We left Bologna on our way to Florence in the afternoon, that we might
cross the Apennines the following day. High Mass had been celebrated at
Bologna; it was a kind of gala day, and the road was lined with flocks
of country-people returning to their homes. At the first village we came
to among the hills, we saw, talking to her companions by the road-side,
the only very handsome Italian we have yet seen. It was not the true
Italian face neither, dark and oval, but more like the face of an
English peasant, with heightened grace and animation, with sparkling
eyes, white teeth, a complexion breathing health,
——‘And when she spake,
Betwixt the pearls and rubies softly brake
A silver sound, which heavenly music seem’d to make.’
Our voiture was ascending a hill; and as she walked by the side of it
with elastic step, and a bloom like the suffusion of a rosy cloud, the
sight of her was doubly welcome, in this land of dingy complexions,
squat features, scowling eye-brows and round shoulders.
We slept at ——, nine miles from Bologna, and set off early the next
morning, that we might have the whole day before us. The moon, which had
lighted on us on our way the preceding evening, still hung over the
western horizon, its yellow orb nigh dropping behind the snowy peaks of
the highest Apennines, while the sun was rising with dazzling splendour
behind a craggy steep that overhung the frozen road we were passing
over. The white tops of the Apennines, covered with hoar-frost gleamed
in the misty morning. There was a delightful freshness and novelty in
the scene. The Apennines have not the vastness nor the unity of effect
of the Alps; but are broken up into a number of abrupt projecting
points, that crossing one another, and presenting new combinations as
the traveller shifts his position, produce, though a less sublime and
imposing, a more varied and picturesque effect. A brook brawled down the
precipice on the road-side, a pine-tree or mountain-ash hung over it,
and shewed the valley below in a more distant, airy perspective; on the
point of a rock half-way down was perched some village-spire or ruined
battlement, while hamlets and farm-houses were sheltered in the bosom of
the vale far below: a pine-forest rose on the sides of the mountain
above, or a bleak tract of brown heath or dark morass was contrasted
with the clear pearly tints of the snowy ridges in the higher distance,
above which some still loftier peak saluted the sky, tinged with a rosy
light.—Such were nearly the features of the landscape all round, and for
several miles; and though we constantly ascended and descended a very
winding road, and caught an object now in contact with one part of the
scene, now giving relief to another, at one time at a considerable
distance beneath our feet, and soon after soaring as high above our
heads, yet the elements of beauty or of wildness being the same, the
_coup d’œil_, though constantly changing, was as often repeated, and we
at length grew tired of a scenery that still seemed another and the
same. One of our pleasantest employments was to remark the teams of oxen
and carts that we had lately passed, winding down a declivity in our
rear, or suspended on the edge of a precipice, that on the spot we had
mistaken for level ground. We had some difficulty too with our driver,
who had talked gallantly over-night of hiring a couple of oxen to draw
us up the mountain; but when it _came to the push_, his heart failed
him, and his Swiss economy prevailed. In addition to his habitual
closeness, the windfall of the ten guineas, which was beyond his
expectations, had whetted his appetite for gain, and he appeared
determined to make a good thing of his present journey. He pretended to
bargain with several of the owners, but from his beating them down to
the lowest fraction, nothing ever came of it, and when from the thawing
of the ice in the sun, the inconvenience became serious, so that we were
several times obliged to get out and walk, to enable the horses to
proceed with the carriage, he said it was too late. The country now grew
wilder, and the day gloomy. It was three o’clock before we stopped at
Pietra Mala to have our luggage examined on entering the Tuscan States;
and here we resolved to breakfast, instead of proceeding four miles
farther to Covigliaio, where, though we did not choose to pass the
night, we had proposed to regale our waking imaginations with a
thrilling recollection of the superstitious terrors of the spot, at ease
and in safety. Our reception at Pietra Mala was frightful enough; the
rooms were cold and empty, and we were met with a vacant stare or with
sullen frowns, in lieu of any better welcome. I have since thought that
these were probably the consequence of the contempt and ill-humour shewn
by other English travellers at the desolateness of the place, and the
apparent want of accommodation; for, as the fire of brushwood was
lighted, and the eggs, bread, and coffee were brought in by degrees, and
we expressed our satisfaction in them, the cloud on the brow of our
reluctant entertainers vanished, and melted into thankful smiles. There
was still an air of mystery, of bustle, and inattention about the house;
persons of both sexes, and of every age, passed and repassed through our
sitting room to an inner chamber with looks of anxiety and importance,
and we learned at length that the mistress of the inn had been, half an
hour before, brought to bed of a fine boy!
