PART III.—1842. (continued 4)

But a thousand times over I would go to listen to the Miserere in the Sistine Chapel; that spot made sacred by the most sublime works of Michael Angelo. I do not allude to the Last Judgment—which I do not admire—but to the paintings on the roof, which have that simple grandeur that Michael Angelo alone could confer on a single figure, making it complete in itself—enthroned in majesty—reigning over the souls of men.

The music, not only of the Miserere, but of the Lamentations, is solemn, pathetic, religious—the soul is rapt—carried away into another state of being. Strange that grief, and laments, and the humble petition of repentance, should fill us with delight—a delight that awakens these very emotions in the heart—and calls tears into the eyes, and yet which is dearer than any pleasure. It is one of the mysteries of our nature, that the feelings which most torture and subdue, yet, if idealized—elevated by the imagination—married harmoniously to sound or colour—turn those pains to happiness; inspiring adoration; and a tremulous but ardent aspiration for immortality. Such seems the sentient link between our heavenly and terrestrial nature; and thus, in Paradise, as Dante tells,—glory 232beatifies the sight, and seraphic harmony wraps the saints in bliss.

Another sight of this week, is the washing of the feet of the pilgrims. The ladies of Rome belong to a sisterhood who perform this service on Good Friday for the female pilgrims. The hospital of the Pelegrini was crowded; we could hardly make our way. In my life I never saw so much female beauty as among the sisterhood—their faces so perfect in contour; so lovely in expression; so noble, and so soft, that the recollection will haunt my memory for ever.

I went to mass at the Church of the Jesuits—as usual glittering with ornaments, precious stones, wax-lights, and all manner of finery. The music was in the same style—well suited for the Opera-house; it would there have enchanted; but it wanted that solemn, religious descant, which awed the spirit in the Sistine Chapel.

The illumination of St. Peter’s terminated the sights of the week—that and the fire-works of the Castel Sant’ Angelo.—There is more of creation in the first of these sights than in any other in the world. It is but a dim, and scant, and human imitation of the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis; but it is an imitation of the most sublime act of divine power; and though bearing but a 233very weak resemblance to what we imagine of the moment when, on a word, light disclosed the glories of creation, yet, there is darkness, and radiance sudden and dazzling bursts forth, and—it is very fine.

It is curious to see all these solemnities—many of them doubtless of Pagan origin—dear to the people, and therefore preserved and christianised by the Popes—and to reflect, that such, for many, many centuries, was the chief link fostered by religion between man and the Divinity. We have obliterated all this among ourselves. No doubt the impulse of piety in the heart is a truer and purer oblation; but Catholics reason that these are aids and supports to enable weak humanity—a creature half matter, half soul—to sustain itself in its pious ecstacies. Besides, God created in us not only the sense of, but also in some degree the power of creating the beautiful; and is it not well to dedicate to divine worship the glorious gifts which were bestowed for the purpose of raising the soul from earth and linking it to Heaven?

234

LETTER XX. The Pontifical States.

May 3.

“Wherever the Catholic religion is established, I have uniformly observed indolence, with its concomitants, dirt and beggary, to prevail; and the more Catholic is the place, the more they abound.”^[35] These are the words of a clever writer, well acquainted with Rome, àpropos of Rome. It must be added, that wherever the Catholic religion prevails, great works of charity subsist. During the time of Catholicism, charitable institutions, as is well known, abounded all over England—in some few obscure corners such still survive, where the old may find a peaceful refuge—not in crowded receptacles, where they are looked on as useless burthens on a heavily-taxed parish—but in decent almshouses, bordering grassy enclosures, near gardens that supply their table; peaceful nooks, where the aged may converse with nature, and find the way to the grave soothed 235by that calm so dear to declining years.^[36] Jesus Christ so forcibly recommended the poor to all who professed his religion, that, in common with all other Christians, every good Catholic considers works of charity to be his paramount duty. One of the most enlightened, Pascal, gave a touching proof of this, when, on his death-bed, he only admitted his pains to be soothed by careful nursing, on condition that two paupers in the same state should receive the same attentions in an adjoining apartment. The poor were to him objects of real and tender affection.

As eleemosynary charity is an essential portion of Catholicism, we may expect that it should flourish in the capital of the Catholic world. There are many beggars, but there is no absolute want, at Rome. Beggary is a condition, and it becomes a matter of favour to be allowed to beg. Plates of metal are given to such as are permitted, and fastened to the arm of poor deformed objects, who are to be found in every corner of the city, asking alms. Many convents distribute food regularly at different hours, when all who ask may have. There is, besides, a house of industry, I hear, carried on on excellent principles. There are, to 236the destruction of the savings of the poor, state lotteries all over Italy. It was considered that this demoralising gambling ought not to be kept up in the capital of the head of the church: but it was argued that a love of putting in the lottery could not be rooted out, and while Naples, Tuscany, and Venice had lotteries, the Romans would send their money to those states, if they could not be indulged at home. A Roman lottery therefore exists, and the proceeds go to keep up a house of industry. Here a number of young people are taught various trades. Young men are apprenticed, and girls receive dowries, while the old people have a home that smoothes their passage to the grave. Besides these conventual aids and government institutions, there are many confraternities of citizens whose bond of duty is charity to the sick and poor. People of all classes of society belong to them, and meet on an equal footing. The city is divided into several quarters, and the various confraternities have each one assigned to them, which they visit and relieve.

Several of the persons I know remained in Rome during the visitation of the cholera in 1837, and they still vividly remember the horror of the time.

It was a conviction, a superstition, nourished by the church, that this fatal epidemic would spare 237the Holy City, and the arguments urged to prove its exemption were absurd, and yet horrible to hear. When the great heats of August set in, and a few cases began to be mentioned, the government, grown frantic through mingled terror and folly, thought only of convincing the people that Rome would be spared. The pest might be said to have been welcomed by illuminations and processions, and its virulence propagated and fixed by the poor people being encouraged to go about barefoot, while their last coin was drained from them to buy oil for lamps to burn in the churches. The stench and heat in these edifices became of itself pestilential, for the summer was more sultry even than usual, and the crowds that filled them were tremendous. Groups of persons were to be seen in the streets and churches, standing barefoot before the Madonnas and crucifixes, expecting to see the images open their eyes and shed blood, both of which miracles, it was averred, had taken place. But this absurd buffoonery sunk into insignificance compared with the dreadful ideas purposely put into the people’s minds about poison; in the early stage of the epidemic, several persons fell victims to the frenzy thus occasioned.

In the middle of August the most splendid illuminations had place all over Rome,—a thanksgiving 238to God for sparing the city. On the 15th, the Pope set out in procession to accompany a famous black Madonna from the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore to St. Peter’s. Thrice he was stopped by storms. People crowded in to join from all the towns and villages in a circuit of many miles. The vast concourse, the excitement of the procession, and the violent rains to which they were exposed, barefoot and bareheaded, tended only to exasperate the power of the epidemic. On that day many persons died: the illusion vanished—it was admitted that the cholera was in Rome. Strangers and nobles fled, and for two months the most fearful scenes had place. The dead-cart went all night—people fell down in the streets, convulsed by the frightful spasms of that terrible disease; 15,000 persons (about one in ten of the whole population, 150,000) died at Rome.

The Pope shut himself up in the Quirinal. Every one who entered the palace was obliged to undergo fumigation—a thing abhorrent to the Romans, who detest every kind of perfume. An imperative order was issued that the cardinals, the heads of government, and various employés, should not quit the city—but it was very ill obeyed—government was indeed paralysed, and great fears were entertained, especially at first, of the violence 239of the ignorant and wretchedly misguided people. “If you were to imagine the devil insane,” wrote an English gentleman, “it might give you some notion of the state of things, and they already talk of sending for some Austrian troops.” As the epidemic pursued its course, the people grew at first familiar with it, and then cowed. Their state was most horrible. I have heard, from one who was on the spot, that it was greatly to be doubted whether all who were borne nightly in the dead-carts to hideous, unhonoured sepulture, really died of cholera. There was reason to believe that many were victims of a virulent typhus, brought on by acts of superstition and excessive fear—and, worse still, that numbers died of starvation. The administrators of government having for the most part fled or shut themselves up—a strict cordon being drawn round the city, and the neighbourhood struck with inconceivable panic—food grew scarce, and the poor wretches who had spent their last in propitiating Heaven by lamps and candles, without money and without succour, died of want.

