Passages from the French and Italian Notebooks Part 5

[I cannot refrain from observing here, that Mr. Hawthorne's inexorable demand for perfection in all things leads him to complain of grimy pictures and tarnished frames and faded frescos, distressing beyond measure to eyes that never failed to see everything before him with the keenest apprehension. The usual careless observation of people both of the good and the imperfect is much more comfortable in this imperfect world. But the insight which Mr. Hawthorne possessed was only equalled by his outsight, and he suffered in a way not to be readily conceived, from any failure in beauty, physical, moral, or intellectual. It is not, therefore, mere love of upholstery that impels him to ask for perfect settings to priceless gems of art; but a native idiosyncrasy, which always made me feel that "the New Jerusalem," "even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal," "where shall in no wise enter anything that defileth, neither what worketh abomination nor maketh a lie," would alone satisfy him, or rather alone not give him actual pain. It may give an idea of this exquisite nicety of feeling to mention, that one day he took in his fingers a half-bloomed rose, without blemish, and, smiling with an infinite joy, remarked, "This is perfect. On earth a flower only can be perfect."--ED.]

The palace is about two hundred and fifty years old, and looks as if it had never been a very cheerful place; most shabbily and scantily furnished, moreover, and as chill as any cellar. There is a small balcony, looking down on the Corso, which probably has often been filled with a merry little family party, in the carnivals of days long past. It has faded frescos, and tarnished gilding, and green blinds, and a few damask chairs still remain in it.

On Monday we all went to the sculpture-gallery of the Vatican, and saw as much of the sculpture as we could in the three hours during which the public are admissible. There were a few things which I really enjoyed, and a few moments during which I really seemed to see them; but it is in vain to attempt giving the impression produced by masterpieces of art, and most in vain when we see them best. They are a language in themselves, and if they could be expressed as well any way except by themselves, there would have been no need of expressing those particular ideas and sentiments by sculpture. I saw the Apollo Belvedere as something ethereal and G.o.dlike; only for a flitting moment, however, and as if he had alighted from heaven, or shone suddenly out of the sunlight, and then had withdrawn himself again. I felt the Laoc.o.o.n very powerfully, though very quietly; an immortal agony, with a strange calmness diffused through it, so that it resembles the vast rage of the sea, calm on account of its immensity; or the tumult of Niagara, which does not seem to be tumult, because it keeps pouring on for ever and ever. I have not had so good a day as this (among works of art) since we came to Rome; and I impute it partly to the magnificence of the arrangements of the Vatican,--its long vistas and beautiful courts, and the aspect of immortality which marble statues acquire by being kept free from dust. A very hungry boy, seeing in one of the cabinets a vast porphyry vase, forty-four feet in circ.u.mference, wished that he had it full of soup.

Yesterday, we went to the Pamfili Doria Palace, which, I believe, is the most splendid in Rome. The entrance is from the Corso into a court, surrounded by a colonnade, and having a s.p.a.ce of luxuriant verdure and ornamental shrubbery in the centre. The apartments containing pictures and sculptures are fifteen in number, and run quite round the court in the first piano,--all the rooms, halls, and galleries of beautiful proportion, with vaulted roofs, some of which glow with frescos; and all are colder and more comfortless than can possibly be imagined without having been in them. The pictures, most of them, interested me very little. I am of opinion that good pictures are quite as rare as good poets; and I do not see why we should pique ourselves on admiring any but the very best. One in a thousand, perhaps, ought to live in the applause of men, from generation to generation, till its colors fade or blacken out of sight, and its canvas rots away; the rest should be put in garrets, or painted over by newer artists, just as tolerable poets are shelved when their little day is over. Nevertheless, there was one long gallery containing many pictures that I should be glad to see again under more favorable circ.u.mstances, that is, separately, and where I might contemplate them quite undisturbed, reclining in an easy-chair. At one end of the long vista of this gallery is a bust of the present Prince Doria, a smooth, sharp-nosed, rather handsome young man, and at the other end his princess, an English lady of the Talbot family, apparently a blonde, with a simple and sweet expression. There is a n.o.ble and striking portrait of the old Venetian admiral, Andrea Doria, by Sebastian del Piombo, and some other portraits and busts of the family.