We had now to mount the longest and steepest ascent of the Apennines;
and Jaques, who began to be alarmed at the accounts of the state of the
road, and at the increasing gloom of the weather, by a great effort of
magnanimity had a yoke of oxen put to, and afterwards another horse, to
drag us up the worst part; but as soon as he could find an excuse he
dismissed both, and we crawled and stumbled on as before. The hills were
covered with a dense cloud of sleet and vapour driven before the blast,
that wrapped us round, and hung like a blanket or (if the reader
pleases) a dark curtain over the more distant range of mountains. On our
right were high ledges of frowning rocks, ‘cloud-clapt,’ and the summits
impervious to the sight—on our farthest left, an opening was made which
showed a milder sky, evening clouds pillowed on rocks, and a chain of
lofty peaks basking in the rays of the setting sun; between, and in the
valley below, there was nothing to be seen but mist and crag and grim
desolation with the lowering symptoms of the impending storm. We felt
uncomfortable, for the increased violence of the wind or thickening of
the fog would have presented serious obstacles to our farther progress,
which became every moment more necessary as the evening closed in—as it
was, we only saw a few yards of the road distinctly before us, which
cleared as we advanced forward; and at the side there was sometimes a
precipice, beyond which we could distinguish nothing but mist, so that
we seemed to be travelling along the edge of the world. The feeling was
more striking than agreeable. Our horses were blinded by the mist, which
drove furiously against them, and were nearly exhausted with continued
exertion. At length, when we had arrived near the very top of the
mountain, we had to cross a few yards of very slippery ice, which became
a matter of considerable doubt and difficulty.—The horses could hardly
keep their feet in straining to move forward, and if one of them had
fallen and been hurt, the accident might have detained us on the middle
of the mountain, without any aid near, or made it so late that the
descent on the other side would have been dangerous. Luckily, a
desperate effort succeeded, and we gained the summit of the hill without
accident. We had still some miles to go, and we descended rapidly down
on the other side, congratulating ourselves that we had daylight to
distinguish the road from the abyss that often skirted it. About
half-way down we emerged, to our great delight, from the mist (or
_brouillard_, as it is called) that had hitherto enveloped us, and the
valley opened at our feet in dim but welcome perspective. We proceeded
more leisurely on to La Maschere, having escaped the dangers threatened
us from precipices and robbers, and drove into a spacious covered
court-yard belonging to the inn, where we were safely housed like a
flock of sheep folded for the night. The inn at La Maschere is, like
many of the inns in Italy, a set of wide dilapidated halls, without
furniture, but with quantities of old and bad pictures, portraits or
histories. The people (the attendants here were women) were obliging and
good-humoured, though we could procure neither eggs nor milk with our
coffee, but were compelled to have it _black_. We were put into a
sitting-room with three beds in it without curtains, as they had no
other with a fire-place disengaged, and which, with the coverlids like
horse-cloths, and the strong smell of the leaves of Indian corn with
which they were stuffed, brought to one’s mind the idea of a
three-stalled stable. We were refreshed, however, for we slept securely;
and we entered upon the last stage betimes the following day, less
exhausted than we had been by the first. We had left the unqualified
desolation and unbroken irregularity of the Apennines behind us; but we
were still occasionally treated with a rocky cliff, a pine-grove, a
mountain-torrent; while there was no end of sloping hills with old ruins
or modern villas upon them, of farm-houses built in the Tuscan taste, of
gliding streams with bridges over them, of meadow-grounds, and thick
plantations of olives and cypresses by the road side.
