From the head-quarters of painting, sculpture, and architecture then,
where art is at her acme, and from a people polished into brilliancy,
perhaps a little into weakness, we drove through the celebrated vale of
Arno; thick hedges on each side us, which in spring must have been
covered with blossoms and fragrant with perfume; now loaded with
uncultivated fruits; the wild grape, raspberry, and azaroli, inviting to
every sense, and promising every joy. This beautiful and fertile, this
highly-adorned and truly delicious country carried us forward to Lucca,
where the panther sits at the gate, and liberty is written up on every
wall and door. It is so long since I have seen the word, that even the
letters of it rejoice my heart; but how the panther came to be its
emblem, who can tell? Unless the philosophy we learn from old Lilly in
our childhood were true, _nec vult panthera domari_[Footnote: That the
panther will never be tamed.].
That this fairy commonwealth should so long have maintained its
independency is strange; but Howel attributes her freedom to the active
and industrious spirit of the inhabitants, who, he says, resemble a hive
of bees, for order and for diligence. I never did see a place so
populous for the size of it: one is actually thronged running up and
down the streets of Lucca, though it is a little town enough for a
capital city to be sure; larger than Salisbury though, and prettier than
Nottingham, the beauties of both which places it unites with all the
charms peculiar to itself.
The territory they claim, and of which no power dares attempt to
dispossess them, is much about the size of _Rutlandshire_ I fancy;
surrounded and apparently fenced in on every side, by the Appenines as
by a wall, that wall a hot one, on the southern side, and wholly planted
over with vines, while the soft shadows which fall upon the declivity of
the mountains make it inexpressibly pretty; and form, by the particular
disposition of their light and shadow, a variety which no other prospect
so confined can possibly enjoy.
This is the Ilam gardens of Europe; and whoever has seen that singular
spot in Derbyshire belonging to Mr. Port, has seen little Lucca in a
convex mirror. Some writer calls it a ring upon the finger of the
Emperor, under whose protection it has been hitherto preserved safe from
the Grand Duke of Tuscany till these days, in which the interests of
those two sovereigns, united by intimacy as by blood and resemblance of
character, are become almost exactly the same.
A Doge, whom they call the _Principe_, is elected every two months; and
is assisted by ten senators in the administration of justice.
Their armoury is the prettiest plaything I ever yet saw, neatly kept,
and capable of furnishing twenty-five thousand men with arms. Their
revenues are about equal to the Duke of Bedford's I believe, eighty or
eighty-five thousand pounds sterling a year; every spot of ground
belonging to these people being cultivated to the highest pitch of
perfection that agriculture, or rather gardening (for one cannot call
these enclosures fields), will admit: and though it is holiday time just
now, I see no neglect of necessary duty. They were watering away this
morning at seven o'clock, just as we do in a nursery-ground about
London, a hundred men at once, or more, before they came home to make
themselves smart, and go to hear music in their best church, in honour
of some saint, I have forgotten who; but he is the patron of Lucca, and
cannot be accused of neglecting his charge, that is certain.
This city seems really under admirable regulations; here are fewer
beggars than even at Florence, where however one for fifty in the states
of Genoa or Venice do not meet your eyes: And either the word liberty
has bewitched me, or I see an air of plenty without insolence, and
business without noise, that greatly delight me. Here is much
cheerfulness too, and gay good-humour; but this is the season of
devotion at Lucca, and in these countries the ideas of devotion and
diversion are so blended, that all religious worship seems connected
with, and to me now regularly implies, _a festive show_.
Well, as the Italians say, "_Il mondo è bello perche è
variabile_[Footnote: The world is pleasant because it is various.]." We
English dress our clergymen in black, and go ourselves to the theatre
in colours. Here matters are reversed, the church at noon looked like a
flower-garden, so gaily adorned were the priests, confrairies, &c. while
the Opera-house at night had more the air of a funeral, as every body
was dressed in black: a circumstance I had forgotten the meaning of,
till reminded that such was once the emulation of finery among the
persons of fashion in this city, that it was found convenient to
restrain the spirit of expence, by obliging them to wear constant
mourning: a very rational and well-devised rule in a town so small,
where every body is known to every body; and where, when this silly
excitement to envy is wisely removed, I know not what should hinder the
inhabitants from living like those one reads of in the Golden Age;
which, above all others, this climate most resembles, where pleasure
contributes to sooth life, commerce to quicken it, and faith extends its
prospects to eternity. Such is, or such at least appears to me this
lovely territory of Lucca: where cheap living, free government, and
genteel society, may be enjoyed with a tranquillity unknown to larger
states: where there are delicious and salutary baths a few miles out of
town, for the nobility to make _villeggiatura_ at; and where, if those
nobility were at all disposed to cultivate and communicate learning,
every opportunity for study is afforded.