In the whole immense range of rooms I saw but a single fireplace, and that so deep in the wall that no amount of blaze would raise the atmosphere of the room ten degrees. If the builder of the palace, or any of his successors, have committed crimes worthy of Tophet, it would be a still worse punishment for him to wander perpetually through this suite of rooms on the cold floors of polished brick tiles or marble or mosaic, growing a little chiller and chiller through every moment of eternity,-- or, at least, till the palace crumbles down upon him.

Neither would it a.s.suage his torment in the least to be compelled to gaze up at the dark old pictures,--the ugly ghosts of what may once have been beautiful. I am not going to try any more to receive pleasure from a faded, tarnished, l.u.s.treless picture, especially if it be a landscape.

There were two or three landscapes of Claude in this palace, which I doubt not would have been exquisite if they had been in the condition of those in the British National Gallery; but here they looked most forlorn, and even their sunshine was sunless. The merits of historical painting may be quite independent of the attributes that give pleasure, and a superficial ugliness may even heighten the effect; but not so of landscapes.

Via Porta, Palazzo Larazani, March 11th.--To-day we called at Mr.

Thompson's studio, and . . . . he had on the easel a little picture of St. Peter released from prison by the angel, which I saw once before. It is very beautiful indeed, and deeply and spiritually conceived, and I wish I could afford to have it finished for myself. I looked again, too, at his Georgian slave, and admired it as much as at first view; so very warm and rich it is, so sensuously beautiful, and with an expression of higher life and feeling within. I do not think there is a better painter than Mr. Thompson living,--among Americans at least; not one so earnest, faithful, and religious in his worship of art. I had rather look at his pictures than at any except the very finest of the old masters, and, taking into consideration only the comparative pleasure to be derived, I would not except more than one or two of those. In painting, as in literature, I suspect there is something in the productions of the day that takes the fancy more than the works of any past age,--not greater merit, nor nearly so great, but better suited to this very present time.

After leaving him, we went to the Piazza de' Termini, near the Baths of Diocletian, and found our way with some difficulty to Crawford's studio.

It occupies several great rooms, connected with the offices of the Villa Negroni; and all these rooms were full of plaster casts and a few works in marble,--princ.i.p.ally portions of his huge Washington monument, which he left unfinished at his death. Close by the door at which we entered stood a gigantic figure of Mason, in bag-wig, and the coat, waistcoat, breeches, and knee and shoe buckles of the last century, the enlargement of these unheroic matters to far more than heroic size having a very odd effect. There was a figure of Jefferson on the same scale; another of Patrick Henry, besides a horse's head, and other portions of the equestrian group which is to cover the summit of the monument. In one of the rooms was a model of the monument itself, on a scale, I should think, of about an inch to afoot. It did not impress me as having grown out of any great and genuine idea in the artist's mind, but as being merely an ingenious contrivance enough. There were also casts of statues that seemed to be intended for some other monument referring to Revolutionary times and personages; and with these were intermixed some ideal statues or groups,--a naked boy playing marbles, very beautiful; a girl with flowers; the cast of his Orpheus, of which I long ago saw the marble statue; Adam and Eve; Flora,--all with a good deal of merit, no doubt, but not a single one that justifies Crawford's reputation, or that satisfies me of his genius. They are but commonplaces in marble and plaster, such as we should not tolerate on a printed page. He seems to have been a respectable man, highly respectable, but no more, although those who knew him seem to have rated him much higher. It is said that he exclaimed, not very long before his death, that he had fifteen years of good work still in him; and he appears to have considered all his life and labor, heretofore, as only preparatory to the great things that he was to achieve hereafter. I should say, on the contrary, that he was a man who had done his best, and had done it early; for his Orpheus is quite as good as anything else we saw in his studio.

People were at work chiselling several statues in marble from the plaster models,--a very interesting process, and which I should think a doubtful and hazardous one; but the artists say that there is no risk of mischief, and that the model is sure to be accurately repeated in the marble.

These persons, who do what is considered the mechanical part of the business, are often themselves sculptors, and of higher reputation than those who employ them.

It is rather sad to think that Crawford died before he could see his ideas in the marble, where they gleam with so pure and celestial a light as compared with the plaster. There is almost as much difference as between flesh and spirit.

The floor of one of the rooms was burdened with immense packages, containing parts of the Washington monument, ready to be forwarded to its destination. When finished, and set up, it will probably make a very splendid appearance, by its height, its ma.s.s, its skilful execution; and will produce a moral effect through its images of ill.u.s.trious men, and the a.s.sociations that connect it with our Revolutionary history; but I do not think it will owe much to artistic force of thought or depth of feeling. It is certainly, in one sense, a very foolish and illogical piece of work,--Washington, mounted on an uneasy steed, on a very narrow s.p.a.ce, aloft in the air, whence a single step of the horse backward, forward, or on either side, must precipitate him; and several of his contemporaries standing beneath him, not looking up to wonder at his predicament, but each intent on manifesting his own personality to the world around. They have nothing to do with one another, nor with Washington, nor with any great purpose which all are to work out together.

March 14th.--On Friday evening I dined at Mr. T. B. Read's, the poet and artist, with a party composed of painters and sculptors,--the only exceptions being the American banker and an American tourist who has given Mr. Read a commission. Next to me at table sat Mr. Gibson, the English sculptor, who, I suppose, stands foremost in his profession at this day. He must be quite an old man now, for it was whispered about the table that he is known to have been in Rome forty-two years ago, and he himself spoke to me of spending thirty-seven years here, before he once returned home. I should hardly take him to be sixty, however, his hair being more dark than gray, his forehead unwrinkled, his features unwithered, his eye undimmed, though his beard is somewhat venerable. . . . .

He has a quiet, self-contained aspect, and, being a bachelor, has doubtless spent a calm life among his clay and marble, meddling little with the world, and entangling himself with no cares beyond his studio.

He did not talk a great deal; but enough to show that he is still an Englishman in many st.u.r.dy traits, though his accent has something foreign about it. His conversation was chiefly about India, and other topics of the day, together with a few reminiscences of people in Liverpool, where he once resided. There was a kind of simplicity both in his manner and matter, and nothing very remarkable in the latter. . . . .

The gist of what he said (upon art) was condemnatory of the Pre-Raphaelite modern school of painters, of whom he seemed to spare none, and of their works nothing; though he allowed that the old Pre-Raphaelites had some exquisite merits, which the moderns entirely omit in their imitations. In his own art, he said the aim should be to find out the principles on which the Greek sculptors wrought, and to do the work of this day on those principles and in their spirit; a fair doctrine enough, I should think, but which Mr. Gibson can scarcely be said to practise. . . . . The difference between the Pre-Raphaelites and himself is deep and genuine, they being literalists and realists, in a certain sense, and he a pagan idealist. Methinks they have hold of the best end of the matter.

March 18th.--To-day, it being very bright and mild, we set out, at noon, for an expedition to the Temple of Vesta, though I did not feel much inclined for walking, having been ill and feverish for two or three days past with a cold, which keeps renewing itself faster than I can get rid of it. We kept along on this side of the Corso, and crossed the Forum, skirting along the Capitoline Hill, and thence towards the Circus Maximus. On our way, looking down a cross street, we saw a heavy arch, and, on examination, made it out to be the Arch of Ja.n.u.s Quadrifrons, standing in the Forum Boarium. Its base is now considerably below the level of the surrounding soil, and there is a church or basilica close by, and some mean edifices looking down upon it. There is something satisfactory in this arch, from the immense solidity of its structure.

