WE are bound for Naples! And we cross the threshold of the Eternal City
at yonder gate, the Gate of San Giovanni Laterano, where the two last
objects that attract the notice of a departing visitor, and the two first
objects that attract the notice of an arriving one, are a proud church
and a decaying ruin—good emblems of Rome.
Our way lies over the Campagna, which looks more solemn on a bright blue
day like this, than beneath a darker sky; the great extent of ruin being
plainer to the eye: and the sunshine through the arches of the broken
aqueducts, showing other broken arches shining through them in the
melancholy distance. When we have traversed it, and look back from
Albano, its dark, undulating surface lies below us like a stagnant lake,
or like a broad, dull Lethe flowing round the walls of Rome, and
separating it from all the world! How often have the Legions, in
triumphant march, gone glittering across that purple waste, so silent and
unpeopled now! How often has the train of captives looked, with sinking
hearts, upon the distant city, and beheld its population pouring out, to
hail the return of their conqueror! What riot, sensuality and murder,
have run mad in the vast palaces now heaps of brick and shattered marble!
What glare of fires, and roar of popular tumult, and wail of pestilence
and famine, have come sweeping over the wild plain where nothing is now
heard but the wind, and where the solitary lizards gambol unmolested in
the sun!
The train of wine-carts going into Rome, each driven by a shaggy peasant
reclining beneath a little gipsy-fashioned canopy of sheep-skin, is ended
now, and we go toiling up into a higher country where there are trees.
The next day brings us on the Pontine Marshes, wearily flat and lonesome,
and overgrown with brushwood, and swamped with water, but with a fine
road made across them, shaded by a long, long avenue. Here and there, we
pass a solitary guard-house; here and there a hovel, deserted, and walled
up. Some herdsmen loiter on the banks of the stream beside the road, and
sometimes a flat-bottomed boat, towed by a man, comes rippling idly along
it. A horseman passes occasionally, carrying a long gun cross-wise on
the saddle before him, and attended by fierce dogs; but there is nothing
else astir save the wind and the shadows, until we come in sight of
Terracina.
How blue and bright the sea, rolling below the windows of the inn so
famous in robber stories! How picturesque the great crags and points of
rock overhanging to-morrow’s narrow road, where galley-slaves are working
in the quarries above, and the sentinels who guard them lounge on the
sea-shore! All night there is the murmur of the sea beneath the stars;
and, in the morning, just at daybreak, the prospect suddenly becoming
expanded, as if by a miracle, reveals—in the far distance, across the sea
there!—Naples with its islands, and Vesuvius spouting fire! Within a
quarter of an hour, the whole is gone as if it were a vision in the
clouds, and there is nothing but the sea and sky.
The Neapolitan frontier crossed, after two hours’ travelling; and the
hungriest of soldiers and custom-house officers with difficulty appeased;
we enter, by a gateless portal, into the first Neapolitan town—Fondi.
Take note of Fondi, in the name of all that is wretched and beggarly.
A filthy channel of mud and refuse meanders down the centre of the
miserable streets, fed by obscene rivulets that trickle from the abject
houses. There is not a door, a window, or a shutter; not a roof, a wall,
a post, or a pillar, in all Fondi, but is decayed, and crazy, and rotting
away. The wretched history of the town, with all its sieges and pillages
by Barbarossa and the rest, might have been acted last year. How the
gaunt dogs that sneak about the miserable streets, come to be alive, and
undevoured by the people, is one of the enigmas of the world.
A hollow-cheeked and scowling people they are! All beggars; but that’s
nothing. Look at them as they gather round. Some, are too indolent to
come down-stairs, or are too wisely mistrustful of the stairs, perhaps,
to venture: so stretch out their lean hands from upper windows, and howl;
others, come flocking about us, fighting and jostling one another, and
demanding, incessantly, charity for the love of God, charity for the love
of the Blessed Virgin, charity for the love of all the Saints. A group
of miserable children, almost naked, screaming forth the same petition,
discover that they can see themselves reflected in the varnish of the
carriage, and begin to dance and make grimaces, that they may have the
pleasure of seeing their antics repeated in this mirror. A crippled
idiot, in the act of striking one of them who drowns his clamorous demand
for charity, observes his angry counterpart in the panel, stops short,
and thrusting out his tongue, begins to wag his head and chatter. The
shrill cry raised at this, awakens half-a-dozen wild creatures wrapped in
frowsy brown cloaks, who are lying on the church-steps with pots and pans
for sale. These, scrambling up, approach, and beg defiantly. ‘I am
hungry. Give me something. Listen to me, Signor. I am hungry!’ Then,
a ghastly old woman, fearful of being too late, comes hobbling down the
street, stretching out one hand, and scratching herself all the way with
the other, and screaming, long before she can be heard, ‘Charity,
charity! I’ll go and pray for you directly, beautiful lady, if you’ll
give me charity!’ Lastly, the members of a brotherhood for burying the
dead: hideously masked, and attired in shabby black robes, white at the
skirts, with the splashes of many muddy winters: escorted by a dirty
priest, and a congenial cross-bearer: come hurrying past. Surrounded by
this motley concourse, we move out of Fondi: bad bright eyes glaring at
us, out of the darkness of every crazy tenement, like glistening
fragments of its filth and putrefaction.
A noble mountain-pass, with the ruins of a fort on a strong eminence,
traditionally called the Fort of Fra Diavolo; the old town of Itrí, like
a device in pastry, built up, almost perpendicularly, on a hill, and
approached by long steep flights of steps; beautiful Mola di Gaëta, whose
wines, like those of Albano, have degenerated since the days of Horace,
or his taste for wine was bad: which is not likely of one who enjoyed it
so much, and extolled it so well; another night upon the road at St.
Agatha; a rest next day at Capua, which is picturesque, but hardly so
seductive to a traveller now, as the soldiers of Prætorian Rome were wont
to find the ancient city of that name; a flat road among vines festooned
and looped from tree to tree; and Mount Vesuvius close at hand at
last!—its cone and summit whitened with snow; and its smoke hanging over
it, in the heavy atmosphere of the day, like a dense cloud. So we go,
rattling down hill, into Naples.