Yet there was not absent many redeeming touches in the dark picture of the times. The regular clergy fulfilled their duties unshrinkingly; and the conduct of the Jesuits was particularly 240admirable. They visited every corner of the city, watching by death-beds with unwearied zeal. They were seen taking, with gentle care, babes from the sides of their mothers, who lay dead in the streets, wrapping them tenderly in their black gowns, and carrying them to places appointed for their refuge. The confraternities also did not desert their post. A Roman told me he was one of three brothers; they removed their aged father to a safe place, at a distance from contagion, and remained themselves: they were employed at different quarters of the city. “I never felt happier,” said my informant; “our father was in safety; we had no fears for ourselves. All day we were busied among the sick, and when we met in the evening, it was with light hearts; the employment gave us something to do and to think about; the dangers we might be supposed to run, endeared us to each other. I remember now with regret the sort of exhilaration with which we met, thanked God for our preservation, and then again went to our task, not only without fear, but with a feeling of gladness superior to every other happiness.” The few English, also, who remained, displayed unshrinking courage. Lord C——, in particular, a Catholic nobleman, acted with a heroism that shamed the Cardinals and heads of the state. He earnestly 241strove to prove how erroneous was the fear of contagion; the succour he brought, and the example he displayed, were of the utmost utility, and saved many, many lives.

The country round Rome, each town and village within its cordon, was left pretty much to itself. No disturbances occurred, and the people showed themselves much more capable than could have been supposed, of self-government. One English family took refuge at Olèvano, a small town, some fifteen miles from Rome. They went thither without the intention of remaining; they took very little money with them, and could get nothing from Rome: the people of this little place showed them a kindness at once singular and touching. They not only provided them with provisions, but exerted themselves to please and amuse them. Each day some little fête was given by the mere country people for their diversion; so that they seemed, like the personages of the Decameron, to have escaped from a city of the pest, to enjoy the innocent pleasures of life with the greater zest.

Such is the amiable and courteous disposition of this people, except when their violent passions urge them to crimes, which they scarcely look on as wicked; for they are taught (for heresy, read any sin against the ordinances of the church)

242“Il gran peccato è l’eresia! che gli altri

Pesan men d’una piuma, e se ne vanno

Con un segno di croce.”^[37]

Where men’s wants are few and easily supplied, where a benignant climate clothes the earth in abundance, and nature is the indulgent mother instead of the stern overseer of our species, men have leisure, and, if they are idle, they become vicious. The air of Rome inspires lassitude, and renders the inhabitants inert. The Romans who live in the healthy parts of the city are all inclined to grow fat; their language, unidiomatic, and, so to speak, long-winded in its expressions, is pronounced with a grace of accent, a slow and melodious emphasis, that renders it more agreeable than any other Italian to the ears of strangers, and is strangely in harmony with the dreamy contentment of their minds. Accustomed to receive and to gain by foreigners, they are courteous, amiable, and ready to serve; there is among them an air of easy indolence, which, though it militates against our notions of manly energy, yet is never brutalized into stupidity. The women are among the most beautiful of the Italians. You feel as if all lived under a spell; and so they do; for, troubled and unquiet as is the rest of the papal dominions, Rome and its 243immediate neighbourhood remains in a sort of hazy apathy. The Pope appreciates highly their passive submission, and does all he can to keep them from communicating with the discontented districts. For this reason he is opposed to the construction of railroads; that, as he says, his revolutionary subjects of the East may not corrupt his obedient children of the West.

To the outward eye, the papal government pays a slight tribute to the increased demands of the times. There is more decency in the lives of the clergy; there is more done for the poor. But it is not eleemosynary charity that is needed—it is the spirit of improvement, just laws and an upright administration—none of these exist; and even scientific knowledge, encouraged in other parts of the peninsula, is forbidden. Meanwhile, penal laws are slight, and seldom enforced. There is, some fifteen miles from the city, a miserable collection of huts, in the middle of a tract of country, the peculiar haunt of mal’ aria; it is called Campo Morto, and is an asylum of the Church. All criminals, who fear being taken, fly hither. The spot, consecrated as an asylum, is watched by soldiers. The fugitive who once enters the fatal bounds, never dares leave them. Three years is the extent to which a man can drag out 244existence in this pestilential atmosphere. So here the hardened criminal comes to die, in his desire to escape from death. He is soon struck by fever, grows feeble and emaciated; and at his appointed hour is gathered to the grave.

The papal government is considered the worst in Italy; and the temporal rule of the Church is looked upon as the chief source of the nation’s misfortunes. This is no novel assertion. You may remember Dante’s apostrophe:—

“Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre,

Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote,

Che da te prese il primo ricco patre.”

In the middle ages the temporal power of the Popes urged them on to many acts of unjustifiable aggression; yet, as the faith of nations in those days made them strong, the people were, for the most part, their friends; kings, their enemies—and often they made the latter tremble on their thrones, while they showed themselves the protectors of the former. The Popes were then Guelphs, and watched over civil liberty, till attachment to temporal riches turned them into Ghibellines, and led them to support the pretensions of sovereigns to absolute power. Savanorola denounced this unholy alliance as subversive of the purity, and even existence, of the Church. As faith decayed, and reform grew 245imminent, the compact between the head of a religion that preached equality, and the sovereigns who aimed at despotism, was sealed: while as the revenues of the Church, so lately swollen by tributes from all the Christian world, decreased, the pontiffs clung more tenaciously to the few miles of territory which they claimed as their own.^[38]

Before the first French Revolution, English travellers denounced the temporal rule of the Popes 246as corrupt and odious; it subsists now as it did then—only things are worse—partly, because all that does not improve must deteriorate; partly, that the uses and end of government are better understood, and abuses become more torturing and intolerable; and partly, because the checks and restraints which time and custom opposed to their tyranny are now all swept away.

The Pope and his prelates, alone, are invested with political, legislative, and administrative authority, and constitute the State. From education and from system they are despotic, and repel every liberal notion, every social progress. The people pay and obey: all the offices, all the employments, great and small, are in the hands of the clergy. From the Pope to the lowest priestly magistrate, all live on the public revenues, whence springs a system of clients, which existing principally in Rome, yet extends over the whole of the papal dominions, and creates a crowd of dependants devoted to the clergy. Corruption is the mainspring of the State, which rests on the cupidity which the absence of all incentive to, or compensation for, honest labour inspires: yet nearly all are poor, and poorest is the Head of the whole; who, shrinking from all improvement, fearful if the closed valves were opened, he should admit in one rushing stream, with industry 247and knowledge, rebellion, yet finds that the fresh burthens which his necessities cause him to impose on the people fail to increase his revenue.

The Romans, themselves, submit without repining, their state has existed, such as it is, for centuries; the abode of the Pope and concourse of strangers enrich—the Church ceremonies amuse them. But out of Rome the cry has been loud, and will be repeated again and again. The Marches bordering the Adriatic, Romagna and the four legations, (four cities, each governed by a Cardinal legate), suffer evils comparatively new to them; and the memory of better days incites them to endeavour to recover their former independence. These states formed, it is true, a portion of the pontifical dominions before the French revolution; but they existed then on a different footing, and enjoyed privileges of which they are now deprived. Bologna in especial considers herself aggrieved.

