But the offspring of fire somehow _should_ be more striking than that of
water, however violent might have been the concussion that produced
them; and there is no comparison between the sensations felt in passing
the Roche Melon, and these more neatly-moulded Appenines; upon whose
tops I am told too no lakes have been formed, as on Mount Cenis, or
even on Snowdon in North Wales, where a very beautiful lake adorns the
summit of the rock; which affords trout precisely such as you eat before
you go down to Novalesa, but not so large.
Sir William Hamilton, however, is the man to be referred to in all these
matters; no man has examined the peculiar properties and general nature
of mountains, those which vomit fire in particular, with half as much
application, inspired by half as much genius, as he has done.
We arrived late at our inn, an English one they say it is; and many of
the last miles were passed very pleasantly by my maid and myself, in
anticipating the comforts we should receive by finding ourselves among
our own country folks. In good time! and by once more eating, sleeping,
&c. _all in the English way_, as her phrase is. Accordingly, here are
small low beds again, soft and clean, and down pillows; here are currant
tarts, which the Italians scorn to touch, but which we are happy and
delighted to pay not ten but twenty times their value for, because a
currant tart is so much _in the English way_: and here are beans and
bacon in a climate where it is impossible that bacon should be either
wholesome or agreeable; and one eats infinitely worse than one did at
Milan, Venice, or Bologna: and infinitely dearer too; but that makes it
still more completely _in the English way_.
Mean time here we are however in Arno's Vale; the full moon shining over
Fiesole, which I see from my windows. Milton's verses every moment in
one's mouth, and Galileo's house twenty yards from one's door,
Whence her bright orb the Tuscan artist view'd,
At evening from the top of Fesole;
Or in Val d'Arno to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains on her spotty globe.
Our apartments here are better than we hoped for, situated most sweetly
on the banks of this classical stream; a noble terrace underneath our
window, broad as the south parade at Bath I think, and the fine Ponte
della Santa Trinità within sight. Many people have asserted that this is
the first among all bridges in the world; but architecture triumphs in
the art of building bridges, and, though this is a most exquisitely
beautiful fabric, I can scarcely venture to call it an unrivalled one:
it shall, if the fine statues at the corners can assist its power over
the fancy, and if cleanliness can compensate for stately magnificence,
or for the fire of original and unassisted genius, it shall obliterate
from my mind the Rialto at Venice, and the fine arch thrown over the
Conway at Llanwrst in our North Wales.
I wrote to a lady at Venice this morning though, to say, however I might
be charmed by the sweets of Arno's side, I could not forbear regretting
the Grand Canal.
Count Manucci, a nobleman of this city, formerly intimate with Mr.
Thrale in London and Mr. Piozzi at Paris, came early to our apartments,
and politely introduced us to the desirable society of his sisters and
his friends. We have in his company and that of Cavalier d'Elci, a
learned and accomplished man, of high birth, deep erudition, and
polished manners, seen much, and with every possible advantage.
This morning they shewed us La Capella St. Lorenzo, where I could but
think how surprisingly Mr. Addison's prediction was verified, that these
slow Florentines would not perhaps be able to finish the burial-place
of their favourite family, before the family itself should be extinct.
This reflection felt like one naturally suggested to me by the place;
Doctor Moore however has the original merit of it, as I afterwards found
it in his book: but it is the peculiar property of natural thoughts well
expressed, to sink into one's mind and incorporate themselves with it,
so as to make one forget they were not all one's own.
_Poets, as well as jesters, do oft prove prophets:_ Prior's happy
prediction for the female wits in one of his epilogues is come true
already, when he says,
Your time, poor souls! we'll take your very money,
Female _third nights_ shall come so thick upon ye, &c.
and every hour gives one reason to hope that Mr. Pope's glorious
prophecy in favour of the Negroes will not now remain long
unaccomplished, but that liberty will extend her happy influence over
the world;
Till the _freed Indians_, in their native groves,
Reap their own fruits, and woo their sable loves.
I will not extend myself in describing the heaps of splendid ruin in
which the rich chapel of St. Lorenzo now lies: since the elegant Lord
Corke's letters were written, little can be said about Florence not
better said by him; who has been particularly copious in describing a
city which every body wishes to see copiously described.