It gives the idea, in the first place, of a solid ma.s.s constructed of huge blocks of marble, which time can never wear away, nor earthquakes shake down; and then this solid ma.s.s is penetrated by two arched pa.s.sages, meeting in the centre. There are empty niches, three in a row, and, I think, two rows on each face; but there seems to have been very little effort to make it a beautiful object. On the top is some brickwork, the remains of a mediaeval fortress built by the Frangipanis, looking very frail and temporary being brought thus in contact with the antique strength of the arch.

A few yards off, across the street, and close beside the basilica, is what appears to be an ancient portal, with carved bas-reliefs, and an inscription which I could not make out. Some Romans were lying dormant in the sun, on the steps of the basilica; indeed, now that the sun is getting warmer, they seem to take advantage of every quiet nook to bask in, and perhaps to go to sleep.

We had gone but a little way from the arch, and across the Circus Maximus, when we saw the Temple of Vesta before us, on the hank of the Tiber, which, however, we could not see behind it. It is a most perfectly preserved Roman ruin, and very beautiful, though so small that, in a suitable locality, one would take it rather for a garden-house than an ancient temple. A circle of white marble pillars, much time-worn and a little battered, though but one of them broken, surround the solid structure of the temple, leaving a circular walk between it and the pillars, the whole covered by a modern roof which looks like wood, and disgraces and deforms the elegant little building. This roof resembles, as much as anything else, the round wicker cover of a basket, and gives a very squat aspect to the temple. The pillars are of the Corinthian order, and when they were new and the marble snow-white and sharply carved and cut, there could not have been a prettier object in all Rome; but so small an edifice does not appear well as a ruin.

Within view of it, and, indeed, a very little way off, is the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, which likewise retains its antique form in better preservation than we generally find a Roman ruin, although the Ionic pillars are now built up with blocks of stone and patches of brickwork, the whole const.i.tuting a church which is fixed against the side of a tall edifice, the nature of which I do not know.

I forgot to say that we gained admittance into the Temple of Vesta, and found the interior a plain cylinder of marble, about ten paces across, and fitted up as a chapel, where the Virgin takes the place of Vesta.

In very close vicinity we came upon the Ponto Rotto, the old Pons Emilius which was broken down long ago, and has recently been pieced out by connecting a suspension bridge with the old piers. We crossed by this bridge, paying a toll of a baioccho each, and stopped in the midst of the river to look at the Temple of Vesta, which shows well, right on the brink of the Tiber. We fancied, too, that we could discern, a little farther down the river, the ruined and almost submerged piers of the Sublician bridge, which Horatius Cocles defended. The Tiber here whirls rapidly along, and Horatius must have had a perilous swim for his life, and the enemy a fair mark at his head with their arrows. I think this is the most picturesque part of the Tiber in its pa.s.sage through Rome.

After crossing the bridge, we kept along the right bank of the river, through the dirty and hard-hearted streets of Trastevere (which have in no respect the advantage over those of hither Rome), till we reached St.

Peter's. We saw a family sitting before their door on the pavement in the narrow and sunny street, engaged in their domestic avocations,--the old woman spinning with a wheel. I suppose the people now begin to live out of doors. We entered beneath the colonnade of St. Peter's and immediately became sensible of an evil odor,--the bad odor of our fallen nature, which there is no escaping in any nook of Rome. . . . .

Between the pillars of the colonnade, however, we had the pleasant spectacle of the two fountains, sending up their lily-shaped gush, with rainbows shining in their falling spray. Parties of French soldiers, as usual, were undergoing their drill in the piazza. When we entered the church, the long, dusty sunbeams were falling aslantwise through the dome and through the chancel behind it. . . . .

