardly go on from day to day, is so charmingly dressed at
Milan, that I grew to like it as well as they; but at Venice it is sad
stuff, and they call it _fegao_.
Well! the ladies, who never hardly dine at all, rise about seven in the
evening, when the gentlemen are just got ready to attend them; and sit
sipping their chocolate on a chair at the coffee-house door with great
tranquillity, chatting over the common topics of the times: nor do they
appear half so shy of each other as the Milanese ladies, who seldom
seem to have any pleasure in the soft converse of a female friend. But
though certainly no women can be more charming than these Venetian
dames, they have forgotten the old mythological fable, _that the
youngest of the Graces was married to Sleep._ By which it was intended
we should consider that state as necessary to the reparation not only of
beauty but of youth, and every power of pleasing.
There are men here however who, because they are not quite in the gay
world, keep themselves awake whole nights at study; and much has been
told me, of a collection of books belonging to a private scholar,
Pinelli, who goes very little out, as worthy attentive examination.
All literary topics are pleasingly discussed at Quirini's Casino, where
every thing may be learned by the conversation of the company, as Doctor
Johnson said of his literary Club; but more agreeably, because women are
always half the number of persons admitted here.
One evening our society was amused by the entrance of a foreign
nobleman, exactly what we should in London emphatically call a
_Character_,--learned, loud, and overbearing; though of a carriage that
impressed great esteem. I have not often listened to so well-furnished a
talker; nor one more capable of giving great information. He had seen
the Pyramids of Egypt, he told us; had climbed Mount Horeb, and visited
Damascus; but possessed the art of detaining our attention more on
himself, than on the things or places he harangued about; for
conversation that can scarcely be called, where one man holds the
company suspended on his account of matters pompously though
instructively related. He staid here a very little while among us; is a
native of France, a grandee of Spain, a man of uncommon talents, and a
traveller. I should be sorry never to meet him more.
The Abate Arteaga, a Spanish ecclesiastic of the same agreeable coterie,
seemed of a very different and far more pleasing character;--full of
general knowledge, eminent in particular scholarship, elegant in his
sentiments, and sound in his learning. I liked his company exceedingly,
and respected his opinions.
Zingarelli, the great musical composer, was another occasional member
of this charming society: his wit and repartie are famous, and his bons
mots are repeated wherever one runs to. I cannot translate any of them,
but will write one down, which will make such of my readers laugh as
understand Italian.--The Emperor was at Milan, and asked Zingarelli his
opinion of a favourite singer? "_Io penso maestà che non è cattivo
suddito del principi,_" replied the master, "_quantunque farà gran
nemico di giove._" "How so?" enquired the King.--"_Maestà,_" answered
our lively Neapolitan, "_ella sà naturalmente che Giove_ tuona, _ma
questo_ stuona." This we see at once was _humour_ not _wit_; and sallies
of humour are scarcely ever capable of translation.
An odd thing to which I was this morning witness, has called my thoughts
away to a curious train of reflections upon the animal race; and how far
they may be made companionable and intelligent. The famous Ferdinand
Bertoni, so well known in London by his long residence among us, and
from the undisputed merit of his compositions, now inhabits this his
native city, and being fond of _dumb creatures_, as we call them, took
to petting a pigeon, one of the few animals which can live at Venice,
where, as I observed, scarcely any quadrupeds can be admitted, or would
exist with any degree of comfort to themselves. This creature has,
however, by keeping his master company, I trust, obtained so perfect an
ear and taste for music, that no one who sees his behaviour, can doubt
for a moment of the pleasure he takes in hearing Mr. Bertoni play and
sing: for as soon as he sits down to the instrument, Columbo begins
shaking his wings, perches on the piano-forte, and expresses the most
indubitable emotions of delight. If however he or any one else strike a
note false, or make any kind of discord upon the keys, the dove never
fails to shew evident tokens of anger and distress; and if teized too
long, grows quite enraged; pecking the offender's legs and fingers in
such a manner, as to leave nothing less doubtful than the sincerity of
his resentment. Signora Cecilia Giuliani, a scholar of Bertoni's, who
has received some overtures from the London theatre lately, will, if she
ever arrives there, bear testimony to the truth of an assertion very
difficult to believe, and to which I should hardly myself give credit,
were I not witness to it every morning that I chuse to call and confirm
my own belief. A friend present protested he should feel afraid to touch
the harpsichord before so nice a critic; and though we all laughed at
the assertion, Bertoni declared he never knew the bird's judgment fail;
and that he often kept him out of the room, for fear of his affronting
of tormenting those who came to take musical instructions. With regard
to other actions of life, I saw nothing particular in the pigeon, but
his tameness, and strong attachment to his master: for though never
winged, and only clipped a very little, he never seeks to range away
from the house or quit his master's service, any more than the dove of
Anacreon:
While his better lot bestows
Sweet repast and soft repose;
And when feast and frolic tire,
Drops asleep upon his lyre.
