Pencillings by the Way Part 25

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Mr. John Hone, of New York.

[10] An interesting account of this ill-fated young lady, who was on the eve of marriage, has appeared in the Mirror.

LETTER LX.

PRESENTATION AT THE PAPAL COURT--PILGRIMS GOING TO VESPERS--PERFORMANCE OF THE MISERERE--TARPEIAN ROCK--THE FORUM--PALACE OF THE CESARS--COLISEUM.

I have been presented to the Pope this morning, in company with several Americans--Mr. and Mrs. Gray, of Boston, Mr. Atherton and daughters, and Mr. Walsh of Philadelphia, and Mr. Mayer of Baltimore.

With the latter gentleman, I arrived rather late, and found that the rest of the party had been already received, and that his Holiness was giving audience, at the moment, to some Russian ladies of rank. Bishop England, of Charleston, however, was good enough to send in once more, and, in the course of a few minutes, the chamberlain in waiting announced to us that _Il Padre Santo_ would receive us. The ante-room was a picturesque and rather peculiar scene. Cl.u.s.ters of priests, of different rank, were scattered about in the corners, dressed in a variety of splendid costumes, white, crimson, and ermine, one or two monks, with their picturesque beards and flowing dresses of gray or brown, were standing near one of the doors, in their habitually humble att.i.tudes; two gentlemen mace-bearers guarded the door of the entrance to the Pope's presence, their silver batons under their arms, and their open breasted ca.s.socks covered with fine lace; the deep bend of the window was occupied by the American party of ladies, in the required black veils; and around the outer door stood the helmeted guard, a dozen stout men-at-arms, forming a forcible contrast to the mild faces and priestly company within.

The mace-bearers lifted the curtain, and the Pope stood before us, in a small plain room. The Irish priest who accompanied us prostrated himself on the floor, and kissed the embroidered slipper, and Bishop England hastily knelt and kissed his hand, turning to present us as he rose. His Holiness smiled, and stepped forward, with a gesture of his hand, as if to prevent our kneeling, and, as the bishop mentioned our names, he looked at us and nodded smilingly, but without speaking to us. Whether he presumed we did not speak the language, or whether he thought us too young to answer for ourselves, he confined his inquiries about us entirely to the good bishop, leaving me, as I wished, at leisure to study his features and manner. It was easy to conceive that the father of the Catholic church stood before me, but I could scarcely realize that it was a sovereign of Europe, and the temporal monarch of millions. He was dressed in a long vesture of snow-white flannel, b.u.t.toned together in front, with a large crimson velvet cape over his shoulders, and band and ta.s.sels of silver cloth hanging from beneath. A small white scull-cap covered the crown of his head, and his hair, slightly grizzled, fell straight toward a low forehead, expressive of good-nature merely. A large emerald on his finger, and slippers wrought in gold, with a cross on the instep, completed his dress. His face is heavily moulded, but unmarked, and expressive mainly of sloth and kindness; his nose is uncommonly large, rather pendant than prominent, and an incipient double chin, slightly hanging cheeks, and eyes, over which the lids drop, as if in sleep, at the end of every sentence, confirm the general impression of his presence--that of an indolent and good old man. His inquiries were princ.i.p.ally of the Catholic church in Baltimore (mentioned by the bishop as the city of Mr. Mayer's residence), of its processions, its degree of state, and whether it was recognised by the government. At the first pause in the conversation, his Holiness smiled and bowed, the Irish priest prostrated himself again, and kissed his foot, and, with a blessing from the father of the church, we retired.

On the evening of holy Thursday, as I was on my way to St. Peter's to hear the _miserere_ once more, I overtook the procession of pilgrims going up to vespers. The men went first in couples, following a cross, and escorted by gentlemen penitents covered conveniently with sackcloth, their eyes peeping through two holes, and their well-polished boots beneath, being the only indications by which their penance could be betrayed to the world. The pilgrims themselves, perhaps a hundred in all, were the dirtiest collection of beggars imaginable, distinguished from the lazars in the street, only by a long staff with a faded bunch of flowers attached to it, and an oil-cloth cape st.i.tched over with scallop-sh.e.l.ls. Behind came the female pilgrims, and these were led by the first ladies of rank in Rome. It was really curious to see the mixture of humility and pride.

There were, perhaps, fifty ladies of all ages, from sixteen to fifty, walking each between two filthy old women who supported themselves by her arms, while near them, on either side of the procession, followed their splendid equipages, with numerous servants, in livery, on foot, as if to contradict to the world their temporary degradation. The lady penitents, unlike the gentlemen, walked in their ordinary dress.