After being gratified for some hours with the cultivated beauty of the
scene (rendered more striking by contrast with our late perils), we came
to the brow of the hill overlooking Florence, which lay under us, a
scene of enchantment, a city planted in a garden, and resembling a rich
and varied suburb. The whole presented a brilliant amphitheatre of hill
and vale, of buildings, groves, and terraces. The circling heights were
crowned with sparkling villas; the varying landscape, above or below,
waved in an endless succession of olive-grounds. The olive is not unlike
the common willow in shape or colour, and being still in leaf, gave to
the middle of winter the appearance of a grey summer. In the midst, the
Duomo and other churches raised their heads; vineyards and olive-grounds
climbed the hills opposite till they joined a snowy ridge of Apennines
rising above the top of Fesole; one plantation or row of trees after
another fringed the ground, like rich lace; though you saw it not, there
flowed the Arno; every thing was on the noblest scale, yet finished in
the minutest part—the perfection of nature and of art, populous,
splendid, full of life, yet simple, airy, embowered. Florence in itself
is inferior to Bologna, and some other towns; but the view of it and of
the immediate neighbourhood is superior to any I have seen. It is,
indeed, quite delicious, and presents an endless variety of enchanting
walks. It is not merely the number or the exquisiteness or admirable
combination of the objects, their forms or colour, but every spot is
rich in associations at once the most classical and romantic. From my
friend L. H.’s house at Moiano, you see at one view the village of
Setiniano, belonging to Michael Angelo’s family, the house in which
Machiavel lived, and that where Boccaccio wrote, two ruined castles, in
which the rival families of the Gerardeschi and the —— carried on the
most deadly strife, and which seem as though they might still rear their
mouldering heads against each other; and not far from this the _Valley
of Ladies_ (the scene of _The Decameron_), and Fesole, with the
mountains of Perugia beyond. With a view like this, one may think one’s
sight ‘enriched,’ in Burns’s phrase. On the ascent towards Fesole is the
house where Galileo lived, and where he was imprisoned after his release
from the Inquisition, at the time Milton saw him.[40] In the town itself
are Michael Angelo’s house, the Baptistery, the gates of which he
thought worthy to be the gates of Paradise, the Duomo, older than St.
Peter’s, the ancient Palace of the Medici family, the Palace Pitti, and
here also stands the statue that ‘enchants the world.’ The view along
the Arno is certainly delightful, though somewhat confined, and the
bridges over it grotesque and old, but beautiful.
The streets of Florence are paved entirely with flag-stones, and it has
an odd effect at first to see the horses and carriages drive over them.
You get out of their way, however, more easily than in Paris, from not
having the slipperiness of the stones to contend with. The streets get
dirty after a slight shower, and the next day you have clouds of dust
again. Many of the narrower streets are like lofty paved courts, cut
through a solid quarry of stone. In general, the public buildings are
old, and striking chiefly from their massiness and the quaintness of the
style and ornaments. Florence is like a town that has survived itself.
It is distinguished by the remains of early and rude grandeur; it is
left where it was three hundred years ago. Its history does not seem
brought down to the present period. On entering it, you may imagine
yourself enclosed in a besieged town; if you turn down any of its
inferior streets, you feel as if you might meet the plague still lurking
there. Even the walks out of the town are mostly between high
stone-walls, which are a bad substitute for hedges. The best and most
fashionable is that along the river-side; and the gay dresses and
glittering equipages passing under the tall cedar-trees, and with the
purple hills in the distance for a back-ground, produce a delightful
effect, particularly when seen from the opposite side of the river. The
carriages in Florence are numerous and splendid, and rival those in
London. Lord Burghersh’s, with its six horses and tall footmen in fine
liveries, is only distinguishable from the rest by the little child in a
blue velvet hat and coat, looking out at the window. The Corso on
Sundays, and on other high days and holidays, is filled with a double
row of open carriages, like the ring in Hyde-Park, moving slowly in
opposite directions, in which you see the flower of the Florentine
nobility. I see no difference between them and the English, except that
they are darker and graver. It was Carnival-time when we came, and the
town presented something of the same scene that London does at
Bartholomew-Fair. The streets were crowded with people, half of them
masked. But what soon took off from the gaiety of the motley assemblage
was, that you found that the masks were all the same. There was great
observance of the season, and great good-will to be pleased, but a
dearth of wit and invention. Not merely the uniformity of the masks grew
tiresome, but the seeing an inflexible pasteboard countenance moving
about upon a living body (and without any thing quaint or extravagant in
the actions of the person to justify a resort to so grotesque a
disguise) shocked by its unmeaning incongruity. May-day in London is a
favourable version of the Carnival here. The finery of the
chimney-sweepers is an agreeable and intelligible contrast to their
usual squalidness. Their three days’ license has spirit, noise, and
mirth in it; whereas the dull eccentricity and mechanical antics of the
Carnival are drawled out till they are merged without any violent effort