The libraries here are exceedingly magnificent; and we were called just
now to that which goes under Magliabechi's name, to hear an eulogium
finely pronounced upon our circumnavigator Captain Cook; whose character
has attracted the attention, and extorted the esteem of every European
nation: far less was the wonder that it forced my tears; they flowed
from a thousand causes: my distance from England! my pleasure in hearing
an Englishman thus lamented in a language with which he had no
acquaintance!
By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourn'd!
Every thing contributed to soften my heart, though not to lower my
spirits. For when a Florentine asked me, how I came to cry so? I
answered, in the words of their divine Mestastasio:
"Che questo pianto mio
Tutto non è dolor;
E meraviglia, e amore,
E riverenza, e speme,
Son mille affetti assieme
Tutti raccolti al cor."
'Tis not grief alone, or fear,
Swells the heart, or prompts the tear;
Reverence, wonder, hope, and joy,
Thousand thoughts my soul employ,
Struggling images, which less
Than falling tears can ne'er express.
Giannetti, who pronounced the panegyric, is the justly-celebrated
improvisatore so famous for making Latin verses _impromptu_, as others
do Italian ones: the speech has been translated into English by Mr.
Merry, with whom I had the honour here first to make acquaintance,
having met him at Mr. Greatheed's, who is our fellow-lodger, and with
whom and his amiable family the time passes in reciprocations of
confidential friendship and mutual esteem.
Lord and Lady Cowper too contribute to make the society at this place
more pleasing than can be imagined; while English hospitality softens
down the stateliness of Tuscan manners.
Sir Horace Mann is sick and old; but there are conversations at his
house of a Saturday evening, and sometimes a dinner, to which we have
been almost always asked.
The fruits in this place begin to astonish me; such cherries did I never
yet see, or even hear tell of, as when I caught the Laquais de Place
weighing two of them in a scale to see if they came to an ounce. These
are, in the London street phrase, _cherries like plums_, in size at
least, but in flavour they far exceed them, being exactly of the kind
that we call bleeding-hearts, hard to the bite, and parting easily from
the stone, which is proportionately small. Figs too are here in such
perfection, that it is not easy for an English gardener to guess at
their excellence; for it is not by superior size, but taste and colour,
that _they_ are distinguished; small, and green on the outside, a bright
full crimson within, and we eat them with raw ham, and truly delicious
is the dainty. By raw ham, I mean ham cured, not boiled or roasted. It
is no wonder though that fruits should mature in such a sun as this is;
which, to give a just notion of its penetrating fire, I will take leave
to tell my countrywomen is so violent, that I use no other method of
heating the pinching-irons to curl my hair, than that of poking them out
at a south window, with the handles shut in, and the glasses darkened to
keep us from being actually fired in his beams. Before I leave off
speaking about the fruit, I must add, that both fig and cherry are
produced by standards; that the strawberries here are small and
high-flavoured, like our _woods_, and that there are no other. England
affords greater variety in _that_ kind of fruit than any nation; and as
to peaches, nectarines, or green-gage plums, I have seen none yet. Lady
Cowper has made us a present of a small pine-apple, but the Italians
have no taste to it. Here is sun enough to ripen them without hot-houses
I am sure, though they repeatedly told us at Milan and Venice, that
_this_ was the coolest place to pass the summer in, because of the
Appenine mountains shading us from the heat, which they confessed to be
intolerable with _them_.
_Here_ however, they inform us, that it is madness to retire into the
country as English people do during the hot season; for as there is no
shade from high timber trees, one is bit to death by animals, gnats in
particular, which here are excessively troublesome, even in the town,
notwithstanding we scatter vinegar, and use all the arts in our power;
but the ground-floor is coolest, and every body struggles to get
themselves a _terreno_ as they call it.
Florence is full just now, and Mr. Jean Figliazzi, an intelligent
gentleman who lives here, and is well acquainted with both nations,
says, that all the genteel people come to take refuge _from_ the country
to Florence in July and August, as the subjects of Great Britain run
_to_ the country from the heats of London or Bath.
The flowers too! how rich they are in scent here! how brilliant in
colour! how magnificent in size! Wall-flowers perfuming every street,
and even every passage; while pinks and single carnations grow beside
them, with no more soil than they require themselves; and from the tops
of houses, where you least expect it, an aromatic flavour highly
gratifying is diffused. The jessamine is large, broad-leaved, and
beautiful as an orange-flower; but I have seen no roses equal to those
at Lichfield, where on one tree I recollect counting eighty-four within
my own reach; it grew against the house of Doctor Darwin. Such a
profusion of sweets made me enquire yesterday morning for some scented
pomatum, and they brought me accordingly one pot impelling strong of
garden mint, the other of rue and tansy.
Thus do the inhabitants of every place forfeit or fling away those
pleasures, which the inhabitants of another place think _they_ would use
in a much wiser manner, had Providence bestowed the blessing upon
_them_.
A young Milanese once, whom I met in London, saw me treat a hatter that
lives in Pallmall with the respect due to his merit: when the man was
gone, "Pray, madam," says the Italian, "is this a _gran riccone[Footnote:
Heavy-pursed fellow.]?"_ "He is perhaps," replied I, "worth twenty or
thirty thousand pounds; I do not know what ideas you annex to a _gran
riccone_" "_Oh santissima vergine!_" exclaims the youth, "_s'avessi io mai
settanta mila zecchini! non so pur troppo cosa nesarei; ma questo é
chiaro--non venderei mai cappelli_"--"Oh dear me! had I once seventy
thousand sequins in my pocket, I would--dear--I cannot think myself
_what_ I should do with them all: but this at least is certain, I would
not _sell hats_"
I have been carried to the Laurentian library, where the librarian Bandi
shewed me all possible, and many unmerited civilities; which, for want
of deeper erudition, I could not make the use I wished of. We asked
however to see some famous manuscripts. The Virgil has had a _fac
simile_ made of it, and a printed copy besides; so that it cannot now
escape being known all over Europe. The Bible in Chaldaic characters,
spoken of by Langius as inestimable, and brought hither, with many other
valuable treasures of the same nature, by Lascaris, after the death of
Lorenzo de Medici, who had sent him for the second time to
Constantinople for the purpose of collecting Greek and Oriental books,
but died before his return, is in admirable preservation. The old
geographical maps, made out in a very early age, afforded me much
amusement; and the Latin letters of Petrarch, with the portrait of his
Laura, were interesting to me perhaps more than many other things rated
much higher by the learned, among those rarities which adorn a library
so comprehensive.
Every great nation except ours, which was immersed in barbarism, and
engaged in civil broils, seems to have courted the residence of
Lascaris, but the university of Paris fixed his regard: and though Leo
X. treated with favour, and even friendship, the man whom he had
encouraged to intimacy when Cardinal John of Medicis; though he made him
superintendant of a Greek college at Rome; it is said he always wished
to die in France, whither he returned in the reign of Francis the First;
and wrote his Latin epigrams, which I have heard Doctor Johnson prefer
even to the Greek ones preserved in Anthologia; and of which our Queen
Elizabeth, inspired by Roger Ascham, desired to see the author; but he
was then upon a visit to Rome, where he died of the gout at ninety-three
years old.
* * * * *
June 24, 1785.
St. John the Baptist is the tutelary Saint of this city, and upon this
day of course all possible rejoicings are made. After attending divine
service in the morning, we were carried to a house whence we could
conveniently see the procession pass by. It was not solemn and stately
as that I saw at Bologna, neither was it gaudy and jocund like the show
made at Venice upon St. George's day; but consisted chiefly in vast
heavy pageants, or a sort of temporary building set on wheels, and drawn
by oxen some, and some by horses; others carried upon things made not
unlike a chairman's horse in London, and supported by men, while
priests, in various coloured dresses, according to their several
stations in the church, and to distinguish the parishes, &c. to which
they belong, follow singing in praise of the saint.
Here is much emulation shewed too, I am told, in these countries, where
religion makes the great and almost the sole amusement of men's lives,
who shall make most figure on St. John the Baptist's day, produce most
music, and go to most expence. For all these purposes subscriptions are
set on foot, for ornamenting and venerating such a picture, statue, &c.
which are then added to the procession by the managers, and called a
Confraternity, in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Angel Raphael,
or who comes in their heads.