A funeral is coming up the street, towards us. The body, on an open
bier, borne on a kind of palanquin, covered with a gay cloth of crimson
and gold. The mourners, in white gowns and masks. If there be death
abroad, life is well represented too, for all Naples would seem to be out
of doors, and tearing to and fro in carriages. Some of these, the common
Vetturíno vehicles, are drawn by three horses abreast, decked with smart
trappings and great abundance of brazen ornament, and always going very
fast. Not that their loads are light; for the smallest of them has at
least six people inside, four in front, four or five more hanging on
behind, and two or three more, in a net or bag below the axle-tree, where
they lie half-suffocated with mud and dust. Exhibitors of Punch, buffo
singers with guitars, reciters of poetry, reciters of stories, a row of
cheap exhibitions with clowns and showmen, drums, and trumpets, painted
cloths representing the wonders within, and admiring crowds assembled
without, assist the whirl and bustle. Ragged lazzaroni lie asleep in
doorways, archways, and kennels; the gentry, gaily dressed, are dashing
up and down in carriages on the Chiaji, or walking in the Public Gardens;
and quiet letter-writers, perched behind their little desks and inkstands
under the Portico of the Great Theatre of San Carlo, in the public
street, are waiting for clients.
Here is a galley-slave in chains, who wants a letter written to a friend.
He approaches a clerkly-looking man, sitting under the corner arch, and
makes his bargain. He has obtained permission of the sentinel who guards
him: who stands near, leaning against the wall and cracking nuts. The
galley-slave dictates in the ear of the letter-writer, what he desires to
say; and as he can’t read writing, looks intently in his face, to read
there whether he sets down faithfully what he is told. After a time, the
galley-slave becomes discursive—incoherent. The secretary pauses and
rubs his chin. The galley-slave is voluble and energetic. The
secretary, at length, catches the idea, and with the air of a man who
knows how to word it, sets it down; stopping, now and then, to glance
back at his text admiringly. The galley-slave is silent. The soldier
stoically cracks his nuts. Is there anything more to say? inquires the
letter-writer. No more. Then listen, friend of mine. He reads it
through. The galley-slave is quite enchanted. It is folded, and
addressed, and given to him, and he pays the fee. The secretary falls
back indolently in his chair, and takes a book. The galley-slave gathers
up an empty sack. The sentinel throws away a handful of nut-shells,
shoulders his musket, and away they go together.
Why do the beggars rap their chins constantly, with their right hands,
when you look at them? Everything is done in pantomime in Naples, and
that is the conventional sign for hunger. A man who is quarrelling with
another, yonder, lays the palm of his right hand on the back of his left,
and shakes the two thumbs—expressive of a donkey’s ears—whereat his
adversary is goaded to desperation. Two people bargaining for fish, the
buyer empties an imaginary waistcoat pocket when he is told the price,
and walks away without a word: having thoroughly conveyed to the seller
that he considers it too dear. Two people in carriages, meeting, one
touches his lips, twice or thrice, holding up the five fingers of his
right hand, and gives a horizontal cut in the air with the palm. The
other nods briskly, and goes his way. He has been invited to a friendly
dinner at half-past five o’clock, and will certainly come.
All over Italy, a peculiar shake of the right hand from the wrist, with
the forefinger stretched out, expresses a negative—the only negative
beggars will ever understand. But, in Naples, those five fingers are a
copious language.
All this, and every other kind of out-door life and stir, and
macaroni-eating at sunset, and flower-selling all day long, and begging
and stealing everywhere and at all hours, you see upon the bright
sea-shore, where the waves of the bay sparkle merrily. But, lovers and
hunters of the picturesque, let us not keep too studiously out of view
the miserable depravity, degradation, and wretchedness, with which this
gay Neapolitan life is inseparably associated! It is not well to find
Saint Giles’s so repulsive, and the Porta Capuana so attractive. A pair
of naked legs and a ragged red scarf, do not make _all_ the difference
between what is interesting and what is coarse and odious? Painting and
poetising for ever, if you will, the beauties of this most beautiful and
lovely spot of earth, let us, as our duty, try to associate a new
picturesque with some faint recognition of man’s destiny and
capabilities; more hopeful, I believe, among the ice and snow of the
North Pole, than in the sun and bloom of Naples.
Capri—once made odious by the deified beast Tiberius—Ischia, Procida, and
the thousand distant beauties of the Bay, lie in the blue sea yonder,
changing in the mist and sunshine twenty times a-day: now close at hand,
now far off, now unseen. The fairest country in the world, is spread
about us. Whether we turn towards the Miseno shore of the splendid
watery amphitheatre, and go by the Grotto of Posilipo to the Grotto del
Cane and away to Baiæ: or take the other way, towards Vesuvius and
Sorrento, it is one succession of delights. In the last-named direction,
where, over doors and archways, there are countless little images of San
Gennaro, with his Canute’s hand stretched out, to check the fury of the
Burning Mountain, we are carried pleasantly, by a railroad on the
beautiful Sea Beach, past the town of Torre del Greco, built upon the
ashes of the former town destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius, within a
hundred years; and past the flat-roofed houses, granaries, and macaroni
manufactories; to Castel-a-Mare, with its ruined castle, now inhabited by
fishermen, standing in the sea upon a heap of rocks. Here, the railroad
terminates; but, hence we may ride on, by an unbroken succession of
enchanting bays, and beautiful scenery, sloping from the highest summit
of Saint Angelo, the highest neighbouring mountain, down to the water’s
edge—among vineyards, olive-trees, gardens of oranges and lemons,
orchards, heaped-up rocks, green gorges in the hills—and by the bases of
snow-covered heights, and through small towns with handsome, dark-haired
women at the doors—and pass delicious summer villas—to Sorrento, where
the Poet Tasso drew his inspiration from the beauty surrounding him.
Returning, we may climb the heights above Castel-a-Mare, and looking down
among the boughs and leaves, see the crisp water glistening in the sun;
and clusters of white houses in distant Naples, dwindling, in the great
extent of prospect, down to dice. The coming back to the city, by the
beach again, at sunset: with the glowing sea on one side, and the
darkening mountain, with its smoke and flame, upon the other: is a
sublime conclusion to the glory of the day.
That church by the Porta Capuana—near the old fisher-market in the
dirtiest quarter of dirty Naples, where the revolt of Masaniello began—is
memorable for having been the scene of one of his earliest proclamations
to the people, and is particularly remarkable for nothing else, unless it
be its waxen and bejewelled Saint in a glass case, with two odd hands; or
the enormous number of beggars who are constantly rapping their chins
there, like a battery of castanets. The cathedral with the beautiful
door, and the columns of African and Egyptian granite that once
ornamented the temple of Apollo, contains the famous sacred blood of San
Gennaro or Januarius: which is preserved in two phials in a silver
tabernacle, and miraculously liquefies three times a-year, to the great
admiration of the people. At the same moment, the stone (distant some
miles) where the Saint suffered martyrdom, becomes faintly red. It is
said that the officiating priests turn faintly red also, sometimes, when
these miracles occur.
