attached to the dog, and, in return, inspired Tofino with the most
intelligent attachment: he went on his messages, kept sentry with him
at the palace gate, and gave his possessor a sort of celebrity as _il
padrone di Tofino_. The moment arrived when the Imperial Guard, with
the Prince Eugene at its head, were called to join the fatal expedition
to Russia. The sergeant and Tofino marched off together from the sunny
plains of their native Lombardy, for the snowy deserts of Moscow.
Tofino weathered out all the fatigues and dangers of that most fearful
campaign—still beside his master in the march, in the battle, swimming
with him across the icy fords, or following him through the smoking ruins
of burnt villages. Tofino’s master at last fell a victim, with nearly the
whole of that splendid and gallant Italian legion, to whose valour and
fidelity Buonaparte gave his testimony to the last hour of his life. The
sergeant of the Imperial Guard, in the awful retreat from Moscow, was
seen, for the last time, by one of his comrades and townsmen, sinking,
after the passage of the Niemen, near a frozen torrent, which he had
passed with his dog. There he was left expiring; and as he was never
heard of afterwards, there he probably died, with none to watch over his
last agonies—but Tofino!
“Long after the campaign of Russia was terminated, the neighbours of
the _Piazza del Duomo_, when speaking of that disastrous event, which
left the bones of so many of their gallant compatriots to whiten on the
Russian soil, would still recal the fidelity of Tofino, whose last act of
affection had been related by a surviving spectator.
“One day, however, a wretched little animal was seen prowling about the
_Palazzo Reale_, whose moans attracted general attention, and who, at
last, laid himself down before the sentry-box at the lateral gate, to
the left of the palace, from which to this period (now five years) he
has never stirred. It was Tofino!—and neither force, nor caresses, nor
the inclemency of the most inclement season, have proved sufficient to
induce him to quit the spot where his master last did duty before the
expedition, and where the sympathy of his master’s military brethren,
and of the inhabitants of the quarter of the _Piazza del Duomo_, have
raised him this little _casino_, and daily provide for his wants and his
comforts. The Milanese come from all parts to pay an occasional visit to
Tofino, and to honour, in this faithful animal, that virtuous instinct
of _elective affection_ which Nature reproduces, under so many forms,
throughout her system of universal love and beneficence!”
RELIGIONS.
Any fool, who will attack a false religion, by opposing to it another as
absurd as itself, will make converts and establish a sect. But he who
opposes superstition by the demonstration of its contradictions, will
excite universal abhorrence, and will hardly escape stoning.
Lucian, in his life of Alexander, the false prophet, relates that this
mountebank prophesied at once against the Christians and against the
Epicureans of Pontus, as being in a common hostility against himself
and his pretensions. In a similar spirit, certain writers of our own
times accuse the reformed religion of atheism, or a tendency towards it.
Gifford called every one atheist, in his _Quarterly Review_, whom he
wanted to bring into disrepute. If, therefore, I were to define atheism,
I should call it, the state of differing from any received mode of
thinking in matters of religion, or in any thing else, where money or
money’s worth is concerned. The Epicureans and Christians of Pontus must
have been a good deal surprised to find themselves in the same category;
and so, too, would many of Mr. Gifford’s atheists.
TOWER OF BABEL.
Those who have a taste for allegorizing the Bible, may probably consider
the builders of Babel as a set of disputatious metaphysicians, scaling
Heaven by their inquiries into matter and spirit. Their punishment gives
consistence to the fancy; since nothing could foil them so much as a
confusion of language: as is proved by their descendants, who have been
squabbling about words (mistaken for things) even down to the present day.
MATHEMATICAL LADIES.
I can perfectly understand Lord Byron’s antipathy to mathematical ladies.
There is nothing in the study of numbers analogous to female intellect,
which is essentially imaginative. Female mathematicians are seldom what
the French call _aimables_. In the middle of the last century, Newton’s
sublime discoveries rendered mathematics fashionable; and fashion will
reconcile a French lady even to the mathematics. “_La belle Emilie_” of
Voltaire, and Madame Ferrand, the friend and mistress of Condillac, are
two of the most notable instances. The former translated and commented
on Newton in the intervals of the gaming-table and the toilet; and the
latter wrote a considerable part of the “_Traité des Sensations_,”
the well-known work of her philosophical lover. These, however, were
exceptions, produced by the influence of the times. The exact sciences
are not made for woman. Her feelings are too petulant for cool, temperate
calculation, in which fancy and sensibility go for nothing at all. When
Nature, in her caprice, produces a Bolognese doctoress, really learned in
such matters, the woman is sure to suffer by it.