in the solemn farce of Lent. It had been a fine season this year, and it
is said that the difference between a good season and a bad one to the
trades-people is so great, that it pays the rent of their houses. No one
is allowed to wear a mask, after Lent commences, and the priests never
mask. There is no need that they should. There is no ringing of bells
here as with us (triple bob-majors have not sent their cheering sound
into the heart of Italy); but during the whole ten days or fortnight
that the Carnival continues, there is a noise and jangling of bells,
such as is made by the idle boys in a country town on our Shrove
Tuesday. We could not tell exactly what to make of the striking of the
clocks at first: at eight they struck two; at twelve six. We thought
they were put back to prevent the note of time, or were thrown into
confusion to accord with the license of the occasion. A day or two
cleared up the mystery, and we found that the clocks here (at least
those in our immediate neighbourhood) counted the hours by sixes,
instead of going on to twelve—which method, when you are acquainted with
it, saves time and patience in telling the hour. I have only heard of
two masks that seemed to have any point or humour in them; and one of
these was not a mask, but a person who went about with his face
uncovered, but keeping it, in spite of every thing he saw or heard, in
the same unmoved position as if it were a mask. The other was a person
so oddly disguised, that you did not know what to make of him, whether
he were man or woman, beast or bird, and who, pretending to be equally
at a loss himself, went about asking every one, if they could tell him
what he was? A Neapolitan nobleman who was formerly in England (Count
Acetto), carried the liberty of masking too far. He went to the English
Ambassador’s in the disguise of a monk, carrying a bundle of wood at his
back, with a woman’s legs peeping out, and written on a large label,
‘Provision for the Convent.’ The clergy, it is said, interfered, and he
has been exiled to Lucca. Lord Burghersh remonstrated loudly at this
step, as a violation of the dignity and privileges of Ambassadors. The
offence, whatever it was, was committed at his house, and the English
Ambassador’s house is supposed to be in England—the _absentees_ here
were alarmed, for at this rate strangers might be sent out of the town
at an hour’s notice for a jest. The Count called in person on the Grand
Duke, who shook him kindly by the hand—the Countess Rinuccini demanded
an interview with the Grand Duchess—but the clergy must be respected,
and the Count has been sent away. There has been a good deal of talk and
bustle about it—ask the opinion of a dry Scotchman, who judges of every
thing by precedent, and he will tell you, ‘It is just like our _Alien
Bill_.’ It is a rule here that a priest is never brought upon the stage.
How do they contrive to act our _Romeo and Juliet_? Molière’s _Tartuffe_
is not a priest, but merely a saint. When this play was forbidden to be
acted a second time by the Archbishop of Paris, and the audience loudly
demanded the reason of its being withdrawn, Molière came forward and
said, ‘_Monsieur l’Archevêque ne veut pas qu’il soit joué?_’ This was a
hundred and fifty years ago. With so much wit and sense in the world one
wonders that there are any Tartuffes left in it; but for the last
hundred and fifty years, it must be confessed, they have had but an
uneasy life of it.
Lent is not kept here very strictly. The streets, however, have rather a
‘fishy fume’ in consequence of it; and, generally speaking, the use of
garlick, tobacco, cloves and oil gives a medicated taint to the air. The
number of pilgrims to Rome, at this season, is diminished from 80 or
90,000 a century ago, to a few hundreds at present. We passed two on the
road, with their staff and scrip and motley attire. I did not look at
them with any particle of respect. The impression was, that they were
either knaves or fools. The farther they come on this errand, the more
you have a right to suspect their motives, not that I by any means
suppose these are always bad—but those who signalise their zeal by such
long marches obtain not only absolution for the past, but extraordinary
indulgence for the future, so that if a person meditate any baseness or
mischief, a pilgrimage to Rome is his high road to it. The Popish
religion is a convenient cloak for crime, an embroidered robe for
virtue. It makes the essence of good and ill to depend on rewards and
punishments, and places these in the hands of the priests, for the
honour of God and the welfare of the church. Their path to Heaven is a
kind of gallery directly over the path to Hell; or, rather, it is the
same road, only that at the end of it you kneel down, lift up your hands
and eyes, and say you have gone wrong, and you are admitted into the
right-hand gate, instead of the left-hand one. Hell is said, in the
strong language of controversial divinity, to be ‘paved with good
intentions.’ Heaven, according to some fanatical creeds, is ‘paved with
mock-professions.’ Devotees and proselytes are passed on like wretched
paupers, with false certificates of merit, by hypocrites and bigots, who
consider submission to their opinions and power as more than equivalent
to a conformity to the dictates of reason or the will of God. All this
is charged with being a great piece of cant and imposture: it is not
more so than human nature itself. Popery is said to be a _make-believe_
religion: man is a _make-believe_ animal—he is never so truly himself as
when he is acting a part; he is ever at war with himself—his theory with
his practice—what he would be (and therefore pretends to be) with what
he is; and Popery is an admirable receipt to reconcile his higher and
his lower nature in a beautiful _equivoque_ or _double-entendre_ of
forms and mysteries,—the palpableness of sense with the dim abstractions
of faith, the indulgence of passion with the atonement of confession and
abject repentance when the fit is over, the debasement of the actual
with the elevation of the ideal part of man’s nature, the Pagan with the
Christian religion; to substitute lip-service, genuflections, adoration
of images, counting of beads, repeating of _Aves_ for useful works or
pure intentions, and to get rid at once of all moral obligation, of all
self-control and self-respect, by the proxy of maudlin superstition, by
a slavish submission to priests and saints, by prostrating ourselves
before them, and entreating them to take our sins and weaknesses upon
them, and supply us with a saving grace (at the expence of a routine of
empty forms and words) out of the abundance of their merits and imputed
righteousness. This religion suits the pride and weakness of man’s
intellect, the indolence of his will, the cowardliness of his fears, the
vanity of his hopes, his disposition to reap the profits of a good thing
and leave the trouble to others, the magnificence of his pretensions
with the meanness of his performance, the pampering of his passions, the
stifling of his remorse, the making sure of this world and the next, the
saving of his soul and the comforting of his body. It is adapted equally
to kings and people—to those who love power or dread it—who look up to
others as Gods, or who would trample them under their feet as
reptiles—to the devotees of show and sound, or the visionary and gloomy
recluse—to the hypocrite and bigot—to saints or sinners—to fools or
knaves—to men, women, and children. In short, its success is owing to
this, that it is a mixture of bitter sweets—that it is a remedy that
soothes the disease it affects to cure—that it is not an antidote, but a
vent for the peccant humours, the follies and vices of mankind, with a
salvo in favour of appearances, a reserve of loftier aspirations
(whenever it is convenient to resort to them), and a formal recognition
of certain general principles, as a courtesy of speech, or a compromise
between the understanding and the passions! _Omne tulit punctum._ There
is nothing to be said against it, but that it is contrary to reason and
common sense; and even were they to prevail over it, some other
absurdity would start up in its stead, not less mischievous but less
amusing; for man cannot exist long without having scope given to his
propensity to the marvellous and contradictory. Methodism with us is
only a bastard kind of Popery, with which the rabble are intoxicated;
and to which even the mistresses of Kings might resort (but for its
vulgarity) to repair faded charms with divine graces, to exchange the
sighs of passion for the tears of a no less luxurious repentance, and to
exert one more act of power by making proselytes of their royal
paramours!
The Popish calendar is but a transposition of the Pagan Mythology. The
images, shrines, and pictures of the Virgin Mary, that we meet at the
corner of every street or turning of a road, are not of modern date, but
coeval with the old Greek and Roman superstitions. There were the same
shrines and images formerly dedicated to Flora, or Ceres, or Pomona, and
the flowers and the urn still remain. The oaths of the common people are
to this day more Heathen than Catholic. They swear ‘By the countenance
of Bacchus’—‘By the heart of Diana.’ A knavish innkeeper, if you
complain of the badness of his wine, swears ‘_Per Bacco e per Dio_,’ ‘By
Bacchus and by God, that it is good!’ I wonder when the change in the
forms of image-worship took place in the old Roman States, and what
effect it had. I used formerly to wonder how or when the people in the
mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and who live in solitudes to
which the town of Keswick is _the polite world_, and its lake ‘the
Leman-Lake,’ first passed from Popery to Protestantism, what difference
it made in them at the time, or has done to the present day? The answer
to this question would go a good way to shew how little the common
people know of or care for any theory of religion, considered merely as
such. Mr. Southey is on the spot, and might do something towards a
solution of the difficulty!
Customs come round. I was surprised to find, at the Hotel of the _Four
Nations_, where we stopped the two first days, that we could have a
pudding for dinner (a thing that is not to be had in all France); and I
concluded this was a luxury which the Italians had been compelled to
adopt from the influx of the English, and the loudness of their demands
for comfort. I understand it is more probable that this dish is
indigenous rather than naturalized; and that we got it from them in the
time of Queen Elizabeth, when our intercourse with Italy was more
frequent than it was with France. We might have remained at the _Four
Nations_; for eighteen francs a day, living in a very sumptuous manner;
but we have removed to apartments fitted up in the English fashion, for
ten piastres (two guineas) a month, and where the whole of our expenses
for boiled and roast, with English cups and saucers and steamed
potatoes, does not come to thirty shillings a week. We have every
English comfort with clearer air and a finer country. It was exceedingly
cold when we first came, and we felt it the more from impatience and
disappointment. From the thinness of the air there was a feeling of
nakedness about you; you seemed as if placed in an empty receiver. Not a
particle of warmth or feeling was left in your whole body: it was just
as if the spirit of cold had penetrated every part; one might be said to
be _vitrified_. It is now milder (Feb. 23), and like April weather in
England. There is a balmy lightness and vernal freshness in the air.