During the reign of Pope Nicholas V., driven by the political necessities of the times, Bologna placed itself under the protection of the papal government. The city engaged to pay an annual tribute, and to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Pontiff, while he, on the other hand, guaranteed its independence, and a representative senate to rule the state. Such was its position till the French invasion 248of 1796. The Congress of Vienna, in 1814, among its other misdeeds, made over the four legations to the Pope. They became a part of the patrimony of St. Peter; their municipal rights were abolished, and, contrary to every stipulation, they were reduced to the same condition as the ancient subjects of the Pope. At first the Pontiffs thought it necessary to take some steps to reconcile them to the loss of their ancient privileges. They promised them laws in accordance with the improved notions of the times; and that the code of Napoleon should continue in force. These promises were never fulfilled, and a farrago of laws was imposed impossible to be understood, and for ever changing; as each new Pope, supported by his infallibility, makes new ones at pleasure, while the corrupt mode in which they are administered increases the vexation of the people. A diminution of their burthens was also promised, but they continued as high as ever, without those attendant circumstances, that, in the time of the French, compensated for heavy taxations. Money was then spent in constructing roads and other useful public works; now the whole treasure is employed to pension the clergy, and to support in splendour the state and luxury of the Cardinals.

249

LETTER XXI. Insurrection of 1831.—Occupation of Ancona by the French.

If a revolutionary spark is lighted up any where in Europe, the fire bursts forth in Italy. The misgovernment above mentioned is the cause that latterly Romagna has been the centre of these insurrectionary movements, but there has never been sufficient union or strength to secure success. When the French revolution of 1830 occurred, the surviving Carbonari and the heads of other secret societies believed that the moment was propitious to their designs. The government of Louis-Philippe, desirous of drawing away from France the storm that brooded over her from Russia and Austria, excited two unfortunate enslaved countries, Poland and Italy, to rebel. It proclaimed the principle of non-intervention. Marshal Soult exclaimed in the Chamber of Peers:—“The principle of non-intervention shall henceforth be ours; but on condition that it shall be respected by others.” These 250solemn declarations satisfied the Italian conspirators. Central Italy, that is, the northern pontifical states in chief, with the duchy of Modena, was to be the focus of their movement, and the chiefs believed that they would be strong enough, at least in Romagna, to cope with the armies of their sovereign, if Austria were not permitted to pour its tens of thousands beyond the boundaries of Lombardy.

I have asked Italians for some account of the troubles of those times. “I fear,” was the reply, “that it will be difficult to tell any thing worthy to be recorded. Horrible disasters, acts of incredible bravery, admirable instances of self-devotion, were found side by side with atrocious crimes; but all so scattered and individual, that it is scarcely possible to group the events together so as to form a narrative.”

Discontent, particularly among the upper classes, was general all over Italy; yet few were willing to risk life and fortune for a cause of which they despaired. The actual revolt was therefore confined to the heads of the secret societies—many of them in exile, and a few thousand young men. The want of talent in some, and of honesty in others among the leaders, led to every disaster. They roused and gathered together bands of ardent youths, holding out to them false hopes of a judicious and wellregulated 251insurrection, aided by the power of France. Five thousand lads, chiefly of good birth, taken from their boyish studies, withdrawn from the caresses of their mothers, from the pleasures of their homes, without experience, without forethought, who had scarcely reached the threshold of life—rash and untaught, embarked on the difficult and dangerous path of revolt. Their only tie in common was the desire of driving the stranger from their country. They had none to counsel, none to encourage, none to lead; they entrusted the conduct of their attempt to men who, either from timidity or treachery, hung back when they ought to have shewn boldness, and neutralised the small power of aggression which they possessed. They were confronted by a hundred thousand Imperialists, veteran soldiers, supported by all the material of war.

The result was such as might have been expected. As soon as Louis-Philippe felt secure on his throne, he was eager to see an end put to the commotions excited by the revolution of thirty. He deserted the Italian cause. The leaders had no boldness, no military skill—the youths whom they commanded showed bravery, but were too inefficient, few, and ill-armed, to cope with a large, disciplined, and veteran army. The end was defeat and surrender; then came the violation of treaties, death, and exile. It would 252strike with pity the coldest heart to draw but a slight sketch of the various misery that befel individuals. Many a domestic drama of harrowing tragic interest convulsed families, deprived of their noblest offspring; and whether the bereaved parents were base enough to disclaim and cast them forth, or whether they mourned in bitterness over their fate, the misery was the same. It is not yet ended: England and France still swarm with unfortunate exiles—the better portion of the insurgents, who sigh to return to their country, but who will not in hardship and banishment, make those sacrifices of principle which would at once restore them to rank and wealth.

The occupation of Ancona by the French is an event quite distinct from the insurrection of Romagna, though our vague recollections confuse them together. Abandoned by the French, hemmed in by an Austrian army, the insurgents had surrendered, and the pontifical flag again waved over the citadel of Ancona. Still Romagna was full of commotions, occasioned by their desire for some amelioration of the laws. The five Powers of Europe interfered to prevail on the Pope to yield in some degree to the desires of his subjects. His answer was an edict that overthrew all hope, and confirmed the worst abuses—the superiority of the 253ecclesiastical courts over the civil, the minor punishments for the clergy compared with the laity, and the continuation of the Inquisition. To enforce these edicts the Pope, helped by Austria, transacted a loan, and declared his intention of sending troops to occupy the four legations.

The account of this military occupation is one of the most frightful passages of modern history. The papal regiments were recruited from the prisons, and formed of bands of San Fedisti—the name of troops half brigands, half soldiers, formed by the priests in opposition to the Carbonari, whose frightful history you may find in the pages of Coletta. This soldiery committed every excess: whether they met with resistance, or, hoping to disarm their ferocity, they were welcomed in the towns as friends, the result was the same—outrage, rapine, massacre. The spirit of the people was roused, and Cardinal Albani’s army, stained by multiplied acts of barbarity, no longer sufficed for the mastery of the whole of Romagna. Succour was requested from Austria, and promptly afforded. Six thousand Austrians, dragging with them the five thousand brigands rather than troops, under the pay of the Head of the Catholic Church, entered Bologna a second time. The severest discipline was enjoined to the German soldiers, and strictly observed. Prince Metternich 254was praised for his interference; the result showed his secret intentions. The Italian populace compared the discipline and moderation of the Germans with the recent excesses of the papal soldiery, and it was hoped that an impression would be made of the preference that ought to be given to the Austrian over the pontifical sway, which hereafter might serve the former in good stead.

When the Pope declared his intention of a military occupation of the discontented provinces, the five Powers, whose ambassadors had just been urging milder measures, with one exception only, approved. England, represented by Sir George Seymour, expressed dissent, and her minister withdrew from the councils of the other diplomatic agents. On the other hand, France expressed her approbation in emphatic terms. The second occupation of Bologna by the Austrians, and the dexterity shown by Prince Metternich, however, made a deep impression on Casimir Perrier, then Minister for Foreign Affairs. This was a step in advance made by the Austrian under cover of friendship; but if Romagna was to be lost to the Pope, he saw no reason why the French should not divide the spoil, and he suddenly resolved to occupy Ancona. A ship and two frigates received orders to sail for that city, and carry thither eleven hundred men, under the command of a naval 255captain Gallois, and of Colonel Combes. General Cubières was named commander-in-chief of the expedition. He set out for Rome, by way of Leghorn, for the purpose of communicating with the Pope with regard to this seizure of one of his principal cities. The French government calculated that General Cubières would have time to see the Pope, and obtain his consent, and reach Ancona before Captain Gallois and Colonel Combes could arrive; but contrary winds delayed Cubières, while on the other hand, the little French fleet doubled the coasts of Italy with an expedition that could not be foreseen, and which indeed excited general surprise; so that when Cubières arrived at Rome he found the French ambassador in a violent rage; the tidings of the occupation of Ancona having reached Rome a few hours before; the Pontiff also was inexpressibly indignant.