I had several acquaintances among them; and it was inconceivable, to me, how the gay, thoughtless, fashionable creatures I had met in the most luxurious drawing-rooms of Rome, could be prevailed upon to become a part in such a ridiculous parade of humility. The chief penitent, who carried a large, heavy crucifix at the head of the procession, was the Princess ----, at whose weekly soirees and b.a.l.l.s a.s.semble all that is gay and pleasure-loving in Rome. Her two nieces, elegant girls of eighteen or twenty, walked at her side, carrying lighted candles, of four or five feet in length, in broad day-light, through the streets!

The procession crept slowly up to the church, and I left them kneeling at the tomb of St. Peter, and went to the side chapel, to listen to the _miserere_. The choir here is said to be inferior to that in the Sistine chapel, but the circ.u.mstances more than make up for the difference, which, after all, it takes a nice ear to detect. I could not but congratulate myself, as I sat down upon the base of a pillar, in the vast aisle, without the chapel where the choir were chanting, with the twilight gathering in the lofty arches, and the candles of the various processions creeping to the consecrated sepulchre from the distant parts of the church. It was so different in that crowded and suffocating chapel of the Vatican, where, fine as was the music, I vowed positively never to subject myself to such annoyance again.

It had become almost dark, when the last candle but one was extinguished in the symbolical pyramid, and the first almost painful note of the _miserere_ wailed out into the vast church of St. Peter.

For the next half hour, the kneeling listeners, around the door of the chapel, seemed spell-bound in their motionless att.i.tudes. The darkness thickened, the hundred lamps at the far-off sepulchre of the saint, looked like a galaxy of twinkling points of fire, almost lost in the distance; and from the now perfectly obscured choir, poured, in ever-varying volume, the dirge-like music, in notes inconceivably plaintive and affecting. The power, the mingled mournfulness and sweetness, the impa.s.sioned fulness, at one moment, and the lost, shrieking wildness of one solitary voice, at another, carry away the soul like a whirlwind. I have never been so moved by anything. It is not in the scope of language to convey an idea to another of the effect of the _miserere_.

It was not till several minutes after the music had ceased, that the dark figures rose up from the floor about me. As we approached the door of the church, the full moon, about three hours risen, poured broadly under the arch of the portico, inundating the whole front of the lofty dome with a flood of light, such as falls only on Italy.

There seemed to be no atmosphere between. Daylight is scarce more intense. The immense square, with its slender obelisk and embracing crescents of colonnade, lay spread out as definitely to the eye as at noon, and the two famous fountains shot up their clear waters to the sky, the moonlight streamed through the spray, and every drop as visible and bright as a diamond.

I got out of the press of carriages, and took a by-street along the Tiber, to the Coliseum. Pa.s.sing the Jews' quarter, which shuts at dark by heavy gates, I found myself near the Tarpeian rock, and entered the Forum, behind the ruins of the temple of Fortune. I walked toward the palace of the Cesars, stopping to gaze on the columns, whose shadows have fallen on the same spot, where I now saw them, for sixteen or seventeen centuries. It checks the blood at one's heart, to stand on the spot and remember it. There was not the sound of a footstep through the whole wilderness of the Forum. I traversed it to the arch of t.i.tus in a silence, which, with the majestic ruins around, seemed almost supernatural--the mind was left so absolutely to the powerful a.s.sociations of the place.

Ten minutes more brought me to the Coliseum. Its gigantic walls, arches on arches, almost to the very clouds, lay half in shadow, half in light, the ivy hung trembling in the night air, from between the cracks of the ruin, and it looked like some mighty wreck in a desert.

I entered, and a hundred voices announced to me the presence of half the fashion of Rome. I had forgotten that it was _the mode_ "to go to the Coliseum by moonlight." Here they were dancing and laughing about the arena where thousands of Christians had been torn by wild beasts, for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the emperors of Rome; where gladiators had fought and died; where the sands beneath their feet were more eloquent of blood than any other spot on the face of the earth--and one sweet voice proposed a dance, and another wished she could have music and supper, and the solemn old arches re-echoed with shouts and laughter.

The travestie of the thing was amusing. I mingled in the crowd, and found acquaintances of every nation, and an hour I had devoted to romantic solitude and thought pa.s.sed away, perhaps, quite as agreeably, in the nonsense of the most thoughtless triflers in society.

LETTER LXI.

VIGILS OVER THE HOST--CEREMONIES OF EASTER SUNDAY--THE PROCESSION--HIGH Ma.s.s--THE POPE BLESSING THE PEOPLE--CURIOUS ILLUMINATION--RETURN TO FLORENCE--RURAL FESTA--HOSPITALITY OF THE FLORENTINES--EXPECTED MARRIAGE OF THE GRAND DUKE.

ROME, 1833.--This is Friday of the holy week. The host, which was deposited yesterday amid its thousand lamps in the Paoline chapel, was taken from its place this morning, in solemn procession, and carried back to the Sistine, after lying in the consecrated place twenty-four hours. Vigils were kept over it all night. The Paoline chapel has no windows, and the lights are so disposed as to multiply its receding arches till the eye is lost in them. The altar on which the host lay was piled up to the roof in a pyramid of light, and with the prostrate figures constantly covering the floor, and the motionless soldier in antique armor at the entrance, it was like some scene of wild romance.