The old, old men who live in hovels at the entrance of these ancient
catacombs, and who, in their age and infirmity, seem waiting here, to be
buried themselves, are members of a curious body, called the Royal
Hospital, who are the official attendants at funerals. Two of these old
spectres totter away, with lighted tapers, to show the caverns of
death—as unconcerned as if they were immortal. They were used as
burying-places for three hundred years; and, in one part, is a large pit
full of skulls and bones, said to be the sad remains of a great mortality
occasioned by a plague. In the rest there is nothing but dust. They
consist, chiefly, of great wide corridors and labyrinths, hewn out of the
rock. At the end of some of these long passages, are unexpected glimpses
of the daylight, shining down from above. It looks as ghastly and as
strange; among the torches, and the dust, and the dark vaults: as if it,
too, were dead and buried.
The present burial-place lies out yonder, on a hill between the city and
Vesuvius. The old Campo Santo with its three hundred and sixty-five
pits, is only used for those who die in hospitals, and prisons, and are
unclaimed by their friends. The graceful new cemetery, at no great
distance from it, though yet unfinished, has already many graves among
its shrubs and flowers, and airy colonnades. It might be reasonably
objected elsewhere, that some of the tombs are meretricious and too
fanciful; but the general brightness seems to justify it here; and Mount
Vesuvius, separated from them by a lovely slope of ground, exalts and
saddens the scene.
If it be solemn to behold from this new City of the Dead, with its dark
smoke hanging in the clear sky, how much more awful and impressive is it,
viewed from the ghostly ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii!
Stand at the bottom of the great market-place of Pompeii, and look up the
silent streets, through the ruined temples of Jupiter and Isis, over the
broken houses with their inmost sanctuaries open to the day, away to
Mount Vesuvius, bright and snowy in the peaceful distance; and lose all
count of time, and heed of other things, in the strange and melancholy
sensation of seeing the Destroyed and the Destroyer making this quiet
picture in the sun. Then, ramble on, and see, at every turn, the little
familiar tokens of human habitation and every-day pursuits; the chafing
of the bucket-rope in the stone rim of the exhausted well; the track of
carriage-wheels in the pavement of the street; the marks of
drinking-vessels on the stone counter of the wine-shop; the amphoræ in
private cellars, stored away so many hundred years ago, and undisturbed
to this hour—all rendering the solitude and deadly lonesomeness of the
place, ten thousand times more solemn, than if the volcano, in its fury,
had swept the city from the earth, and sunk it in the bottom of the sea.
After it was shaken by the earthquake which preceded the eruption,
workmen were employed in shaping out, in stone, new ornaments for temples
and other buildings that had suffered. Here lies their work, outside the
city gate, as if they would return to-morrow.
In the cellar of Diomede’s house, where certain skeletons were found
huddled together, close to the door, the impression of their bodies on
the ashes, hardened with the ashes, and became stamped and fixed there,
after they had shrunk, inside, to scanty bones. So, in the theatre of
Herculaneum, a comic mask, floating on the stream when it was hot and
liquid, stamped its mimic features in it as it hardened into stone; and
now, it turns upon the stranger the fantastic look it turned upon the
audiences in that same theatre two thousand years ago.
Next to the wonder of going up and down the streets, and in and out of
the houses, and traversing the secret chambers of the temples of a
religion that has vanished from the earth, and finding so many fresh
traces of remote antiquity: as if the course of Time had been stopped
after this desolation, and there had been no nights and days, months,
years, and centuries, since: nothing is more impressive and terrible than
the many evidences of the searching nature of the ashes, as bespeaking
their irresistible power, and the impossibility of escaping them. In the
wine-cellars, they forced their way into the earthen vessels: displacing
the wine and choking them, to the brim, with dust. In the tombs, they
forced the ashes of the dead from the funeral urns, and rained new ruin
even into them. The mouths, and eyes, and skulls of all the skeletons,
were stuffed with this terrible hail. In Herculaneum, where the flood
was of a different and a heavier kind, it rolled in, like a sea. Imagine
a deluge of water turned to marble, at its height—and that is what is
called ‘the lava’ here.
Some workmen were digging the gloomy well on the brink of which we now
stand, looking down, when they came on some of the stone benches of the
theatre—those steps (for such they seem) at the bottom of the
excavation—and found the buried city of Herculaneum. Presently going
down, with lighted torches, we are perplexed by great walls of monstrous
thickness, rising up between the benches, shutting out the stage,
obtruding their shapeless forms in absurd places, confusing the whole
plan, and making it a disordered dream. We cannot, at first, believe, or
picture to ourselves, that THIS came rolling in, and drowned the city;
and that all that is not here, has been cut away, by the axe, like solid
stone. But this perceived and understood, the horror and oppression of
its presence are indescribable.
Many of the paintings on the walls in the roofless chambers of both
cities, or carefully removed to the museum at Naples, are as fresh and
plain, as if they had been executed yesterday. Here are subjects of
still life, as provisions, dead game, bottles, glasses, and the like;
familiar classical stories, or mythological fables, always forcibly and
plainly told; conceits of cupids, quarrelling, sporting, working at
trades; theatrical rehearsals; poets reading their productions to their
friends; inscriptions chalked upon the walls; political squibs,
advertisements, rough drawings by schoolboys; everything to people and
restore the ancient cities, in the fancy of their wondering visitor.
Furniture, too, you see, of every kind—lamps, tables, couches; vessels
for eating, drinking, and cooking; workmen’s tools, surgical instruments,
tickets for the theatre, pieces of money, personal ornaments, bunches of
keys found clenched in the grasp of skeletons, helmets of guards and
warriors; little household bells, yet musical with their old domestic
tones.
The least among these objects, lends its aid to swell the interest of
Vesuvius, and invest it with a perfect fascination. The looking, from
either ruined city, into the neighbouring grounds overgrown with
beautiful vines and luxuriant trees; and remembering that house upon
house, temple on temple, building after building, and street after
street, are still lying underneath the roots of all the quiet
cultivation, waiting to be turned up to the light of day; is something so
wonderful, so full of mystery, so captivating to the imagination, that
one would think it would be paramount, and yield to nothing else. To
nothing but Vesuvius; but the mountain is the genius of the scene. From
every indication of the ruin it has worked, we look, again, with an
absorbing interest to where its smoke is rising up into the sky. It is
beyond us, as we thread the ruined streets: above us, as we stand upon
the ruined walls, we follow it through every vista of broken columns, as
we wander through the empty court-yards of the houses; and through the
garlandings and interlacings of every wanton vine. Turning away to
Pæstum yonder, to see the awful structures built, the least aged of them,
hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, and standing yet, erect in
lonely majesty, upon the wild, malaria-blighted plain—we watch Vesuvius
as it disappears from the prospect, and watch for it again, on our
return, with the same thrill of interest: as the doom and destiny of all
this beautiful country, biding its terrible time.
It is very warm in the sun, on this early spring-day, when we return from
Pæstum, but very cold in the shade: insomuch, that although we may lunch,
pleasantly, at noon, in the open air, by the gate of Pompeii, the
neighbouring rivulet supplies thick ice for our wine. But, the sun is
shining brightly; there is not a cloud or speck of vapour in the whole
blue sky, looking down upon the bay of Naples; and the moon will be at
the full to-night. No matter that the snow and ice lie thick upon the
summit of Vesuvius, or that we have been on foot all day at Pompeii, or
that croakers maintain that strangers should not be on the mountain by
night, in such an unusual season. Let us take advantage of the fine
weather; make the best of our way to Resina, the little village at the
foot of the mountain; prepare ourselves, as well as we can, on so short a
notice, at the guide’s house; ascend at once, and have sunset half-way
up, moonlight at the top, and midnight to come down in!
At four o’clock in the afternoon, there is a terrible uproar in the
little stable-yard of Signior Salvatore, the recognised head-guide, with
the gold band round his cap; and thirty under-guides who are all
scuffling and screaming at once, are preparing half-a-dozen saddled
ponies, three litters, and some stout staves, for the journey. Every one
of the thirty, quarrels with the other twenty-nine, and frightens the six
ponies; and as much of the village as can possibly squeeze itself into
the little stable-yard, participates in the tumult, and gets trodden on
by the cattle.
After much violent skirmishing, and more noise than would suffice for the
storming of Naples, the procession starts. The head-guide, who is
liberally paid for all the attendants, rides a little in advance of the
party; the other thirty guides proceed on foot. Eight go forward with
the litters that are to be used by-and-by; and the remaining
two-and-twenty beg.
We ascend, gradually, by stony lanes like rough broad flights of stairs,
for some time. At length, we leave these, and the vineyards on either
side of them, and emerge upon a bleak bare region where the lava lies
confusedly, in enormous rusty masses; as if the earth had been ploughed
up by burning thunderbolts. And now, we halt to see the sun set. The
change that falls upon the dreary region, and on the whole mountain, as
its red light fades, and the night comes on—and the unutterable solemnity
and dreariness that reign around, who that has witnessed it, can ever
forget!
It is dark, when after winding, for some time, over the broken ground, we
arrive at the foot of the cone: which is extremely steep, and seems to
rise, almost perpendicularly, from the spot where we dismount. The only
light is reflected from the snow, deep, hard, and white, with which the
cone is covered. It is now intensely cold, and the air is piercing. The
thirty-one have brought no torches, knowing that the moon will rise
before we reach the top. Two of the litters are devoted to the two
ladies; the third, to a rather heavy gentleman from Naples, whose
hospitality and good-nature have attached him to the expedition, and
determined him to assist in doing the honours of the mountain. The
rather heavy gentleman is carried by fifteen men; each of the ladies by
half-a-dozen. We who walk, make the best use of our staves; and so the
whole party begin to labour upward over the snow,—as if they were toiling
to the summit of an antediluvian Twelfth-cake.
We are a long time toiling up; and the head-guide looks oddly about him
when one of the company—not an Italian, though an habitué of the mountain
for many years: whom we will call, for our present purpose, Mr. Pickle of
Portici—suggests that, as it is freezing hard, and the usual footing of
ashes is covered by the snow and ice, it will surely be difficult to
descend. But the sight of the litters above, tilting up and down, and
jerking from this side to that, as the bearers continually slip and
tumble, diverts our attention; more especially as the whole length of the
rather heavy gentleman is, at that moment, presented to us alarmingly
foreshortened, with his head downwards.
The rising of the moon soon afterwards, revives the flagging spirits of
the bearers. Stimulating each other with their usual watchword,
‘Courage, friend! It is to eat macaroni!’ they press on, gallantly, for
the summit.
From tingeing the top of the snow above us, with a band of light, and
pouring it in a stream through the valley below, while we have been
ascending in the dark, the moon soon lights the whole white
mountain-side, and the broad sea down below, and tiny Naples in the
distance, and every village in the country round. The whole prospect is
in this lovely state, when we come upon the platform on the
mountain-top—the region of Fire—an exhausted crater formed of great
masses of gigantic cinders, like blocks of stone from some tremendous
waterfall, burnt up; from every chink and crevice of which, hot,
sulphurous smoke is pouring out: while, from another conical-shaped hill,
the present crater, rising abruptly from this platform at the end, great
sheets of fire are streaming forth: reddening the night with flame,
blackening it with smoke, and spotting it with red-hot stones and
cinders, that fly up into the air like feathers, and fall down like lead.
What words can paint the gloom and grandeur of this scene!
The broken ground; the smoke; the sense of suffocation from the sulphur:
the fear of falling down through the crevices in the yawning ground; the
stopping, every now and then, for somebody who is missing in the dark
(for the dense smoke now obscures the moon); the intolerable noise of the
thirty; and the hoarse roaring of the mountain; make it a scene of such
confusion, at the same time, that we reel again. But, dragging the
ladies through it, and across another exhausted crater to the foot of the
present Volcano, we approach close to it on the windy side, and then sit
down among the hot ashes at its foot, and look up in silence; faintly
estimating the action that is going on within, from its being full a
hundred feet higher, at this minute, than it was six weeks ago.
There is something in the fire and roar, that generates an irresistible
desire to get nearer to it. We cannot rest long, without starting off,
two of us, on our hands and knees, accompanied by the head-guide, to
climb to the brim of the flaming crater, and try to look in. Meanwhile,
the thirty yell, as with one voice, that it is a dangerous proceeding,
and call to us to come back; frightening the rest of the party out of
their wits.