Might I once more see the coming on of Spring as erst in the spring-time
of my life, it would be here! I cannot speak to the subject of manners
in this place, except as to outward appearances, which are the same as
in a country town in England. Judging by the fashionable test on this
subject, they must be very bad and desperate indeed; for none of that
stream of prostitution flows down the streets, that in the British
metropolis is supposed to purify the morality of private families, and
to carry off every taint of grossness or licentiousness from the female
heart. Cecisbeism still prevails here, less in the upper, more in the
lower classes; and may serve as a subject for the English to vent their
spleen and outrageous love of virtue upon.
Fesole, that makes so striking a point of view near Florence, was one of
the twelve old Tuscan cities that existed before the time of the Romans,
and afterwards in a state of hostility to them. It is supposed to have
been originally founded by a Greek colony that came over with Cecrops,
and others go back to the time of Japhet or to Hesiod’s theogony.
Florence was not founded till long after. It is said to have occupied
the three conically-shaped hills which stand about three miles from
Florence. Here was fought the last great battle between Catiline and the
Senate; and here the Romans besieged and starved to death an army of the
Goths. It is a place of the highest antiquity and renown, but it does
not bear the stamp of anything extraordinary upon its face. You stand
upon a bleak, rocky hill, without suspecting it to have been the centre
of a thronged population, the seat of battles and of mighty events in
eldest times. So you pass through cities and stately palaces, and cannot
be persuaded that, one day, no trace of them will be left. Italy is not
favourable to the look of age or of length of time. The ravages of the
climate are less fatal; the oldest places seem rather deserted than
mouldering into ruin, and the youth and beauty of surrounding objects
mixes itself up even with the traces of devastation and decay. The
monuments of antiquity appear to enjoy a green old age in the midst of
the smiling productions of modern civilization. The gloom of the seasons
does not at any rate add its weight to the gloom and antiquity. It was
in Italy, I believe, that Milton had the spirit and buoyancy of
imagination to write his Latin sonnet on the Platonic idea of the
archetype of the world, where he describes the shadowy cave in which
‘dwelt Eternity’ (_otiosa eternitas_), and ridicules the apprehension
that Nature could ever grow old, or ‘shake her starry head with palsy.’
It has been well observed, that there is more of the germ of Paradise
Lost in the author’s early Latin poems, than in his early English ones,
which are in a strain rather playful and tender, than stately or
sublime. It is said that several of Milton’s Poems, which he wrote at
this period, are preserved in manuscript in the libraries in Florence;
but it is probable that if so, they are no more than duplicates of those
already known, which he gave to friends. His reputation here was high,
and delightful to think of; and a volume was dedicated to him by
Malatesta, a poet of the day, and a friend of Redi—‘To the ingenuous and
learned young Englishman, John Milton.’ When one thinks of the poor
figure which our countrymen often make abroad, and also of the supposed
reserved habits and puritanical sourness of our great English Epic Poet,
one is a little in pain for his reception among foreigners and surprised
at his success, for which, perhaps, his other accomplishments (as his
skill in music) and his personal advantages, may, in some measure,
account. There is another consideration to be added, which is, that
Milton did not labour under the disadvantage of addressing foreigners in
their native tongue, but conversed with them on equal terms in Latin.
That was surely the polite and enviable age of letters, when the learned
spoke a common and well-known tongue, instead of petty, huckstering,
Gothic dialects of different nations! Now, every one who is not a
Frenchman, or who does not gabble French, is no better than a stammerer
or a changeling out of his own country. I do not complain of this as a
very great grievance; but it certainly prevents those far-famed meetings
between learned men of different nations, which are recorded in history,
as of Sir Thomas More with Erasmus, and of Milton with the philosophers
and poets of Italy.
‘Sweet is the dialect of Arno’s vale:
Though half consumed, I gladly turn to hear.’
So Dante makes one of his heroes exclaim. It is pleasant to hear or
speak one’s native tongue when abroad; but possibly the language of that
higher and adopted country, which was familiar to the scholar of former
times, sounded even sweeter to the ear of friendship or of genius.