At Home And Abroad Part 20

Beyond this, reader, my old friend and valued acquaintance on other themes, I shall tell you nothing of Naples, for it is a thing apart in the journey of life, and, if represented at all, should be so in a fairer form than offers itself at present. Now the actual life here is over, I am going to Rome, and expect to see that fane of thought the last day of this week.

At Genoa and Leghorn, I saw for the first time Italians in their homes. Very attractive I found them, charming women, refined men, eloquent and courteous. If the cold wind hid Italy, it could not the Italians. A little group of faces, each so full of character, dignity, and, what is so rare in an American face, the capacity for pure, exalting pa.s.sion, will live ever in my memory,--the fulfilment of a hope!

We started from Leghorn in an English boat, highly recommended, and as little deserving of such praise as many another bepuffed article.

In the middle of a fine, clear night, she was run into by the mail steamer, which all on deck clearly saw coming upon her, for no reason that could be ascertained, except that the man at the wheel said _he_ had turned the right way, and it never seemed to occur to him that he could change when he found the other steamer had taken the same direction. To be sure, the other steamer was equally careless, but as a change on our part would have prevented an accident that narrowly missed sending us all to the bottom, it hardly seemed worth while to persist, for the sake of convicting them of error.

Neither the Captain nor any of his people spoke French, and we had been much amused before by the chambermaid acting out the old story of "Will you lend me the loan of a gridiron?" A Polish lady was on board, with a French waiting-maid, who understood no word of English. The daughter of John Bull would speak to the lady in English, and, when she found it of no use, would say imperiously to the _suivante_, "Go and ask your mistress what she will have for breakfast." And now when I went on deck there was a parley between the two steamers, which the Captain was obliged to manage by such interpreters as he could find; it was a long and confused business. It ended at last in the Neapolitan steamer taking us in tow for an inglorious return to Leghorn. When she had decided upon this she swept round, her lights glancing like sagacious eyes, to take us. The sea was calm as a lake, the sky full of stars; she made a long detour, with her black hull, her smoke and lights, which look so pretty at night, then came round to us like the bend of an arm embracing. It was a pretty picture, worth the stop and the fright,--perhaps the loss of twenty-four hours, though I did not think so at the time.

At Leghorn we changed the boat, and, retracing our steps, came now at last to Naples,--to this priest-ridden, misgoverned, full of dirty, degraded men and women, yet still most lovely Naples,--of which the most I can say is that the divine aspect of nature _can_ make you forget the situation of man in this region, which was surely intended for him as a princely child, angelic in virtue, genius, and beauty, and not as a begging, vermin-haunted, image kissing Lazzarone.

LETTER XIV.

ITALY.--MISFORTUNE OF TRAVELLERS.--ENGLISH TRAVELLERS.-- c.o.c.kNEYISM.--MACDONALD THE SCULPTOR.--BRITISH ARISTOCRACY.-- TENERANI.--WOLFF'S DIANA AND SEASONS.--GOTT.--CRAWFORD.--OVERBECK THE PAINTER.--AMERICAN PAINTERS IN ROME.--TERRY.--GRANCH.--HICKS.-- REMAINS OF THE ANTIQUE.--ITALIAN PAINTERS.--DOMENICHIMO AND t.i.tIAN.--FRESCOS OF RAPHAEL.--MICHEL ANGELO.--THE COLOSSEUM.--HOLY WEEK.--ST. PETER'S.--PIUS IX. AND HIS MEASURES.--POPULAR ENTHUSIASM.--PUBLIC DINNER AT THE BATHS OF t.i.tUS.--AUSTRIAN JEALOUSY.--THE "CONTEMPORANEO."

Rome, May, 1847.

There is very little that I can like to write about Italy. Italy is beautiful, worthy to be loved and embraced, not talked about. Yet I remember well that, when afar, I liked to read what was written about her; now, all thought of it is very tedious.

The traveller pa.s.sing along the beaten track, vetturinoed from inn to inn, ciceroned from gallery to gallery, thrown, through indolence, want of tact, or ignorance of the language, too much into the society of his compatriots, sees the least possible of the country; fortunately, it is impossible to avoid seeing a great deal. The great features of the part pursue and fill the eye.

