Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents Part 6

The sight of the orchestra still makes me smile. You know, I suppose, it is entirely of the female gender, and that nothing is more common than to see a delicate white hand journeying across an enormous double ba.s.s, or a pair of roseate cheeks puffing, with all their efforts, at a French horn. Some that are grown old and Amazonian, who have abandoned their fiddles and their lovers, take vigorously to the kettledrum; and one poor limping lady, who had been crossed in love, now makes an admirable figure on the ba.s.soon.

Good-night! I am quite exhausted with composing a chorus for these same Amazonians. The poetry I send you, which seems to be some of the most picturesque and nervous an Italian ever produced. The music takes up too much room to travel at present. One day or other, perhaps, we may hear it in some dark grove, when the moon is eclipsed and nature in alarm.

This is not the last letter you would receive from Venice, was I not hurrying to Lucca, where Pacchierotti sings next week, in the opera of Quinto Fabio, of all operas the most worthy to excuse such a musical fanaticism. Adieu.

LETTER X

September 4th.--I was sorry to leave Venice, and regretted my peaceful excursions upon the Adriatic, when the Euganean hills were lost in a golden haze, and the sun cast his departing gleam across the waters. No bright rays illuminated my departure, but the coolness and perfume of the air made some amends for their absence.

About an hour's rowing from the isle of Saint Giorgio in Alga, brought us to the sh.o.r.es of Fusina, right opposite the opening where the Brenta mixes with the sea. This river flows calmly between banks of verdure, crowned by poplars, with vines twining round every stalk, and depending from tree to tree in beautiful festoons. Beds of mint and flowers clothe the brink of the stream, except where a tall growth of reeds and osiers lift themselves to the breezes. I heard their whispers as we glided along; and had I been alone might have told you what they said to me; but such aerial oracles must be approached in solitude. The morning continued to lower as we advanced; scarce a wind ventured to breathe; all was still and placid as the surface of the Brenta. No sound struck my ears except the bargemen hallooing to open the sluices, and deepen the water.

As yet I had not perceived an habitation; no other objects than green inclosures and fields of Turkish corn, shaded with vines and poplars, met my eyes wherever I turned them.

Our navigation, the tranquil streams and cultivated banks, in short the whole landscape, had a sort of Chinese cast, which led me into Quang-Si and Quang-Tong. The variety of canes, reeds, and blooming rushes, shooting from the slopes, confirmed my fancies, and when I beheld the yellow nenupha expanding its broad leaves to the current, I thought of the Tao-Se, and venerated one of the chief ingredients in their beverage of immortality. Landing where this magic vegetation appeared most luxuriant, I cropped the flowers; but searched in vain for the kernels, which, according to the doctrine of the Bonzes, produce such wonderful effects. Though I was deceived in this pursuit, I gained, however, in another. The bank upon which I had sprung presented a continual walk of level turf, surrounded by vines, concealing the trees which supported them, and forming the most delightful bowers. Under these garlands I pa.s.sed, and gathered the ripe cl.u.s.ters which dangled around, convinced that Noah had discovered a far superior beverage to that of the Tao-Se. Whilst I was thus agreeably employed, it began to rain, and the earth to exhale a fresh, reviving odour, highly grateful to one who had been so long confined to walls and waters. After breathing nothing but the essence of the ca.n.a.ls and the flavours of the Rialto, after the jingling of bells and brawls of the gondoliers, imagine how agreeable it was to scent the perfume of clover, to tread a springing herbage, and listen in silence to the showers pattering amongst the leaves. I staid so long amidst the vines, that it grew late before we rowed by the Mira, a village of palaces, whose courts and gardens, as magnificent as statues, terraces, and vases can make them, compose a grand, though far from a rural prospect.

Not being greatly delighted with such scenery, we stayed no longer than our dinner required, and reached the Dolo an hour before sunset.

Pa.s.sing the great sluices, whose gates opened with a thundering noise, we continued our course along the peaceful Brenta, winding its broad full stream through impenetrable copses, surmounted by tall waving poplars. Day was about to close when we reached Fiesso; and it being a misty evening, I could scarcely distinguish the pompous facade of the Pisani palace. That where we supped looks upon a broad ma.s.s of foliage, which I contemplated with pleasure as it sank in the dusk.

We walked a long while under a pavilion stretched before the entrance, breathing the freshness of the wood after the shower, and hearing the drops trickle down the awning above our heads. The Galuzzi sang some of her father Ferandini's compositions, with a fire, an energy, an expression, that one moment raised me to a pitch of heroism, and the next dissolved me in tears. Her cheek was flushed with inspiration, her eyes glistened; the whole tone of her countenance was like that of a person rapt and inspired. I forgot both time and place whilst she was breathing forth such celestial harmony. The night stole imperceptibly away, and morning dawned before I awoke from my trance. I don't recollect ever to have pa.s.sed an evening, which every circ.u.mstance conspired so much to improve.

In general, my musical pleasures suffer terrible abatements from the phlegm and stupidity of my neighbourhood, but here every one seemed to catch the flame, and to listen with reciprocal delight. The C--- threw quick around her the glancing fires of genius: and, what with the song of the Galuzzi, and those intellectual meteors, I scarcely knew to what element I was transported; and doubted for several moments whether I had not fallen into a celestial dream. I loathed the light of the morning star, which summoned me to depart; and, if I may express myself so poetically,

"Cast many a longing, ling'ring look behind."

LETTER XI

September 5th.--The glow and splendour of the rising sun, for once in my life, drew little of my attention. I was too deeply plunged in my reveries, to notice the landscape which lay before me; and the walls of Padua presented themselves some time ere I was aware. At any other moment, how sensibly should I have been affected with their appearance! how many ideas of Antenor and his Trojans, would have thronged into my memory! but now I regarded the scene with indifference, and pa.s.sed many a palace, and many a woody garden, with my eyes riveted to the ground. The first object that appeared, upon lifting them up, was a confused pile of spires and cupolas, dedicated to blessed St. Anthony, who betook himself to the conversion of fish, after the heretics would lend no ear to his discourses.

You are too well apprised of the veneration I have always entertained for this ingenious preacher, to doubt that I immediately repaired to his shrine and offered up my little orisons before it. Mine was a disturbed spirit, and required all the balm of St. Anthony's kindness to appease it. Perhaps you will say I had better gone to bed, and applied myself to my sleepy friend, the pagan divinity. 'Tis probable that you are in the right; but I could not retire to rest without venting some portion of effervescence in sighs and supplications. The nave was filled with decrepit women and feeble children, kneeling by baskets of vegetables and other provisions; which, by good Anthony's interposition, they hoped to sell advantageously in the course of the day. Beyond these, nearer the choir, and in a gloomier part of the edifice, knelt a row of rueful penitents, smiting their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and lifting their eyes to heaven.

Further on, in front of the dark recess, where the sacred relics are deposited, a few desperate, melancholy sinners lay prostrate.

To these I joined myself, and fell down on the steps before the shrine. The sunbeams had not yet penetrated into this religious quarter; and the only light it received proceeded from the golden lamps, which hang in cl.u.s.ters round the sanctuary. A lofty altar, decked with superst.i.tious prodigality, conceals the holy pile from profane glances. Those who are profoundly touched with its sanct.i.ty may approach, and walking round, look through the crevices of the tomb, and rub their noses against the identical bones of St. Anthony, which, it is observed, exude a balsamic odour. But supposing a traveller ever so heretical, I would advise him by no means to neglect this pilgrimage; since every part of the recess he visits is decorated with the most exquisite sculptures. Sansovino and the best artists have vied with each other in carving the alto relievos of the arcade, which, for design and execution, would do honour to the sculptors of antiquity.

Having observed these objects with much less exactness than they merited, and acted perhaps too capital a part amongst the devotees, I hastened to the inn, luckily hard by, and one of the best I am acquainted with. Here I soon fell asleep in defiance of suns.h.i.+ne.

'Tis true my slumbers were not a little agitated. St. Anthony had been deaf to my prayer, and I still found myself a frail, infatuated mortal.

At five I got up; we dined, and afterwards, scarcely knowing, nor much caring, what became of us, we strolled to the great hall of the town; an enormous edifice, as large as that of Westminster, but free from stalls, or shops, or nests of litigation. The roof, one s.p.a.cious vault of brown timber, casts a solemn gloom, which was still increased by the lateness of the hour, and not diminished by the wan light, admitted through the windows of pale blue gla.s.s. The size and shape of this colossal chamber, the coving of the roof, with beams like perches for the feathered race, stretching across it, and, above all, the watery gleams that glanced through the cas.e.m.e.nts, possessed my fancy with ideas of Noah's ark, and almost persuaded me I beheld that extraordinary vessel. The representation one sees of it in Scheutzer's "Physica Sacra" seems to be formed upon this very model, and for several moments I indulged the chimera of imagining myself confined within its precincts. How willingly, could I but choose my companions, would I encounter a deluge, to float whole years instead of months upon the waves!

We remained walking to and fro in the ark, till the twilight faded into total darkness. It was then full time to retire, as the guardian of the place was by no means formed to divine our diluvian ideas.

LETTER XII

September 6th.--At Padua, I was too near the last and one of the most celebrated abodes of Petrarch, to make the omission of a visit excusable; had I not been in a disposition to render such a pilgrimage peculiarly pleasing. I set forwards from Padua after dinner, so as to arrive some time before sunset. Nothing could be finer than the day; and I had every reason to promise myself a serene and delicious hour, before the sun might go down. I put the poems of Petrarch into my pocket; and, as my road lay chiefly through lanes, planted on either side with mulberries and poplars, from which vines hung dangling in careless festoons, I found many a bowering shade, where I sat, at intervals, to indulge my pensive humour over some ejaculatory sonnet; as the pilgrim, on his journey to Loretto, reposes here and there, to offer his prayers and meditations to the Virgin. In little more than an hour and half, I found myself in the midst of the Euganean hills, and, after winding almost another hour amongst them, I got, before I was well aware, into the village of Arqua. Nothing can be more sequestered or obscure than its situation. It had rather a deserted appearance; several of its houses being dest.i.tute of inhabitants, and crumbling into ruins. Two or three of them, however, exhibited ancient towers, richly mantled with ivy, and surrounded with cypress, that retained the air of having once belonged to persons of consideration. Their present abandoned state nourished the melancholy idea with which I entered the village. Could one approach the last retreat of genius, and not look for some glow of its departed splendour?

"Dear to the pensive eye of fond regret, Is light still beaming from a sun that's set."

The residence of Petrarch at Arqua is said to have drawn thither from Padua the society of its more enlightened citizens. This city, whilst Petrarch lived in its neighbourhood, was engaged in rebellion against the Venetians; and Francis de Carrara, the head of it, went often to Arqua, to consult Petrarch; when he found himself obliged to sue to Venice for peace. The poet was indeed deputed, upon this occasion, his amba.s.sador to the state; as being a person whose character and credit were most likely to appease its wrath. His success in this emba.s.sy might, perhaps, have been some recompense for an employment he accepted with much regret, as it forced him from his beloved retirement. In a letter to one of his friends, written about this period of his life, he says: "I pa.s.s the greatest part of the year in the country, which I have always preferred to cities: I read; I write; I think: thus, my life and my pleasures are like those of youth. I take pains to hide myself; but I cannot escape visits: it is an honour which displeases and wearies me. In my little house on the Euganean hills, I hope to pa.s.s my few remaining days in tranquillity, and to have always before my eyes my dead, or my absent, friends." I was musing on these circ.u.mstances as I walked along the village, till a venerable old woman, seated at her door with her distaff in her hand, observing me, soon guessed the cause of my excursion; and offered to guide me to Petrarch's house. The remainder of my way was short, and well amused by my guide's enthusiastic expressions of veneration for the poet's memory; which, she a.s.sured me, she felt but in common with the other inhabitants of the village. When we came to the door of the house, we met the peasant, its present possessor. The old woman, recommending the stranger and his curiosity to her neighbour's good offices, departed.

I entered immediately, and ran over every room, which the peasant a.s.sured me, in confirmation of what I before learnt from better authority, were preserved, as nearly as they could be, in the state Petrarch had left them. The house and premises, having unfortunately been transmitted from one enthusiast of his name to another, no tenants have been admitted, but under the strictest prohibition of making any change in the form of the apartments, or in the memorial relics belonging to the place: and, to say the truth, everything I saw in it, save a few articles of the peasant's furniture in the kitchen, has an authentic appearance. Three of the rooms below stairs are particularly shown, and they have nothing in them but what once belonged to the poet. In one, which I think they call his parlour, is a very antique cupboard; where, it is supposed, he deposited some precious part of his literary treasure. The ceiling is painted in a grotesque manner. A niche in the wall contains the skeleton of his favourite cat, with a Latin epigram beneath, of Petrarch's composition. It is good enough to deserve being copied; but the lateness of the hour did not allow me time. A little room, beyond this, is said to have been his study: the walls of it, from top to bottom, are scribbled over with sonnets, and poetical eulogies on Petrarch, ancient and modern: many of which are subscribed by persons, of distinguished rank and talents, Italians as well as strangers. Here, too, is the bard's old chair, and on it is displayed a great deal of heavy, ornamental carpentry; which required no stretch of faith to be believed the manufacture of the fourteenth century. You may be sure, I placed myself in it, with much veneration, and the most resigned a.s.sent to Mrs. Dobson's relation: that Petrarch, sitting in this same chair, was found dead in his library, with one arm leaning on a book. Who could sit in Petrarch's chair, void of some effect? I rose not from it without a train of pensive sentiments and soft impressions; which I ever love to indulge. I was now led into a larger room, behind that I first saw; where, it is likely enough, the poet, according to the peasant's information, received the visits of his friends. Its walls were adorned with landscapes and pastoral scenes, in such painting as Petrarch himself might, and is supposed to have executed. Void of taste and elegance, either in the design or colouring, they bear some characteristic marks of the age to which they are, with no improbability, a.s.signed; and, separate from the merit of exhibiting repeatedly the portraits of Petrarch and Laura, are a valuable sketch of the rude infancy of the art, where it rose with such hasty vigour to perfection. Having seen all that was left unchanged in this consecrated mansion, I pa.s.sed through a room, said to have been the bard's bed-room, and stepped into the garden, situated on a green slope, descending directly from the house. It is now rather an orchard than a garden; a spot of small extent, and without much else to recommend it, but that it once was the property of Petrarch. It is not pretended to have retained the form in which he left it. An agreeably wild and melancholy kind of view, which it commands over the Euganean hills, and which I beheld under the calm glow of approaching sunset, must often, at the same moment, have soothed the poet's anxious feelings, and hushed his active imagination, as it did my own, into a delicious repose. Having lingered here till the sun was sunk beneath the horizon, I was led a little way farther in the village, to see Petrarch's fountain. Hippocrene itself could not have been more esteemed by the poet, than this, his gift, by all the inhabitants of Arqua. The spring is copious, clear, and of excellent water; I need not say with what relish I drank of it. The last religious act in my little pilgrimage was a visit to the church-yard; where I strewed a few flowers, the fairest of the season, on the poet's tomb; and departed for Padua by the light of the moon.

LETTER XIII

September 7th.--Immediately after breakfast, we went to St.

Justina's, a n.o.ble temple, designed by Palladio, and worthy of his reputation. The dimensions are vast, and the equal distribution of light and ornament truly admirable. Upon my first entrance, the long perspective of domes above, and chequered marble below, struck me with surprise and pleasure. I roved about the s.p.a.cious aisles for several minutes, then sat down under the grand cupola, and admired the beautiful symmetry of the building.

Both extremities of the cross aisles are terminated by altar and tombs of very remote antiquity, adorned with uncouth sculptures of the Evangelists, supported by wreathed columns of alabaster, round which, to my no small astonishment, four or five gawky fellows were waddling on their knees, persuaded, it seems, that this strange devotion would cure the rheumatism, or any other aches with which they were afflicted. You can have no conception of the ridiculous att.i.tudes into which they threw themselves; nor the difficulty with which they squeezed along, between the middle column of the tomb and those which surrounded it. No criminal in the pillory ever exhibited a more rueful appearance, no swine ever scrubbed itself more fervently than these infatuated lubbers.

I left them hard at work, taking more exercise than had been their lot for many a day; and, mounting into the organ gallery, listened to Turini's {182} music with infinite satisfaction. The loud harmonious tones of the instrument filled the whole edifice; and, being repeated by the echoes of its lofty domes and arches, produced a wonderful effect. Turini, aware of this circ.u.mstance, adapts his compositions with great intelligence to the place, and makes his slave, the organ, send forth the most affecting, long-protracted sounds, which languish in the air, and are some time a-dying. Nothing can be more original than his style. Deprived of sight by an unhappy accident, in the flower of his days, he gave up his entire soul to music, and scarcely exists but through its medium.

When we came out of St. Justina's, the azure of the sky and the softness of the air inclined us to think of some excursion. Where could I wish to go, but to the place in which I had been so delighted? Besides, it was proper to make the C. another visit, and proper to see the Pisani palace, which happily I had before neglected. All these proprieties considered, M. de R. accompanied me to Fiesso.

The sun was just sunk when we arrived; the whole ether in a glow, and the fragrance of the arched citron alleys delightful. Beneath them I walked in the cool, till the Galuzzi began once more her enchanting melody. She sung till the moon tempted the fascinating G---a and myself to stray on the banks of the Brenta. A profound calm reigned upon the woods and the waters, and moonlight added serenity to a scene naturally peaceful. We listened to the faint murmurs of the leaves, and the distant rural noises, observing the gleams that quivered on the river, and discovered a mutual delight in contemplating the same objects.

We supped late: before the Galuzzi had repeated the airs which had most affected me, morning began to dawn.

September 8th.--It was evening, and I was still asleep; not in a tranquil slumber, but at the mercy of fantastic visions. The want of sound repose had thrown me into a feverish impatient mood, that was alone to be subdued by harmony. Scarcely had I s.n.a.t.c.hed some slight refreshment, before I flew to the great organ at St. Justina's, but tried, this time, to compose myself in vain. M. de R., finding my endeavours unsuccessful, proposed, by way of diverting my attention, that we should set out immediately for one of the Euganean hills about five or seven miles from Padua, at the foot of which some antique baths had very lately been discovered. I consented, without hesitation, little concerned whither I went, or what happened to me, provided the scene was often s.h.i.+fted. The lanes and enclosures we pa.s.sed on our road to the hills, appeared in all the gaiety that verdure, flowers, and suns.h.i.+ne could give them. But my pleasures were overcast, and I beheld every object, however cheerful, through a dusky medium. Deeply engaged in conversation, distance made no impression; and we beheld the meadows, over which the ruins are scattered, lie before us, when we still imagined ourselves several miles away. Had I but enjoyed my former serenity, how agreeably would such a landscape have affected my imagination! How lightly should I not have run over the herbage, and viewed the irregular shrubby hills, diversified with clumps of cypress, verdant spots, and pastoral cottages, such as Zuccarelli loved to paint! No scene could be more smiling than this which here presented itself, or answer, in a fuller degree, the ideas I had formed of Italy.

Leaving our carriage at the entrance of the mead, we traversed its flowery surface, and shortly perceived among the gra.s.s an oblong basin, incrusted with pure white marble. Most of the slabs are large and perfect, apparently brought from Greece, and still retaining their polished smoothness. The pipes to convey the waters are still discernible; in short, the whole ground-plan may be easily traced.

Nothing more remains: the pillars and arcades are fallen, and one or two pedestals alone vouch for their former existence. Near the princ.i.p.al bath, we remarked the platforms of several circular apartments, paved with mosaic, in a neat simple taste, far from inelegant. Weeds have not yet sprung up amongst the crevices; and the universal freshness of the ruin shows that it has not been long exposed.

Theodoric is the prince to whom these structures are attributed; and Ca.s.siodorus, the prime chronicler of the country, is quoted to maintain the supposition. My spirit was too much engaged to make any learned parade, or to dispute upon a subject, which I abandon, with all its glories, to calmer and less impatient minds.

Having taken a cursory view of the ruins in the mead, we ascended the hill which borders upon it, and surveyed a prospect of the same nature, though in a more lovely and expanded style, than that which I beheld from Mosolente. Padua crowns the landscape, with its towers and cupolas rising from a continued grove; and, from the drawings I have seen, I should conjecture that Damascus presents somewhat of a similar appearance.

Taking our eyes off this extensive prospect, we turned them to the fragments beneath our feet. The walls appear plainly composed of the opus reticulatum so universal in the environs of Naples. A sort of terrace, with the bases of columns circling the mount, leads me to imagine here were formerly arcades and porticos, for enjoying the view; for on the summit I could trace no vestiges of any considerable structure, and am therefore inclined to conclude, that nothing more than a colonnade surrounded the hill, leading perhaps to some slight fane, or pavilion, for the recreation of the bathers below.

A profusion of aromatic flowers covered the slopes, and exhaled additional perfumes, as the sun declined, and the still hour approached, which was wont to spread over my mind a divine composure, and to restore the tranquillity I might have lost in the day. But now it diffused in vain its reviving coolness, and I remained, if possible, more sad and restless than before.

To produce such a revolution, divine how I must have been fascinated!

and be not surprised at my repeating all the way that pathetic sonnet of Petrarch: