The Diary of an Ennuyee Part 2

His beautiful wife, the Princess Maria of Savoy, to whom he has been married only a few months, held his arm; and as she moved a little in front, seemed to drag him after her like a mere appendage to her state. I gazed after them, amused by the contrast: he looking like a dull, stiff, old bachelor, the very figure of Moody in the Country Girl;--she, an elegant, sprightly, captivating creature; decision in her step, laughter on her lips, and pride, intelligence, and mischief in her brilliant eyes.

We visited yesterday the military college, founded by the viceroy, Eugene Beauharnois, for the children of soldiers who had fallen in battle. The original design is now altered; and it has become a mere public school, to which any boys may be admitted, paying a certain sum a year. We went over the whole building, and afterwards saw the scholars, two hundred and eighty in number, sit down to dinner. Every thing appeared nice, clean, and admirably ordered. At the Mint, which interested me extremely, we found them coining silver crowns for the Levant trade, with the head of Maria Theresa, and the date 1780. We were also shown the beautifully engraved die for the medal which the university of Padua presented to Belzoni.

The evening was spent at the Teatro Re, where we saw a bad sentimental comedy (una Commedia di Carattere) exceedingly well acted. One actor I thought almost equal to Dowton, in his own style;--we had afterwards some fine music. Some of the Milanese airs, which the itinerant musicians give us, have considerable beauty and character. There is less monotony, I think, in their general style than in the Venetian music; and perhaps less sentiment, less softness. When left alone to-night, to do penance on the sofa, for my late walks, and recruit for our journey to-morrow,--I tried to adapt English verses to one or two very pretty airs which Annoni brought me to-day, without the Italian words; but it is a most difficult and invidious task. Even Moore, with his unequalled command over the lyric harmonies of our language, cannot perfectly satisfy ears accustomed to the

"Linked sweetness long drawn out"

of the Italian vowels, combined with musical sounds: fancy such dissonant syllables as _ex_, _pray_, _what_, _breaks_, _strength_, uttered in minim time, hissing and grating through half a bar, instead of the dulcet _anima mia_, _Catina amabile_--_Caro mio tesoro_, etc.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

All that it hoped My heart believed, And when most trusting, Was most deceived.

A shadow hath fallen O'er my young years; And hopes when brightest, Were quench'd in tears.

I make no plaint-- I breathe no sigh-- My lips can smile, And mine eyes are dry.

I ask no pity, I hope no cure-- The heart, tho' broken, Can live, and endure!

We left Milan two days ago, and arrived early the same day at Brescia; there is, I believe, very little to see there, and of that little, I saw nothing,--being too ill and too low for the slightest exertion.

The only pleasurable feeling I can remember was excited by our approach to the Alps, after traversing the flat, fertile, uninteresting plains of Lombardy. The peculiar sensation of elevation and delight, inspired by mountain scenery, can only be understood by those who have felt it: at least I never had formed an idea of it till I found myself ascending the Jura.

But Brescia ought to be immortalized in the history of our travels: for there, stalking down the Corso--_le nez en l'air_--we met our acquaintance L----, from whom we had parted last on the pave of Piccadilly. I remember that in London I used to think him not remarkable for wisdom,--and his travels have infinitely improved him--in folly. He boasted to us triumphantly that he had run over sixteen thousand miles in sixteen months: that he had bowed at the levee of the Emperor Alexander,--been slapped on the shoulder by the Archduke Constantine,--shaken hands with a Lapland witch,--and been presented in full volunteer uniform at every court between Stockholm and Milan. Yet is he not one particle wiser than if he had spent the same time in walking up and down the Strand. He has contrived, however, to pick up on his tour, strange odds and ends of foreign follies, which stick upon the coa.r.s.e-grained materials of his own John Bull character like tinfoil upon sackcloth: so that I see little difference between what he was, and what he is, except that from a _simple goose_,--he has become a compound one. With all this, L---- is not unbearable--not _yet_ at least. He amuses others as a b.u.t.t--and me as a specimen of a new genus of fools: for his folly is not like any thing one usually meets with. It is not, _par exemple_, the folly of stupidity, for he talks much; nor of dullness, for he laughs much; nor of ignorance, for he has seen much; nor of wrong-headedness, for he can be guided right; nor of bad-heartedness, for he is good-natured; nor of thoughtlessness, for he is prudent; nor of extravagance, for he can calculate even to the value of half a lira: but it is an essence of folly, peculiar to himself, and like Monsieur Jacques's melancholy, "compounded of many simples, extracted from various objects, and the sundry contemplation of his travels." So much, for the present, of our friend L----.