Yet I find that it is quite out of the question to know Italy; to say anything of her that is full and sweet, so as to convey any idea of her spirit, without long residence, and residence in the districts untouched by the scorch and dust of foreign invasion (the invasion of the _dilettanti_ I mean), and without an intimacy of feeling, an abandonment to the spirit of the place, impossible to most Americans.

They retain too much, of their English blood; and the travelling English, as a cla.s.s, seem to me the most unseeing of all possible animals. There are exceptions; for instance, the perceptions and pictures of Browning seem as delicate and just here on the spot as they did at a distance; but, take them as a cla.s.s, they have the vulgar familiarity of Mrs. Trollope without her vivacity, the c.o.c.kneyism of d.i.c.kens without his graphic power and love of the odd corners of human nature. I admired the English at home in their island; I admired their honor, truth, practical intelligence, persistent power. But they do not look well in Italy; they are not the figures for this landscape. I am indignant at the contempt they have presumed to express for the faults of our semi-barbarous state. What is the vulgarity expressed in our tobacco-chewing, and way of eating eggs, compared to that which elbows the Greek marbles, guide-book in hand,--chatters and sneers through the Miserere of the Sistine Chapel, beneath the very glance of Michel Angelo's Sibyls,--praises St. Peter's as "_nice_"--talks of "_managing_" the Colosseum by moonlight,--and s.n.a.t.c.hes "_bits_" for a "_sketch_" from the sublime silence of the Campagna.

Yet I was again reconciled with them, the other day, in visiting the studio of Macdonald. There I found a complete gallery of the aristocracy of England; for each lord and lady who visits Rome considers it a part of the ceremony to sit to him for a bust. And what a fine race! how worthy the marble! what heads of orators, statesmen, gentlemen! of women chaste, grave, resolute, and tender!

Unfortunately, they do not look as well in flesh and blood; then they show the habitual coldness of their temperament, the habitual subservience to frivolous conventionalities. They need some great occasion, some exciting crisis, in order to make them look as free and dignified as these busts; yet is the beauty there, though, imprisoned, and clouded, and such a crisis would show us more then one Boadicea, more than one Alfred. Tenerani has just completed a statue which is highly-spoken of; it is called the Angel of the Resurrection. I was not so fortunate as to find it in his studio. In that of Wolff I saw a Diana, ordered by the Emperor of Russia. It is modern and sentimental; as different from, the antique Diana as the trance of a novel-read young lady of our day from the thrill with which the ancient shepherds deprecated the magic pervasions of Hecate, but very beautiful and exquisitely wrought. He has also lately finished the Four Seasons, represented as children. Of these, Winter is graceful and charming.

Among the sculptors I delayed longest in the work-rooms of Gott.

I found his groups of young figures connected with animals very refreshing after the grander attempts of the present time. They seem real growths of his habitual mind,--fruits of Nature, full of joy and freedom. His spaniels and other frisky poppets would please Apollo far better than most of the marble nymphs and muses of the present day.

Our Crawford has just finished a bust of Mrs. Crawford, which is extremely beautiful, full of grace and innocent sweetness. All its accessaries are charming,--the wreaths, the arrangement of drapery, the stuff of which the robe is made. I hope it will be much seen on its arrival in New York. He has also an Herodias in the clay, which is individual in expression, and the figure of distinguished elegance.

I liked the designs of Crawford better than those of Gibson, who is estimated as highest in the profession now.

Among the studios of the European painters I have visited only that of Overbeck. It is well known in the United States what his pictures are.

I have much to say at a more favorable time of what they represented to me. He himself looks as if he had just stepped out of one of them,--a lay monk, with a pious eye and habitual morality of thought which limits every gesture.

Painting is not largely represented here by American artists at present. Terry has two pleasing pictures on the easel: one is a costume picture of Italian life, such as I saw it myself, enchanted beyond my hopes, on coming to Naples on a day of grand festival in honor of Santa Agatha. Cranch sends soon to America a picture of the Campagna, such as I saw it on my first entrance into Rome, all light and calmness; Hicks, a charming half-length of an Italian girl, holding a mandolin: it will be sure to please. His pictures are full of life, and give the promise of some real achievement in Art.