The lady of the house where we went to partake the diversion, was not
wanting in her part; there could not be fewer than a hundred and fifty
people assembled in her rooms, but not crowded as we should have been in
England; for the apartments in Italy are all high and large, and run in
suits like Wanstead house in Essex, or Devonshire house in London
exactly, but larger still: and with immense balconies and windows, not
sashes, which move all away, and give good room and air. The ices,
refreshments, &c. were all excellent in their kinds, and liberally
dispensed. The lady seemed to do the honours of her house with perfect
good-humour; and every body being full-dressed, though so early in a
morning, added much to the general effect of the whole.
Here I had the honour of being introduced to Cardinal Corsini, who put
me a little out of countenance by saying suddenly, "_Well, madam! you
never saw one of us red-legged partridges before I believe; but you are
going to Rome I hear, where you will find such fellows as me no
rarities_" The truth is, I had seen the amiable Prince d'Orini at Milan,
who was a Cardinal; and who had taken delight in showing me prodigious
civilities: nothing ever struck me more than his abrupt entrance one
night at our house, when we had a little music, and every body stood up
the moment he appeared: the Prince however walked forward to the
harpsichord, and blessed my husband in a manner the most graceful and
affecting: then sate the amusement out, and returned the next morning to
breakfast with us, when he indulged us with two hours conversation at
least; adding the kindest and most pressing invitations to his
country-seat among the mountains of Brianza, when we should return from
our tour of Italy in spring 1786. Florence therefore was not the first
place that shewed me a Cardinal.
In the afternoon we all looked out of our windows which faced the
street,--not mine, as they happily command a view of the river, the
Caseine woods, &c. and from them enjoyed a complete sight of an Italian
horse-race. For after the coaches have paraded up and down some time to
shew the equipages, liveries, &c. all have on a sudden notice to quit
the scene of action; and all _do_ quit it, in such a manner as is
surprising. The street is now covered with sawdust, and made fast at
both ends: the starting-post is adorned with elegant booths, lined with
red velvet, for the court and first nobility: at the other end a piece
of tapestry is hung, to prevent the creatures from dashing their brains
out when they reach the goal. Thousands and ten thousands of people on
foot fill the course, that it is standing wonder to me still that
numbers are not killed. The prizes are now exhibited to view, quite in
the old classical style; a piece of crimson damask for the winner
perhaps; a small silver bason and ewer for the second; and so on,
leaving no performer unrewarded. At last come out the _concurrenti_
without riders, but with a narrow leathern strap hung across their
backs, which has a lump of ivory fastened to the end of it, all set full
of sharp spikes like a hedge-hog, and this goads them along while
galloping, worse than any spurs could do; because the faster they run,
the more this odd machine keeps jumping up and down, and pricking their
sides ridiculously enough; and it makes one laugh to see that some of
them are not provoked by it not to run at all, but set about plunging,
in order to rid themselves of the inconvenience, instead of driving
forward to divert the mob; who leap and shout and caper with delight,
and lash the laggers along with great indignation indeed, and with the
most comical gestures. I never saw horses in so droll a state of
degradation before, for they are all striped or spotted, or painted of
some colour to distinguish them each from other; and nine or ten often
start at a time, to the great danger of lookers-on I think, but
exceedingly to my entertainment, who have the comfort of Mrs.
Greatheed's company, and the advantage of seeing all safely from her
well-situated _terreno_, or ground-floor.
The chariot-race was more splendid, but less diverting: this was
performed in the Piazza, or Square, an unpaved open place not bigger
than Covent Garden I believe, and the ground strangely uneven. The cars
were light and elegant; one driver and two horses to each: the first
very much upon the principle of the antique chariots described by old
poets, and the last trapped showily in various colours, adapted to the
carriages, that people might make their betts accordingly upon the pink,
the blue, the green, &c. I was exceedingly amused with seeing what so
completely revived all classic images, and seemed so little altered from
the classic times. Cavalier D'Elci, in reply to my expressions of
delight, told me that the same spirit still subsisted exactly; but that
in order to prevent accidents arising from the disputants' endeavours to
overturn or circumvent each other, it was now sunk into a mere
appearance of contest; for that all the chariots belonged to one man,
who would doubtless be careful enough that his coachmen should not go to
sparring at the hazard of their horses. The farce was carried on to the
end however, and the winner spread his velvet in triumph, and drove
round the course to enjoy the acclamations and caresses of the crowd.