We left Brescia early yesterday morning, and after pa.s.sing Desenzano, came in sight of the Lago di Garda. I had from early a.s.sociations a delightful impression of the beauty of this lake, and it did not disappoint me. It is far superior, I think, to the Lago Maggiore, because the scenery is more _resserre_, lies in a smaller compa.s.s, so that the eye takes in the separate features more easily. The mountains to the north are dark, broken, and wild in their forms, and their bases seemed to extend to the water edge: the hills to the south are smiling, beautiful, and cultivated, studded with white flat-roofed buildings, which glitter one above another in the sunshine. Our drive along the promontory of Sirmione, to visit the ruins of the Villa of Catullus, was delightful. The fresh breeze which ruffled the dark blue lake, revived my spirits, and chased away my head-ache. I was inclined to be enchanted with all I saw; and when our guide took us into an old cellar choked with rubbish, and a.s.sured us gravely that it was the very spot in which Catullus had written his Odes to Lesbia. I did not laugh in his face; for, after all, it would be as easy to prove that _it is_, as that it is _not_. The old town and castle of Sirmio are singularly picturesque, whether viewed from above or below, and the grove of olives which crowned the steep extremity of the promontory, interested us, being the first we had seen in Italy: on the whole I fully enjoyed the early part of this day.

At Peschiera, which is strongly fortified, we crossed the Mincio.--

O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, Smooth-flowing Mincius crowned with vocal reeds.

Its waters were exquisitely transparent; but it was difficult to remember its poetical pretensions, in sight of those odious barracks and batteries. The reeds mentioned by Virgil and Milton still flourish upon its banks, and I forgave them for spoiling in some degree the beauty of the sh.o.r.e, when I thought of Adelade of Burgundy, who concealed herself among them for three days, when she fled from the dungeon of Peschiera to the arms of her lover. I was glad I had read her story in Gibbon, since it enabled me to add to cla.s.sical and poetical a.s.sociations, an interest at once romantic and real.

The rest to-morrow--for I can write no more.

_At Verona, Oct. 20._--I had just written the above when I was startled by a mournful strain from a chorus of voices, raised at intervals, and approaching gradually nearer. I walked to the window, and saw a long funeral procession just entering the church, which is opposite to the door of our inn. I immediately threw over me a veil and shawl, followed it, and stood by while the service was chaunted over the dead. The scene, as viewed by the light of about two hundred tapers, which were carried by the a.s.sistants, was as new to me as it was solemn and striking; but it was succeeded by a strange and forlorn contrast. The moment the service was over, the tapers were suddenly extinguished; the priests and the relatives all disappeared in an inconceivably short time, and before I was quite aware of what was going forward: the coffin, stripped of its embroidered pall and garlands of flowers, appeared a mere chest of deal boards, roughly nailed together; and was left standing on tressels, bare, neglected, and forsaken in the middle of the church. I approached it almost fearfully, and with a deeper emotion than I believed such a thing could now excite within me. And here, thought I, rests the human being, who has lived and loved, suffered and enjoyed, and, if I may judge by the splendour of his funeral rites, has been honoured, served, flattered while living:--and now not one remains to shed a last tear over the dead, but a single stranger, a wanderer from a land he perhaps knew not: to whom his very name is unknown! And while thus I moralized, two s.e.xtons appeared; and one of them seizing the miserable and deserted coffin, rudely and unceremoniously flung it on his shoulders, and vanished through a vaulted door; and I returned to my room, to write this, and to think how much better, how much more _humanely_, we manage these things in our own England.

_Oct. 21._--Verona is a clean and quiet place, containing some fine edifices by Palladio and his pupils. The princ.i.p.al object of interest is the ancient amphitheatre; the most perfect I believe in Italy. The inner circle, with all its ranges of seats, is entire. We ascended to the top, and looked down into the Piazza d'arme, where several battalions of Austrian soldiers were exercising; their arms glittering splendidly in the morning sun. As I have now been long enough in Italy to sympathize in the national hatred of the Austrians, I turned from the sight, resolved not to be pleased. The arena of the amphitheatre is smaller, and less oval in form than I had expected: and in the centre, there is a little paltry gaudy wooden theatre for puppets and tumblers,--forming a grotesque contrast to the ma.s.sive and majestic architecture around it: but even tumblers and puppets, as Rospo observed, are better than wild beasts and ferocious gladiators.