Of the fragments of the great time, I have now seen nearly all that are treasured up here: I have, however, as yet nothing of consequence to say of them. I find that others have often given good hints as to how they _look_; and as to what they _are_, it can only be known by approximating to the state of soul out of which they grew. They should not be described, but reproduced. They are many and precious, yet is there not so much of high excellence as I had expected: they will not float the heart on a boundless sea of feeling, like the starry night on our Western prairies. Yet I love much to see the galleries of marbles, even when there are not many separately admirable, amid the cypresses and ilexes of Roman villas; and a picture that is good at all looks very good in one of these old palaces.

The Italian painters whom I have learned most to appreciate, since I came abroad, are Domenichino and t.i.tian. Of others one may learn something by copies and engravings: but not of these. The portraits of t.i.tian look upon me from the walls things new and strange. They are portraits of men such as I have not known. In his picture, absurdly called _Sacred and Profane Love_, in the Borghese Palace, one of the figures has developed my powers of gazing to an extent unknown before.

Domenichino seems very unequal in his pictures; but when he is grand and free, the energy of his genius perfectly satisfies. The frescos of Caracci and his scholars in the Farnese Palace have been to me a source of the purest pleasure, and I do not remember to have heard of them. I loved Guercino much before I came here, but I have looked too much at his pictures and begin to grow sick of them; he is a very limited genius. Leonardo I cannot yet like at all, but I suppose the pictures are good for some people to look at; they show a wonderful deal of study and thought. That is not what I can best appreciate in a work of art. I hate to see the marks of them. I want a simple and direct expression of soul. For the rest, the ordinary cant of connoisseur-ship on these matters seems in Italy even more detestable than elsewhere.

I have not yet so sufficiently recovered from my pain at finding the frescos of Raphael in such a state, as to be able to look at them, happily. I had heard of their condition, but could not realize it.

However, I have gained nothing by seeing his pictures in oil, which are well preserved. I find I had before the full impression of his genius. Michel Angelo's frescos, in like manner, I seem to have seen as far as I can. But it is not the same with the sculptures: my thought had not risen to the height of the Moses. It is the only thing in Europe, so far, which has entirely outgone my hopes. Michel Angelo was my demiG.o.d before; but I find no offering worthy to cast at the feet of his Moses. I like much, too, his Christ. It is a refreshing contrast with all the other representations of the same subject.

I like it even as contrasted with Raphael's Christ of the Transfiguration, or that of the cartoon of _Feed my Lambs_.

I have heard owls hoot in the Colosseum by moonlight, and they spoke more to the purpose than I ever heard any other voice upon that subject. I have seen all the pomps and shows of Holy Week in the church of St. Peter, and found them less imposing than an habitual acquaintance with the place, with processions of monks and nuns stealing in now and then, or the swell of vespers from some side chapel. I have ascended the dome, and seen thence Rome and its Campagna, its villas with, their cypresses and pines serenely sad as is nothing else in the world, and the fountains of the Vatican garden gushing hard by. I have been in the Subterranean to see a poor little boy introduced, much to his surprise, to the bosom of the Church; and then I have seen by torch-light the stone popes where they lie on their tombs, and the old mosaics, and virgins with gilt caps. It is all rich, and full,--very impressive in its way. St. Peter's must be to each one a separate poem.

The ceremonies of the Church, have been numerous and splendid during our stay here; and they borrow unusual interest from the love and expectation inspired by the present Pontiff. He is a man of n.o.ble and good aspect, who, it is easy to see, has set his heart upon doing something solid for the benefit of man. But pensively, too, must one feel how hampered and inadequate are the means at his command to accomplish these ends. The Italians do not feel it, but deliver themselves, with all the vivacity of their temperament, to perpetual hurras, vivas, rockets, and torch-light processions. I often think how grave and sad must the Pope feel, as he sits alone and hears all this noise of expectation.