What with their noise, and what with the trembling of the thin crust of
ground, that seems about to open underneath our feet and plunge us in the
burning gulf below (which is the real danger, if there be any); and what
with the flashing of the fire in our faces, and the shower of red-hot
ashes that is raining down, and the choking smoke and sulphur; we may
well feel giddy and irrational, like drunken men. But, we contrive to
climb up to the brim, and look down, for a moment, into the Hell of
boiling fire below. Then, we all three come rolling down; blackened, and
singed, and scorched, and hot, and giddy: and each with his dress alight
in half-a-dozen places.
You have read, a thousand times, that the usual way of descending, is, by
sliding down the ashes: which, forming a gradually-increasing ledge below
the feet, prevent too rapid a descent. But, when we have crossed the two
exhausted craters on our way back and are come to this precipitous place,
there is (as Mr. Pickle has foretold) no vestige of ashes to be seen; the
whole being a smooth sheet of ice.
In this dilemma, ten or a dozen of the guides cautiously join hands, and
make a chain of men; of whom the foremost beat, as well as they can, a
rough track with their sticks, down which we prepare to follow. The way
being fearfully steep, and none of the party: even of the thirty: being
able to keep their feet for six paces together, the ladies are taken out
of their litters, and placed, each between two careful persons; while
others of the thirty hold by their skirts, to prevent their falling
forward—a necessary precaution, tending to the immediate and hopeless
dilapidation of their apparel. The rather heavy gentleman is abjured to
leave his litter too, and be escorted in a similar manner; but he
resolves to be brought down as he was brought up, on the principle that
his fifteen bearers are not likely to tumble all at once, and that he is
safer so, than trusting to his own legs.
In this order, we begin the descent: sometimes on foot, sometimes
shuffling on the ice: always proceeding much more quietly and slowly,
than on our upward way: and constantly alarmed by the falling among us of
somebody from behind, who endangers the footing of the whole party, and
clings pertinaciously to anybody’s ankles. It is impossible for the
litter to be in advance, too, as the track has to be made; and its
appearance behind us, overhead—with some one or other of the bearers
always down, and the rather heavy gentleman with his legs always in the
air—is very threatening and frightful. We have gone on thus, a very
little way, painfully and anxiously, but quite merrily, and regarding it
as a great success—and have all fallen several times, and have all been
stopped, somehow or other, as we were sliding away—when Mr. Pickle of
Portici, in the act of remarking on these uncommon circumstances as quite
beyond his experience, stumbles, falls, disengages himself, with quick
presence of mind, from those about him, plunges away head foremost, and
rolls, over and over, down the whole surface of the cone!
Sickening as it is to look, and be so powerless to help him, I see him
there, in the moonlight—I have had such a dream often—skimming over the
white ice, like a cannon-ball. Almost at the same moment, there is a cry
from behind; and a man who has carried a light basket of spare cloaks on
his head, comes rolling past, at the same frightful speed, closely
followed by a boy. At this climax of the chapter of accidents, the
remaining eight-and-twenty vociferate to that degree, that a pack of
wolves would be music to them!
Giddy, and bloody, and a mere bundle of rags, is Pickle of Portici when
we reach the place where we dismounted, and where the horses are waiting;
but, thank God, sound in limb! And never are we likely to be more glad
to see a man alive and on his feet, than to see him now—making light of
it too, though sorely bruised and in great pain. The boy is brought into
the Hermitage on the Mountain, while we are at supper, with his head tied
up; and the man is heard of, some hours afterwards. He too is bruised
and stunned, but has broken no bones; the snow having, fortunately,
covered all the larger blocks of rock and stone, and rendered them
harmless.
After a cheerful meal, and a good rest before a blazing fire, we again
take horse, and continue our descent to Salvatore’s house—very slowly, by
reason of our bruised friend being hardly able to keep the saddle, or
endure the pain of motion. Though it is so late at night, or early in
the morning, all the people of the village are waiting about the little
stable-yard when we arrive, and looking up the road by which we are
expected. Our appearance is hailed with a great clamour of tongues, and
a general sensation for which in our modesty we are somewhat at a loss to
account, until, turning into the yard, we find that one of a party of
French gentlemen who were on the mountain at the same time is lying on
some straw in the stable, with a broken limb: looking like Death, and
suffering great torture; and that we were confidently supposed to have
encountered some worse accident.
So ‘well returned, and Heaven be praised!’ as the cheerful Vetturíno, who
has borne us company all the way from Pisa, says, with all his heart!
And away with his ready horses, into sleeping Naples!
It wakes again to Policinelli and pickpockets, buffo singers and beggars,
rags, puppets, flowers, brightness, dirt, and universal degradation;
airing its Harlequin suit in the sunshine, next day and every day;
singing, starving, dancing, gaming, on the sea-shore; and leaving all
labour to the burning mountain, which is ever at its work.
Our English dilettanti would be very pathetic on the subject of the
national taste, if they could hear an Italian opera half as badly sung in
England as we may hear the Foscari performed, to-night, in the splendid
theatre of San Carlo. But, for astonishing truth and spirit in seizing
and embodying the real life about it, the shabby little San Carlino
Theatre—the rickety house one story high, with a staring picture outside:
down among the drums and trumpets, and the tumblers, and the lady
conjurer—is without a rival anywhere.
There is one extraordinary feature in the real life of Naples, at which
we may take a glance before we go—the Lotteries.
They prevail in most parts of Italy, but are particularly obvious, in
their effects and influences, here. They are drawn every Saturday. They
bring an immense revenue to the Government; and diffuse a taste for
gambling among the poorest of the poor, which is very comfortable to the
coffers of the State, and very ruinous to themselves. The lowest stake
is one grain; less than a farthing. One hundred numbers—from one to a
hundred, inclusive—are put into a box. Five are drawn. Those are the
prizes. I buy three numbers. If one of them come up, I win a small
prize. If two, some hundreds of times my stake. If three, three
thousand five hundred times my stake. I stake (or play as they call it)
what I can upon my numbers, and buy what numbers I please. The amount I
play, I pay at the lottery office, where I purchase the ticket; and it is
stated on the ticket itself.
Every lottery office keeps a printed book, an Universal Lottery Diviner,
where every possible accident and circumstance is provided for, and has a
number against it. For instance, let us take two carlini—about
sevenpence. On our way to the lottery office, we run against a black
man. When we get there, we say gravely, ‘The Diviner.’ It is handed
over the counter, as a serious matter of business. We look at black man.