All the difficulty will be indeed for us _other_ two-legged creatures to
leave the sweet societies of charming Venice; but they begin to grow
fatiguing now, as the weather increases in warmth.
I do think the Turkish sailor gave an admirable account of a carnival,
when he told his Mahometan friends at his return, That those poor
Christians were all disordered in their senses, and nearly in a state of
actual madness, while he remained among them, till one day, on a sudden,
they luckily found out a certain grey powder that cured such symptoms;
and laying it on their heads one Wednesday morning, the wits of all the
inhabitants were happily restored at _a stroke_: the people grew sober,
quiet, and composed; and went about their business just like other
folks. He meant the ashes strewed on the heads of all one meets in the
streets through many a Catholic country; when all masquerading,
money-making, &c. subside for forty days, and give, from the force of
the contrast, a greater appearance of devotion and decorous behaviour in
Venice, than almost any where else during Lent.
I do not for my own part think well of all that violence, that strong
light and shadow in matters of religion; which requires rather an even
tenour of good works, proceeding from sound faith, than any of these
staring testimonials of repentance, as if it were a work to be done
_once a year only_. But neither do I think any Christian has a right to
condemn another for his opinions or practice; when St. Paul expressly
says, that "_One man esteemeth one day above another, another man
esteemeth every day alike; let every man be fully persuaded in his own
mind. But who art thou, that judgest another man's servant[Footnote:
Romans, chap. xiv.]?_"
The Venetians, to confess the truth, are not quite so strenuously bent
on the unattainable felicity of finding every man in the same mind, as
others of the Italians are; and one great reason why they are more gay
and less malignant, have fewer strong prejudices than others of their
countrymen, is merely because they are happier. Most of the second rank,
and I believe _all_ of the first rank among them, have some share in
governing the rest; it is therefore necessary to exclude ignorance, and
natural to encourage social pleasures. Each individual feels his own
importance, and scorns to contribute to the degradation of the whole, by
indulging a gross depravity of manners, or at least of principles. Every
person listed one degree from the lowest, finds it his interest as well
as duty to love his country, and lend his little support to the general
fabric of a state they all know how to respect; while the very vulgar
willingly perform the condition exacted, and punctually pay obedience
for protection. They have an unlimited confidence in their rulers, who
live amongst them; and can desire only their utmost good. _How_ they are
governed, comes seldom into their heads to enquire; "_Che ne pensa
lù_[Footnote: Let _him_ look to that.]," says a low Venetian, if you ask
him, and humourously points at a Clarissimo passing by while you talk.
They have indeed all the reason to be certain, that where the power is
divided among such numbers, one will be sure to counteract another if
mischief towards the whole be intended.
Of all aristocracies surely this is the most rationally and happily, as
well as most respectably founded; for though one's heart revolts
against the names of Baron and Vassal, while the petty tyrants live
scattered far from each other, as in Poland, Russia, and many parts of
Germany, like lions in the desert, or eagles in the rock, secure in
their distance from equals or superiors; yet _here_ at Venice, where
every nobleman is a baron, and all together inhabit one city, no subject
can suffer from the tyranny of the rest, though all may benefit from the
general protection: as each is separately in awe of his neighbour, and
desires to secure his client's tenderness by indulgence, instead of
wishing to disgust him by oppression: unlike the state so powerfully
delineated by our incomparable poet in his Paulina,
Where dwelt in haughty wretchedness a lord,
Whose rage was justice, and whose law his word:
Who saw unmov'd the vassal perish near,
The widow's anguish, and the orphan's tear;
Insensible to pity--stern he stood,
Like some rude rock amid the Caspian flood,
Where shipwreck'd sailors unassisted lie,
And as they curse its barren bosom, die.