Some drawbacks will however always be found from human felicity. I once
mentioned this place with warm expectations of delight, to a Milanese
lady of extensive knowledge, and every elegant accomplishment worthy her
high birth, _the Contessa Melzi Resla_. "Why yes," said she, "if you
would find out the place where common sense stagnates, and every topic
of conversation dwindles and perishes away by too frequent or too
unskilful touching and handling, you must go to Lucca. My ill-health
sent me to their beautiful baths one summer; where all the faculties of
my body were restored, thank God, but those of my soul were stupified to
such a degree, that at last I was fit to keep no other company but _Dame
Lucchesi_ I think; and _our_ talk was soon ended, heaven knows, for when
they had once asked me of an evening, what I had for dinner? and told me
how many pair of stockings their neighbours sent to the wash, we had
done."
This was a young, a charming, a lively lady of quality; full of
curiosity to know the world, and of spirits to bustle through it; but
had she been battered through the various societies of London and Paris
for eighteen or twenty years together, she would have loved Lucca
better, and despised it less. "We must not look for whales in the Euxine
Sea," says an old writer; and we must not look for great men or great
things in little nations to be sure, but let us respect the innocence of
childhood, and regard with tenderness the territory of Lucca: where no
man has been murdered during the life or memory of any of its peaceful
inhabitants; where one robbery alone has been committed for sixteen
years; and the thief hanged by a Florentine executioner borrowed for the
purpose, no Lucchese being able or willing to undertake so horrible an
office, with terrifying circumstances of penitence and public
reprehension: where the governed are so few in proportion to the
governors; all power being circulated among four hundred and fifty
nobles, and the whole country producing scarcely ninety thousand souls.
A great boarding-school in England is really an infinitely more
licentious place; and grosser immoralities are every day connived at in
it, than are known to pollute this delicate and curious commonwealth;
which keeps a council always subsisting, called the _Discoli_, to
examine the lives and conduct, professions, and even _health_ of their
subjects: and once o'year they sweep the town of vagabonds, which till
then are caught up and detained in a house of correction, and made to
work, if not disabled by lameness, till the hour of their release and
dismission. I wondered there were so few beggars about, but the reason
is now apparent: these we see are neighbours, come hither only for the
three days gala.
I was wonderfully solicitous to obtain some of their coin, which carries
on it the image of no _earthly_ prince; but his head only who came to
redeem us from general slavery on the one side, _Jesus Christ_; on the
other, the word _Libertas_.
Our peasant-girls here are in a new dress to me; no more jewels to be
seen, no more pearls; the finery of which so dazzled me in Tuscany:
these wenches are prohibited such ornaments it seems. A muslin
handkerchief, folded in a most becoming manner, and starched exactly
enough to make it wear clean four days, is the head-dress of Lucchese
lasses; it is put on turban-wise, and they button their gowns close,
with long sleeves _à la Savoyarde_; but it is made often of a stiff
brocaded silk, and green lapels, with cuffs of the same colour; nor do
they wear any hats at all, to defend them from a sun which does
undoubtedly mature the fig and ripen the vine, but which, by the same
excess of power, exalts the venom of the viper, and gives the scorpion
means to keep me in perpetual torture for fear of his poison, of which,
though they assure us death is seldom the consequence among _them_, I
know his sting would finish me at once, because the gnats at Florence
were sufficient to lame me for a considerable time.
The dialect has lost much of the guttural sound that hurt one's ear at
the last place of residence; but here is an odd squeaking accent, that
distinguishes the Tuscan of Lucca.
The place appropriated for airing, showing fine equipages, &c. is
beautiful beyond all telling; from the peculiar shadows on the
mountains. They make the bastions of the town their Corso, but none
except the nobles can go and drive upon one part of it. I know not how
many yards of ground is thus let apart, sacred to sovereignty; but it
makes one laugh.
Our inn here is an excellent one, as far as I am concerned; and the
sallad-oil green, like Irish usquebaugh, nothing was ever so excellent.
I asked the French valet who dresses our hair, "_Si ce n'etait pas une
republique mignonne?_[X]"--"_Ma foy, madame, je la trouve plus tôt la
republique des rats et des souris[Y];_" replies the fellow, who had not
slept all night, I afterwards understood, for the noise those
troublesome animals made in his room.