Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany Part 16

That nunnery, supported by the arch of Nerva, which is all that is now left standing of that Emperor's Forum.

I must not however quit the Coliseum, without repeating what pa.s.sed between the King of Sweden and his Roman _laquais de place_ when he was here; and the fellow, in the true cant of his Cicerones.h.i.+p, exclaimed as they looked up, "_Ah Maesta!_ what cursed Goths those were that tore away so many fine things here, and pulled down such magnificent pillars, &c." "Hold, hold friend," replies the King of Sweden; "I am one of those cursed Goths myself you know: but what were your Roman n.o.bles a-doing, I would ask, when they laboured to destroy an edifice like this, and build their palaces with its materials?"

The baths of Livia are still elegantly designed round her small apartments; and one has copies sold of them upon fans; the curiosity of the original is to see how well the gilding stands; in many places it appears just finished. These baths are difficult of access somehow; I never could quite understand how we got in or out of them, but they did belong to the Imperial palace, which covered this whole Palatine hill, and here was Nero's golden house, by what I could gather, but of that I thank Heaven there is no trace left, except some little portion of the wall, which was 120 feet high, and some marbles in shades, like women's worsted work upon canva.s.s, very curious, and very wonderful; as all are natural marbles, and no dye used: the expence must have surpa.s.sed credibility.

The Temple of Vesta, supposed to be the _very_ temple to which Horace alludes in his second Ode, is a pretty rotunda, and has twenty pillars fluted of Parian marble: it is now a church, as are most of the heathen temples.

Such adaptations do not please one, but then it must be allowed and recollected that one is very hard to please: finding fault is so easy, and doing right so difficult!

The good Pope Gregory, who feared (by sacred inspiration one would think) all which should come to pa.s.s, broke many beautiful antique statues, "lest," said he, "induced by change of dress or name perhaps our Christians may be tempted to adore them:" and we say he was a blockhead, and burned Livy's decads, and so he did; but he refused all t.i.tles of earthly dignity; he censured the Oriental Patriarchs for subst.i.tuting temporal splendours in the place of primitive simplicity; which he said ought _alone_ to distinguish the followers of Jesus Christ. He required a strict attention to morality from all his inferior clergy; observed that those who strove to be first, would end in being last; and took himself the t.i.tle of servant to the servants of G.o.d.

Well! Sabinian, his successor, once his favourite Nuncio, flung his books in the fire as soon as he was dead; so his injunctions were obeyed but while he lived to enforce them; and every day now shews us how necessary they were: when, even in these enlightened times, there stands an old figure that every Abate in the town knows to have been originally made for the fabulous G.o.d of Physic, Esculapius, is prayed to by many old women and devotees of all ages indeed, just at the Via Sacra's entrance, and called St. Bartolomeo.

A beautiful Diana too, with her trussed-up robes, the crescent alone wanting, stands on the high altar to receive homage in the character of St. Agnes, in a pretty church dedicated to her _fuor delle Porte_, where it is supposed she suffered martyrdom; and why? Why for not venerating that _very G.o.ddess Diana_, and for refusing to walk in her procession at the _New Moon_, like a good Christian girl. "_Such contradictions put one from one's self_" as Shakespear says.

We are this moment returned home from Tivoli; have walked round Adrian's Villa, and viewed his Hippodrome, which would yet make an admirable open Manege. I have seen the Cascatelle, so sweetly elegant, so rural, so romantic; and I have looked with due respect on the places once inhabited, and ever justly celebrated by genius, wit, and learning; have shuddered at revisiting the spot I hastened down to examine, while curiosity was yet keen enough to make me venture a very dangerous and scarcely-trodden path to Neptune's Grotto; where, as you descend, the Cicerone shews you a wheel of some coa.r.s.e carriage visibly stuck fast in the rock till it is become a part of it; distinguished from every other stone only by its shape, its projecting forward, and its shewing the hollow places in its fellies, where nails were originally driven. This truly-curious, though little venerable piece of antiquity, serves to a.s.sist the wise men in puzzling out the world's age, by computing how many centuries go to the petrifying a cart wheel. A violent roar of das.h.i.+ng waters at the bottom, and a fall of the river at this place from the height of 150 feet, were however by no means favourable to my arithmetical studies; and I returned perfectly disposed to think the world's age a less profitable, a less diverting contemplation, than its folly.