The cleverest women are accused (and with some reason) of inaccuracy in
their thoughts; but the defect does not arise (as some have imagined)
from the want of the discipline of a course of mathematics. Madame de
Staël was sometimes inconsequential in her reasoning; but neither she,
nor many other female and non-mathematical writers of less power, have
fallen into such “bald and disjointed” twaddle as is to be found in
the pamphlets of some of our university polemics and politicians. “The
high men,” as I am told they are called at Cambridge and Oxford, do not
usually become the most distinguished statesmen and philosophers.
I suspect, therefore, that the current admiration for the mathematics, as
an instrument of mental discipline, arises much more from the _safety_
of such pursuits, and their disconnexion with moral and political
interests, than from the rigor and exactness of their methods of
argumentation. At the end of a five years’ college course, the student
is not more likely to question established abuses, than if he had spent
the time in playing shuttle-cock. His moral faculties have been kept
perfectly quiescent. Indignation at public and private wrong, contempt
for falsehood and dishonesty, the kindling glow of approbation at
patriotic self-sacrifice, have remained unawakened and cold. The pursuit
of abstractions has shut out all interest or feeling for realities; and
the university whippers-in have trained the young hound quite away from
the pursuit of forbidden truths.
A mere mathematician is the fittest raw material for manufacturing
a passive-obedience parson, or an all-confiding country gentleman.
Placed in the foreground of the world’s great scene of action, the most
accomplished of the class is but on a par with a mere land-surveyor:
he can estimate quantities, and nothing more. With the sole exception
of the inventors, (who, as in the other branches of knowledge, must
be superior persons,) the greatest proficients in the mathematics are
often the dullest and least apprehensive of men; and as they mistake
the superiority of their scientific methods, for their own aptitude to
discover truth, they are the most presumptuous. These are the persons who
sneer at lady writers, and imagine that there is no road to common sense
and common observation, but over the Ass’s Bridge.
Of mathematics, as a means to an end, as the hand-maid to the natural
sciences, it would be absurd to speak slightingly; but as a mere
discipline, I fancy I am not singular in doubting their efficacy; and I
am certain that, for the female mind in particular, they can do little
beyond encouraging pedantry; while they blunt that rapid intuition which
serves a woman better than reason, and gives to superior females the
influence they have so often possessed on public affairs. In literature,
more especially, it is this intuition, this promptitude to feel, rather
than to analyze the truth, that has given not only their charm, but, I
will add, their utility, to female writers. If they were more exact,
they would be less striking. Their especial service is to keep alive the
fervour of enthusiasm, and to avert the calculating selfishness which
is the besetting sin of advanced civilization. One day, complaining to a
celebrated Irish wit of the faults of my early works, he replied, “Let
them alone, child; it is to your faults you owe your success.”
CARDINAL GONSALVI.
“Le joli rendez-vous qu’il m’a donné.”
MADAME DE MAINTENON.
_Mais! quel rendez-vous!_ Doctrine of possibilities,—whoever should have
predicted to me such an appointment some years back, when I was paddling
about the bogs, and knocks, and slieus of the barony of Tireragh, and
thinking Father Flyn, of Colooney (the Father John, _par parenthèse_,
of my “Wild Irish Girl”), the greatest hierarch of the Catholic church
extant—whoever, “_then_ and _there_,” should have predicted to me that I
should have given _rendez-vous_ to an _eminenza_—a cardinal secretary—“a
prince of the Roman church,”—one who governed _him_, whose predecessors
governed the world—I should have believed the prediction just as much,
as the Brewer’s Tub-woman, who married Lawyer Hyde, would have believed
the man who might have prophesied her becoming the mother of a Duchess
of York, and the grandmother of two queens of England! And where did I
give this notable _rendez-vous_?—“_Je vous le donne en une—je vous le
donne en quatre_,” as Madame de Sévigné says, in setting her daughter
to guess who Mademoiselle was going to marry.—Why, in the church of the
Quirinal, at Rome, and at the Cardinal’s request! _Pardi_, my cardinal
was none of your ordinary cardinals—none of your Cardinals, who “come
with a whoop and come with a call,” and take a cover at your table, and
fill your little anti-room with _la famiglia_,[46] in tarnished liveries
and coloured cotton neck-kerchiefs, smelling of the ends of candles,
which smoke out of their fusty coat-pockets, and giving, very literally,
a _mauvais odeur_ to the whole apartment.