March 23d.--On the 21st we all went to the Coliseum, and enjoyed ourselves there in the bright, warm sun,--so bright and warm that we were glad to get into the shadow of the walls and under the arches, though, after all, there was the freshness of March in the breeze that stirred now and then. J----- and baby found some beautiful flowers growing round about the Coliseum; and far up towards the top of the walls we saw tufts of yellow wall-flowers and a great deal of green gra.s.s growing along the ridges between the arches. The general aspect of the place, however, is somewhat bare, and does not compare favorably with an English ruin both on account of the lack of ivy and because the material is chiefly brick, the stone and marble having been stolen away by popes and cardinals to build their palaces. While we sat within the circle, many people, of both s.e.xes, pa.s.sed through, kissing the iron cross which stands in the centre, thereby gaining an indulgence of seven years, I believe. In front of several churches I have seen an inscription in Latin, "INDULGENTIA PLENARIA ET PERPETUA PRO CUNCTIS MORTUIS ET VIVIS"; than which, it seems to me, nothing more could be asked or desired. The terms of this great boon are not mentioned.

Leaving the Coliseum, we went and sat down in the vicinity of the Arch of Constantine, and J----- and R----- went in quest of lizards. J----- soon caught a large one with two tails; one, a sort of afterthought, or appendix, or corollary to the original tail, and growing out from it instead of from the body of the lizard. These reptiles are very abundant, and J----- has already brought home several, which make their escape and appear occasionally darting to and fro on the carpet. Since we have been here, J----- has taken up various pursuits in turn. First he voted himself to gathering snail-sh.e.l.ls, of which there are many sorts; afterwards he had a fever for marbles, pieces of which he found on the banks of the Tiber, just on the edge of its muddy waters, and in the Palace of the Caesars, the Baths of Caracalla, and indeed wherever else his fancy led him; verde antique, rosso antico, porphyry, giallo antico, serpentine, sometimes fragments of bas-reliefs and mouldings, bits of mosaic, still firmly stuck together, on which the foot of a Caesar had perhaps once trodden; pieces of Roman gla.s.s, with the iridescence glowing on them; and all such things, of which the soil of Rome is full. It would not be difficult, from the spoil of his boyish rambles, to furnish what would be looked upon as a curious and valuable museum in America.

Yesterday we went to the sculpture-galleries of the Vatican. I think I enjoy these n.o.ble galleries and their contents and beautiful arrangement better than anything else in the way of art, and often I seem to have a deep feeling of something wonderful in what I look at. The Laoc.o.o.n on this visit impressed me not less than before; it is such a type of human beings, struggling with an inextricable trouble, and entangled in a complication which they cannot free themselves from by their own efforts, and out of which Heaven alone can help them. It was a most powerful mind, and one capable of reducing a complex idea to unity, that imagined this group. I looked at Canova's Perseus, and thought it exceedingly beautiful, but, found myself less and less contented after a moment or two, though I could not tell why. Afterwards, looking at the Apollo, the recollection of the Perseus disgusted me, and yet really I cannot explain how one is better than the other.

I was interested in looking at the busts of the Triumvirs, Antony, Augustus, and Lepidus. The first two are men of intellect, evidently, though they do not recommend themselves to one's affections by their physiognomy; but Lepidus has the strangest, most commonplace countenance that can be imagined,--small-featured, weak, such a face as you meet anywhere in a man of no mark, but are amazed to find in one of the three foremost men of the world. I suppose that it is these weak and shallow men, when chance raises them above their proper sphere, who commit enormous crimes without any such restraint as stronger men would feel, and without any retribution in the depth of their conscience. These old Roman busts, of which there are so many in the Vatican, have often a most lifelike aspect, a striking individuality. One recognizes them as faithful portraits, just as certainly as if the living originals were standing beside them. The arrangement of the hair and beard too, in many cases, is just what we see now, the fashions of two thousand years ago having come round again.