Ancona was taken in the night of the 22–23d February, 1832. On their arrival, Colonel Combes and Captain Gallois did not find Cubières. He held the instructions of government, without which, strictly speaking, they could not commence the attack. They did not, however, hesitate to assume the responsibility of the assault—a resolution which they regarded due to the honour of their flag. The fleet cast anchor three miles distant from the city. 256A portion of the French soldiers disembarked without impediment, and in a short time, by a hurried march, they arrived under the walls. The gates were closed; the papal troops would not open them. The sappers of the 66th regt. broke one open with furious blows of the axe, and were aided in the work by some of the populace. The French dispersed themselves quickly in the city, disarming the posts. Colonel Lazzarini was made prisoner in his bed before he awoke; and thus, by a coup-de-main, the French possessed themselves of the city. At daybreak the rest of the troops were disembarked. Colonel Combes, at the head of a battalion, marched against the citadel. The pontifical troops, frightened, yielded immediately; the French were received as friends into the fortress, and the tri-coloured flag was hoisted. The people of Ancona co-operated actively with the French, and not a drop of blood was shed; the inhabitants looked on the occupation as the beginning of liberty, and rejoicing and gladness everywhere prevailed. The Italian tricolor floated in all the streets, and over every square. The French raised the cry of Vive la liberté! which was responded to by the Italians with tumults of joy. The governor of the province and the commandant of the piazza were made prisoners, but afterwards set at liberty; they left Ancona. The state prisons 257were thrown open, and several chiefs of the insurgents liberated. The city was that night illuminated, and the theatres resounded with patriotic songs. A staff officer got upon a bench in one of the principal cafés, and brandishing a naked sword, declared that the regiment occupying Ancona was merely a vanguard, which announced the liberty of Italy.

All Europe was astonished by this event. Austria, in its first movement of surprise, demanded categorical explanations; at the same time that the general of the Austrian troops stationed at Bologna, published a proclamation, in which he declared that the French had occupied Ancona through the same motives, and for the same ends, which had guided the Austrians in Romagna. The Pope gave immediate orders that his troops should retire from Ancona, and that the provincial government should be removed to Osimo: but this anger on the part of the Vatican was of short duration; it listened to the declarations and protestations of the French government, which had in truth no notion of favouring Italian liberty, but intended simply to check Austria, or at least obtain a part of the spoils, if the Pope lost Romagna. Sad were the conditions upon which the French were permitted to prolong their sojourn at Ancona. The part they filled afterwards redounded to their shame in the eyes of the 258Italians. They averred that the French soldiers, until the evacuation, only served as sbirri of the papal power. And while the government of France held language openly that made Europe believe that Ancona, while in their possession, was a place of refuge for the liberals, it by its acts proved to the various cabinets, that its views were in unison with those of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. A few years ago Ancona was made over again to the Pontiff, the French saving their credit by having the reputation of obtaining in exchange the pardon of some of the exiles of Lombardy; which, in fact, Austria only wanted a pretext and a fair occasion to grant.

At present the spirit of revolt is checked, but not quelled in the pontifical states. A volcanic fire smoulders near the surface, ready at every moment to burst forth in a flame. The whole of the country before disturbed, the Marches, Romagna, the four legations, together with the population of the mountains, are bound together by secret associations, and wait impatiently for the favourable moment when to break their chains. These secret societies, unfortunately, are bad means for seeking a good result; and it is to be feared that the country will never attain a high moral tone and a true feeling of independence, till the means used by their leaders are changed.

259Secret associations ought to be particularly eschewed by the Italians, as tending to foster their principal defect—their cunning. The violence of their passions, which they are so little taught to control, is the source of much crime and unhappiness; but under better laws they would be checked. The cowardice of which they are accused, I regard as a mistake: mingled with other soldiers the Italians are as brave as they—it is the want of leaders which has occasioned this low estimation of their courage. No troops will hold together who have not confidence in their generals. In all instances of their defeat it seems evident that their disasters were not occasioned by cowardice in the soldiers, but absence of military skill among those in command.

The habit of deception is the worst fault of the Italians; accustomed to look on the dark side of human nature and to disbelieve in its virtues, they are ever awake to ward off covert injury by astuteness; while the purer virtues, stainless honour and unspotted truth, belong to few (yet to a few they do belong), among them.

The evil has been fostered by the bad use to which the confessional has been put during troubled times;^[39] 260by the institution of a secret police by the governments, and by the spread of secret societies. For what is held mysterious, concealed by oaths, and carried on in the dark, must use falsehood as a shield, and terror as a weapon.

Little good, I am afraid, has been operated by these associations on the character of the people; and the real interests of the country must result from the improvement of the moral sense. Meanwhile, they occasion frequent and partial insurrections, that keep the sovereigns in alarm, but do not advance their cause. It cannot be expected that Italy should be able to liberate itself in a time of lethargic peace like the present. And the attempts of the few who, from time to time, are driven by indignation and shame to take up arms, are but the occasion of tears and grief. They form a band of hidden and obscure victims, which each year that power devours that holds them in slavery. It may even be doubted whether an European commotion would give an occasion favourable to Italy. 261We must not forget that the people are demoralised and degenerate. The present affords no glimmering light by which we may perceive how the regeneration of Italy will be effected. It is one of the secrets of futurity at which it is vain to guess. Yet the hour must and will come. For there are noble spirits who live only in this hope; and every man of courage and genius throughout the country—and several such exist—consecrates his moral and intellectual faculties to this end only.

262

LETTER XXII. Sorrento.—Capri.—Pompeii.

Sorrento, June 1.

It seems to me as if I had never before visited Italy—as if now, for the first time, the charm of the country was revealed to me. At every moment the senses, lapped in delight, whisper—this is Paradise. Here I find the secret of Italian poetry: not of Dante; he belonged to Etruria and Cisalpine Gaul: Tuscany and Lombardy are beautiful—they are an improved France, an abundant, sunshiny England—but here only do we find another earth and sky. Here the poets of Italy tasted the sweets of those enchanted gardens which they describe in their poems—and we wonder at their bright imaginations; but they drew only from reality—the reality of Sorrento. Call to mind those stanzas of Tasso, those passages of Berni and Ariosto, which have most vividly transported you into gardens of delight, and in them you will find the best description of the charms of this spot. I had visited Naples before, 263but that was in winter—and beautiful as I thought it, I did not then guess what this land is in all the glory of its summer dress.

Here is the house in which Tasso was born—what wonder that the gardens of Armida convey to the mind the feeling that the poet had been carried away by enchantment to an Elysium, whose balmy atmosphere hung about him, and he wrote under its influence.—So indeed was it—here is the radiance, here the delights which he describes—here he passed his childhood; the fragrance of these bowers, the glory of this sky, haunted him in the dark cell of the convent of St. Anna.

I know not whether I should prefer the view of the bay which his house (now occupied as an hotel) commands, to our own from the Cocumella—the scene from his windows is certainly completer; situated more in the bend of the bay, turned northwards towards Vesuvius, he looked upon a circle of mountain crags, embracing the sea; our view is more turned to the west—it is less picturesque—perhaps more sublime.

The portion of the bay that belongs to Sorrento is singularly formed. For the most part, steep cliffs rise from the water, with here and there a break, where there intervenes a short space of sands, hedged round by cliffs. The cliffs are perforated 264with caverns, some open to the air, and clothed with luxuriant vegetation; others scooped deep in the face of the rock. Many of them have been enlarged, and openings made for ventilation, and passages cut down to the sands, and up to the gardens above. Every house almost has one of these calate or descents, down from the heights above to the beach; some cut in the face of the cliffs—corkscrew galleries—some communicating with the caverns; most of them are walled up to prevent smuggling. I believe when the family to whom the house belongs resides on the spot, at their request the calata belonging to them is opened. One of the royal family had been staying at or near the Cocumella; the passage was opened for their convenience, and the keys were left at our inn; so we had full command of the descent from the garden of our house. Our calata is considered one of the best; it opens into a huge double cavern, which tradition or imagination has appropriated to Polyphemus. It is large enough for him and his flock, and within is an inner cave, where the giant-shepherd stored his cheeses, and against whose rough surface the luckless voyagers clung, hoping to escape: the rock he flung to sink the vessel of Ulysses still lies a furlong from the mouth of the cavern. In the morning nothing can be cooler than the sands shaded by the cliff; later 265in the day the sun descending to set behind Ischia, strikes on the rocks and beach, and they become burningly hot.

P—— has got a nice sailing-boat over from Naples; too small, but still a wonderfully safe, good boat, considering its size, and we have a marinaro also from Naples, to whom it belongs; he takes care of it all day, and sleeps in it at night. He is a young fellow, and certainly never shows any signs of timidity, but considers his little skiff charmed from danger within the bay; beyond, the seas are far heavier; his father ha timore and will not let him venture. He tries to persuade us to go with him to Ischia and Capri. I am shy of this—the boat is so small; but P—— and his friend often sail some miles from shore, and run down to Castelamare; and on calm days I go on exploring expeditions into the frequent and strange caves of the coast, or stretch across to the Temple of Neptune, and roam about the ruin-strewed shore. These caverns are mysterious recesses, which the fancy is excited to people with a thousand fairy tales. As I have said, some are like ours of the Cocumella, scooped out in the face of the rock—others, narrow clefts in the rock, open to the sky. Into the strangest you enter by narrow passages, just large enough to let the boat pass; they are covered at top, 266and paved by the waves, which play flickering with a turquoise tint quite peculiar and very beautiful.^[40]

The plain of Sorrento, which is spread on the top of the cliffs that overlook the sea, is shut in all round by a belt of hills—intersected here and there by narrow ravines—clefts, as it were, in the soil, thickly clothed with various trees and underwood. The plain itself is planted with orange trees. These gardens being shut in by high walls, the walks near us are not at all agreeable; therefore, when we leave our terrace, and our beach, and our cavern, it is in a boat or on mules—the rides are delightful. To Capo del Monte, which those who live nearer to Sorrento than ourselves can reach by a walk, and therefore to live nearer has advantages—but I like our greater retirement better; or to the Calmaldoli, or to the Conti delle Fontanelle, a height whence we command a view of the Gulf of Salerno, the rocks of the Syrens, and the long line of coast that runs southward, on which Pæstum is situated; and of Capri rising abrupt and dark. I can only compare the difference between these enchanting scenes and those of other countries 267which have heretofore delighted me, by saying, that in all others it was like seeing a lovely countenance behind a dusky veil; here the veil is withdrawn, and the senses ache with the effulgent beauty which is revealed.

June 3.

To-day we visited Capri. The winds here are so regular, that with the exception of a scirocco which will sometimes intervene, you know exactly in summer-time on what you may depend. At noon the Ponente rises—a west wind, brisk and fresh, which crisps the sea into sparkling waves, that dance beneath the sun. This wind goes on increasing till about five or six in the afternoon, and then dies away; at about nine or ten an air comes off from Vesuvius—a land wind, in fact—which lasts till morning. Thus to go to Capri, it was necessary to set out early to profit by this breeze, which wafted us southward to the island. I do not know anything more striking than the manner in which, as we stretch out from our bay, the island of Capri, with its two peaks and beetling cliffs, rises upon us. As we ran down towards it, headland after headland opened, and disclosed the bays between. In two hours we reached the island, and ran into the little bay in which the town of Capri is situated. We then transferred ourselves to two small boats, for 268the purpose of visiting the Grotto Azzurro. We were rowed under the high, dark, bare, perpendicular cliffs, and with anxious curiosity I looked for the opening to the grotto. The mountains grew higher, the precipices more abrupt and black, as we rowed slowly in the deep calm water beneath their shadow. At length we came to a small opening; it was necessary to sit at the bottom of the boat, as it shot through the narrow, low, covered entrance; within, the strangest sight is revealed: we entered a large cavern, formed by the sea; the hue resembles that which I mentioned as belonging to the caves of the Sorrentine coast; only here it is brighter—a turquoise, milky, pellucid, living azure. The white roof and walls of the cave reflect the tints, and the shimmering motion of the waves being also mirrored on the rock, the effect is more fairy-like and strange than can be conceived. This cave was discovered by two Englishmen, who went to swim under the cliffs, and penetrated by chance its narrow opening. It deserves the renown it has gained. I cannot explain from what effect of the laws of light this singular and beautiful hue proceeds. Partly it is the natural azure of the waves of this bright sea, which, entering, reflects the snow-white cavern, and is turned as it were into transparent milk; another cause may be, that the walls of the cavern do not reach deeper 269than the surface of the water; they just touch it—and the sea flows beneath. The water is icy cold, and the adventure would be perilous; but a good swimmer might be excited to dive beneath the paving water, strike out under the cave, and seek for wonders beyond.

After lingering some time in this favourite grotto of the Nereids, which they have, since the creation till the present time, kept sacred from our intrusion, we returned to Capri, and hired donkeys for our ascent to the palace of Tiberius, which is situated on the summit of one of the mountain-peaks of the island. We had several guides; the woman that accompanied me attracted me by her extreme beauty. She had that noble contour of countenance that I so particularly admire; a beauty at once full of dignity and expression. The sun burnt bright above, and the way was fatiguing. We clambered up through vineyards that clothe the mountains’ sides, and podere, or small farms, sown with grain, and prolific in the huge prickly pear, which grow as giants. We reached at last the remains of the palace of Tiberius; a part of the walls and many portions of mosaic pavement remain, as well as the relics of a way down to the sea, of very solid yet elaborate workmanship. The view from the summit, where a portion of the ruins has been turned into a little 270church, is more grand than anything I ever saw, The Bay of Naples on one side; that of Salerno on the other; with the coast on which Pæstum is situated, bounding the eastern horizon. There is a peculiarity in the way in which the steep promontories of the southern Italian coast abut into the sea, and in the hues of ocean, as it embraces the rocky shores, which those who have not visited the South cannot conceive; which I never saw till I came here, but which satisfies the mind that this is beauty; that here, God has let fall upon earth the mantle of glory which otherwise is gathered up among the angels!

We had brought provisions with us, and dined on the sort of platform at the summit; and here, in one of the ruined chambers, where the mosaic pavement is entire, the peasants danced the Tarantella. On mainland, this dance is forbidden, at least, for the two sexes to dance it together;—why, I cannot guess: as far as we saw, it is more decent than the waltz. The couples set and turn round each other, but without touching even each other’s hands, for these are occupied by the castanets. Two or three of the women were handsome; but none so attractive as the woman who was my guide.

As we descended, I talked to her. The wretched lot of these poor people is very sad. In England 271we see and read of the squalid condition of the poor; and when it is contrasted with the luxury of the rich, we feel deeply, “That there is something rotten in the state.” But while we are aware that our climate fearfully increases the sufferings of the poor, we know that to keep out cold and hunger is costly, and the suffering does not appear so causeless and arbitrary as in this fairy island; here, where the sun in all his splendour kisses earth, which, well cultivated and fertile, yields plenty; and where, moreover, the sea is abundant in fish; the heart rebels yet more vehemently against the hungry poverty of the hard-working peasants. Fish and meat they never touch: all that is caught of the former is taken to Naples. Maccaroni they get on festivals: at other times, they live on vegetables—nothing so wholesome as the potato—the prickly pear chiefly. The better off among them indulge now and then in polenta, the flour of Indian corn made into porridge. They have no milk; weak sour wine, or water, is their drink. One result of this bad fare is the mortality among the children. My Juno-looking guide had had four children: one only survived. Poor little fellow! he ran beside his mother; and she looked on him with anxious fondness, for his complexion and figure all spoke disease.

272To suffer is a different thing under this sky. They have had food, they work hard; but Nature is their friend; they are not pinched with cold nor racked by rheumatic pains. Thus my poor woman, in whom I grew interested, had nothing morose—scarcely anything plaintive—about her. “Sono sempre allegra,” she said. “I am gay—we ought to be gay.” “Siamo come Dio vuole.” “We live as God pleases, and must not complain. My heart aches when I remember my poor children now in Paradise; I cry when I think of them; and that little fellow,” and she cast an anxious, maternal glance on him—“he is not well” (heaven knows, he was not). “Ma, allegra, Signora”—“the Virgin will help us;” and she began, in a sweet voice, to sing a plaintive hymn to the Virgin. Poor people! their religion is hung round with falsehood; but it is a great, a real comfort, to them. Sickness and all evil comes from God, and must be home, therefore, with patience; and the great duty is to be gay under all, and to serve God with a cheerful, as well as a pure, heart. I should have liked to have tried, at least, to have done some real good to this woman, whose countenance, and voice, and conversation, gave her distinction. Nothing could be more simple and unpretending than her talk; but it had a stamp of heart, joined to that 273touch of the imaginative, peculiar to the Italian peasantry.