The Cardinal, _par excellence_, the Cardinal Gonsalvi, was of another
_étoffe_! Sunday after Sunday I had been gazing in awe on his terrible
eyes, as they flashed on the whole Conclave, at the head of which he
sat in the Pope’s Chapel. There was something superhuman in those
eyes!—something
“That o’er-informed their tenement of clay.”
They are now beaming full on me from his most singular portrait, which,
among a collection of singular portraits, and placed, as it is, between
the original pictures of Alfieri and Byron, extinguishes all that
surround it. They would do equally well in a personification of love
or murder. Their master-expression was intense passion; but passion
directed, not subdued, by craft.
I had heard a great deal of Gonsalvi in France, where he had resided
much, and was well known. Talking him over with Denon, the night
before we left Paris for Italy, he sketched off his character with his
usual _finesse_ of touch and accuracy of drawing—“_Grand politique,
et un peu libertin; d’ailleurs, homme très-aimable, et tant soit peu
dangereux_.”[47] Like all men of the temperament which goes to the
highest order of genius, the Cardinal Gonsalvi was essentially liberal.
What is called liberality is so purely the power of seeing clearly, and
judging sagaciously, concerning the actual state of society—its wants,
and its means—that able men must be liberal men, sooner or later. The
ablest will not wait for the pressure of exigencies. There is something
in the nerve, and sinew, and circulation of a man of genius, that forces
him on with the age, and leaves him no power of election. Whenever the
impulse is crossed or diverted by some private interest, some personal
ambition, or individual view, his great career is checked. The “_En
avant!_” of General Buonaparte was the true star of his glory—the return,
the retrogradation to old systems and old forms, was the destruction of
the emperor! His alliance with the Gothic fabric of Hapsburg was the
fatal conjunction that mouldered his new-raised fortunes to the dust.
It was the baneful influence of the same _incubus_ of illiberality and
despotism which turned Gonsalvi from _his_ high destiny, and made him a
dependant, when he should have been a leader. Still, before he caught
a view of the papal throne, through the power of Austrian agency, he
was so open, so bold in his expression of liberal opinions, not only in
temporal but spiritual concerns, that he was suspected of being a member
of some of those secret societies which (like the secret tribunal of
old,) made even power tremble in its strongest fortress. By some, he was
called the _Cardinal Carbonaro_; and _il giacobino_ and _il radicale_
were names publicly bestowed on one who soon silenced all imputations, by
permitting the dungeons of the Papal State to be filled with the victims
of that terrible political re-action, which followed close upon the
_restoration_ effected by the Holy Alliance.
Gonsalvi was, however, eminently superior to the time and persons under
whose influence and power he acted; and his private agency and personal
feelings were in perpetual opposition to the public part which, as
first minister to Pope Pius the Seventh, he was obliged to act. Had
he flourished in remoter times, he would have made a splendid Pope!—a
something between Leo the Tenth and Ganganelli—showy, sumptuous and
gallant as the first—lettered, liberal, and astute as the latter. As
it was, he was chained to the fortunes of his friend, the reigning
pontiff—involved in a sort of inevitable dependence upon the dull
despotism of Austria, and always _en butte_ to the intrigues of the
illiberal, and to the bigotry of the Conclave. Thus circumstanced, he
had a part of infinite difficulty to perform. Had he been honest, he
would have thrown it up; but he was a churchman, and, in his spiritual
ambition, _prêtre avant tout_. Still, so little did Gonsalvi participate
in the _cagoterie_ of his class or order—so little was he bound by
prejudice or predilection to the ordinances of the church, that (like the
archbishop of Taranto) he was opposed to the celibacy of the priesthood;
and he suggested to Buonaparte, that, should the French government demand
the liberty of marriage for the ministers of the Gallican church, the
court of Rome would not make any objection. “_Parce que_” (to use his
own words) “_ce n’était qu’un point de discipline_.”[48] Buonaparte
agreed with him on the advantage of such an innovation; and said that
if he did not urge the point, it was simply because he would not give
the _collets-montés_ of the Faubourg St. Germain a pretence for calling
the pope an heretic. The proposition and the rejoinder were curious and
characteristic. Here, then, was a cardinal out of the “common roll” of
cardinals; and I went to Rome, desirous, but hopeless, of knowing him:
for it was reported that he had ceased to hold assemblies, or to go to
them, and that he was living in official retirement. So I consoled myself
with Cardinal Fesch, who was all good humour and good nature; and who
allowed me to rummage about his most interesting palace, and admire his
gallery and his pontifical toilette—his pictures by Raphael, and his
point-laces, enough to make the mouths of Empresses water.