March 25th.--On Tuesday we went to breakfast at William Story's in the Palazzo Barberini. We had a very pleasant time. He is one of the most agreeable men I know in society. He showed us a note from Thackeray, an invitation to dinner, written in hieroglyphics, with great fun and pictorial merit. He spoke of an expansion of the story of Blue Beard, which he himself had either written or thought of writing, in which the contents of the several chambers which Fatima opened, before arriving at the fatal one, were to be described. This idea has haunted my mind ever since, and if it had but been my own I am pretty sure that it would develop itself into something very rich. I mean to press William Story to work it out. The chamber of Blue Beard, too (and this was a part of his suggestion), might be so handled as to become powerfully interesting.

Were I to take up the story I would create an interest by suggesting a secret in the first chamber, which would develop itself more and more in every successive hall of the great palace, and lead the wife irresistibly to the chamber of horrors.

After breakfast, we went to the Barberini Library, pa.s.sing through the vast hall, which occupies the central part of the palace. It is the most splendid domestic hall I have seen, eighty feet in length at least, and of proportionate breadth and height; and the vaulted ceiling is entirely covered, to its utmost edge and remotest corners, with a brilliant painting in fresco, looking like a whole heaven of angelic people descending towards the floor. The effect is indescribably gorgeous. On one side stands a Baldacchino, or canopy of state, draped with scarlet cloth, and fringed with gold embroidery; the scarlet indicating that the palace is inhabited by a cardinal. Green would be appropriate to a prince. In point of fact, the Palazzo Barberini is inhabited by a cardinal, a prince, and a duke, all belonging to the Barberini family, and each having his separate portion of the palace, while their servants have a common territory and meeting-ground in this n.o.ble hall.

After admiring it for a few minutes, we made our exit by a door on the opposite side, and went up the spiral staircase of marble to the library, where we were received by an ecclesiastic, who belongs to the Barberini household, and, I believe, was born in it. He is a gentle, refined, quiet-looking man, as well he may be, having spent all his life among these books, where few people intrude, and few cares can come. He showed us a very old Bible in parchment, a specimen of the earliest printing, beautifully ornamented with pictures, and some monkish illuminations of indescribable delicacy and elaboration. No artist could afford to produce such work, if the life that he thus lavished on one sheet of parchment had any value to him, either for what could be done or enjoyed in it. There are about eight thousand volumes in this library, and, judging by their outward aspect, the collection must be curious and valuable; but having another engagement, we could spend only a little time here. We had a hasty glance, however, of some poems of Ta.s.so, in his own autograph.

We then went to the Palazzo Galitzin, where dwell the Misses Weston, with whom we lunched, and where we met a French abbe, an agreeable man, and an antiquarian, under whose auspices two of the ladies and ourselves took carriage for the Castle of St. Angelo. Being admitted within the external gateway, we found ourselves in the court of guard, as I presume it is called, where the French soldiers were playing with very dirty cards, or lounging about, in military idleness. They were well behaved and courteous, and when we had intimated our wish to see the interior of the castle, a soldier soon appeared, with a large unlighted torch in his hand, ready to guide us. There is an outer wall, surrounding the solid structure of Hadrian's tomb; to which there is access by one or two drawbridges; the entrance to the tomb, or castle, not being at the base, but near its central height. The ancient entrance, by which Hadrian's ashes, and those of other imperial personages, were probably brought into this tomb, has been walled up,--perhaps ever since the last emperor was buried here. We were now in a vaulted pa.s.sage, both lofty and broad, which circles round the whole interior of the tomb, from the base to the summit. During many hundred years, the pa.s.sage was filled with earth and rubbish, and forgotten, and it is but partly excavated, even now; although we found it a long, long and gloomy descent by torchlight to the base of the vast mausoleum. The pa.s.sage was once lined and vaulted with precious marbles (which are now entirely gone), and paved with fine mosaics, portions of which still remain; and our guide lowered his flaming torch to show them to us, here and there, amid the earthy dampness over which we trod. It is strange to think what splendor and costly adornment were here wasted on the dead.