English tourists get very angry at the perpetual demands made on their purses during their excursions. “Dammi qualche co’,” salutes our ear too often. But, poor people, who can wonder! I have told you how they fare. At Sorrento oranges are the staple of the place—that and hewn stones; the poor man who has a mule considers himself comparatively well off; he and his mule carrying oranges and stones, support his family. They often work all night, lading the boats going to Naples with oranges, and by day they labour at the quarries. The nobles do not reside on their estates, and there is no help for the poor; there are many convents, but none among them are charitably disposed, so that, except the archbishop, there is not a single individual or community that turns a pitying eye on the ill-paid, over-worked labourers of the soil; while the abundant riches that flow from this soil and from their ceaseless industry, are drained away to Naples. The people are particularly handsome; even the old are good-looking: they say there is something in the soil and air particularly good for health and comeliness. I have seen no hags. Old women, with happy-looking faces, graced by the placid picturesque beauty of age, sit at their doors spinning. 274No one can talk to them without perceiving latent, under ignorance and superstition, great natural abilities, and that heartfelt piety which springs (as our higher virtues do,) from the imagination which warms and colours their faith. Poor people! how I long for a fairy wand which would make them proprietors of the earth which they till, but must not reap. How sad a thing is human society: yet it is comforting, even where we find the laws by which it is said to be held together—but which ought rather to be likened to an iron yoke, pressing it down and depriving it of its native strength and elasticity—yet, I say, it warms my heart when I find the individuals that compose a population, poor, humble, ignorant, misguided, yet endowed with some of the brightest gifts of our nature, and hearing in their faces the stamp of intelligence and feeling. I never lived among a people I liked so well as these Sorrentines. I hope I am not deceived: but Mr. Cooper, who sojourned here a few months, and Mrs. Starke, who lived here for years, evidently regard them with more liking and esteem than the poorer classes usually inspire.

June 15th.

Our way of life is regular enough, as in hot countries it always must be. The mornings are 275cool and pleasant: my bed-room window, with a balcony, looks on the northern mountains; and the first opening of my eyes is upon orange gardens, shadowy groves, and green mountain-tops, with peeps of the sea between. At noon, when the sea-breeze rises, my friends sail; sometimes, when the breeze is not too stiff, I join them, and we stretch out till the whole of Capri opens on us. When I am not there they venture further, and they bathe: the sea is so inviting, that they spend an hour or two in the water. We dine (and our cook being good and the viands excellent, we dine well) at two. At four or five we either betake ourselves to the boat, and cross the bay to the Temple of Neptune, which is at the point of the first headland—or the mules come to the door, and we take various rides; or, if we at times repeat the same, its beauty always seems new. We are shut out from walks in the immediate vicinity—as to trudge between high stone walls is not pleasant; but in our excursions we find plenty of occasion to clamber up and down the steep mountain-paths. The hills are bright with the broom in full flower, and the myrtle begins to show its stars among its bright-pointed leaves. On the plains, which are often found near the summits of the hills—the rocky crags rising higher round as a hedge and shelter, wheat is sown, and flourishes. 276One of our favourite rides is to the other side of the promontory, where a natural arch once stood, resembling the Presbisch Thor of the Saxon Switzerland; it is now broken and ruined. Once, going there, my friends thought that they could easily reach the sands beneath and bathe, or find a boat to take them to the rocks of the Syrens; but after a rough precipitous descent of some length, they found the way grow on them: they were apparently as far off as ever from the sea, and they returned.

I spend the evenings on our terrace. The nights here are wonderful; and I am never weary of observing the loveliness of the skies. Twenty-four o’clock, a moveable hour which is fixed for half an hour after sunset, never, in this climate, falls later than half-past eight. By that time it is night; but the extreme purity of the atmosphere gives to darkness a sort of brilliancy, such as a black shining object has. The sea is dark and bright at the same time; the high coast around does not assume that gigantic, misty appearance, hills do in the North during dusk, but they stand out as well defined as by day. If there be a moon, we see it floating in mid-air. We perceive at once that it is not a shining shape, plastered, as it were, against the sky; but a ball which, all bright, or partly dusky, hangs pendant. Its light is painfully bright; the extreme 277glittering whiteness fatigues the eye more than daylight. In the North, we often repine that we have not two moons, so always to enjoy the use of our eyes in the absence of the sun; in the South, the interlunar nights are an agreeable change, at times almost a relief. By the moonlight we can perceive the smoke ascend from the crater of Vesuvius; if she desert the night, a lambent flame shoots up at intervals. I may have wearied you by my various accounts of the evening hours which, to a lover of nature, are so enchanting. In other places a sense of tenderness, a softening influence, has fallen on my heart at that time; but here, the glory of absolute immeasurable beauty mantles all things at all times.

June 20.

——Yet not so. Lo! a scirocco comes to blot the scene. Nothing can be stranger than this scirocco: at its first breath, the sea grows dull, leaden, slate-coloured—all its transparency is gone. The view of the opposite shore is hidden in mist. The near mountains wear a deeper green, but have lost all brightness and cast wierd shadows on the dull waters. This wind coming from the south-east is with us a land wind. It rolls huge waves on the beach of Naples; but beneath our cliffs the sea 278is calm—such a calm!—it looks so treacherous, that even if you did not hear of the true state of things, you would hesitate to trust yourself to it. At a short distance from the shore the wind plays wild pranks; here and there it seizes the water as a whirlwind, and you see circles emerge from a centre, spread round and fade away. P—— went out in his boat about a hundred yards from our cavern; even there, though in apparent calm, the skiff was whirled round, and nothing but letting go the sheet on the instant prevented her from being capsized.

The heat is excessive. Every one appears to be seized with feverish illness: nobody wishes to eat or move. The early setting and late rising of the sun in this high latitude, making the nights long, gives the earth and atmosphere time to cool; and it is thus that the heat of summer is often not so oppressive as in the North; otherwise it would be intolerable. Imagine our Dresden length of day with a Neapolitan temperature: no one could bear it and live. But our nights are cool; our early mornings even chill, and thus nature is refreshed: only, this does not occur during the periods of scirocco; then, night and day, the heat lies like a heavy garment round our limbs. Fortunately, three days is its utmost, one or two its usual, extent; it vanishes as it came, no one knows how. Nature 279and our human spirits come forth as after an eclipse; the world revived looks up and resumes its natural healthy appearance.

June 23.

We have visited Pompeii. A greater extent of the city has been dug out and laid open since I was there before, so that it has now much more the appearance of a town of the dead. You may ramble about and lose yourself in the many streets. Bulwer, too, has peopled its silence. I have been reading his hook, and I have felt on visiting the place much more as if really it had been once full of stirring life, now that he has attributed names and possessors to its houses, passengers to its streets. Such is the power of the imagination. It can not only give “a local habitation and a name” to the airy creations of the fancy and the abstract ideas of the mind, but it can put a soul into stones, and hang the vivid interest of our passions and our hopes upon objects otherwise vacant of name or sympathy. Not indeed that Pompeii could be such, but the account of its “Last Days” has cast over it a more familiar garb, and peopled its desert streets with associations that greatly add to their interest.

280

LETTER XXIII. Excursion to Amalfi.

July 10th.

I have always had a great desire to penetrate into the south of Italy, which I believe to be the most beautiful country in the world; joining the rich aspect of culture to the graces of nature,

“In all her wildness, all her majesty,

As in that elder time, ere man was made.”^[41]

If I were a man, I know of no enterprise that would please my imagination more than seeking, in this district, for the traces of lost wealth, science, and civilisation. These blessings flourished in this neighbourhood at two distinct periods, apparently widely separated from each other; yet, if examined, we might find that the link had never been broken. Magna Grecia was the mother of many philosophers, and the richest portion of ancient Italy; and there is nothing violent in the supposition, that Amalfi, hemmed in by mountains, and Salerno, almost 281equally sheltered, should have preserved and extended, rather than originated, the trade and science which rendered them famous at a time when, all around, every effort of human enterprise was merged in offensive and defensive wars.

Amalfi was the first republic of modern Italy. As the power of the Roman Empire waxed weak, and the transplanting of the seat of empire to Constantinople, placed Italy in the novel position of a distant neglected province, frequently invaded by barbarians, the fabric of national government fell to pieces, while municipal communities remained. Two of these, from their happy position on the sea, and the great traffic there carried on by means of the Mediterranean, were eminently prosperous. One in the north, Venice, acquired power, and preserved its independence for centuries; the other in the south, Amalfi, was swallowed up by the kingdom of Naples, after having been pillaged by the Pisans in 1137—for thus early did municipal rivalry, the bane of Italy, begin to divide and ravage the peninsula. It seems to me that sound knowledge of the results of political institutions might be gathered from studying the state of society in a town whose citizens were, when free, intelligent and courageous—whose maritime laws, instituted at a time (the ninth century) when Europe was sunk 282in barbarism, has served as a basis for every subsequent commercial code—who covered the sea with their ships—who almost discovered the mariner’s compass. What are they now?

Their intelligence, their capacities, I am sure remain; their affections also must warm their hearts as kindly; must we not seek in their political history for the causes wherefore superstition and vice have replaced ardour for science and the virtues of industrious and brave citizens?

Though I could not fulfil in any way a favourite design of visiting Calabria, yet we have crept on as far as Amalfi. It had been my idea to spend a month in this town, when I could have told you more of the present state of its inhabitants. I was not able to do this; so, can only mention the impression made by the visit of a day.^[42]

283We had secured a boat to be ready for us at the Marinella, on the other side of the promontory, and set out on mules for the Scaricatojo, the name given to the descent from the mountain that overhangs the eastern sea. We reached the height which we had often before visited, whence a view is commanded of the two seas. To the west the Bay of Naples, landlocked, as we looked on it, by the islands of Ischia and Procida, and the promontory of Misenum; while, more to the north, the shining edifices of the city of Naples are distinctly visible, and in the depth of the bay, Vesuvius rises up immediately from the shore. On the other side, the eye plunged down from the height of the myrtle-clothed mountain on which we stood, to the sea far below, gleaming at the foot of the precipices—vexing itself against the rocks of the Syrens: eastward, the coast that runs in a long line to the south; the lowlands on which Pæstum is situated, with the back-ground of lofty mountains, was this day—as it almost always is—hidden in mist.

The descent of the Scaricatojo is very steep, and long and fatiguing. At first we made light of it; but as we went on under a burning sun, the path grew more craggy and precipitous: sometimes it was formed only of a rough sort of steps cut in the mountain side, or constructed of shattered masses of rock; or of zigzags, which grew shorter, more 284numerous, more precipitous, and more slippery, till we despaired of ever reaching the beach.

But all things human end; and at last—most agreeable change!—we were seated in a boat beneath the lofty inaccessible hills that rise almost sheer from the water, with here and there a little break, where a brief space of beach intervenes, and a town or village rises beside it. The voyage was not quite as agreeable as it might have been, for there was a swell of the sea, and our little boat was deeply laden with people. We were glad to see Amalfi open on us. Salvator Rosa best represents the peculiar beauty of the southern Italian coast; its steep promontories, the varied breaks of its mountainous shores, all green with forest-trees, adorned by isolated ruins, and clothed with a radiance which is the peculiar gift of the atmosphere of this clime; encircled by the lucid transparency of the tideless sea—for it was here that he often retreated, leading, some have said, a bandit’s life,^[43] but most surely a lover and studier of nature; his landscapes are so many exquisite views taken from this part of the country. Look at them, wherever you can, and learn in what its loveliness consists. The landing-place of the town is open, busy, and cheerful. There is a Capuchin convent most beautifully 285situated near the sea; it was secularised by the French, and long served for an hotel. The mother of the present King of Naples often visited Amalfi, and slept at this inn. The expelled monks gathered round her, and led her to consider it a matter of conscience that they should be reinstated. She obtained this favour from her son before she died; the Capuchins are come back; and travellers are turned out from what may be fairly named the most beautiful inn in the world. The present house, however, is by no means bad, and overlooks the Marina. We obtained good rooms and a tolerable dinner, being waited on by three sons of the host—handy little fellows, from ten to fifteen, who performed their duties promptly and quietly.

As soon as we had rested and were refreshed, we wished, though still much fatigued, to see something of the place. We visited the cathedral, an ancient edifice, built upon the site of a pagan temple, and rambled about the town, which is busy. Though fallen from the commercial prosperity it enjoyed twelve centuries ago, Amalfi carries on considerable traffic, and its citizens are well to do. There is a large manufacture of maccaroni, another of paper, another for working the iron of Elba. Every one can find work, living is cheap, and want is happily unknown.

286The paper-mills are picturesquely situated in a ravine, shut in by lofty mountains, beside a cascade; it was not so far but that we might visit them during the evening. Two donkeys were brought to carry us thither. Accustomed to the excellent mules of Sorrento, we were not prepared for the poor little creatures, with things on their backs which it was ridiculous to call saddles. However, I and a young lady who accompanied me mounted. If you have the book, look at the vignette to “Italy” of Amalfi; you will perceive its situation, and how just behind the town the mountains are cloven and divided by a deep ravine—our way led up this narrow pass, down which sped a torrent, whose “inland murmur,” or rather dashing, was grateful to our ears, long accustomed only to the roaring of the surges of the sea.

The scene was wholly different from anything near Sorrento. The valley and the mountain sides were beautifully green and fresh—grassy uplands shone between groves of forest-trees, and villages with their churches here and there peeped out—while the torrent dashed over the rocks, sparkling and foaming—and dressing its banks, which grew higher and more rocky as we ascended the pass, in luxuriant and bright verdure. Our first visit was to a paper-mill, whence a view of the ravine is commanded—and then we clambered up the hill-side to 287the road above. Golden evening gave a refreshing coolness to the air, and picturesque shadows to the hills. It was a scene,—an hour,—when Nature imparts a quick and living enjoyment akin to the transports of love and the ecstacy of music—it touches a chord whose vibration is happiness. Faint from excessive weariness, yet with regret I consented to return. Night with her stars gathered round us, and with much difficulty our poor little stumbling animals carried us back to the town.

This same evening we wished to prepare for our excursion on the morrow; the plan of which was to visit Ravello, and then to descend the mountain to the sea-shore—take boat, and sail to Salerno, and after dinner to drive back to Sorrento.

Our evening’s experience showed that the poor little asses were not fit for such an expedition—we must have recourse to the other alternative, portantini,—arm-chairs placed on poles, borne by two men; we required three, for the three ladies of the party. P——, and his friend, were to walk.

We were told —— but, remember, I consider all that we heard as very problematical as regards truth—we had no time to learn the real state of things, and I relate the story more to show the sort of wild excuses the Italians make when they want to carry a point profitable to themselves—losing to 288us. We were told that the bearers of the portantini all belonged to a village, Vettici, some miles up the mountain—that when these were wanted they were sent for the previous evening—locked up all night at Amalfi, to prevent them from being enticed away, I don’t why or by whom. We were told that we had arrived too late to get these men; that we must engage some of the town’s-people. We ought to have four bearers to each chair; thirty men came forward to claim the employment—and the polizia begged us to choose twelve from among them. My friends went to the polizia for this purpose—the scene was highly comic. Thirty men vociferating, insisting, supplicating—eager. Among these was the master of the boat who was to take us to Salerno, and his three sons—they were evidently respectable men, and at once selected—but among the rest who could choose? My friends could only laugh; they pointed out a dozen as possessing the best physiognomies.