One fine Roman winter morning—(they very much resemble a summer’s day in
Ireland)—the Duchess of Devonshire called on me, and, _sans préambule_,
announced the Cardinal Gonsalvi’s desire to make my acquaintance: but,
though the duchess did not say as much, I saw there was some little
difficulty about the where and the how of this introduction. The
cardinal was a minister of state, and I was (“audacious little worm!”)
the author of “France!” It was, therefore, rather a delicate matter
for him to give me _rendez-vous_ any where on this side the Styx. The
Duchess, however, said she would let me know on the following day; and
I received the following note, in answer to one I had sent with an
inscription on a Roman brick, which I found in the well-known excavation,
made by her grace round the column Phocas:—
“MY DEAR MADAM,
“I am not an Irishwoman; but I admire Irish talent and
imagination, and we are certainly indebted to you for enabling
us to judge of them. I return the stone, or brick, with all
the rights that I might have to it, and am flattered by the
inscription.[49] I also send you the edition of the Fifth
Satire of Horace, and am truly gratified by your praise of it.
If you will go to the Quirinal chapel on Thursday, I shall have
an opportunity of presenting you to Cardinal Gonsalvi. I shall
go about eleven.
“Pray believe me very much yours,
“ELIZABETH DEVONSHIRE.”
“If you wish to go to the chapel to-morrow, (Thursday,) I will
call for you a little before eleven, and for Sir Charles also.
If the Cardinal stops to speak to me, I shall present you, &c.
&c.”
I forget what was the _grande cérémonie_ celebrated on the abovementioned
day at the Quirinal; but it was one of singular magnificence. The Duchess
of Devonshire had the privilege of places devoted to the families of
the Cardinals, and we commanded a full view of that splendid church,
which, like the Temple of the Sun, whose site it occupies, was all
light, lustre, and effulgence. The central nave was thronged with
the dignitaries of the church, in grand costume, abbots, priors, and
monsignori—
“Black spirits and white, blue spirits and grey.”
The tribunes were filled with representatives of the beauty and fashion
of Europe, from the Niemen to the Thames. The pope was on his throne;
the conclave sat beneath him, in vestments of eastern amplitude and
splendour; while at their feet were ranged their humble _caudatori_.
The pope pontificated; and when the censers had flung their odours on
the air, and the loud hosannas had ceased to peal, a procession began,
which was one of the most imposing I ever beheld. The pope, borne aloft
on his moveable throne, and on the necks of his servants, appeared like
some idol of pagan worship. The members of the conclave, two by two,
followed; their trains of violet velvet, held up by the _caudatori_. The
whole spectacle passed on, and, half way down the great vestibule which
precedes the chapel, disappeared among its lofty and massive columns. The
Cardinal Secretary then broke off from the line of march, and joined us,
as we stood under the shadow of a pillar.
The presentation was as unceremonious, as the conversation which ensued
was pleasant, easy, and _spirituel_. We talked of France, and the persons
we mutually knew there; and I saw that there was a playful attempt to
draw me out on the subject of Rome and the actual order of things in
Italy, more flattering than fair, and which I parried as well as I
could. Before we parted, he proposed, with great politeness, calling
on us the following day; but, as we were lodged (as were many of our
betters) _au vingt-cinquième_, I declined the honor till after our return
from Naples.