The ceremonies of Easter Sunday were performed where all others should have been--in the body of St. Peter's. Two lines of soldiers, forming an aisle up the centre, stretched from the square without the portico to the sacred sepulchre. Two temporary platforms for the various diplomatic corps and other privileged persons occupied the sides, and the remainder of the church was filled by thousands of strangers, Roman peasantry, and contadini (in picturesque red boddices, and with golden bodkins through their hair), from all the neighboring towns.

A loud blast of trumpets, followed by military music, announced the coming of the procession. The two long lines of soldiers presented arms, and the esquires of the Pope entered first, in red robes, followed by the long train of proctors, chamberlains, mitre-bearers, and incense-bearers, the men-at-arms, escorting the procession on either side. Just before the cardinals, came a cross-bearer, supported on either side by men in showy surplices carrying lights, and then came the long and brilliant line of white-headed cardinals, in scarlet and ermine. The military dignitaries of the monarch preceded the Pope, a splendid ma.s.s of uniforms, and his Holiness then appeared, supported, in his great gold and velvet chair, upon the shoulders of twelve men, clothed in red damask, with a canopy over his head, sustained by eight gentlemen, in short, violet-colored silk mantles.

Six of the Swiss guard (representing the six Catholic canons) walked near the Pope, with drawn swords on their shoulders, and after his chair followed a troop of civil officers, whose appointments I did not think it worth while to enquire. The procession stopped when the Pope was opposite the "chapel of the holy sacrament," and his Holiness descended. The tiara was lifted from his head by a cardinal, and he knelt upon a cushion of velvet and gold to adore the "sacred host,"

which was exposed upon the altar. After a few minutes he returned to his chair, his tiara was again set on his head, and the music rang out anew, while the procession swept on to the sepulchre.

The spectacle was all splendor. The clear s.p.a.ce through the vast area of the church, lined with glittering soldiery, the dazzling gold and crimson of the coming procession, the high papal chair, with the immense fan-banners of peac.o.c.k's feathers, held aloft, the almost immeasurable dome and mighty pillars, above and around, and the mult.i.tudes of silent people, produced a scene which, connected with the idea of religious worship, and added to by the swell of a hundred instruments of music, quite dazzled and overpowered me.

The high ma.s.s (performed but three times a year) proceeded. At the latter part of it, the Pope mounted to the altar, and, after various ceremonies, elevated the sacred host. At the instant that the small white wafer was seen between the golden candlesticks, the two immense lines of soldiers dropped upon their knees, and all the people prostrated themselves at the same instant.

This fine scene over, we hurried to the square in front of the church, to secure places for a still finer one--that of the Pope blessing the people. Several thousand troops, cavalry and footmen, were drawn up between the steps and the obelisk, in the centre of the piazza, and the immense area embraced by the two circling colonnades was crowded by, perhaps, a hundred thousand people, with eyes directed to one single point. The variety of bright costumes, the gay liveries of the amba.s.sadors' and cardinals' carriages, the vast body of soldiery, and the magnificent frame of columns and fountains in which this gorgeous picture was contained, formed the grandest scene conceivable.

In a few minutes the Pope appeared in the balcony, over the great door of St. Peter's. Every hat in the vast mult.i.tude was lifted and every knee bowed in an instant. _Half a nation prostrate together, and one gray old man lifting up his hands to heaven and blessing them!_

The cannon of the castle of St. Angelo thundered, the innumerable bells of Rome pealed forth simultaneously, the troops fell into line and motion, and the children of the two hundred and fifty-seventh successor of St. Peter departed _blessed_.

In the evening all the world a.s.sembled to see the illumination, which it is useless to attempt to describe.

The night was cloudy and black, and every line in the architecture of the largest building in the world was defined in light, even to the cross, which, as I have said before, is at the height of a mountain from the base. For about an hour it was a delicate but vast structure of shining lines, like a drawing of a glorious temple on the clouds.

At eight, as the clock struck, flakes of fire burst from every point, and the whole building seemed started into flame. It was done by a simultaneous kindling of torches in a thousand points, a man stationed at each. The glare seemed to exceed that of noonday. No description can give an idea of it.

I am not sure that I have not been a little tedious in describing the ceremonies of the holy week. Forsyth says in his bilious book, that he "never could read, and certainly never could write, a description of them." They have struck me, however, as particularly unlike anything ever seen in our own country, and I have endeavored to draw them slightly and with as little particularity as possible. I trust that some of the readers of the Mirror may find them entertaining and novel.

FLORENCE, 1833.--I found myself at six this morning, where I had found myself at the same hour a year before--in the midst of the rural festa in the Cascine of Florence. The Duke, to-day, breakfasts at his farm.

The people of Florence, high and low, come out, and spread their repasts upon the fine sward of the openings in the wood, the roads are watered, and the royal equipages dash backward and forward, while the ladies hang their shawls in the trees, and children and lovers stroll away into the shade, and all looks like a scene from Boccaccio.

I thought it a picturesque and beautiful sight last year, and so described it. But I was a stranger then, newly arrived in Florence, and felt desolate amid the happiness of so many. A few months among so frank and warm-hearted a people as the Tuscans, however, makes one at home. The tradesman and his wife, familiar with your face, and happy to be seen in their holyday dresses, give you the "_buon giorno_" as you pa.s.s, and a cup of red wine or a seat at the cloth on the gra.s.s is at your service in almost any group in the _prato_. I am sure I should not find so many acquaintances in the town in which I have pa.s.sed my life.

A little beyond the crowd, lies a broad open glade of the greenest gra.s.s, in the very centre of the woods of the farm. A broad fringe of shade is flung by the trees along the eastern side, and at their roots cl.u.s.ter the different parties of the n.o.bles and the amba.s.sadors. Their gayly-dressed _cha.s.seurs_ are in waiting, the silver plate quivers and glances, as the chance rays of the sun break through the leaves over head, and at a little distance, in the road, stand their showy equipages in a long line from the great oak to the farmhouse.

In the evening, there was an illumination of the green alleys and the little square in front of the house, and a band of music for the people. Within, the halls were thrown open for a ball. It was given by the Grand Duke to the d.u.c.h.ess of Litchtenberg, the widow of Eugene Beauharnois. The company a.s.sembled at eight, and the presentations (two lovely countrywomen of our own among them), were over at nine.

The dancing then commenced, and we drove home, through the fading lights still burning in the trees, an hour or two past midnight.

The Grand Duke is about to be married to one of the princesses of Naples, and great preparations are making for the event. He looks little like a bridegroom, with his sad face, and unshorn beard and hair. It is, probably, not a marriage of inclination, for the fat princess expecting him, is every way inferior to the incomparable woman he has lost, and he pa.s.sed half the last week in a lonely visit to the chamber in which she died, in his palace at Pisa.

LETTER LXII.

BOLOGNA--MALIBRAN--PARMA--NIGHTINGALES OF LOMBARDY--PLACENZA--AUSTRIAN SOLDIERS--THE SIMPLON--MILAN--RESEMBLANCE TO PARIS--THE CATHEDRAL--GUERCINO'S HAGAR--MILANESE COFFEE.

MILAN.--My fifth journey over the Apennines--dull of course. On the second evening we were at Bologna. The long colonnades pleased me less than before, with their crowds of foreign officers and ill-dressed inhabitants, and a placard for the opera, announcing Malibran's last night, relieved us of the prospect of a long evening of weariness. The divine music of _La Norma_ and a crowded and brilliant audience, enthusiastic in their applause, seemed to inspire this still incomparable creature even beyond her wont. She sang with a fulness, an abandonment, a pa.s.sionate energy and sweetness that seemed to come from a soul rapt and possessed beyond control, with the melody it had undertaken. They were never done calling her on the stage after the curtain had fallen. After six re-appearances, she came out once more to the footlights, and murmuring something inaudible from her lips that showed strong agitation, she pressed her hands together, bowed till her long hair, falling over her shoulders, nearly touched her feet, and retired in tears. She is the siren of Europe for me!

I was happy to have no more to do with the Duke of Modena, than to eat a dinner in his capital. We did "not forget the picture," but my inquiries for it were as fruitless as before. I wonder whether the author of the Pleasures of Memory has the pleasure of remembering having seen the picture himself! "Ta.s.soni's bucket which is not the true one," is still shown in the tower, and the keeper will kiss the cross upon his fingers, that Samuel Rogers has written a false line.

At Parma we ate parmesan and saw _the_ Correggio. The angel who holds the book up to the infant Saviour, the female laying her cheek to his feet, the countenance of the holy child himself, are creations that seem apart from all else in the schools of painting. They are like a group, not from life, but from heaven. They are superhuman, and, unlike other pictures of beauty which stir the heart as if they resembled something one had loved or might have loved, these mount into the fancy like things transcending sympathy, and only within reach of an intellectual and elevated wonder. This is the picture that Sir Thomas Lawrence returned six times in one day to see. It is the only thing I saw to admire in the Duchy of Maria Louisa. An Austrian regiment marched into the town as we left it, and an Italian at the gate told us that the d.u.c.h.ess had disbanded her last troops of the country, and supplied their place with these yellow and black Croats and Illyrians. Italy is Austria now to the foot of the Apennines--if not to the top of Radicofani.