A week or two ago the Cardinal Secretary published a circular inviting the departments to measures which would give the people a sort of representative council. Nothing could seem more limited than this improvement, but it was a great measure for Rome. At night the Corso in which, we live was illuminated, and many thousands pa.s.sed through it in a torch-bearing procession. I saw them first a.s.sembled in the Piazza del Popolo, forming around its fountain a great circle of fire.

Then, as a river of fire, they streamed slowly through the Corso, on their way to the Quirinal to thank the Pope, upbearing a banner on which the edict was printed. The stream, of fire advanced slowly, with a perpetual surge-like sound of voices; the torches flashed on the animated Italian faces. I have never seen anything finer. Ascending the Quirinal they made it a mount of light. Bengal fires were thrown up, which cast their red and white light on the n.o.ble Greek figures of men and horses that reign over it. The Pope appeared on his balcony; the crowd shouted three vivas; he extended his arms; the crowd fell on their knees and received his benediction; he retired, and the torches were extinguished, and the mult.i.tude dispersed in an instant.

The same week came the natal day of Rome. A great dinner was given at the Baths of t.i.tus, in the open air. The company was on the gra.s.s in the area; the music at one end; boxes filled with the handsome Roman women occupied the other sides. It was a new thing here, this popular dinner, and the Romans greeted it in an intoxication of hope and pleasure. Sterbini, author of "The Vestal," presided: many others, like him, long time exiled and restored to their country by the present Pope, were at the tables. The Colosseum, and triumphal arches were in sight; an effigy of the Roman wolf with her royal nursling was erected on high; the guests, with shouts and music, congratulated themselves on the possession, in Pius IX., of a new and n.o.bler founder for another state. Among the speeches that of the Marquis d'Azeglio, a man of literary note in Italy, and son-in-law of Manzoni, contained this pa.s.sage (he was sketching the past history of Italy):--

"The crown pa.s.sed to the head of a German monarch; but he wore it not to the benefit, but the injury, of Christianity,--of the world. The Emperor Henry was a tyrant who wearied out the patience of G.o.d. G.o.d said to Rome, 'I give you the Emperor Henry'; and from these hills that surround us, Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII., raised his austere and potent voice to say to the Emperor, 'G.o.d did not give you Italy that you might destroy her,' and Italy, Germany, Europe, saw her butcher prostrated at the feet of Gregory in penitence. Italy, Germany, Europe, had then kindled in the heart the first spark of liberty."

The narrative of the dinner pa.s.sed the censor, and was published: the Amba.s.sador of Austria read it, and found, with a modesty and candor truly admirable, that this pa.s.sage was meant to allude to his Emperor.

He must take his pa.s.sports, if such home thrusts are to be made. And so the paper was seized, and the account of the dinner only told from, mouth to mouth, from those who had already read it. Also the idea of a dinner for the Pope's fete-day is abandoned, lest something too frank should again be said; and they tell me here, with a laugh, "I fancy you have a.s.sisted at the first and last popular dinner." Thus we may see that the liberty of Rome does not yet advance with seven-leagued boots; and the new Romulus will need to be prepared for deeds at least as bold as his predecessor, if he is to open a new order of things.

I cannot well wind up my gossip on this subject better than by translating a pa.s.sage from the programme of the _Contemporaneo_, which represents the hope of Rome at this moment. It is conducted by men of well-known talent.

"The _Contemporaneo_ (Contemporary) is a journal of progress, but tempered, as the good and wise think best, in conformity with the will of our best of princes, and the wants and expectations of the public....

"Through discussion it desires to prepare minds to receive reforms so soon and far as they are favored by the law of _opportunity_.

"Every attempt which is made contrary to this social law must fail. It is vain to hope fruits from a tree out of season, and equally in vain to introduce the best measures into a country not prepared to receive them."

And so on. I intended to have translated in full the programme, but time fails, and the law of opportunity does not favor, as my "opportunity" leaves for London this afternoon. I have given enough to mark the purport of the whole. It will easily be seen that it was not from the platform a.s.sumed by the _Contemporaneo_ that Lycurgus legislated, or Socrates taught,--that the Christian religion was propagated, or the Church, was reformed by Luther. The opportunity that the martyrs found here in the Colosseum, from whose blood grew up this great tree of Papacy, was not of the kind waited for by these moderate progressists. Nevertheless, they may be good schoolmasters for Italy, and are not to be disdained in these piping times of peace.