That St. John the Baptist's birth-day should be celebrated by a horse or
chariot race, appears to have little claim to the praise of propriety;
but mankind seems agreed that there must be some excuse for merriment;
and surely if any saint is to be venerated, he stands foremost whom
Christ himself declared to be the greatest man ever born of a woman.
The old Romans had an institution in this month of games to Neptune
Equester, as they called their Sea God, with no great appearance of good
sense neither; but the horse he produced at the naming of Athens was the
cause assigned--these games are perhaps half transmitted ones from those
in the ancient mythology.
The evening concluded, and the night began with fire-works; the church,
or duomo, as a cathedral is always called in Italy, was illuminated on
the outside, and very beautiful, and very very magnificent was the
appearance. The reflection of the cupola's lights in the river gave us
back a faint image of what we had been admiring; and when I looked at
them from my window, as we were retiring to rest; such, thought I, and
fainter still are the images which can be given of a show in written or
verbal description; yet my English friends shall not want an account of
what I have seen; for Italy, at last, is only a fine well-known academy
figure, from which we all sit down to make drawings according as the
light falls; and our seat affords opportunity. Every man sees that, and
indeed most things, with the eyes of his then present humour, and begins
describing away so as to convey a dignified or despicable idea of the
object in question, just as his disposition led him to interpret its
appearance.
Readers now are grown wiser, however, than very much to mind us: they
want no further telling that one traveller was in pain, and one in love
when the tour of Italy was made by them; and so they pick out their
intelligence accordingly, from various books, written like two letters
in the Tatler, giving an account of a rejoicing night; one endeavouring
to excite majestic ideas, the other ludicrous ones of the very same
thing.
Well 'tis true enough, however, and has been often enough laughed at,
that the Italian horses run without riders, and scamper down a long
street with untrimmed heels, hundreds of people hooking them along, as
naughty boys do a poor dog, that has a bone tied to his tail in England.
This diversion was too good to end with the day.
Dulness, dear Queen, repeats the jest again.
We had another, and another just such a race for three or four evenings
together, and they got an English _cock-tailed nag_, and set _him_ to
the business, as they said _he was trained to it_; but I don't recollect
his making a more brilliant figure than his painted and chalked
neighbours of the Continent.
We will not be prejudiced, however; that the Florentines know how to
manage horses is certain, if they would take the trouble. Last night's
theatre exhibited a proof of skill, which might shame Astley and all his
rivals. Count Pazzi having been prevailed on to lend his four beautiful
chesnut favourites from his own carriage to draw a pageant upon the
stage, I saw them yesterday evening harnessed all abreast, their own
master in a dancer's habit I was told, guiding them himself, and
personating the Cid, which was the name of the ballet, if I remember
right, making his horses go clear round the stage, and turning at the
lamps of the orchestra with such dexterity, docility, and grace, that
they seemed rather to enjoy than feel disturbance at the deafening noise
of instruments, the repeated bursts of applause, and hollow sound of
their own hoofs upon the boards of a theatre. I had no notion of such
discipline, and thought the praises, though very loud, not ill bestowed:
as it is surely one of man's earliest privileges to replenish the earth
with animal life, and to subdue it.
I have, for my own part, generally speaking, little delight in the
obstreperous clamours of these heroic pantomimes;--their battles are so
noisy, and the acclamations of the spectators so distressing to weak
nerves, I dread an Italian theatre--it distracts me.--And always the
same thing so, every and every night! how tedious it is!
This want of variety in the common pleasures of Italy though, and that
surprising content with which a nation so sprightly looks on the same
stuff, and laughs at the same joke for months and months together, is
perhaps less despicable to a thinking mind, than the affectation of
weariness and disgust, where probably it is not felt at all; and where a
gay heart often lurks under a clouded countenance, put on to deceive
spectators into a notion of his philosophy who wears it; and what is
worse, who wears it chiefly as a mark of distinction cheaply obtained;
for neither science, wit, nor courage are _now_ found necessary to form
a man of fashion, or the _ton_, to which may be said as justly as ever
Mr. Pope affirmed it of silence,
That routed reason finds her sure retreat in thee.
Affectation is certainly that faint and sickly weed which is the curse
of cultivated,--not naturally fertile and extensive countries; an insect
that infests our forcing stoves and hot-house plants: and as the
naturalists tell us all animals may be bred _down_ to a state very
different from that in which they were originally placed; that
_carriers_, and _fantails_, and _croppers_, are produced by early
caging, and minutely attending to the common blue pigeon, flights of
which cover the ploughed fields in distant provinces of England, and
shew the rich and changeable plumage of their fine neck to the summer
sun; so from the warm and generous Briton of ancient days may be
produced, and happily bred _down_, the clay-cold coxcomb of St.
James's-street.
In Italy, so far at least as I have gone, there is no impertinent desire
of appearing what one is _not_: no searching for talk, and torturing
expression to vary its phrases with something new and something fine; or
else sinking into silence from despair of diverting the company, and
taking up the opposite method, contriving to impress them with an idea
of bright intelligence, concealed by modest doubts of our own powers,
and stifled by deep thought upon abstruse and difficult topics. To get
quit of all these deep-laid systems of enjoyment, where
To take our breakfast we project a scheme,
Nor drink our tea without a stratagem,
like the lady in Doctor Young; the surest method is to drop into Italy;
where a conversazione at Venice or Florence, after the society of
London, or _les petit soupers de Paris_, where, in their own phrase, _un
tableau n'attend pas l'autre_[Footnote: One picture don't wait for
another.], is like taking a walk in Ham Gardens, or the Leasowes, after
_les parterres de Versailles ed i Terrazzi di Genoa_. We are affected in
the house, but natural in the gardens. Italians are natural in society,
affected and constrained in the disposition of their grounds. No one,
however, is good or bad, or wise or foolish without a reason why.
Restraint is made for man, and where religious and political liberty is
enjoyed to its full extent, as in Great Britain, the people will forge
shackles for themselves, and lay the yoke heavy on society, to which, on
the contrary, Italians give a loose, as compensation for their want of
freedom in affairs of church or state.
It is, I think, observable of uncontradicted, homebred, and, as we say,
spoiled children, that when a dozen of them get together for the purpose
of passing a day in mutual amusement, they will make to themselves the
strictest laws for their game, and rigidly punish whatever breach of
rule has been made while the time allotted for diversion lasts: but in a
school of girls, strictly kept, at _their_ hours of permitted recreation
no distinct sounds can be heard through the general clamour of joy and
confusion; nor does any thing come less into their heads than the notion
of imposing regulations on themselves, or making sport out of the harsh
sounds of _rule and government_.
Ridicule too points her arrows only among highly-polished
societies--_Paris_ and _London_, in the first of which all wit is
comprised in the power of ridiculing one's neighbours, and in the other
every artifice is put in practice to escape it. In Italy no such
terrors restrain conversation; no public censure pursues that
fantastical behaviour which leads to no public offence; and as it is
only fear which can beget falsehood, these people seek such behavior as
naturally suits them; and in our theatrical phrase, they let the
character come to them, they do not go to the character.
Let us not fail to remember after all, that such severity as we use,
quickens the desire of pleasing, and deadens the diffusion of immoral
sentiments, or indelicate language, in England; where, I must add, for
the honour of my country, that if such liberties were taken upon the
stage as are frequent in the first ranks of Italian society, they would
be hissed by those who paid only a shilling for their entrance: so that
affectation and a forced refinement may be considered as the bad leaden
statues still left in our delicately-neat and highly-ornamented gardens;
of which elegance and science are the white and red roses: but to be
possessed of their _sweets_, one must venture a little through the
_thorns_.--_Thorns_, though figurative, remind one of the _cicala_, a
creature which leaves nothing else untouched here. Surely their clamours
and depredations have no equal. I used to walk in the Boboli Gardens,
defying the heat, till they had eaten up the little shade some hedges
there afforded me; and till, by their incessant noise, all thought is
disturbed, and no line presented itself to my memory but
Sole sob ardenti resonant arbusta Cicadis[W];
[Footnote W:
While in the scorching sun I trace in vain
Thy flying footsteps o'er the burning plain,
The creaking locusts with my voice conspire,
They fried with heat, and I with fierce desire.
DRYDEN.
]
till Mr. Merry's sweet ode to summer here at Florence made one less
discontented,
To hear the light cicala's ceaseless din,
That vibrates shrill; or the near-weeping brook
That feebly winds along,
And mourns his channel shrunk.