Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany Part 13

From the head-quarters of painting, sculpture, and architecture then, where art is at her acme, and from a people polished into brilliancy, perhaps a little into weakness, we drove through the celebrated vale of Arno; thick hedges on each side us, which in spring must have been covered with blossoms and fragrant with perfume; now loaded with uncultivated fruits; the wild grape, raspberry, and azaroli, inviting to every sense, and promising every joy. This beautiful and fertile, this highly-adorned and truly delicious country carried us forward to Lucca, where the panther sits at the gate, and liberty is written up on every wall and door. It is so long since I have seen the word, that even the letters of it rejoice my heart; but how the panther came to be its emblem, who can tell? Unless the philosophy we learn from old Lilly in our childhood were true, _nec vult panthera domari_[Footnote: That the panther will never be tamed.].

That this fairy commonwealth should so long have maintained its independency is strange; but Howel attributes her freedom to the active and industrious spirit of the inhabitants, who, he says, resemble a hive of bees, for order and for diligence. I never did see a place so populous for the size of it: one is actually thronged running up and down the streets of Lucca, though it is a little town enough for a capital city to be sure; larger than Salisbury though, and prettier than Nottingham, the beauties of both which places it unites with all the charms peculiar to itself.

The territory they claim, and of which no power dares attempt to dispossess them, is much about the size of _Rutlands.h.i.+re_ I fancy; surrounded and apparently fenced in on every side, by the Appenines as by a wall, that wall a hot one, on the southern side, and wholly planted over with vines, while the soft shadows which fall upon the declivity of the mountains make it inexpressibly pretty; and form, by the particular disposition of their light and shadow, a variety which no other prospect so confined can possibly enjoy.

This is the Ilam gardens of Europe; and whoever has seen that singular spot in Derbys.h.i.+re belonging to Mr. Port, has seen little Lucca in a convex mirror. Some writer calls it a ring upon the finger of the Emperor, under whose protection it has been hitherto preserved safe from the Grand Duke of Tuscany till these days, in which the interests of those two sovereigns, united by intimacy as by blood and resemblance of character, are become almost exactly the same.

A Doge, whom they call the _Principe_, is elected every two months; and is a.s.sisted by ten senators in the administration of justice.

Their armoury is the prettiest plaything I ever yet saw, neatly kept, and capable of furnis.h.i.+ng twenty-five thousand men with arms. Their revenues are about equal to the Duke of Bedford's I believe, eighty or eighty-five thousand pounds sterling a year; every spot of ground belonging to these people being cultivated to the highest pitch of perfection that agriculture, or rather gardening (for one cannot call these enclosures fields), will admit: and though it is holiday time just now, I see no neglect of necessary duty. They were watering away this morning at seven o'clock, just as we do in a nursery-ground about London, a hundred men at once, or more, before they came home to make themselves smart, and go to hear music in their best church, in honour of some saint, I have forgotten who; but he is the patron of Lucca, and cannot be accused of neglecting his charge, that is certain.

This city seems really under admirable regulations; here are fewer beggars than even at Florence, where however one for fifty in the states of Genoa or Venice do not meet your eyes: And either the word liberty has bewitched me, or I see an air of plenty without insolence, and business without noise, that greatly delight me. Here is much cheerfulness too, and gay good-humour; but this is the season of devotion at Lucca, and in these countries the ideas of devotion and diversion are so blended, that all religious wors.h.i.+p seems connected with, and to me now regularly implies, _a festive show_.

Well, as the Italians say, "_Il mondo e bello perche e variabile_[Footnote: The world is pleasant because it is various.]." We English dress our clergymen in black, and go ourselves to the theatre in colours. Here matters are reversed, the church at noon looked like a flower-garden, so gaily adorned were the priests, confrairies, &c. while the Opera-house at night had more the air of a funeral, as every body was dressed in black: a circ.u.mstance I had forgotten the meaning of, till reminded that such was once the emulation of finery among the persons of fas.h.i.+on in this city, that it was found convenient to restrain the spirit of expence, by obliging them to wear constant mourning: a very rational and well-devised rule in a town so small, where every body is known to every body; and where, when this silly excitement to envy is wisely removed, I know not what should hinder the inhabitants from living like those one reads of in the Golden Age; which, above all others, this climate most resembles, where pleasure contributes to sooth life, commerce to quicken it, and faith extends its prospects to eternity. Such is, or such at least appears to me this lovely territory of Lucca: where cheap living, free government, and genteel society, may be enjoyed with a tranquillity unknown to larger states: where there are delicious and salutary baths a few miles out of town, for the n.o.bility to make _villeggiatura_ at; and where, if those n.o.bility were at all disposed to cultivate and communicate learning, every opportunity for study is afforded.

Some drawbacks will however always be found from human felicity. I once mentioned this place with warm expectations of delight, to a Milanese lady of extensive knowledge, and every elegant accomplishment worthy her high birth, _the Contessa Melzi Resla_. "Why yes," said she, "if you would find out the place where common sense stagnates, and every topic of conversation dwindles and perishes away by too frequent or too unskilful touching and handling, you must go to Lucca. My ill-health sent me to their beautiful baths one summer; where all the faculties of my body were restored, thank G.o.d, but those of my soul were stupified to such a degree, that at last I was fit to keep no other company but _Dame Lucchesi_ I think; and _our_ talk was soon ended, heaven knows, for when they had once asked me of an evening, what I had for dinner? and told me how many pair of stockings their neighbours sent to the wash, we had done."

This was a young, a charming, a lively lady of quality; full of curiosity to know the world, and of spirits to bustle through it; but had she been battered through the various societies of London and Paris for eighteen or twenty years together, she would have loved Lucca better, and despised it less. "We must not look for whales in the Euxine Sea," says an old writer; and we must not look for great men or great things in little nations to be sure, but let us respect the innocence of childhood, and regard with tenderness the territory of Lucca: where no man has been murdered during the life or memory of any of its peaceful inhabitants; where one robbery alone has been committed for sixteen years; and the thief hanged by a Florentine executioner borrowed for the purpose, no Lucchese being able or willing to undertake so horrible an office, with terrifying circ.u.mstances of penitence and public reprehension: where the governed are so few in proportion to the governors; all power being circulated among four hundred and fifty n.o.bles, and the whole country producing scarcely ninety thousand souls.

A great boarding-school in England is really an infinitely more licentious place; and grosser immoralities are every day connived at in it, than are known to pollute this delicate and curious commonwealth; which keeps a council always subsisting, called the _Discoli_, to examine the lives and conduct, professions, and even _health_ of their subjects: and once o'year they sweep the town of vagabonds, which till then are caught up and detained in a house of correction, and made to work, if hot disabled by lameness, till the hour of their release and dismission. I wondered there were so few beggars about, but the reason is now apparent: these we see are neighbours, come hither only for the three days gala.

I was wonderfully solicitous to obtain some of their coin, which carries on it the image of no _earthly_ prince; but his head only who came to redeem us from general slavery on the one side, _Jesus Christ_; on the other, the word _Libertas_.

Our peasant-girls here are in a new dress to me; no more jewels to be seen, no more pearls; the finery of which so dazzled me in Tuscany: these wenches are prohibited such ornaments it seems. A muslin handkerchief, folded in a most becoming manner, and starched exactly enough to make it wear clean four days, is the head-dress of Lucchese la.s.ses; it is put on turban-wise, and they b.u.t.ton their gowns close, with long sleeves _a la Savoyarde_; but it is made often of a stiff brocaded silk, and green lapels, with cuffs of the same colour; nor do they wear any hats at all, to defend them from a sun which does undoubtedly mature the fig and ripen the vine, but which, by the same excess of power, exalts the venom of the viper, and gives the scorpion means to keep me in perpetual torture for fear of his poison, of which, though they a.s.sure us death is seldom the consequence among _them_, I know his sting would finish me at once, because the gnats at Florence were sufficient to lame me for a considerable time.

The dialect has lost much of the guttural sound that hurt one's ear at the last place of residence; but here is an odd squeaking accent, that distinguishes the Tuscan of Lucca.

The place appropriated for airing, showing fine equipages, &c. is beautiful beyond all telling; from the peculiar shadows on the mountains. They make the bastions of the town their Corso, but none except the n.o.bles can go and drive upon one part of it. I know not how many yards of ground is thus let apart, sacred to sovereignty; but it makes one laugh.

Our inn here is an excellent one, as far as I am concerned; and the sallad-oil green, like Irish usquebaugh, nothing was ever so excellent.

I asked the French valet who dresses our hair, "_Si ce n'etait pas une republique mignonne?_[X]"--"_Ma foy, madame, je la trouve plus tot la republique des rats et des souris[Y];_" replies the fellow, who had not slept all night, I afterwards understood, for the noise those troublesome animals made in his room.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote X: If it were not a dear little pretty commonwealth--this?]

[Footnote Y: Faith, madam, I call it the republic of the rats and mice.]

PISA.

This town has been so often described that it is as well known in England as in Italy almost; where I, like others, have seen the magnificent cathedral; have examined the two pillars which support its entrance, and which once adorned Diana's temple at Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of the world. Their carving is indeed beyond all idea of workmans.h.i.+p; and the possession of them is inestimable. I have seen the old stones with inscriptions on them, bearing date the reign of Antoninus Pius, stuck casually, some with the letters reversed, some sloping, according to accident merely, as it appears to me, in the body of the great church: and I have seen the leaning tower that Lord Chesterfield so comically describes our English travellers eagerness to see. It is a beautiful building though after all, and a strange thing that it should lean so. The cylindrical form, and marble pillars that support each story, may rationally enough attract a stranger's notice, and one is sorry the lower stories have sunk from their foundations, originally defective ones I trust they were, though, G.o.d knows, if the Italians do not build towers well, it is not for want either of skill or of experience; for there is a tower to every town I think, and commonly fabricated with elaborate nicety and well-fixed bases. But as earthquakes and subterranean fires here are scarcely a wonder, one need not marvel much at seeing the ground retreat just _here_. It is nearer our hand, and quite as well worth our while to enquire, why the tower at _Bridgnorth_ in Shrops.h.i.+re leans exactly in the same direction, and is full as much out of the perpendicular as this at Pisa.

The brazen gates here, carved by John of Bologna, at least begun by him, are a wonderful work; and the marbles in the baptistery beat those of Florence for value and for variety. A good lapidary might find perpetual amus.e.m.e.nt in adjusting the claims of superiority to these precious columns of jasper, granite, alabaster, &c. The different animals which support the font being equally admirable for their composition as for their workmans.h.i.+p.

The Campo Santo is an extraordinary place, and, for aught I know, unparalleled for its power over the mind in exciting serious contemplations upon the body's decay, and suggesting consolatory thoughts concerning the soul's immortality. Here in three days, owing to quick-lime mixed among the earth, vanishes every vestige, every trace of the human being carried thither seventy hours before, and here round the walls Giotto and Cimabue have exhausted their invention to impress the pa.s.sers-by with deep and pensive melancholy.

The four stages of man's short life, infancy, childhood, maturity, and decrepit age, not ill represented by one of the ancient artists, shew the sad but not slow progress we make to this dark abode; while the last judgment, h.e.l.l, and paradise inform us what events of the utmost consequence are to follow our journey. All this a modern traveller finds out to be _vastly ridiculous!_ though Doctor Smollet _(whose book I think he has read)_ confesses, that the s.p.a.cious Corridor round the Campo Santo di Pisa would make the n.o.blest walk in the world perhaps for a contemplative philosopher.

The tomb of Algarotti produces softer ideas when one looks at the sepulchre of a man who, having deserved and obtained such solid and extensive praise, modestly contented himself with desiring that his epitaph might be so worded, as to record, upon a simple but lasting monument, that he had the honour of being disciple to the immortal _Newton_.

The battle of the bridge here at Pisa drew a great many spectators this year, as it has not been performed for a considerable time before: the waiters at our inn here give a better account of it than one should have got perhaps from Cavalier or Dama, who would have felt less interested in the business, and seen it from a greater distance. The armies of Sant' Antonio, and I think San Giovanni Battista, but I will not be positive as to the last, disputed the possession of the bridge, and fought gallantly I fancy; but the first remained conqueror, as our very conversible _Camerieres_ took care to inform us, as it was on that side it seems that they had exerted their valour.

Calling theatres, and s.h.i.+ps, and running horses, and mock fights, and almost every thing so by the names of Saints, whom we venerate in silence, and they themselves publicly wors.h.i.+p, has a most profane and offensive sound with it to be sure; and shocks delicate ears very dreadfully: and I used to reprimand my maids at Milan for bringing up the blessed Virgin Mary's name on every trivial, almost on every ludicrous occasion, with a degree of sharpness they were not accustomed to, because it kept me in a constant s.h.i.+vering. Yet let us reflect a moment on our own conduct in England, and we shall be forced candidly to confess that the Puritans alone keep their lips unpolluted by breach of the third commandment, while the common exclamation of _good G.o.d!_ scrupled by few people on the slightest occurrences, and apparently without any temptation in the world, is no less than gross irreverence of his sacred name, whom we acknowledge to be

Father of all, in _every_ age In _every_ clime ador'd; By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.

Nor have the ladies at a London card-table Italian ignorance to plead in their excuse; as not instruction but docility is wanted among almost all ranks of people in Great Britain, where, if the Christian religion were practised as it is understood, little could be wished for its eternal, as little is left out among the blessings of its temporal welfare.

I have been this morning to look at the Grand Duke's camels, which he keeps in his park as we do deer in England. There were a hundred and sixteen of them, pretty creatures! and they breed very well here, and live quite at their ease, only housing them the winter months: they are perfectly docile and gentle the man told me, apparently less tender of their young than mares, but more approachable by human creatures than even such horses as have been long at gra.s.s. That dun hue one sees them of, is, it seems, not totally and invariably the same, though I doubt not but it is so in their native deserts. Let it once become a fas.h.i.+on for sovereigns and other great men to keep and to caress them, we shall see camels as variegated as cats, which in the woods are all of the uniformly-streaked tabby--the males inclining to the brown shade--the females to blue among them;--but being bred _down_, become tortoise-sh.e.l.l, and red, and every variety of colour, which domestication alone can bestow.

The misery of Tuscany is, that _all animals_ thrive so happily under this productive sun; so that if you scorn the Zanzariere, you are half-devoured before morning, and so disfigured, that I defy one's nearest friends to recollect one's countenance; while the spiders sting as much as any of their insects; and one of them bit me this very day till the blood came.

With all this not ill-founded complaint of these our active companions, my constant wonder is, that the grapes hang untouched this 20th of September, in vast heavy cl.u.s.ters covered with bloom; and unmolested by insects, which, with a quarter of this heat in England, are encouraged to destroy all our fruit in spite of the gardener's diligence to blow up nests, cover the walls with netting, and hang them about with bottles of syrup, to court the creatures in, who otherwise so damage every fig and grape and plum of ours, that nothing but the skins are left remaining _by now. Here_ no such contrivances are either wanted or thought on; and while our islanders are sedulously bent to guard, and studious to invent new devices to protect their half dozen peaches from their half dozen wasps, the standard trees of Italy are loaded with high-flavoured and delicious fruits.

Here figs sky-dy'd a purple hue disclose, Green looks the olive, the pomegranate glows; Here dangling pears exalted scents unfold, And yellow apples ripen into gold.

The roadside is indeed hedged with festoons of vines, crawling from olive to olive, which they plant in the ditches of Tuscany as we do willows in Britain: mulberry trees too by the thousand, and some pollarded poplars serve for support to the glorious grapes that will now soon be gathered. What least contributes to the beauty of the country however, is perhaps most subservient to its profits. I am ashamed to write down the returns of money gained by the oil alone in this territory and that of Lucca, where I was much struck with the colour as well as the excellence of this useful commodity. Nor can I tell why none of that green cast comes over to England, unless it is, that, like essential oil of chamomile, it loses the tint by exposure to the air.

An olive tree, however, is no elegantly-growing or happily-coloured plant: straggling and dusky, one is forced to think of its produce, before one can be pleased with its merits, as in a deformed and ugly friend or companion.

The fogs now begin to fall pretty heavily in a morning, and rising about the middle of the day, leave the sun at liberty to exert his violence very powerfully. At night come forth the inhabitants, like dor-beetles at sunset on the coast of Suss.e.x; then is their season to walk and chat, and sing and make love, and run about the street with a girl and a guittar; to eat ice and drink lemonade; but never to be seen drunk or quarrelsome, or riotous. Though night is the true season of Italian felicity, they place not their happiness in brutal frolics, any more than in malicious t.i.tterings; they are idle and they are merry: it is, I think, the worst we can say of them; they are idle because there is little for them to do, and merry because they have little given them to think about. To the busy Englishman they might well apply these verses of his own Milton in the Masque of Comus:

What have we with day to do?

Sons of Care! 'twas made for you.

LEGHORN.

Here we are by the sea-side once more, in a trading town too; and I should think myself in England almost, but for the difference of dresses that pa.s.s under my balcony: for here we were immediately addressed by a young English gentleman, who politely put us in possession of his apartments, the best situated in the town; and with him we talked of the dear coast of Devons.h.i.+re, agreed upon the resemblance between that and these environs, but gave the preference to home, on account of its undulated sh.o.r.e, finely fringed with woodlands, which here are wanting: nor is this verdure equal to ours in vivid colouring, or variegated with so much taste as those lovely hills which are adorned by the antiquities of Powderham Castle, and the fine disposition of Lord Lisburne's park.

But here is an English consul at Leghorn. Yes indeed! an English chapel too; our own King's arms over the door, and in the desk and pulpit an English clergyman; high in character, eminent for learning, genteel in his address, and charitable in every sense of the word: as such, truly loved and honoured by those of his own persuasion, exceedingly respected by those of every other, which fill this extraordinary city: a place so populous, that Cheapside alone can surpa.s.s it.

It is not a large place however; one very long straight street, and one very large wide square, not less than Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, but I think bigger, form the whole of Leghorn; which I can compare to nothing but a _camera obscura,_ or magic lanthron, exhibiting prodigious variety of different, and not uninteresting figures, that pa.s.s and re-pa.s.s to my incessant delight, and give that sort of empty amus.e.m.e.nt which is _a la portee de chacun_[Footnote: Within every one's reach.] so completely, that for the present it really serves to drive every thing else from my head, and makes me little desirous to quit for any other diversion the windows or balcony, whence I look down now upon a Levantine Jew, dressed in long robes, a sort of odd turban, and immense beard: now upon a Tuscan contadinella, with the little straw hat, nosegay and jewels, I have been so often struck with. Here an Armenian Christian, with long hair, long gown, long beard, all black as a raven; who calls upon an old grey Franciscan friar for a walk; while a Greek woman, obliged to cross the street on some occasion, throws a vast white veil all over her person, lest she should undergo the disgrace of being seen at all.

Sometimes a group goes by, composed of a broad Dutch sailor, a dry-starched puritan, and an old French officer; whose knowledge of the world and habitual politeness contrive to conceal the contempt he has of his companions.

The geometricians tell us that the figure which has most angles bears the nearest resemblance to that which has no angles at all; so here at Leghorn, where you can hardly find forty men of a mind, dispute and contention grow vain, a comfortable though temporary union takes place, while nature and opinion bend to interest and necessity.

The _Contorni_ of Leghorn are really very pretty; the Appenine mountains degenerate into hills as they run round the bay, but gain in beauty what in sublimity they lose.

To enjoy an open sea view, one must drive further; and it really affords a n.o.ble prospect from that rising ground where I understand that the rich Jews hold their summer habitations. They have a synagogue in the town, where I went one evening, and heard the Hebrew service, and thought of what Dr. Burney says of their singing.

It is however no credit to the Tuscans to tell, that of all the people gathered together here, they are the worst-looking--I speak of the _men_--but it is so. When compared with the German soldiery, the English sailors, the Venetian traders, the Neapolitan peasants, for I have seen some of _them_ here, how feeble a fellow is a genuine Florentine! And when one recollects the cottagers of Lombardy, that handsome hardy race; bright in their expression, and muscular in their strength; it is still stranger, what can have weakened these too delicate Tuscans so. As they are very rich, and might be very happy under the protection of a prince who lets slip no opportunity of preferring his plebeian to his patrician subjects; yet here at Leghorn they have a tender frame and an unhealthy look, occasioned possibly by the stagnant waters, which tender the environs unwholesome enough I believe; and the millions of live creatures they produce are enough to distract a person not accustomed to such buzzing company.

We went out for air yesterday morning three or four miles beyond the town-walls, where I looked steadily at the sea, till I half thought myself at home. The ocean being peculiarly British property favoured the idea, and for a moment I felt as if on our southern coast; we walked forward towards the sh.o.r.e, and I stepped upon some rocks that broke the waves as they rolled in, and was wis.h.i.+ng for a good bathing house that one might enjoy the benefit of salt-water so long withheld; till I saw our _laquais de place_ crossing himself at the carriage door, and wondering, as I afterwards found out, at my matchless intrepidity. The mind however took another train of thought, and we returned to the coach, which when we arrived at I refused to enter; not without screaming I fear, as a vast hornet had taken possession in our absence, and the very notion of such a companion threw me into an agony. Our attendant's speech to the coachman however, made me more than amends: "_Ora si vede amico_" (says he), "_cos'e la Donna; del mare istesso non ha paura e pur va in convulsioni per via d'una mosca_[Z]." This truly Tuscan and highly contemptuous harangue, uttered with the utmost deliberation, and added to the absence of the hornet, sent me laughing into the carriage, with great esteem of our philosophical _Rosso_, for so the fellow was called, because he had red hair.