More anon, of old and new, from Tuscany.

LETTER XV.

ITALY.--FRUITS AND FLOWERS ON THE ROUTE FROM FLORENCE TO ROME.--THE PLAIN OF UMBRIA.--a.s.sISI.--THE SAINTS.--TUITION IN SCHOOLS.--PIUS IX.--THE ETRURIAN TOMB.--PERUGIA AND ITS STORES OF EARLY ART.--PORTRAITS OF RAPHAEL.--FLORENCE.--THE GRAND DUKE AND HIS POLICY.--THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS AND ITS INFLUENCE.--THE AMERICAN SCULPTORS.--GREENOUGH AND HIS NEW WORKS.--POWERS.--HIS STATUE OF CALHOUN.--REVIEW OF HIS ENDEAVORS.--THE FESTIVALS OF ST. JOHN AT FLORENCE.--BOLOGNA.--FEMALE PROFESSORS IN ITS UNIVERSITY.--MATILDA TAMBRONI AND OTHERS.--MILAN AND HER FEMALE MATHEMATICIAN.--THE STATE OF WOMAN IN ITALY.--RAVENNA AND BYRON.--VENICE.--THE ADDA.--MILAN AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD, AND MANZONI.--EXCITEMENTS.--NATIONAL AFFAIRS.

Milan, August 9, 1847.

Since leaving Rome, I have not been able to steal a moment from the rich and varied objects before me to write about them. I will, therefore, take a brief retrospect of the ground.

I pa.s.sed from Florence to Rome by the Perugia route, and saw for the first time the Italian vineyards. The grapes hung in little cl.u.s.ters.

When I return, they will be full of light and life, but the fields will not be so enchantingly fresh, nor so enamelled with flowers.

The profusion of red poppies, which dance on every wall and glitter throughout the gra.s.s, is a great ornament to the landscape. In full sunlight their vermilion is most beautiful. Well might Ceres gather _such_ poppies to mingle with her wheat.

We climbed the hill to a.s.sisi, and my ears thrilled as with many old remembered melodies, when an old peasant, in sonorous phrase, bade me look out and see the plain of Umbria. I looked back and saw the carriage toiling up the steep path, drawn by a pair of those light-colored oxen Sh.e.l.ley so much admired. I stood near the spot where Goethe met with a little adventure, which he has described with even more than his usual delicate humor. Who can ever be alone for a moment in Italy? Every stone has a voice, every grain of dust seems instinct with spirit from the Past, every step recalls some line, some legend of long-neglected lore.

a.s.sisi was exceedingly charming to me. So still!--all temporal noise and bustle seem hushed down yet by the presence of the saint. So clean!--the rains of heaven wash down all impurities into the valley.

I must confess that, elsewhere, I have shared the feelings of d.i.c.kens toward St. Francis and St. Sebastian, as the "Mounseer Tonsons" of Catholic art. St. Sebastian I have not been so tired of, for the beauty and youth of the figure make the monotony with which the subject of his martyrdom is treated somewhat less wearisome. But St.

Francis is so sad, and so ecstatic, and so brown, so entirely the monk,--and St. Clara so entirely the nun! I have been very sorry for her that he was able to draw her from the human to the heavenly life; she seems so sad and so worn out by the effort. But here at a.s.sisi, one cannot help being penetrated by the spirit that flowed from that life. Here is the room where his father shut up the boy to punish his early severity of devotion. Here is the picture which represents him despoiled of all outward things, even his garments,--devoting himself, body and soul, to the service of G.o.d in the way he believed most acceptable. Here is the underground chapel, where rest those weary bones, saluted by the tears of so many weary pilgrims who have come hither to seek strength from his example. Here are the churches above, full of the works of earlier art, animated by the contagion of a great example. It is impossible not to bow the head, and feel how mighty an influence flows from a single soul, sincere in its service of truth, in whatever form that truth comes to it.