And it is, I trust, for no deeper reason that the subjects of this
republic resident in the capital, are less savage and more happy than
those who live upon the Terra Firma; where many outrages are still
committed, disgraceful to the state, from the mere facility offenders
find, either in escaping to the dominion of other princes, or of finding
shelter at home from the madly-bestowed protection these old barons on
the Continent cease not yet to give, to ruffians who profess their
service, and acknowledge dependence upon _them_. In the _town_, however,
little is known of these enormities, and less is talked on; and what
information has come to my ears of the murders done at Brescia and
Bergamo, was given me at _Milan_; where Blainville's accounts of that
country, though written so long ago, did not fail to receive
confirmation from the lips of those who knew perfectly well what they
were talking about. And I am told that _Labbia_, Giovanni Labbia, the
new Podestà sent to Brescia, has worked wonderful reformation among the
inhabitants of that territory; where I am ashamed to relate the
computation of subjects lost to the state, by being killed in cold blood
during the years 1780 and 1781.
The following sonnet, addressed to the new Magistrate, by the elegant
and learned Abbé Bettolini, will entertain such of my readers as
understand Italian:
No, Brenne, il popol tuo non è spietato,
Colpa non è di clima, o fuol nemico:
Ma gli inulti delitti, e'l vezzo antico
D'impune andar coi ferro e fuoco a lato,
Ira noi finor nudriro un branco irato
D'Orsi e di lupi, il malaccorto amico
Ti svenava un fellon sgherro mendico,
E per cauto timor n'era onorato.
Al primiero spuntar d'un fausto lume
Tutto cangiò: curvansi in falci i teh,
Mille Pluto perdè vittime usate.
Viva l'Eroe, il comun padre, il nume
Gridan le gentè a si bei dì ferbate.
E sia ché ardisca dir che siam crudelé.
_Imitation_.
No, Brennus, no longer thy sons shall retain
Of their founder ferocious, th'original stain;
It cannot be natural cruelty sure,
The reproaches for which from all men we endure;
Nor climate nor soil shall henceforth bear the blame,
'Tis custom alone, and that custom our shame:
While arm'd at all points men were suffer'd to rove,
And brandish the steel in defence of their love;
What wonder that conduct or caution should fail,
And horrid Lycanthropy's terrors prevail?
Now justice resumes her insignia, we find
New light breaking in on each nebulous mind;
While commission'd from Heaven, a parent, a friend
Sees our swords at his nod into reaping-hooks bend,
And souls snatch'd from death round the hero attend.
From these verses, written by a native of Brescia, one may see how
matters stood there very, _very_ little while ago: but here at Venice
the people are of a particularly sweet and gentle disposition,
good-humoured with each other, and kind to strangers; little disposed to
public affrays (which would indeed be punished and put a sudden end to
in an instant), nor yet to any secret or hidden treachery. They watch
the hour of a Regatta with impatience, to make some merit with the woman
of their choice, and boast of their families who have won in the manly
contest forty or fifty years ago, perhaps when honoured with the badge
and livery of some noble house; for here almost every thing is
hereditary, as in England almost every thing is elective; nor had I an
idea how much state affairs influence the private life of individuals in
a country, till I left trusting to books, and looked a little about me.
The low Venetian, however, knows that he works for the commonwealth,
and is happy; for things go round, says he, _Il Turco magna St. Marco;
St. Marco magna mi, mi magna ti, e ti tu magna un'altro_[S].
[Footnote S: The Turk feeds on St. Mark, St. Mark devours me; I eat
thee, neighbour, and thou subsistest on somebody else.]
Apropos to this custom of calling Venice (when they speak of it) San
Marco; I heard so comical a story yesterday that I cannot refuse the
pleasure of inserting it; and if my readers do not find it as pleasant
as I did, they may certainly leave it out, without the smallest
prejudice either to the book, the author, or themselves.
The procurator Tron was at Padua, it seems, and had a fancy to drive
forward to Vicenza that afternoon, but being particularly fond of a
favourite pair of horses which drew his chariot that day, would by no
means venture if it happened to rain; and took the trouble to enquire of
Abate Toaldo, "Whether he thought such a thing likely to happen, from
the appearance of the sky?" The professor, not knowing why the question
was asked, said, "he rather thought it would _not_ rain for four hours
at most." In consequence of this information our senator ordered his
equipage directly, got into it, and bid the driver make haste to
Vicenza: but before he was half-way on his journey, such torrents came
down from a black cloud that burst directly over their heads, that his
horses were drenched in wet, and their mortified master turned
immediately back to Padua, that they might suffer no further
inconvenience. To pass away the evening, which he did not mean to have
spent there, and to quiet his agitated spirits by thinking on something
else, he walked under the Portico to a neighbouring coffee-house, where
fate the Abate Toaldo in company of a few friends; wholly unconscious
that he had been the cause of vexing the Procuratore; who, after a short
pause, cried out, in a true Venetian spirit of anger and humour oddly
blended together, "_Mi dica Signor Professore Toaldo, chi è il più gran
minchion di tutti i fanti in Paradiso?_" Pray tell me Doctor (we should
say), who is the greatest blockhead among all the saints of Heaven? The
Abbé looked astonished, but hearing the question repeated in a more
peevish accent still, replied gravely, "_Eccelenza non fon fatto io per
rispondere a tale dimande_"--My lord, I have no answer ready for such
extraordinary questions. Why then, replies the Procuratore Tron, I will
answer this question myself.--_St. Marco ved'ella--"e'l vero minchion:
mentre mantiene tanti professori per studiare (che so to mi) delle
stelle; roba astronomica che non vale un fico; è loro non sanno dirli
nemmeno s'hà da piovere o nò._"--"Why it is St. Mark, do you see, that
is the true blockhead and dupe, in keeping so many professors to study
the stars and stuff; when with all their astronomy they cannot tell him
whether it will rain or no."
Well, _pax tibi, Marce!_ I see that I have said more about Venice, where
I have lived five weeks, than about Milan, where I stayed five months;
but
Si placeat varios hominum cognoscere vultus,
Area longa patet, sancto contermina Marco,
Celsus ubi Adriacas, Venetus Leo despicit undas,
Hic circum gentes cunctis e partibus orbis,
Æthiopes, Turcos, Slavos, Arabésque, Syrósque,
Inveniésque Cypri, Cretæ, Macedumque colonos,
Innumerósque alios varia regione profectos:
Sæpe etiam nec visa prius, nec cognita cernes,
Quæ si cuncta velim tenui describere versu,
Heic omnes citiùs nautas celeresque Phaselos,
Et simul Adriaci pisces numerabo profundi.
_Imitated loosely_.
If change of faces please your roving sight,
Or various characters your mind delight,
To gay St. Mark's with eagerness repair;
For curiosity may pasture there.
Venetia's lion bending o'er the waves,
There sees reflected--tyrants, freemen, slaves.
The swarthy Moor, the soft Circassian dame,
The British sailor not unknown to fame;
Innumerous nations crowd the lofty door,
Innumerous footsteps print the sandy shore;
While verse might easier name the scaly tribe, }
That in her seas their nourishment imbibe, }
Than Venice and her various charms describe. }
It is really pity ever to quit the sweet seducements of a place so
pleasing; which attracts the inclination and flatters the vanity of one,
who, like myself, has received the most polite attentions, and been
diverted with every amusement that could be devised. Kind, friendly,
lovely Venetians! who appear to feel real fondness for the inhabitants
of Great Britain, while Cavalier Pindemonte writes such verses in its
praise. Yet _must_ the journey go forward, no staying to pick every
flower upon the road.
On Saturday next then am I to forsake--but I hope not for ever--this
gay, this gallant city, so often described, so certainly admired; seen
with rapture, quitted with regret: seat of enchantment! head-quarters of
pleasure, farewell!
Leave us as we ought to be,
Leave the Britons rough and free.
It was on the twenty-first of May then that we returned up the Brenta in
a barge to _Padua_, stopping from time to time to give refreshment to
our conductors and their horse, which draws on the side, as one sees
them at Richmond; where the banks are scarcely more beautifully adorned
by art, than here by nature; though the Brenta is a much narrower river
than the Thames at Richmond, and its villas, so justly celebrated, far
less frequent. The sublimity of their architecture however, the
magnificence of their orangeries, the happy construction of the cool
arcades, and general air of festivity which breathes upon the banks of
this truly _wizard stream_, planted with _dancing_, not _weeping_
willows, to which on a bright evening the lads and lasses run for
shelter from the sun beams,
Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri[T];
[Footnote T:
While tripping to the wood my wanton hies,
She wishes to be seen before she flies.
]
are I suppose peculiar to itself, and best described by Monsieur de
Voltaire, whose Pococurante the Venetian senator in Candide that
possesses all delights in his villa upon the banks of the Brenta, is a
very lively portrait, and would be natural too; but that Voltaire, as a
Frenchman, could not forbear making his character speak in a very
unItalian manner, boasting of his felicity in a style they never use,
for they are really no puffers, no vaunters of that which they possess;
make no disgraceful comparisons between their own rarities and the want
of them in other countries, nor offend you as the French do, with false
pity and hateful consolations.
If any thing in England seem to excite their wonder and ill-placed
compassion, it is our coal fires, which they persist in thinking
strangely unwholesome--and a melancholy proof that we are grievously
devoid of wood, before we can prevail upon ourselves to dig the bowels
of old earth for fewel, at the hazard of our precious health, if not of
its certain loss; nor could I convince the wisest man I tried at, that
wood burned to chark is a real poison, while it would be difficult by
any process of chemistry to force much evil out of coal. They are
steadily of opinion, that consumptions are occasioned by these fires,
and that all the subjects of Great Britain are consumptively disposed,
merely because those who are so, go into Italy for change of air: though
I never heard that the wood smoke helped their breath, or a brazierfull
of ashes under the table their appetite. Mean time, whoever seeks to
convince instead of persuade an Italian, will find he has been employed
in a Sisyphean labour; the stone may roll to the top, but is sure to
return, and rest at his feet who had courage to try the experiment.
Logic is a science they love not, and I think steadily refuse to
cultivate; nor is argument a style of conversation they naturally
affect--as Lady Macbeth says, "_Question enrageth him_;" and the
dialogues of Socrates would to them be as disgusting as the violence of
Xantippe.
Well, here we are at Padua again! where I will run, and see once more
the places I was before so pleased with. The beautiful church of Santa
Giustina, the ancient church adorned by Cimabue, Giotto, &c. where you
fancy yourself on a sudden transported to Dante's Paradiso, and with for
Barry the painter, to point your admiration of its sublime and
extraordinary merits; but not the shrine of St. Anthony, or the tomb of
Antenor, one rich with gold, the other venerable with rust, can keep my
attention fixed on _them_, while an Italian _May_ offers to every sense,
the sweets of nature in elegant perfection. One view of a smiling
landschape, lively in verdure, enamelled with flowers, and exhilarating
with the sound of music under every tree,
Where many a youth and many a maid
Dances in the chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play,
On a sun-shine holiday;
drives Palladio and Sansovino from one's head; and leaves nothing very
strongly impressed upon one's heart but the recollection of kindness
received and esteem reciprocated. Those pleasures have indeed pursued
me hither; the amiable Countess Ferris has not forgotten us; her
attentions are numerous, tender, and polite. I went to the play with
her, where I was unlucky enough to miss the representation of Romeo and
Juliet, which was acted the night before with great applause, under the
name of _Tragedia Veronese_. Monsieur de Voltaire was then premature in
his declarations, that Shakespear was unknown, or known only to be
censured, except in his native country. Count Kinigl at Milan took
occasion to tell me that they acted Hamlet and Lear when he was last at
Vienna; and I know not how it is, but to an English traveller each place
presents ideas originally suggested by Shakespear, of whom nature and
truth are the perpetual mirrors: other authors remind one of things
which one has seen in life--but the scenes of life itself remind one of
Shakespear. When I first looked on the Rialto, with what immediate
images did it supply me? Oh, the old long-cherished images of the
pensive merchant, the generous friend, the gay companion, and their
final triumph over the practices of a cruel Jew. Anthonio, Gratiano,
met me at every turn; and when I confessed some of these feelings before
the professor of natural history here, who had spent some time in
London; he observed, that no native of our island could sit three hours,
and not speak of Shakespear: he added many kind expressions of partial
liking to our nation, and our poets: and l'Abate Cesarotti
good-humouredly confessed his little skill in the English language when
he translated their so much-admired Ossian; but he had studied it pretty
hard since, he said, and his version of Gray's Elegy is charming.
Gray and Young are the favourite writers among us, as far as I have yet
heard them talked over upon the continent; the first has secured them by
his residence at Florence, and his Latin verses I believe; the second,
by his piety and brilliant thoughts. Even Romanists are disposed to
think dear Dr. Young very _near_ to Christianity--an idea which must
either make one laugh or cry, while
Sweet peace, and heavenly hope, and humble joy,
Divinely beam on _his_ exalted soul.
But I must tell what I have been seeing at the theatre, and should tell
it much better had not the charms of Countess Ferris's conversation
engaged my mind, which would otherwise perhaps have been more seized on
than it _was_, by the sight of an old pantomime, or wretched farce (for
there was speaking in it, I remember), exploded long since from our very
lowest places of diversion, and now exhibited here at Padua before a
very polite and a very literary audience; and in a better theatre by far
than our newly-adorned opera-house in the Hay-market. Its subject was no
other than the birth of Harlequin; but the place and circumstances
combined to make me look on it in a light which shewed it to uncommon
advantage. The storm, for example, the thunder, darkness, &c. which is
so solemnly made to precede an incantation, apparently not meant to be
ridiculous, after which, a huge egg is somehow miraculously produced
upon the stage, put me in mind of the very old mythologists, who thus
desired to represent the chaotic state of things, when Night, Ocean, and
Tartarus disputed in perpetual confusion; till _Love_ and _Music_
separated the elements, and as Dryden says,
Then hot and cold, and moist and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And music's power obey.
For _Cupid_, advancing to a slow tune, steadies with his wand the
rolling mass upon the stage, that then begins to teem with its _motley
inhabitant_, and just representative of the _created world_, active,
wicked, gay, amusing, which gains your heart, but never your esteem:
tricking, shifting, and worthless as it is--but after all its _frisks_,
all its _escapes_, is condemned at last to burn in _fire, and pass
entirely away_. Such was, I trust, the idea of the person, whoever he
was, that had the honour first to compose this curious exhibition, and
model this mythological device into a pantomime! for the _mundane_, or
as Proclus calls it, the _orphick_ egg, is possibly the earliest of all
methods taken to explain the rise, progress, and final conclusion of our
earth and atmosphere; and was the original _theory_ brought from Egypt
into Greece by Orpheus. Nor has that prodigious genius, Dr. Thomas
Burnet, scorned to adopt it seriously in his _Telluris Theoria sacra_,
written less than a century ago, adapting it with wonderful ingenuity
to the Christian system and Mosaical account of things; to which it
certainly does accommodate itself the better, as the form of an egg well
resembles that of our habitable globe; and the internal divisions, our
four elements, leaving the central fire for the yolk. I therefore
regarded our pantomime here at Padua with a degree of reverence I should
have found difficult to excite in myself at Sadler's Wells; where ideas
of antiquity would have been little likely to cross my fancy. Sure I am,
however, that the original inventor of this old pantomime had his head
very full at the time of some very ancient learning.
Now then I must leave this lovely state of Venice, where if the paupers
in every town of it did not crowd about one, tormenting passengers with
unextinguishable clamour, and surrounding them with sights of horror
unfit to be surveyed by any eyes except those of the surgeon, who should
alleviate their anguish, or at least conceal their truly unspeakable
distresses--one should break one's heart almost at the thoughts of
quitting people who show such tenderness towards their friends, that
less than ocular conviction would scarce persuade me to believe such
wandering misery could remain disregarded among the most amiable and
pleasing people in the world. His excellency Bragadin half promised me
that some steps should be taken at Venice at least, to remove a nuisance
so disgraceful; and said, that when I came again, I should walk about
the town in white sattin slippers, and never see a beggar from one end
of it to the other.
On the twenty-sixth of May then, with the senator Quirini's letters to
Corilla, with the Countess of Starenberg's letters to some Tuscan
friends of her's; and with the light of a full moon, if we should want
it, we set out again in quest of new adventures, and mean to sleep this
night under the pope's protection:--may God but grant us his!