After we had descended to the bottom of this pa.s.sage, and again retraced our steps to the highest part, the guide took a large cannon-ball, and sent it, with his whole force, rolling down the hollow, arched way, rumbling, and reverberating, and bellowing forth long thunderous echoes, and winding up with a loud, distant crash, that seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth.

We saw the place, near the centre of the mausoleum, and lighted from above, through an immense thickness of stone and brick, where the ashes of the emperor and his fellow-slumberers were found. It is as much as twelve centuries, very likely, since they were scattered to the winds, for the tomb has been nearly or quite that s.p.a.ce of time a fortress; The tomb itself is merely the base and foundation of the castle, and, being so ma.s.sively built, it serves just as well for the purpose as if it were a solid granite rock. The mediaeval fortress, with its antiquity of more than a thousand years, and having dark and deep dungeons of its own, is but a modern excrescence on the top of Hadrian's tomb.

We now ascended towards the upper region, and were led into the vaults which used to serve as a prison, but which, if I mistake not, are situated above the ancient structure, although they seem as damp and subterranean as if they were fifty feet under the earth. We crept down to them through narrow and ugly pa.s.sages, which the torchlight would not illuminate, and, stooping under a low, square entrance, we followed the guide into a small, vaulted room,--not a room, but an artificial cavern, remote from light or air, where Beatrice Cenci was confined before her execution. According to the abbe, she spent a whole year in this dreadful pit, her trial having dragged on through that length of time.

How ghostlike she must have looked when she came forth! Guido never painted that beautiful picture from her blanched face, as it appeared after this confinement. And how rejoiced she must have been to die at last, having already been in a sepulchre so long!

Adjacent to Beatrice's prison, but not communicating with it, was that of her step-mother; and next to the latter was one that interested me almost as much as Beatrice's,--that of Benvenuto Cellini, who was confined here, I believe, for an a.s.sa.s.sination. All these prison vaults are more horrible than can be imagined without seeing them; but there are worse places here, for the guide lifted a trap-door in one of the pa.s.sages, and held his torch down into an inscrutable pit beneath our feet. It was an oubliette, a dungeon where the prisoner might be buried alive, and never come forth again, alive or dead. Groping about among these sad precincts, we saw various other things that looked very dismal; but at last emerged into the sunshine, and ascended from one platform and battlement to another, till we found ourselves right at the feet of the Archangel Michael. He has stood there in bronze for I know not how many hundred years, in the act of sheathing a (now) rusty sword, such being the att.i.tude in which he appeared to one of the popes in a vision, in token that a pestilence which was then desolating Rome was to be stayed.

There is a fine view from the lofty station over Rome and the whole adjacent country, and the abbe pointed out the site of Ardea, of Corioli, of Veii, and other places renowned in story. We were ushered, too, into the French commandant's quarters in the castle. There is a large hall, ornamented with frescos, and accessible from this a drawing-room, comfortably fitted up, and where we saw modern furniture, and a chess-board, and a fire burning clear, and other symptoms that the place had perhaps just been vacated by civilized and kindly people. But in one corner of the ceiling the abbe pointed out a ring, by which, in the times of mediaeval anarchy, when popes, cardinals, and barons were all by the ears together, a cardinal was hanged. It was not an a.s.sa.s.sination, but a legal punishment, and he was executed in the best apartment of the castle as an act of grace.

The fortress is a straight-lined structure on the summit of the immense round tower of Hadrian's tomb; and to make out the idea of it we must throw in drawbridges, esplanades, piles of ancient marble b.a.l.l.s for cannon; battlements and embrasures, lying high in the breeze and sunshine, and opening views round the whole horizon; accommodation for the soldiers; and many small beds in a large room.