Such a number. ‘Give us that.’ We look at running against a person in
the street. ‘Give us that.’ We look at the name of the street itself.
‘Give us that.’ Now, we have our three numbers.
If the roof of the theatre of San Carlo were to fall in, so many people
would play upon the numbers attached to such an accident in the Diviner,
that the Government would soon close those numbers, and decline to run
the risk of losing any more upon them. This often happens. Not long
ago, when there was a fire in the King’s Palace, there was such a
desperate run on fire, and king, and palace, that further stakes on the
numbers attached to those words in the Golden Book were forbidden. Every
accident or event, is supposed, by the ignorant populace, to be a
revelation to the beholder, or party concerned, in connection with the
lottery. Certain people who have a talent for dreaming fortunately, are
much sought after; and there are some priests who are constantly favoured
with visions of the lucky numbers.
I heard of a horse running away with a man, and dashing him down, dead,
at the corner of a street. Pursuing the horse with incredible speed, was
another man, who ran so fast, that he came up, immediately after the
accident. He threw himself upon his knees beside the unfortunate rider,
and clasped his hand with an expression of the wildest grief. ‘If you
have life,’ he said, ‘speak one word to me! If you have one gasp of
breath left, mention your age for Heaven’s sake, that I may play that
number in the lottery.’
It is four o’clock in the afternoon, and we may go to see our lottery
drawn. The ceremony takes place every Saturday, in the Tribunale, or
Court of Justice—this singular, earthy-smelling room, or gallery, as
mouldy as an old cellar, and as damp as a dungeon. At the upper end is a
platform, with a large horse-shoe table upon it; and a President and
Council sitting round—all judges of the Law. The man on the little stool
behind the President, is the Capo Lazzarone, a kind of tribune of the
people, appointed on their behalf to see that all is fairly conducted:
attended by a few personal friends. A ragged, swarthy fellow he is: with
long matted hair hanging down all over his face: and covered, from head
to foot, with most unquestionably genuine dirt. All the body of the room
is filled with the commonest of the Neapolitan people: and between them
and the platform, guarding the steps leading to the latter, is a small
body of soldiers.
There is some delay in the arrival of the necessary number of judges;
during which, the box, in which the numbers are being placed, is a source
of the deepest interest. When the box is full, the boy who is to draw
the numbers out of it becomes the prominent feature of the proceedings.
He is already dressed for his part, in a tight brown Holland coat, with
only one (the left) sleeve to it, which leaves his right arm bared to the
shoulder, ready for plunging down into the mysterious chest.
During the hush and whisper that pervade the room, all eyes are turned on
this young minister of fortune. People begin to inquire his age, with a
view to the next lottery; and the number of his brothers and sisters; and
the age of his father and mother; and whether he has any moles or pimples
upon him; and where, and how many; when the arrival of the last judge but
one (a little old man, universally dreaded as possessing the Evil Eye)
makes a slight diversion, and would occasion a greater one, but that he
is immediately deposed, as a source of interest, by the officiating
priest, who advances gravely to his place, followed by a very dirty
little boy, carrying his sacred vestments, and a pot of Holy Water.
Here is the last judge come at last, and now he takes his place at the
horse-shoe table.
There is a murmur of irrepressible agitation. In the midst of it, the
priest puts his head into the sacred vestments, and pulls the same over
his shoulders. Then he says a silent prayer; and dipping a brush into
the pot of Holy Water, sprinkles it over the box—and over the boy, and
gives them a double-barrelled blessing, which the box and the boy are
both hoisted on the table to receive. The boy remaining on the table,
the box is now carried round the front of the platform, by an attendant,
who holds it up and shakes it lustily all the time; seeming to say, like
the conjurer, ‘There is no deception, ladies and gentlemen; keep your
eyes upon me, if you please!’
At last, the box is set before the boy; and the boy, first holding up his
naked arm and open hand, dives down into the hole (it is made like a
ballot-box) and pulls out a number, which is rolled up, round something
hard, like a bonbon. This he hands to the judge next him, who unrolls a
little bit, and hands it to the President, next to whom he sits. The
President unrolls it, very slowly. The Capo Lazzarone leans over his
shoulder. The President holds it up, unrolled, to the Capo Lazzarone.
The Capo Lazzarone, looking at it eagerly, cries out, in a shrill, loud
voice, ‘Sessantadue!’ (sixty-two), expressing the two upon his fingers,
as he calls it out. Alas! the Capo Lazzarone himself has not staked on
sixty-two. His face is very long, and his eyes roll wildly.
As it happens to be a favourite number, however, it is pretty well
received, which is not always the case. They are all drawn with the same
ceremony, omitting the blessing. One blessing is enough for the whole
multiplication-table. The only new incident in the proceedings, is the
gradually deepening intensity of the change in the Cape Lazzarone, who
has, evidently, speculated to the very utmost extent of his means; and
who, when he sees the last number, and finds that it is not one of his,
clasps his hands, and raises his eyes to the ceiling before proclaiming
it, as though remonstrating, in a secret agony, with his patron saint,
for having committed so gross a breach of confidence. I hope the Capo
Lazzarone may not desert him for some other member of the Calendar, but
he seems to threaten it.
Where the winners may be, nobody knows. They certainly are not present;
the general disappointment filling one with pity for the poor people.
They look: when we stand aside, observing them, in their passage through
the court-yard down below: as miserable as the prisoners in the gaol (it
forms a part of the building), who are peeping down upon them, from
between their bars; or, as the fragments of human heads which are still
dangling in chains outside, in memory of the good old times, when their
owners were strung up there, for the popular edification.
Away from Naples in a glorious sunrise, by the road to Capua, and then on
a three days’ journey along by-roads, that we may see, on the way, the
monastery of Monte Cassino, which is perched on the steep and lofty hill
above the little town of San Germano, and is lost on a misty morning in
the clouds.
So much the better, for the deep sounding of its bell, which, as we go
winding up, on mules, towards the convent, is heard mysteriously in the
still air, while nothing is seen but the grey mist, moving solemnly and
slowly, like a funeral procession. Behold, at length the shadowy pile of
building close before us: its grey walls and towers dimly seen, though so
near and so vast: and the raw vapour rolling through its cloisters
heavily.
There are two black shadows walking to and fro in the quadrangle, near
the statues of the Patron Saint and his sister; and hopping on behind
them, in and out of the old arches, is a raven, croaking in answer to the
bell, and uttering, at intervals, the purest Tuscan. How like a Jesuit
he looks! There never was a sly and stealthy fellow so at home as is
this raven, standing now at the refectory door, with his head on one
side, and pretending to glance another way, while he is scrutinizing the
visitors keenly, and listening with fixed attention. What a dull-headed
monk the porter becomes in comparison!
‘He speaks like us!’ says the porter: ‘quite as plainly.’ Quite as
plainly, Porter. Nothing could be more expressive than his reception of
the peasants who are entering the gate with baskets and burdens. There
is a roll in his eye, and a chuckle in his throat, which should qualify
him to be chosen Superior of an Order of Ravens. He knows all about it.
‘It’s all right,’ he says. ‘We know what we know. Come along, good
people. Glad to see you!’ How was this extraordinary structure ever
built in such a situation, where the labour of conveying the stone, and
iron, and marble, so great a height, must have been prodigious? ‘Caw!’
says the raven, welcoming the peasants. How, being despoiled by plunder,
fire and earthquake, has it risen from its ruins, and been again made
what we now see it, with its church so sumptuous and magnificent? ‘Caw!’
says the raven, welcoming the peasants. These people have a miserable
appearance, and (as usual) are densely ignorant, and all beg, while the
monks are chaunting in the chapel. ‘Caw!’ says the raven, ‘Cuckoo!’
So we leave him, chuckling and rolling his eye at the convent gate, and
wind slowly down again through the cloud. At last emerging from it, we
come in sight of the village far below, and the flat green country
intersected by rivulets; which is pleasant and fresh to see after the
obscurity and haze of the convent—no disrespect to the raven, or the holy
friars.
Away we go again, by muddy roads, and through the most shattered and
tattered of villages, where there is not a whole window among all the
houses, or a whole garment among all the peasants, or the least
appearance of anything to eat, in any of the wretched hucksters’ shops.
The women wear a bright red bodice laced before and behind, a white
skirt, and the Neapolitan head-dress of square folds of linen,
primitively meant to carry loads on. The men and children wear anything
they can get. The soldiers are as dirty and rapacious as the dogs. The
inns are such hobgoblin places, that they are infinitely more attractive
and amusing than the best hotels in Paris. Here is one near Valmontone
(that is Valmontone the round, walled town on the mount opposite), which
is approached by a quagmire almost knee-deep. There is a wild colonnade
below, and a dark yard full of empty stables and lofts, and a great long
kitchen with a great long bench and a great long form, where a party of
travellers, with two priests among them, are crowding round the fire
while their supper is cooking. Above stairs, is a rough brick gallery to
sit in, with very little windows with very small patches of knotty glass
in them, and all the doors that open from it (a dozen or two) off their
hinges, and a bare board on tressels for a table, at which thirty people
might dine easily, and a fireplace large enough in itself for a
breakfast-parlour, where, as the faggots blaze and crackle, they
illuminate the ugliest and grimmest of faces, drawn in charcoal on the
whitewashed chimney-sides by previous travellers. There is a flaring
country lamp on the table; and, hovering about it, scratching her thick
black hair continually, a yellow dwarf of a woman, who stands on tiptoe
to arrange the hatchet knives, and takes a flying leap to look into the
water-jug. The beds in the adjoining rooms are of the liveliest kind.
There is not a solitary scrap of looking-glass in the house, and the
washing apparatus is identical with the cooking utensils. But the yellow
dwarf sets on the table a good flask of excellent wine, holding a quart
at least; and produces, among half-a-dozen other dishes, two-thirds of a
roasted kid, smoking hot. She is as good-humoured, too, as dirty, which
is saying a great deal. So here’s long life to her, in the flask of
wine, and prosperity to the establishment.
Rome gained and left behind, and with it the Pilgrims who are now
repairing to their own homes again—each with his scallop shell and staff,
and soliciting alms for the love of God—we come, by a fair country, to
the Falls of Terni, where the whole Velino river dashes, headlong, from a
rocky height, amidst shining spray and rainbows. Perugia, strongly
fortified by art and nature, on a lofty eminence, rising abruptly from
the plain where purple mountains mingle with the distant sky, is glowing,
on its market-day, with radiant colours. They set off its sombre but
rich Gothic buildings admirably. The pavement of its market-place is
strewn with country goods. All along the steep hill leading from the
town, under the town wall, there is a noisy fair of calves, lambs, pigs,
horses, mules, and oxen. Fowls, geese, and turkeys, flutter vigorously
among their very hoofs; and buyers, sellers, and spectators, clustering
everywhere, block up the road as we come shouting down upon them.
Suddenly, there is a ringing sound among our horses. The driver stops
them. Sinking in his saddle, and casting up his eyes to Heaven, he
delivers this apostrophe, ‘Oh Jove Omnipotent! here is a horse has lost
his shoe!’
Notwithstanding the tremendous nature of this accident, and the utterly
forlorn look and gesture (impossible in any one but an Italian Vetturíno)
with which it is announced, it is not long in being repaired by a mortal
Farrier, by whose assistance we reach Castiglione the same night, and
Arezzo next day. Mass is, of course, performing in its fine cathedral,
where the sun shines in among the clustered pillars, through rich
stained-glass windows: half revealing, half concealing the kneeling
figures on the pavement, and striking out paths of spotted light in the
long aisles.
But, how much beauty of another kind is here, when, on a fair clear
morning, we look, from the summit of a hill, on Florence! See where it
lies before us in a sun-lighted valley, bright with the winding Arno, and
shut in by swelling hills; its domes, and towers, and palaces, rising
from the rich country in a glittering heap, and shining in the sun like
gold!
Magnificently stern and sombre are the streets of beautiful Florence; and
the strong old piles of building make such heaps of shadow, on the ground
and in the river, that there is another and a different city of rich
forms and fancies, always lying at our feet. Prodigious palaces,
constructed for defence, with small distrustful windows heavily barred,
and walls of great thickness formed of huge masses of rough stone, frown,
in their old sulky state, on every street. In the midst of the city—in
the Piazza of the Grand Duke, adorned with beautiful statues and the
Fountain of Neptune—rises the Palazzo Vecchio, with its enormous
overhanging battlements, and the Great Tower that watches over the whole
town. In its court-yard—worthy of the Castle of Otranto in its ponderous
gloom—is a massive staircase that the heaviest waggon and the stoutest
team of horses might be driven up. Within it, is a Great Saloon, faded
and tarnished in its stately decorations, and mouldering by grains, but
recording yet, in pictures on its walls, the triumphs of the Medici and
the wars of the old Florentine people. The prison is hard by, in an
adjacent court-yard of the building—a foul and dismal place, where some
men are shut up close, in small cells like ovens; and where others look
through bars and beg; where some are playing draughts, and some are
talking to their friends, who smoke, the while, to purify the air; and
some are buying wine and fruit of women-vendors; and all are squalid,
dirty, and vile to look at. ‘They are merry enough, Signore,’ says the
jailer. ‘They are all blood-stained here,’ he adds, indicating, with his
hand, three-fourths of the whole building. Before the hour is out, an
old man, eighty years of age, quarrelling over a bargain with a young
girl of seventeen, stabs her dead, in the market-place full of bright
flowers; and is brought in prisoner, to swell the number.
Among the four old bridges that span the river, the Ponte Vecchio—that
bridge which is covered with the shops of Jewellers and Goldsmiths—is a
most enchanting feature in the scene. The space of one house, in the
centre, being left open, the view beyond is shown as in a frame; and that
precious glimpse of sky, and water, and rich buildings, shining so
quietly among the huddled roofs and gables on the bridge, is exquisite.
Above it, the Gallery of the Grand Duke crosses the river. It was built
to connect the two Great Palaces by a secret passage; and it takes its
jealous course among the streets and houses, with true despotism: going
where it lists, and spurning every obstacle away, before it.
The Grand Duke has a worthier secret passage through the streets, in his
black robe and hood, as a member of the Compagnia della Misericordia,
which brotherhood includes all ranks of men. If an accident take place,
their office is, to raise the sufferer, and bear him tenderly to the
Hospital. If a fire break out, it is one of their functions to repair to
the spot, and render their assistance and protection. It is, also, among
their commonest offices, to attend and console the sick; and they neither
receive money, nor eat, nor drink, in any house they visit for this
purpose. Those who are on duty for the time, are all called together, on
a moment’s notice, by the tolling of the great bell of the Tower; and it
is said that the Grand Duke has been seen, at this sound, to rise from
his seat at table, and quietly withdraw to attend the summons.
In this other large Piazza, where an irregular kind of market is held,
and stores of old iron and other small merchandise are set out on stalls,
or scattered on the pavement, are grouped together, the Cathedral with
its great Dome, the beautiful Italian Gothic Tower the Campanile, and the
Baptistery with its wrought bronze doors. And here, a small untrodden
square in the pavement, is ‘the Stone of DANTE,’ where (so runs the
story) he was used to bring his stool, and sit in contemplation. I
wonder was he ever, in his bitter exile, withheld from cursing the very
stones in the streets of Florence the ungrateful, by any kind remembrance
of this old musing-place, and its association with gentle thoughts of
little Beatrice!
The chapel of the Medici, the Good and Bad Angels, of Florence; the
church of Santa Croce where Michael Angelo lies buried, and where every
stone in the cloisters is eloquent on great men’s deaths; innumerable
churches, often masses of unfinished heavy brickwork externally, but
solemn and serene within; arrest our lingering steps, in strolling
through the city.
In keeping with the tombs among the cloisters, is the Museum of Natural
History, famous through the world for its preparations in wax; beginning
with models of leaves, seeds, plants, inferior animals; and gradually
ascending, through separate organs of the human frame, up to the whole
structure of that wonderful creation, exquisitely presented, as in recent
death. Few admonitions of our frail mortality can be more solemn and
more sad, or strike so home upon the heart, as the counterfeits of Youth
and Beauty that are lying there, upon their beds, in their last sleep.
Beyond the walls, the whole sweet Valley of the Arno, the convent at
Fiesole, the Tower of Galileo, BOCCACCIO’S house, old villas and
retreats; innumerable spots of interest, all glowing in a landscape of
surpassing beauty steeped in the richest light; are spread before us.
Returning from so much brightness, how solemn and how grand the streets
again, with their great, dark, mournful palaces, and many legends: not of
siege, and war, and might, and Iron Hand alone, but of the triumphant
growth of peaceful Arts and Sciences.
What light is shed upon the world, at this day, from amidst these rugged
Palaces of Florence! Here, open to all comers, in their beautiful and
calm retreats, the ancient Sculptors are immortal, side by side with
Michael Angelo, Canova, Titian, Rembrandt, Raphael, Poets, Historians,
Philosophers—those illustrious men of history, beside whom its crowned
heads and harnessed warriors show so poor and small, and are so soon
forgotten. Here, the imperishable part of noble minds survives, placid
and equal, when strongholds of assault and defence are overthrown; when
the tyranny of the many, or the few, or both, is but a tale; when Pride
and Power are so much cloistered dust. The fire within the stern
streets, and among the massive Palaces and Towers, kindled by rays from
Heaven, is still burning brightly, when the flickering of war is
extinguished and the household fires of generations have decayed; as
thousands upon thousands of faces, rigid with the strife and passion of
the hour, have faded out of the old Squares and public haunts, while the
nameless Florentine Lady, preserved from oblivion by a Painter’s hand,
yet lives on, in enduring grace and youth.
Let us look back on Florence while we may, and when its shining Dome is
seen no more, go travelling through cheerful Tuscany, with a bright
remembrance of it; for Italy will be the fairer for the recollection.
The summer-time being come: and Genoa, and Milan, and the Lake of Como
lying far behind us: and we resting at Faido, a Swiss village, near the
awful rocks and mountains, the everlasting snows and roaring cataracts,
of the Great Saint Gothard: hearing the Italian tongue for the last time
on this journey: let us part from Italy, with all its miseries and
wrongs, affectionately, in our admiration of the beauties, natural and
artificial, of which it is full to overflowing, and in our tenderness
towards a people, naturally well-disposed, and patient, and
sweet-tempered. Years of neglect, oppression, and misrule, have been at
work, to change their nature and reduce their spirit; miserable
jealousies, fomented by petty Princes to whom union was destruction, and
division strength, have been a canker at their root of nationality, and
have barbarized their language; but the good that was in them ever, is in
them yet, and a noble people may be, one day, raised up from these ashes.
Let us entertain that hope! And let us not remember Italy the less
regardfully, because, in every fragment of her fallen Temples, and every
stone of her deserted palaces and prisons, she helps to inculcate the
lesson that the wheel of Time is rolling for an end, and that the world
is, in all great essentials, better, gentler, more forbearing, and more
hopeful, as it rolls!
* * * * *