We looked at the temple of the old G.o.ddess that cured coughs, now a Christian church, dedicated to _la Madonna della Tosse_; it is exactly all it ever was, I believe; and we dined in the temple of Sibylla Tiburtina, a beautiful edifice, of which Mr. Jenkins has sent the model to London in cork, which gives a more exact representation after all than the best-chosen words in the world. I would rather make use of _them_ to praise Mr. Jenkins's general kindness and hospitality to all his country-folks, who find a certain friend in him; and if they please, a very competent instructor.

In order however to understand the meaning of some spherical _pots_ observed in the Circus of Caracalla, I chose above all men to consult Mr. Greatheed, whose correct taste, deep research, and knowledge of architecture, led me to prefer his account to every other, of their use and necessity: it shall be given in his own words, which I am proud of his permission to copy.

"Of those _pots_ you mention, there are not any remaining in the Circus Maxiouis, as the walls, seats and apodium of that have entirely disappeared. They are to be seen in the Circus of Caracalla, on the Appian way; of this, and of this alone, enough still exists to ascertain the form, structure, and parts of a Roman course. It was surrounded by two parallel walls which supported the seats of the spectators. The exterior wall rose to the summit of the gallery; the interior one was much lower, terminated with the lowest rows, and formed the apodium. This rough section may serve to elucidate my description. From wall to wall an arch was turned which formed a quadrant, and on this the seats immediately rested: but as the upper rows were considerably distant from the crown of the arch, it was necessary to fill the intermediate s.p.a.ce with materials sufficiently strong to support the upper stone benches and the mult.i.tude. Had these been of solid substance, they would have pressed prodigious and disproportionate weight on the summit of the arch, a place least able to endure it from its horizontal position. To remedy this defect, the architect caused _spherical pots_ to be baked; of these each formed of itself an arch sufficiently powerful to sustain its share of the inc.u.mbent weight, and the whole was rendered much less ponderous by the innumerable vacuities.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"A similiar expedient was likewise used to diminish the pressure of their domes, by employing the scoriae of lava brought for that purpose from the Lipari Islands. The numberless bubbles of this volcanic substance give it the appearance of a honeycomb, and answer the same purpose as the pots in Caracalla's Circus, so much so, that though very hard, it is of less specific gravity than wood, and consequently floats in water."

Before I quit the Circus of Caracalla, I must not forbear mentioning his bust, which so perfectly resembles Hogarth's idle 'Prentice; but why should they not be alike?

For black-guards are black-guards in every degree,

I suppose, and the people here who shew one things, always take delight to souce an Englishman's hat upon his head, as if they thought so too.

This morning's ramble let us to see the old grotto, sacred to Numa's famous nymph, aegeria, not far from Rome even now. I wonder that it should escape being built round when Rome was so extensive as to contain the crowds which we are told were lodged in it. That the city spread chiefly the other way, is scarce an answer. London spreads chiefly the Marybone way perhaps, yet is much nearer to Rumford than it was fifty or sixty years ago.

The same remark may be made of the Temple of Mars without the walls, near the Porta Capena: a rotunda it was on the road side _then_: it is on the road side _now_, and a very little way from the gate.

Caius Cestius's sepulchre however, without the walls, on the other side, is one of the most perfect remains of antiquity we have here. Aurelian made use of that as a boundary we know: it stands at present half without and half within the limit that Emperor set to the city; and is a very beautiful pyramid a hundred and ten feet high, admirably represented in Piranesi's prints, with an inscription on the white marble of which it is composed, importing the name and office and condition of its wealthy proprietor: _C. Cestius, septem vir epulonum_.

He must have lived therefore since Julius Caesar's time it is plain, as he first increased the number of epulones to seven, from three their original inst.i.tution. It was probably a very lucrative office for a man to be Jupiter's caterer; who, as he never troubled himself with looking over the bills, they were such commonly, I doubt not, as made ample profits result to him who went to market; and Caius Cestius was one of the rich contractors of those days, who neglected no opportunity of acquiring wealth for himself, while he consulted the honour of Jupiter in providing for his master's table very plentiful and elegant banquets.

That such officers were in use too among the Persians during the time their monarchy lasted, is plain from the apocryphal story of Bel and the Dragon in our Bibles, where, to the joy of every child that reads it, Daniel detects the fraud of the priests by scattering ashes or saw-dust in the temple.

But I fear the critics will reprove me for saying that Julius Caesar only increased the number to seven, while many are of opinion he added three more, and made them a decemvirate: mean time Livy tells us the inst.i.tution began in the year of Rome 553, during the consulate of Fulvius Purpurio and Marcellus, upon a motion of Romuleius if I remember. They had the privilege granted afterwards of edging the gown with purple like the pontiffs, when increased to seven in number; and they were always known by the name _Septemviratus,_ or _Septemviri Epulonum_, to the latest hours of Paganism.

The tomb of Caius Cestius is supposed to have cost twelve thousand pounds sterling of our money in those days; and little did he dream that it should be made in the course of time a repository for the bones of _divisos...o...b.. Britannos_: for such it is now appointed to be by government. All of us who die at Rome, sleep with this purveyor of the G.o.ds; and from his monument shall at the last day rise the re-animated body of our learned and incomparable Sir James Macdonald: whose numerous and splendid acquirements, though by the time he had reached twenty-four years old astonished all who knew him, never overwhelmed one little domestic virtue. His filial piety however; his hereditary courage, his extensive knowledge, his complicated excellencies, have now, I fear, no other register to record their worth, than a low stone near the stately pyramid of Jupiter's caterer.

The tomb of Caecilia Metella, wife of the rich and famous Cra.s.sus, claims our next attention; it is a beautiful structure, and still called _Capo di Bove_ by the Italians, on account of its being ornamented with the _oxhead and flowers_ which now flourish over every door in the new-built streets of London; but the original of which, as Livy tells us, and I believe Plutarch too, was this. That Coratius, a Sabine farmer, who possessed a particularly fine cow, was advised by a soothsayer to sacrifice her to Diana upon the Aventine Hill; telling him, that the city where _she_ now presided--_Diana_--should become mistress of the world, and he who presented her with that cow should become master over that city. The poor Sabine went away to wash in the Tyber, and purify himself for these approaching honours[AF]; but in the mean time, a boy having heard the discourse, and reported it to _Servius Tullius_, he hastened to the spot, killed Coratius's cow for him, sacrificed her to Diana, and hung her head with the horns on, and the garland just as she died, upon the temple door as an ornament. From that time, it seems, the ornament called _Caput Bovis_ was in a manner consecrated to Diana, and her particular votaries used it on their tombs. Nor could one easily account for the decorations of many Roman sarcophagi, till one recollects that they were probably adapted to that divinity in whose temple they were to be placed, rather than to the particular person occupying the tomb, or than to our general ideas of death, time, and eternity. It is probably for this reason that the immense sarcophagus lately dug up from under the temple of Bacchus without the walls, cut out of one solid piece of red porphyry, has such gay ornaments round it, relative to the sacrifices of Bacchus, &c.; and I fancy these stone coffins, if we may call them so, were often made ready and sold to any person who wished to bury their friend, and who chose some story representing the triumph of whatever deity they devoted themselves to.

Were the modern inhabitants of Rome who venerate St. Lorenzo, St.

Sebastiano, &c. to place, not uncharacteristically at all--a gridiron, or an arrow on their tombstone, it might puzzle succeeding antiquarians, and yet be nothing out of the way in the least.

[Footnote AF: A circ.u.mstance alluded to and parodied by Ben Johnson in his Alchemist. See the conduct of Dapper, &c.]

Of the Egyptian obelisks at Rome I will not strive to give any account, or even any idea. They are too numerous, too wonderful, too learned for me to talk about; but I must not forbear to mention the broken thing which lies down somewhere in a heap of rubbish, and is said to be the greatest rarity in Rome, column, or _obelisk_ and the greatest antiquity surely, if 1630 years before the birth of Christ be its date; as that was but two centuries after the invention of letters by _Memnon_, and just about the time that Joseph the favourite of Pharaoh died. There is a sphinx upon it, however, mighty clearly expressed; and some one said, how strange it was, if the world was no older than we think it, that they should, in so early a stage of existence, represent, or even imagine to themselves a compound animal[AG]: though the chimaera came in play when the world was pretty young too, and the Prophet Isaiah speaks of centaurs; but that was long after even Hesiod's time.

[Footnote AG: The ornaments of the ark and tabernacle exhibit much improvement in the arts of engraving, carving, &c. Nor did it seem to cost Aaron any trouble to make a cast of Apis in the Wilderness for the Israelites' amus.e.m.e.nt, 1491 years before Christ; while the dog Anubis was probably another figure with which Moses was not unacquainted, and that was certainly composite: a cynopephalus I believe.]

A modern traveller has however, with much ingenuity of conjecture, given us an excellent reason why the Sphinx was peculiar to Egypt, as the Nile was observed to overflow when the sun was in those signs of the Zodiack:

The lion virgin Sphinx, which shows What time the rich Nile overflows.

And sure I think, as people lived longer then than they do now; as Moses was contemporary with Cecrops, so that monarchy and a settled form of government had begun to obtain footing in Greece, and apparently migrated a little westward even then; that this column might have employed the artists of those days, without any such exceeding stretch of probability as our modern Aristotelians study to make out, from their zeal to establish his doctrine of the world's eternity. While, if conjecture were once as liberally permitted to believers as it is generously afforded to scepticks, I know not whether a hint concerning Sphinx's original might not be deduced from old Israel's last blessing to his sons; _The lion of Judah_, with the _head of a virgin_, in whose offspring that lion was one day to sink and be lost, except his hinder parts; might naturally enough grow into a favourite emblem among the inhabitants of a nation who owed their existence to one of the family; and who would be still more inclined to commemorate the mystical blessing, if they observed the fructifying inundation to happen regularly, as Mr. Savary says, when the Sun left Leo for Virgo.

The broken pillar has however carried me too far perhaps, though every day pa.s.sed in the Pope's Musaeum confirms my belief, nay certainty, that they did mingle the veneration of Joseph with that of their own G.o.ds: The bushel or measure of corn on the Egyptian Jupiter's head is a proof of it, and the name _Serapis_, a further corroboration: the dream which he explained for Pharaoh relative to the event that fixed his favour in that country, was expressed by _cattle_; and _for apis_, the _ox's head_, was perfectly applicable to him for every reason.

But we will quit mythology for the Corso. This is the first town in Italy I have arrived at yet, where the ladies fairly drive up and down a long street by way of shewing their dress, equipages, &c. without even a pretence of taking fresh air. At Turin the view from the place destined to this amus.e.m.e.nt, would tempt one out merely for its own sake; and at Milan they drive along a planted walk, at least a stone's throw beyond the gates. Bologna calls its serious inhabitants to a little rising ground, whence the prospect is luxuriantly verdant and smiling. The Lucca bastions are beyond all in a peculiar style of miniature beauty; and even the Florentines, though lazy enough, creep out to Porto St.

Gallo. But here at Roma la Santa, the street is all our Corso; a fine one doubtless, and called the _Strada del Popolo_, with infinite propriety, for except in that strada there is little populousness enough G.o.d knows. Twelve men to a woman even there, and as many ecclesiastics to a lay-man: all this however is fair, when celibacy is once enjoined as a duty in one profession, encouraged as a virtue in all. Where females are superfluous, and half prohibited, it were as foolish to complain of the decay of population, as it was comical in Omai the South American savage, when he lamented that no cattle bred upon their island; and one of our people replying, That they left some beasts on purpose to furnish them; he answered, "Yes, but the idol wors.h.i.+pped at Bola-bola, another of the islands, insisted on the males and females living separate: so they had sent _him_ the cows, and kept only the bulls at home."

_Au reste_, as the French say, we must not be too sure that all who dress like Abates are such. Many gentlemen wear black as the court garb; many because it is not costly, and many for reasons of mere convenience and dislike of change.

I see not here the attractive beauty which caught my eye at Venice; but the women at Rome have a most Juno-like carriage, and fill up one's idea of Livia and Agrippina well enough. The men have rounder faces than one sees in other towns I think; bright, black, and somewhat prominent eyes, with the finest teeth in Europe. A story told me this morning struck my fancy much; of an herb-woman, who kept a stall here in the market, and who, when the people ran out flocking to see the Queen of Naples as she pa.s.sed, began exclaiming to her neighbours--"_Ah, povera Roma! tempo fu quando pa.s.s qui prigioniera la regina Zen.o.bia; altra cosa amica, robba tutta diversa di questa_ reginuccia[AH]!"

[Footnote AH: "Ah, poor degraded Rome! time was, my dear, when the great Zen.o.bia pa.s.sed through these streets in chains; anotherguess figure from this little Queeney, in good time!"]

A characteristic speech enough; but in this town, unlike to every other, the _things_ take my attention all away from the _people_; while, in every other, the people have had much more of my mind employed upon them, than the things.

The arch of Constantine, however, must be spoken of; the sooner, because there is a contrivance at the top of it to conceal musicians, which added, as it pa.s.sed, to the noise and gaiety of the triumph. Lord Scarsdale's back front at Keddlestone exhibits an imitation of this structure; a motto, expressive of hospitality, filling up the part which, in the original, is adorned with the siege of Verona, that to me seems well done; but Michael Angelo carried off Trajan's head they tell us, which had before been carried thither from the arch of Trajan himself. The arch of t.i.tus Vespasian struck me more than all the others we have named though; less for its being the first building in which the Composite order of architecture is made use of, among the numberless fabrics that surround one, than for the evident completion of the prophecies which it exhibits. Nothing can appear less injured by time than the bas-reliefs, on one side representing the ark, and golden candlesticks; on the other, t.i.tus himself, delight of human kind, drawn by four horses, his look at once serene and sublime. The Jews cannot endure, I am told, to pa.s.s under this arch, so lively is the _annihilation_ of their government, and utter _extinction_ of their religion, carved upon it. When reflecting on the continued captivity they have suffered ever since this arch was erected here at Rome, and which they still suffer, being strictly confined to their own miserable Ghetto, which they dare not leave without a mark upon their hat to distinguish them, and are never permitted to stir without the walls, except in custody of some one whose business it is to bring them back; when reflecting, I say, on their sorrows and punishments, one's heart half inclines to pity their wretchedness; the dreadful recollection immediately crosses one, that these are the direct and lineal progeny of those very Jews who cried out aloud--"_Let his blood be upon us, and upon our children!_"--Unhappy race! how sweetly does St. Austin say of them--"_Librarii nostri facti sunt, quemadmodum solent libros post dominos ferre_."

The _arca degli orefici_ is a curious thing too, and worth observing: the goldsmiths set it up in honour of Caracalla and Geta; but one plainly discerns where poor Geta's head has been carried off in one place, his figure broken in another, apparently by Caracalla's order.

The building is of itself of little consequence, but as a confirmation of historical truth.

The fountains of Rome should have been spoken of long ago; the number of them is known to all though, and of their magnificence words can give no idea. One print of the Trevi is worth all the words of all the describers together. Moses striking the rock, at another fountain, where water in torrents tumble forth at the touch of the rod, has a glorious effect, from the happiness of the thought, and an expression so suitable to the subject. When I was told the story of Queen Christina admiring the two prodigious fountains before St. Peter's church, and begging that they might leave off playing, because she thought them occasional, and in honour of her arrival, not constant and perpetual; who could help recollecting a similar tale told about the Prince of Monaco, who was said to have expressed his concern, when he saw the roads lighted up round London, that our king should put himself to so great an expence on his account--in good time!--thinking it a temporary illumination made to receive him with distinguished splendour. These anecdotes are very pretty now, if they are strictly true; because they shew the mind's petty but natural disposition, of reducing and attributing all _to self_: but if they are only inventions, to raise the reputation of London lamps, or Roman cascades, one scorns them;--I really do hope, and half believe, that they are true.

But I have been to see the two Auroras of Guido and Guercino. Villa Ludovisi contains the last, of which I will speak first for forty reasons--the true one because I like it best. It is so sensible, so poetical, so beautiful. The light increases, and the figure advances to the fancy: one expects Night to be waked before one looks at her again, if ever one can be prevailed upon to take one's eyes away. The bat and owl are going soon to rest, and the lamp burns more faintly as when day begins to approach. The personification of Night is wonderfully hit off.

But Guercino is _such_ a painter! We were driving last night to look at the Coliss...o...b.. moon-light--there were a few clouds just to break the expanse of azure and shew the gilding. I thought how like a sky of Guercino's it was; other painters remind one of nature, but nature when most lovely makes one think of Guercino and his works. The Ruspigliosi palace boasts the Aurora of Guido--both are ceilings, but this is not rightly named sure. We should call it the Phoebus, for Aurora holds only the second place at best: the fun is driving over her almost; it is a more luminous, a more graceful, a more showy picture than the other, more universal too, exciting louder and oftener repeated praises; yet the other is so discriminated, so tasteful, so cla.s.sical! We must go see what Domenichino has done with the same subject.

I forget the name of the palace where it is to be admired: but had we not seen the others, one should have said this was divine. It is a Phoebus again, _this_ is; not a bit of an Aurora: and Truth is springing up from the arms of Time to rejoice in the sun's broad light. Her expression of transport at being set free from obscurity, is happy in an eminent degree; but there are faults in her form, and the Apollo has scarcely dignity enough in _his_. The horses are best in Guide's picture: Aurora at the Villa Ludovisi has but two; they are very spirited, but it is the spirit of three, not six o'clock in a summer morning. Surely Thomson had been living under these two roofs when he wrote such descriptions as seem to have been made on purpose for them; could any one give a more perfect account of Guercino's performance than these words afford?

The meek-ey'd morn appears, mother of dews, At first faint-gleaming in the dappled East Till far o'er aether spreads the widening glow, And from before the l.u.s.tre of her face White break the clouds away: with quicken'd step Brown Night retires, young Day pours in apace And opens all the lawny prospect wide.

As for the Ruspigliosi palace I left these lines in the room, written by the same author, and think them more capable than any description I could make, of giving some idea of Guido's Phoebus.

While yonder comes the powerful King of Day Rejoicing in the East; the lessening cloud, The kindling azure, and the mountains brow Illum'd with fluid gold, his near approach Betoken glad; lo, now apparent all He looks in boundless majesty abroad, And sheds the s.h.i.+ning day.

So charming Thomson wrote from his lodgings at a milliner's in Bond-street, whence he seldom rose early enough to see the sun do more than glisten on the opposing windows of the street: but genius, like truth, cannot be kept down. So he wrote, and so they painted! _Ut pictura poesis_.

The music is not in a state so capital as we left it in the north of Italy; we regret Nardini of Florence, Alessandri of Venice, and Ronzi of Milan; and who that has heard Signior Marchesi sing, could ever hear a successor (for rival he has none), without feeling total indifference to all their best endeavours?

The conversations of Cardinal de Bernis and Madame de Boccapaduli are what my countrywomen talk most of; but the Roman ladies cannot endure perfumes, and faint away even at an artificial rose. I went but once among them, when Memmo the Venetian amba.s.sador did me the honour to introduce me _somewhere_, but the conversation was soon over, not so my shame; when I perceived all the company shrink from me very oddly, and stop their noses with rue, which a servant brought to their a.s.sistance on open salvers. I was by this time more like to faint away than they--from confusion and distress; my kind protector informed me of the cause; said I had some grains of marechale powder in my hair perhaps, and led me out of the a.s.sembly; to which no intreaties could prevail on me ever to return, or make further attempts to a.s.sociate with a delicacy so very susceptible of offence.