How much mistaken was the emperor in his expectation of a stately, solemn repose for his ashes through all the coming centuries, as long as the world should endure! Perhaps his ghost glides up and down disconsolate, in that spiral pa.s.sage which goes from top to bottom of the tomb, while the barbarous Gauls plant themselves in his very mausoleum to keep the imperial city in awe.

Leaving the Castle of St. Angelo, we drove, still on the same side of the Tiber, to the Villa Pamfili, which lies a short distance beyond the walls. As we pa.s.sed through one of the gates (I think it was that of San Pancrazio) the abbe pointed out the spot where the Constable de Bourbon was killed while attempting to scale the walls. If we are to believe Benvenuto Cellini, it was he who shot the constable. The road to the villa is not very interesting, lying (as the roads in the vicinity of Rome often do) between very high walls, admitting not a glimpse of the surrounding country; the road itself white and dusty, with no verdant margin of gra.s.s or border of shrubbery. At the portal of the villa we found many carriages in waiting, for the Prince Doria throws open the grounds to all comers, and on a pleasant day like this they are probably sure to be thronged. We left our carriage just within the entrance, and rambled among these beautiful groves, admiring the live-oak trees, and the stone-pines, which latter are truly a majestic tree, with tall columnar stems, supporting a cloud-like density of boughs far aloft, and not a straggling branch between there and the ground. They stand in straight rows, but are now so ancient and venerable as to have lost the formal look of a plantation, and seem like a wood that might have arranged itself almost of its own will. Beneath them is a flower-strewn turf, quite free of underbrush. We found open fields and lawns, moreover, all abloom with anemones, white and rose-colored and purple and golden, and far larger than could be found out of Italy, except in hot-houses. Violets, too, were abundant and exceedingly fragrant. When we consider that all this floral exuberance occurs in the midst of March, there does not appear much ground for complaining of the Roman climate; and so long ago as the first week of February I found daisies among the gra.s.s, on the sunny side of the Basilica of St. John Lateran. At this very moment I suppose the country within twenty miles of Boston may be two feet deep with snow, and the streams solid with ice.

We wandered about the grounds, and found them very beautiful indeed; nature having done much for them by an undulating variety of surface, and art having added a good many charms, which have all the better effect now that decay and neglect have thrown a natural grace over them likewise.

There is an artificial ruin, so picturesque that it betrays itself; weather-beaten statues, and pieces of sculpture, scattered here and there; an artificial lake, with upgushing fountains; cascades, and broad-bosomed coves, and long, ca.n.a.l-like reaches, with swans taking their delight upon them. I never saw such a glorious and resplendent l.u.s.tre of white as shone between the wings of two of these swans. It was really a sight to see, and not to be imagined beforehand. Angels, no doubt, have just such l.u.s.trous wings as those. English swans partake of the dinginess of the atmosphere, and their plumage has nothing at all to be compared to this; in fact, there is nothing like it in the world, unless it be the illuminated portion of a fleecy, summer cloud.

While we were sauntering along beside this piece of water, we were surprised to see U---- on the other side. She had come hither with E---- S------ and her two little brothers, and with our R-----, the whole under the charge of Mrs. Story's nursery-maids. U---- and E---- crossed, not over, but beneath the water, through a grotto, and exchanged greetings with us. Then, as it was getting towards sunset and cool, we took our departure; the abbe, as we left the grounds, taking me aside to give me a glimpse of a Columbarium, which descends into the earth to about the depth to which an ordinary house might rise above it. These grounds, it is said, formed the country residence of the Emperor Galba, and he was buried here after his a.s.sa.s.sination. It is a sad thought that so much natural beauty and long refinement of picturesque culture is thrown away, the villa being uninhabitable during all the most delightful season of the year on account of malaria. There is truly a curse on Rome and all its neighborhood.

On our way home we pa.s.sed by the great Paolina fountain, and were a.s.sailed by many beggars during the short time we stopped to look at it.

It is a very copious fountain, but not so beautiful as the Trevi, taking into view merely the water-gush of the latter.