Cardinal Gonsalvi conversed in French like a Parisian, and his phrases
were epigrammatic and well turned. As we stood in the partial shadow of
one of the great columns, with some streaks of bright light falling from
a high window on the rich robes and diamond buckles of his eminence, I
was struck by the oddity of the group. The fine figure and countenance,
and magnificent costume of the Roman Cardinal,—the sybil air and look of
the British peeress, whose tall, slight form, wrapt in a black velvet
mantle, surmounted by a black hat, and one sweeping feather, such as
Rubens would have delighted to copy,—and my own “Little Red-riding-hood”
appearance (as Irish as if I had never left the banks of the Liffey)—and
again, the true impersonation of all that is most English in physiognomy
and _tournure_ in my English husband—it was a picture to fill the canvas
of a Callot or a Caravaggio! What was most odd in all this, was the
conjunction of personages so apparently incongruous. This could not
have happened fifty years back. What effected it now? The “march of
intellect!” with its seven-league boots, like those of the Marquis of
Carabas! Ochone! a little wild Irish woman to march from the banks of
the Bog of Allan, to hold a colloquy sublime on the banks of the Tiber,
on the _Mons Quirinalis_, with a Roman Cardinal.—That is a march with a
vengeance!
FRENCH POETRY.
“Every body,” says sturdy Johnson, “has a right to say what he likes,
and every body has a right to knock him down for it;”—a canon of
criticism, of which the disputants of our days have not been slow to
avail themselves. As far, at least, as a virtual and constructive
knock-down blow is concerned, it is the favourite syllogism of reviewers,
pamphleteers, and parliamentary orators. For my own part, I have always
said what I liked, and I have been knocked down for it pretty often, from
Pontius to Pilate; that is, from Gifford to Croly. I am rather popular,
I flatter myself, in France; and yet the French have never pardoned my
scepticism with respect to the unrivalled poetical merits of Racine; and
they have not always sparred with the gloves on, in their application of
the Johnsonian maxim to my case. Still I say, that Racine is no poet,
according to our northern ideas of poetry. The French are too apt to
mistake rhymes and rhetoric for poetry. A French gentleman, in speaking
of a young Parisian Sappho, said to me, the other day, “_Elle fait des
vers comme un ange!_”[50] Making verses, however, is not writing poetry;
and the very phraseology demonstrates a rooted difference in the ideas of
the two nations on the subject.
Generally speaking, French poetry is but metrical prose. Stripped of its
rhymes, and released from the ties of measure, there is little in it of
that imagery, in which we imagine poetry to consist. I should say, in my
ignorance, that Beranger is the truest living poet of his country. His
writings are in character with the genius, and language, and temperament
of his nation, which is essentially witty, intellectual, full of
philosophy and thought; and I would rather have written one verse of one
of his delightful patriotic songs, than a whole volume of _Henriades_ and
_Jardins_.
It is no bad compliment to a nation, to say that it is not poetical. The
finest poets have flourished in the most barbarous times. When the people
know nothing, they are thrown upon the exaggerations of fancy; and the
poverty of a language is among the most pregnant occasions of poetical
diction. Homer, Hesiod, David, Ossian, Dante, Chaucer, are among the
greatest poets extant; yet, in what times did they write! The structure
of the French language, also, with its mute vowels, surrounds the mere
fabric of verse with such difficulties, as are only to be conquered by
a laborious study. The nation, therefore, is more struck by the merit
of style, than of matter; and the habits of the Parisians are so alien
from all acquaintance with nature—so tied down to conventional notions
and feelings, that a Schiller or a Shakspeare would not be understood
by them. Above all, the dread of ridicule, the predominant vice of the
French _morale_, effectually prevents an indulgence in those _élans_
of sentiment, without which genuine poetry, in the English sense of the
word, cannot exist. The fact is, that the standard of excellence is not
the same in London and Paris; and international criticism is pretty much
the dispute of the two knights, respecting the colour of the shield, of
which they did not see the same side.
IDLENESS OF GENIUS.
I said, not long since, to Mr. ——, “Nobody tolerates, or even likes, a
thorough-going, genuine, conscious coxcomb, more than I do—one who has
taken up the profession coolly and deliberately, like the Brummels, &c.
&c. of old. But I cannot stand your friend: he is such a dull dandy, and
nothing but a dandy.”
“No, I assure you,” was the reply; “he is by no means deficient. He has,
on the contrary, considerable talent; but he is so indolent. How often do
you see great talents rendered inefficient by indolence!”