There are also at Verona a triumphal arch to the Emperor Gallienus; the architecture and inscription almost as perfect as if erected yesterday;--and a most singular bridge of three irregular arches, built, I believe, by the Scaligieri family, who were once princes of Verona.

It is well known that the story of Romeo and Juliet is here regarded as a traditionary and indisputable fact, and the tomb of Juliet is shown in a garden near the town. So much has been written and said on this subject, I can add only one observation. To the reality of the story it has been objected that the oldest narrator, Masuccio, relates it as having happened at Sienna: but might he not have heard the tradition at Verona, and transferred the scene to Sienna, since he represented it as related by a Siennese?--Della Corte, whose history of Verona I have just laid down, mentions it as a real historical event; and Louis da Porta, in his beautiful novel, la Giulietta, expressly a.s.serts that he has written it down from tradition. If Shakespeare, as it is said, never saw the novel of Da Porta, how came he by the names of Romeo and Juliet, the Montagues and the Capulets: if he _did_ meet with it, how came he to depart so essentially from the story, particularly in the catastrophe? I must get some books, if possible, to clear up these difficulties.

23d, _at Padua._--We spent yesterday morning pleasantly at Vicenza.

Palladio's edifices in general disappointed me; partly because I am not architect enough to judge of their merits, partly because, of most of them the situation is bad, and the materials paltry: but the Olympic theatre, although its solid perspective be a mere trick of the art, surprised and pleased me. It has an air of antique and cla.s.sic elegance in its decorations, which is very striking. I have heard it criticised as a specimen of bad taste and trickery: but why should its solid scenery be considered more a _trick_, and in bad taste, than a curtain of painted canvas? In both a deception is practised and intended. We saw many things in Vicenza and its neighbourhood, which I have not time nor spirits, to dwell upon.

We arrived here (at Padua) last night, and to-day I am again ill: unable to see or even to wish to see any thing. My eyes are so full of tears that I can scarcely write. I must lay down my pencil, lest I break through my resolution, and be tempted to record feelings I afterwards tremble to see written down.--O bitter and too lasting remembrance! I must sleep it away--even the heavy and drug-bought sleep to which I am now reduced, is better than such waking moments as these.

_Venice, October 25th._--I feel while I gaze round me, as if I had seen Venice in my dreams--as if it were itself the vision of a dream.

We have been here two days; and I have not yet recovered from my first surprise. All is yet enchantment: all is novel, extraordinary, affecting from the many a.s.sociations and remembrances excited in the mind. Pleasure and wonder are tinged with a melancholy interest; and while the imagination is excited, the spirits are depressed.

The morning we left Padua was bright, lovely, and cloudless. Our drive along the sh.o.r.es of the Brenta crowned with innumerable villas and gay gardens was delightful; and the moment of our arrival at Fusina, where we left our carriages to embark in gondolas, was the most auspicious that could possibly have been chosen. It was about four o'clock: the sun was just declining towards the west: the whole surface of the _lagune_, smooth as a mirror, appeared as if paved with fire;--and Venice, with her towers and domes, indistinctly glittering in the distance, rose before us like a gorgeous exhalation from the bosom of the ocean. It is farther from the sh.o.r.e than I expected. As we approached, the splendour faded: but the interest and wonder grew. I can conceive nothing more beautiful, more singular, more astonishing, than the first appearance of Venice, and sad indeed will be the hour when she sinks (as the poet prophesies) "into the slime of her own ca.n.a.ls."

The moment we had disembarked our luggage at the inn, we hired gondolas and rowed to the Piazza di San Marco. Had I seen the church of St. Mark any where else, I should have exclaimed against the bad taste which every where prevails in it: but Venice is the proper region of the fantastic, and the church of St. Mark--with its four hundred pillars of every different order, colour, and material, its oriental cupolas, and glittering vanes, and gilding and mosaics--a.s.similates with all around it: and the kind of pleasure it gives is suitable to the place and the people.

After dinner I had a chair placed on the balcony of our inn, and sat for some time contemplating a scene altogether new and delightful. The arch of the Rialto just gleamed through the deepening twilight; long lines of palaces, at first partially illuminated, faded away at length into gloomy and formless ma.s.ses of architecture; the gondolas glided to and fro, their glancing lights reflected on the water. There was a stillness all around me, solemn and strange in the heart of a great city. No rattling carriages shook the streets, no trampling of horses echoed along the pavement: the silence was broken only by the melancholy cry of the gondoliers, and the dash of their oars; by the low murmur of human voices, by the chime of the vesper bells, borne over the water, and the sounds of music raised at intervals along the ca.n.a.ls. The poetry, the romance of the scene stole upon me unawares. I fell into a reverie, in which visionary forms and recollections gave way to dearer and sadder realities, and my mind seemed no longer in my own power. I called upon the lost, the absent, to share the present with me,--I called upon past feelings to enhance that moment's delight. I did wrong--and memory avenged herself as usual. I quitted my seat on the balcony, with despair at my heart, and drawing to the table, took out my books and work. So pa.s.sed our first evening at Venice.

Yesterday we visited the Accademia where there are some fine pictures.

The famous a.s.sumption by t.i.tian is here, and first made me _feel_ what connoisseurs mean when they talk of the carnations and draperies of t.i.tian. We were shown two designs for monuments to the memory of t.i.tian, modelled by Canova. Neither of them has been erected; but the most beautiful, with a little alteration, and the subst.i.tution of a lady's bust for t.i.tian's venerable head, has been dedicated, I believe, to the memory of the Archd.u.c.h.ess Christina of Austria. I remember also an exquisite Ca.n.a.letti, quite different in style and subject from any picture of this master I ever saw.

We then rowed to the ducal palace. The council chamber (I thought of Oth.e.l.lo as I entered it) is now converted into a library. The walls are decorated with the history of Pope Alexander the Third, and Frederic Barbarossa, painted by the Tintoretti, father and son, Paul Veronese and Palma. Above them, in compartments, hang the portraits of the Doges; among which Marino Faliero is _not_; but his name only, inscribed on a kind of black pall. The Ganymede is a most exquisite little group, attributed to the age of Praxiteles; and not without reason even to the hand of that sculptor.

To-day we visited several churches--rich, on the outside, with all the luxury of architecture,--withinside, gorgeous with painting, sculpture, and many-coloured marbles. The prodigality with which the most splendid and costly materials are lavished here is perfectly amazing: pillars of lapis-lazuli, columns of Egyptian porphyry, and pavements of mosaic, altars of alabaster ascended by steps incrusted with agate and jasper:--but to particularize would be in vain. I will only mention three or four which I wish to recollect: the Church of the Madonna della Salute, so called because erected to the Virgin in grat.i.tude for the deliverance of the city from a pestilence, which she miraculously drove into the Adriatic. It is remarkable for its splendid pictures, most of them by Luca Giordano; and the superb high altar. I think it was the Church of the Gesuata which astonished us most. The whole of the inside walls and columns are encrusted with Carrara marble inlaid with verd-antique, in a kind of damask pattern; over the pulpit it fell like drapery, so easy, so graceful, so exquisitely imitated, that I was obliged to touch it to a.s.sure myself of the material. Then by way of contrast followed the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore,--one of Palladio's masterpieces. After the dazzling and gorgeous buildings we had left, its beautiful simplicity and correct taste struck me at first with an impression of poverty and coldness. At the Church of St. John and St. Paul is the famous martyrdom, or rather a.s.sa.s.sination, of St. Peter Martyr, by t.i.tian, one of the most magical pictures in the world. Its tragic horror is redeemed by its sublimity. Here too is a most admirable series of bas-reliefs in white marble, representing the history of our Saviour, the work of a modern sculptor. Here too the Doges are buried; and close to the Church is the equestrian statue of one of the Falieri family: near which Marino Faliero met the conspirators.

At the Frati is the grave of t.i.tian: a small square slab covers him, with this inscription:--

"Qui giace il gran Tiziano Vecelli.

Emulator dei Zeusi e degli Apelli."

there is no monument:--and there needs none.

It was, I think, in the Church of St. John and St. Paul, that I saw a singular and beautiful altar of black touch-stone, used when ma.s.s is said for the soul of an executed criminal.

This is all I can remember of to-day. I am fatigued, and my head aches;--my imagination is yet dazzled:--my eyes are tired of admiring, my mind is tired of thinking, and my heart with feeling.----Now for repose.

27.--To-day we visited the Manfrini Palace, the Casa Pisani, the Palazzo Barberigo, and concluded the morning in the colonnade of St.

Mark, and the public gardens. The day has been far less fatiguing than yesterday: for though we have seen an equal variety of objects, they forced the attention less, and gratified the imagination more.

At the Manfrini Palace there is the most valuable and splendid collection of pictures I have yet seen in Italy or elsewhere. I have no intention of turning my little Diary into a mere catalogue of names which I can find in every guide-book; but I cannot pa.s.s over Giorgione's beautiful group of himself, and his wife and child, which Lord Byron calls "love at full length and life, not love ideal," and it is indeed exquisite. A female with a guitar by the same master is almost equal to it. There are two Lucretias--one by Guido and one by Giordano: though both are beautiful, particularly the former, there was, I thought, an impropriety in the conception of both pictures: the figure was too voluptuous--too exposed, and did not give me the idea of the matronly Lucretia, who so carefully arranged her drapery before she fell. I remember, too, a St. Cecilia by Carlo Dolci, of most heavenly beauty,--two Correggios--Iphigenia in Aulis, by Padovanino: in this picture the figure of Agamemnon is a complete failure, but the lifeless beauty of Iphigenia, a wonderful effort of art: and a hundred others at least, all masterpieces.

The Barberigo Palace was the school of t.i.tian. We were shown the room in which he painted, and the picture he left unfinished when he died at the age of 99. It is a David--as vigorous in the touch and style as any of his first pictures.

It is now some days since I had time to write; or rather the intervals of excitement and occupation found me too much exhausted to take up my pencil. Our stay at Venice has been rendered most agreeable by the kindness of Mr. H----, the British Consul, and his amiable and charming wife, and in their society we have spent much of the last few days.

One of our pleasantest excursions was to the Armenian convent of St.

Lazaro, where we were received by Fra Pasquale, an accomplished and intelligent monk, and a particular friend of Mr. H----. After we had visited every part of the convent, the printing press--the library--the laboratory--which contains several fine mathematical instruments of English make; and admired the beautiful little tame gazelle which bounded through the corridors, we were politely refreshed with most delicious sweetmeats and coffee; and took leave of Fra Pasquale with regret.

There is no opera at present, but we have visited both the other theatres. At the San Luca, they gave us "Elizabeth, the Exile of Siberia," tolerably acted: but there was one trait introduced very characteristic of the place and people: Elizabeth in a tremendous snow storm, is pursued by robbers; and finding a crucifix, erected by the road side, embraces it for protection. The crucifix flies away with her in a clap of thunder, and sets her down safely at a distance from her persecutors. The audience appeared equally enchanted and edified by this scene: some of the women near me crossed themselves, and put their handkerchiefs to their eyes: the men rose from their seats, clapped with enthusiasm, and shouted "Bravo! Miracolo!"

At the San Benedetto we were gratified by a deep tragedy ent.i.tled "Gabrielle Innocente," so exquisitely absurd, and so grotesquely acted, that the best comedy could scarcely have afforded us more amus.e.m.e.nt,--certainly not more _merriment_. In the course of the evening, coffee and ices were served in our box, as is the custom here.

With Mrs. H---- this evening I had a long and pleasant conversation; she is really one of the most delightful and unaffected women I ever met with: and as there is nothing in my melancholy visage and shrinking reserve to tempt any person to converse with me, I must also set her down as one of the most good-natured. She talked much of Lord Byron, with whom, during his residence here she was on intimate terms.

She spoke of him, not conceitedly as one vain of the acquaintance of a great character; nor with affected reserve, as if afraid of committing herself--but with openness, animation, and cordial kindness, as one whom she liked, and had reason to like. She says the style of Lord Byron's conversation is very much that of Don Juan: just in the same manner are the familiar, the brilliant, the sublime, the affecting, the witty, the ludicrous, and the licentious, mingled and contrasted.

Several little anecdotes which she related I need not write down; I can scarcely forget them, and it would not be quite fair as they were told _en confiance_. I am no anecdote hunter, picking up articles for "my pocket book."