We were to set out early, and therefore retired early. Night scarcely veiled the sea. The quay had been busy all day, lading ships with grain; several parties of men were still at work. It was a lively scene compared with the quiet of the Cocumella, yet so unlike were the tiny barks in the offing, and appearance of the men at work, lading and 289unlading vessels, from anything one is accustomed to that the ancient times of Magna Græcia, when the busy ports sent corn to Rome, occurred; or rather, I confess, that with me another association was awakened. When excited, the mind is apt to recur to the impressions of childhood—like sympathetic ink exposed to fire—the covert but not expunged pictures which the soul first received, revive and become visible. Les Aventures de Télémaque recurred to my mind. I was haunted by the description therein given of the busy sea-ports of Tyre and Crete. The broad luminous sea before, the jutting headlands, the not inharmonious cries of the men at work, the frequent tread of their feet, formed a sort of picture which it seemed to me I had seen in childhood drawn by the pen of Fénelon. I went to sleep while it still flitted, as it were, beneath my closed eyelids.

The morrow came, and with it our guide, our chairs, our bearers—such a crowd. The thirty men had been disputing all night as to which among them had been chosen; the conclusion they came to was, that they would all go. Travellers often (I among the number) have had the whole pleasure of an excursion marred by a struggle with guides, muleteers, &c. It is often necessary to contest a thousand points, and to resist exactions, and the 290temper gets soured, and the divine influence of nature on the mind is marred. I was determined that I would not lose the pleasure I might snatch during my hasty visit to the outskirts of Calabria, by tormenting myself with these people; for being the one of our party most conversant with Italian, the brunt of the battle must fall upon me. I made up my mind at once that these fellows should have their way, and I would be entertained instead of annoyed by exactions of all kinds.

We had our guide—an erect old man, loquacious enough, with a very amusing assumption of dignity towards the other men. We had our thirty bearers, and in addition (recommended by the police, to keep so large a band in order) two police-officers, with unloaded muskets and cartouche-boxes innocent of ammunition. Eight men devoted themselves to my chair—the best of the number, I believe; and away we went, up the rocky path through the ravine, beside the torrent, beneath the chesnut woods, climbing higher and higher up the mountain side, the bright golden morning sun flinging long shadows from the hills.

The scenery is quite unlike Sorrento; as far as earth is concerned, it is far more sublime. The mountains are loftier, and more picturesque, parted by deeper and wider ravines, terminated in abrupter 291peaks, their sides clothed by magnificent forest-trees; and when we reached a summit and looked around—travellers visit Switzerland and speak of the sublime works of creation among seas of ice and avalanches and towering Alps, bare and craggy, crested with perpetual snow; there, nature is sublime, but she shows the power and the will to harm; here she is gracious as well as glorious; she is our friend, or rather our exalted and munificent queen and benefactress.^[44]

292From the height of Ravello we gazed on a wide and various panorama of vale and mountain, spread in picturesque and infinite variety around; deep below was a sunny beach, shut in by steep headlands, and a placid, widespread southern sea, basking in the noontide heat. The cathedral of Ravello is an ancient, venerable edifice. In the sacristy were some old paintings of what may be called the seraphic school, such as I had admired at Florence. Saints, whose countenances show that they are blessed; virgins, whose gentleness is full of majesty, whose humility is that of one who, placing herself last, shall be first. Since those days men have lost the power of portraying the passion of adoration in the countenance. Either in venerable age or beautiful youth, what specimens there are in the first painters of great and good beings absorbed by grateful, joyful worship of the greatest and best of all. One of the most charming of the pictures at Ravello was an Annunciation;—the beaming sweetness of the angel, the chaste joy of Mary, spread a halo over the canvas. They told us that an Englishman had wished to buy these pictures, but the Bishop had very properly refused to commit the sacrilege of selling them.

The unclouded sun shone hotly above; there was a breeze, however, and the landscape showed green 293and fresh. Sometimes our numerous party were clamorous among one another, disputing how their pay should be shared; when the confusion grew high, our old guide—sovereign over all in his own conceit—cried, “Silenzio! silenzio!” in an authoritative voice, and the stream of sound was, for a moment, checked. They were all well-behaved towards us. We asked our good-natured sbirri, with their harmless guns, whether there were any banditti now in Calabria? All, they assured us, was safe and quiet; or if there was any disturbance, they were sent, and order was restored—by what means I cannot guess, except that the aspects of these men were peculiarly placid and peaceful.

The descent was very precipitous, much of it being down flight after flight of steep steps, cut in the rock. It was far too warm and fatiguing to think of walking, and rather frightful to be carried down. However, by turning the chair, and riding backwards, we got through it without much alarm.

The Ponente had risen as we reached the beach. The sea sparkled fresh and free. The boat was large and commodious. The master-boatman had a great sense of his own respectability and that of his sons, and of the excellence of his vessel. He spoke his own praises in a sonorous voice, keeping time to his speech with the strokes of his oar:—“Sarete 294contenti di me, Signori. Io sono un’ galant’ uomo: miei figli sono galant’ uomini: la mia barca è buona e bella. Tutti i Signori forestieri sono contenti di me.”

As soon as we had made something of an offing, the sails were set, and we changed our marinaro’s rhapsody of self-eulogy to some national airs sung by his sons. Their voices were good, and our navigation was prosperous and pleasant.

We were thoroughly tired out when we arrived at Salerno, which is less picturesquely situated than Amalfi, the shore around being low. When Amalfi was a great commercial sea-port, the medical school of Salerno was famous for its knowledge of the healing art. The students went to study in Arabia and Spain; and they returned to their native town to dispense, among crowds of rich and noble patients, the treasures of their skill. Salerno in those days was regarded as illustrious among the cities of modern Italy—the women were beautiful, and the men were honest; thus Gibbon transcribes the praise of William of Apulia—

“Urbs Latii non est hac delitiosor urbe:

Frugibus, arboribus, vinoque redundat; et unde

Non tibi poma, nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt

Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum.”

But we saw less of the remnants of this magnificence 295than even of Amalfi, for we arrived fatigued; and after a few hours’ repose and dinner, we set out in a carriage homewards. We drove through a beautiful valley towards Castelamare, between wooded hills. There is a very pretty hotel at Cava, where travellers often remain several weeks. I should prefer, however, the sea-shore at Amalfi. Castelamare is a busy town on the beach, in the very depth of the bay. Numbers of villas are scattered over the wooded sides of the mountains and through the shady valley. There is a good railroad to Naples: the distance, rather more than twenty miles, is performed in about an hour and a half. Castelamare is a more fashionable resort than Sorrento. The villas are more numerous and more elegant; the rides more diversified; the intercourse with the capital easier. It is not so well suited for a short stay, for the hotels are all in the midst of a noisy town; and the villas, which let at a high price, can only be taken for the season—six, or at least, four months. On the other hand, for excursions on the sea, Sorrento is very far to be preferred. Castelamare, at the depth of the bay, affords only a small lake-like basin for boating. To view the shores, or visit the islands, east or west, you must first reach Sorrento or Naples. In the former, you seem happily placed, 296as in a centre, to diverge at will in excursions on the water. Sorrento is in every way cheaper and more practicable for those who are not rich.

The road from Castelamare to Sorrento, about twenty miles, is excellent, constructed on the edge of the cliffs overhanging the sea. As we proceeded we gladly hailed our return to a familiar scene, and welcomed various glimpses of views which we looked on as peculiarly our own. We passed Vico—halfway—and then turning the shoulder of a headland, rattled down towards the populous plain of Sorrento—with its many villages, its orange gardens and sheltering hills—and reached our quiet hotel, where we were gladly welcomed. The Cocumella has become a home—it is a joy to return to our terrace, to breathe the fragrance of the orange-flowers—to see the calm sea spread out at our feet, as we look over the bay to Naples—while above us bends a sky—in whose pure depths ship-like clouds glide—and the moon hangs luminous, a pendant sphere of silver fire.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page Changed from Changed to

4 and trading Alstadt, and crossed the bridge which and trading Altstadt, and crossed the bridge which

11 words; schmuzig, or dirty, applied to the sheet words; schmutzig, or dirty, applied to the sheet

23 I should liked to have stayed some days at I should have liked to have stayed some days at

Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter.