PICTURES FROM ITALY

THE READER'S PASSPORT

If the readers of this volume will be so kind as to take theircredentials for the different places which are the subject of itsauthor's reminiscences, from the Author himself, perhaps they mayvisit them, in fancy, the more agreeably, and with a betterunderstanding of what they are to expect. 

Many books have been written upon Italy, affording many means ofstudying the history of that interesting country, and theinnumerable associations entwined about it. I make but littlereference to that stock of information; not at all regarding it asa necessary consequence of my having had recourse to the storehousefor my own benefit, that I should reproduce its easily accessiblecontents before the eyes of my readers. 

Neither will there be found, in these pages, any grave examinationinto the government or misgovernment of any portion of the country. No visitor of that beautiful land can fail to have a strongconviction on the subject; but as I chose when residing there, aForeigner, to abstain from the discussion of any such questionswith any order of Italians, so I would rather not enter on theinquiry now. During my twelve months' occupation of a house atGenoa, I never found that authorities constitutionally jealous weredistrustful of me; and I should be sorry to give them occasion toregret their free courtesy, either to myself or any of mycountrymen. 

There is, probably, not a famous Picture or Statue in all Italy, but could be easily buried under a mountain of printed paperdevoted to dissertations on it. I do not, therefore, though anearnest admirer of Painting and Sculpture, expatiate at any lengthon famous Pictures and Statues. 

This Book is a series of faint reflections--mere shadows in thewater--of places to which the imaginations of most people areattracted in a greater or less degree, on which mine had dwelt foryears, and which have some interest for all. The greater part ofthe descriptions were written on the spot, and sent home, from timeto time, in private letters. I do not mention the circumstance asan excuse for any defects they may present, for it would be none;but as a guarantee to the Reader that they were at least penned inthe fulness of the subject, and with the liveliest impressions ofnovelty and freshness. 

If they have ever a fanciful and idle air, perhaps the reader willsuppose them written in the shade of a Sunny Day, in the midst ofthe objects of which they treat, and will like them none the worsefor having such influences of the country upon them. 

I hope I am not likely to be misunderstood by Professors of theRoman Catholic faith, on account of anything contained in thesepages. I have done my best, in one of my former productions, to dojustice to them; and I trust, in this, they will do justice to me. When I mention any exhibition that impressed me as absurd ordisagreeable, I do not seek to connect it, or recognise it asnecessarily connected with, any essentials of their creed. When Itreat of the ceremonies of the Holy Week, I merely treat of theireffect, and do not challenge the good and learned Dr. Wiseman'sinterpretation of their meaning. When I hint a dislike ofnunneries for young girls who abjure the world before they haveever proved or known it; or doubt the ex officio sanctity of allPriests and Friars; I do no more than many conscientious Catholicsboth abroad and at home. 

I have likened these Pictures to shadows in the water, and wouldfain hope that I have, nowhere, stirred the water so roughly, as tomar the shadows. I could never desire to be on better terms withall my friends than now, when distant mountains rise, once more, inmy path. For I need not hesitate to avow, that, bent on correctinga brief mistake I made, not long ago, in disturbing the oldrelations between myself and my readers, and departing for a momentfrom my old pursuits, I am about to resume them, joyfully, inSwitzerland; where during another year of absence, I can at oncework out the themes I have now in my mind, without interruption:and while I keep my English audience within speaking distance, extend my knowledge of a noble country, inexpressibly attractive tome. {1}

This book is made as accessible as possible, because it would be agreat pleasure to me if I could hope, through its means, to compareimpressions with some among the multitudes who will hereafter visitthe scenes described with interest and delight. 

And I have only now, in passport wise, to sketch my reader'sportrait, which I hope may be thus supposititiously traced foreither sex:

Complexion Fair. Eyes Very cheerful. Nose Not supercilious. Mouth Smiling. Visage Beaming. General Expression Extremely agreeable. 

CHAPTER I--GOING THROUGH FRANCE

On a fine Sunday morning in the Midsummer time and weather ofeighteen hundred and forty-four, it was, my good friend, when--don't be alarmed; not when two travellers might have been observedslowly making their way over that picturesque and broken ground bywhich the first chapter of a Middle Aged novel is usually attained--but when an English travelling-carriage of considerableproportions, fresh from the shady halls of the Pantechnicon nearBelgrave Square, London, was observed (by a very small Frenchsoldier; for I saw him look at it) to issue from the gate of theHotel Meurice in the Rue Rivoli at Paris. 

I am no more bound to explain why the English family travelling bythis carriage, inside and out, should be starting for Italy on aSunday morning, of all good days in the week, than I am to assign areason for all the little men in France being soldiers, and all thebig men postilions; which is the invariable rule. But, they hadsome sort of reason for what they did, I have no doubt; and theirreason for being there at all, was, as you know, that they weregoing to live in fair Genoa for a year; and that the head of thefamily purposed, in that space of time, to stroll about, whereverhis restless humour carried him. 

And it would have been small comfort to me to have explained to thepopulation of Paris generally, that I was that Head and Chief; andnot the radiant embodiment of good humour who sat beside me in theperson of a French Courier--best of servants and most beaming ofmen! Truth to say, he looked a great deal more patriarchal than I, who, in the shadow of his portly presence, dwindled down to noaccount at all. 

There was, of course, very little in the aspect of Paris--as werattled near the dismal Morgue and over the Pont Neuf--to reproachus for our Sunday travelling. The wine-shops (every second house)were driving a roaring trade; awnings were spreading, and chairsand tables arranging, outside the cafes, preparatory to the eatingof ices, and drinking of cool liquids, later in the day; shoe-blacks were busy on the bridges; shops were open; carts and waggonsclattered to and fro; the narrow, up-hill, funnel-like streetsacross the River, were so many dense perspectives of crowd andbustle, parti-coloured nightcaps, tobacco-pipes, blouses, largeboots, and shaggy heads of hair; nothing at that hour denoted a dayof rest, unless it were the appearance, here and there, of a familypleasure-party, crammed into a bulky old lumbering cab; or of somecontemplative holiday-maker in the freest and easiest dishabille, leaning out of a low garret window, watching the drying of hisnewly polished shoes on the little parapet outside (if agentleman), or the airing of her stockings in the sun (if a lady), with calm anticipation. 

Once clear of the never-to-be-forgotten-or-forgiven pavement whichsurrounds Paris, the first three days of travelling towardsMarseilles are quiet and monotonous enough. To Sens. To Avallon. To Chalons. A sketch of one day's proceedings is a sketch of allthree; and here it is. 

We have four horses, and one postilion, who has a very long whip, and drives his team, something like the Courier of SaintPetersburgh in the circle at Astley's or Franconi's: only he sitshis own horse instead of standing on him. The immense jack-bootsworn by these postilions, are sometimes a century or two old; andare so ludicrously disproportionate to the wearer's foot, that thespur, which is put where his own heel comes, is generally halfwayup the leg of the boots. The man often comes out of the stable-yard, with his whip in his hand and his shoes on, and brings out, in both hands, one boot at a time, which he plants on the ground bythe side of his horse, with great gravity, until everything isready. When it is--and oh Heaven! the noise they make about it!--he gets into the boots, shoes and all, or is hoisted into them by acouple of friends; adjusts the rope harness, embossed by thelabours of innumerable pigeons in the stables; makes all the horseskick and plunge; cracks his whip like a madman; shouts 'En route--Hi!' and away we go. He is sure to have a contest with his horsebefore we have gone very far; and then he calls him a Thief, and aBrigand, and a Pig, and what not; and beats him about the head asif he were made of wood. 

There is little more than one variety in the appearance of thecountry, for the first two days. From a dreary plain, to aninterminable avenue, and from an interminable avenue to a drearyplain again. Plenty of vines there are in the open fields, but ofa short low kind, and not trained in festoons, but about straightsticks. Beggars innumerable there are, everywhere; but anextraordinarily scanty population, and fewer children than I everencountered. I don't believe we saw a hundred children betweenParis and Chalons. Queer old towns, draw-bridged and walled: withodd little towers at the angles, like grotesque faces, as if thewall had put a mask on, and were staring down into the moat; otherstrange little towers, in gardens and fields, and down lanes, andin farm-yards: all alone, and always round, with a peaked roof, and never used for any purpose at all; ruinous buildings of allsorts; sometimes an hotel de ville, sometimes a guard-house, sometimes a dwelling-house, sometimes a chateau with a rank garden, prolific in dandelion, and watched over by extinguisher-toppedturrets, and blink-eyed little casements; are the standard objects, repeated over and over again. Sometimes we pass a village inn, with a crumbling wall belonging to it, and a perfect town of out-houses; and painted over the gateway, 'Stabling for Sixty Horses;'as indeed there might be stabling for sixty score, were there anyhorses to be stabled there, or anybody resting there, or anythingstirring about the place but a dangling bush, indicative of thewine inside: which flutters idly in the wind, in lazy keeping witheverything else, and certainly is never in a green old age, thoughalways so old as to be dropping to pieces. And all day long, strange little narrow waggons, in strings of six or eight, bringingcheese from Switzerland, and frequently in charge, the whole line, of one man, or even boy--and he very often asleep in the foremostcart--come jingling past: the horses drowsily ringing the bellsupon their harness, and looking as if they thought (no doubt theydo) their great blue woolly furniture, of immense weight andthickness, with a pair of grotesque horns growing out of thecollar, very much too warm for the Midsummer weather. 

Then, there is the Diligence, twice or thrice a-day; with the dustyoutsides in blue frocks, like butchers; and the insides in whitenightcaps; and its cabriolet head on the roof, nodding and shaking, like an idiot's head; and its Young-France passengers staring outof window, with beards down to their waists, and blue spectaclesawfully shading their warlike eyes, and very big sticks clenched intheir National grasp. Also the Malle Poste, with only a couple ofpassengers, tearing along at a real good dare-devil pace, and outof sight in no time. Steady old Cures come jolting past, now andthen, in such ramshackle, rusty, musty, clattering coaches as noEnglishman would believe in; and bony women dawdle about insolitary places, holding cows by ropes while they feed, or diggingand hoeing or doing field-work of a more laborious kind, orrepresenting real shepherdesses with their flocks--to obtain anadequate idea of which pursuit and its followers, in any country, it is only necessary to take any pastoral poem, or picture, andimagine to yourself whatever is most exquisitely and widely unlikethe descriptions therein contained. 

You have been travelling along, stupidly enough, as you generallydo in the last stage of the day; and the ninety-six bells upon thehorses--twenty-four apiece--have been ringing sleepily in your earsfor half an hour or so; and it has become a very jog-trot, monotonous, tiresome sort of business; and you have been thinkingdeeply about the dinner you will have at the next stage; when, downat the end of the long avenue of trees through which you aretravelling, the first indication of a town appears, in the shape ofsome straggling cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle androll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were agreat firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney hadlighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if thevery devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack-crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur!Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, stones, beggars, children, crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charitepour l'amour de Dieu! crick-crack-crick-crack; crick, crick, crick;bump, jolt, crack, bump, crick-crack; round the corner, up thenarrow street, down the paved hill on the other side; in thegutter; bump, bump; jolt, jog, crick, crick, crick; crack, crack, crack; into the shop-windows on the left-hand side of the street, preliminary to a sweeping turn into the wooden archway on theright; rumble, rumble, rumble; clatter, clatter, clatter; crick, crick, crick; and here we are in the yard of the Hotel de l'Ecud'Or; used up, gone out, smoking, spent, exhausted; but sometimesmaking a false start unexpectedly, with nothing coming of it--likea firework to the last!

The landlady of the Hotel de l'Ecu d'Or is here; and the landlordof the Hotel de l'Ecu d'Or is here; and the femme de chambre of theHotel de l'Ecu d'Or is here; and a gentleman in a glazed cap, witha red beard like a bosom friend, who is staying at the Hotel del'Ecu d'Or, is here; and Monsieur le Cure is walking up and down ina corner of the yard by himself, with a shovel hat upon his head, and a black gown on his back, and a book in one hand, and anumbrella in the other; and everybody, except Monsieur le Cure, isopen-mouthed and open-eyed, for the opening of the carriage-door. The landlord of the Hotel de l'Ecu d'Or, dotes to that extent uponthe Courier, that he can hardly wait for his coming down from thebox, but embraces his very legs and boot-heels as he descends. 'MyCourier! My brave Courier! My friend! My brother!' The landladyloves him, the femme de chambre blesses him, the garcon worshipshim. The Courier asks if his letter has been received? It has, ithas. Are the rooms prepared? They are, they are. The best roomsfor my noble Courier. The rooms of state for my gallant Courier;the whole house is at the service of my best of friends! He keepshis hand upon the carriage-door, and asks some other question toenhance the expectation. He carries a green leathern purse outsidehis coat, suspended by a belt. The idlers look at it; one touchesit. It is full of five-franc pieces. Murmurs of admiration areheard among the boys. The landlord falls upon the Courier's neck, and folds him to his breast. He is so much fatter than he was, hesays! He looks so rosy and so well!

The door is opened. Breathless expectation. The lady of thefamily gets out. Ah sweet lady! Beautiful lady! The sister ofthe lady of the family gets out. Great Heaven, Ma'amselle ischarming! First little boy gets out. Ah, what a beautiful littleboy! First little girl gets out. Oh, but this is an enchantingchild! Second little girl gets out. The landlady, yielding to thefinest impulse of our common nature, catches her up in her arms!Second little boy gets out. Oh, the sweet boy! Oh, the tenderlittle family! The baby is handed out. Angelic baby! The babyhas topped everything. All the rapture is expended on the baby!Then the two nurses tumble out; and the enthusiasm swelling intomadness, the whole family are swept up-stairs as on a cloud; whilethe idlers press about the carriage, and look into it, and walkround it, and touch it. For it is something to touch a carriagethat has held so many people. It is a legacy to leave one'schildren. 

The rooms are on the first floor, except the nursery for the night, which is a great rambling chamber, with four or five beds in it:through a dark passage, up two steps, down four, past a pump, across a balcony, and next door to the stable. The other sleepingapartments are large and lofty; each with two small bedsteads, tastefully hung, like the windows, with red and white drapery. Thesitting-room is famous. Dinner is already laid in it for three;and the napkins are folded in cocked-hat fashion. The floors areof red tile. There are no carpets, and not much furniture to speakof; but there is abundance of looking-glass, and there are largevases under glass shades, filled with artificial flowers; and thereare plenty of clocks. The whole party are in motion. The braveCourier, in particular, is everywhere: looking after the beds, having wine poured down his throat by his dear brother thelandlord, and picking up green cucumbers--always cucumbers; Heavenknows where he gets them--with which he walks about, one in eachhand, like truncheons. 

Dinner is announced. There is very thin soup; there are very largeloaves--one apiece; a fish; four dishes afterwards; some poultryafterwards; a dessert afterwards; and no lack of wine. There isnot much in the dishes; but they are very good, and always readyinstantly. When it is nearly dark, the brave Courier, having eatenthe two cucumbers, sliced up in the contents of a pretty largedecanter of oil, and another of vinegar, emerges from his retreatbelow, and proposes a visit to the Cathedral, whose massive towerfrowns down upon the court-yard of the inn. Off we go; and verysolemn and grand it is, in the dim light: so dim at last, that thepolite, old, lanthorn-jawed Sacristan has a feeble little bit ofcandle in his hand, to grope among the tombs with--and looks amongthe grim columns, very like a lost ghost who is searching for hisown. 

Underneath the balcony, when we return, the inferior servants ofthe inn are supping in the open air, at a great table; the dish, astew of meat and vegetables, smoking hot, and served in the ironcauldron it was boiled in. They have a pitcher of thin wine, andare very merry; merrier than the gentleman with the red beard, whois playing billiards in the light room on the left of the yard, where shadows, with cues in their hands, and cigars in theirmouths, cross and recross the window, constantly. Still the thinCure walks up and down alone, with his book and umbrella. Andthere he walks, and there the billiard-balls rattle, long after weare fast asleep. 

We are astir at six next morning. It is a delightful day, shamingyesterday's mud upon the carriage, if anything could shame acarriage, in a land where carriages are never cleaned. Everybodyis brisk; and as we finish breakfast, the horses come jingling intothe yard from the Post-house. Everything taken out of the carriageis put back again. The brave Courier announces that all is ready, after walking into every room, and looking all round it, to becertain that nothing is left behind. Everybody gets in. Everybodyconnected with the Hotel de l'Ecu d'Or is again enchanted. Thebrave Courier runs into the house for a parcel containing coldfowl, sliced ham, bread, and biscuits, for lunch; hands it into thecoach; and runs back again. 

What has he got in his hand now? More cucumbers? No. A longstrip of paper. It's the bill. 

The brave Courier has two belts on, this morning: one supportingthe purse: another, a mighty good sort of leathern bottle, filledto the throat with the best light Bordeaux wine in the house. Henever pays the bill till this bottle is full. Then he disputes it. 

He disputes it now, violently. He is still the landlord's brother, but by another father or mother. He is not so nearly related tohim as he was last night. The landlord scratches his head. Thebrave Courier points to certain figures in the bill, and intimatesthat if they remain there, the Hotel de l'Ecu d'Or is thenceforthand for ever an hotel de l'Ecu de cuivre. The landlord goes into alittle counting-house. The brave Courier follows, forces the billand a pen into his hand, and talks more rapidly than ever. Thelandlord takes the pen. The Courier smiles. The landlord makes analteration. The Courier cuts a joke. The landlord isaffectionate, but not weakly so. He bears it like a man. Heshakes hands with his brave brother, but he don't hug him. Still, he loves his brother; for he knows that he will be returning thatway, one of these fine days, with another family, and he foreseesthat his heart will yearn towards him again. The brave Couriertraverses all round the carriage once, looks at the drag, inspectsthe wheels, jumps up, gives the word, and away we go!

It is market morning. The market is held in the little squareoutside in front of the cathedral. It is crowded with men andwomen, in blue, in red, in green, in white; with canvassed stalls;and fluttering merchandise. The country people are grouped about, with their clean baskets before them. Here, the lace-sellers;there, the butter and egg-sellers; there, the fruit-sellers; there, the shoe-makers. The whole place looks as if it were the stage ofsome great theatre, and the curtain had just run up, for apicturesque ballet. And there is the cathedral to boot: scene-like: all grim, and swarthy, and mouldering, and cold: justsplashing the pavement in one place with faint purple drops, as themorning sun, entering by a little window on the eastern side, struggles through some stained glass panes, on the western. 

In five minutes we have passed the iron cross, with a little raggedkneeling-place of turf before it, in the outskirts of the town; andare again upon the road. 

CHAPTER II--LYONS, THE RHONE, AND THE GOBLIN OF AVIGNON

Chalons is a fair resting-place, in right of its good inn on thebank of the river, and the little steamboats, gay with green andred paint, that come and go upon it: which make up a pleasant andrefreshing scene, after the dusty roads. But, unless you wouldlike to dwell on an enormous plain, with jagged rows of irregularpoplars on it, that look in the distance like so many combs withbroken teeth: and unless you would like to pass your life withoutthe possibility of going up-hill, or going up anything but stairs:you would hardly approve of Chalons as a place of residence. 

You would probably like it better, however, than Lyons: which youmay reach, if you will, in one of the before-mentioned steamboats, in eight hours. 

What a city Lyons is! Talk about people feeling, at certainunlucky times, as if they had tumbled from the clouds! Here is awhole town that is tumbled, anyhow, out of the sky; having beenfirst caught up, like other stones that tumble down from thatregion, out of fens and barren places, dismal to behold! The twogreat streets through which the two great rivers dash, and all thelittle streets whose name is Legion, were scorching, blistering, and sweltering. The houses, high and vast, dirty to excess, rottenas old cheeses, and as thickly peopled. All up the hills that hemthe city in, these houses swarm; and the mites inside were lollingout of the windows, and drying their ragged clothes on poles, andcrawling in and out at the doors, and coming out to pant and gaspupon the pavement, and creeping in and out among huge piles andbales of fusty, musty, stifling goods; and living, or rather notdying till their time should come, in an exhausted receiver. Everymanufacturing town, melted into one, would hardly convey animpression of Lyons as it presented itself to me: for all theundrained, unscavengered qualities of a foreign town, seemedgrafted, there, upon the native miseries of a manufacturing one;and it bears such fruit as I would go some miles out of my way toavoid encountering again. 

In the cool of the evening: or rather in the faded heat of theday: we went to see the Cathedral, where divers old women, and afew dogs, were engaged in contemplation. There was no difference, in point of cleanliness, between its stone pavement and that of thestreets; and there was a wax saint, in a little box like a berthaboard ship, with a glass front to it, whom Madame Tussaud wouldhave nothing to say to, on any terms, and which even WestminsterAbbey might be ashamed of. If you would know all about thearchitecture of this church, or any other, its dates, dimensions, endowments, and history, is it not written in Mr. Murray's Guide-Book, and may you not read it there, with thanks to him, as I did!

For this reason, I should abstain from mentioning the curious clockin Lyons Cathedral, if it were not for a small mistake I made, inconnection with that piece of mechanism. The keeper of the churchwas very anxious it should be shown; partly for the honour of theestablishment and the town; and partly, perhaps, because of hisderiving a percentage from the additional consideration. Howeverthat may be, it was set in motion, and thereupon a host of littledoors flew open, and innumerable little figures staggered out ofthem, and jerked themselves back again, with that specialunsteadiness of purpose, and hitching in the gait, which usuallyattaches to figures that are moved by clock-work. Meanwhile, theSacristan stood explaining these wonders, and pointing them out, severally, with a wand. There was a centre puppet of the VirginMary; and close to her, a small pigeon-hole, out of which anotherand a very ill-looking puppet made one of the most sudden plunges Iever saw accomplished: instantly flopping back again at sight ofher, and banging his little door violently after him. Taking thisto be emblematic of the victory over Sin and Death, and not at allunwilling to show that I perfectly understood the subject, inanticipation of the showman, I rashly said, 'Aha! The Evil Spirit. To be sure. He is very soon disposed of. ' 'Pardon, Monsieur, 'said the Sacristan, with a polite motion of his hand towards thelittle door, as if introducing somebody--'The Angel Gabriel!'

Soon after daybreak next morning, we were steaming down the ArrowyRhone, at the rate of twenty miles an hour, in a very dirty vesselfull of merchandise, and with only three or four other passengersfor our companions: among whom, the most remarkable was a silly, old, meek-faced, garlic-eating, immeasurably polite Chevalier, witha dirty scrap of red ribbon hanging at his button-hole, as if hehad tied it there to remind himself of something; as Tom Noddy, inthe farce, ties knots in his pocket-handkerchief. 

For the last two days, we had seen great sullen hills, the firstindications of the Alps, lowering in the distance. Now, we wererushing on beside them: sometimes close beside them: sometimeswith an intervening slope, covered with vineyards. Villages andsmall towns hanging in mid-air, with great woods of olives seenthrough the light open towers of their churches, and clouds movingslowly on, upon the steep acclivity behind them; ruined castlesperched on every eminence; and scattered houses in the clefts andgullies of the hills; made it very beautiful. The great height ofthese, too, making the buildings look so tiny, that they had allthe charm of elegant models; their excessive whiteness, ascontrasted with the brown rocks, or the sombre, deep, dull, heavygreen of the olive-tree; and the puny size, and little slow walk ofthe Lilliputian men and women on the bank; made a charming picture. There were ferries out of number, too; bridges; the famous Pontd'Esprit, with I don't know how many arches; towns where memorablewines are made; Vallence, where Napoleon studied; and the nobleriver, bringing at every winding turn, new beauties into view. 

There lay before us, that same afternoon, the broken bridge ofAvignon, and all the city baking in the sun; yet with an under-done-pie-crust, battlemented wall, that never will be brown, thoughit bake for centuries. 

The grapes were hanging in clusters in the streets, and thebrilliant Oleander was in full bloom everywhere. The streets areold and very narrow, but tolerably clean, and shaded by awningsstretched from house to house. Bright stuffs and handkerchiefs, curiosities, ancient frames of carved wood, old chairs, ghostlytables, saints, virgins, angels, and staring daubs of portraits, being exposed for sale beneath, it was very quaint and lively. Allthis was much set off, too, by the glimpses one caught, through arusty gate standing ajar, of quiet sleepy court-yards, havingstately old houses within, as silent as tombs. It was all verylike one of the descriptions in the Arabian Nights. The three one-eyed Calenders might have knocked at any one of those doors tillthe street rang again, and the porter who persisted in askingquestions--the man who had the delicious purchases put into hisbasket in the morning--might have opened it quite naturally. 

After breakfast next morning, we sallied forth to see the lions. Such a delicious breeze was blowing in, from the north, as made thewalk delightful: though the pavement-stones, and stones of thewalls and houses, were far too hot to have a hand laid on themcomfortably. 

We went, first of all, up a rocky height, to the cathedral: whereMass was performing to an auditory very like that of Lyons, namely, several old women, a baby, and a very self-possessed dog, who hadmarked out for himself a little course or platform for exercise, beginning at the altar-rails and ending at the door, up and downwhich constitutional walk he trotted, during the service, asmethodically and calmly, as any old gentleman out of doors. 

It is a bare old church, and the paintings in the roof are sadlydefaced by time and damp weather; but the sun was shining in, splendidly, through the red curtains of the windows, and glitteringon the altar furniture; and it looked as bright and cheerful asneed be. 

Going apart, in this church, to see some painting which was beingexecuted in fresco by a French artist and his pupil, I was led toobserve more closely than I might otherwise have done, a greatnumber of votive offerings with which the walls of the differentchapels were profusely hung. I will not say decorated, for theywere very roughly and comically got up; most likely by poor sign-painters, who eke out their living in that way. They were alllittle pictures: each representing some sickness or calamity fromwhich the person placing it there, had escaped, through theinterposition of his or her patron saint, or of the Madonna; and Imay refer to them as good specimens of the class generally. Theyare abundant in Italy. 

In a grotesque squareness of outline, and impossibility ofperspective, they are not unlike the woodcuts in old books; butthey were oil-paintings, and the artist, like the painter of thePrimrose family, had not been sparing of his colours. In one, alady was having a toe amputated--an operation which a saintlypersonage had sailed into the room, upon a couch, to superintend. In another, a lady was lying in bed, tucked up very tight and prim, and staring with much composure at a tripod, with a slop-basin onit; the usual form of washing-stand, and the only piece offurniture, besides the bedstead, in her chamber. One would neverhave supposed her to be labouring under any complaint, beyond theinconvenience of being miraculously wide awake, if the painter hadnot hit upon the idea of putting all her family on their knees inone corner, with their legs sticking out behind them on the floor, like boot-trees. Above whom, the Virgin, on a kind of blue divan, promised to restore the patient. In another case, a lady was inthe very act of being run over, immediately outside the city walls, by a sort of piano-forte van. But the Madonna was there again. Whether the supernatural appearance had startled the horse (a baygriffin), or whether it was invisible to him, I don't know; but hewas galloping away, ding dong, without the smallest reverence orcompunction. On every picture 'Ex voto' was painted in yellowcapitals in the sky. 

Though votive offerings were not unknown in Pagan Temples, and areevidently among the many compromises made between the falsereligion and the true, when the true was in its infancy, I couldwish that all the other compromises were as harmless. Gratitudeand Devotion are Christian qualities; and a grateful, humble, Christian spirit may dictate the observance. 

Hard by the cathedral stands the ancient Palace of the Popes, ofwhich one portion is now a common jail, and another a noisybarrack: while gloomy suites of state apartments, shut up anddeserted, mock their own old state and glory, like the embalmedbodies of kings. But we neither went there, to see state rooms, nor soldiers' quarters, nor a common jail, though we dropped somemoney into a prisoners' box outside, whilst the prisoners, themselves, looked through the iron bars, high up, and watched useagerly. We went to see the ruins of the dreadful rooms in whichthe Inquisition used to sit. 

A little, old, swarthy woman, with a pair of flashing black eyes, --proof that the world hadn't conjured down the devil within her, though it had had between sixty and seventy years to do it in, --came out of the Barrack Cabaret, of which she was the keeper, withsome large keys in her hands, and marshalled us the way that weshould go. How she told us, on the way, that she was a GovernmentOfficer (concierge du palais a apostolique), and had been, for Idon't know how many years; and how she had shown these dungeons toprinces; and how she was the best of dungeon demonstrators; and howshe had resided in the palace from an infant, --had been born there, if I recollect right, --I needn't relate. But such a fierce, little, rapid, sparkling, energetic she-devil I never beheld. Shewas alight and flaming, all the time. Her action was violent inthe extreme. She never spoke, without stopping expressly for thepurpose. She stamped her feet, clutched us by the arms, flungherself into attitudes, hammered against walls with her keys, formere emphasis: now whispered as if the Inquisition were therestill: now shrieked as if she were on the rack herself; and had amysterious, hag-like way with her forefinger, when approaching theremains of some new horror--looking back and walking stealthily, and making horrible grimaces--that might alone have qualified herto walk up and down a sick man's counterpane, to the exclusion ofall other figures, through a whole fever. 

Passing through the court-yard, among groups of idle soldiers, weturned off by a gate, which this She-Goblin unlocked for ouradmission, and locked again behind us: and entered a narrow court, rendered narrower by fallen stones and heaps of rubbish; part of itchoking up the mouth of a ruined subterranean passage, that oncecommunicated (or is said to have done so) with another castle onthe opposite bank of the river. Close to this court-yard is adungeon--we stood within it, in another minute--in the dismal towerdes oubliettes, where Rienzi was imprisoned, fastened by an ironchain to the very wall that stands there now, but shut out from thesky which now looks down into it. A few steps brought us to theCachots, in which the prisoners of the Inquisition were confinedfor forty-eight hours after their capture, without food or drink, that their constancy might be shaken, even before they wereconfronted with their gloomy judges. The day has not got in thereyet. They are still small cells, shut in by four unyielding, close, hard walls; still profoundly dark; still massively dooredand fastened, as of old. 

Goblin, looking back as I have described, went softly on, into avaulted chamber, now used as a store-room: once the chapel of theHoly Office. The place where the tribunal sat, was plain. Theplatform might have been removed but yesterday. Conceive theparable of the Good Samaritan having been painted on the wall ofone of these Inquisition chambers! But it was, and may be tracedthere yet. 

High up in the jealous wall, are niches where the faltering repliesof the accused were heard and noted down. Many of them had beenbrought out of the very cell we had just looked into, so awfully;along the same stone passage. We had trodden in their veryfootsteps. 

I am gazing round me, with the horror that the place inspires, whenGoblin clutches me by the wrist, and lays, not her skinny finger, but the handle of a key, upon her lip. She invites me, with ajerk, to follow her. I do so. She leads me out into a roomadjoining--a rugged room, with a funnel-shaped, contracting roof, open at the top, to the bright day. I ask her what it is. Shefolds her arms, leers hideously, and stares. I ask again. Sheglances round, to see that all the little company are there; sitsdown upon a mound of stones; throws up her arms, and yells out, like a fiend, 'La Salle de la Question!'

The Chamber of Torture! And the roof was made of that shape tostifle the victim's cries! Oh Goblin, Goblin, let us think of thisawhile, in silence. Peace, Goblin! Sit with your short armscrossed on your short legs, upon that heap of stones, for only fiveminutes, and then flame out again. 

Minutes! Seconds are not marked upon the Palace clock, when, withher eyes flashing fire, Goblin is up, in the middle of the chamber, describing, with her sunburnt arms, a wheel of heavy blows. Thusit ran round! cries Goblin. Mash, mash, mash! An endless routineof heavy hammers. Mash, mash, mash! upon the sufferer's limbs. See the stone trough! says Goblin. For the water torture! Gurgle, swill, bloat, burst, for the Redeemer's honour! Suck the bloodyrag, deep down into your unbelieving body, Heretic, at every breathyou draw! And when the executioner plucks it out, reeking with thesmaller mysteries of God's own Image, know us for His chosenservants, true believers in the Sermon on the Mount, electdisciples of Him who never did a miracle but to heal: who neverstruck a man with palsy, blindness, deafness, dumbness, madness, any one affliction of mankind; and never stretched His blessed handout, but to give relief and ease!

See! cries Goblin. There the furnace was. There they made theirons red-hot. Those holes supported the sharp stake, on which thetortured persons hung poised: dangling with their whole weightfrom the roof. 'But;' and Goblin whispers this; 'Monsieur hasheard of this tower? Yes? Let Monsieur look down, then!'

A cold air, laden with an earthy smell, falls upon the face ofMonsieur; for she has opened, while speaking, a trap-door in thewall. Monsieur looks in. Downward to the bottom, upward to thetop, of a steep, dark, lofty tower: very dismal, very dark, verycold. The Executioner of the Inquisition, says Goblin, edging inher head to look down also, flung those who were past all furthertorturing, down here. 'But look! does Monsieur see the blackstains on the wall?' A glance, over his shoulder, at Goblin's keeneye, shows Monsieur--and would without the aid of the directingkey--where they are. 'What are they?' 'Blood!'

In October, 1791, when the Revolution was at its height here, sixtypersons: men and women ('and priests, ' says Goblin, 'priests'):were murdered, and hurled, the dying and the dead, into thisdreadful pit, where a quantity of quick-lime was tumbled down upontheir bodies. Those ghastly tokens of the massacre were soon nomore; but while one stone of the strong building in which the deedwas done, remains upon another, there they will lie in the memoriesof men, as plain to see as the splashing of their blood upon thewall is now. 

Was it a portion of the great scheme of Retribution, that the crueldeed should be committed in this place! That a part of theatrocities and monstrous institutions, which had been, for scoresof years, at work, to change men's nature, should in its lastservice, tempt them with the ready means of gratifying theirfurious and beastly rage! Should enable them to show themselves, in the height of their frenzy, no worse than a great, solemn, legalestablishment, in the height of its power! No worse! Much better. They used the Tower of the Forgotten, in the name of Liberty--theirliberty; an earth-born creature, nursed in the black mud of theBastile moats and dungeons, and necessarily betraying manyevidences of its unwholesome bringing-up--but the Inquisition usedit in the name of Heaven. 

Goblin's finger is lifted; and she steals out again, into theChapel of the Holy Office. She stops at a certain part of theflooring. Her great effect is at hand. She waits for the rest. She darts at the brave Courier, who is explaining something; hitshim a sounding rap on the hat with the largest key; and bids him besilent. She assembles us all, round a little trap-door in thefloor, as round a grave. 

'Voila!' she darts down at the ring, and flings the door open witha crash, in her goblin energy, though it is no light weight. 'Voila les oubliettes! Voila les oubliettes! Subterranean!Frightful! Black! Terrible! Deadly! Les oubliettes del'Inquisition!'

My blood ran cold, as I looked from Goblin, down into the vaults, where these forgotten creatures, with recollections of the worldoutside: of wives, friends, children, brothers: starved to death, and made the stones ring with their unavailing groans. But, thethrill I felt on seeing the accursed wall below, decayed and brokenthrough, and the sun shining in through its gaping wounds, was likea sense of victory and triumph. I felt exalted with the prouddelight of living in these degenerate times, to see it. As if Iwere the hero of some high achievement! The light in the dolefulvaults was typical of the light that has streamed in, on allpersecution in God's name, but which is not yet at its noon! Itcannot look more lovely to a blind man newly restored to sight, than to a traveller who sees it, calmly and majestically, treadingdown the darkness of that Infernal Well. 

CHAPTER III--AVIGNON TO GENOA

Goblin, having shown les oubliettes, felt that her great coup wasstruck. She let the door fall with a crash, and stood upon it withher arms a-kimbo, sniffing prodigiously. 

When we left the place, I accompanied her into her house, under theouter gateway of the fortress, to buy a little history of thebuilding. Her cabaret, a dark, low room, lighted by small windows, sunk in the thick wall--in the softened light, and with its forge-like chimney; its little counter by the door, with bottles, jars, and glasses on it; its household implements and scraps of dressagainst the wall; and a sober-looking woman (she must have acongenial life of it, with Goblin, ) knitting at the door--lookedexactly like a picture by OSTADE. 

I walked round the building on the outside, in a sort of dream, andyet with the delightful sense of having awakened from it, of whichthe light, down in the vaults, had given me the assurance. Theimmense thickness and giddy height of the walls, the enormousstrength of the massive towers, the great extent of the building, its gigantic proportions, frowning aspect, and barbarousirregularity, awaken awe and wonder. The recollection of itsopposite old uses: an impregnable fortress, a luxurious palace, ahorrible prison, a place of torture, the court of the Inquisition:at one and the same time, a house of feasting, fighting, religion, and blood: gives to every stone in its huge form a fearfulinterest, and imparts new meaning to its incongruities. I couldthink of little, however, then, or long afterwards, but the sun inthe dungeons. The palace coming down to be the lounging-place ofnoisy soldiers, and being forced to echo their rough talk, andcommon oaths, and to have their garments fluttering from its dirtywindows, was some reduction of its state, and something to rejoiceat; but the day in its cells, and the sky for the roof of itschambers of cruelty--that was its desolation and defeat! If I hadseen it in a blaze from ditch to rampart, I should have felt thatnot that light, nor all the light in all the fire that burns, couldwaste it, like the sunbeams in its secret council-chamber, and itsprisons. 

Before I quit this Palace of the Popes, let me translate from thelittle history I mentioned just now, a short anecdote, quiteappropriate to itself, connected with its adventures. 

'An ancient tradition relates, that in 1441, a nephew of Pierre deLude, the Pope's legate, seriously insulted some distinguishedladies of Avignon, whose relations, in revenge, seized the youngman, and horribly mutilated him. For several years the legate keptHIS revenge within his own breast, but he was not the less resolvedupon its gratification at last. He even made, in the fulness oftime, advances towards a complete reconciliation; and when theirapparent sincerity had prevailed, he invited to a splendid banquet, in this palace, certain families, whole families, whom he sought toexterminate. The utmost gaiety animated the repast; but themeasures of the legate were well taken. When the dessert was onthe board, a Swiss presented himself, with the announcement that astrange ambassador solicited an extraordinary audience. Thelegate, excusing himself, for the moment, to his guests, retired, followed by his officers. Within a few minutes afterwards, fivehundred persons were reduced to ashes: the whole of that wing ofthe building having been blown into the air with a terribleexplosion!'

After seeing the churches (I will not trouble you with churchesjust now), we left Avignon that afternoon. The heat being verygreat, the roads outside the walls were strewn with people fastasleep in every little slip of shade, and with lazy groups, halfasleep and half awake, who were waiting until the sun should be lowenough to admit of their playing bowls among the burnt-up trees, and on the dusty road. The harvest here was already gathered in, and mules and horses were treading out the corn in the fields. Wecame, at dusk, upon a wild and hilly country, once famous forbrigands; and travelled slowly up a steep ascent. So we went on, until eleven at night, when we halted at the town of Aix (withintwo stages of Marseilles) to sleep. 

The hotel, with all the blinds and shutters closed to keep thelight and heat out, was comfortable and airy next morning, and thetown was very clean; but so hot, and so intensely light, that whenI walked out at noon it was like coming suddenly from the darkenedroom into crisp blue fire. The air was so very clear, that distanthills and rocky points appeared within an hour's walk; while thetown immediately at hand--with a kind of blue wind between me andit--seemed to be white hot, and to be throwing off a fiery air fromthe surface. 

We left this town towards evening, and took the road to Marseilles. A dusty road it was; the houses shut up close; and the vinespowdered white. At nearly all the cottage doors, women werepeeling and slicing onions into earthen bowls for supper. So theyhad been doing last night all the way from Avignon. We passed oneor two shady dark chateaux, surrounded by trees, and embellishedwith cool basins of water: which were the more refreshing tobehold, from the great scarcity of such residences on the road wehad travelled. As we approached Marseilles, the road began to becovered with holiday people. Outside the public-houses wereparties smoking, drinking, playing draughts and cards, and (once)dancing. But dust, dust, dust, everywhere. We went on, through along, straggling, dirty suburb, thronged with people; having on ourleft a dreary slope of land, on which the country-houses of theMarseilles merchants, always staring white, are jumbled and heapedwithout the slightest order: backs, fronts, sides, and gablestowards all points of the compass; until, at last, we entered thetown. 

I was there, twice or thrice afterwards, in fair weather and foul;and I am afraid there is no doubt that it is a dirty anddisagreeable place. But the prospect, from the fortified heights, of the beautiful Mediterranean, with its lovely rocks and islands, is most delightful. These heights are a desirable retreat, forless picturesque reasons--as an escape from a compound of vilesmells perpetually arising from a great harbour full of stagnantwater, and befouled by the refuse of innumerable ships with allsorts of cargoes: which, in hot weather, is dreadful in the lastdegree. 

There were foreign sailors, of all nations, in the streets; withred shirts, blue shirts, buff shirts, tawny shirts, and shirts oforange colour; with red caps, blue caps, green caps, great beards, and no beards; in Turkish turbans, glazed English hats, andNeapolitan head-dresses. There were the townspeople sitting inclusters on the pavement, or airing themselves on the tops of theirhouses, or walking up and down the closest and least airy ofBoulevards; and there were crowds of fierce-looking people of thelower sort, blocking up the way, constantly. In the very heart ofall this stir and uproar, was the common madhouse; a low, contracted, miserable building, looking straight upon the street, without the smallest screen or court-yard; where chattering mad-menand mad-women were peeping out, through rusty bars, at the staringfaces below, while the sun, darting fiercely aslant into theirlittle cells, seemed to dry up their brains, and worry them, as ifthey were baited by a pack of dogs. 

We were pretty well accommodated at the Hotel du Paradis, situatedin a narrow street of very high houses, with a hairdresser's shopopposite, exhibiting in one of its windows two full-length waxenladies, twirling round and round: which so enchanted thehairdresser himself, that he and his family sat in arm-chairs, andin cool undresses, on the pavement outside, enjoying thegratification of the passers-by, with lazy dignity. The family hadretired to rest when we went to bed, at midnight; but thehairdresser (a corpulent man, in drab slippers) was still sittingthere, with his legs stretched out before him, and evidentlycouldn't bear to have the shutters put up. 

Next day we went down to the harbour, where the sailors of allnations were discharging and taking in cargoes of all kinds:fruits, wines, oils, silks, stuffs, velvets, and every manner ofmerchandise. Taking one of a great number of lively little boatswith gay-striped awnings, we rowed away, under the sterns of greatships, under tow-ropes and cables, against and among other boats, and very much too near the sides of vessels that were faint withoranges, to the Marie Antoinette, a handsome steamer bound forGenoa, lying near the mouth of the harbour. By-and-by, thecarriage, that unwieldy 'trifle from the Pantechnicon, ' on a flatbarge, bumping against everything, and giving occasion for aprodigious quantity of oaths and grimaces, came stupidly alongside;and by five o'clock we were steaming out in the open sea. Thevessel was beautifully clean; the meals were served under an awningon deck; the night was calm and clear; the quiet beauty of the seaand sky unspeakable. 

We were off Nice, early next morning, and coasted along, within afew miles of the Cornice road (of which more in its place) nearlyall day. We could see Genoa before three; and watching it as itgradually developed its splendid amphitheatre, terrace rising aboveterrace, garden above garden, palace above palace, height uponheight, was ample occupation for us, till we ran into the statelyharbour. Having been duly astonished, here, by the sight of a fewCappucini monks, who were watching the fair-weighing of some woodupon the wharf, we drove off to Albaro, two miles distant, where wehad engaged a house. 

The way lay through the main streets, but not through the StradaNuova, or the Strada Balbi, which are the famous streets ofpalaces. I never in my life was so dismayed! The wonderfulnovelty of everything, the unusual smells, the unaccountable filth(though it is reckoned the cleanest of Italian towns), thedisorderly jumbling of dirty houses, one upon the roof of another;the passages more squalid and more close than any in St. Giles's orold Paris; in and out of which, not vagabonds, but well-dressedwomen, with white veils and great fans, were passing and repassing;the perfect absence of resemblance in any dwelling-house, or shop, or wall, or post, or pillar, to anything one had ever seen before;and the disheartening dirt, discomfort, and decay; perfectlyconfounded me. I fell into a dismal reverie. I am conscious of afeverish and bewildered vision of saints and virgins' shrines atthe street corners--of great numbers of friars, monks, andsoldiers--of vast red curtains, waving in the doorways of thechurches--of always going up hill, and yet seeing every otherstreet and passage going higher up--of fruit-stalls, with freshlemons and oranges hanging in garlands made of vine-leaves--of aguard-house, and a drawbridge--and some gateways--and vendors oficed water, sitting with little trays upon the margin of thekennel--and this is all the consciousness I had, until I was setdown in a rank, dull, weedy court-yard, attached to a kind of pinkjail; and was told I lived there. 

I little thought, that day, that I should ever come to have anattachment for the very stones in the streets of Genoa, and to lookback upon the city with affection as connected with many hours ofhappiness and quiet! But these are my first impressions honestlyset down; and how they changed, I will set down too. At present, let us breathe after this long-winded journey. 

CHAPTER IV--GENOA AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD

The first impressions of such a place as ALBARO, the suburb ofGenoa, where I am now, as my American friends would say, 'located, 'can hardly fail, I should imagine, to be mournful anddisappointing. It requires a little time and use to overcome thefeeling of depression consequent, at first, on so much ruin andneglect. Novelty, pleasant to most people, is particularlydelightful, I think, to me. I am not easily dispirited when I havethe means of pursuing my own fancies and occupations; and I believeI have some natural aptitude for accommodating myself tocircumstances. But, as yet, I stroll about here, in all the holesand corners of the neighbourhood, in a perpetual state of forlornsurprise; and returning to my villa: the Villa Bagnerello (itsounds romantic, but Signor Bagnerello is a butcher hard by): havesufficient occupation in pondering over my new experiences, andcomparing them, very much to my own amusement, with myexpectations, until I wander out again. 

The Villa Bagnerello: or the Pink Jail, a far more expressive namefor the mansion: is in one of the most splendid situationsimaginable. The noble bay of Genoa, with the deep blueMediterranean, lies stretched out near at hand; monstrous olddesolate houses and palaces are dotted all about; lofty hills, withtheir tops often hidden in the clouds, and with strong fortsperched high up on their craggy sides, are close upon the left; andin front, stretching from the walls of the house, down to a ruinedchapel which stands upon the bold and picturesque rocks on the sea-shore, are green vineyards, where you may wander all day long inpartial shade, through interminable vistas of grapes, trained on arough trellis-work across the narrow paths. 

This sequestered spot is approached by lanes so very narrow, thatwhen we arrived at the Custom-house, we found the people here hadTAKEN THE MEASURE of the narrowest among them, and were waiting toapply it to the carriage; which ceremony was gravely performed inthe street, while we all stood by in breathless suspense. It wasfound to be a very tight fit, but just a possibility, and no more--as I am reminded every day, by the sight of various large holeswhich it punched in the walls on either side as it came along. Weare more fortunate, I am told, than an old lady, who took a housein these parts not long ago, and who stuck fast in HER carriage ina lane; and as it was impossible to open one of the doors, she wasobliged to submit to the indignity of being hauled through one ofthe little front windows, like a harlequin. 

When you have got through these narrow lanes, you come to anarchway, imperfectly stopped up by a rusty old gate--my gate. Therusty old gate has a bell to correspond, which you ring as long asyou like, and which nobody answers, as it has no connectionwhatever with the house. But there is a rusty old knocker, too--very loose, so that it slides round when you touch it--and if youlearn the trick of it, and knock long enough, somebody comes. Thebrave Courier comes, and gives you admittance. You walk into aseedy little garden, all wild and weedy, from which the vineyardopens; cross it, enter a square hall like a cellar, walk up acracked marble staircase, and pass into a most enormous room with avaulted roof and whitewashed walls: not unlike a great Methodistchapel. This is the sala. It has five windows and five doors, andis decorated with pictures which would gladden the heart of one ofthose picture-cleaners in London who hang up, as a sign, a picturedivided, like death and the lady, at the top of the old ballad:which always leaves you in a state of uncertainty whether theingenious professor has cleaned one half, or dirtied the other. The furniture of this sala is a sort of red brocade. All thechairs are immovable, and the sofa weighs several tons. 

On the same floor, and opening out of this same chamber, aredining-room, drawing-room, and divers bedrooms: each with amultiplicity of doors and windows. Up-stairs are divers othergaunt chambers, and a kitchen; and down-stairs is another kitchen, which, with all sorts of strange contrivances for burning charcoal, looks like an alchemical laboratory. There are also some half-dozen small sitting-rooms, where the servants in this hot July, mayescape from the heat of the fire, and where the brave Courier playsall sorts of musical instruments of his own manufacture, all theevening long. A mighty old, wandering, ghostly, echoing, grim, bare house it is, as ever I beheld or thought of. 

There is a little vine-covered terrace, opening from the drawing-room; and under this terrace, and forming one side of the littlegarden, is what used to be the stable. It is now a cow-house, andhas three cows in it, so that we get new milk by the bucketful. There is no pasturage near, and they never go out, but areconstantly lying down, and surfeiting themselves with vine-leaves--perfect Italian cows enjoying the dolce far' niente all day long. They are presided over, and slept with, by an old man namedAntonio, and his son; two burnt-sienna natives with naked legs andfeet, who wear, each, a shirt, a pair of trousers, and a red sash, with a relic, or some sacred charm like the bonbon off a twelfth-cake, hanging round the neck. The old man is very anxious toconvert me to the Catholic faith, and exhorts me frequently. Wesit upon a stone by the door, sometimes in the evening, likeRobinson Crusoe and Friday reversed; and he generally relates, towards my conversion, an abridgment of the History of Saint Peter--chiefly, I believe, from the unspeakable delight he has in hisimitation of the cock. 

The view, as I have said, is charming; but in the day you must keepthe lattice-blinds close shut, or the sun would drive you mad; andwhen the sun goes down you must shut up all the windows, or themosquitoes would tempt you to commit suicide. So at this time ofthe year, you don't see much of the prospect within doors. As forthe flies, you don't mind them. Nor the fleas, whose size isprodigious, and whose name is Legion, and who populate the coach-house to that extent that I daily expect to see the carriage goingoff bodily, drawn by myriads of industrious fleas in harness. Therats are kept away, quite comfortably, by scores of lean cats, whoroam about the garden for that purpose. The lizards, of course, nobody cares for; they play in the sun, and don't bite. The littlescorpions are merely curious. The beetles are rather late, andhave not appeared yet. The frogs are company. There is a preserveof them in the grounds of the next villa; and after nightfall, onewould think that scores upon scores of women in pattens were goingup and down a wet stone pavement without a moment's cessation. That is exactly the noise they make. 

The ruined chapel, on the picturesque and beautiful sea-shore, wasdedicated, once upon a time, to Saint John the Baptist. I believethere is a legend that Saint John's bones were received there, withvarious solemnities, when they were first brought to Genoa; forGenoa possesses them to this day. When there is any uncommontempest at sea, they are brought out and exhibited to the ragingweather, which they never fail to calm. In consequence of thisconnection of Saint John with the city, great numbers of the commonpeople are christened Giovanni Baptista, which latter name ispronounced in the Genoese patois 'Batcheetcha, ' like a sneeze. Tohear everybody calling everybody else Batcheetcha, on a Sunday, orfesta-day, when there are crowds in the streets, is not a littlesingular and amusing to a stranger. 

The narrow lanes have great villas opening into them, whose walls(outside walls, I mean) are profusely painted with all sorts ofsubjects, grim and holy. But time and the sea-air have nearlyobliterated them; and they look like the entrance to VauxhallGardens on a sunny day. The court-yards of these houses areovergrown with grass and weeds; all sorts of hideous patches coverthe bases of the statues, as if they were afflicted with acutaneous disorder; the outer gates are rusty; and the iron barsoutside the lower windows are all tumbling down. Firewood is keptin halls where costly treasures might be heaped up, mountains high;waterfalls are dry and choked; fountains, too dull to play, and toolazy to work, have just enough recollection of their identity, intheir sleep, to make the neighbourhood damp; and the sirocco windis often blowing over all these things for days together, like agigantic oven out for a holiday. 

Not long ago, there was a festa-day, in honour of the VIRGIN'SMOTHER, when the young men of the neighbourhood, having worn greenwreaths of the vine in some procession or other, bathed in them, byscores. It looked very odd and pretty. Though I am bound toconfess (not knowing of the festa at that time), that I thought, and was quite satisfied, they wore them as horses do--to keep theflies off. 

Soon afterwards, there was another festa-day, in honour of St. Nazaro. One of the Albaro young men brought two large bouquetssoon after breakfast, and coming up-stairs into the great sala, presented them himself. This was a polite way of begging for acontribution towards the expenses of some music in the Saint'shonour, so we gave him whatever it may have been, and his messengerdeparted: well satisfied. At six o'clock in the evening we wentto the church--close at hand--a very gaudy place, hung all overwith festoons and bright draperies, and filled, from the altar tothe main door, with women, all seated. They wear no bonnets here, simply a long white veil--the 'mezzero;' and it was the most gauzy, ethereal-looking audience I ever saw. The young women are notgenerally pretty, but they walk remarkably well, and in theirpersonal carriage and the management of their veils, display muchinnate grace and elegance. There were some men present: not verymany: and a few of these were kneeling about the aisles, whileeverybody else tumbled over them. Innumerable tapers were burningin the church; the bits of silver and tin about the saints(especially in the Virgin's necklace) sparkled brilliantly; thepriests were seated about the chief altar; the organ played away, lustily, and a full band did the like; while a conductor, in alittle gallery opposite to the band, hammered away on the deskbefore him, with a scroll; and a tenor, without any voice, sang. The band played one way, the organ played another, the singer wenta third, and the unfortunate conductor banged and banged, andflourished his scroll on some principle of his own: apparentlywell satisfied with the whole performance. I never did hear such adiscordant din. The heat was intense all the time. 

The men, in red caps, and with loose coats hanging on theirshoulders (they never put them on), were playing bowls, and buyingsweetmeats, immediately outside the church. When half-a-dozen ofthem finished a game, they came into the aisle, crossed themselveswith the holy water, knelt on one knee for an instant, and walkedoff again to play another game at bowls. They are remarkablyexpert at this diversion, and will play in the stony lanes andstreets, and on the most uneven and disastrous ground for such apurpose, with as much nicety as on a billiard-table. But the mostfavourite game is the national one of Mora, which they pursue withsurprising ardour, and at which they will stake everything theypossess. It is a destructive kind of gambling, requiring noaccessories but the ten fingers, which are always--I intend no pun--at hand. Two men play together. One calls a number--say theextreme one, ten. He marks what portion of it he pleases bythrowing out three, or four, or five fingers; and his adversaryhas, in the same instant, at hazard, and without seeing his hand, to throw out as many fingers, as will make the exact balance. Their eyes and hands become so used to this, and act with suchastonishing rapidity, that an uninitiated bystander would find itvery difficult, if not impossible, to follow the progress of thegame. The initiated, however, of whom there is always an eagergroup looking on, devour it with the most intense avidity; and asthey are always ready to champion one side or the other in case ofa dispute, and are frequently divided in their partisanship, it isoften a very noisy proceeding. It is never the quietest game inthe world; for the numbers are always called in a loud sharp voice, and follow as close upon each other as they can be counted. On aholiday evening, standing at a window, or walking in a garden, orpassing through the streets, or sauntering in any quiet place aboutthe town, you will hear this game in progress in a score of wine-shops at once; and looking over any vineyard walk, or turningalmost any corner, will come upon a knot of players in full cry. It is observable that most men have a propensity to throw out someparticular number oftener than another; and the vigilance withwhich two sharp-eyed players will mutually endeavour to detect thisweakness, and adapt their game to it, is very curious andentertaining. The effect is greatly heightened by the universalsuddenness and vehemence of gesture; two men playing for half afarthing with an intensity as all-absorbing as if the stake werelife. 

Hard by here is a large Palazzo, formerly belonging to some memberof the Brignole family, but just now hired by a school of Jesuitsfor their summer quarters. I walked into its dismantled precinctsthe other evening about sunset, and couldn't help pacing up anddown for a little time, drowsily taking in the aspect of the place:which is repeated hereabouts in all directions. 

I loitered to and fro, under a colonnade, forming two sides of aweedy, grass-grown court-yard, whereof the house formed a thirdside, and a low terrace-walk, overlooking the garden and theneighbouring hills, the fourth. I don't believe there was anuncracked stone in the whole pavement. In the centre was amelancholy statue, so piebald in its decay, that it looked exactlyas if it had been covered with sticking-plaster, and afterwardspowdered. The stables, coach-houses, offices, were all empty, allruinous, all utterly deserted. 

Doors had lost their hinges, and were holding on by their latches;windows were broken, painted plaster had peeled off, and was lyingabout in clods; fowls and cats had so taken possession of the out-buildings, that I couldn't help thinking of the fairy tales, andeyeing them with suspicion, as transformed retainers, waiting to bechanged back again. One old Tom in particular: a scraggy brute, with a hungry green eye (a poor relation, in reality, I am inclinedto think): came prowling round and round me, as if he halfbelieved, for the moment, that I might be the hero come to marrythe lady, and set all to-rights; but discovering his mistake, hesuddenly gave a grim snarl, and walked away with such a tremendoustail, that he couldn't get into the little hole where he lived, butwas obliged to wait outside, until his indignation and his tail hadgone down together. 

In a sort of summer-house, or whatever it may be, in thiscolonnade, some Englishmen had been living, like grubs in a nut;but the Jesuits had given them notice to go, and they had gone, andTHAT was shut up too. The house: a wandering, echoing, thunderingbarrack of a place, with the lower windows barred up, as usual, waswide open at the door: and I have no doubt I might have gone in, and gone to bed, and gone dead, and nobody a bit the wiser. Onlyone suite of rooms on an upper floor was tenanted; and from one ofthese, the voice of a young-lady vocalist, practising bravuralustily, came flaunting out upon the silent evening. 

I went down into the garden, intended to be prim and quaint, withavenues, and terraces, and orange-trees, and statues, and water instone basins; and everything was green, gaunt, weedy, straggling, under grown or over grown, mildewy, damp, redolent of all sorts ofslabby, clammy, creeping, and uncomfortable life. There wasnothing bright in the whole scene but a firefly--one solitaryfirefly--showing against the dark bushes like the last little speckof the departed Glory of the house; and even it went flitting upand down at sudden angles, and leaving a place with a jerk, anddescribing an irregular circle, and returning to the same placewith a twitch that startled one: as if it were looking for therest of the Glory, and wondering (Heaven knows it might!) what hadbecome of it. 

In the course of two months, the flitting shapes and shadows of mydismal entering reverie gradually resolved themselves into familiarforms and substances; and I already began to think that when thetime should come, a year hence, for closing the long holiday andturning back to England, I might part from Genoa with anything buta glad heart. 

It is a place that 'grows upon you' every day. There seems to bealways something to find out in it. There are the mostextraordinary alleys and by-ways to walk about in. You can loseyour way (what a comfort that is, when you are idle!) twenty timesa day, if you like; and turn up again, under the most unexpectedand surprising difficulties. It abounds in the strangestcontrasts; things that are picturesque, ugly, mean, magnificent, delightful, and offensive, break upon the view at every turn. 

They who would know how beautiful the country immediatelysurrounding Genoa is, should climb (in clear weather) to the top ofMonte Faccio, or, at least, ride round the city walls: a feat moreeasily performed. No prospect can be more diversified and lovelythan the changing views of the harbour, and the valleys of the tworivers, the Polcevera and the Bizagno, from the heights along whichthe strongly fortified walls are carried, like the great wall ofChina in little. In not the least picturesque part of this ride, there is a fair specimen of a real Genoese tavern, where thevisitor may derive good entertainment from real Genoese dishes, such as Tagliarini; Ravioli; German sausages, strong of garlic, sliced and eaten with fresh green figs; cocks' combs and sheep-kidneys, chopped up with mutton chops and liver; small pieces ofsome unknown part of a calf, twisted into small shreds, fried, andserved up in a great dish like white-bait; and other curiosities ofthat kind. They often get wine at these suburban Trattorie, fromFrance and Spain and Portugal, which is brought over by smallcaptains in little trading-vessels. They buy it at so much abottle, without asking what it is, or caring to remember if anybodytells them, and usually divide it into two heaps; of which theylabel one Champagne, and the other Madeira. The various oppositeflavours, qualities, countries, ages, and vintages that arecomprised under these two general heads is quite extraordinary. The most limited range is probably from cool Gruel up to oldMarsala, and down again to apple Tea. 

The great majority of the streets are as narrow as any thoroughfarecan well be, where people (even Italian people) are supposed tolive and walk about; being mere lanes, with here and there a kindof well, or breathing-place. The houses are immensely high, painted in all sorts of colours, and are in every stage and stateof damage, dirt, and lack of repair. They are commonly let off infloors, or flats, like the houses in the old town of Edinburgh, ormany houses in Paris. There are few street doors; the entrancehalls are, for the most part, looked upon as public property; andany moderately enterprising scavenger might make a fine fortune bynow and then clearing them out. As it is impossible for coaches topenetrate into these streets, there are sedan chairs, gilded andotherwise, for hire in divers places. A great many private chairsare also kept among the nobility and gentry; and at night these aretrotted to and fro in all directions, preceded by bearers of greatlanthorns, made of linen stretched upon a frame. The sedans andlanthorns are the legitimate successors of the long strings ofpatient and much-abused mules, that go jingling their little bellsthrough these confined streets all day long. They follow them, asregularly as the stars the sun. 

When shall I forget the Streets of Palaces: the Strada Nuova andthe Strada Balbi! or how the former looked one summer day, when Ifirst saw it underneath the brightest and most intensely blue ofsummer skies: which its narrow perspective of immense mansions, reduced to a tapering and most precious strip of brightness, looking down upon the heavy shade below! A brightness not toocommon, even in July and August, to be well esteemed: for, if theTruth must out, there were not eight blue skies in as manymidsummer weeks, saving, sometimes, early in the morning; when, looking out to sea, the water and the firmament were one world ofdeep and brilliant blue. At other times, there were clouds andhaze enough to make an Englishman grumble in his own climate. 

The endless details of these rich Palaces: the walls of some ofthem, within, alive with masterpieces by Vandyke! The great, heavy, stone balconies, one above another, and tier over tier:with here and there, one larger than the rest, towering high up--ahuge marble platform; the doorless vestibules, massively barredlower windows, immense public staircases, thick marble pillars, strong dungeon-like arches, and dreary, dreaming, echoing vaultedchambers: among which the eye wanders again, and again, and again, as every palace is succeeded by another--the terrace gardensbetween house and house, with green arches of the vine, and grovesof orange-trees, and blushing oleander in full bloom, twenty, thirty, forty feet above the street--the painted halls, mouldering, and blotting, and rotting in the damp corners, and still shiningout in beautiful colours and voluptuous designs, where the wallsare dry--the faded figures on the outsides of the houses, holdingwreaths, and crowns, and flying upward, and downward, and standingin niches, and here and there looking fainter and more feeble thanelsewhere, by contrast with some fresh little Cupids, who on a morerecently decorated portion of the front, are stretching out whatseems to be the semblance of a blanket, but is, indeed, a sun-dial--the steep, steep, up-hill streets of small palaces (but very largepalaces for all that), with marble terraces looking down into closeby-ways--the magnificent and innumerable Churches; and the rapidpassage from a street of stately edifices, into a maze of thevilest squalor, steaming with unwholesome stenches, and swarmingwith half-naked children and whole worlds of dirty people--make up, altogether, such a scene of wonder: so lively, and yet so dead:so noisy, and yet so quiet: so obtrusive, and yet so shy andlowering: so wide awake, and yet so fast asleep: that it is asort of intoxication to a stranger to walk on, and on, and on, andlook about him. A bewildering phantasmagoria, with all theinconsistency of a dream, and all the pain and all the pleasure ofan extravagant reality!

The different uses to which some of these Palaces are applied, allat once, is characteristic. For instance, the English Banker (myexcellent and hospitable friend) has his office in a good-sizedPalazzo in the Strada Nuova. In the hall (every inch of which iselaborately painted, but which is as dirty as a police-station inLondon), a hook-nosed Saracen's Head with an immense quantity ofblack hair (there is a man attached to it) sells walking-sticks. On the other side of the doorway, a lady with a showy handkerchieffor head-dress (wife to the Saracen's Head, I believe) sellsarticles of her own knitting; and sometimes flowers. A littlefurther in, two or three blind men occasionally beg. Sometimes, they are visited by a man without legs, on a little go-cart, butwho has such a fresh-coloured, lively face, and such a respectable, well-conditioned body, that he looks as if he had sunk into theground up to his middle, or had come, but partially, up a flight ofcellar-steps to speak to somebody. A little further in, a few men, perhaps, lie asleep in the middle of the day; or they may bechairmen waiting for their absent freight. If so, they havebrought their chairs in with them, and there THEY stand also. Onthe left of the hall is a little room: a hatter's shop. On thefirst floor, is the English bank. On the first floor also, is awhole house, and a good large residence too. Heaven knows whatthere may be above that; but when you are there, you have only justbegun to go up-stairs. And yet, coming down-stairs again, thinkingof this; and passing out at a great crazy door in the back of thehall, instead of turning the other way, to get into the streetagain; it bangs behind you, making the dismallest and most lonesomeechoes, and you stand in a yard (the yard of the same house) whichseems to have been unvisited by human foot, for a hundred years. Not a sound disturbs its repose. Not a head, thrust out of any ofthe grim, dark, jealous windows, within sight, makes the weeds inthe cracked pavement faint of heart, by suggesting the possibilityof there being hands to grub them up. Opposite to you, is a giantfigure carved in stone, reclining, with an urn, upon a lofty pieceof artificial rockwork; and out of the urn, dangles the fag end ofa leaden pipe, which, once upon a time, poured a small torrent downthe rocks. But the eye-sockets of the giant are not drier thanthis channel is now. He seems to have given his urn, which isnearly upside down, a final tilt; and after crying, like asepulchral child, 'All gone!' to have lapsed into a stony silence. 

In the streets of shops, the houses are much smaller, but of greatsize notwithstanding, and extremely high. They are very dirty:quite undrained, if my nose be at all reliable: and emit apeculiar fragrance, like the smell of very bad cheese, kept in veryhot blankets. Notwithstanding the height of the houses, therewould seem to have been a lack of room in the City, for new housesare thrust in everywhere. Wherever it has been possible to cram atumble-down tenement into a crack or corner, in it has gone. Ifthere be a nook or angle in the wall of a church, or a crevice inany other dead wall, of any sort, there you are sure to find somekind of habitation: looking as if it had grown there, like afungus. Against the Government House, against the old SenateHouse, round about any large building, little shops stick so close, like parasite vermin to the great carcase. And for all this, lookwhere you may: up steps, down steps, anywhere, everywhere: thereare irregular houses, receding, starting forward, tumbling down, leaning against their neighbours, crippling themselves or theirfriends by some means or other, until one, more irregular than therest, chokes up the way, and you can't see any further. 

One of the rottenest-looking parts of the town, I think, is down bythe landing-wharf: though it may be, that its being associatedwith a great deal of rottenness on the evening of our arrival, hasstamped it deeper in my mind. Here, again, the houses are veryhigh, and are of an infinite variety of deformed shapes, and have(as most of the houses have) something hanging out of a great manywindows, and wafting its frowsy fragrance on the breeze. Sometimes, it is a curtain; sometimes, it is a carpet; sometimes, it is a bed; sometimes, a whole line-full of clothes; but there isalmost always something. Before the basement of these houses, isan arcade over the pavement: very massive, dark, and low, like anold crypt. The stone, or plaster, of which it is made, has turnedquite black; and against every one of these black piles, all sortsof filth and garbage seem to accumulate spontaneously. Beneathsome of the arches, the sellers of macaroni and polenta establishtheir stalls, which are by no means inviting. The offal of a fish-market, near at hand--that is to say, of a back lane, where peoplesit upon the ground and on various old bulk-heads and sheds, andsell fish when they have any to dispose of--and of a vegetablemarket, constructed on the same principle--are contributed to thedecoration of this quarter; and as all the mercantile business istransacted here, and it is crowded all day, it has a very decidedflavour about it. The Porto Franco, or Free Port (where goodsbrought in from foreign countries pay no duty until they are soldand taken out, as in a bonded warehouse in England), is down herealso; and two portentous officials, in cocked hats, stand at thegate to search you if they choose, and to keep out Monks andLadies. For, Sanctity as well as Beauty has been known to yield tothe temptation of smuggling, and in the same way: that is to say, by concealing the smuggled property beneath the loose folds of itsdress. So Sanctity and Beauty may, by no means, enter. 

The streets of Genoa would be all the better for the importation ofa few Priests of prepossessing appearance. Every fourth or fifthman in the streets is a Priest or a Monk; and there is pretty sureto be at least one itinerant ecclesiastic inside or outside everyhackney carriage on the neighbouring roads. I have no knowledge, elsewhere, of more repulsive countenances than are to be foundamong these gentry. If Nature's handwriting be at all legible, greater varieties of sloth, deceit, and intellectual torpor, couldhardly be observed among any class of men in the world. 

MR. PEPYS once heard a clergyman assert in his sermon, inillustration of his respect for the Priestly office, that if hecould meet a Priest and angel together, he would salute the Priestfirst. I am rather of the opinion of PETRARCH, who, when his pupilBOCCACCIO wrote to him in great tribulation, that he had beenvisited and admonished for his writings by a Carthusian Friar whoclaimed to be a messenger immediately commissioned by Heaven forthat purpose, replied, that for his own part, he would take theliberty of testing the reality of the commission by personalobservation of the Messenger's face, eyes, forehead, behaviour, anddiscourse. I cannot but believe myself, from similar observation, that many unaccredited celestial messengers may be seen skulkingthrough the streets of Genoa, or droning away their lives in otherItalian towns. 

Perhaps the Cappuccini, though not a learned body, are, as anorder, the best friends of the people. They seem to mingle withthem more immediately, as their counsellors and comforters; and togo among them more, when they are sick; and to pry less than someother orders, into the secrets of families, for the purpose ofestablishing a baleful ascendency over their weaker members; and tobe influenced by a less fierce desire to make converts, and oncemade, to let them go to ruin, soul and body. They may be seen, intheir coarse dress, in all parts of the town at all times, andbegging in the markets early in the morning. The Jesuits too, muster strong in the streets, and go slinking noiselessly about, inpairs, like black cats. 

In some of the narrow passages, distinct trades congregate. Thereis a street of jewellers, and there is a row of booksellers; buteven down in places where nobody ever can, or ever could, penetratein a carriage, there are mighty old palaces shut in among thegloomiest and closest walls, and almost shut out from the sun. Very few of the tradesmen have any idea of setting forth theirgoods, or disposing them for show. If you, a stranger, want to buyanything, you usually look round the shop till you see it; thenclutch it, if it be within reach, and inquire how much. Everythingis sold at the most unlikely place. If you want coffee, you go toa sweetmeat shop; and if you want meat, you will probably find itbehind an old checked curtain, down half-a-dozen steps, in somesequestered nook as hard to find as if the commodity were poison, and Genoa's law were death to any that uttered it. 

Most of the apothecaries' shops are great lounging-places. Here, grave men with sticks, sit down in the shade for hours together, passing a meagre Genoa paper from hand to hand, and talking, drowsily and sparingly, about the News. Two or three of these arepoor physicians, ready to proclaim themselves on an emergency, andtear off with any messenger who may arrive. You may know them bythe way in which they stretch their necks to listen, when youenter; and by the sigh with which they fall back again into theirdull corners, on finding that you only want medicine. Few peoplelounge in the barbers' shops; though they are very numerous, ashardly any man shaves himself. But the apothecary's has its groupof loungers, who sit back among the bottles, with their handsfolded over the tops of their sticks. So still and quiet, thateither you don't see them in the darkened shop, or mistake them--asI did one ghostly man in bottle-green, one day, with a hat like astopper--for Horse Medicine. 

On a summer evening the Genoese are as fond of putting themselves, as their ancestors were of putting houses, in every available inchof space in and about the town. In all the lanes and alleys, andup every little ascent, and on every dwarf wall, and on everyflight of steps, they cluster like bees. Meanwhile (and especiallyon festa-days) the bells of the churches ring incessantly; not inpeals, or any known form of sound, but in a horrible, irregular, jerking, dingle, dingle, dingle: with a sudden stop at everyfifteenth dingle or so, which is maddening. This performance isusually achieved by a boy up in the steeple, who takes hold of theclapper, or a little rope attached to it, and tries to dinglelouder than every other boy similarly employed. The noise issupposed to be particularly obnoxious to Evil Spirits; but lookingup into the steeples, and seeing (and hearing) these youngChristians thus engaged, one might very naturally mistake them forthe Enemy. 

Festa-days, early in the autumn, are very numerous. All the shopswere shut up, twice within a week, for these holidays; and onenight, all the houses in the neighbourhood of a particular churchwere illuminated, while the church itself was lighted, outside, with torches; and a grove of blazing links was erected, in an openspace outside one of the city gates. This part of the ceremony isprettier and more singular a little way in the country, where youcan trace the illuminated cottages all the way up a steep hill-side; and where you pass festoons of tapers, wasting away in thestarlight night, before some lonely little house upon the road. 

On these days, they always dress the church of the saint in whosehonour the festa is holden, very gaily. Gold-embroidered festoonsof different colours, hang from the arches; the altar furniture isset forth; and sometimes, even the lofty pillars are swathed fromtop to bottom in tight-fitting draperies. The cathedral isdedicated to St. Lorenzo. On St. Lorenzo's day, we went into it, just as the sun was setting. Although these decorations areusually in very indifferent taste, the effect, just then, was verysuperb indeed. For the whole building was dressed in red; and thesinking sun, streaming in, through a great red curtain in the chiefdoorway, made all the gorgeousness its own. When the sun wentdown, and it gradually grew quite dark inside, except for a fewtwinkling tapers on the principal altar, and some small danglingsilver lamps, it was very mysterious and effective. But, sittingin any of the churches towards evening, is like a mild dose ofopium. 

With the money collected at a festa, they usually pay for thedressing of the church, and for the hiring of the band, and for thetapers. If there be any left (which seldom happens, I believe), the souls in Purgatory get the benefit of it. They are alsosupposed to have the benefit of the exertions of certain smallboys, who shake money-boxes before some mysterious little buildingslike rural turnpikes, which (usually shut up close) fly open onRed-letter days, and disclose an image and some flowers inside. 

Just without the city gate, on the Albara road, is a small house, with an altar in it, and a stationary money-box: also for thebenefit of the souls in Purgatory. Still further to stimulate thecharitable, there is a monstrous painting on the plaster, on eitherside of the grated door, representing a select party of souls, frying. One of them has a grey moustache, and an elaborate head ofgrey hair: as if he had been taken out of a hairdresser's windowand cast into the furnace. There he is: a most grotesque andhideously comic old soul: for ever blistering in the real sun, andmelting in the mimic fire, for the gratification and improvement(and the contributions) of the poor Genoese. 

They are not a very joyous people, and are seldom seen to dance ontheir holidays: the staple places of entertainment among thewomen, being the churches and the public walks. They are verygood-tempered, obliging, and industrious. Industry has not madethem clean, for their habitations are extremely filthy, and theirusual occupation on a fine Sunday morning, is to sit at theirdoors, hunting in each other's heads. But their dwellings are soclose and confined that if those parts of the city had been beatendown by Massena in the time of the terrible Blockade, it would haveat least occasioned one public benefit among many misfortunes. 

The Peasant Women, with naked feet and legs, are so constantlywashing clothes, in the public tanks, and in every stream andditch, that one cannot help wondering, in the midst of all thisdirt, who wears them when they are clean. The custom is to lay thewet linen which is being operated upon, on a smooth stone, andhammer away at it, with a flat wooden mallet. This they do, asfuriously as if they were revenging themselves on dress in generalfor being connected with the Fall of Mankind. 

It is not unusual to see, lying on the edge of the tank at thesetimes, or on another flat stone, an unfortunate baby, tightlyswathed up, arms and legs and all, in an enormous quantity ofwrapper, so that it is unable to move a toe or finger. This custom(which we often see represented in old pictures) is universal amongthe common people. A child is left anywhere without thepossibility of crawling away, or is accidentally knocked off ashelf, or tumbled out of bed, or is hung up to a hook now and then, and left dangling like a doll at an English rag-shop, without theleast inconvenience to anybody. 

I was sitting, one Sunday, soon after my arrival, in the littlecountry church of San Martino, a couple of miles from the city, while a baptism took place. I saw the priest, and an attendantwith a large taper, and a man, and a woman, and some others; but Ihad no more idea, until the ceremony was all over, that it was abaptism, or that the curious little stiff instrument, that waspassed from one to another, in the course of the ceremony, by thehandle--like a short poker--was a child, than I had that it was myown christening. I borrowed the child afterwards, for a minute ortwo (it was lying across the font then), and found it very red inthe face but perfectly quiet, and not to be bent on any terms. Thenumber of cripples in the streets, soon ceased to surprise me. 

There are plenty of Saints' and Virgin's Shrines, of course;generally at the corners of streets. The favourite memento to theFaithful, about Genoa, is a painting, representing a peasant on hisknees, with a spade and some other agricultural implements besidehim; and the Madonna, with the Infant Saviour in her arms, appearing to him in a cloud. This is the legend of the Madonnadella Guardia: a chapel on a mountain within a few miles, which isin high repute. It seems that this peasant lived all alone byhimself, tilling some land atop of the mountain, where, being adevout man, he daily said his prayers to the Virgin in the openair; for his hut was a very poor one. Upon a certain day, theVirgin appeared to him, as in the picture, and said, 'Why do youpray in the open air, and without a priest?' The peasant explainedbecause there was neither priest nor church at hand--a veryuncommon complaint indeed in Italy. 'I should wish, then, ' saidthe Celestial Visitor, 'to have a chapel built here, in which theprayers of the Faithful may be offered up. ' 'But, SantissimaMadonna, ' said the peasant, 'I am a poor man; and chapels cannot bebuilt without money. They must be supported, too, Santissima; forto have a chapel and not support it liberally, is a wickedness--adeadly sin. ' This sentiment gave great satisfaction to thevisitor. 'Go!' said she. 'There is such a village in the valleyon the left, and such another village in the valley on the right, and such another village elsewhere, that will gladly contribute tothe building of a chapel. Go to them! Relate what you have seen;and do not doubt that sufficient money will be forthcoming to erectmy chapel, or that it will, afterwards, be handsomely maintained. 'All of which (miraculously) turned out to be quite true. And inproof of this prediction and revelation, there is the chapel of theMadonna della Guardia, rich and flourishing at this day. 

The splendour and variety of the Genoese churches, can hardly beexaggerated. The church of the Annunciata especially: built, likemany of the others, at the cost of one noble family, and now inslow progress of repair: from the outer door to the utmost heightof the high cupola, is so elaborately painted and set in gold, thatit looks (as SIMOND describes it, in his charming book on Italy)like a great enamelled snuff-box. Most of the richer churchescontain some beautiful pictures, or other embellishments of greatprice, almost universally set, side by side, with sprawlingeffigies of maudlin monks, and the veriest trash and tinsel everseen. 

It may be a consequence of the frequent direction of the popularmind, and pocket, to the souls in Purgatory, but there is verylittle tenderness for the BODIES of the dead here. For the verypoor, there are, immediately outside one angle of the walls, andbehind a jutting point of the fortification, near the sea, certaincommon pits--one for every day in the year--which all remain closedup, until the turn of each comes for its daily reception of deadbodies. Among the troops in the town, there are usually someSwiss: more or less. When any of these die, they are buried outof a fund maintained by such of their countrymen as are resident inGenoa. Their providing coffins for these men is matter of greatastonishment to the authorities. 

Certainly, the effect of this promiscuous and indecent splashingdown of dead people in so many wells, is bad. It surrounds Deathwith revolting associations, that insensibly become connected withthose whom Death is approaching. Indifference and avoidance arethe natural result; and all the softening influences of the greatsorrow are harshly disturbed. 

There is a ceremony when an old Cavaliere or the like, expires, oferecting a pile of benches in the cathedral, to represent his bier;covering them over with a pall of black velvet; putting his hat andsword on the top; making a little square of seats about the whole;and sending out formal invitations to his friends and acquaintancesto come and sit there, and hear Mass: which is performed at theprincipal Altar, decorated with an infinity of candles for thatpurpose. 

When the better kind of people die, or are at the point of death, their nearest relations generally walk off: retiring into thecountry for a little change, and leaving the body to be disposedof, without any superintendence from them. The procession isusually formed, and the coffin borne, and the funeral conducted, bya body of persons called a Confraternita, who, as a kind ofvoluntary penance, undertake to perform these offices, in regularrotation, for the dead; but who, mingling something of pride withtheir humility, are dressed in a loose garment covering their wholeperson, and wear a hood concealing the face; with breathing-holesand apertures for the eyes. The effect of this costume is veryghastly: especially in the case of a certain Blue Confraternitabelonging to Genoa, who, to say the least of them, are very uglycustomers, and who look--suddenly encountered in their piousministration in the streets--as if they were Ghoules or Demons, bearing off the body for themselves. 

Although such a custom may be liable to the abuse attendant on manyItalian customs, of being recognised as a means of establishing acurrent account with Heaven, on which to draw, too easily, forfuture bad actions, or as an expiation for past misdeeds, it mustbe admitted to be a good one, and a practical one, and oneinvolving unquestionably good works. A voluntary service likethis, is surely better than the imposed penance (not at all aninfrequent one) of giving so many licks to such and such a stone inthe pavement of the cathedral; or than a vow to the Madonna to wearnothing but blue for a year or two. This is supposed to give greatdelight above; blue being (as is well known) the Madonna'sfavourite colour. Women who have devoted themselves to this act ofFaith, are very commonly seen walking in the streets. 

There are three theatres in the city, besides an old one now rarelyopened. The most important--the Carlo Felice: the opera-house ofGenoa--is a very splendid, commodious, and beautiful theatre. Acompany of comedians were acting there, when we arrived: and soonafter their departure, a second-rate opera company came. The greatseason is not until the carnival time--in the spring. Nothingimpressed me, so much, in my visits here (which were prettynumerous) as the uncommonly hard and cruel character of theaudience, who resent the slightest defect, take nothing good-humouredly, seem to be always lying in wait for an opportunity tohiss, and spare the actresses as little as the actors. 

But, as there is nothing else of a public nature at which they areallowed to express the least disapprobation, perhaps they areresolved to make the most of this opportunity. 

There are a great number of Piedmontese officers too, who areallowed the privilege of kicking their heels in the pit, for nextto nothing: gratuitous, or cheap accommodation for these gentlemenbeing insisted on, by the Governor, in all public or semi-publicentertainments. They are lofty critics in consequence, andinfinitely more exacting than if they made the unhappy manager'sfortune. 

The TEATRO DIURNO, or Day Theatre, is a covered stage in the openair, where the performances take place by daylight, in the cool ofthe afternoon; commencing at four or five o'clock, and lasting, some three hours. It is curious, sitting among the audience, tohave a fine view of the neighbouring hills and houses, and to seethe neighbours at their windows looking on, and to hear the bellsof the churches and convents ringing at most complete cross-purposes with the scene. Beyond this, and the novelty of seeing aplay in the fresh pleasant air, with the darkening evening closingin, there is nothing very exciting or characteristic in theperformances. The actors are indifferent; and though theysometimes represent one of Goldoni's comedies, the staple of theDrama is French. Anything like nationality is dangerous todespotic governments, and Jesuit-beleaguered kings. 

The Theatre of Puppets, or Marionetti--a famous company from Milan--is, without any exception, the drollest exhibition I ever beheldin my life. I never saw anything so exquisitely ridiculous. TheyLOOK between four and five feet high, but are really much smaller;for when a musician in the orchestra happens to put his hat on thestage, it becomes alarmingly gigantic, and almost blots out anactor. They usually play a comedy, and a ballet. The comic man inthe comedy I saw one summer night, is a waiter in an hotel. Therenever was such a locomotive actor, since the world began. Greatpains are taken with him. He has extra joints in his legs: and apractical eye, with which he winks at the pit, in a manner that isabsolutely insupportable to a stranger, but which the initiatedaudience, mainly composed of the common people, receive (so they doeverything else) quite as a matter of course, and as if he were aman. His spirits are prodigious. He continually shakes his legs, and winks his eye. And there is a heavy father with grey hair, whosits down on the regular conventional stage-bank, and blesses hisdaughter in the regular conventional way, who is tremendous. Noone would suppose it possible that anything short of a real mancould be so tedious. It is the triumph of art. 

In the ballet, an Enchanter runs away with the Bride, in the veryhour of her nuptials, He brings her to his cave, and tries tosoothe her. They sit down on a sofa (the regular sofa! in theregular place, O. P. Second Entrance!) and a procession ofmusicians enters; one creature playing a drum, and knocking himselfoff his legs at every blow. These failing to delight her, dancersappear. Four first; then two; THE two; the flesh-coloured two. The way in which they dance; the height to which they spring; theimpossible and inhuman extent to which they pirouette; therevelation of their preposterous legs; the coming down with apause, on the very tips of their toes, when the music requires it;the gentleman's retiring up, when it is the lady's turn; and thelady's retiring up, when it is the gentleman's turn; the finalpassion of a pas-de-deux; and the going off with a bound!--I shallnever see a real ballet, with a composed countenance again. 

I went, another night, to see these Puppets act a play called 'St. Helena, or the Death of Napoleon. ' It began by the disclosure ofNapoleon, with an immense head, seated on a sofa in his chamber atSt. Helena; to whom his valet entered with this obscureannouncement:

'Sir Yew ud se on Low?' (the ow, as in cow). 

Sir Hudson (that you could have seen his regimentals!) was aperfect mammoth of a man, to Napoleon; hideously ugly, with amonstrously disproportionate face, and a great clump for the lower-jaw, to express his tyrannical and obdurate nature. He began hissystem of persecution, by calling his prisoner 'GeneralBuonaparte;' to which the latter replied, with the deepest tragedy, 'Sir Yew ud se on Low, call me not thus. Repeat that phrase andleave me! I am Napoleon, Emperor of France!' Sir Yew ud se on, nothing daunted, proceeded to entertain him with an ordinance ofthe British Government, regulating the state he should preserve, and the furniture of his rooms: and limiting his attendants tofour or five persons. 'Four or five for ME!' said Napoleon. 'Me!One hundred thousand men were lately at my sole command; and thisEnglish officer talks of four or five for ME!' Throughout thepiece, Napoleon (who talked very like the real Napoleon, and was, for ever, having small soliloquies by himself) was very bitter on'these English officers, ' and 'these English soldiers;' to thegreat satisfaction of the audience, who were perfectly delighted tohave Low bullied; and who, whenever Low said 'General Buonaparte'(which he always did: always receiving the same correction), quiteexecrated him. It would be hard to say why; for Italians havelittle cause to sympathise with Napoleon, Heaven knows. 

There was no plot at all, except that a French officer, disguisedas an Englishman, came to propound a plan of escape; and beingdiscovered, but not before Napoleon had magnanimously refused tosteal his freedom, was immediately ordered off by Low to be hanged. In two very long speeches, which Low made memorable, by winding upwith 'Yas!'--to show that he was English--which brought downthunders of applause. Napoleon was so affected by thiscatastrophe, that he fainted away on the spot, and was carried outby two other puppets. Judging from what followed, it would appearthat he never recovered the shock; for the next act showed him, ina clean shirt, in his bed (curtains crimson and white), where alady, prematurely dressed in mourning, brought two little children, who kneeled down by the bedside, while he made a decent end; thelast word on his lips being 'Vatterlo. '

It was unspeakably ludicrous. Buonaparte's boots were sowonderfully beyond control, and did such marvellous things of theirown accord: doubling themselves up, and getting under tables, anddangling in the air, and sometimes skating away with him, out ofall human knowledge, when he was in full speech--mischances whichwere not rendered the less absurd, by a settled melancholy depictedin his face. To put an end to one conference with Low, he had togo to a table, and read a book: when it was the finest spectacle Iever beheld, to see his body bending over the volume, like a boot-jack, and his sentimental eyes glaring obstinately into the pit. He was prodigiously good, in bed, with an immense collar to hisshirt, and his little hands outside the coverlet. So was Dr. Antommarchi, represented by a puppet with long lank hair, likeMawworm's, who, in consequence of some derangement of his wires, hovered about the couch like a vulture, and gave medical opinionsin the air. He was almost as good as Low, though the latter wasgreat at all times--a decided brute and villain, beyond allpossibility of mistake. Low was especially fine at the last, when, hearing the doctor and the valet say, 'The Emperor is dead!' hepulled out his watch, and wound up the piece (not the watch) byexclaiming, with characteristic brutality, 'Ha! ha! Eleven minutesto six! The General dead! and the spy hanged!' This brought thecurtain down, triumphantly. 

There is not in Italy, they say (and I believe them), a lovelierresidence than the Palazzo Peschiere, or Palace of the Fishponds, whither we removed as soon as our three months' tenancy of the PinkJail at Albaro had ceased and determined. 

It stands on a height within the walls of Genoa, but aloof from thetown: surrounded by beautiful gardens of its own, adorned withstatues, vases, fountains, marble basins, terraces, walks oforange-trees and lemon-trees, groves of roses and camellias. Allits apartments are beautiful in their proportions and decorations;but the great hall, some fifty feet in height, with three largewindows at the end, overlooking the whole town of Genoa, theharbour, and the neighbouring sea, affords one of the mostfascinating and delightful prospects in the world. Any house morecheerful and habitable than the great rooms are, within, it wouldbe difficult to conceive; and certainly nothing more delicious thanthe scene without, in sunshine or in moonlight, could be imagined. It is more like an enchanted place in an Eastern story than a graveand sober lodging. 

How you may wander on, from room to room, and never tire of thewild fancies on the walls and ceilings, as bright in their freshcolouring as if they had been painted yesterday; or how one floor, or even the great hall which opens on eight other rooms, is aspacious promenade; or how there are corridors and bed-chambersabove, which we never use and rarely visit, and scarcely know theway through; or how there is a view of a perfectly differentcharacter on each of the four sides of the building; matterslittle. But that prospect from the hall is like a vision to me. Igo back to it, in fancy, as I have done in calm reality a hundredtimes a day; and stand there, looking out, with the sweet scentsfrom the garden rising up about me, in a perfect dream ofhappiness. 

There lies all Genoa, in beautiful confusion, with its manychurches, monasteries, and convents, pointing up into the sunnysky; and down below me, just where the roofs begin, a solitaryconvent parapet, fashioned like a gallery, with an iron across atthe end, where sometimes early in the morning, I have seen a littlegroup of dark-veiled nuns gliding sorrowfully to and fro, andstopping now and then to peep down upon the waking world in whichthey have no part. Old Monte Faccio, brightest of hills in goodweather, but sulkiest when storms are coming on, is here, upon theleft. The Fort within the walls (the good King built it to commandthe town, and beat the houses of the Genoese about their ears, incase they should be discontented) commands that height upon theright. The broad sea lies beyond, in front there; and that line ofcoast, beginning by the light-house, and tapering away, a merespeck in the rosy distance, is the beautiful coast road that leadsto Nice. The garden near at hand, among the roofs and houses: allred with roses and fresh with little fountains: is the Acqua Sola--a public promenade, where the military band plays gaily, and thewhite veils cluster thick, and the Genoese nobility ride round, andround, and round, in state-clothes and coaches at least, if not inabsolute wisdom. Within a stone's-throw, as it seems, the audienceof the Day Theatre sit: their faces turned this way. But as thestage is hidden, it is very odd, without a knowledge of the cause, to see their faces changed so suddenly from earnestness tolaughter; and odder still, to hear the rounds upon rounds ofapplause, rattling in the evening air, to which the curtain falls. But, being Sunday night, they act their best and most attractiveplay. And now, the sun is going down, in such magnificent array ofred, and green, and golden light, as neither pen nor pencil coulddepict; and to the ringing of the vesper bells, darkness sets in atonce, without a twilight. Then, lights begin to shine in Genoa, and on the country road; and the revolving lanthorn out at seathere, flashing, for an instant, on this palace front and portico, illuminates it as if there were a bright moon bursting from behinda cloud; then, merges it in deep obscurity. And this, so far as Iknow, is the only reason why the Genoese avoid it after dark, andthink it haunted. 

My memory will haunt it, many nights, in time to come; but nothingworse, I will engage. The same Ghost will occasionally sail away, as I did one pleasant autumn evening, into the bright prospect, andsniff the morning air at Marseilles. 

The corpulent hairdresser was still sitting in his slippers outsidehis shop-door there, but the twirling ladies in the window, withthe natural inconstancy of their sex, had ceased to twirl, and werelanguishing, stock still, with their beautiful faces addressed toblind corners of the establishment, where it was impossible foradmirers to penetrate. 

The steamer had come from Genoa in a delicious run of eighteenhours, and we were going to run back again by the Cornice road fromNice: not being satisfied to have seen only the outsides of thebeautiful towns that rise in picturesque white clusters from amongthe olive woods, and rocks, and hills, upon the margin of the Sea. 

The Boat which started for Nice that night, at eight o'clock, wasvery small, and so crowded with goods that there was scarcely roomto move; neither was there anything to cat on board, except bread;nor to drink, except coffee. But being due at Nice at about eightor so in the morning, this was of no consequence; so when we beganto wink at the bright stars, in involuntary acknowledgment of theirwinking at us, we turned into our berths, in a crowded, but coollittle cabin, and slept soundly till morning. 

The Boat, being as dull and dogged a little boat as ever was built, it was within an hour of noon when we turned into Nice Harbour, where we very little expected anything but breakfast. But we wereladen with wool. Wool must not remain in the Custom-house atMarseilles more than twelve months at a stretch, without payingduty. It is the custom to make fictitious removals of unsold woolto evade this law; to take it somewhere when the twelve months arenearly out; bring it straight back again; and warehouse it, as anew cargo, for nearly twelve months longer. This wool of ours, hadcome originally from some place in the East. It was recognised asEastern produce, the moment we entered the harbour. Accordingly, the gay little Sunday boats, full of holiday people, which had comeoff to greet us, were warned away by the authorities; we weredeclared in quarantine; and a great flag was solemnly run up to themast-head on the wharf, to make it known to all the town. 

It was a very hot day indeed. We were unshaved, unwashed, undressed, unfed, and could hardly enjoy the absurdity of lyingblistering in a lazy harbour, with the town looking on from arespectful distance, all manner of whiskered men in cocked hatsdiscussing our fate at a remote guard-house, with gestures (welooked very hard at them through telescopes) expressive of a week'sdetention at least: and nothing whatever the matter all the time. But even in this crisis the brave Courier achieved a triumph. Hetelegraphed somebody (_I_ saw nobody) either naturally connectedwith the hotel, or put en rapport with the establishment for thatoccasion only. The telegraph was answered, and in half an hour orless, there came a loud shout from the guard-house. The captainwas wanted. Everybody helped the captain into his boat. Everybodygot his luggage, and said we were going. The captain rowed away, and disappeared behind a little jutting corner of the Galley-slaves' Prison: and presently came back with something, verysulkily. The brave Courier met him at the side, and received thesomething as its rightful owner. It was a wicker basket, folded ina linen cloth; and in it were two great bottles of wine, a roastfowl, some salt fish chopped with garlic, a great loaf of bread, adozen or so of peaches, and a few other trifles. When we hadselected our own breakfast, the brave Courier invited a chosenparty to partake of these refreshments, and assured them that theyneed not be deterred by motives of delicacy, as he would order asecond basket to be furnished at their expense. Which he did--noone knew how--and by-and-by, the captain being again summoned, again sulkily returned with another something; over which mypopular attendant presided as before: carving with a clasp-knife, his own personal property, something smaller than a Roman sword. 

The whole party on board were made merry by these unexpectedsupplies; but none more so than a loquacious little Frenchman, whogot drunk in five minutes, and a sturdy Cappuccino Friar, who hadtaken everybody's fancy mightily, and was one of the best friars inthe world, I verily believe. 

He had a free, open countenance; and a rich brown, flowing beard;and was a remarkably handsome man, of about fifty. He had come upto us, early in the morning, and inquired whether we were sure tobe at Nice by eleven; saying that he particularly wanted to know, because if we reached it by that time he would have to performMass, and must deal with the consecrated wafer, fasting; whereas, if there were no chance of his being in time, he would immediatelybreakfast. He made this communication, under the idea that thebrave Courier was the captain; and indeed he looked much more likeit than anybody else on board. Being assured that we should arrivein good time, he fasted, and talked, fasting, to everybody, withthe most charming good humour; answering jokes at the expense offriars, with other jokes at the expense of laymen, and saying that, friar as he was, he would engage to take up the two strongest menon board, one after the other, with his teeth, and carry them alongthe deck. Nobody gave him the opportunity, but I dare say he couldhave done it; for he was a gallant, noble figure of a man, even inthe Cappuccino dress, which is the ugliest and most ungainly thatcan well be. 

All this had given great delight to the loquacious Frenchman, whogradually patronised the Friar very much, and seemed to commiseratehim as one who might have been born a Frenchman himself, but for anunfortunate destiny. Although his patronage was such as a mousemight bestow upon a lion, he had a vast opinion of itscondescension; and in the warmth of that sentiment, occasionallyrose on tiptoe, to slap the Friar on the back. 

When the baskets arrived: it being then too late for Mass: theFriar went to work bravely: eating prodigiously of the cold meatand bread, drinking deep draughts of the wine, smoking cigars, taking snuff, sustaining an uninterrupted conversation with allhands, and occasionally running to the boat's side and hailingsomebody on shore with the intelligence that we MUST be got out ofthis quarantine somehow or other, as he had to take part in a greatreligious procession in the afternoon. After this, he would comeback, laughing lustily from pure good humour: while the Frenchmanwrinkled his small face into ten thousand creases, and said howdroll it was, and what a brave boy was that Friar! At length theheat of the sun without, and the wine within, made the Frenchmansleepy. So, in the noontide of his patronage of his giganticprotege, he lay down among the wool, and began to snore. 

It was four o'clock before we were released; and the Frenchman, dirty and woolly, and snuffy, was still sleeping when the Friarwent ashore. As soon as we were free, we all hurried away, to washand dress, that we might make a decent appearance at theprocession; and I saw no more of the Frenchman until we took up ourstation in the main street to see it pass, when he squeezed himselfinto a front place, elaborately renovated; threw back his littlecoat, to show a broad-barred velvet waistcoat, sprinkled all overwith stars; then adjusted himself and his cane so as utterly tobewilder and transfix the Friar, when he should appear. 

The procession was a very long one, and included an immense numberof people divided into small parties; each party chanting nasally, on its own account, without reference to any other, and producing amost dismal result. There were angels, crosses, Virgins carried onflat boards surrounded by Cupids, crowns, saints, missals, infantry, tapers, monks, nuns, relics, dignitaries of the church ingreen hats, walking under crimson parasols: and, here and there, aspecies of sacred street-lamp hoisted on a pole. We looked outanxiously for the Cappuccini, and presently their brown robes andcorded girdles were seen coming on, in a body. 

I observed the little Frenchman chuckle over the idea that when theFriar saw him in the broad-barred waistcoat, he would mentallyexclaim, 'Is that my Patron! THAT distinguished man!' and would becovered with confusion. Ah! never was the Frenchman so deceived. As our friend the Cappuccino advanced, with folded arms, he lookedstraight into the visage of the little Frenchman, with a bland, serene, composed abstraction, not to be described. There was notthe faintest trace of recognition or amusement on his features; notthe smallest consciousness of bread and meat, wine, snuff, orcigars. 'C'est lui-meme, ' I heard the little Frenchman say, insome doubt. Oh yes, it was himself. It was not his brother or hisnephew, very like him. It was he. He walked in great state:being one of the Superiors of the Order: and looked his part toadmiration. There never was anything so perfect of its kind as thecontemplative way in which he allowed his placid gaze to rest onus, his late companions, as if he had never seen us in his life anddidn't see us then. The Frenchman, quite humbled, took off his hatat last, but the Friar still passed on, with the same imperturbableserenity; and the broad-barred waistcoat, fading into the crowd, was seen no more. 

The procession wound up with a discharge of musketry that shook allthe windows in the town. Next afternoon we started for Genoa, bythe famed Cornice road. 

The half-French, half-Italian Vetturino, who undertook, with hislittle rattling carriage and pair, to convey us thither in threedays, was a careless, good-looking fellow, whose light-heartednessand singing propensities knew no bounds as long as we went onsmoothly. So long, he had a word and a smile, and a flick of hiswhip, for all the peasant girls, and odds and ends of theSonnambula for all the echoes. So long, he went jingling throughevery little village, with bells on his horses and rings in hisears: a very meteor of gallantry and cheerfulness. But, it washighly characteristic to see him under a slight reverse ofcircumstances, when, in one part of the journey, we came to anarrow place where a waggon had broken down and stopped up theroad. His hands were twined in his hair immediately, as if acombination of all the direst accidents in life had suddenly fallenon his devoted head. He swore in French, prayed in Italian, andwent up and down, beating his feet on the ground in a very ecstasyof despair. There were various carters and mule-drivers assembledround the broken waggon, and at last some man of an original turnof mind, proposed that a general and joint effort should be made toget things to-rights again, and clear the way--an idea which Iverily believe would never have presented itself to our friend, though we had remained there until now. It was done at no greatcost of labour; but at every pause in the doing, his hands werewound in his hair again, as if there were no ray of hope to lightenhis misery. The moment he was on his box once more, and clatteringbriskly down hill, he returned to the Sonnambula and the peasantgirls, as if it were not in the power of misfortune to depress him. 

Much of the romance of the beautiful towns and villages on thisbeautiful road, disappears when they are entered, for many of themare very miserable. The streets are narrow, dark, and dirty; theinhabitants lean and squalid; and the withered old women, withtheir wiry grey hair twisted up into a knot on the top of the head, like a pad to carry loads on, are so intensely ugly, both along theRiviera, and in Genoa, too, that, seen straggling about in dimdoorways with their spindles, or crooning together in by-corners, they are like a population of Witches--except that they certainlyare not to be suspected of brooms or any other instrument ofcleanliness. Neither are the pig-skins, in common use to holdwine, and hung out in the sun in all directions, by any meansornamental, as they always preserve the form of very bloated pigs, with their heads and legs cut off, dangling upside-down by theirown tails. 

These towns, as they are seen in the approach, however: nestling, with their clustering roofs and towers, among trees on steep hill-sides, or built upon the brink of noble bays: are charming. Thevegetation is, everywhere, luxuriant and beautiful, and the Palm-tree makes a novel feature in the novel scenery. In one town, SanRemo--a most extraordinary place, built on gloomy open arches, sothat one might ramble underneath the whole town--there are prettyterrace gardens; in other towns, there is the clang of shipwrights'hammers, and the building of small vessels on the beach. In someof the broad bays, the fleets of Europe might ride at anchor. Inevery case, each little group of houses presents, in the distance, some enchanting confusion of picturesque and fanciful shapes. 

The road itself--now high above the glittering sea, which breaksagainst the foot of the precipice: now turning inland to sweep theshore of a bay: now crossing the stony bed of a mountain stream:now low down on the beach: now winding among riven rocks of manyforms and colours: now chequered by a solitary ruined tower, oneof a chain of towers built, in old time, to protect the coast fromthe invasions of the Barbary Corsairs--presents new beauties everymoment. When its own striking scenery is passed, and it trails onthrough a long line of suburb, lying on the flat sea-shore, toGenoa, then, the changing glimpses of that noble city and itsharbour, awaken a new source of interest; freshened by every huge, unwieldy, half-inhabited old house in its outskirts: and coming toits climax when the city gate is reached, and all Genoa with itsbeautiful harbour, and neighbouring hills, bursts proudly on theview. 

CHAPTER V--TO PARMA, MODENA, AND BOLOGNA

I strolled away from Genoa on the 6th of November, bound for a goodmany places (England among them), but first for Piacenza; for whichtown I started in the coupe of a machine something like atravelling caravan, in company with the brave Courier, and a ladywith a large dog, who howled dolefully, at intervals, all night. It was very wet, and very cold; very dark, and very dismal; wetravelled at the rate of barely four miles an hour, and stoppednowhere for refreshment. At ten o'clock next morning, we changedcoaches at Alessandria, where we were packed up in another coach(the body whereof would have been small for a fly), in company witha very old priest; a young Jesuit, his companion--who carried theirbreviaries and other books, and who, in the exertion of gettinginto the coach, had made a gash of pink leg between his blackstocking and his black knee-shorts, that reminded one of Hamlet inOphelia's closet, only it was visible on both legs--a provincialAvvocato; and a gentleman with a red nose that had an uncommon andsingular sheen upon it, which I never observed in the human subjectbefore. In this way we travelled on, until four o'clock in theafternoon; the roads being still very heavy, and the coach veryslow. To mend the matter, the old priest was troubled with crampsin his legs, so that he had to give a terrible yell every tenminutes or so, and be hoisted out by the united efforts of thecompany; the coach always stopping for him, with great gravity. This disorder, and the roads, formed the main subject ofconversation. Finding, in the afternoon, that the coupe haddischarged two people, and had only one passenger inside--amonstrous ugly Tuscan, with a great purple moustache, of which noman could see the ends when he had his hat on--I took advantage ofits better accommodation, and in company with this gentleman (whowas very conversational and good-humoured) travelled on, untilnearly eleven o'clock at night, when the driver reported that hecouldn't think of going any farther, and we accordingly made a haltat a place called Stradella. 

The inn was a series of strange galleries surrounding a yard whereour coach, and a waggon or two, and a lot of fowls, and firewood, were all heaped up together, higgledy-piggledy; so that you didn'tknow, and couldn't have taken your oath, which was a fowl and whichwas a cart. We followed a sleepy man with a flaring torch, into agreat, cold room, where there were two immensely broad beds, onwhat looked like two immensely broad deal dining-tables; anotherdeal table of similar dimensions in the middle of the bare floor;four windows; and two chairs. Somebody said it was my room; and Iwalked up and down it, for half an hour or so, staring at theTuscan, the old priest, the young priest, and the Avvocato (Red-Nose lived in the town, and had gone home), who sat upon theirbeds, and stared at me in return. 

The rather dreary whimsicality of this stage of the proceedings, isinterrupted by an announcement from the Brave (he had been cooking)that supper is ready; and to the priest's chamber (the next roomand the counterpart of mine) we all adjourn. The first dish is acabbage, boiled with a great quantity of rice in a tureen full ofwater, and flavoured with cheese. It is so hot, and we are socold, that it appears almost jolly. The second dish is some littlebits of pork, fried with pigs' kidneys. The third, two red fowls. The fourth, two little red turkeys. The fifth, a huge stew ofgarlic and truffles, and I don't know what else; and this concludesthe entertainment. 

Before I can sit down in my own chamber, and think it of thedampest, the door opens, and the Brave comes moving in, in themiddle of such a quantity of fuel that he looks like Birnam Woodtaking a winter walk. He kindles this heap in a twinkling, andproduces a jorum of hot brandy and water; for that bottle of hiskeeps company with the seasons, and now holds nothing but thepurest eau de vie. When he has accomplished this feat, he retiresfor the night; and I hear him, for an hour afterwards, and indeeduntil I fall asleep, making jokes in some outhouse (apparentlyunder the pillow), where he is smoking cigars with a party ofconfidential friends. He never was in the house in his lifebefore; but he knows everybody everywhere, before he has beenanywhere five minutes; and is certain to have attracted to himself, in the meantime, the enthusiastic devotion of the wholeestablishment. 

This is at twelve o'clock at night. At four o'clock next morning, he is up again, fresher than a full-blown rose; making blazingfires without the least authority from the landlord; producing mugsof scalding coffee when nobody else can get anything but coldwater; and going out into the dark streets, and roaring for freshmilk, on the chance of somebody with a cow getting up to supply it. While the horses are 'coming, ' I stumble out into the town too. Itseems to be all one little Piazza, with a cold damp wind blowing inand out of the arches, alternately, in a sort of pattern. But itis profoundly dark, and raining heavily; and I shouldn't know itto-morrow, if I were taken there to try. Which Heaven forbid. 

The horses arrive in about an hour. In the interval, the driverswears; sometimes Christian oaths, sometimes Pagan oaths. Sometimes, when it is a long, compound oath, he begins withChristianity and merges into Paganism. Various messengers aredespatched; not so much after the horses, as after each other; forthe first messenger never comes back, and all the rest imitate him. At length the horses appear, surrounded by all the messengers; somekicking them, and some dragging them, and all shouting abuse tothem. Then, the old priest, the young priest, the Avvocato, theTuscan, and all of us, take our places; and sleepy voicesproceeding from the doors of extraordinary hutches in divers partsof the yard, cry out 'Addio corriere mio! Buon' viaggio, corriere!' Salutations which the courier, with his face onemonstrous grin, returns in like manner as we go jolting andwallowing away, through the mud. 

At Piacenza, which was four or five hours' journey from the inn atStradella, we broke up our little company before the hotel door, with divers manifestations of friendly feeling on all sides. Theold priest was taken with the cramp again, before he had got half-way down the street; and the young priest laid the bundle of bookson a door-step, while he dutifully rubbed the old gentleman's legs. The client of the Avvocato was waiting for him at the yard-gate, and kissed him on each cheek, with such a resounding smack, that Iam afraid he had either a very bad case, or a scantily-furnishedpurse. The Tuscan, with a cigar in his mouth, went loitering off, carrying his hat in his hand that he might the better trail up theends of his dishevelled moustache. And the brave Courier, as heand I strolled away to look about us, began immediately toentertain me with the private histories and family affairs of thewhole party. 

A brown, decayed, old town, Piacenza is. A deserted, solitary, grass-grown place, with ruined ramparts; half filled-up trenches, which afford a frowsy pasturage to the lean kine that wander aboutthem; and streets of stern houses, moodily frowning at the otherhouses over the way. The sleepiest and shabbiest of soldiery gowandering about, with the double curse of laziness and poverty, uncouthly wrinkling their misfitting regimentals; the dirtiest ofchildren play with their impromptu toys (pigs and mud) in thefeeblest of gutters; and the gauntest of dogs trot in and out ofthe dullest of archways, in perpetual search of something to eat, which they never seem to find. A mysterious and solemn Palace, guarded by two colossal statues, twin Genii of the place, standsgravely in the midst of the idle town; and the king with the marblelegs, who flourished in the time of the thousand and one Nights, might live contentedly inside of it, and never have the energy, inhis upper half of flesh and blood, to want to come out. 

What a strange, half-sorrowful and half-delicious doze it is, toramble through these places gone to sleep and basking in the sun!Each, in its turn, appears to be, of all the mouldy, dreary, God-forgotten towns in the wide world, the chief. Sitting on thishillock where a bastion used to be, and where a noisy fortress was, in the time of the old Roman station here, I became aware that Ihave never known till now, what it is to be lazy. A dormouse mustsurely be in very much the same condition before he retires underthe wool in his cage; or a tortoise before he buries himself. 

I feel that I am getting rusty. That any attempt to think, wouldbe accompanied with a creaking noise. That there is nothing, anywhere, to be done, or needing to be done. That there is no morehuman progress, motion, effort, or advancement, of any kind beyondthis. That the whole scheme stopped here centuries ago, and laiddown to rest until the Day of Judgment. 

Never while the brave Courier lives! Behold him jingling out ofPiacenza, and staggering this way, in the tallest posting-chaiseever seen, so that he looks out of the front window as if he werepeeping over a garden wall; while the postilion, concentratedessence of all the shabbiness of Italy, pauses for a moment in hisanimated conversation, to touch his hat to a blunt-nosed littleVirgin, hardly less shabby than himself, enshrined in a plasterPunch's show outside the town. 

In Genoa, and thereabouts, they train the vines on trellis-work, supported on square clumsy pillars, which, in themselves, areanything but picturesque. But, here, they twine them around trees, and let them trail among the hedges; and the vineyards are full oftrees, regularly planted for this purpose, each with its own vinetwining and clustering about it. Their leaves are now of thebrightest gold and deepest red; and never was anything soenchantingly graceful and full of beauty. Through miles of thesedelightful forms and colours, the road winds its way. The wildfestoons, the elegant wreaths, and crowns, and garlands of allshapes; the fairy nets flung over great trees, and making themprisoners in sport; the tumbled heaps and mounds of exquisiteshapes upon the ground; how rich and beautiful they are! And everynow and then, a long, long line of trees, will be all bound andgarlanded together: as if they had taken hold of one another, andwere coming dancing down the field!

Parma has cheerful, stirring streets, for an Italian town; andconsequently is not so characteristic as many places of less note. Always excepting the retired Piazza, where the Cathedral, Baptistery, and Campanile--ancient buildings, of a sombre brown, embellished with innumerable grotesque monsters and dreamy-lookingcreatures carved in marble and red stone--are clustered in a nobleand magnificent repose. Their silent presence was only invaded, when I saw them, by the twittering of the many birds that wereflying in and out of the crevices in the stones and little nooks inthe architecture, where they had made their nests. They were busy, rising from the cold shade of Temples made with hands, into thesunny air of Heaven. Not so the worshippers within, who werelistening to the same drowsy chaunt, or kneeling before the samekinds of images and tapers, or whispering, with their heads boweddown, in the selfsame dark confessionals, as I had left in Genoaand everywhere else. 

The decayed and mutilated paintings with which this church iscovered, have, to my thinking, a remarkably mournful and depressinginfluence. It is miserable to see great works of art--something ofthe Souls of Painters--perishing and fading away, like human forms. This cathedral is odorous with the rotting of Correggio's frescoesin the Cupola. Heaven knows how beautiful they may have been atone time. Connoisseurs fall into raptures with them now; but sucha labyrinth of arms and legs: such heaps of foreshortened limbs, entangled and involved and jumbled together: no operative surgeon, gone mad, could imagine in his wildest delirium. 

There is a very interesting subterranean church here: the roofsupported by marble pillars, behind each of which there seemed tobe at least one beggar in ambush: to say nothing of the tombs andsecluded altars. From every one of these lurking-places, suchcrowds of phantom-looking men and women, leading other men andwomen with twisted limbs, or chattering jaws, or paralyticgestures, or idiotic heads, or some other sad infirmity, camehobbling out to beg, that if the ruined frescoes in the cathedralabove, had been suddenly animated, and had retired to this lowerchurch, they could hardly have made a greater confusion, orexhibited a more confounding display of arms and legs. 

There is Petrarch's Monument, too; and there is the Baptistery, with its beautiful arches and immense font; and there is a gallerycontaining some very remarkable pictures, whereof a few were beingcopied by hairy-faced artists, with little velvet caps more offtheir heads than on. There is the Farnese Palace, too; and in itone of the dreariest spectacles of decay that ever was seen--agrand, old, gloomy theatre, mouldering away. 

It is a large wooden structure, of the horse-shoe shape; the lowerseats arranged upon the Roman plan, but above them, great heavychambers; rather than boxes, where the Nobles sat, remote in theirproud state. Such desolation as has fallen on this theatre, enhanced in the spectator's fancy by its gay intention and design, none but worms can be familiar with. A hundred and ten years havepassed, since any play was acted here. The sky shines in throughthe gashes in the roof; the boxes are dropping down, wasting away, and only tenanted by rats; damp and mildew smear the faded colours, and make spectral maps upon the panels; lean rags are dangling downwhere there were gay festoons on the Proscenium; the stage hasrotted so, that a narrow wooden gallery is thrown across it, or itwould sink beneath the tread, and bury the visitor in the gloomydepth beneath. The desolation and decay impress themselves on allthe senses. The air has a mouldering smell, and an earthy taste;any stray outer sounds that straggle in with some lost sunbeam, aremuffled and heavy; and the worm, the maggot, and the rot havechanged the surface of the wood beneath the touch, as time willseam and roughen a smooth hand. If ever Ghosts act plays, they actthem on this ghostly stage. 

It was most delicious weather, when we came into Modena, where thedarkness of the sombre colonnades over the footways skirting themain street on either side, was made refreshing and agreeable bythe bright sky, so wonderfully blue. I passed from all the gloryof the day, into a dim cathedral, where High Mass was performing, feeble tapers were burning, people were kneeling in all directionsbefore all manner of shrines, and officiating priests were crooningthe usual chant, in the usual, low, dull, drawling, melancholytone. 

Thinking how strange it was, to find, in every stagnant town, thissame Heart beating with the same monotonous pulsation, the centreof the same torpid, listless system, I came out by another door, and was suddenly scared to death by a blast from the shrillesttrumpet that ever was blown. Immediately, came tearing round thecorner, an equestrian company from Paris: marshalling themselvesunder the walls of the church, and flouting, with their horses'heels, the griffins, lions, tigers, and other monsters in stone andmarble, decorating its exterior. First, there came a statelynobleman with a great deal of hair, and no hat, bearing an enormousbanner, on which was inscribed, MAZEPPA! TO-NIGHT! Then, aMexican chief, with a great pear-shaped club on his shoulder, likeHercules. Then, six or eight Roman chariots: each with abeautiful lady in extremely short petticoats, and unnaturally pinktights, erect within: shedding beaming looks upon the crowd, inwhich there was a latent expression of discomposure and anxiety, for which I couldn't account, until, as the open back of eachchariot presented itself, I saw the immense difficulty with whichthe pink legs maintained their perpendicular, over the unevenpavement of the town: which gave me quite a new idea of theancient Romans and Britons. The procession was brought to a close, by some dozen indomitable warriors of different nations, riding twoand two, and haughtily surveying the tame population of Modena:among whom, however, they occasionally condescended to scatterlargesse in the form of a few handbills. After caracolling amongthe lions and tigers, and proclaiming that evening's entertainmentswith blast of trumpet, it then filed off, by the other end of thesquare, and left a new and greatly increased dulness behind. 

When the procession had so entirely passed away, that the shrilltrumpet was mild in the distance, and the tail of the last horsewas hopelessly round the corner, the people who had come out of thechurch to stare at it, went back again. But one old lady, kneelingon the pavement within, near the door, had seen it all, and hadbeen immensely interested, without getting up; and this old lady'seye, at that juncture, I happened to catch: to our mutualconfusion. She cut our embarrassment very short, however, bycrossing herself devoutly, and going down, at full length, on herface, before a figure in a fancy petticoat and a gilt crown; whichwas so like one of the procession-figures, that perhaps at thishour she may think the whole appearance a celestial vision. Anyhow, I must certainly have forgiven her her interest in theCircus, though I had been her Father Confessor. 

There was a little fiery-eyed old man with a crooked shoulder, inthe cathedral, who took it very ill that I made no effort to seethe bucket (kept in an old tower) which the people of Modena tookaway from the people of Bologna in the fourteenth century, andabout which there was war made and a mock-heroic poem by TASSONE, too. Being quite content, however, to look at the outside of thetower, and feast, in imagination, on the bucket within; andpreferring to loiter in the shade of the tall Campanile, and aboutthe cathedral; I have no personal knowledge of this bucket, even atthe present time. 

Indeed, we were at Bologna, before the little old man (or theGuide-Book) would have considered that we had half done justice tothe wonders of Modena. But it is such a delight to me to leave newscenes behind, and still go on, encountering newer scenes--and, moreover, I have such a perverse disposition in respect of sightsthat are cut, and dried, and dictated--that I fear I sin againstsimilar authorities in every place I visit. 

Be this as it may, in the pleasant Cemetery at Bologna, I foundmyself walking next Sunday morning, among the stately marble tombsand colonnades, in company with a crowd of Peasants, and escortedby a little Cicerone of that town, who was excessively anxious forthe honour of the place, and most solicitous to divert my attentionfrom the bad monuments: whereas he was never tired of extollingthe good ones. Seeing this little man (a good-humoured little manhe was, who seemed to have nothing in his face but shining teethand eyes) looking wistfully at a certain plot of grass, I asked himwho was buried there. 'The poor people, Signore, ' he said, with ashrug and a smile, and stopping to look back at me--for he alwayswent on a little before, and took off his hat to introduce everynew monument. 'Only the poor, Signore! It's very cheerful. It'svery lively. How green it is, how cool! It's like a meadow!There are five, '--holding up all the fingers of his right hand toexpress the number, which an Italian peasant will always do, if itbe within the compass of his ten fingers, --'there are five of mylittle children buried there, Signore; just there; a little to theright. Well! Thanks to God! It's very cheerful. How green itis, how cool it is! It's quite a meadow!'

He looked me very hard in the face, and seeing I was sorry for him, took a pinch of snuff (every Cicerone takes snuff), and made alittle bow; partly in deprecation of his having alluded to such asubject, and partly in memory of the children and of his favouritesaint. It was as unaffected and as perfectly natural a little bow, as ever man made. Immediately afterwards, he took his hat offaltogether, and begged to introduce me to the next monument; andhis eyes and his teeth shone brighter than before. 

CHAPTER VI--THROUGH BOLOGNA AND FERRARA

There was such a very smart official in attendance at the Cemeterywhere the little Cicerone had buried his children, that when thelittle Cicerone suggested to me, in a whisper, that there would beno offence in presenting this officer, in return for some slightextra service, with a couple of pauls (about tenpence, Englishmoney), I looked incredulously at his cocked hat, wash-leathergloves, well-made uniform, and dazzling buttons, and rebuked thelittle Cicerone with a grave shake of the head. For, in splendourof appearance, he was at least equal to the Deputy Usher of theBlack Rod; and the idea of his carrying, as Jeremy Diddler wouldsay, 'such a thing as tenpence' away with him, seemed monstrous. He took it in excellent part, however, when I made bold to give ithim, and pulled off his cocked hat with a flourish that would havebeen a bargain at double the money. 

It seemed to be his duty to describe the monuments to the people--at all events he was doing so; and when I compared him, likeGulliver in Brobdingnag, 'with the Institutions of my own belovedcountry, I could not refrain from tears of pride and exultation. 'He had no pace at all; no more than a tortoise. He loitered as thepeople loitered, that they might gratify their curiosity; andpositively allowed them, now and then, to read the inscriptions onthe tombs. He was neither shabby, nor insolent, nor churlish, norignorant. He spoke his own language with perfect propriety, andseemed to consider himself, in his way, a kind of teacher of thepeople, and to entertain a just respect both for himself and them. They would no more have such a man for a Verger in WestminsterAbbey, than they would let the people in (as they do at Bologna) tosee the monuments for nothing. {2}

Again, an ancient sombre town, under the brilliant sky; with heavyarcades over the footways of the older streets, and lighter andmore cheerful archways in the newer portions of the town. Again, brown piles of sacred buildings, with more birds flying in and outof chinks in the stones; and more snarling monsters for the basesof the pillars. Again, rich churches, drowsy Masses, curlingincense, tinkling bells, priests in bright vestments: pictures, tapers, laced altar cloths, crosses, images, and artificialflowers. 

There is a grave and learned air about the city, and a pleasantgloom upon it, that would leave it, a distinct and separateimpression in the mind, among a crowd of cities, though it were notstill further marked in the traveller's remembrance by the twobrick leaning towers (sufficiently unsightly in themselves, it mustbe acknowledged), inclining cross-wise as if they were bowingstiffly to each other--a most extraordinary termination to theperspective of some of the narrow streets. The colleges, andchurches too, and palaces: and above all the academy of Fine Arts, where there are a host of interesting pictures, especially byGUIDO, DOMENICHINO, and LUDOVICO CARACCI: give it a place of itsown in the memory. Even though these were not, and there werenothing else to remember it by, the great Meridian on the pavementof the church of San Petronio, where the sunbeams mark the timeamong the kneeling people, would give it a fanciful and pleasantinterest. 

Bologna being very full of tourists, detained there by aninundation which rendered the road to Florence impassable, I wasquartered up at the top of an hotel, in an out-of-the-way roomwhich I never could find: containing a bed, big enough for aboarding-school, which I couldn't fall asleep in. The chief amongthe waiters who visited this lonely retreat, where there was noother company but the swallows in the broad eaves over the window, was a man of one idea in connection with the English; and thesubject of this harmless monomania, was Lord Byron. I made thediscovery by accidentally remarking to him, at breakfast, that thematting with which the floor was covered, was very comfortable atthat season, when he immediately replied that Milor Beeron had beenmuch attached to that kind of matting. Observing, at the samemoment, that I took no milk, he exclaimed with enthusiasm, thatMilor Beeron had never touched it. At first, I took it forgranted, in my innocence, that he had been one of the Beeronservants; but no, he said, no, he was in the habit of speakingabout my Lord, to English gentlemen; that was all. He knew allabout him, he said. In proof of it, he connected him with everypossible topic, from the Monte Pulciano wine at dinner (which wasgrown on an estate he had owned), to the big bed itself, which wasthe very model of his. When I left the inn, he coupled with hisfinal bow in the yard, a parting assurance that the road by which Iwas going, had been Milor Beeron's favourite ride; and before thehorse's feet had well begun to clatter on the pavement, he ranbriskly up-stairs again, I dare say to tell some other Englishmanin some other solitary room that the guest who had just departedwas Lord Beeron's living image. 

I had entered Bologna by night--almost midnight--and all along theroad thither, after our entrance into the Papal territory: whichis not, in any part, supremely well governed, Saint Peter's keysbeing rather rusty now; the driver had so worried about the dangerof robbers in travelling after dark, and had so infected the braveCourier, and the two had been so constantly stopping and getting upand down to look after a portmanteau which was tied on behind, thatI should have felt almost obliged to any one who would have had thegoodness to take it away. Hence it was stipulated, that, wheneverwe left Bologna, we should start so as not to arrive at Ferraralater than eight at night; and a delightful afternoon and eveningjourney it was, albeit through a flat district which graduallybecame more marshy from the overflow of brooks and rivers in therecent heavy rains. 

At sunset, when I was walking on alone, while the horses rested, Iarrived upon a little scene, which, by one of those singular mentaloperations of which we are all conscious, seemed perfectly familiarto me, and which I see distinctly now. There was not much in it. In the blood red light, there was a mournful sheet of water, juststirred by the evening wind; upon its margin a few trees. In theforeground was a group of silent peasant girls leaning over theparapet of a little bridge, and looking, now up at the sky, nowdown into the water; in the distance, a deep bell; the shade ofapproaching night on everything. If I had been murdered there, insome former life, I could not have seemed to remember the placemore thoroughly, or with a more emphatic chilling of the blood; andthe mere remembrance of it acquired in that minute, is sostrengthened by the imaginary recollection, that I hardly think Icould forget it. 

More solitary, more depopulated, more deserted, old Ferrara, thanany city of the solemn brotherhood! The grass so grows up in thesilent streets, that any one might make hay there, literally, whilethe sun shines. But the sun shines with diminished cheerfulness ingrim Ferrara; and the people are so few who pass and re-passthrough the places, that the flesh of its inhabitants might begrass indeed, and growing in the squares. 

I wonder why the head coppersmith in an Italian town, always livesnext door to the Hotel, or opposite: making the visitor feel as ifthe beating hammers were his own heart, palpitating with a deadlyenergy! I wonder why jealous corridors surround the bedroom on allsides, and fill it with unnecessary doors that can't be shut, andwill not open, and abut on pitchy darkness! I wonder why it is notenough that these distrustful genii stand agape at one's dreams allnight, but there must also be round open portholes, high in thewall, suggestive, when a mouse or rat is heard behind the wainscot, of a somebody scraping the wall with his toes, in his endeavours toreach one of these portholes and look in! I wonder why the faggotsare so constructed, as to know of no effect but an agony of heatwhen they are lighted and replenished, and an agony of cold andsuffocation at all other times! I wonder, above all, why it is thegreat feature of domestic architecture in Italian inns, that allthe fire goes up the chimney, except the smoke!

The answer matters little. Coppersmiths, doors, portholes, smoke, and faggots, are welcome to me. Give me the smiling face of theattendant, man or woman; the courteous manner; the amiable desireto please and to be pleased; the light-hearted, pleasant, simpleair--so many jewels set in dirt--and I am theirs again to-morrow!

ARIOSTO'S house, TASSO'S prison, a rare old Gothic cathedral, andmore churches of course, are the sights of Ferrara. But the longsilent streets, and the dismantled palaces, where ivy waves in lieuof banners, and where rank weeds are slowly creeping up the long-untrodden stairs, are the best sights of all. 

The aspect of this dreary town, half an hour before sunrise onefine morning, when I left it, was as picturesque as it seemedunreal and spectral. It was no matter that the people were not yetout of bed; for if they had all been up and busy, they would havemade but little difference in that desert of a place. It was bestto see it, without a single figure in the picture; a city of thedead, without one solitary survivor. Pestilence might have ravagedstreets, squares, and market-places; and sack and siege have ruinedthe old houses, battered down their doors and windows, and madebreaches in their roofs. In one part, a great tower rose into theair; the only landmark in the melancholy view. In another, aprodigious castle, with a moat about it, stood aloof: a sullencity in itself. In the black dungeons of this castle, Parisina andher lover were beheaded in the dead of night. The red light, beginning to shine when I looked back upon it, stained its wallswithout, as they have, many a time, been stained within, in olddays; but for any sign of life they gave, the castle and the citymight have been avoided by all human creatures, from the momentwhen the axe went down upon the last of the two lovers: and mighthave never vibrated to another sound

Beyond the blow that to the blockPierced through with forced and sullen shock. 

Coming to the Po, which was greatly swollen, and running fiercely, we crossed it by a floating bridge of boats, and so came into theAustrian territory, and resumed our journey: through a country ofwhich, for some miles, a great part was under water. The braveCourier and the soldiery had first quarrelled, for half an hour ormore, over our eternal passport. But this was a daily relaxationwith the Brave, who was always stricken deaf when shabbyfunctionaries in uniform came, as they constantly did come, plunging out of wooden boxes to look at it--or in other words tobeg--and who, stone deaf to my entreaties that the man might have atrifle given him, and we resume our journey in peace, was wont tosit reviling the functionary in broken English: while theunfortunate man's face was a portrait of mental agony framed in thecoach window, from his perfect ignorance of what was being said tohis disparagement. 

There was a postilion, in the course of this day's journey, as wildand savagely good-looking a vagabond as you would desire to see. He was a tall, stout-made, dark-complexioned fellow, with aprofusion of shaggy black hair hanging all over his face, and greatblack whiskers stretching down his throat. His dress was a tornsuit of rifle green, garnished here and there with red; a steeple-crowned hat, innocent of nap, with a broken and bedraggled featherstuck in the band; and a flaming red neckerchief hanging on hisshoulders. He was not in the saddle, but reposed, quite at hisease, on a sort of low foot-board in front of the postchaise, downamongst the horses' tails--convenient for having his brains kickedout, at any moment. To this Brigand, the brave Courier, when wewere at a reasonable trot, happened to suggest the practicabilityof going faster. He received the proposal with a perfect yell ofderision; brandished his whip about his head (such a whip! it wasmore like a home-made bow); flung up his heels, much higher thanthe horses; and disappeared, in a paroxysm, somewhere in theneighbourhood of the axle-tree. I fully expected to see him lyingin the road, a hundred yards behind, but up came the steeple-crowned hat again, next minute, and he was seen reposing, as on asofa, entertaining himself with the idea, and crying, 'Ha, ha! whatnext! Oh the devil! Faster too! Shoo--hoo--o--o!' (This lastejaculation, an inexpressibly defiant hoot. ) Being anxious toreach our immediate destination that night, I ventured, by-and-by, to repeat the experiment on my own account. It produced exactlythe same effect. Round flew the whip with the same scornfulflourish, up came the heels, down went the steeple-crowned hat, andpresently he reappeared, reposing as before and saying to himself, 'Ha ha! what next! Faster too! Oh the devil! Shoo--hoo--o--o!'

CHAPTER VII--AN ITALIAN DREAM

I had been travelling, for some days; resting very little in thenight, and never in the day. The rapid and unbroken succession ofnovelties that had passed before me, came back like half-formeddreams; and a crowd of objects wandered in the greatest confusionthrough my mind, as I travelled on, by a solitary road. Atintervals, some one among them would stop, as it were, in itsrestless flitting to and fro, and enable me to look at it, quitesteadily, and behold it in full distinctness. After a few moments, it would dissolve, like a view in a magic-lantern; and while I sawsome part of it quite plainly, and some faintly, and some not atall, would show me another of the many places I had lately seen, lingering behind it, and coming through it. This was no soonervisible than, in its turn, it melted into something else. 

At one moment, I was standing again, before the brown old ruggedchurches of Modena. As I recognised the curious pillars with grimmonsters for their bases, I seemed to see them, standing bythemselves in the quiet square at Padua, where there were the staidold University, and the figures, demurely gowned, grouped here andthere in the open space about it. Then, I was strolling in theoutskirts of that pleasant city, admiring the unusual neatness ofthe dwelling-houses, gardens, and orchards, as I had seen them afew hours before. In their stead arose, immediately, the twotowers of Bologna; and the most obstinate of all these objects, failed to hold its ground, a minute, before the monstrous moatedcastle of Ferrara, which, like an illustration to a wild romance, came back again in the red sunrise, lording it over the solitary, grass-grown, withered town. In short, I had that incoherent butdelightful jumble in my brain, which travellers are apt to have, and are indolently willing to encourage. Every shake of the coachin which I sat, half dozing in the dark, appeared to jerk some newrecollection out of its place, and to jerk some other newrecollection into it; and in this state I fell asleep. 

I was awakened after some time (as I thought) by the stopping ofthe coach. It was now quite night, and we were at the waterside. There lay here, a black boat, with a little house or cabin in it ofthe same mournful colour. When I had taken my seat in this, theboat was paddled, by two men, towards a great light, lying in thedistance on the sea. 

Ever and again, there was a dismal sigh of wind. It ruffled thewater, and rocked the boat, and sent the dark clouds flying beforethe stars. I could not but think how strange it was, to befloating away at that hour: leaving the land behind, and going on, towards this light upon the sea. It soon began to burn brighter;and from being one light became a cluster of tapers, twinkling andshining out of the water, as the boat approached towards them by adreamy kind of track, marked out upon the sea by posts and piles. 

We had floated on, five miles or so, over the dark water, when Iheard it rippling in my dream, against some obstruction near athand. Looking out attentively, I saw, through the gloom, asomething black and massive--like a shore, but lying close and flatupon the water, like a raft--which we were gliding past. The chiefof the two rowers said it was a burial-place. 

Full of the interest and wonder which a cemetery lying out there, in the lonely sea, inspired, I turned to gaze upon it as it shouldrecede in our path, when it was quickly shut out from my view. Before I knew by what, or how, I found that we were gliding up astreet--a phantom street; the houses rising on both sides, from thewater, and the black boat gliding on beneath their windows. Lightswere shining from some of these casements, plumbing the depth ofthe black stream with their reflected rays, but all was profoundlysilent. 

So we advanced into this ghostly city, continuing to hold ourcourse through narrow streets and lanes, all filled and flowingwith water. Some of the corners where our way branched off, wereso acute and narrow, that it seemed impossible for the long slenderboat to turn them; but the rowers, with a low melodious cry ofwarning, sent it skimming on without a pause. Sometimes, therowers of another black boat like our own, echoed the cry, andslackening their speed (as I thought we did ours) would comeflitting past us like a dark shadow. Other boats, of the samesombre hue, were lying moored, I thought, to painted pillars, nearto dark mysterious doors that opened straight upon the water. Someof these were empty; in some, the rowers lay asleep; towards one, Isaw some figures coming down a gloomy archway from the interior ofa palace: gaily dressed, and attended by torch-bearers. It wasbut a glimpse I had of them; for a bridge, so low and close uponthe boat that it seemed ready to fall down and crush us: one ofthe many bridges that perplexed the Dream: blotted them out, instantly. On we went, floating towards the heart of this strangeplace--with water all about us where never water was elsewhere--clusters of houses, churches, heaps of stately buildings growingout of it--and, everywhere, the same extraordinary silence. Presently, we shot across a broad and open stream; and passing, asI thought, before a spacious paved quay, where the bright lampswith which it was illuminated showed long rows of arches andpillars, of ponderous construction and great strength, but as lightto the eye as garlands of hoarfrost or gossamer--and where, for thefirst time, I saw people walking--arrived at a flight of stepsleading from the water to a large mansion, where, having passedthrough corridors and galleries innumerable, I lay down to rest;listening to the black boats stealing up and down below the windowon the rippling water, till I fell asleep. 

The glory of the day that broke upon me in this Dream; itsfreshness, motion, buoyancy; its sparkles of the sun in water; itsclear blue sky and rustling air; no waking words can tell. But, from my window, I looked down on boats and barks; on masts, sails, cordage, flags; on groups of busy sailors, working at the cargoesof these vessels; on wide quays, strewn with bales, casks, merchandise of many kinds; on great ships, lying near at hand instately indolence; on islands, crowned with gorgeous domes andturrets: and where golden crosses glittered in the light, atop ofwondrous churches, springing from the sea! Going down upon themargin of the green sea, rolling on before the door, and fillingall the streets, I came upon a place of such surpassing beauty, andsuch grandeur, that all the rest was poor and faded, in comparisonwith its absorbing loveliness. 

It was a great Piazza, as I thought; anchored, like all the rest, in the deep ocean. On its broad bosom, was a Palace, more majesticand magnificent in its old age, than all the buildings of theearth, in the high prime and fulness of their youth. Cloisters andgalleries: so light, they might have been the work of fairy hands:so strong that centuries had battered them in vain: wound roundand round this palace, and enfolded it with a Cathedral, gorgeousin the wild luxuriant fancies of the East. At no great distancefrom its porch, a lofty tower, standing by itself, and rearing itsproud head, alone, into the sky, looked out upon the Adriatic Sea. Near to the margin of the stream, were two ill-omened pillars ofred granite; one having on its top, a figure with a sword andshield; the other, a winged lion. Not far from these again, asecond tower: richest of the rich in all its decorations: evenhere, where all was rich: sustained aloft, a great orb, gleamingwith gold and deepest blue: the Twelve Signs painted on it, and amimic sun revolving in its course around them: while above, twobronze giants hammered out the hours upon a sounding bell. Anoblong square of lofty houses of the whitest stone, surrounded by alight and beautiful arcade, formed part of this enchanted scene;and, here and there, gay masts for flags rose, tapering, from thepavement of the unsubstantial ground. 

I thought I entered the Cathedral, and went in and out among itsmany arches: traversing its whole extent. A grand and dreamystructure, of immense proportions; golden with old mosaics;redolent of perfumes; dim with the smoke of incense; costly intreasure of precious stones and metals, glittering through ironbars; holy with the bodies of deceased saints; rainbow-hued withwindows of stained glass; dark with carved woods and colouredmarbles; obscure in its vast heights, and lengthened distances;shining with silver lamps and winking lights; unreal, fantastic, solemn, inconceivable throughout. I thought I entered the oldpalace; pacing silent galleries and council-chambers, where the oldrulers of this mistress of the waters looked sternly out, inpictures, from the walls, and where her high-prowed galleys, stillvictorious on canvas, fought and conquered as of old. I thought Iwandered through its halls of state and triumph--bare and emptynow!--and musing on its pride and might, extinct: for that waspast; all past: heard a voice say, 'Some tokens of its ancientrule and some consoling reasons for its downfall, may be tracedhere, yet!'

I dreamed that I was led on, then, into some jealous rooms, communicating with a prison near the palace; separated from it by alofty bridge crossing a narrow street; and called, I dreamed, TheBridge of Sighs. 

But first I passed two jagged slits in a stone wall; the lions'mouths--now toothless--where, in the distempered horror of mysleep, I thought denunciations of innocent men to the old wickedCouncil, had been dropped through, many a time, when the night wasdark. So, when I saw the council-room to which such prisoners weretaken for examination, and the door by which they passed out, whenthey were condemned--a door that never closed upon a man with lifeand hope before him--my heart appeared to die within me. 

It was smitten harder though, when, torch in hand, I descended fromthe cheerful day into two ranges, one below another, of dismal, awful, horrible stone cells. They were quite dark. Each had aloop-hole in its massive wall, where, in the old time, every day, atorch was placed--I dreamed--to light the prisoner within, for halfan hour. The captives, by the glimmering of these brief rays, hadscratched and cut inscriptions in the blackened vaults. I sawthem. For their labour with a rusty nail's point, had outlivedtheir agony and them, through many generations. 

One cell, I saw, in which no man remained for more than four-and-twenty hours; being marked for dead before he entered it. Hard by, another, and a dismal one, whereto, at midnight, the confessorcame--a monk brown-robed, and hooded--ghastly in the day, and freebright air, but in the midnight of that murky prison, Hope'sextinguisher, and Murder's herald. I had my foot upon the spot, where, at the same dread hour, the shriven prisoner was strangled;and struck my hand upon the guilty door--low-browed and stealthy--through which the lumpish sack was carried out into a boat, androwed away, and drowned where it was death to cast a net. 

Around this dungeon stronghold, and above some part of it: lickingthe rough walls without, and smearing them with damp and slimewithin: stuffing dank weeds and refuse into chinks and crevices, as if the very stones and bars had mouths to stop: furnishing asmooth road for the removal of the bodies of the secret victims ofthe State--a road so ready that it went along with them, and ranbefore them, like a cruel officer--flowed the same water thatfilled this Dream of mine, and made it seem one, even at the time. 

Descending from the palace by a staircase, called, I thought, theGiant's--I had some imaginary recollection of an old manabdicating, coming, more slowly and more feebly, down it, when heheard the bell, proclaiming his successor--I glided off, in one ofthe dark boats, until we came to an old arsenal guarded by fourmarble lions. To make my Dream more monstrous and unlikely, one ofthese had words and sentences upon its body, inscribed there, at anunknown time, and in an unknown language; so that their purport wasa mystery to all men. 

There was little sound of hammers in this place for building ships, and little work in progress; for the greatness of the city was nomore, as I have said. Indeed, it seemed a very wreck founddrifting on the sea; a strange flag hoisted in its honourablestations, and strangers standing at its helm. A splendid barge inwhich its ancient chief had gone forth, pompously, at certainperiods, to wed the ocean, lay here, I thought, no more; but, inits place, there was a tiny model, made from recollection like thecity's greatness; and it told of what had been (so are the strongand weak confounded in the dust) almost as eloquently as themassive pillars, arches, roofs, reared to overshadow stately shipsthat had no other shadow now, upon the water or the earth. 

An armoury was there yet. Plundered and despoiled; but an armoury. With a fierce standard taken from the Turks, drooping in the dullair of its cage. Rich suits of mail worn by great warriors werehoarded there; crossbows and bolts; quivers full of arrows; spears;swords, daggers, maces, shields, and heavy-headed axes. Plates ofwrought steel and iron, to make the gallant horse a monster casedin metal scales; and one spring-weapon (easy to be carried in thebreast) designed to do its office noiselessly, and made forshooting men with poisoned darts. 

One press or case I saw, full of accursed instruments of torturehorribly contrived to cramp, and pinch, and grind and crush men'sbones, and tear and twist them with the torment of a thousanddeaths. Before it, were two iron helmets, with breast-pieces:made to close up tight and smooth upon the heads of livingsufferers; and fastened on to each, was a small knob or anvil, where the directing devil could repose his elbow at his ease, andlisten, near the walled-up ear, to the lamentations and confessionsof the wretch within. There was that grim resemblance in them tothe human shape--they were such moulds of sweating faces, painedand cramped--that it was difficult to think them empty; andterrible distortions lingering within them, seemed to follow me, when, taking to my boat again, I rowed off to a kind of garden orpublic walk in the sea, where there were grass and trees. But Iforgot them when I stood upon its farthest brink--I stood there, inmy dream--and looked, along the ripple, to the setting sun; beforeme, in the sky and on the deep, a crimson flush; and behind me thewhole city resolving into streaks of red and purple, on the water. 

In the luxurious wonder of so rare a dream, I took but little heedof time, and had but little understanding of its flight. But therewere days and nights in it; and when the sun was high, and when therays of lamps were crooked in the running water, I was stillafloat, I thought: plashing the slippery walls and houses with thecleavings of the tide, as my black boat, borne upon it, skimmedalong the streets. 

Sometimes, alighting at the doors of churches and vast palaces, Iwandered on, from room to room, from aisle to aisle, throughlabyrinths of rich altars, ancient monuments; decayed apartmentswhere the furniture, half awful, half grotesque, was moulderingaway. Pictures were there, replete with such enduring beauty andexpression: with such passion, truth and power: that they seemedso many young and fresh realities among a host of spectres. Ithought these, often intermingled with the old days of the city:with its beauties, tyrants, captains, patriots, merchants, counters, priests: nay, with its very stones, and bricks, andpublic places; all of which lived again, about me, on the walls. Then, coming down some marble staircase where the water lapped andoozed against the lower steps, I passed into my boat again, andwent on in my dream. 

Floating down narrow lanes, where carpenters, at work with planeand chisel in their shops, tossed the light shaving straight uponthe water, where it lay like weed, or ebbed away before me in atangled heap. Past open doors, decayed and rotten from longsteeping in the wet, through which some scanty patch of vine shonegreen and bright, making unusual shadows on the pavement with itstrembling leaves. Past quays and terraces, where women, gracefullyveiled, were passing and repassing, and where idlers were recliningin the sunshine, on flag-stones and on flights of steps. Pastbridges, where there were idlers too; loitering and looking over. Below stone balconies, erected at a giddy height, before theloftiest windows of the loftiest houses. Past plots of garden, theatres, shrines, prodigious piles of architecture--Gothic--Saracenic--fanciful with all the fancies of all times andcountries. Past buildings that were high, and low, and black, andwhite, and straight, and crooked; mean and grand, crazy and strong. Twining among a tangled lot of boats and barges, and shooting outat last into a Grand Canal! There, in the errant fancy of mydream, I saw old Shylock passing to and fro upon a bridge, allbuilt upon with shops and humming with the tongues of men; a form Iseemed to know for Desdemona's, leaned down through a latticedblind to pluck a flower. And, in the dream, I thought thatShakespeare's spirit was abroad upon the water somewhere: stealingthrough the city. 

At night, when two votive lamps burnt before an image of theVirgin, in a gallery outside the great cathedral, near the roof, Ifancied that the great piazza of the Winged Lion was a blaze ofcheerful light, and that its whole arcade was thronged with people;while crowds were diverting themselves in splendid coffee-housesopening from it--which were never shut, I thought, but open allnight long. When the bronze giants struck the hour of midnight onthe bell, I thought the life and animation of the city were allcentred here; and as I rowed away, abreast the silent quays, I onlysaw them dotted, here and there, with sleeping boatmen wrapped upin their cloaks, and lying at full length upon the stones. 

But close about the quays and churches, palaces and prisons suckingat their walls, and welling up into the secret places of the town:crept the water always. Noiseless and watchful: coiled round andround it, in its many folds, like an old serpent: waiting for thetime, I thought, when people should look down into its depths forany stone of the old city that had claimed to be its mistress. 

Thus it floated me away, until I awoke in the old market-place atVerona. I have, many and many a time, thought since, of thisstrange Dream upon the water: half-wondering if it lie there yet, and if its name be VENICE. 

CHAPTER VIII--BY VERONA, MANTUA, AND MILAN, ACROSS THE PASS OF THESIMPLON INTO SWITZERLAND

I had been half afraid to go to Verona, lest it should at all putme out of conceit with Romeo and Juliet. But, I was no sooner comeinto the old market-place, than the misgiving vanished. It is sofanciful, quaint, and picturesque a place, formed by such anextraordinary and rich variety of fantastic buildings, that therecould be nothing better at the core of even this romantic town:scene of one of the most romantic and beautiful of stories. 

It was natural enough, to go straight from the Market-place, to theHouse of the Capulets, now degenerated into a most miserable littleinn. Noisy vetturini and muddy market-carts were disputingpossession of the yard, which was ankle-deep in dirt, with a broodof splashed and bespattered geese; and there was a grim-visageddog, viciously panting in a doorway, who would certainly have hadRomeo by the leg, the moment he put it over the wall, if he hadexisted and been at large in those times. The orchard fell intoother hands, and was parted off many years ago; but there used tobe one attached to the house--or at all events there may have, been, --and the hat (Cappello) the ancient cognizance of the family, may still be seen, carved in stone, over the gateway of the yard. The geese, the market-carts, their drivers, and the dog, weresomewhat in the way of the story, it must be confessed; and itwould have been pleasanter to have found the house empty, and tohave been able to walk through the disused rooms. But the hat wasunspeakably comfortable; and the place where the garden used to be, hardly less so. Besides, the house is a distrustful, jealous-looking house as one would desire to see, though of a very moderatesize. So I was quite satisfied with it, as the veritable mansionof old Capulet, and was correspondingly grateful in myacknowledgments to an extremely unsentimental middle-aged lady, thePadrona of the Hotel, who was lounging on the threshold looking atthe geese; and who at least resembled the Capulets in the oneparticular of being very great indeed in the 'Family' way. 

From Juliet's home, to Juliet's tomb, is a transition as natural tothe visitor, as to fair Juliet herself, or to the proudest Julietthat ever has taught the torches to burn bright in any time. So, Iwent off, with a guide, to an old, old garden, once belonging to anold, old convent, I suppose; and being admitted, at a shatteredgate, by a bright-eyed woman who was washing clothes, went downsome walks where fresh plants and young flowers were prettilygrowing among fragments of old wall, and ivy-coloured mounds; andwas shown a little tank, or water-trough, which the bright-eyedwoman--drying her arms upon her 'kerchief, called 'La tomba diGiulietta la sfortunata. ' With the best disposition in the worldto believe, I could do no more than believe that the bright-eyedwoman believed; so I gave her that much credit, and her customaryfee in ready money. It was a pleasure, rather than adisappointment, that Juliet's resting-place was forgotten. Howeverconsolatory it may have been to Yorick's Ghost, to hear the feetupon the pavement overhead, and, twenty times a day, the repetitionof his name, it is better for Juliet to lie out of the track oftourists, and to have no visitors but such as come to graves inspring-rain, and sweet air, and sunshine. 

Pleasant Verona! With its beautiful old palaces, and charmingcountry in the distance, seen from terrace walks, and stately, balustraded galleries. With its Roman gates, still spanning thefair street, and casting, on the sunlight of to-day, the shade offifteen hundred years ago. With its marble-fitted churches, loftytowers, rich architecture, and quaint old quiet thoroughfares, where shouts of Montagues and Capulets once resounded, And made Verona's ancient citizensCast by their grave, beseeming ornaments, To wield old partizans. 

With its fast-rushing river, picturesque old bridge, great castle, waving cypresses, and prospect so delightful, and so cheerful!Pleasant Verona!

In the midst of it, in the Piazza di Bra--a spirit of old timeamong the familiar realities of the passing hour--is the greatRoman Amphitheatre. So well preserved, and carefully maintained, that every row of seats is there, unbroken. Over certain of thearches, the old Roman numerals may yet be seen; and there arecorridors, and staircases, and subterranean passages for beasts, and winding ways, above ground and below, as when the fiercethousands hurried in and out, intent upon the bloody shows of thearena. Nestling in some of the shadows and hollow places of thewalls, now, are smiths with their forges, and a few small dealersof one kind or other; and there are green weeds, and leaves, andgrass, upon the parapet. But little else is greatly changed. 

When I had traversed all about it, with great interest, and hadgone up to the topmost round of seats, and turning from the lovelypanorama closed in by the distant Alps, looked down into thebuilding, it seemed to lie before me like the inside of aprodigious hat of plaited straw, with an enormously broad brim anda shallow crown; the plaits being represented by the four-and-fortyrows of seats. The comparison is a homely and fantastic one, insober remembrance and on paper, but it was irresistibly suggestedat the moment, nevertheless. 

An equestrian troop had been there, a short time before--the sametroop, I dare say, that appeared to the old lady in the church atModena--and had scooped out a little ring at one end of the area;where their performances had taken place, and where the marks oftheir horses' feet were still fresh. I could not but picture tomyself, a handful of spectators gathered together on one or two ofthe old stone seats, and a spangled Cavalier being gallant, or aPolicinello funny, with the grim walls looking on. Above all, Ithought how strangely those Roman mutes would gaze upon thefavourite comic scene of the travelling English, where a Britishnobleman (Lord John), with a very loose stomach: dressed in ablue-tailed coat down to his heels, bright yellow breeches, and awhite hat: comes abroad, riding double on a rearing horse, with anEnglish lady (Lady Betsy) in a straw bonnet and green veil, and ared spencer; and who always carries a gigantic reticule, and a put-up parasol. 

I walked through and through the town all the rest of the day, andcould have walked there until now, I think. In one place, therewas a very pretty modern theatre, where they had just performed theopera (always popular in Verona) of Romeo and Juliet. In anotherthere was a collection, under a colonnade, of Greek, Roman, andEtruscan remains, presided over by an ancient man who might havebeen an Etruscan relic himself; for he was not strong enough toopen the iron gate, when he had unlocked it, and had neither voiceenough to be audible when he described the curiosities, nor sightenough to see them: he was so very old. In another place, therewas a gallery of pictures: so abominably bad, that it was quitedelightful to see them mouldering away. But anywhere: in thechurches, among the palaces, in the streets, on the bridge, or downbeside the river: it was always pleasant Verona, and in myremembrance always will be. 

I read Romeo and Juliet in my own room at the inn that night--ofcourse, no Englishman had ever read it there, before--and set outfor Mantua next day at sunrise, repeating to myself (in the coupeof an omnibus, and next to the conductor, who was reading theMysteries of Paris), There is no world without Verona's wallsBut purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence-banished is banished from the world, And world's exile is death -

which reminded me that Romeo was only banished five-and-twentymiles after all, and rather disturbed my confidence in his energyand boldness. 

Was the way to Mantua as beautiful, in his time, I wonder! Did itwind through pasture land as green, bright with the same glancingstreams, and dotted with fresh clumps of graceful trees! Thosepurple mountains lay on the horizon, then, for certain; and thedresses of these peasant girls, who wear a great, knobbed, silverpin like an English 'life-preserver' through their hair behind, canhardly be much changed. The hopeful feeling of so bright amorning, and so exquisite a sunrise, can have been no stranger, even to an exiled lover's breast; and Mantua itself must havebroken on him in the prospect, with its towers, and walls, andwater, pretty much as on a commonplace and matrimonial omnibus. Hemade the same sharp twists and turns, perhaps, over two rumblingdrawbridges; passed through the like long, covered, wooden bridge;and leaving the marshy water behind, approached the rusty gate ofstagnant Mantua. 

If ever a man were suited to his place of residence, and his placeof residence to him, the lean Apothecary and Mantua came togetherin a perfect fitness of things. It may have been more stirringthen, perhaps. If so, the Apothecary was a man in advance of histime, and knew what Mantua would be, in eighteen hundred and forty-four. He fasted much, and that assisted him in his foreknowledge. 

I put up at the Hotel of the Golden Lion, and was in my own roomarranging plans with the brave Courier, when there came a modestlittle tap at the door, which opened on an outer gallerysurrounding a court-yard; and an intensely shabby little man lookedin, to inquire if the gentleman would have a Cicerone to show thetown. His face was so very wistful and anxious, in the half-openeddoorway, and there was so much poverty expressed in his faded suitand little pinched hat, and in the thread-bare worsted glove withwhich he held it--not expressed the less, because these wereevidently his genteel clothes, hastily slipped on--that I would assoon have trodden on him as dismissed him. I engaged him on theinstant, and he stepped in directly. 

While I finished the discussion in which I was engaged, he stood, beaming by himself in a corner, making a feint of brushing my hatwith his arm. If his fee had been as many napoleons as it wasfrancs, there could not have shot over the twilight of hisshabbiness such a gleam of sun, as lighted up the whole man, nowthat he was hired. 

'Well!' said I, when I was ready, 'shall we go out now?'

'If the gentleman pleases. It is a beautiful day. A little fresh, but charming; altogether charming. The gentleman will allow me toopen the door. This is the Inn Yard. The court-yard of the GoldenLion! The gentleman will please to mind his footing on thestairs. '

We were now in the street. 

'This is the street of the Golden Lion. This, the outside of theGolden Lion. The interesting window up there, on the first Piano, where the pane of glass is broken, is the window of the gentleman'schamber!'

Having viewed all these remarkable objects, I inquired if therewere much to see in Mantua. 

'Well! Truly, no. Not much! So, so, ' he said, shrugging hisshoulders apologetically. 

'Many churches?'

'No. Nearly all suppressed by the French. '

'Monasteries or convents?'

'No. The French again! Nearly all suppressed by Napoleon. '

'Much business?'

'Very little business. '

'Many strangers?'

'Ah Heaven!'

I thought he would have fainted. 

'Then, when we have seen the two large churches yonder, what shallwe do next?' said I. 

He looked up the street, and down the street, and rubbed his chintimidly; and then said, glancing in my face as if a light hadbroken on his mind, yet with a humble appeal to my forbearance thatwas perfectly irresistible:

'We can take a little turn about the town, Signore!' (Si puo far'un piccolo giro della citta). 

It was impossible to be anything but delighted with the proposal, so we set off together in great good-humour. In the relief of hismind, he opened his heart, and gave up as much of Mantua as aCicerone could. 

'One must eat, ' he said; 'but, bah! it was a dull place, withoutdoubt!'

He made as much as possible of the Basilica of Santa Andrea--anoble church--and of an inclosed portion of the pavement, aboutwhich tapers were burning, and a few people kneeling, and underwhich is said to be preserved the Sangreal of the old Romances. This church disposed of, and another after it (the cathedral of SanPietro), we went to the Museum, which was shut up. 'It was all thesame, ' he said. 'Bah! There was not much inside!' Then, we wentto see the Piazza del Diavolo, built by the Devil (for noparticular purpose) in a single night; then, the Piazza Virgiliana;then, the statue of Virgil--OUR Poet, my little friend said, plucking up a spirit, for the moment, and putting his hat a littleon one side. Then, we went to a dismal sort of farm-yard, by whicha picture-gallery was approached. The moment the gate of thisretreat was opened, some five hundred geese came waddling round us, stretching out their necks, and clamouring in the most hideousmanner, as if they were ejaculating, 'Oh! here's somebody come tosee the Pictures! Don't go up! Don't go up!' While we went up, they waited very quietly about the door in a crowd, cackling to oneanother occasionally, in a subdued tone; but the instant weappeared again, their necks came out like telescopes, and settingup a great noise, which meant, I have no doubt, 'What, you wouldgo, would you! What do you think of it! How do you like it!' theyattended us to the outer gate, and cast us forth, derisively, intoMantua. 

The geese who saved the Capitol, were, as compared to these, Porkto the learned Pig. What a gallery it was! I would take theiropinion on a question of art, in preference to the discourses ofSir Joshua Reynolds. 

Now that we were standing in the street, after being thusignominiouly escorted thither, my little friend was plainly reducedto the 'piccolo giro, ' or little circuit of the town, he hadformerly proposed. But my suggestion that we should visit thePalazzo Te (of which I had heard a great deal, as a strange wildplace) imparted new life to him, and away we went. 

The secret of the length of Midas's ears, would have been moreextensively known, if that servant of his, who whispered it to thereeds, had lived in Mantua, where there are reeds and rushes enoughto have published it to all the world. The Palazzo Te stands in aswamp, among this sort of vegetation; and is, indeed, as singular aplace as I ever saw. 

Not for its dreariness, though it is very dreary. Not for itsdampness, though it is very damp. Nor for its desolate condition, though it is as desolate and neglected as house can be. Butchiefly for the unaccountable nightmares with which its interiorhas been decorated (among other subjects of more delicateexecution), by Giulio Romano. There is a leering Giant over acertain chimney-piece, and there are dozens of Giants (Titanswarring with Jove) on the walls of another room, so inconceivablyugly and grotesque, that it is marvellous how any man can haveimagined such creatures. In the chamber in which they abound, these monsters, with swollen faces and cracked cheeks, and everykind of distortion of look and limb, are depicted as staggeringunder the weight of falling buildings, and being overwhelmed in theruins; upheaving masses of rock, and burying themselves beneath;vainly striving to sustain the pillars of heavy roofs that toppledown upon their heads; and, in a word, undergoing and doing everykind of mad and demoniacal destruction. The figures are immenselylarge, and exaggerated to the utmost pitch of uncouthness; thecolouring is harsh and disagreeable; and the whole effect more like(I should imagine) a violent rush of blood to the head of thespectator, than any real picture set before him by the hand of anartist. This apoplectic performance was shown by a sickly-lookingwoman, whose appearance was referable, I dare say, to the bad airof the marshes; but it was difficult to help feeling as if she weretoo much haunted by the Giants, and they were frightening her todeath, all alone in that exhausted cistern of a Palace, among thereeds and rushes, with the mists hovering about outside, andstalking round and round it continually. 

Our walk through Mantua showed us, in almost every street, somesuppressed church: now used for a warehouse, now for nothing atall: all as crazy and dismantled as they could be, short oftumbling down bodily. The marshy town was so intensely dull andflat, that the dirt upon it seemed not to have come there in theordinary course, but to have settled and mantled on its surface ason standing water. And yet there were some business-dealings goingon, and some profits realising; for there were arcades full ofJews, where those extraordinary people were sitting outside theirshops, contemplating their stores of stuffs, and woollens, andbright handkerchiefs, and trinkets: and looking, in all respects, as wary and business-like, as their brethren in Houndsditch, London. 

Having selected a Vetturino from among the neighbouring Christians, who agreed to carry us to Milan in two days and a half, and tostart, next morning, as soon as the gates were opened, I returnedto the Golden Lion, and dined luxuriously in my own room, in anarrow passage between two bedsteads: confronted by a smoky fire, and backed up by a chest of drawers. At six o'clock next morning, we were jingling in the dark through the wet cold mist thatenshrouded the town; and, before noon, the driver (a native ofMantua, and sixty years of age or thereabouts) began TO ASK THE WAYto Milan. 

It lay through Bozzolo; formerly a little republic, and now one ofthe most deserted and poverty-stricken of towns: where thelandlord of the miserable inn (God bless him! it was his weeklycustom) was distributing infinitesimal coins among a clamorous herdof women and children, whose rags were fluttering in the wind andrain outside his door, where they were gathered to receive hischarity. It lay through mist, and mud, and rain, and vines trainedlow upon the ground, all that day and the next; the first sleeping-place being Cremona, memorable for its dark brick churches, andimmensely high tower, the Torrazzo--to say nothing of its violins, of which it certainly produces none in these degenerate days; andthe second, Lodi. Then we went on, through more mud, mist, andrain, and marshy ground: and through such a fog, as Englishmen, strong in the faith of their own grievances, are apt to believe isnowhere to be found but in their own country, until we entered thepaved streets of Milan. 

The fog was so dense here, that the spire of the far-famedCathedral might as well have been at Bombay, for anything thatcould be seen of it at that time. But as we halted to refresh, fora few days then, and returned to Milan again next summer, I hadample opportunities of seeing the glorious structure in all itsmajesty and beauty. 

All Christian homage to the saint who lies within it! There aremany good and true saints in the calendar, but San Carlo Borromeohas--if I may quote Mrs. Primrose on such a subject--'my warmheart. ' A charitable doctor to the sick, a munificent friend tothe poor, and this, not in any spirit of blind bigotry, but as thebold opponent of enormous abuses in the Romish church, I honour hismemory. I honour it none the less, because he was nearly slain bya priest, suborned, by priests, to murder him at the altar: inacknowledgment of his endeavours to reform a false and hypocriticalbrotherhood of monks. Heaven shield all imitators of San CarloBorromeo as it shielded him! A reforming Pope would need a littleshielding, even now. 

The subterranean chapel in which the body of San Carlo Borromeo ispreserved, presents as striking and as ghastly a contrast, perhaps, as any place can show. The tapers which are lighted down there, flash and gleam on alti-rilievi in gold and silver, delicatelywrought by skilful hands, and representing the principal events inthe life of the saint. Jewels, and precious metals, shine andsparkle on every side. A windlass slowly removes the front of thealtar; and, within it, in a gorgeous shrine of gold and silver, isseen, through alabaster, the shrivelled mummy of a man: thepontifical robes with which it is adorned, radiant with diamonds, emeralds, rubies: every costly and magnificent gem. The shrunkenheap of poor earth in the midst of this great glitter, is morepitiful than if it lay upon a dung-hill. There is not a ray ofimprisoned light in all the flash and fire of jewels, but seems tomock the dusty holes where eyes were, once. Every thread of silkin the rich vestments seems only a provision from the worms thatspin, for the behoof of worms that propagate in sepulchres. 

In the old refectory of the dilapidated Convent of Santa Mariadelle Grazie, is the work of art, perhaps, better known than anyother in the world: the Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci--with adoor cut through it by the intelligent Dominican friars, tofacilitate their operations at dinner-time. 

I am not mechanically acquainted with the art of painting, and haveno other means of judging of a picture than as I see it resemblingand refining upon nature, and presenting graceful combinations offorms and colours. I am, therefore, no authority whatever, inreference to the 'touch' of this or that master; though I know verywell (as anybody may, who chooses to think about the matter) thatfew very great masters can possibly have painted, in the compass oftheir lives, one-half of the pictures that bear their names, andthat are recognised by many aspirants to a reputation for taste, asundoubted originals. But this, by the way. Of the Last Supper, Iwould simply observe, that in its beautiful composition andarrangement, there it is, at Milan, a wonderful picture; and that, in its original colouring, or in its original expression of anysingle face or feature, there it is not. Apart from the damage ithas sustained from damp, decay, or neglect, it has been (as Barryshows) so retouched upon, and repainted, and that so clumsily, thatmany of the heads are, now, positive deformities, with patches ofpaint and plaster sticking upon them like wens, and utterlydistorting the expression. Where the original artist set thatimpress of his genius on a face, which, almost in a line or touch, separated him from meaner painters and made him what he was, succeeding bunglers, filling up, or painting across seams andcracks, have been quite unable to imitate his hand; and putting insome scowls, or frowns, or wrinkles, of their own, have blotchedand spoiled the work. This is so well established as an historicalfact, that I should not repeat it, at the risk of being tedious, but for having observed an English gentleman before the picture, who was at great pains to fall into what I may describe as mildconvulsions, at certain minute details of expression which are notleft in it. Whereas, it would be comfortable and rational fortravellers and critics to arrive at a general understanding that itcannot fail to have been a work of extraordinary merit, once:when, with so few of its original beauties remaining, the grandeurof the general design is yet sufficient to sustain it, as a piecereplete with interest and dignity. 

We achieved the other sights of Milan, in due course, and a finecity it is, though not so unmistakably Italian as to possess thecharacteristic qualities of many towns far less important inthemselves. The Corso, where the Milanese gentry ride up and downin carriages, and rather than not do which, they would half starvethemselves at home, is a most noble public promenade, shaded bylong avenues of trees. In the splendid theatre of La Scala, therewas a ballet of action performed after the opera, under the titleof Prometheus: in the beginning of which, some hundred or two ofmen and women represented our mortal race before the refinements ofthe arts and sciences, and loves and graces, came on earth tosoften them. I never saw anything more effective. Generallyspeaking, the pantomimic action of the Italians is more remarkablefor its sudden and impetuous character than for its delicateexpression, but, in this case, the drooping monotony: the weary, miserable, listless, moping life: the sordid passions and desiresof human creatures, destitute of those elevating influences towhich we owe so much, and to whose promoters we render so little:were expressed in a manner really powerful and affecting. I shouldhave thought it almost impossible to present such an idea sostrongly on the stage, without the aid of speech. 

Milan soon lay behind us, at five o'clock in the morning; andbefore the golden statue on the summit of the cathedral spire waslost in the blue sky, the Alps, stupendously confused in loftypeaks and ridges, clouds and snow, were towering in our path. 

Still, we continued to advance toward them until nightfall; and, all day long, the mountain tops presented strangely shiftingshapes, as the road displayed them in different points of view. The beautiful day was just declining, when we came upon the LagoMaggiore, with its lovely islands. For however fanciful andfantastic the Isola Bella may be, and is, it still is beautiful. Anything springing out of that blue water, with that scenery aroundit, must be. 

It was ten o'clock at night when we got to Domo d'Ossola, at thefoot of the Pass of the Simplon. But as the moon was shiningbrightly, and there was not a cloud in the starlit sky, it was notime for going to bed, or going anywhere but on. So, we got alittle carriage, after some delay, and began the ascent. 

It was late in November; and the snow lying four or five feet thickin the beaten road on the summit (in other parts the new drift wasalready deep), the air was piercing cold. But, the serenity of thenight, and the grandeur of the road, with its impenetrable shadows, and deep glooms, and its sudden turns into the shining of the moonand its incessant roar of falling water, rendered the journey moreand more sublime at every step. 

Soon leaving the calm Italian villages below us, sleeping in themoonlight, the road began to wind among dark trees, and after atime emerged upon a barer region, very steep and toilsome, wherethe moon shone bright and high. By degrees, the roar of water grewlouder; and the stupendous track, after crossing the torrent by abridge, struck in between two massive perpendicular walls of rockthat quite shut out the moonlight, and only left a few starsshining in the narrow strip of sky above. Then, even this waslost, in the thick darkness of a cavern in the rock, through whichthe way was pierced; the terrible cataract thundering and roaringclose below it, and its foam and spray hanging, in a mist, aboutthe entrance. Emerging from this cave, and coming again into themoonlight, and across a dizzy bridge, it crept and twisted upward, through the Gorge of Gondo, savage and grand beyond description, with smooth-fronted precipices, rising up on either hand, andalmost meeting overhead. Thus we went, climbing on our rugged way, higher and higher all night, without a moment's weariness: lost inthe contemplation of the black rocks, the tremendous heights anddepths, the fields of smooth snow lying, in the clefts and hollows, and the fierce torrents thundering headlong down the deep abyss. 

Towards daybreak, we came among the snow, where a keen wind wasblowing fiercely. Having, with some trouble, awakened the inmatesof a wooden house in this solitude: round which the wind washowling dismally, catching up the snow in wreaths and hurling itaway: we got some breakfast in a room built of rough timbers, butwell warmed by a stove, and well contrived (as it had need to be)for keeping out the bitter storms. A sledge being then made ready, and four horses harnessed to it, we went, ploughing, through thesnow. Still upward, but now in the cold light of morning, and withthe great white desert on which we travelled, plain and clear. 

We were well upon the summit of the mountain: and had before usthe rude cross of wood, denoting its greatest altitude above thesea: when the light of the rising sun, struck, all at once, uponthe waste of snow, and turned it a deep red. The lonely grandeurof the scene was then at its height. 

As we went sledging on, there came out of the Hospice founded byNapoleon, a group of Peasant travellers, with staves and knapsacks, who had rested there last night: attended by a Monk or two, theirhospitable entertainers, trudging slowly forward with them, forcompany's sake. It was pleasant to give them good morning, andpretty, looking back a long way after them, to see them lookingback at us, and hesitating presently, when one of our horsesstumbled and fell, whether or no they should return and help us. But he was soon up again, with the assistance of a rough waggonerwhose team had stuck fast there too; and when we had helped him outof his difficulty, in return, we left him slowly ploughing towardsthem, and went slowly and swiftly forward, on the brink of a steepprecipice, among the mountain pines. 

Taking to our wheels again, soon afterwards, we began rapidly todescend; passing under everlasting glaciers, by means of archedgalleries, hung with clusters of dripping icicles; under and overfoaming waterfalls; near places of refuge, and galleries of shelteragainst sudden danger; through caverns over whose arched roofs theavalanches slide, in spring, and bury themselves in the unknowngulf beneath. Down, over lofty bridges, and through horribleravines: a little shifting speck in the vast desolation of ice andsnow, and monstrous granite rocks; down through the deep Gorge ofthe Saltine, and deafened by the torrent plunging madly down, amongthe riven blocks of rock, into the level country, far below. Gradually down, by zig-zag roads, lying between an upward and adownward precipice, into warmer weather, calmer air, and softerscenery, until there lay before us, glittering like gold or silverin the thaw and sunshine, the metal-covered, red, green, yellow, domes and church-spires of a Swiss town. 

The business of these recollections being with Italy, and mybusiness, consequently, being to scamper back thither as fast aspossible, I will not recall (though I am sorely tempted) how theSwiss villages, clustered at the feet of Giant mountains, lookedlike playthings; or how confusedly the houses were heaped and piledtogether; or how there were very narrow streets to shut the howlingwinds out in the winter-time; and broken bridges, which theimpetuous torrents, suddenly released in spring, had swept away. Or how there were peasant women here, with great round fur caps:looking, when they peeped out of casements and only their headswere seen, like a population of Sword-bearers to the Lord Mayor ofLondon; or how the town of Vevey, lying on the smooth lake ofGeneva, was beautiful to see; or how the statue of Saint Peter inthe street at Fribourg, grasps the largest key that ever wasbeheld; or how Fribourg is illustrious for its two suspensionbridges, and its grand cathedral organ. 

Or how, between that town and Bale, the road meandered amongthriving villages of wooden cottages, with overhanging thatchedroofs, and low protruding windows, glazed with small round panes ofglass like crown-pieces; or how, in every little Swiss homestead, with its cart or waggon carefully stowed away beside the house, itslittle garden, stock of poultry, and groups of red-cheekedchildren, there was an air of comfort, very new and very pleasantafter Italy; or how the dresses of the women changed again, andthere were no more sword-bearers to be seen; and fair whitestomachers, and great black, fan-shaped, gauzy-looking caps, prevailed instead. 

Or how the country by the Jura mountains, sprinkled with snow, andlighted by the moon, and musical with falling water, wasdelightful; or how, below the windows of the great hotel of theThree Kings at Bale, the swollen Rhine ran fast and green; or how, at Strasbourg, it was quite as fast but not as green: and was saidto be foggy lower down: and, at that late time of the year, was afar less certain means of progress, than the highway road to Paris. 

Or how Strasbourg itself, in its magnificent old Gothic Cathedral, and its ancient houses with their peaked roofs and gables, made alittle gallery of quaint and interesting views; or how a crowd wasgathered inside the cathedral at noon, to see the famous mechanicalclock in motion, striking twelve. How, when it struck twelve, awhole army of puppets went through many ingenious evolutions; and, among them, a huge puppet-cock, perched on the top, crowed twelvetimes, loud and clear. Or how it was wonderful to see this cock atgreat pains to clap its wings, and strain its throat; but obviouslyhaving no connection whatever with its own voice; which was deepwithin the clock, a long way down. 

Or how the road to Paris, was one sea of mud, and thence to thecoast, a little better for a hard frost. Or how the cliffs ofDover were a pleasant sight, and England was so wonderfully neat--though dark, and lacking colour on a winter's day, it must beconceded. 

Or how, a few days afterwards, it was cool, re-crossing thechannel, with ice upon the decks, and snow lying pretty deep inFrance. Or how the Malle Poste scrambled through the snow, headlong, drawn in the hilly parts by any number of stout horses ata canter; or how there were, outside the Post-office Yard in Paris, before daybreak, extraordinary adventurers in heaps of rags, groping in the snowy streets with little rakes, in search of oddsand ends. 

Or how, between Paris and Marseilles, the snow being then exceedingdeep, a thaw came on, and the mail waded rather than rolled for thenext three hundred miles or so; breaking springs on Sunday nights, and putting out its two passengers to warm and refresh themselvespending the repairs, in miserable billiard-rooms, where hairycompany, collected about stoves, were playing cards; the cardsbeing very like themselves--extremely limp and dirty. 

Or how there was detention at Marseilles from stress of weather;and steamers were advertised to go, which did not go; or how thegood Steam-packet Charlemagne at length put out, and met suchweather that now she threatened to run into Toulon, and now intoNice, but, the wind moderating, did neither, but ran on into Genoaharbour instead, where the familiar Bells rang sweetly in my ear. Or how there was a travelling party on board, of whom one memberwas very ill in the cabin next to mine, and being ill was cross, and therefore declined to give up the Dictionary, which he keptunder his pillow; thereby obliging his companions to come down tohim, constantly, to ask what was the Italian for a lump of sugar--aglass of brandy and water--what's o'clock? and so forth: which healways insisted on looking out, with his own sea-sick eyes, declining to entrust the book to any man alive. 

Like GRUMIO, I might have told you, in detail, all this andsomething more--but to as little purpose--were I not deterred bythe remembrance that my business is with Italy. Therefore, likeGRUMIO'S story, 'it shall die in oblivion. '

CHAPTER IX--TO ROME BY PISA AND SIENA

There is nothing in Italy, more beautiful to me, than the coast-road between Genoa and Spezzia. On one side: sometimes far below, sometimes nearly on a level with the road, and often skirted bybroken rocks of many shapes: there is the free blue sea, with hereand there a picturesque felucca gliding slowly on; on the otherside are lofty hills, ravines besprinkled with white cottages, patches of dark olive woods, country churches with their light opentowers, and country houses gaily painted. On every bank and knollby the wayside, the wild cactus and aloe flourish in exuberantprofusion; and the gardens of the bright villages along the road, are seen, all blushing in the summer-time with clusters of theBelladonna, and are fragrant in the autumn and winter with goldenoranges and lemons. 

Some of the villages are inhabited, almost exclusively, byfishermen; and it is pleasant to see their great boats hauled up onthe beach, making little patches of shade, where they lie asleep, or where the women and children sit romping and looking out to sea, while they mend their nets upon the shore. There is one town, Camoglia, with its little harbour on the sea, hundreds of feetbelow the road; where families of mariners live, who, time out ofmind, have owned coasting-vessels in that place, and have traded toSpain and elsewhere. Seen from the road above, it is like a tinymodel on the margin of the dimpled water, shining in the sun. Descended into, by the winding mule-tracks, it is a perfectminiature of a primitive seafaring town; the saltest, roughest, most piratical little place that ever was seen. Great rusty ironrings and mooring-chains, capstans, and fragments of old masts andspars, choke up the way; hardy rough-weather boats, and seamen'sclothing, flutter in the little harbour or are drawn out on thesunny stones to dry; on the parapet of the rude pier, a fewamphibious-looking fellows lie asleep, with their legs danglingover the wall, as though earth or water were all one to them, andif they slipped in, they would float away, dozing comfortably amongthe fishes; the church is bright with trophies of the sea, andvotive offerings, in commemoration of escape from storm andshipwreck. The dwellings not immediately abutting on the harbourare approached by blind low archways, and by crooked steps, as ifin darkness and in difficulty of access they should be like holdsof ships, or inconvenient cabins under water; and everywhere, thereis a smell of fish, and sea-weed, and old rope. 

The coast-road whence Camoglia is descried so far below, is famous, in the warm season, especially in some parts near Genoa, for fire-flies. Walking there on a dark night, I have seen it made onesparkling firmament by these beautiful insects: so that thedistant stars were pale against the flash and glitter that spangledevery olive wood and hill-side, and pervaded the whole air. 

It was not in such a season, however, that we traversed this roadon our way to Rome. The middle of January was only just past, andit was very gloomy and dark weather; very wet besides. In crossingthe fine pass of Bracco, we encountered such a storm of mist andrain, that we travelled in a cloud the whole way. There might havebeen no Mediterranean in the world, for anything that we saw of itthere, except when a sudden gust of wind, clearing the mist beforeit, for a moment, showed the agitated sea at a great depth below, lashing the distant rocks, and spouting up its foam furiously. Therain was incessant; every brook and torrent was greatly swollen;and such a deafening leaping, and roaring, and thundering of water, I never heard the like of in my life. 

Hence, when we came to Spezzia, we found that the Magra, anunbridged river on the high-road to Pisa, was too high to be safelycrossed in the Ferry Boat, and were fain to wait until theafternoon of next day, when it had, in some degree, subsided. Spezzia, however, is a good place to tarry at; by reason, firstly, of its beautiful bay; secondly, of its ghostly Inn; thirdly, of thehead-dress of the women, who wear, on one side of their head, asmall doll's straw hat, stuck on to the hair; which is certainlythe oddest and most roguish head-gear that ever was invented. 

The Magra safely crossed in the Ferry Boat--the passage is not byany means agreeable, when the current is swollen and strong--wearrived at Carrara, within a few hours. In good time next morning, we got some ponies, and went out to see the marble quarries. 

They are four or five great glens, running up into a range of loftyhills, until they can run no longer, and are stopped by beingabruptly strangled by Nature. The quarries, 'or caves, ' as theycall them there, are so many openings, high up in the hills, oneither side of these passes, where they blast and excavate formarble: which may turn out good or bad: may make a man's fortunevery quickly, or ruin him by the great expense of working what isworth nothing. Some of these caves were opened by the ancientRomans, and remain as they left them to this hour. Many others arebeing worked at this moment; others are to be begun to-morrow, nextweek, next month; others are unbought, unthought of; and marbleenough for more ages than have passed since the place was resortedto, lies hidden everywhere: patiently awaiting its time ofdiscovery. 

As you toil and clamber up one of these steep gorges (having leftyour pony soddening his girths in water, a mile or two lower down)you hear, every now and then, echoing among the hills, in a lowtone, more silent than the previous silence, a melancholy warningbugle, --a signal to the miners to withdraw. Then, there is athundering, and echoing from hill to hill, and perhaps a splashingup of great fragments of rock into the air; and on you toil againuntil some other bugle sounds, in a new direction, and you stopdirectly, lest you should come within the range of the newexplosion. 

There were numbers of men, working high up in these hills--on thesides--clearing away, and sending down the broken masses of stoneand earth, to make way for the blocks of marble that had beendiscovered. As these came rolling down from unseen hands into thenarrow valley, I could not help thinking of the deep glen (just thesame sort of glen) where the Roc left Sindbad the Sailor; and wherethe merchants from the heights above, flung down great pieces ofmeat for the diamonds to stick to. There were no eagles here, todarken the sun in their swoop, and pounce upon them; but it was aswild and fierce as if there had been hundreds. 

But the road, the road down which the marble comes, however immensethe blocks! The genius of the country, and the spirit of itsinstitutions, pave that road: repair it, watch it, keep it going!Conceive a channel of water running over a rocky bed, beset withgreat heaps of stone of all shapes and sizes, winding down themiddle of this valley; and THAT being the road--because it was theroad five hundred years ago! Imagine the clumsy carts of fivehundred years ago, being used to this hour, and drawn, as they usedto be, five hundred years ago, by oxen, whose ancestors were wornto death five hundred years ago, as their unhappy descendants arenow, in twelve months, by the suffering and agony of this cruelwork! Two pair, four pair, ten pair, twenty pair, to one block, according to its size; down it must come, this way. In theirstruggling from stone to stone, with their enormous loads behindthem, they die frequently upon the spot; and not they alone; fortheir passionate drivers, sometimes tumbling down in their energy, are crushed to death beneath the wheels. But it was good fivehundred years ago, and it must be good now: and a railroad downone of these steeps (the easiest thing in the world) would be flatblasphemy. 

When we stood aside, to see one of these cars drawn by only a pairof oxen (for it had but one small block of marble on it), comingdown, I hailed, in my heart, the man who sat upon the heavy yoke, to keep it on the neck of the poor beasts--and who faced backwards:not before him--as the very Devil of true despotism. He had agreat rod in his hand, with an iron point; and when they couldplough and force their way through the loose bed of the torrent nolonger, and came to a stop, he poked it into their bodies, beat iton their heads, screwed it round and round in their nostrils, gotthem on a yard or two, in the madness of intense pain; repeated allthese persuasions, with increased intensity of purpose, when theystopped again; got them on, once more; forced and goaded them to anabrupter point of the descent; and when their writhing andsmarting, and the weight behind them, bore them plunging down theprecipice in a cloud of scattered water, whirled his rod above hishead, and gave a great whoop and hallo, as if he had achievedsomething, and had no idea that they might shake him off, andblindly mash his brains upon the road, in the noontide of histriumph. 

Standing in one of the many studii of Carrara, that afternoon--forit is a great workshop, full of beautifully-finished copies inmarble, of almost every figure, group, and bust, we know--itseemed, at first, so strange to me that those exquisite shapes, replete with grace, and thought, and delicate repose, should growout of all this toil, and sweat, and torture! But I soon found aparallel to it, and an explanation of it, in every virtue thatsprings up in miserable ground, and every good thing that has itsbirth in sorrow and distress. And, looking out of the sculptor'sgreat window, upon the marble mountains, all red and glowing in thedecline of day, but stern and solemn to the last, I thought, myGod! how many quarries of human hearts and souls, capable of farmore beautiful results, are left shut up and mouldering away:while pleasure-travellers through life, avert their faces, as theypass, and shudder at the gloom and ruggedness that conceal them!

The then reigning Duke of Modena, to whom this territory in partbelonged, claimed the proud distinction of being the only sovereignin Europe who had not recognised Louis-Philippe as King of theFrench! He was not a wag, but quite in earnest. He was also muchopposed to railroads; and if certain lines in contemplation byother potentates, on either side of him, had been executed, wouldhave probably enjoyed the satisfaction of having an omnibus plyingto and fro across his not very vast dominions, to forwardtravellers from one terminus to another. 

Carrara, shut in by great hills, is very picturesque and bold. Fewtourists stay there; and the people are nearly all connected, inone way or other, with the working of marble. There are alsovillages among the caves, where the workmen live. It contains abeautiful little Theatre, newly built; and it is an interestingcustom there, to form the chorus of labourers in the marblequarries, who are self-taught and sing by ear. I heard them in acomic opera, and in an act of 'Norma;' and they acquittedthemselves very well; unlike the common people of Italy generally, who (with some exceptions among the Neapolitans) sing vilely out oftune, and have very disagreeable singing voices. 

From the summit of a lofty hill beyond Carrara, the first view ofthe fertile plain in which the town of Pisa lies--with Leghorn, apurple spot in the flat distance--is enchanting. Nor is it onlydistance that lends enchantment to the view; for the fruitfulcountry, and rich woods of olive-trees through which the roadsubsequently passes, render it delightful. 

The moon was shining when we approached Pisa, and for a long timewe could see, behind the wall, the leaning Tower, all awry in theuncertain light; the shadowy original of the old pictures inschool-books, setting forth 'The Wonders of the World. ' Like mostthings connected in their first associations with school-books andschool-times, it was too small. I felt it keenly. It was nothinglike so high above the wall as I had hoped. It was another of themany deceptions practised by Mr. Harris, Bookseller, at the cornerof St. Paul's Churchyard, London. HIS Tower was a fiction, butthis was a reality--and, by comparison, a short reality. Still, itlooked very well, and very strange, and was quite as much out ofthe perpendicular as Harris had represented it to be. The quietair of Pisa too; the big guard-house at the gate, with only twolittle soldiers in it; the streets with scarcely any show of peoplein them; and the Arno, flowing quaintly through the centre of thetown; were excellent. So, I bore no malice in my heart against Mr. Harris (remembering his good intentions), but forgave him beforedinner, and went out, full of confidence, to see the Tower nextmorning. 

I might have known better; but, somehow, I had expected to see it, casting its long shadow on a public street where people came andwent all day. It was a surprise to me to find it in a graveretired place, apart from the general resort, and carpeted withsmooth green turf. But, the group of buildings, clustered on andabout this verdant carpet: comprising the Tower, the Baptistery, the Cathedral, and the Church of the Campo Santo: is perhaps themost remarkable and beautiful in the whole world; and from beingclustered there, together, away from the ordinary transactions anddetails of the town, they have a singularly venerable andimpressive character. It is the architectural essence of a richold city, with all its common life and common habitations pressedout, and filtered away. 

SIMOND compares the Tower to the usual pictorial representations inchildren's books of the Tower of Babel. It is a happy simile, andconveys a better idea of the building than chapters of laboureddescription. Nothing can exceed the grace and lightness of thestructure; nothing can be more remarkable than its generalappearance. In the course of the ascent to the top (which is by aneasy staircase), the inclination is not very apparent; but, at thesummit, it becomes so, and gives one the sensation of being in aship that has heeled over, through the action of an ebb-tide. Theeffect UPON THE LOW SIDE, so to speak--looking over from thegallery, and seeing the shaft recede to its base--is verystartling; and I saw a nervous traveller hold on to the Towerinvoluntarily, after glancing down, as if he had some idea ofpropping it up. The view within, from the ground--looking up, asthrough a slanted tube--is also very curious. It certainlyinclines as much as the most sanguine tourist could desire. Thenatural impulse of ninety-nine people out of a hundred, who wereabout to recline upon the grass below it, to rest, and contemplatethe adjacent buildings, would probably be, not to take up theirposition under the leaning side; it is so very much aslant. 

The manifold beauties of the Cathedral and Baptistery need norecapitulation from me; though in this case, as in a hundredothers, I find it difficult to separate my own delight in recallingthem, from your weariness in having them recalled. There is apicture of St. Agnes, by Andrea del Sarto, in the former, and thereare a variety of rich columns in the latter, that tempt mestrongly. 

It is, I hope, no breach of my resolution not to be tempted intoelaborate descriptions, to remember the Campo Santo; where grass-grown graves are dug in earth brought more than six hundred yearsago, from the Holy Land; and where there are, surrounding them, such cloisters, with such playing lights and shadows fallingthrough their delicate tracery on the stone pavement, as surely thedullest memory could never forget. On the walls of this solemn andlovely place, are ancient frescoes, very much obliterated anddecayed, but very curious. As usually happens in almost anycollection of paintings, of any sort, in Italy, where there aremany heads, there is, in one of them, a striking accidentallikeness of Napoleon. At one time, I used to please my fancy withthe speculation whether these old painters, at their work, had aforeboding knowledge of the man who would one day arise to wreaksuch destruction upon art: whose soldiers would make targets ofgreat pictures, and stable their horses among triumphs ofarchitecture. But the same Corsican face is so plentiful in someparts of Italy at this day, that a more commonplace solution of thecoincidence is unavoidable. 

If Pisa be the seventh wonder of the world in right of its Tower, it may claim to be, at least, the second or third in right of itsbeggars. They waylay the unhappy visitor at every turn, escort himto every door he enters at, and lie in wait for him, with strongreinforcements, at every door by which they know he must come out. The grating of the portal on its hinges is the signal for a generalshout, and the moment he appears, he is hemmed in, and fallen on, by heaps of rags and personal distortions. The beggars seem toembody all the trade and enterprise of Pisa. Nothing else isstirring, but warm air. Going through the streets, the fronts ofthe sleepy houses look like backs. They are all so still andquiet, and unlike houses with people in them, that the greater partof the city has the appearance of a city at daybreak, or during ageneral siesta of the population. Or it is yet more like thosebackgrounds of houses in common prints, or old engravings, wherewindows and doors are squarely indicated, and one figure (a beggarof course) is seen walking off by itself into illimitableperspective. 

Not so Leghorn (made illustrious by SMOLLETT'S grave), which is athriving, business-like, matter-of-fact place, where idleness isshouldered out of the way by commerce. The regulations observedthere, in reference to trade and merchants, are very liberal andfree; and the town, of course, benefits by them. Leghorn had a badname in connection with stabbers, and with some justice it must beallowed; for, not many years ago, there was an assassination clubthere, the members of which bore no ill-will to anybody inparticular, but stabbed people (quite strangers to them) in thestreets at night, for the pleasure and excitement of therecreation. I think the president of this amiable society was ashoemaker. He was taken, however, and the club was broken up. Itwould, probably, have disappeared in the natural course of events, before the railroad between Leghorn and Pisa, which is a good one, and has already begun to astonish Italy with a precedent ofpunctuality, order, plain dealing, and improvement--the mostdangerous and heretical astonisher of all. There must have been aslight sensation, as of earthquake, surely, in the Vatican, whenthe first Italian railroad was thrown open. 

Returning to Pisa, and hiring a good-tempered Vetturino, and hisfour horses, to take us on to Rome, we travelled through pleasantTuscan villages and cheerful scenery all day. The roadside crossesin this part of Italy are numerous and curious. There is seldom afigure on the cross, though there is sometimes a face, but they areremarkable for being garnished with little models in wood, of everypossible object that can be connected with the Saviour's death. The cock that crowed when Peter had denied his Master thrice, isusually perched on the tip-top; and an ornithological phenomenon hegenerally is. Under him, is the inscription. Then, hung on to thecross-beam, are the spear, the reed with the sponge of vinegar andwater at the end, the coat without seam for which the soldiers castlots, the dice-box with which they threw for it, the hammer thatdrove in the nails, the pincers that pulled them out, the ladderwhich was set against the cross, the crown of thorns, theinstrument of flagellation, the lanthorn with which Mary went tothe tomb (I suppose), and the sword with which Peter smote theservant of the high priest, --a perfect toy-shop of little objects, repeated at every four or five miles, all along the highway. 

On the evening of the second day from Pisa, we reached thebeautiful old city of Siena. There was what they called aCarnival, in progress; but, as its secret lay in a score or two ofmelancholy people walking up and down the principal street incommon toy-shop masks, and being more melancholy, if possible, thanthe same sort of people in England, I say no more of it. We wentoff, betimes next morning, to see the Cathedral, which iswonderfully picturesque inside and out, especially the latter--alsothe market-place, or great Piazza, which is a large square, with agreat broken-nosed fountain in it: some quaint Gothic houses: anda high square brick tower; OUTSIDE the top of which--a curiousfeature in such views in Italy--hangs an enormous bell. It is likea bit of Venice, without the water. There are some curious oldPalazzi in the town, which is very ancient; and without having (forme) the interest of Verona, or Genoa, it is very dreamy andfantastic, and most interesting. 

We went on again, as soon as we had seen these things, and goingover a rather bleak country (there had been nothing but vines untilnow: mere walking-sticks at that season of the year), stopped, asusual, between one and two hours in the middle of the day, to restthe horses; that being a part of every Vetturino contract. We thenwent on again, through a region gradually becoming bleaker andwilder, until it became as bare and desolate as any Scottish moors. Soon after dark, we halted for the night, at the osteria of LaScala: a perfectly lone house, where the family were sitting rounda great fire in the kitchen, raised on a stone platform three orfour feet high, and big enough for the roasting of an ox. On theupper, and only other floor of this hotel, there was a great, wild, rambling sala, with one very little window in a by-corner, and fourblack doors opening into four black bedrooms in various directions. To say nothing of another large black door, opening into anotherlarge black sala, with the staircase coming abruptly through a kindof trap-door in the floor, and the rafters of the roof loomingabove: a suspicious little press skulking in one obscure corner:and all the knives in the house lying about in various directions. The fireplace was of the purest Italian architecture, so that itwas perfectly impossible to see it for the smoke. The waitress waslike a dramatic brigand's wife, and wore the same style of dressupon her head. The dogs barked like mad; the echoes returned thecompliments bestowed upon them; there was not another house withintwelve miles; and things had a dreary, and rather a cut-throat, appearance. 

They were not improved by rumours of robbers having come out, strong and boldly, within a few nights; and of their having stoppedthe mail very near that place. They were known to have waylaidsome travellers not long before, on Mount Vesuvius itself, and werethe talk at all the roadside inns. As they were no business ofours, however (for we had very little with us to lose), we madeourselves merry on the subject, and were very soon as comfortableas need be. We had the usual dinner in this solitary house; and avery good dinner it is, when you are used to it. There issomething with a vegetable or some rice in it which is a sort ofshorthand or arbitrary character for soup, and which tastes verywell, when you have flavoured it with plenty of grated cheese, lotsof salt, and abundance of pepper. There is the half fowl of whichthis soup has been made. There is a stewed pigeon, with thegizzards and livers of himself and other birds stuck all round him. There is a bit of roast beef, the size of a small French roll. There are a scrap of Parmesan cheese, and five little witheredapples, all huddled together on a small plate, and crowding oneupon the other, as if each were trying to save itself from thechance of being eaten. Then there is coffee; and then there isbed. You don't mind brick floors; you don't mind yawning doors, nor banging windows; you don't mind your own horses being stabledunder the bed: and so close, that every time a horse coughs orsneezes, he wakes you. If you are good-humoured to the peopleabout you, and speak pleasantly, and look cheerful, take my wordfor it you may be well entertained in the very worst Italian Inn, and always in the most obliging manner, and may go from one end ofthe country to the other (despite all stories to the contrary)without any great trial of your patience anywhere. Especially, when you get such wine in flasks, as the Orvieto, and the MontePulciano. 

It was a bad morning when we left this place; and we went, fortwelve miles, over a country as barren, as stony, and as wild, asCornwall in England, until we came to Radicofani, where there is aghostly, goblin inn: once a hunting-seat, belonging to the Dukesof Tuscany. It is full of such rambling corridors, and gauntrooms, that all the murdering and phantom tales that ever werewritten might have originated in that one house. There are somehorrible old Palazzi in Genoa: one in particular, not unlike it, outside: but there is a winding, creaking, wormy, rustling, door-opening, foot-on-staircase-falling character about this RadicofaniHotel, such as I never saw, anywhere else. The town, such as itis, hangs on a hill-side above the house, and in front of it. Theinhabitants are all beggars; and as soon as they see a carriagecoming, they swoop down upon it, like so many birds of prey. 

When we got on the mountain pass, which lies beyond this place, thewind (as they had forewarned us at the inn) was so terrific, thatwe were obliged to take my other half out of the carriage, lest sheshould be blown over, carriage and all, and to hang to it, on thewindy side (as well as we could for laughing), to prevent itsgoing, Heaven knows where. For mere force of wind, this land-stormmight have competed with an Atlantic gale, and had a reasonablechance of coming off victorious. The blast came sweeping downgreat gullies in a range of mountains on the right: so that welooked with positive awe at a great morass on the left, and sawthat there was not a bush or twig to hold by. It seemed as if, once blown from our feet, we must be swept out to sea, or away intospace. There was snow, and hail, and rain, and lightning, andthunder; and there were rolling mists, travelling with incrediblevelocity. It was dark, awful, and solitary to the last degree;there were mountains above mountains, veiled in angry clouds; andthere was such a wrathful, rapid, violent, tumultuous hurry, everywhere, as rendered the scene unspeakably exciting and grand. 

It was a relief to get out of it, notwithstanding; and to crosseven the dismal, dirty Papal Frontier. After passing through twolittle towns; in one of which, Acquapendente, there was also a'Carnival' in progress: consisting of one man dressed and maskedas a woman, and one woman dressed and masked as a man, walkingankle-deep, through the muddy streets, in a very melancholy manner:we came, at dusk, within sight of the Lake of Bolsena, on whosebank there is a little town of the same name, much celebrated formalaria. With the exception of this poor place, there is not acottage on the banks of the lake, or near it (for nobody dare sleepthere); not a boat upon its waters; not a stick or stake to breakthe dismal monotony of seven-and-twenty watery miles. We were latein getting in, the roads being very bad from heavy rains; and, after dark, the dulness of the scene was quite intolerable. 

We entered on a very different, and a finer scene of desolation, next night, at sunset. We had passed through Montefiaschone(famous for its wine) and Viterbo (for its fountains): and afterclimbing up a long hill of eight or ten miles' extent, camesuddenly upon the margin of a solitary lake: in one part verybeautiful, with a luxuriant wood; in another, very barren, and shutin by bleak volcanic hills. Where this lake flows, there stood, ofold, a city. It was swallowed up one day; and in its stead, thiswater rose. There are ancient traditions (common to many parts ofthe world) of the ruined city having been seen below, when thewater was clear; but however that may be, from this spot of earthit vanished. The ground came bubbling up above it; and the watertoo; and here they stand, like ghosts on whom the other worldclosed suddenly, and who have no means of getting back again. Theyseem to be waiting the course of ages, for the next earthquake inthat place; when they will plunge below the ground, at its firstyawning, and be seen no more. The unhappy city below, is not morelost and dreary, than these fire-charred hills and the stagnantwater, above. The red sun looked strangely on them, as with theknowledge that they were made for caverns and darkness; and themelancholy water oozed and sucked the mud, and crept quietly amongthe marshy grass and reeds, as if the overthrow of all the ancienttowers and housetops, and the death of all the ancient people bornand bred there, were yet heavy on its conscience. 

A short ride from this lake, brought us to Ronciglione; a littletown like a large pig-sty, where we passed the night. Next morningat seven o'clock, we started for Rome. 

As soon as we were out of the pig-sty, we entered on the CampagnaRomana; an undulating flat (as you know), where few people canlive; and where, for miles and miles, there is nothing to relievethe terrible monotony and gloom. Of all kinds of country thatcould, by possibility, lie outside the gates of Rome, this is theaptest and fittest burial-ground for the Dead City. So sad, soquiet, so sullen; so secret in its covering up of great masses ofruin, and hiding them; so like the waste places into which the menpossessed with devils used to go and howl, and rend themselves, inthe old days of Jerusalem. We had to traverse thirty miles of thisCampagna; and for two-and-twenty we went on and on, seeing nothingbut now and then a lonely house, or a villainous-looking shepherd:with matted hair all over his face, and himself wrapped to the chinin a frowsy brown mantle, tending his sheep. At the end of thatdistance, we stopped to refresh the horses, and to get some lunch, in a common malaria-shaken, despondent little public-house, whoseevery inch of wall and beam, inside, was (according to custom)painted and decorated in a way so miserable that every room lookedlike the wrong side of another room, and, with its wretchedimitation of drapery, and lop-sided little daubs of lyres, seemedto have been plundered from behind the scenes of some travellingcircus. 

When we were fairly going off again, we began, in a perfect fever, to strain our eyes for Rome; and when, after another mile or two, the Eternal City appeared, at length, in the distance; it lookedlike--I am half afraid to write the word--like LONDON!!! There itlay, under a thick cloud, with innumerable towers, and steeples, and roofs of houses, rising up into the sky, and high above themall, one Dome. I swear, that keenly as I felt the seemingabsurdity of the comparison, it was so like London, at thatdistance, that if you could have shown it me, in a glass, I shouldhave taken it for nothing else. 

CHAPTER X--ROME

We entered the Eternal City, at about four o'clock in theafternoon, on the thirtieth of January, by the Porta del Popolo, and came immediately--it was a dark, muddy day, and there had beenheavy rain--on the skirts of the Carnival. We did not, then, knowthat we were only looking at the fag end of the masks, who weredriving slowly round and round the Piazza until they could find apromising opportunity for falling into the stream of carriages, andgetting, in good time, into the thick of the festivity; and comingamong them so abruptly, all travel-stained and weary, was notcoming very well prepared to enjoy the scene. 

We had crossed the Tiber by the Ponte Molle two or three milesbefore. It had looked as yellow as it ought to look, and hurryingon between its worn-away and miry banks, had a promising aspect ofdesolation and ruin. The masquerade dresses on the fringe of theCarnival, did great violence to this promise. There were no greatruins, no solemn tokens of antiquity, to be seen;--they all lie onthe other side of the city. There seemed to be long streets ofcommonplace shops and houses, such as are to be found in anyEuropean town; there were busy people, equipages, ordinary walkersto and fro; a multitude of chattering strangers. It was no more MYRome: the Rome of anybody's fancy, man or boy; degraded and fallenand lying asleep in the sun among a heap of ruins: than the Placede la Concorde in Paris is. A cloudy sky, a dull cold rain, andmuddy streets, I was prepared for, but not for this: and I confessto having gone to bed, that night, in a very indifferent humour, and with a very considerably quenched enthusiasm. 

Immediately on going out next day, we hurried off to St. Peter's. It looked immense in the distance, but distinctly and decidedlysmall, by comparison, on a near approach. The beauty of thePiazza, on which it stands, with its clusters of exquisite columns, and its gushing fountains--so fresh, so broad, and free, andbeautiful--nothing can exaggerate. The first burst of theinterior, in all its expansive majesty and glory: and, most ofall, the looking up into the Dome: is a sensation never to beforgotten. But, there were preparations for a Festa; the pillarsof stately marble were swathed in some impertinent frippery of redand yellow; the altar, and entrance to the subterranean chapel:which is before it: in the centre of the church: were like agoldsmith's shop, or one of the opening scenes in a very lavishpantomime. And though I had as high a sense of the beauty of thebuilding (I hope) as it is possible to entertain, I felt no verystrong emotion. I have been infinitely more affected in manyEnglish cathedrals when the organ has been playing, and in manyEnglish country churches when the congregation have been singing. I had a much greater sense of mystery and wonder, in the Cathedralof San Mark at Venice. 

When we came out of the church again (we stood nearly an hourstaring up into the dome: and would not have 'gone over' theCathedral then, for any money), we said to the coachman, 'Go to theColiseum. ' In a quarter of an hour or so, he stopped at the gate, and we went in. 

It is no fiction, but plain, sober, honest Truth, to say: sosuggestive and distinct is it at this hour: that, for a moment--actually in passing in--they who will, may have the whole greatpile before them, as it used to be, with thousands of eager facesstaring down into the arena, and such a whirl of strife, and blood, and dust going on there, as no language can describe. Itssolitude, its awful beauty, and its utter desolation, strike uponthe stranger the next moment, like a softened sorrow; and never inhis life, perhaps, will he be so moved and overcome by any sight, not immediately connected with his own affections and afflictions. 

To see it crumbling there, an inch a year; its walls and archesovergrown with green; its corridors open to the day; the long grassgrowing in its porches; young trees of yesterday, springing up onits ragged parapets, and bearing fruit: chance produce of theseeds dropped there by the birds who build their nests within itschinks and crannies; to see its Pit of Fight filled up with earth, and the peaceful Cross planted in the centre; to climb into itsupper halls, and look down on ruin, ruin, ruin, all about it; thetriumphal arches of Constantine, Septimus Severus, and Titus; theRoman Forum; the Palace of the Caesars; the temples of the oldreligion, fallen down and gone; is to see the ghost of old Rome, wicked, wonderful old city, haunting the very ground on which itspeople trod. It is the most impressive, the most stately, the mostsolemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight, conceivable. Never, inits bloodiest prime, can the sight of the gigantic Coliseum, fulland running over with the lustiest life, have moved one's heart, asit must move all who look upon it now, a ruin. GOD be thanked: aruin!

As it tops the other ruins: standing there, a mountain amonggraves: so do its ancient influences outlive all other remnants ofthe old mythology and old butchery of Rome, in the nature of thefierce and cruel Roman people. The Italian face changes as thevisitor approaches the city; its beauty becomes devilish; and thereis scarcely one countenance in a hundred, among the common peoplein the streets, that would not be at home and happy in a renovatedColiseum to-morrow. 

Here was Rome indeed at last; and such a Rome as no one can imaginein its full and awful grandeur! We wandered out upon the AppianWay, and then went on, through miles of ruined tombs and brokenwalls, with here and there a desolate and uninhabited house: pastthe Circus of Romulus, where the course of the chariots, thestations of the judges, competitors, and spectators, are yet asplainly to be seen as in old time: past the tomb of CeciliaMetella: past all inclosure, hedge, or stake, wall or fence: awayupon the open Campagna, where on that side of Rome, nothing is tobe beheld but Ruin. Except where the distant Apennines bound theview upon the left, the whole wide prospect is one field of ruin. Broken aqueducts, left in the most picturesque and beautifulclusters of arches; broken temples; broken tombs. A desert ofdecay, sombre and desolate beyond all expression; and with ahistory in every stone that strews the ground. 

On Sunday, the Pope assisted in the performance of High Mass at St. Peter's. The effect of the Cathedral on my mind, on that secondvisit, was exactly what it was at first, and what it remains aftermany visits. It is not religiously impressive or affecting. It isan immense edifice, with no one point for the mind to rest upon;and it tires itself with wandering round and round. The verypurpose of the place, is not expressed in anything you see there, unless you examine its details--and all examination of details isincompatible with the place itself. It might be a Pantheon, or aSenate House, or a great architectural trophy, having no otherobject than an architectural triumph. There is a black statue ofSt. Peter, to be sure, under a red canopy; which is larger thanlife and which is constantly having its great toe kissed by goodCatholics. You cannot help seeing that: it is so very prominentand popular. But it does not heighten the effect of the temple, asa work of art; and it is not expressive--to me at least--of itshigh purpose. 

A large space behind the altar, was fitted up with boxes, shapedlike those at the Italian Opera in England, but in their decorationmuch more gaudy. In the centre of the kind of theatre thus railedoff, was a canopied dais with the Pope's chair upon it. Thepavement was covered with a carpet of the brightest green; and whatwith this green, and the intolerable reds and crimsons, and goldborders of the hangings, the whole concern looked like a stupendousBonbon. On either side of the altar, was a large box for ladystrangers. These were filled with ladies in black dresses andblack veils. The gentlemen of the Pope's guard, in red coats, leather breeches, and jack-boots, guarded all this reserved space, with drawn swords that were very flashy in every sense; and fromthe altar all down the nave, a broad lane was kept clear by thePope's Swiss guard, who wear a quaint striped surcoat, and stripedtight legs, and carry halberds like those which are usuallyshouldered by those theatrical supernumeraries, who never CAN getoff the stage fast enough, and who may be generally observed tolinger in the enemy's camp after the open country, held by theopposite forces, has been split up the middle by a convulsion ofNature. 

I got upon the border of the green carpet, in company with a greatmany other gentlemen, attired in black (no other passport isnecessary), and stood there at my ease, during the performance ofMass. The singers were in a crib of wirework (like a large meat-safe or bird-cage) in one corner; and sang most atrociously. Allabout the green carpet, there was a slowly moving crowd of people:talking to each other: staring at the Pope through eye-glasses;defrauding one another, in moments of partial curiosity, out ofprecarious seats on the bases of pillars: and grinning hideouslyat the ladies. Dotted here and there, were little knots of friars(Frances-cani, or Cappuccini, in their coarse brown dresses andpeaked hoods) making a strange contrast to the gaudy ecclesiasticsof higher degree, and having their humility gratified to theutmost, by being shouldered about, and elbowed right and left, onall sides. Some of these had muddy sandals and umbrellas, andstained garments: having trudged in from the country. The facesof the greater part were as coarse and heavy as their dress; theirdogged, stupid, monotonous stare at all the glory and splendour, having something in it, half miserable, and half ridiculous. 

Upon the green carpet itself, and gathered round the altar, was aperfect army of cardinals and priests, in red, gold, purple, violet, white, and fine linen. Stragglers from these, went to andfro among the crowd, conversing two and two, or giving andreceiving introductions, and exchanging salutations; otherfunctionaries in black gowns, and other functionaries in court-dresses, were similarly engaged. In the midst of all these, andstealthy Jesuits creeping in and out, and the extreme restlessnessof the Youth of England, who were perpetually wandering about, somefew steady persons in black cassocks, who had knelt down with theirfaces to the wall, and were poring over their missals, became, unintentionally, a sort of humane man-traps, and with their owndevout legs, tripped up other people's by the dozen. 

There was a great pile of candles lying down on the floor near me, which a very old man in a rusty black gown with an open-worktippet, like a summer ornament for a fireplace in tissue-paper, made himself very busy in dispensing to all the ecclesiastics: onea-piece. They loitered about with these for some time, under theirarms like walking-sticks, or in their hands like truncheons. At acertain period of the ceremony, however, each carried his candle upto the Pope, laid it across his two knees to be blessed, took itback again, and filed off. This was done in a very attenuatedprocession, as you may suppose, and occupied a long time. Notbecause it takes long to bless a candle through and through, butbecause there were so many candles to be blessed. At last theywere all blessed: and then they were all lighted; and then thePope was taken up, chair and all, and carried round the church. 

I must say, that I never saw anything, out of November, so like thepopular English commemoration of the fifth of that month. A bundleof matches and a lantern, would have made it perfect. Nor did thePope, himself, at all mar the resemblance, though he has a pleasantand venerable face; for, as this part of the ceremony makes himgiddy and sick, he shuts his eyes when it is performed: and havinghis eyes shut and a great mitre on his head, and his head itselfwagging to and fro as they shook him in carrying, he looked as ifhis mask were going to tumble off. The two immense fans which arealways borne, one on either side of him, accompanied him, ofcourse, on this occasion. As they carried him along, he blessedthe people with the mystic sign; and as he passed them, theykneeled down. When he had made the round of the church, he wasbrought back again, and if I am not mistaken, this performance wasrepeated, in the whole, three times. There was, certainly nothingsolemn or effective in it; and certainly very much that was drolland tawdry. But this remark applies to the whole ceremony, exceptthe raising of the Host, when every man in the guard dropped on oneknee instantly, and dashed his naked sword on the ground; which hada fine effect. 

The next time I saw the cathedral, was some two or three weeksafterwards, when I climbed up into the ball; and then, the hangingsbeing taken down, and the carpet taken up, but all the frameworkleft, the remnants of these decorations looked like an explodedcracker. 

The Friday and Saturday having been solemn Festa days, and Sundaybeing always a dies non in carnival proceedings, we had lookedforward, with some impatience and curiosity, to the beginning ofthe new week: Monday and Tuesday being the two last and best daysof the Carnival. 

On the Monday afternoon at one or two o'clock, there began to be agreat rattling of carriages into the court-yard of the hotel; ahurrying to and fro of all the servants in it; and, now and then, aswift shooting across some doorway or balcony, of a stragglingstranger in a fancy dress: not yet sufficiently well used to thesame, to wear it with confidence, and defy public opinion. All thecarriages were open, and had the linings carefully covered withwhite cotton or calico, to prevent their proper decorations frombeing spoiled by the incessant pelting of sugar-plums; and peoplewere packing and cramming into every vehicle as it waited for itsoccupants, enormous sacks and baskets full of these confetti, together with such heaps of flowers, tied up in little nosegays, that some carriages were not only brimful of flowers, but literallyrunning over: scattering, at every shake and jerk of the springs, some of their abundance on the ground. Not to be behindhand inthese essential particulars, we caused two very respectable sacksof sugar-plums (each about three feet high) and a large clothes-basket full of flowers to be conveyed into our hired barouche, withall speed. And from our place of observation, in one of the upperbalconies of the hotel, we contemplated these arrangements with theliveliest satisfaction. The carriages now beginning to take uptheir company, and move away, we got into ours, and drove off too, armed with little wire masks for our faces; the sugar-plums, likeFalstaff's adulterated sack, having lime in their composition. 

The Corso is a street a mile long; a street of shops, and palaces, and private houses, sometimes opening into a broad piazza. Thereare verandahs and balconies, of all shapes and sizes, to almostevery house--not on one story alone, but often to one room oranother on every story--put there in general with so little orderor regularity, that if, year after year, and season after season, it had rained balconies, hailed balconies, snowed balconies, blownbalconies, they could scarcely have come into existence in a moredisorderly manner. 

This is the great fountain-head and focus of the Carnival. But allthe streets in which the Carnival is held, being vigilantly kept bydragoons, it is necessary for carriages, in the first instance, topass, in line, down another thoroughfare, and so come into theCorso at the end remote from the Piazza del Popolo; which is one ofits terminations. Accordingly, we fell into the string of coaches, and, for some time, jogged on quietly enough; now crawling on at avery slow walk; now trotting half-a-dozen yards; now backing fifty;and now stopping altogether: as the pressure in front obliged us. If any impetuous carriage dashed out of the rank and clatteredforward, with the wild idea of getting on faster, it was suddenlymet, or overtaken, by a trooper on horseback, who, deaf as his owndrawn sword to all remonstrances, immediately escorted it back tothe very end of the row, and made it a dim speck in the remotestperspective. Occasionally, we interchanged a volley of confettiwith the carriage next in front, or the carriage next behind; butas yet, this capturing of stray and errant coaches by the military, was the chief amusement. 

Presently, we came into a narrow street, where, besides one line ofcarriages going, there was another line of carriages returning. Here the sugar-plums and the nosegays began to fly about, prettysmartly; and I was fortunate enough to observe one gentlemanattired as a Greek warrior, catch a light-whiskered brigand on thenose (he was in the very act of tossing up a bouquet to a younglady in a first-floor window) with a precision that was muchapplauded by the bystanders. As this victorious Greek wasexchanging a facetious remark with a stout gentleman in a doorway--one-half black and one-half white, as if he had been peeled up themiddle--who had offered him his congratulations on thisachievement, he received an orange from a housetop, full on hisleft ear, and was much surprised, not to say discomfited. Especially, as he was standing up at the time; and in consequenceof the carriage moving on suddenly, at the same moment, staggeredignominiously, and buried himself among his flowers. 

Some quarter of an hour of this sort of progress, brought us to theCorso; and anything so gay, so bright, and lively as the wholescene there, it would be difficult to imagine. From all theinnumerable balconies: from the remotest and highest, no less thanfrom the lowest and nearest: hangings of bright red, bright green, bright blue, white and gold, were fluttering in the brilliantsunlight. From windows, and from parapets, and tops of houses, streamers of the richest colours, and draperies of the gaudiest andmost sparkling hues, were floating out upon the street. Thebuildings seemed to have been literally turned inside out, and tohave all their gaiety towards the highway. Shop-fronts were takendown, and the windows filled with company, like boxes at a shiningtheatre; doors were carried off their hinges, and long tapestriedgroves, hung with garlands of flowers and evergreens, displayedwithin; builders' scaffoldings were gorgeous temples, radiant insilver, gold, and crimson; and in every nook and corner, from thepavement to the chimney-tops, where women's eyes could glisten, there they danced, and laughed, and sparkled, like the light inwater. Every sort of bewitching madness of dress was there. Little preposterous scarlet jackets; quaint old stomachers, morewicked than the smartest bodices; Polish pelisses, strained andtight as ripe gooseberries; tiny Greek caps, all awry, and clingingto the dark hair, Heaven knows how; every wild, quaint, bold, shy, pettish, madcap fancy had its illustration in a dress; and everyfancy was as dead forgotten by its owner, in the tumult ofmerriment, as if the three old aqueducts that still remain entirehad brought Lethe into Rome, upon their sturdy arches, thatmorning. 

The carriages were now three abreast; in broader places four; oftenstationary for a long time together, always one close mass ofvariegated brightness; showing, the whole street-full, through thestorm of flowers, like flowers of a larger growth themselves. Insome, the horses were richly caparisoned in magnificent trappings;in others they were decked from head to tail, with flowing ribbons. Some were driven by coachmen with enormous double faces: one faceleering at the horses: the other cocking its extraordinary eyesinto the carriage: and both rattling again, under the hail ofsugar-plums. Other drivers were attired as women, wearing longringlets and no bonnets, and looking more ridiculous in any realdifficulty with the horses (of which, in such a concourse, therewere a great many) than tongue can tell, or pen describe. Insteadof sitting IN the carriages, upon the seats, the handsome Romanwomen, to see and to be seen the better, sit in the heads of thebarouches, at this time of general licence, with their feet uponthe cushions--and oh, the flowing skirts and dainty waists, theblessed shapes and laughing faces, the free, good-humoured, gallantfigures that they make! There were great vans, too, full ofhandsome girls--thirty, or more together, perhaps--and thebroadsides that were poured into, and poured out of, these fairyfire-shops, splashed the air with flowers and bon-bons for tenminutes at a time. Carriages, delayed long in one place, wouldbegin a deliberate engagement with other carriages, or with peopleat the lower windows; and the spectators at some upper balcony orwindow, joining in the fray, and attacking both parties, wouldempty down great bags of confetti, that descended like a cloud, andin an instant made them white as millers. Still, carriages oncarriages, dresses on dresses, colours on colours, crowds uponcrowds, without end. Men and boys clinging to the wheels ofcoaches, and holding on behind, and following in their wake, anddiving in among the horses' feet to pick up scattered flowers tosell again; maskers on foot (the drollest generally) in fantasticexaggerations of court-dresses, surveying the throng throughenormous eye-glasses, and always transported with an ecstasy oflove, on the discovery of any particularly old lady at a window;long strings of Policinelli, laying about them with blown bladdersat the ends of sticks; a waggon-full of madmen, screaming andtearing to the life; a coach-full of grave mamelukes, with theirhorse-tail standard set up in the midst; a party of gipsy-womenengaged in terrific conflict with a shipful of sailors; a man-monkey on a pole, surrounded by strange animals with pigs' faces, and lions' tails, carried under their arms, or worn gracefully overtheir shoulders; carriages on carriages, dresses on dresses, colours on colours, crowds upon crowds, without end. Not manyactual characters sustained, or represented, perhaps, consideringthe number dressed, but the main pleasure of the scene consistingin its perfect good temper; in its bright, and infinite, andflashing variety; and in its entire abandonment to the mad humourof the time--an abandonment so perfect, so contagious, soirresistible, that the steadiest foreigner fights up to his middlein flowers and sugar-plums, like the wildest Roman of them all, andthinks of nothing else till half-past four o'clock, when he issuddenly reminded (to his great regret) that this is not the wholebusiness of his existence, by hearing the trumpets sound, andseeing the dragoons begin to clear the street. 

How it ever IS cleared for the race that takes place at five, orhow the horses ever go through the race, without going over thepeople, is more than I can say. But the carriages get out into theby-streets, or up into the Piazza del Popolo, and some people sitin temporary galleries in the latter place, and tens of thousandsline the Corso on both sides, when the horses are brought out intothe Piazza--to the foot of that same column which, for centuries, looked down upon the games and chariot-races in the Circus Maximus. 

At a given signal they are started off. Down the live lane, thewhole length of the Corso, they fly like the wind: riderless, asall the world knows: with shining ornaments upon their backs, andtwisted in their plaited manes: and with heavy little balls stuckfull of spikes, dangling at their sides, to goad them on. Thejingling of these trappings, and the rattling of their hoofs uponthe hard stones; the dash and fury of their speed along the echoingstreet; nay, the very cannon that are fired--these noises arenothing to the roaring of the multitude: their shouts: theclapping of their hands. But it is soon over--almostinstantaneously. More cannon shake the town. The horses haveplunged into the carpets put across the street to stop them; thegoal is reached; the prizes are won (they are given, in part, bythe poor Jews, as a compromise for not running foot-racesthemselves); and there is an end to that day's sport. 

But if the scene be bright, and gay, and crowded, on the last daybut one, it attains, on the concluding day, to such a height ofglittering colour, swarming life, and frolicsome uproar, that thebare recollection of it makes me giddy at this moment. The samediversions, greatly heightened and intensified in the ardour withwhich they are pursued, go on until the same hour. The race isrepeated; the cannon are fired; the shouting and clapping of handsare renewed; the cannon are fired again; the race is over; and theprizes are won. But the carriages: ankle-deep with sugar-plumswithin, and so be-flowered and dusty without, as to be hardlyrecognisable for the same vehicles that they were, three hours ago:instead of scampering off in all directions, throng into the Corso, where they are soon wedged together in a scarcely moving mass. Forthe diversion of the Moccoletti, the last gay madness of theCarnival, is now at hand; and sellers of little tapers like whatare called Christmas candles in England, are shouting lustily onevery side, 'Moccoli, Moccoli! Ecco Moccoli!'--a new item in thetumult; quite abolishing that other item of ' Ecco Fiori! EccoFior-r-r!' which has been making itself audible over all the rest, at intervals, the whole day through. 

As the bright hangings and dresses are all fading into one dull, heavy, uniform colour in the decline of the day, lights beginflashing, here and there: in the windows, on the housetops, in thebalconies, in the carriages, in the hands of the foot-passengers:little by little: gradually, gradually: more and more: until thewhole long street is one great glare and blaze of fire. Then, everybody present has but one engrossing object; that is, toextinguish other people's candles, and to keep his own alight; andeverybody: man, woman, or child, gentleman or lady, prince orpeasant, native or foreigner: yells and screams, and roarsincessantly, as a taunt to the subdued, 'Senza Moccolo, SenzaMoccolo!' (Without a light! Without a light!) until nothing isheard but a gigantic chorus of those two words, mingled with pealsof laughter. 

The spectacle, at this time, is one of the most extraordinary thatcan be imagined. Carriages coming slowly by, with everybodystanding on the seats or on the box, holding up their lights atarms' length, for greater safety; some in paper shades; some with abunch of undefended little tapers, kindled altogether; some withblazing torches; some with feeble little candles; men on foot, creeping along, among the wheels, watching their opportunity, tomake a spring at some particular light, and dash it out; otherpeople climbing up into carriages, to get hold of them by mainforce; others, chasing some unlucky wanderer, round and round hisown coach, to blow out the light he has begged or stolen somewhere, before he can ascend to his own company, and enable them to lighttheir extinguished tapers; others, with their hats off, at acarriage-door, humbly beseeching some kind-hearted lady to obligethem with a light for a cigar, and when she is in the fulness ofdoubt whether to comply or no, blowing out the candle she isguarding so tenderly with her little hand; other people at thewindows, fishing for candles with lines and hooks, or letting downlong willow-wands with handkerchiefs at the end, and flapping themout, dexterously, when the bearer is at the height of his triumph, others, biding their time in corners, with immense extinguisherslike halberds, and suddenly coming down upon glorious torches;others, gathered round one coach, and sticking to it; others, raining oranges and nosegays at an obdurate little lantern, orregularly storming a pyramid of men, holding up one man among them, who carries one feeble little wick above his head, with which hedefies them all! Senza Moccolo! Senza Moccolo! Beautiful women, standing up in coaches, pointing in derision at extinguishedlights, and clapping their hands, as they pass on, crying, 'SenzaMoccolo! Senza Moccolo!'; low balconies full of lovely faces andgay dresses, struggling with assailants in the streets; somerepressing them as they climb up, some bending down, some leaningover, some shrinking back--delicate arms and bosoms--gracefulfigures--glowing lights, fluttering dresses, Senza Moccolo, SenzaMoccoli, Senza Moc-co-lo-o-o-o!--when in the wildest enthusiasm ofthe cry, and fullest ecstasy of the sport, the Ave Maria rings fromthe church steeples, and the Carnival is over in an instant--putout like a taper, with a breath!

There was a masquerade at the theatre at night, as dull andsenseless as a London one, and only remarkable for the summary wayin which the house was cleared at eleven o'clock: which was doneby a line of soldiers forming along the wall, at the back of thestage, and sweeping the whole company out before them, like a broadbroom. The game of the Moccoletti (the word, in the singular, Moccoletto, is the diminutive of Moccolo, and means a little lampor candlesnuff) is supposed by some to be a ceremony of burlesquemourning for the death of the Carnival: candles beingindispensable to Catholic grief. But whether it be so, or be aremnant of the ancient Saturnalia, or an incorporation of both, orhave its origin in anything else, I shall always remember it, andthe frolic, as a brilliant and most captivating sight: no lessremarkable for the unbroken good-humour of all concerned, down tothe very lowest (and among those who scaled the carriages, weremany of the commonest men and boys), than for its innocentvivacity. For, odd as it may seem to say so, of a sport so full ofthoughtlessness and personal display, it is as free from any taintof immodesty as any general mingling of the two sexes can possiblybe; and there seems to prevail, during its progress, a feeling ofgeneral, almost childish, simplicity and confidence, which onethinks of with a pang, when the Ave Maria has rung it away, for awhole year. 

Availing ourselves of a part of the quiet interval between thetermination of the Carnival and the beginning of the Holy Week:when everybody had run away from the one, and few people had yetbegun to run back again for the other: we went conscientiously towork, to see Rome. And, by dint of going out early every morning, and coming back late every evening, and labouring hard all day, Ibelieve we made acquaintance with every post and pillar in thecity, and the country round; and, in particular, explored so manychurches, that I abandoned that part of the enterprise at last, before it was half finished, lest I should never, of my own accord, go to church again, as long as I lived. But, I managed, almostevery day, at one time or other, to get back to the Coliseum, andout upon the open Campagna, beyond the Tomb of Cecilia Metella. 

We often encountered, in these expeditions, a company of EnglishTourists, with whom I had an ardent, but ungratified longing, toestablish a speaking acquaintance. They were one Mr. Davis, and asmall circle of friends. It was impossible not to know Mrs. Davis's name, from her being always in great request among herparty, and her party being everywhere. During the Holy Week, theywere in every part of every scene of every ceremony. For afortnight or three weeks before it, they were in every tomb, andevery church, and every ruin, and every Picture Gallery; and Ihardly ever observed Mrs. Davis to be silent for a moment. Deepunderground, high up in St. Peter's, out on the Campagna, andstifling in the Jews' quarter, Mrs. Davis turned up, all the same. I don't think she ever saw anything, or ever looked at anything;and she had always lost something out of a straw hand-basket, andwas trying to find it, with all her might and main, among animmense quantity of English halfpence, which lay, like sands uponthe sea-shore, at the bottom of it. There was a professionalCicerone always attached to the party (which had been brought overfrom London, fifteen or twenty strong, by contract), and if he somuch as looked at Mrs. Davis, she invariably cut him short bysaying, 'There, God bless the man, don't worrit me! I don'tunderstand a word you say, and shouldn't if you was to talk tillyou was black in the face!' Mr. Davis always had a snuff-colouredgreat-coat on, and carried a great green umbrella in his hand, andhad a slow curiosity constantly devouring him, which prompted himto do extraordinary things, such as taking the covers off urns intombs, and looking in at the ashes as if they were pickles--andtracing out inscriptions with the ferrule of his umbrella, andsaying, with intense thoughtfulness, 'Here's a B you see, andthere's a R, and this is the way we goes on in; is it!' Hisantiquarian habits occasioned his being frequently in the rear ofthe rest; and one of the agonies of Mrs. Davis, and the party ingeneral, was an ever-present fear that Davis would be lost. Thiscaused them to scream for him, in the strangest places, and at themost improper seasons. And when he came, slowly emerging out ofsome sepulchre or other, like a peaceful Ghoule, saying 'Here Iam!' Mrs. Davis invariably replied, 'You'll be buried alive in aforeign country, Davis, and it's no use trying to prevent you!'

Mr. And Mrs. Davis, and their party, had, probably, been broughtfrom London in about nine or ten days. Eighteen hundred years ago, the Roman legions under Claudius, protested against being led intoMr. And Mrs. Davis's country, urging that it lay beyond the limitsof the world. 

Among what may be called the Cubs or minor Lions of Rome, there wasone that amused me mightily. It is always to be found there; andits den is on the great flight of steps that lead from the Piazzadi Spagna, to the church of Trinita del Monte. In plainer words, these steps are the great place of resort for the artists''Models, ' and there they are constantly waiting to be hired. Thefirst time I went up there, I could not conceive why the facesseemed familiar to me; why they appeared to have beset me, foryears, in every possible variety of action and costume; and how itcame to pass that they started up before me, in Rome, in the broadday, like so many saddled and bridled nightmares. I soon foundthat we had made acquaintance, and improved it, for several years, on the walls of various Exhibition Galleries. There is one oldgentleman, with long white hair and an immense beard, who, to myknowledge, has gone half through the catalogue of the RoyalAcademy. This is the venerable, or patriarchal model. He carriesa long staff; and every knot and twist in that staff I have seen, faithfully delineated, innumerable times. There is another man ina blue cloak, who always pretends to be asleep in the sun (whenthere is any), and who, I need not say, is always very wide awake, and very attentive to the disposition of his legs. This is thedolce far' niente model. There is another man in a brown cloak, who leans against a wall, with his arms folded in his mantle, andlooks out of the corners of his eyes: which are just visiblebeneath his broad slouched hat. This is the assassin model. Thereis another man, who constantly looks over his own shoulder, and isalways going away, but never does. This is the haughty, orscornful model. As to Domestic Happiness, and Holy Families, theyshould come very cheap, for there are lumps of them, all up thesteps; and the cream of the thing is, that they are all the falsestvagabonds in the world, especially made up for the purpose, andhaving no counterparts in Rome or any other part of the habitableglobe. 

My recent mention of the Carnival, reminds me of its being said tobe a mock mourning (in the ceremony with which it closes), for thegaieties and merry-makings before Lent; and this again reminds meof the real funerals and mourning processions of Rome, which, likethose in most other parts of Italy, are rendered chiefly remarkableto a Foreigner, by the indifference with which the mere clay isuniversally regarded, after life has left it. And this is not fromthe survivors having had time to dissociate the memory of the deadfrom their well-remembered appearance and form on earth; for theinterment follows too speedily after death, for that: almostalways taking place within four-and-twenty hours, and, sometimes, within twelve. 

At Rome, there is the same arrangement of Pits in a great, bleak, open, dreary space, that I have already described as existing inGenoa. When I visited it, at noonday, I saw a solitary coffin ofplain deal: uncovered by any shroud or pall, and so slightly made, that the hoof of any wandering mule would have crushed it in:carelessly tumbled down, all on one side, on the door of one of thepits--and there left, by itself, in the wind and sunshine. 'Howdoes it come to be left here?' I asked the man who showed me theplace. 'It was brought here half an hour ago, Signore, ' he said. I remembered to have met the procession, on its return: stragglingaway at a good round pace. 'When will it be put in the pit?' Iasked him. 'When the cart comes, and it is opened to-night, ' hesaid. 'How much does it cost to be brought here in this way, instead of coming in the cart?' I asked him. 'Ten scudi, ' he said(about two pounds, two-and-sixpence, English). 'The other bodies, for whom nothing is paid, are taken to the church of the SantaMaria della Consolazione, ' he continued, 'and brought herealtogether, in the cart at night. ' I stood, a moment, looking atthe coffin, which had two initial letters scrawled upon the top;and turned away, with an expression in my face, I suppose, of notmuch liking its exposure in that manner: for he said, shrugginghis shoulders with great vivacity, and giving a pleasant smile, 'But he's dead, Signore, he's dead. Why not?'

Among the innumerable churches, there is one I must select forseparate mention. It is the church of the Ara Coeli, supposed tobe built on the site of the old Temple of Jupiter Feretrius; andapproached, on one side, by a long steep flight of steps, whichseem incomplete without some group of bearded soothsayers on thetop. It is remarkable for the possession of a miraculous Bambino, or wooden doll, representing the Infant Saviour; and I first sawthis miraculous Bambino, in legal phrase, in manner following, thatis to say:

We had strolled into the church one afternoon, and were lookingdown its long vista of gloomy pillars (for all these ancientchurches built upon the ruins of old temples, are dark and sad), when the Brave came running in, with a grin upon his face thatstretched it from ear to ear, and implored us to follow him, without a moment's delay, as they were going to show the Bambino toa select party. We accordingly hurried off to a sort of chapel, orsacristy, hard by the chief altar, but not in the church itself, where the select party, consisting of two or three Catholicgentlemen and ladies (not Italians), were already assembled: andwhere one hollow-cheeked young monk was lighting up divers candles, while another was putting on some clerical robes over his coarsebrown habit. The candles were on a kind of altar, and above itwere two delectable figures, such as you would see at any Englishfair, representing the Holy Virgin, and Saint Joseph, as I suppose, bending in devotion over a wooden box, or coffer; which was shut. 

The hollow-cheeked monk, number One, having finished lighting thecandles, went down on his knees, in a corner, before this set-piece; and the monk number Two, having put on a pair of highlyornamented and gold-bespattered gloves, lifted down the coffer, with great reverence, and set it on the altar. Then, with manygenuflexions, and muttering certain prayers, he opened it, and letdown the front, and took off sundry coverings of satin and lacefrom the inside. The ladies had been on their knees from thecommencement; and the gentlemen now dropped down devoutly, as heexposed to view a little wooden doll, in face very like General TomThumb, the American Dwarf: gorgeously dressed in satin and goldlace, and actually blazing with rich jewels. There was scarcely aspot upon its little breast, or neck, or stomach, but was sparklingwith the costly offerings of the Faithful. Presently, he lifted itout of the box, and carrying it round among the kneelers, set itsface against the forehead of every one, and tendered its clumsyfoot to them to kiss--a ceremony which they all performed down to adirty little ragamuffin of a boy who had walked in from the street. When this was done, he laid it in the box again: and the company, rising, drew near, and commended the jewels in whispers. In goodtime, he replaced the coverings, shut up the box, put it back inits place, locked up the whole concern (Holy Family and all) behinda pair of folding-doors; took off his priestly vestments; andreceived the customary 'small charge, ' while his companion, bymeans of an extinguisher fastened to the end of a long stick, putout the lights, one after another. The candles being allextinguished, and the money all collected, they retired, and so didthe spectators. 

I met this same Bambino, in the street a short time afterwards, going, in great state, to the house of some sick person. It istaken to all parts of Rome for this purpose, constantly; but, Iunderstand that it is not always as successful as could be wished;for, making its appearance at the bedside of weak and nervouspeople in extremity, accompanied by a numerous escort, it notunfrequently frightens them to death. It is most popular in casesof child-birth, where it has done such wonders, that if a lady belonger than usual in getting through her difficulties, a messengeris despatched, with all speed, to solicit the immediate attendanceof the Bambino. It is a very valuable property, and much confidedin--especially by the religious body to whom it belongs. 

I am happy to know that it is not considered immaculate, by somewho are good Catholics, and who are behind the scenes, from whatwas told me by the near relation of a Priest, himself a Catholic, and a gentleman of learning and intelligence. This Priest made myinformant promise that he would, on no account, allow the Bambinoto be borne into the bedroom of a sick lady, in whom they were bothinterested. 'For, ' said he, 'if they (the monks) trouble her withit, and intrude themselves into her room, it will certainly killher. ' My informant accordingly looked out of the window when itcame; and, with many thanks, declined to open the door. Heendeavoured, in another case of which he had no other knowledgethan such as he gained as a passer-by at the moment, to prevent itsbeing carried into a small unwholesome chamber, where a poor girlwas dying. But, he strove against it unsuccessfully, and sheexpired while the crowd were pressing round her bed. 

Among the people who drop into St. Peter's at their leisure, tokneel on the pavement, and say a quiet prayer, there are certainschools and seminaries, priestly and otherwise, that come in, twenty or thirty strong. These boys always kneel down in singlefile, one behind the other, with a tall grim master in a blackgown, bringing up the rear: like a pack of cards arranged to betumbled down at a touch, with a disproportionately large Knave ofclubs at the end. When they have had a minute or so at the chiefaltar, they scramble up, and filing off to the chapel of theMadonna, or the sacrament, flop down again in the same order; sothat if anybody did stumble against the master, a general andsudden overthrow of the whole line must inevitably ensue. 

The scene in all the churches is the strangest possible. The samemonotonous, heartless, drowsy chaunting, always going on; the samedark building, darker from the brightness of the street without;the same lamps dimly burning; the selfsame people kneeling here andthere; turned towards you, from one altar or other, the samepriest's back, with the same large cross embroidered on it; howeverdifferent in size, in shape, in wealth, in architecture, thischurch is from that, it is the same thing still. There are thesame dirty beggars stopping in their muttered prayers to beg; thesame miserable cripples exhibiting their deformity at the doors;the same blind men, rattling little pots like kitchen pepper-castors: their depositories for alms; the same preposterous crownsof silver stuck upon the painted heads of single saints and Virginsin crowded pictures, so that a little figure on a mountain has ahead-dress bigger than the temple in the foreground, or adjacentmiles of landscape; the same favourite shrine or figure, smotheredwith little silver hearts and crosses, and the like: the stapletrade and show of all the jewellers; the same odd mixture ofrespect and indecorum, faith and phlegm: kneeling on the stones, and spitting on them, loudly; getting up from prayers to beg alittle, or to pursue some other worldly matter: and then kneelingdown again, to resume the contrite supplication at the point whereit was interrupted. In one church, a kneeling lady got up from herprayer, for a moment, to offer us her card, as a teacher of Music;and in another, a sedate gentleman with a very thick walking-staff, arose from his devotions to belabour his dog, who was growling atanother dog: and whose yelps and howls resounded through thechurch, as his master quietly relapsed into his former train ofmeditation--keeping his eye upon the dog, at the same time, nevertheless. 

Above all, there is always a receptacle for the contributions ofthe Faithful, in some form or other. Sometimes, it is a money-box, set up between the worshipper, and the wooden life-size figure ofthe Redeemer; sometimes, it is a little chest for the maintenanceof the Virgin; sometimes, an appeal on behalf of a popular Bambino;sometimes, a bag at the end of a long stick, thrust among thepeople here and there, and vigilantly jingled by an activeSacristan; but there it always is, and, very often, in many shapesin the same church, and doing pretty well in all. Nor, is itwanting in the open air--the streets and roads--for, often as youare walking along, thinking about anything rather than a tincanister, that object pounces out upon you from a little house bythe wayside; and on its top is painted, 'For the Souls inPurgatory;' an appeal which the bearer repeats a great many times, as he rattles it before you, much as Punch rattles the cracked bellwhich his sanguine disposition makes an organ of. 

And this reminds me that some Roman altars of peculiar sanctity, bear the inscription, 'Every Mass performed at this altar frees asoul from Purgatory. ' I have never been able to find out thecharge for one of these services, but they should needs beexpensive. There are several Crosses in Rome too, the kissing ofwhich, confers indulgences for varying terms. That in the centreof the Coliseum, is worth a hundred days; and people may be seenkissing it from morning to night. It is curious that some of thesecrosses seem to acquire an arbitrary popularity: this very oneamong them. In another part of the Coliseum there is a cross upona marble slab, with the inscription, 'Who kisses this cross shallbe entitled to Two hundred and forty days' indulgence. ' But I sawno one person kiss it, though, day after day, I sat in the arena, and saw scores upon scores of peasants pass it, on their way tokiss the other. 

To single out details from the great dream of Roman Churches, wouldbe the wildest occupation in the world. But St. Stefano Rotondo, adamp, mildewed vault of an old church in the outskirts of Rome, will always struggle uppermost in my mind, by reason of the hideouspaintings with which its walls are covered. These represent themartyrdoms of saints and early Christians; and such a panorama ofhorror and butchery no man could imagine in his sleep, though hewere to eat a whole pig raw, for supper. Grey-bearded men beingboiled, fried, grilled, crimped, singed, eaten by wild beasts, worried by dogs, buried alive, torn asunder by horses, chopped upsmall with hatchets: women having their breasts torn with ironpinchers, their tongues cut out, their ears screwed off, their jawsbroken, their bodies stretched upon the rack, or skinned upon thestake, or crackled up and melted in the fire: these are among themildest subjects. So insisted on, and laboured at, besides, thatevery sufferer gives you the same occasion for wonder as poor oldDuncan awoke, in Lady Macbeth, when she marvelled at his having somuch blood in him. 

There is an upper chamber in the Mamertine prisons, over what issaid to have been--and very possibly may have been--the dungeon ofSt. Peter. This chamber is now fitted up as an oratory, dedicatedto that saint; and it lives, as a distinct and separate place, inmy recollection, too. It is very small and low-roofed; and thedread and gloom of the ponderous, obdurate old prison are on it, asif they had come up in a dark mist through the floor. Hanging onthe walls, among the clustered votive offerings, are objects, atonce strangely in keeping, and strangely at variance, with theplace--rusty daggers, knives, pistols, clubs, divers instruments ofviolence and murder, brought here, fresh from use, and hung up topropitiate offended Heaven: as if the blood upon them would drainoff in consecrated air, and have no voice to cry with. It is allso silent and so close, and tomb-like; and the dungeons below areso black and stealthy, and stagnant, and naked; that this littledark spot becomes a dream within a dream: and in the vision ofgreat churches which come rolling past me like a sea, it is a smallwave by itself, that melts into no other wave, and does not flow onwith the rest. 

It is an awful thing to think of the enormous caverns that areentered from some Roman churches, and undermine the city. Manychurches have crypts and subterranean chapels of great size, which, in the ancient time, were baths, and secret chambers of temples, and what not: but I do not speak of them. Beneath the church ofSt. Giovanni and St. Paolo, there are the jaws of a terrific rangeof caverns, hewn out of the rock, and said to have another outletunderneath the Coliseum--tremendous darknesses of vast extent, half-buried in the earth and unexplorable, where the dull torches, flashed by the attendants, glimmer down long ranges of distantvaults branching to the right and left, like streets in a city ofthe dead; and show the cold damp stealing down the walls, drip-drop, drip-drop, to join the pools of water that lie here andthere, and never saw, or never will see, one ray of the sun. Someaccounts make these the prisons of the wild beasts destined for theamphitheatre; some the prisons of the condemned gladiators; some, both. But the legend most appalling to the fancy is, that in theupper range (for there are two stories of these caves) the EarlyChristians destined to be eaten at the Coliseum Shows, heard thewild beasts, hungry for them, roaring down below; until, upon thenight and solitude of their captivity, there burst the sudden noonand life of the vast theatre crowded to the parapet, and of these, their dreaded neighbours, bounding in!

Below the church of San Sebastiano, two miles beyond the gate ofSan Sebastiano, on the Appian Way, is the entrance to the catacombsof Rome--quarries in the old time, but afterwards the hiding-placesof the Christians. These ghastly passages have been explored fortwenty miles; and form a chain of labyrinths, sixty miles incircumference. 

A gaunt Franciscan friar, with a wild bright eye, was our onlyguide, down into this profound and dreadful place. The narrow waysand openings hither and thither, coupled with the dead and heavyair, soon blotted out, in all of us, any recollection of the trackby which we had come: and I could not help thinking 'Good Heaven, if, in a sudden fit of madness, he should dash the torches out, orif he should be seized with a fit, what would become of us!' On wewandered, among martyrs' graves: passing great subterraneanvaulted roads, diverging in all directions, and choked up withheaps of stones, that thieves and murderers may not take refugethere, and form a population under Rome, even worse than that whichlives between it and the sun. Graves, graves, graves; Graves ofmen, of women, of their little children, who ran crying to thepersecutors, 'We are Christians! We are Christians!' that theymight be murdered with their parents; Graves with the palm ofmartyrdom roughly cut into their stone boundaries, and littleniches, made to hold a vessel of the martyrs' blood; Graves of somewho lived down here, for years together, ministering to the rest, and preaching truth, and hope, and comfort, from the rude altars, that bear witness to their fortitude at this hour; more roomygraves, but far more terrible, where hundreds, being surprised, were hemmed in and walled up: buried before Death, and killed byslow starvation. 

'The Triumphs of the Faith are not above ground in our splendidchurches, ' said the friar, looking round upon us, as we stopped torest in one of the low passages, with bones and dust surrounding uson every side. 'They are here! Among the Martyrs' Graves!' Hewas a gentle, earnest man, and said it from his heart; but when Ithought how Christian men have dealt with one another; how, perverting our most merciful religion, they have hunted down andtortured, burnt and beheaded, strangled, slaughtered, and oppressedeach other; I pictured to myself an agony surpassing any that thisDust had suffered with the breath of life yet lingering in it, andhow these great and constant hearts would have been shaken--howthey would have quailed and drooped--if a foreknowledge of thedeeds that professing Christians would commit in the Great Name forwhich they died, could have rent them with its own unutterableanguish, on the cruel wheel, and bitter cross, and in the fearfulfire. 

Such are the spots and patches in my dream of churches, that remainapart, and keep their separate identity. I have a fainterrecollection, sometimes of the relics; of the fragments of thepillar of the Temple that was rent in twain; of the portion of thetable that was spread for the Last Supper; of the well at which thewoman of Samaria gave water to Our Saviour; of two columns from thehouse of Pontius Pilate; of the stone to which the Sacred handswere bound, when the scourging was performed; of the grid-iron ofSaint Lawrence, and the stone below it, marked with the frying ofhis fat and blood; these set a shadowy mark on some cathedrals, asan old story, or a fable might, and stop them for an instant, asthey flit before me. The rest is a vast wilderness of consecratedbuildings of all shapes and fancies, blending one with another; ofbattered pillars of old Pagan temples, dug up from the ground, andforced, like giant captives, to support the roofs of Christianchurches; of pictures, bad, and wonderful, and impious, andridiculous; of kneeling people, curling incense, tinkling bells, and sometimes (but not often) of a swelling organ: of Madonne, with their breasts stuck full of swords, arranged in a half-circlelike a modern fan; of actual skeletons of dead saints, hideouslyattired in gaudy satins, silks, and velvets trimmed with gold:their withered crust of skull adorned with precious jewels, or withchaplets of crushed flowers; sometimes of people gathered round thepulpit, and a monk within it stretching out the crucifix, andpreaching fiercely: the sun just streaming down through some highwindow on the sail-cloth stretched above him and across the church, to keep his high-pitched voice from being lost among the echoes ofthe roof. Then my tired memory comes out upon a flight of steps, where knots of people are asleep, or basking in the light; andstrolls away, among the rags, and smells, and palaces, and hovels, of an old Italian street. 

On one Saturday morning (the eighth of March), a man was beheadedhere. Nine or ten months before, he had waylaid a Bavariancountess, travelling as a pilgrim to Rome--alone and on foot, ofcourse--and performing, it is said, that act of piety for thefourth time. He saw her change a piece of gold at Viterbo, wherehe lived; followed her; bore her company on her journey for someforty miles or more, on the treacherous pretext of protecting her;attacked her, in the fulfilment of his unrelenting purpose, on theCampagna, within a very short distance of Rome, near to what iscalled (but what is not) the Tomb of Nero; robbed her; and beat herto death with her own pilgrim's staff. He was newly married, andgave some of her apparel to his wife: saying that he had bought itat a fair. She, however, who had seen the pilgrim-countess passingthrough their town, recognised some trifle as having belonged toher. Her husband then told her what he had done. She, inconfession, told a priest; and the man was taken, within four daysafter the commission of the murder. 

There are no fixed times for the administration of justice, or itsexecution, in this unaccountable country; and he had been in prisonever since. On the Friday, as he was dining with the otherprisoners, they came and told him he was to be beheaded nextmorning, and took him away. It is very unusual to execute in Lent;but his crime being a very bad one, it was deemed advisable to makean example of him at that time, when great numbers of pilgrims werecoming towards Rome, from all parts, for the Holy Week. I heard ofthis on the Friday evening, and saw the bills up at the churches, calling on the people to pray for the criminal's soul. So, Idetermined to go, and see him executed. 

The beheading was appointed for fourteen and a-half o'clock, Romantime: or a quarter before nine in the forenoon. I had two friendswith me; and as we did not know but that the crowd might be verygreat, we were on the spot by half-past seven. The place ofexecution was near the church of San Giovanni decollato (a doubtfulcompliment to Saint John the Baptist) in one of the impassable backstreets without any footway, of which a great part of Rome iscomposed--a street of rotten houses, which do not seem to belong toanybody, and do not seem to have ever been inhabited, and certainlywere never built on any plan, or for any particular purpose, andhave no window-sashes, and are a little like deserted breweries, and might be warehouses but for having nothing in them. Oppositeto one of these, a white house, the scaffold was built. An untidy, unpainted, uncouth, crazy-looking thing of course: some seven feethigh, perhaps: with a tall, gallows-shaped frame rising above it, in which was the knife, charged with a ponderous mass of iron, allready to descend, and glittering brightly in the morning sun, whenever it looked out, now and then, from behind a cloud. 

There were not many people lingering about; and these were kept ata considerable distance from the scaffold, by parties of the Pope'sdragoons. Two or three hundred foot-soldiers were under arms, standing at ease in clusters here and there; and the officers werewalking up and down in twos and threes, chatting together, andsmoking cigars. 

At the end of the street, was an open space, where there would be adust-heap, and piles of broken crockery, and mounds of vegetablerefuse, but for such things being thrown anywhere and everywhere inRome, and favouring no particular sort of locality. We got into akind of wash-house, belonging to a dwelling-house on this spot; andstanding there in an old cart, and on a heap of cartwheels piledagainst the wall, looked, through a large grated window, at thescaffold, and straight down the street beyond it until, inconsequence of its turning off abruptly to the left, ourperspective was brought to a sudden termination, and had acorpulent officer, in a cocked hat, for its crowning feature. 

Nine o'clock struck, and ten o'clock struck, and nothing happened. All the bells of all the churches rang as usual. A littleparliament of dogs assembled in the open space, and chased eachother, in and out among the soldiers. Fierce-looking Romans of thelowest class, in blue cloaks, russet cloaks, and rags uncloaked, came and went, and talked together. Women and children fluttered, on the skirts of the scanty crowd. One large muddy spot was leftquite bare, like a bald place on a man's head. A cigar-merchant, with an earthen pot of charcoal ashes in one hand, went up anddown, crying his wares. A pastry-merchant divided his attentionbetween the scaffold and his customers. Boys tried to climb upwalls, and tumbled down again. Priests and monks elbowed a passagefor themselves among the people, and stood on tiptoe for a sight ofthe knife: then went away. Artists, in inconceivable hats of themiddle-ages, and beards (thank Heaven!) of no age at all, flashedpicturesque scowls about them from their stations in the throng. One gentleman (connected with the fine arts, I presume) went up anddown in a pair of Hessian-boots, with a red beard hanging down onhis breast, and his long and bright red hair, plaited into twotails, one on either side of his head, which fell over hisshoulders in front of him, very nearly to his waist, and werecarefully entwined and braided!

Eleven o'clock struck and still nothing happened. A rumour gotabout, among the crowd, that the criminal would not confess; inwhich case, the priests would keep him until the Ave Maria(sunset); for it is their merciful custom never finally to turn thecrucifix away from a man at that pass, as one refusing to beshriven, and consequently a sinner abandoned of the Saviour, untilthen. People began to drop off. The officers shrugged theirshoulders and looked doubtful. The dragoons, who came riding upbelow our window, every now and then, to order an unlucky hackney-coach or cart away, as soon as it had comfortably establisheditself, and was covered with exulting people (but never before), became imperious, and quick-tempered. The bald place hadn't astraggling hair upon it; and the corpulent officer, crowning theperspective, took a world of snuff. 

Suddenly, there was a noise of trumpets. 'Attention!' was amongthe foot-soldiers instantly. They were marched up to the scaffoldand formed round it. The dragoons galloped to their nearerstations too. The guillotine became the centre of a wood ofbristling bayonets and shining sabres. The people closed roundnearer, on the flank of the soldiery. A long straggling stream ofmen and boys, who had accompanied the procession from the prison, came pouring into the open space. The bald spot was scarcelydistinguishable from the rest. The cigar and pastry-merchantsresigned all thoughts of business, for the moment, and abandoningthemselves wholly to pleasure, got good situations in the crowd. The perspective ended, now, in a troop of dragoons. And thecorpulent officer, sword in hand, looked hard at a church close tohim, which he could see, but we, the crowd, could not. 

After a short delay, some monks were seen approaching to thescaffold from this church; and above their heads, coming on slowlyand gloomily, the effigy of Christ upon the cross, canopied withblack. This was carried round the foot of the scaffold, to thefront, and turned towards the criminal, that he might see it to thelast. It was hardly in its place, when he appeared on theplatform, bare-footed; his hands bound; and with the collar andneck of his shirt cut away, almost to the shoulder. A young man--six-and-twenty--vigorously made, and well-shaped. Face pale; smalldark moustache; and dark brown hair. 

He had refused to confess, it seemed, without first having his wifebrought to see him; and they had sent an escort for her, which hadoccasioned the delay. 

He immediately kneeled down, below the knife. His neck fittinginto a hole, made for the purpose, in a cross plank, was shut down, by another plank above; exactly like the pillory. Immediatelybelow him was a leathern bag. And into it his head rolledinstantly. 

The executioner was holding it by the hair, and walking with itround the scaffold, showing it to the people, before one quite knewthat the knife had fallen heavily, and with a rattling sound. 

When it had travelled round the four sides of the scaffold, it wasset upon a pole in front--a little patch of black and white, forthe long street to stare at, and the flies to settle on. The eyeswere turned upward, as if he had avoided the sight of the leathernbag, and looked to the crucifix. Every tinge and hue of life hadleft it in that instant. It was dull, cold, livid, wax. The bodyalso. 

There was a great deal of blood. When we left the window, and wentclose up to the scaffold, it was very dirty; one of the two men whowere throwing water over it, turning to help the other lift thebody into a shell, picked his way as through mire. A strangeappearance was the apparent annihilation of the neck. The head wastaken off so close, that it seemed as if the knife had narrowlyescaped crushing the jaw, or shaving off the ear; and the bodylooked as if there were nothing left above the shoulder. 

Nobody cared, or was at all affected. There was no manifestationof disgust, or pity, or indignation, or sorrow. My empty pocketswere tried, several times, in the crowd immediately below thescaffold, as the corpse was being put into its coffin. It was anugly, filthy, careless, sickening spectacle; meaning nothing butbutchery beyond the momentary interest, to the one wretched actor. Yes! Such a sight has one meaning and one warning. Let me notforget it. The speculators in the lottery, station themselves atfavourable points for counting the gouts of blood that spirt out, here or there; and buy that number. It is pretty sure to have arun upon it. 

The body was carted away in due time, the knife cleansed, thescaffold taken down, and all the hideous apparatus removed. Theexecutioner: an outlaw ex officio (what a satire on thePunishment!) who dare not, for his life, cross the Bridge of St. Angelo but to do his work: retreated to his lair, and the show wasover. 

At the head of the collections in the palaces of Rome, the Vatican, of course, with its treasures of art, its enormous galleries, andstaircases, and suites upon suites of immense chambers, rankshighest and stands foremost. Many most noble statues, andwonderful pictures, are there; nor is it heresy to say that thereis a considerable amount of rubbish there, too. When any old pieceof sculpture dug out of the ground, finds a place in a gallerybecause it is old, and without any reference to its intrinsicmerits: and finds admirers by the hundred, because it is there, and for no other reason on earth: there will be no lack ofobjects, very indifferent in the plain eyesight of any one whoemploys so vulgar a property, when he may wear the spectacles ofCant for less than nothing, and establish himself as a man of tastefor the mere trouble of putting them on. 

I unreservedly confess, for myself, that I cannot leave my naturalperception of what is natural and true, at a palace-door, in Italyor elsewhere, as I should leave my shoes if I were travelling inthe East. I cannot forget that there are certain expressions offace, natural to certain passions, and as unchangeable in theirnature as the gait of a lion, or the flight of an eagle. I cannotdismiss from my certain knowledge, such commonplace facts as theordinary proportion of men's arms, and legs, and heads; and when Imeet with performances that do violence to these experiences andrecollections, no matter where they may be, I cannot honestlyadmire them, and think it best to say so; in spite of high criticaladvice that we should sometimes feign an admiration, though we haveit not. 

Therefore, I freely acknowledge that when I see a jolly youngWaterman representing a cherubim, or a Barclay and Perkins'sDrayman depicted as an Evangelist, I see nothing to commend oradmire in the performance, however great its reputed Painter. Neither am I partial to libellous Angels, who play on fiddles andbassoons, for the edification of sprawling monks apparently inliquor. Nor to those Monsieur Tonsons of galleries, Saint Francisand Saint Sebastian; both of whom I submit should have veryuncommon and rare merits, as works of art, to justify theircompound multiplication by Italian Painters. 

It seems to me, too, that the indiscriminate and determinedraptures in which some critics indulge, is incompatible with thetrue appreciation of the really great and transcendent works. Icannot imagine, for example, how the resolute champion ofundeserving pictures can soar to the amazing beauty of Titian'sgreat picture of the Assumption of the Virgin at Venice; or how theman who is truly affected by the sublimity of that exquisiteproduction, or who is truly sensible of the beauty of Tintoretto'sgreat picture of the Assembly of the Blessed in the same place, candiscern in Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, in the Sistine chapel, any general idea, or one pervading thought, in harmony with thestupendous subject. He who will contemplate Raphael's masterpiece, the Transfiguration, and will go away into another chamber of thatsame Vatican, and contemplate another design of Raphael, representing (in incredible caricature) the miraculous stopping ofa great fire by Leo the Fourth--and who will say that he admiresthem both, as works of extraordinary genius--must, as I think, bewanting in his powers of perception in one of the two instances, and, probably, in the high and lofty one. 

It is easy to suggest a doubt, but I have a great doubt whether, sometimes, the rules of art are not too strictly observed, andwhether it is quite well or agreeable that we should knowbeforehand, where this figure will be turning round, and where thatfigure will be lying down, and where there will be drapery infolds, and so forth. When I observe heads inferior to the subject, in pictures of merit, in Italian galleries, I do not attach thatreproach to the Painter, for I have a suspicion that these greatmen, who were, of necessity, very much in the hands of monks andpriests, painted monks and priests a great deal too often. Ifrequently see, in pictures of real power, heads quite below thestory and the painter: and I invariably observe that those headsare of the Convent stamp, and have their counterparts among theConvent inmates of this hour; so, I have settled with myself that, in such cases, the lameness was not with the painter, but with thevanity and ignorance of certain of his employers, who would beapostles--on canvas, at all events. 

The exquisite grace and beauty of Canova's statues; the wonderfulgravity and repose of many of the ancient works in sculpture, bothin the Capitol and the Vatican; and the strength and fire of manyothers; are, in their different ways, beyond all reach of words. They are especially impressive and delightful, after the works ofBernini and his disciples, in which the churches of Rome, from St. Peter's downward, abound; and which are, I verily believe, the mostdetestable class of productions in the wide world. I wouldinfinitely rather (as mere works of art) look upon the threedeities of the Past, the Present, and the Future, in the ChineseCollection, than upon the best of these breezy maniacs; whose everyfold of drapery is blown inside-out; whose smallest vein, orartery, is as big as an ordinary forefinger; whose hair is like anest of lively snakes; and whose attitudes put all otherextravagance to shame. Insomuch that I do honestly believe, therecan be no place in the world, where such intolerable abortions, begotten of the sculptor's chisel, are to be found in suchprofusion, as in Rome. 

There is a fine collection of Egyptian antiquities, in the Vatican;and the ceilings of the rooms in which they are arranged, arepainted to represent a starlight sky in the Desert. It may seem anodd idea, but it is very effective. The grim, half-human monstersfrom the temples, look more grim and monstrous underneath the deepdark blue; it sheds a strange uncertain gloomy air on everything--amystery adapted to the objects; and you leave them, as you findthem, shrouded in a solemn night. 

In the private palaces, pictures are seen to the best advantage. There are seldom so many in one place that the attention needbecome distracted, or the eye confused. You see them veryleisurely; and are rarely interrupted by a crowd of people. Thereare portraits innumerable, by Titian, and Rembrandt, and Vandyke;heads by Guido, and Domenichino, and Carlo Dolci; various subjectsby Correggio, and Murillo, and Raphael, and Salvator Rosa, andSpagnoletto--many of which it would be difficult, indeed, to praisetoo highly, or to praise enough; such is their tenderness andgrace; their noble elevation, purity, and beauty. 

The portrait of Beatrice di Cenci, in the Palazzo Berberini, is apicture almost impossible to be forgotten. Through thetranscendent sweetness and beauty of the face, there is a somethingshining out, that haunts me. I see it now, as I see this paper, ormy pen. The head is loosely draped in white; the light hairfalling down below the linen folds. She has turned suddenlytowards you; and there is an expression in the eyes--although theyare very tender and gentle--as if the wildness of a momentaryterror, or distraction, had been struggled with and overcome, thatinstant; and nothing but a celestial hope, and a beautiful sorrow, and a desolate earthly helplessness remained. Some stories saythat Guido painted it, the night before her execution; some otherstories, that he painted it from memory, after having seen her, onher way to the scaffold. I am willing to believe that, as you seeher on his canvas, so she turned towards him, in the crowd, fromthe first sight of the axe, and stamped upon his mind a look whichhe has stamped on mine as though I had stood beside him in theconcourse. The guilty palace of the Cenci: blighting a wholequarter of the town, as it stands withering away by grains: hadthat face, to my fancy, in its dismal porch, and at its black, blind windows, and flitting up and down its dreary stairs, andgrowing out of the darkness of the ghostly galleries. The Historyis written in the Painting; written, in the dying girl's face, byNature's own hand. And oh! how in that one touch she puts toflight (instead of making kin) the puny world that claim to berelated to her, in right of poor conventional forgeries!

I saw in the Palazzo Spada, the statue of Pompey; the statue atwhose base Caesar fell. A stern, tremendous figure! I imaginedone of greater finish: of the last refinement: full of delicatetouches: losing its distinctness, in the giddy eyes of one whoseblood was ebbing before it, and settling into some such rigidmajesty as this, as Death came creeping over the upturned face. 

The excursions in the neighbourhood of Rome are charming, and wouldbe full of interest were it only for the changing views theyafford, of the wild Campagna. But, every inch of ground, in everydirection, is rich in associations, and in natural beauties. Thereis Albano, with its lovely lake and wooded shore, and with itswine, that certainly has not improved since the days of Horace, andin these times hardly justifies his panegyric. There is squalidTivoli, with the river Anio, diverted from its course, and plungingdown, headlong, some eighty feet in search of it. With itspicturesque Temple of the Sibyl, perched high on a crag; its minorwaterfalls glancing and sparkling in the sun; and one good cavernyawning darkly, where the river takes a fearful plunge and shootson, low down under beetling rocks. There, too, is the Villad'Este, deserted and decaying among groves of melancholy pine andcypress trees, where it seems to lie in state. Then, there isFrascati, and, on the steep above it, the ruins of Tusculum, whereCicero lived, and wrote, and adorned his favourite house (somefragments of it may yet be seen there), and where Cato was born. We saw its ruined amphitheatre on a grey, dull day, when a shrillMarch wind was blowing, and when the scattered stones of the oldcity lay strewn about the lonely eminence, as desolate and dead asthe ashes of a long extinguished fire. 

One day we walked out, a little party of three, to Albano, fourteenmiles distant; possessed by a great desire to go there by theancient Appian way, long since ruined and overgrown. We started athalf-past seven in the morning, and within an hour or so were outupon the open Campagna. For twelve miles we went climbing on, overan unbroken succession of mounds, and heaps, and hills, of ruin. Tombs and temples, overthrown and prostrate; small fragments ofcolumns, friezes, pediments; great blocks of granite and marble;mouldering arches, grass-grown and decayed; ruin enough to build aspacious city from; lay strewn about us. Sometimes, loose walls, built up from these fragments by the shepherds, came across ourpath; sometimes, a ditch between two mounds of broken stones, obstructed our progress; sometimes, the fragments themselves, rolling from beneath our feet, made it a toilsome matter toadvance; but it was always ruin. Now, we tracked a piece of theold road, above the ground; now traced it, underneath a grassycovering, as if that were its grave; but all the way was ruin. Inthe distance, ruined aqueducts went stalking on their giant coursealong the plain; and every breath of wind that swept towards us, stirred early flowers and grasses, springing up, spontaneously, onmiles of ruin. The unseen larks above us, who alone disturbed theawful silence, had their nests in ruin; and the fierce herdsmen, clad in sheepskins, who now and then scowled out upon us from theirsleeping nooks, were housed in ruin. The aspect of the desolateCampagna in one direction, where it was most level, reminded me ofan American prairie; but what is the solitude of a region where menhave never dwelt, to that of a Desert, where a mighty race haveleft their footprints in the earth from which they have vanished;where the resting-places of their Dead, have fallen like theirDead; and the broken hour-glass of Time is but a heap of idle dust!Returning, by the road, at sunset! and looking, from the distance, on the course we had taken in the morning, I almost feel (as I hadfelt when I first saw it, at that hour) as if the sun would neverrise again, but looked its last, that night, upon a ruined world. 

To come again on Rome, by moonlight, after such an expedition, is afitting close to such a day. The narrow streets, devoid offootways, and choked, in every obscure corner, by heaps ofdunghill-rubbish, contrast so strongly, in their crampeddimensions, and their filth, and darkness, with the broad squarebefore some haughty church: in the centre of which, ahieroglyphic-covered obelisk, brought from Egypt in the days of theEmperors, looks strangely on the foreign scene about it; or perhapsan ancient pillar, with its honoured statue overthrown, supports aChristian saint: Marcus Aurelius giving place to Paul, and Trajanto St. Peter. Then, there are the ponderous buildings reared fromthe spoliation of the Coliseum, shutting out the moon, likemountains: while here and there, are broken arches and rent walls, through which it gushes freely, as the life comes pouring from awound. The little town of miserable houses, walled, and shut in bybarred gates, is the quarter where the Jews are locked up nightly, when the clock strikes eight--a miserable place, densely populated, and reeking with bad odours, but where the people are industriousand money-getting. In the day-time, as you make your way along thenarrow streets, you see them all at work: upon the pavement, oftener than in their dark and frouzy shops: furbishing oldclothes, and driving bargains. 

Crossing from these patches of thick darkness, out into the moononce more, the fountain of Trevi, welling from a hundred jets, androlling over mimic rocks, is silvery to the eye and ear. In thenarrow little throat of street, beyond, a booth, dressed out withflaring lamps, and boughs of trees, attracts a group of sulkyRomans round its smoky coppers of hot broth, and cauliflower stew;its trays of fried fish, and its flasks of wine. As you rattleround the sharply-twisting corner, a lumbering sound is heard. Thecoachman stops abruptly, and uncovers, as a van comes slowly by, preceded by a man who bears a large cross; by a torch-bearer; and apriest: the latter chaunting as he goes. It is the Dead Cart, with the bodies of the poor, on their way to burial in the SacredField outside the walls, where they will be thrown into the pitthat will be covered with a stone to-night, and sealed up for ayear. 

But whether, in this ride, you pass by obelisks, or columns ancienttemples, theatres, houses, porticoes, or forums: it is strange tosee, how every fragment, whenever it is possible, has been blendedinto some modern structure, and made to serve some modern purpose--a wall, a dwelling-place, a granary, a stable--some use for whichit never was designed, and associated with which it cannototherwise than lamely assort. It is stranger still, to see howmany ruins of the old mythology: how many fragments of obsoletelegend and observance: have been incorporated into the worship ofChristian altars here; and how, in numberless respects, the falsefaith and the true are fused into a monstrous union. 

From one part of the city, looking out beyond the walls, a squatand stunted pyramid (the burial-place of Caius Cestius) makes anopaque triangle in the moonlight. But, to an English traveller, itserves to mark the grave of Shelley too, whose ashes lie beneath alittle garden near it. Nearer still, almost within its shadow, liethe bones of Keats, 'whose name is writ in water, ' that shinesbrightly in the landscape of a calm Italian night. 

The Holy Week in Rome is supposed to offer great attractions to allvisitors; but, saving for the sights of Easter Sunday, I wouldcounsel those who go to Rome for its own interest, to avoid it atthat time. The ceremonies, in general, are of the most tedious andwearisome kind; the heat and crowd at every one of them, painfullyoppressive; the noise, hubbub, and confusion, quite distracting. We abandoned the pursuit of these shows, very early in theproceedings, and betook ourselves to the Ruins again. But, weplunged into the crowd for a share of the best of the sights; andwhat we saw, I will describe to you. 

At the Sistine chapel, on the Wednesday, we saw very little, for bythe time we reached it (though we were early) the besieging crowdhad filled it to the door, and overflowed into the adjoining hall, where they were struggling, and squeezing, and mutuallyexpostulating, and making great rushes every time a lady wasbrought out faint, as if at least fifty people could beaccommodated in her vacant standing-room. Hanging in the doorwayof the chapel, was a heavy curtain, and this curtain, some twentypeople nearest to it, in their anxiety to hear the chaunting of theMiserere, were continually plucking at, in opposition to eachother, that it might not fall down and stifle the sound of thevoices. The consequence was, that it occasioned the mostextraordinary confusion, and seemed to wind itself about theunwary, like a Serpent. Now, a lady was wrapped up in it, andcouldn't be unwound. Now, the voice of a stifling gentleman washeard inside it, beseeching to be let out. Now, two muffled arms, no man could say of which sex, struggled in it as in a sack. Now, it was carried by a rush, bodily overhead into the chapel, like anawning. Now, it came out the other way, and blinded one of thePope's Swiss Guard, who had arrived, that moment, to set things torights. 

Being seated at a little distance, among two or three of the Pope'sgentlemen, who were very weary and counting the minutes--as perhapshis Holiness was too--we had better opportunities of observing thiseccentric entertainment, than of hearing the Miserere. Sometimes, there was a swell of mournful voices that sounded very pathetic andsad, and died away, into a low strain again; but that was all weheard. 

At another time, there was the Exhibition of Relics in St. Peter's, which took place at between six and seven o'clock in the evening, and was striking from the cathedral being dark and gloomy, andhaving a great many people in it. The place into which the relicswere brought, one by one, by a party of three priests, was a highbalcony near the chief altar. This was the only lighted part ofthe church. There are always a hundred and twelve lamps burningnear the altar, and there were two tall tapers, besides, near theblack statue of St. Peter; but these were nothing in such animmense edifice. The gloom, and the general upturning of faces tothe balcony, and the prostration of true believers on the pavement, as shining objects, like pictures or looking-glasses, were broughtout and shown, had something effective in it, despite the verypreposterous manner in which they were held up for the generaledification, and the great elevation at which they were displayed;which one would think rather calculated to diminish the comfortderivable from a full conviction of their being genuine. 

On the Thursday, we went to see the Pope convey the Sacrament fromthe Sistine chapel, to deposit it in the Capella Paolina, anotherchapel in the Vatican;--a ceremony emblematical of the entombmentof the Saviour before His Resurrection. We waited in a greatgallery with a great crowd of people (three-fourths of themEnglish) for an hour or so, while they were chaunting the Miserere, in the Sistine chapel again. Both chapels opened out of thegallery; and the general attention was concentrated on theoccasional opening and shutting of the door of the one for whichthe Pope was ultimately bound. None of these openings disclosedanything more tremendous than a man on a ladder, lighting a greatquantity of candles; but at each and every opening, there was aterrific rush made at this ladder and this man, something like (Ishould think) a charge of the heavy British cavalry at Waterloo. The man was never brought down, however, nor the ladder; for itperformed the strangest antics in the world among the crowd--whereit was carried by the man, when the candles were all lighted; andfinally it was stuck up against the gallery wall, in a verydisorderly manner, just before the opening of the other chapel, andthe commencement of a new chaunt, announced the approach of hisHoliness. At this crisis, the soldiers of the guard, who had beenpoking the crowd into all sorts of shapes, formed down the gallery:and the procession came up, between the two lines they made. 

There were a few choristers, and then a great many priests, walkingtwo and two, and carrying--the good-looking priests at least--theirlighted tapers, so as to throw the light with a good effect upontheir faces: for the room was darkened. Those who were nothandsome, or who had not long beards, carried THEIR tapers anyhow, and abandoned themselves to spiritual contemplation. Meanwhile, the chaunting was very monotonous and dreary. The processionpassed on, slowly, into the chapel, and the drone of voices wenton, and came on, with it, until the Pope himself appeared, walkingunder a white satin canopy, and bearing the covered Sacrament inboth hands; cardinals and canons clustered round him, making abrilliant show. The soldiers of the guard knelt down as he passed;all the bystanders bowed; and so he passed on into the chapel: thewhite satin canopy being removed from over him at the door, and awhite satin parasol hoisted over his poor old head, in place of it. A few more couples brought up the rear, and passed into the chapelalso. Then, the chapel door was shut; and it was all over; andeverybody hurried off headlong, as for life or death, to seesomething else, and say it wasn't worth the trouble. 

I think the most popular and most crowded sight (excepting those ofEaster Sunday and Monday, which are open to all classes of people)was the Pope washing the feet of Thirteen men, representing thetwelve apostles, and Judas Iscariot. The place in which this piousoffice is performed, is one of the chapels of St. Peter's, which isgaily decorated for the occasion; the thirteen sitting, 'all of arow, ' on a very high bench, and looking particularly uncomfortable, with the eyes of Heaven knows how many English, French, Americans, Swiss, Germans, Russians, Swedes, Norwegians, and other foreigners, nailed to their faces all the time. They are robed in white; andon their heads they wear a stiff white cap, like a large Englishporter-pot, without a handle. Each carries in his hand, a nosegay, of the size of a fine cauliflower; and two of them, on thisoccasion, wore spectacles; which, remembering the characters theysustained, I thought a droll appendage to the costume. There was agreat eye to character. St. John was represented by a good-lookingyoung man. St. Peter, by a grave-looking old gentleman, with aflowing brown beard; and Judas Iscariot by such an enormoushypocrite (I could not make out, though, whether the expression ofhis face was real or assumed) that if he had acted the part to thedeath and had gone away and hanged himself, he would have leftnothing to be desired. 

As the two large boxes, appropriated to ladies at this sight, werefull to the throat, and getting near was hopeless, we posted off, along with a great crowd, to be in time at the Table, where thePope, in person, waits on these Thirteen; and after a prodigiousstruggle at the Vatican staircase, and several personal conflictswith the Swiss guard, the whole crowd swept into the room. It wasa long gallery hung with drapery of white and red, with anothergreat box for ladies (who are obliged to dress in black at theseceremonies, and to wear black veils), a royal box for the King ofNaples and his party; and the table itself, which, set out like aball supper, and ornamented with golden figures of the realapostles, was arranged on an elevated platform on one side of thegallery. The counterfeit apostles' knives and forks were laid outon that side of the table which was nearest to the wall, so thatthey might be stared at again, without let or hindrance. 

The body of the room was full of male strangers; the crowd immense;the heat very great; and the pressure sometimes frightful. It wasat its height, when the stream came pouring in, from the feet-washing; and then there were such shrieks and outcries, that aparty of Piedmontese dragoons went to the rescue of the Swissguard, and helped them to calm the tumult. 

The ladies were particularly ferocious, in their struggles forplaces. One lady of my acquaintance was seized round the waist, inthe ladies' box, by a strong matron, and hoisted out of her place;and there was another lady (in a back row in the same box) whoimproved her position by sticking a large pin into the ladiesbefore her. 

The gentlemen about me were remarkably anxious to see what was onthe table; and one Englishman seemed to have embarked the wholeenergy of his nature in the determination to discover whether therewas any mustard. 'By Jupiter there's vinegar!' I heard him say tohis friend, after he had stood on tiptoe an immense time, and hadbeen crushed and beaten on all sides. 'And there's oil! I sawthem distinctly, in cruets! Can any gentleman, in front there, seemustard on the table? Sir, will you oblige me! DO you see aMustard-Pot?'

The apostles and Judas appearing on the platform, after muchexpectation, were marshalled, in line, in front of the table, withPeter at the top; and a good long stare was taken at them by thecompany, while twelve of them took a long smell at their nosegays, and Judas--moving his lips very obtrusively--engaged in inwardprayer. Then, the Pope, clad in a scarlet robe, and wearing on hishead a skull-cap of white satin, appeared in the midst of a crowdof Cardinals and other dignitaries, and took in his hand a littlegolden ewer, from which he poured a little water over one ofPeter's hands, while one attendant held a golden basin; a second, afine cloth; a third, Peter's nosegay, which was taken from himduring the operation. This his Holiness performed, withconsiderable expedition, on every man in the line (Judas, Iobserved, to be particularly overcome by his condescension); andthen the whole Thirteen sat down to dinner. Grace said by thePope. Peter in the chair. 

There was white wine, and red wine: and the dinner looked verygood. The courses appeared in portions, one for each apostle: andthese being presented to the Pope, by Cardinals upon their knees, were by him handed to the Thirteen. The manner in which Judas grewmore white-livered over his victuals, and languished, with his headon one side, as if he had no appetite, defies all description. Peter was a good, sound, old man, and went in, as the saying is, 'to win;' eating everything that was given him (he got the best:being first in the row) and saying nothing to anybody. The dishesappeared to be chiefly composed of fish and vegetables. The Popehelped the Thirteen to wine also; and, during the whole dinner, somebody read something aloud, out of a large book--the Bible, Ipresume--which nobody could hear, and to which nobody paid theleast attention. The Cardinals, and other attendants, smiled toeach other, from time to time, as if the thing were a great farce;and if they thought so, there is little doubt they were perfectlyright. His Holiness did what he had to do, as a sensible man getsthrough a troublesome ceremony, and seemed very glad when it wasall over. 

The Pilgrims' Suppers: where lords and ladies waited on thePilgrims, in token of humility, and dried their feet when they hadbeen well washed by deputy: were very attractive. But, of all themany spectacles of dangerous reliance on outward observances, inthemselves mere empty forms, none struck me half so much as theScala Santa, or Holy Staircase, which I saw several times, but tothe greatest advantage, or disadvantage, on Good Friday. 

This holy staircase is composed of eight-and-twenty steps, said tohave belonged to Pontius Pilate's house and to be the identicalstair on which Our Saviour trod, in coming down from the judgment-seat. Pilgrims ascend it, only on their knees. It is steep; and, at the summit, is a chapel, reported to be full of relics; intowhich they peep through some iron bars, and then come down again, by one of two side staircases, which are not sacred, and may bewalked on. 

On Good Friday, there were, on a moderate computation, a hundredpeople, slowly shuffling up these stairs, on their knees, at onetime; while others, who were going up, or had come down--and a fewwho had done both, and were going up again for the second time--stood loitering in the porch below, where an old gentleman in asort of watch-box, rattled a tin canister, with a slit in the top, incessantly, to remind them that he took the money. The majoritywere country-people, male and female. There were four or fiveJesuit priests, however, and some half-dozen well-dressed women. Awhole school of boys, twenty at least, were about half-way up--evidently enjoying it very much. They were all wedged together, pretty closely; but the rest of the company gave the boys as wide aberth as possible, in consequence of their betraying somerecklessness in the management of their boots. 

I never, in my life, saw anything at once so ridiculous, and sounpleasant, as this sight--ridiculous in the absurd incidentsinseparable from it; and unpleasant in its senseless and unmeaningdegradation. There are two steps to begin with, and then a ratherbroad landing. The more rigid climbers went along this landing ontheir knees, as well as up the stairs; and the figures they cut, intheir shuffling progress over the level surface, no description canpaint. Then, to see them watch their opportunity from the porch, and cut in where there was a place next the wall! And to see oneman with an umbrella (brought on purpose, for it was a fine day)hoisting himself, unlawfully, from stair to stair! And to observea demure lady of fifty-five or so, looking back, every now andthen, to assure herself that her legs were properly disposed!

There were such odd differences in the speed of different people, too. Some got on as if they were doing a match against time;others stopped to say a prayer on every step. This man touchedevery stair with his forehead, and kissed it; that man scratchedhis head all the way. The boys got on brilliantly, and were up anddown again before the old lady had accomplished her half-dozenstairs. But most of the penitents came down, very sprightly andfresh, as having done a real good substantial deed which it wouldtake a good deal of sin to counterbalance; and the old gentleman inthe watch-box was down upon them with his canister while they werein this humour, I promise you. 

As if such a progress were not in its nature inevitably drollenough, there lay, on the top of the stairs, a wooden figure on acrucifix, resting on a sort of great iron saucer: so rickety andunsteady, that whenever an enthusiastic person kissed the figure, with more than usual devotion, or threw a coin into the saucer, with more than common readiness (for it served in this respect as asecond or supplementary canister), it gave a great leap and rattle, and nearly shook the attendant lamp out: horribly frightening thepeople further down, and throwing the guilty party into unspeakableembarrassment. 

On Easter Sunday, as well as on the preceding Thursday, the Popebestows his benediction on the people, from the balcony in front ofSt. Peter's. This Easter Sunday was a day so bright and blue: socloudless, balmy, wonderfully bright: that all the previous badweather vanished from the recollection in a moment. I had seen theThursday's Benediction dropping damply on some hundreds ofumbrellas, but there was not a sparkle then, in all the hundredfountains of Rome--such fountains as they are!--and on this Sundaymorning they were running diamonds. The miles of miserable streetsthrough which we drove (compelled to a certain course by the Pope'sdragoons: the Roman police on such occasions) were so full ofcolour, that nothing in them was capable of wearing a faded aspect. The common people came out in their gayest dresses; the richerpeople in their smartest vehicles; Cardinals rattled to the churchof the Poor Fishermen in their state carriages; shabby magnificenceflaunted its thread-bare liveries and tarnished cocked hats, in thesun; and every coach in Rome was put in requisition for the GreatPiazza of St. Peter's. 

One hundred and fifty thousand people were there at least! Yetthere was ample room. How many carriages were there, I don't know;yet there was room for them too, and to spare. The great steps ofthe church were densely crowded. There were many of the Contadini, from Albano (who delight in red), in that part of the square, andthe mingling of bright colours in the crowd was beautiful. Belowthe steps the troops were ranged. In the magnificent proportionsof the place they looked like a bed of flowers. Sulky Romans, lively peasants from the neighbouring country, groups of pilgrimsfrom distant parts of Italy, sight-seeing foreigners of allnations, made a murmur in the clear air, like so many insects; andhigh above them all, plashing and bubbling, and making rainbowcolours in the light, the two delicious fountains welled andtumbled bountifully. 

A kind of bright carpet was hung over the front of the balcony; andthe sides of the great window were bedecked with crimson drapery. An awning was stretched, too, over the top, to screen the old manfrom the hot rays of the sun. As noon approached, all eyes wereturned up to this window. In due time, the chair was seenapproaching to the front, with the gigantic fans of peacock'sfeathers, close behind. The doll within it (for the balcony isvery high) then rose up, and stretched out its tiny arms, while allthe male spectators in the square uncovered, and some, but not byany means the greater part, kneeled down. The guns upon theramparts of the Castle of St. Angelo proclaimed, next moment, thatthe benediction was given; drums beat; trumpets sounded; armsclashed; and the great mass below, suddenly breaking into smallerheaps, and scattering here and there in rills, was stirred likeparti-coloured sand. 

What a bright noon it was, as we rode away! The Tiber was nolonger yellow, but blue. There was a blush on the old bridges, that made them fresh and hale again. The Pantheon, with itsmajestic front, all seamed and furrowed like an old face, hadsummer light upon its battered walls. Every squalid and desolatehut in the Eternal City (bear witness every grim old palace, to thefilth and misery of the plebeian neighbour that elbows it, ascertain as Time has laid its grip on its patrician head!) was freshand new with some ray of the sun. The very prison in the crowdedstreet, a whirl of carriages and people, had some stray sense ofthe day, dropping through its chinks and crevices: and dismalprisoners who could not wind their faces round the barricading ofthe blocked-up windows, stretched out their hands, and clinging tothe rusty bars, turned THEM towards the overflowing street: as ifit were a cheerful fire, and could be shared in, that way. 

But, when the night came on, without a cloud to dim the full moon, what a sight it was to see the Great Square full once more, and thewhole church, from the cross to the ground, lighted withinnumerable lanterns, tracing out the architecture, and winking andshining all round the colonnade of the piazza! And what a sense ofexultation, joy, delight, it was, when the great bell struck half-past seven--on the instant--to behold one bright red mass of fire, soar gallantly from the top of the cupola to the extremest summitof the cross, and the moment it leaped into its place, become thesignal of a bursting out of countless lights, as great, and red, and blazing as itself, from every part of the gigantic church; sothat every cornice, capital, and smallest ornament of stone, expressed itself in fire: and the black, solid groundwork of theenormous dome seemed to grow transparent as an egg-shell!

A train of gunpowder, an electric chain--nothing could be fired, more suddenly and swiftly, than this second illumination; and whenwe had got away, and gone upon a distant height, and looked towardsit two hours afterwards, there it still stood, shining andglittering in the calm night like a jewel! Not a line of itsproportions wanting; not an angle blunted; not an atom of itsradiance lost. 

The next night--Easter Monday--there was a great display offireworks from the Castle of St. Angelo. We hired a room in anopposite house, and made our way, to our places, in good time, through a dense mob of people choking up the square in front, andall the avenues leading to it; and so loading the bridge by whichthe castle is approached, that it seemed ready to sink into therapid Tiber below. There are statues on this bridge (execrableworks), and, among them, great vessels full of burning tow wereplaced: glaring strangely on the faces of the crowd, and not lessstrangely on the stone counterfeits above them. 

The show began with a tremendous discharge of cannon; and then, fortwenty minutes or half an hour, the whole castle was one incessantsheet of fire, and labyrinth of blazing wheels of every colour, size, and speed: while rockets streamed into the sky, not by onesor twos, or scores, but hundreds at a time. The concluding burst--the Girandola--was like the blowing up into the air of the wholemassive castle, without smoke or dust. 

In half an hour afterwards, the immense concourse had dispersed;the moon was looking calmly down upon her wrinkled image in theriver; and half-a-dozen men and boys, with bits of lighted candlein their hands: moving here and there, in search of anything worthhaving, that might have been dropped in the press: had the wholescene to themselves. 

By way of contrast we rode out into old ruined Rome, after all thisfiring and booming, to take our leave of the Coliseum. I had seenit by moonlight before (I could never get through a day withoutgoing back to it), but its tremendous solitude that night is pastall telling. The ghostly pillars in the Forum; the TriumphalArches of Old Emperors; those enormous masses of ruins which wereonce their palaces; the grass-grown mounds that mark the graves ofruined temples; the stones of the Via Sacra, smooth with the treadof feet in ancient Rome; even these were dimmed, in theirtranscendent melancholy, by the dark ghost of its bloody holidays, erect and grim; haunting the old scene; despoiled by pillagingPopes and fighting Princes, but not laid; wringing wild hands ofweed, and grass, and bramble; and lamenting to the night in everygap and broken arch--the shadow of its awful self, immovable!

As we lay down on the grass of the Campagna, next day, on our wayto Florence, hearing the larks sing, we saw that a little woodencross had been erected on the spot where the poor Pilgrim Countesswas murdered. So, we piled some loose stones about it, as thebeginning of a mound to her memory, and wondered if we should everrest there again, and look back at Rome. 

CHAPTER XI--A RAPID DIORAMA

We are bound for Naples! And we cross the threshold of the EternalCity at yonder gate, the Gate of San Giovanni Laterano, where thetwo last objects that attract the notice of a departing visitor, and the two first objects that attract the notice of an arrivingone, are a proud church and a decaying ruin--good emblems of Rome. 

Our way lies over the Campagna, which looks more solemn on a brightblue day like this, than beneath a darker sky; the great extent ofruin being plainer to the eye: and the sunshine through the archesof the broken aqueducts, showing other broken arches shiningthrough them in the melancholy distance. When we have traversedit, and look back from Albano, its dark, undulating surface liesbelow us like a stagnant lake, or like a broad, dull Lethe flowinground the walls of Rome, and separating it from all the world! Howoften have the Legions, in triumphant march, gone glittering acrossthat purple waste, so silent and unpeopled now! How often has thetrain of captives looked, with sinking hearts, upon the distantcity, and beheld its population pouring out, to hail the return oftheir conqueror! What riot, sensuality and murder, have run mad inthe vast palaces now heaps of brick and shattered marble! Whatglare of fires, and roar of popular tumult, and wail of pestilenceand famine, have come sweeping over the wild plain where nothing isnow heard but the wind, and where the solitary lizards gambolunmolested in the sun!

The train of wine-carts going into Rome, each driven by a shaggypeasant reclining beneath a little gipsy-fashioned canopy of sheep-skin, is ended now, and we go toiling up into a higher countrywhere there are trees. The next day brings us on the PontineMarshes, wearily flat and lonesome, and overgrown with brushwood, and swamped with water, but with a fine road made across them, shaded by a long, long avenue. Here and there, we pass a solitaryguard-house; here and there a hovel, deserted, and walled up. Someherdsmen loiter on the banks of the stream beside the road, andsometimes a flat-bottomed boat, towed by a man, comes rippling idlyalong it. A horseman passes occasionally, carrying a long guncross-wise on the saddle before him, and attended by fierce dogs;but there is nothing else astir save the wind and the shadows, until we come in sight of Terracina. 

How blue and bright the sea, rolling below the windows of the innso famous in robber stories! How picturesque the great crags andpoints of rock overhanging to-morrow's narrow road, where galley-slaves are working in the quarries above, and the sentinels whoguard them lounge on the sea-shore! All night there is the murmurof the sea beneath the stars; and, in the morning, just atdaybreak, the prospect suddenly becoming expanded, as if by amiracle, reveals--in the far distance, across the sea there!--Naples with its islands, and Vesuvius spouting fire! Within aquarter of an hour, the whole is gone as if it were a vision in theclouds, and there is nothing but the sea and sky. 

The Neapolitan frontier crossed, after two hours' travelling; andthe hungriest of soldiers and custom-house officers with difficultyappeased; we enter, by a gateless portal, into the first Neapolitantown--Fondi. Take note of Fondi, in the name of all that iswretched and beggarly. 

A filthy channel of mud and refuse meanders down the centre of themiserable streets, fed by obscene rivulets that trickle from theabject houses. There is not a door, a window, or a shutter; not aroof, a wall, a post, or a pillar, in all Fondi, but is decayed, and crazy, and rotting away. The wretched history of the town, with all its sieges and pillages by Barbarossa and the rest, mighthave been acted last year. How the gaunt dogs that sneak about themiserable streets, come to be alive, and undevoured by the people, is one of the enigmas of the world. 

A hollow-cheeked and scowling people they are! All beggars; butthat's nothing. Look at them as they gather round. Some, are tooindolent to come down-stairs, or are too wisely mistrustful of thestairs, perhaps, to venture: so stretch out their lean hands fromupper windows, and howl; others, come flocking about us, fightingand jostling one another, and demanding, incessantly, charity forthe love of God, charity for the love of the Blessed Virgin, charity for the love of all the Saints. A group of miserablechildren, almost naked, screaming forth the same petition, discoverthat they can see themselves reflected in the varnish of thecarriage, and begin to dance and make grimaces, that they may havethe pleasure of seeing their antics repeated in this mirror. Acrippled idiot, in the act of striking one of them who drowns hisclamorous demand for charity, observes his angry counterpart in thepanel, stops short, and thrusting out his tongue, begins to wag hishead and chatter. The shrill cry raised at this, awakens half-a-dozen wild creatures wrapped in frowsy brown cloaks, who are lyingon the church-steps with pots and pans for sale. These, scramblingup, approach, and beg defiantly. 'I am hungry. Give me something. Listen to me, Signor. I am hungry!' Then, a ghastly old woman, fearful of being too late, comes hobbling down the street, stretching out one hand, and scratching herself all the way withthe other, and screaming, long before she can be heard, 'Charity, charity! I'll go and pray for you directly, beautiful lady, ifyou'll give me charity!' Lastly, the members of a brotherhood forburying the dead: hideously masked, and attired in shabby blackrobes, white at the skirts, with the splashes of many muddywinters: escorted by a dirty priest, and a congenial cross-bearer:come hurrying past. Surrounded by this motley concourse, we moveout of Fondi: bad bright eyes glaring at us, out of the darknessof every crazy tenement, like glistening fragments of its filth andputrefaction. 

A noble mountain-pass, with the ruins of a fort on a strongeminence, traditionally called the Fort of Fra Diavolo; the oldtown of Itri, like a device in pastry, built up, almostperpendicularly, on a hill, and approached by long steep flights ofsteps; beautiful Mola di Gaeta, whose wines, like those of Albano, have degenerated since the days of Horace, or his taste for winewas bad: which is not likely of one who enjoyed it so much, andextolled it so well; another night upon the road at St. Agatha; arest next day at Capua, which is picturesque, but hardly soseductive to a traveller now, as the soldiers of Praetorian Romewere wont to find the ancient city of that name; a flat road amongvines festooned and looped from tree to tree; and Mount Vesuviusclose at hand at last!--its cone and summit whitened with snow; andits smoke hanging over it, in the heavy atmosphere of the day, likea dense cloud. So we go, rattling down hill, into Naples. 

A funeral is coming up the street, towards us. The body, on anopen bier, borne on a kind of palanquin, covered with a gay clothof crimson and gold. The mourners, in white gowns and masks. Ifthere be death abroad, life is well represented too, for all Napleswould seem to be out of doors, and tearing to and fro in carriages. Some of these, the common Vetturino vehicles, are drawn by threehorses abreast, decked with smart trappings and great abundance ofbrazen ornament, and always going very fast. Not that their loadsare light; for the smallest of them has at least six people inside, four in front, four or five more hanging on behind, and two orthree more, in a net or bag below the axle-tree, where they liehalf-suffocated with mud and dust. Exhibitors of Punch, buffosingers with guitars, reciters of poetry, reciters of stories, arow of cheap exhibitions with clowns and showmen, drums, andtrumpets, painted cloths representing the wonders within, andadmiring crowds assembled without, assist the whirl and bustle. Ragged lazzaroni lie asleep in doorways, archways, and kennels; thegentry, gaily dressed, are dashing up and down in carriages on theChiaji, or walking in the Public Gardens; and quiet letter-writers, perched behind their little desks and inkstands under the Porticoof the Great Theatre of San Carlo, in the public street, arewaiting for clients. 

Here is a galley-slave in chains, who wants a letter written to afriend. He approaches a clerkly-looking man, sitting under thecorner arch, and makes his bargain. He has obtained permission ofthe sentinel who guards him: who stands near, leaning against thewall and cracking nuts. The galley-slave dictates in the ear ofthe letter-writer, what he desires to say; and as he can't readwriting, looks intently in his face, to read there whether he setsdown faithfully what he is told. After a time, the galley-slavebecomes discursive--incoherent. The secretary pauses and rubs hischin. The galley-slave is voluble and energetic. The secretary, at length, catches the idea, and with the air of a man who knowshow to word it, sets it down; stopping, now and then, to glanceback at his text admiringly. The galley-slave is silent. Thesoldier stoically cracks his nuts. Is there anything more to say?inquires the letter-writer. No more. Then listen, friend of mine. He reads it through. The galley-slave is quite enchanted. It isfolded, and addressed, and given to him, and he pays the fee. Thesecretary falls back indolently in his chair, and takes a book. The galley-slave gathers up an empty sack. The sentinel throwsaway a handful of nut-shells, shoulders his musket, and away theygo together. 

Why do the beggars rap their chins constantly, with their righthands, when you look at them? Everything is done in pantomime inNaples, and that is the conventional sign for hunger. A man who isquarrelling with another, yonder, lays the palm of his right handon the back of his left, and shakes the two thumbs--expressive of adonkey's ears--whereat his adversary is goaded to desperation. Twopeople bargaining for fish, the buyer empties an imaginarywaistcoat pocket when he is told the price, and walks away withouta word: having thoroughly conveyed to the seller that he considersit too dear. Two people in carriages, meeting, one touches hislips, twice or thrice, holding up the five fingers of his righthand, and gives a horizontal cut in the air with the palm. Theother nods briskly, and goes his way. He has been invited to afriendly dinner at half-past five o'clock, and will certainly come. 

All over Italy, a peculiar shake of the right hand from the wrist, with the forefinger stretched out, expresses a negative--the onlynegative beggars will ever understand. But, in Naples, those fivefingers are a copious language. 

All this, and every other kind of out-door life and stir, andmacaroni-eating at sunset, and flower-selling all day long, andbegging and stealing everywhere and at all hours, you see upon thebright sea-shore, where the waves of the bay sparkle merrily. But, lovers and hunters of the picturesque, let us not keep toostudiously out of view the miserable depravity, degradation, andwretchedness, with which this gay Neapolitan life is inseparablyassociated! It is not well to find Saint Giles's so repulsive, andthe Porta Capuana so attractive. A pair of naked legs and a raggedred scarf, do not make ALL the difference between what isinteresting and what is coarse and odious? Painting and poetisingfor ever, if you will, the beauties of this most beautiful andlovely spot of earth, let us, as our duty, try to associate a newpicturesque with some faint recognition of man's destiny andcapabilities; more hopeful, I believe, among the ice and snow ofthe North Pole, than in the sun and bloom of Naples. 

Capri--once made odious by the deified beast Tiberius--Ischia, Procida, and the thousand distant beauties of the Bay, lie in theblue sea yonder, changing in the mist and sunshine twenty times a-day: now close at hand, now far off, now unseen. The fairestcountry in the world, is spread about us. Whether we turn towardsthe Miseno shore of the splendid watery amphitheatre, and go by theGrotto of Posilipo to the Grotto del Cane and away to Baiae: ortake the other way, towards Vesuvius and Sorrento, it is onesuccession of delights. In the last-named direction, where, overdoors and archways, there are countless little images of SanGennaro, with his Canute's hand stretched out, to check the fury ofthe Burning Mountain, we are carried pleasantly, by a railroad onthe beautiful Sea Beach, past the town of Torre del Greco, builtupon the ashes of the former town destroyed by an eruption ofVesuvius, within a hundred years; and past the flat-roofed houses, granaries, and macaroni manufactories; to Castel-a-Mare, with itsruined castle, now inhabited by fishermen, standing in the sea upona heap of rocks. Here, the railroad terminates; but, hence we mayride on, by an unbroken succession of enchanting bays, andbeautiful scenery, sloping from the highest summit of Saint Angelo, the highest neighbouring mountain, down to the water's edge--amongvineyards, olive-trees, gardens of oranges and lemons, orchards, heaped-up rocks, green gorges in the hills--and by the bases ofsnow-covered heights, and through small towns with handsome, dark-haired women at the doors--and pass delicious summer villas--toSorrento, where the Poet Tasso drew his inspiration from the beautysurrounding him. Returning, we may climb the heights above Castel-a-Mare, and looking down among the boughs and leaves, see the crispwater glistening in the sun; and clusters of white houses indistant Naples, dwindling, in the great extent of prospect, down todice. The coming back to the city, by the beach again, at sunset:with the glowing sea on one side, and the darkening mountain, withits smoke and flame, upon the other: is a sublime conclusion tothe glory of the day. 

That church by the Porta Capuana--near the old fisher-market in thedirtiest quarter of dirty Naples, where the revolt of Masaniellobegan--is memorable for having been the scene of one of hisearliest proclamations to the people, and is particularlyremarkable for nothing else, unless it be its waxen and bejewelledSaint in a glass case, with two odd hands; or the enormous numberof beggars who are constantly rapping their chins there, like abattery of castanets. The cathedral with the beautiful door, andthe columns of African and Egyptian granite that once ornamentedthe temple of Apollo, contains the famous sacred blood of SanGennaro or Januarius: which is preserved in two phials in a silvertabernacle, and miraculously liquefies three times a-year, to thegreat admiration of the people. At the same moment, the stone(distant some miles) where the Saint suffered martyrdom, becomesfaintly red. It is said that the officiating priests turn faintlyred also, sometimes, when these miracles occur. 

The old, old men who live in hovels at the entrance of theseancient catacombs, and who, in their age and infirmity, seemwaiting here, to be buried themselves, are members of a curiousbody, called the Royal Hospital, who are the official attendants atfunerals. Two of these old spectres totter away, with lightedtapers, to show the caverns of death--as unconcerned as if theywere immortal. They were used as burying-places for three hundredyears; and, in one part, is a large pit full of skulls and bones, said to be the sad remains of a great mortality occasioned by aplague. In the rest there is nothing but dust. They consist, chiefly, of great wide corridors and labyrinths, hewn out of therock. At the end of some of these long passages, are unexpectedglimpses of the daylight, shining down from above. It looks asghastly and as strange; among the torches, and the dust, and thedark vaults: as if it, too, were dead and buried. 

The present burial-place lies out yonder, on a hill between thecity and Vesuvius. The old Campo Santo with its three hundred andsixty-five pits, is only used for those who die in hospitals, andprisons, and are unclaimed by their friends. The graceful newcemetery, at no great distance from it, though yet unfinished, hasalready many graves among its shrubs and flowers, and airycolonnades. It might be reasonably objected elsewhere, that someof the tombs are meretricious and too fanciful; but the generalbrightness seems to justify it here; and Mount Vesuvius, separatedfrom them by a lovely slope of ground, exalts and saddens thescene. 

If it be solemn to behold from this new City of the Dead, with itsdark smoke hanging in the clear sky, how much more awful andimpressive is it, viewed from the ghostly ruins of Herculaneum andPompeii!

Stand at the bottom of the great market-place of Pompeii, and lookup the silent streets, through the ruined temples of Jupiter andIsis, over the broken houses with their inmost sanctuaries open tothe day, away to Mount Vesuvius, bright and snowy in the peacefuldistance; and lose all count of time, and heed of other things, inthe strange and melancholy sensation of seeing the Destroyed andthe Destroyer making this quiet picture in the sun. Then, rambleon, and see, at every turn, the little familiar tokens of humanhabitation and every-day pursuits; the chafing of the bucket-ropein the stone rim of the exhausted well; the track of carriage-wheels in the pavement of the street; the marks of drinking-vesselson the stone counter of the wine-shop; the amphorae in privatecellars, stored away so many hundred years ago, and undisturbed tothis hour--all rendering the solitude and deadly lonesomeness ofthe place, ten thousand times more solemn, than if the volcano, inits fury, had swept the city from the earth, and sunk it in thebottom of the sea. 

After it was shaken by the earthquake which preceded the eruption, workmen were employed in shaping out, in stone, new ornaments fortemples and other buildings that had suffered. Here lies theirwork, outside the city gate, as if they would return to-morrow. 

In the cellar of Diomede's house, where certain skeletons werefound huddled together, close to the door, the impression of theirbodies on the ashes, hardened with the ashes, and became stampedand fixed there, after they had shrunk, inside, to scanty bones. So, in the theatre of Herculaneum, a comic mask, floating on thestream when it was hot and liquid, stamped its mimic features in itas it hardened into stone; and now, it turns upon the stranger thefantastic look it turned upon the audiences in that same theatretwo thousand years ago. 

Next to the wonder of going up and down the streets, and in and outof the houses, and traversing the secret chambers of the temples ofa religion that has vanished from the earth, and finding so manyfresh traces of remote antiquity: as if the course of Time hadbeen stopped after this desolation, and there had been no nightsand days, months, years, and centuries, since: nothing is moreimpressive and terrible than the many evidences of the searchingnature of the ashes, as bespeaking their irresistible power, andthe impossibility of escaping them. In the wine-cellars, theyforced their way into the earthen vessels: displacing the wine andchoking them, to the brim, with dust. In the tombs, they forcedthe ashes of the dead from the funeral urns, and rained new ruineven into them. The mouths, and eyes, and skulls of all theskeletons, were stuffed with this terrible hail. In Herculaneum, where the flood was of a different and a heavier kind, it rolledin, like a sea. Imagine a deluge of water turned to marble, at itsheight--and that is what is called 'the lava' here. 

Some workmen were digging the gloomy well on the brink of which wenow stand, looking down, when they came on some of the stonebenches of the theatre--those steps (for such they seem) at thebottom of the excavation--and found the buried city of Herculaneum. Presently going down, with lighted torches, we are perplexed bygreat walls of monstrous thickness, rising up between the benches, shutting out the stage, obtruding their shapeless forms in absurdplaces, confusing the whole plan, and making it a disordered dream. We cannot, at first, believe, or picture to ourselves, that THIScame rolling in, and drowned the city; and that all that is nothere, has been cut away, by the axe, like solid stone. But thisperceived and understood, the horror and oppression of its presenceare indescribable. 

Many of the paintings on the walls in the roofless chambers of bothcities, or carefully removed to the museum at Naples, are as freshand plain, as if they had been executed yesterday. Here aresubjects of still life, as provisions, dead game, bottles, glasses, and the like; familiar classical stories, or mythological fables, always forcibly and plainly told; conceits of cupids, quarrelling, sporting, working at trades; theatrical rehearsals; poets readingtheir productions to their friends; inscriptions chalked upon thewalls; political squibs, advertisements, rough drawings byschoolboys; everything to people and restore the ancient cities, inthe fancy of their wondering visitor. Furniture, too, you see, ofevery kind--lamps, tables, couches; vessels for eating, drinking, and cooking; workmen's tools, surgical instruments, tickets for thetheatre, pieces of money, personal ornaments, bunches of keys foundclenched in the grasp of skeletons, helmets of guards and warriors;little household bells, yet musical with their old domestic tones. 

The least among these objects, lends its aid to swell the interestof Vesuvius, and invest it with a perfect fascination. Thelooking, from either ruined city, into the neighbouring groundsovergrown with beautiful vines and luxuriant trees; and rememberingthat house upon house, temple on temple, building after building, and street after street, are still lying underneath the roots ofall the quiet cultivation, waiting to be turned up to the light ofday; is something so wonderful, so full of mystery, so captivatingto the imagination, that one would think it would be paramount, andyield to nothing else. To nothing but Vesuvius; but the mountainis the genius of the scene. From every indication of the ruin ithas worked, we look, again, with an absorbing interest to where itssmoke is rising up into the sky. It is beyond us, as we thread theruined streets: above us, as we stand upon the ruined walls, wefollow it through every vista of broken columns, as we wanderthrough the empty court-yards of the houses; and through thegarlandings and interlacings of every wanton vine. Turning away toPaestum yonder, to see the awful structures built, the least agedof them, hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, and standingyet, erect in lonely majesty, upon the wild, malaria-blightedplain--we watch Vesuvius as it disappears from the prospect, andwatch for it again, on our return, with the same thrill ofinterest: as the doom and destiny of all this beautiful country, biding its terrible time. 

It is very warm in the sun, on this early spring-day, when wereturn from Paestum, but very cold in the shade: insomuch, thatalthough we may lunch, pleasantly, at noon, in the open air, by thegate of Pompeii, the neighbouring rivulet supplies thick ice forour wine. But, the sun is shining brightly; there is not a cloudor speck of vapour in the whole blue sky, looking down upon the bayof Naples; and the moon will be at the full to-night. No matterthat the snow and ice lie thick upon the summit of Vesuvius, orthat we have been on foot all day at Pompeii, or that croakersmaintain that strangers should not be on the mountain by night, insuch an unusual season. Let us take advantage of the fine weather;make the best of our way to Resina, the little village at the footof the mountain; prepare ourselves, as well as we can, on so shorta notice, at the guide's house; ascend at once, and have sunsethalf-way up, moonlight at the top, and midnight to come down in!

At four o'clock in the afternoon, there is a terrible uproar in thelittle stable-yard of Signior Salvatore, the recognised head-guide, with the gold band round his cap; and thirty under-guides who areall scuffling and screaming at once, are preparing half-a-dozensaddled ponies, three litters, and some stout staves, for thejourney. Every one of the thirty, quarrels with the other twenty-nine, and frightens the six ponies; and as much of the village ascan possibly squeeze itself into the little stable-yard, participates in the tumult, and gets trodden on by the cattle. 

After much violent skirmishing, and more noise than would sufficefor the storming of Naples, the procession starts. The head-guide, who is liberally paid for all the attendants, rides a little inadvance of the party; the other thirty guides proceed on foot. Eight go forward with the litters that are to be used by-and-by;and the remaining two-and-twenty beg. 

We ascend, gradually, by stony lanes like rough broad flights ofstairs, for some time. At length, we leave these, and thevineyards on either side of them, and emerge upon a bleak bareregion where the lava lies confusedly, in enormous rusty masses; asif the earth had been ploughed up by burning thunderbolts. Andnow, we halt to see the sun set. The change that falls upon thedreary region, and on the whole mountain, as its red light fades, and the night comes on--and the unutterable solemnity anddreariness that reign around, who that has witnessed it, can everforget!

It is dark, when after winding, for some time, over the brokenground, we arrive at the foot of the cone: which is extremelysteep, and seems to rise, almost perpendicularly, from the spotwhere we dismount. The only light is reflected from the snow, deep, hard, and white, with which the cone is covered. It is nowintensely cold, and the air is piercing. The thirty-one havebrought no torches, knowing that the moon will rise before we reachthe top. Two of the litters are devoted to the two ladies; thethird, to a rather heavy gentleman from Naples, whose hospitalityand good-nature have attached him to the expedition, and determinedhim to assist in doing the honours of the mountain. The ratherheavy gentleman is carried by fifteen men; each of the ladies byhalf-a-dozen. We who walk, make the best use of our staves; and sothe whole party begin to labour upward over the snow, --as if theywere toiling to the summit of an antediluvian Twelfth-cake. 

We are a long time toiling up; and the head-guide looks oddly abouthim when one of the company--not an Italian, though an habitue ofthe mountain for many years: whom we will call, for our presentpurpose, Mr. Pickle of Portici--suggests that, as it is freezinghard, and the usual footing of ashes is covered by the snow andice, it will surely be difficult to descend. But the sight of thelitters above, tilting up and down, and jerking from this side tothat, as the bearers continually slip and tumble, diverts ourattention; more especially as the whole length of the rather heavygentleman is, at that moment, presented to us alarminglyforeshortened, with his head downwards. 

The rising of the moon soon afterwards, revives the flaggingspirits of the bearers. Stimulating each other with their usualwatchword, 'Courage, friend! It is to eat macaroni!' they presson, gallantly, for the summit. 

From tingeing the top of the snow above us, with a band of light, and pouring it in a stream through the valley below, while we havebeen ascending in the dark, the moon soon lights the whole whitemountain-side, and the broad sea down below, and tiny Naples in thedistance, and every village in the country round. The wholeprospect is in this lovely state, when we come upon the platform onthe mountain-top--the region of Fire--an exhausted crater formed ofgreat masses of gigantic cinders, like blocks of stone from sometremendous waterfall, burnt up; from every chink and crevice ofwhich, hot, sulphurous smoke is pouring out: while, from anotherconical-shaped hill, the present crater, rising abruptly from thisplatform at the end, great sheets of fire are streaming forth:reddening the night with flame, blackening it with smoke, andspotting it with red-hot stones and cinders, that fly up into theair like feathers, and fall down like lead. What words can paintthe gloom and grandeur of this scene!

The broken ground; the smoke; the sense of suffocation from thesulphur: the fear of falling down through the crevices in theyawning ground; the stopping, every now and then, for somebody whois missing in the dark (for the dense smoke now obscures the moon);the intolerable noise of the thirty; and the hoarse roaring of themountain; make it a scene of such confusion, at the same time, thatwe reel again. But, dragging the ladies through it, and acrossanother exhausted crater to the foot of the present Volcano, weapproach close to it on the windy side, and then sit down among thehot ashes at its foot, and look up in silence; faintly estimatingthe action that is going on within, from its being full a hundredfeet higher, at this minute, than it was six weeks ago. 

There is something in the fire and roar, that generates anirresistible desire to get nearer to it. We cannot rest long, without starting off, two of us, on our hands and knees, accompanied by the head-guide, to climb to the brim of the flamingcrater, and try to look in. Meanwhile, the thirty yell, as withone voice, that it is a dangerous proceeding, and call to us tocome back; frightening the rest of the party out of their wits. 

What with their noise, and what with the trembling of the thincrust of ground, that seems about to open underneath our feet andplunge us in the burning gulf below (which is the real danger, ifthere be any); and what with the flashing of the fire in our faces, and the shower of red-hot ashes that is raining down, and thechoking smoke and sulphur; we may well feel giddy and irrational, like drunken men. But, we contrive to climb up to the brim, andlook down, for a moment, into the Hell of boiling fire below. Then, we all three come rolling down; blackened, and singed, andscorched, and hot, and giddy: and each with his dress alight inhalf-a-dozen places. 

You have read, a thousand times, that the usual way of descending, is, by sliding down the ashes: which, forming a gradually-increasing ledge below the feet, prevent too rapid a descent. But, when we have crossed the two exhausted craters on our way back andare come to this precipitous place, there is (as Mr. Pickle hasforetold) no vestige of ashes to be seen; the whole being a smoothsheet of ice. 

In this dilemma, ten or a dozen of the guides cautiously joinhands, and make a chain of men; of whom the foremost beat, as wellas they can, a rough track with their sticks, down which we prepareto follow. The way being fearfully steep, and none of the party:even of the thirty: being able to keep their feet for six pacestogether, the ladies are taken out of their litters, and placed, each between two careful persons; while others of the thirty holdby their skirts, to prevent their falling forward--a necessaryprecaution, tending to the immediate and hopeless dilapidation oftheir apparel. The rather heavy gentleman is abjured to leave hislitter too, and be escorted in a similar manner; but he resolves tobe brought down as he was brought up, on the principle that hisfifteen bearers are not likely to tumble all at once, and that heis safer so, than trusting to his own legs. 

In this order, we begin the descent: sometimes on foot, sometimesshuffling on the ice: always proceeding much more quietly andslowly, than on our upward way: and constantly alarmed by thefalling among us of somebody from behind, who endangers the footingof the whole party, and clings pertinaciously to anybody's ankles. It is impossible for the litter to be in advance, too, as the trackhas to be made; and its appearance behind us, overhead--with someone or other of the bearers always down, and the rather heavygentleman with his legs always in the air--is very threatening andfrightful. We have gone on thus, a very little way, painfully andanxiously, but quite merrily, and regarding it as a great success--and have all fallen several times, and have all been stopped, somehow or other, as we were sliding away--when Mr. Pickle ofPortici, in the act of remarking on these uncommon circumstances asquite beyond his experience, stumbles, falls, disengages himself, with quick presence of mind, from those about him, plunges awayhead foremost, and rolls, over and over, down the whole surface ofthe cone!

Sickening as it is to look, and be so powerless to help him, I seehim there, in the moonlight--I have had such a dream often--skimming over the white ice, like a cannon-ball. Almost at thesame moment, there is a cry from behind; and a man who has carrieda light basket of spare cloaks on his head, comes rolling past, atthe same frightful speed, closely followed by a boy. At thisclimax of the chapter of accidents, the remaining eight-and-twentyvociferate to that degree, that a pack of wolves would be music tothem!

Giddy, and bloody, and a mere bundle of rags, is Pickle of Porticiwhen we reach the place where we dismounted, and where the horsesare waiting; but, thank God, sound in limb! And never are welikely to be more glad to see a man alive and on his feet, than tosee him now--making light of it too, though sorely bruised and ingreat pain. The boy is brought into the Hermitage on the Mountain, while we are at supper, with his head tied up; and the man is heardof, some hours afterwards. He too is bruised and stunned, but hasbroken no bones; the snow having, fortunately, covered all thelarger blocks of rock and stone, and rendered them harmless. 

After a cheerful meal, and a good rest before a blazing fire, weagain take horse, and continue our descent to Salvatore's house--very slowly, by reason of our bruised friend being hardly able tokeep the saddle, or endure the pain of motion. Though it is solate at night, or early in the morning, all the people of thevillage are waiting about the little stable-yard when we arrive, and looking up the road by which we are expected. Our appearanceis hailed with a great clamour of tongues, and a general sensationfor which in our modesty we are somewhat at a loss to account, until, turning into the yard, we find that one of a party of Frenchgentlemen who were on the mountain at the same time is lying onsome straw in the stable, with a broken limb: looking like Death, and suffering great torture; and that we were confidently supposedto have encountered some worse accident. 

So 'well returned, and Heaven be praised!' as the cheerfulVetturino, who has borne us company all the way from Pisa, says, with all his heart! And away with his ready horses, into sleepingNaples!

It wakes again to Policinelli and pickpockets, buffo singers andbeggars, rags, puppets, flowers, brightness, dirt, and universaldegradation; airing its Harlequin suit in the sunshine, next dayand every day; singing, starving, dancing, gaming, on the sea-shore; and leaving all labour to the burning mountain, which isever at its work. 

Our English dilettanti would be very pathetic on the subject of thenational taste, if they could hear an Italian opera half as badlysung in England as we may hear the Foscari performed, to-night, inthe splendid theatre of San Carlo. But, for astonishing truth andspirit in seizing and embodying the real life about it, the shabbylittle San Carlino Theatre--the rickety house one story high, witha staring picture outside: down among the drums and trumpets, andthe tumblers, and the lady conjurer--is without a rival anywhere. 

There is one extraordinary feature in the real life of Naples, atwhich we may take a glance before we go--the Lotteries. 

They prevail in most parts of Italy, but are particularly obvious, in their effects and influences, here. They are drawn everySaturday. They bring an immense revenue to the Government; anddiffuse a taste for gambling among the poorest of the poor, whichis very comfortable to the coffers of the State, and very ruinousto themselves. The lowest stake is one grain; less than afarthing. One hundred numbers--from one to a hundred, inclusive--are put into a box. Five are drawn. Those are the prizes. I buythree numbers. If one of them come up, I win a small prize. Iftwo, some hundreds of times my stake. If three, three thousandfive hundred times my stake. I stake (or play as they call it)what I can upon my numbers, and buy what numbers I please. Theamount I play, I pay at the lottery office, where I purchase theticket; and it is stated on the ticket itself. 

Every lottery office keeps a printed book, an Universal LotteryDiviner, where every possible accident and circumstance is providedfor, and has a number against it. For instance, let us take twocarlini--about sevenpence. On our way to the lottery office, werun against a black man. When we get there, we say gravely, 'TheDiviner. ' It is handed over the counter, as a serious matter ofbusiness. We look at black man. Such a number. 'Give us that. 'We look at running against a person in the street. 'Give us that. ' We look at the name of the street itself. 'Give us that. ' Now, we have our three numbers. 

If the roof of the theatre of San Carlo were to fall in, so manypeople would play upon the numbers attached to such an accident inthe Diviner, that the Government would soon close those numbers, and decline to run the risk of losing any more upon them. Thisoften happens. Not long ago, when there was a fire in the King'sPalace, there was such a desperate run on fire, and king, andpalace, that further stakes on the numbers attached to those wordsin the Golden Book were forbidden. Every accident or event, issupposed, by the ignorant populace, to be a revelation to thebeholder, or party concerned, in connection with the lottery. Certain people who have a talent for dreaming fortunately, are muchsought after; and there are some priests who are constantlyfavoured with visions of the lucky numbers. 

I heard of a horse running away with a man, and dashing him down, dead, at the corner of a street. Pursuing the horse withincredible speed, was another man, who ran so fast, that he cameup, immediately after the accident. He threw himself upon hisknees beside the unfortunate rider, and clasped his hand with anexpression of the wildest grief. 'If you have life, ' he said, 'speak one word to me! If you have one gasp of breath left, mention your age for Heaven's sake, that I may play that number inthe lottery. '

It is four o'clock in the afternoon, and we may go to see ourlottery drawn. The ceremony takes place every Saturday, in theTribunale, or Court of Justice--this singular, earthy-smellingroom, or gallery, as mouldy as an old cellar, and as damp as adungeon. At the upper end is a platform, with a large horse-shoetable upon it; and a President and Council sitting round--alljudges of the Law. The man on the little stool behind thePresident, is the Capo Lazzarone, a kind of tribune of the people, appointed on their behalf to see that all is fairly conducted:attended by a few personal friends. A ragged, swarthy fellow heis: with long matted hair hanging down all over his face: andcovered, from head to foot, with most unquestionably genuine dirt. All the body of the room is filled with the commonest of theNeapolitan people: and between them and the platform, guarding thesteps leading to the latter, is a small body of soldiers. 

There is some delay in the arrival of the necessary number ofjudges; during which, the box, in which the numbers are beingplaced, is a source of the deepest interest. When the box is full, the boy who is to draw the numbers out of it becomes the prominentfeature of the proceedings. He is already dressed for his part, ina tight brown Holland coat, with only one (the left) sleeve to it, which leaves his right arm bared to the shoulder, ready forplunging down into the mysterious chest. 

During the hush and whisper that pervade the room, all eyes areturned on this young minister of fortune. People begin to inquirehis age, with a view to the next lottery; and the number of hisbrothers and sisters; and the age of his father and mother; andwhether he has any moles or pimples upon him; and where, and howmany; when the arrival of the last judge but one (a little old man, universally dreaded as possessing the Evil Eye) makes a slightdiversion, and would occasion a greater one, but that he isimmediately deposed, as a source of interest, by the officiatingpriest, who advances gravely to his place, followed by a very dirtylittle boy, carrying his sacred vestments, and a pot of Holy Water. 

Here is the last judge come at last, and now he takes his place atthe horse-shoe table. 

There is a murmur of irrepressible agitation. In the midst of it, the priest puts his head into the sacred vestments, and pulls thesame over his shoulders. Then he says a silent prayer; and dippinga brush into the pot of Holy Water, sprinkles it over the box--andover the boy, and gives them a double-barrelled blessing, which thebox and the boy are both hoisted on the table to receive. The boyremaining on the table, the box is now carried round the front ofthe platform, by an attendant, who holds it up and shakes itlustily all the time; seeming to say, like the conjurer, 'There isno deception, ladies and gentlemen; keep your eyes upon me, if youplease!'

At last, the box is set before the boy; and the boy, first holdingup his naked arm and open hand, dives down into the hole (it ismade like a ballot-box) and pulls out a number, which is rolled up, round something hard, like a bonbon. This he hands to the judgenext him, who unrolls a little bit, and hands it to the President, next to whom he sits. The President unrolls it, very slowly. TheCapo Lazzarone leans over his shoulder. The President holds it up, unrolled, to the Capo Lazzarone. The Capo Lazzarone, looking at iteagerly, cries out, in a shrill, loud voice, 'Sessantadue!' (sixty-two), expressing the two upon his fingers, as he calls it out. Alas! the Capo Lazzarone himself has not staked on sixty-two. Hisface is very long, and his eyes roll wildly. 

As it happens to be a favourite number, however, it is pretty wellreceived, which is not always the case. They are all drawn withthe same ceremony, omitting the blessing. One blessing is enoughfor the whole multiplication-table. The only new incident in theproceedings, is the gradually deepening intensity of the change inthe Cape Lazzarone, who has, evidently, speculated to the veryutmost extent of his means; and who, when he sees the last number, and finds that it is not one of his, clasps his hands, and raiseshis eyes to the ceiling before proclaiming it, as thoughremonstrating, in a secret agony, with his patron saint, for havingcommitted so gross a breach of confidence. I hope the CapoLazzarone may not desert him for some other member of the Calendar, but he seems to threaten it. 

Where the winners may be, nobody knows. They certainly are notpresent; the general disappointment filling one with pity for thepoor people. They look: when we stand aside, observing them, intheir passage through the court-yard down below: as miserable asthe prisoners in the gaol (it forms a part of the building), whoare peeping down upon them, from between their bars; or, as thefragments of human heads which are still dangling in chainsoutside, in memory of the good old times, when their owners werestrung up there, for the popular edification. 

Away from Naples in a glorious sunrise, by the road to Capua, andthen on a three days' journey along by-roads, that we may see, onthe way, the monastery of Monte Cassino, which is perched on thesteep and lofty hill above the little town of San Germano, and islost on a misty morning in the clouds. 

So much the better, for the deep sounding of its bell, which, as wego winding up, on mules, towards the convent, is heard mysteriouslyin the still air, while nothing is seen but the grey mist, movingsolemnly and slowly, like a funeral procession. Behold, at lengththe shadowy pile of building close before us: its grey walls andtowers dimly seen, though so near and so vast: and the raw vapourrolling through its cloisters heavily. 

There are two black shadows walking to and fro in the quadrangle, near the statues of the Patron Saint and his sister; and hopping onbehind them, in and out of the old arches, is a raven, croaking inanswer to the bell, and uttering, at intervals, the purest Tuscan. How like a Jesuit he looks! There never was a sly and stealthyfellow so at home as is this raven, standing now at the refectorydoor, with his head on one side, and pretending to glance anotherway, while he is scrutinizing the visitors keenly, and listeningwith fixed attention. What a dull-headed monk the porter becomesin comparison!

'He speaks like us!' says the porter: 'quite as plainly. ' Quiteas plainly, Porter. Nothing could be more expressive than hisreception of the peasants who are entering the gate with basketsand burdens. There is a roll in his eye, and a chuckle in histhroat, which should qualify him to be chosen Superior of an Orderof Ravens. He knows all about it. 'It's all right, ' he says. 'Weknow what we know. Come along, good people. Glad to see you!'How was this extraordinary structure ever built in such asituation, where the labour of conveying the stone, and iron, andmarble, so great a height, must have been prodigious? 'Caw!' saysthe raven, welcoming the peasants. How, being despoiled byplunder, fire and earthquake, has it risen from its ruins, and beenagain made what we now see it, with its church so sumptuous andmagnificent? 'Caw!' says the raven, welcoming the peasants. Thesepeople have a miserable appearance, and (as usual) are denselyignorant, and all beg, while the monks are chaunting in the chapel. 'Caw!' says the raven, 'Cuckoo!'

So we leave him, chuckling and rolling his eye at the convent gate, and wind slowly down again through the cloud. At last emergingfrom it, we come in sight of the village far below, and the flatgreen country intersected by rivulets; which is pleasant and freshto see after the obscurity and haze of the convent--no disrespectto the raven, or the holy friars. 

Away we go again, by muddy roads, and through the most shatteredand tattered of villages, where there is not a whole window amongall the houses, or a whole garment among all the peasants, or theleast appearance of anything to eat, in any of the wretchedhucksters' shops. The women wear a bright red bodice laced beforeand behind, a white skirt, and the Neapolitan head-dress of squarefolds of linen, primitively meant to carry loads on. The men andchildren wear anything they can get. The soldiers are as dirty andrapacious as the dogs. The inns are such hobgoblin places, thatthey are infinitely more attractive and amusing than the besthotels in Paris. Here is one near Valmontone (that is Valmontonethe round, walled town on the mount opposite), which is approachedby a quagmire almost knee-deep. There is a wild colonnade below, and a dark yard full of empty stables and lofts, and a great longkitchen with a great long bench and a great long form, where aparty of travellers, with two priests among them, are crowdinground the fire while their supper is cooking. Above stairs, is arough brick gallery to sit in, with very little windows with verysmall patches of knotty glass in them, and all the doors that openfrom it (a dozen or two) off their hinges, and a bare board ontressels for a table, at which thirty people might dine easily, anda fireplace large enough in itself for a breakfast-parlour, where, as the faggots blaze and crackle, they illuminate the ugliest andgrimmest of faces, drawn in charcoal on the whitewashed chimney-sides by previous travellers. There is a flaring country lamp onthe table; and, hovering about it, scratching her thick black haircontinually, a yellow dwarf of a woman, who stands on tiptoe toarrange the hatchet knives, and takes a flying leap to look intothe water-jug. The beds in the adjoining rooms are of theliveliest kind. There is not a solitary scrap of looking-glass inthe house, and the washing apparatus is identical with the cookingutensils. But the yellow dwarf sets on the table a good flask ofexcellent wine, holding a quart at least; and produces, among half-a-dozen other dishes, two-thirds of a roasted kid, smoking hot. She is as good-humoured, too, as dirty, which is saying a greatdeal. So here's long life to her, in the flask of wine, andprosperity to the establishment. 

Rome gained and left behind, and with it the Pilgrims who are nowrepairing to their own homes again--each with his scallop shell andstaff, and soliciting alms for the love of God--we come, by a faircountry, to the Falls of Terni, where the whole Velino riverdashes, headlong, from a rocky height, amidst shining spray andrainbows. Perugia, strongly fortified by art and nature, on alofty eminence, rising abruptly from the plain where purplemountains mingle with the distant sky, is glowing, on its market-day, with radiant colours. They set off its sombre but rich Gothicbuildings admirably. The pavement of its market-place is strewnwith country goods. All along the steep hill leading from thetown, under the town wall, there is a noisy fair of calves, lambs, pigs, horses, mules, and oxen. Fowls, geese, and turkeys, fluttervigorously among their very hoofs; and buyers, sellers, andspectators, clustering everywhere, block up the road as we comeshouting down upon them. 

Suddenly, there is a ringing sound among our horses. The driverstops them. Sinking in his saddle, and casting up his eyes toHeaven, he delivers this apostrophe, 'Oh Jove Omnipotent! here is ahorse has lost his shoe!'

Notwithstanding the tremendous nature of this accident, and theutterly forlorn look and gesture (impossible in any one but anItalian Vetturino) with which it is announced, it is not long inbeing repaired by a mortal Farrier, by whose assistance we reachCastiglione the same night, and Arezzo next day. Mass is, ofcourse, performing in its fine cathedral, where the sun shines inamong the clustered pillars, through rich stained-glass windows:half revealing, half concealing the kneeling figures on thepavement, and striking out paths of spotted light in the longaisles. 

But, how much beauty of another kind is here, when, on a fair clearmorning, we look, from the summit of a hill, on Florence! Seewhere it lies before us in a sun-lighted valley, bright with thewinding Arno, and shut in by swelling hills; its domes, and towers, and palaces, rising from the rich country in a glittering heap, andshining in the sun like gold!

Magnificently stern and sombre are the streets of beautifulFlorence; and the strong old piles of building make such heaps ofshadow, on the ground and in the river, that there is another and adifferent city of rich forms and fancies, always lying at our feet. Prodigious palaces, constructed for defence, with small distrustfulwindows heavily barred, and walls of great thickness formed of hugemasses of rough stone, frown, in their old sulky state, on everystreet. In the midst of the city--in the Piazza of the Grand Duke, adorned with beautiful statues and the Fountain of Neptune--risesthe Palazzo Vecchio, with its enormous overhanging battlements, andthe Great Tower that watches over the whole town. In its court-yard--worthy of the Castle of Otranto in its ponderous gloom--is amassive staircase that the heaviest waggon and the stoutest team ofhorses might be driven up. Within it, is a Great Saloon, faded andtarnished in its stately decorations, and mouldering by grains, butrecording yet, in pictures on its walls, the triumphs of the Mediciand the wars of the old Florentine people. The prison is hard by, in an adjacent court-yard of the building--a foul and dismal place, where some men are shut up close, in small cells like ovens; andwhere others look through bars and beg; where some are playingdraughts, and some are talking to their friends, who smoke, thewhile, to purify the air; and some are buying wine and fruit ofwomen-vendors; and all are squalid, dirty, and vile to look at. 'They are merry enough, Signore, ' says the jailer. 'They are allblood-stained here, ' he adds, indicating, with his hand, three-fourths of the whole building. Before the hour is out, an old man, eighty years of age, quarrelling over a bargain with a young girlof seventeen, stabs her dead, in the market-place full of brightflowers; and is brought in prisoner, to swell the number. 

Among the four old bridges that span the river, the Ponte Vecchio--that bridge which is covered with the shops of Jewellers andGoldsmiths--is a most enchanting feature in the scene. The spaceof one house, in the centre, being left open, the view beyond isshown as in a frame; and that precious glimpse of sky, and water, and rich buildings, shining so quietly among the huddled roofs andgables on the bridge, is exquisite. Above it, the Gallery of theGrand Duke crosses the river. It was built to connect the twoGreat Palaces by a secret passage; and it takes its jealous courseamong the streets and houses, with true despotism: going where itlists, and spurning every obstacle away, before it. 

The Grand Duke has a worthier secret passage through the streets, in his black robe and hood, as a member of the Compagnia dellaMisericordia, which brotherhood includes all ranks of men. If anaccident take place, their office is, to raise the sufferer, andbear him tenderly to the Hospital. If a fire break out, it is oneof their functions to repair to the spot, and render theirassistance and protection. It is, also, among their commonestoffices, to attend and console the sick; and they neither receivemoney, nor eat, nor drink, in any house they visit for thispurpose. Those who are on duty for the time, are all calledtogether, on a moment's notice, by the tolling of the great bell ofthe Tower; and it is said that the Grand Duke has been seen, atthis sound, to rise from his seat at table, and quietly withdraw toattend the summons. 

In this other large Piazza, where an irregular kind of market isheld, and stores of old iron and other small merchandise are setout on stalls, or scattered on the pavement, are grouped together, the Cathedral with its great Dome, the beautiful Italian GothicTower the Campanile, and the Baptistery with its wrought bronzedoors. And here, a small untrodden square in the pavement, is 'theStone of DANTE, ' where (so runs the story) he was used to bring hisstool, and sit in contemplation. I wonder was he ever, in hisbitter exile, withheld from cursing the very stones in the streetsof Florence the ungrateful, by any kind remembrance of this oldmusing-place, and its association with gentle thoughts of littleBeatrice!

The chapel of the Medici, the Good and Bad Angels, of Florence; thechurch of Santa Croce where Michael Angelo lies buried, and whereevery stone in the cloisters is eloquent on great men's deaths;innumerable churches, often masses of unfinished heavy brickworkexternally, but solemn and serene within; arrest our lingeringsteps, in strolling through the city. 

In keeping with the tombs among the cloisters, is the Museum ofNatural History, famous through the world for its preparations inwax; beginning with models of leaves, seeds, plants, inferioranimals; and gradually ascending, through separate organs of thehuman frame, up to the whole structure of that wonderful creation, exquisitely presented, as in recent death. Few admonitions of ourfrail mortality can be more solemn and more sad, or strike so homeupon the heart, as the counterfeits of Youth and Beauty that arelying there, upon their beds, in their last sleep. 

Beyond the walls, the whole sweet Valley of the Arno, the conventat Fiesole, the Tower of Galileo, BOCCACCIO'S house, old villas andretreats; innumerable spots of interest, all glowing in a landscapeof surpassing beauty steeped in the richest light; are spreadbefore us. Returning from so much brightness, how solemn and howgrand the streets again, with their great, dark, mournful palaces, and many legends: not of siege, and war, and might, and Iron Handalone, but of the triumphant growth of peaceful Arts and Sciences. 

What light is shed upon the world, at this day, from amidst theserugged Palaces of Florence! Here, open to all comers, in theirbeautiful and calm retreats, the ancient Sculptors are immortal, side by side with Michael Angelo, Canova, Titian, Rembrandt, Raphael, Poets, Historians, Philosophers--those illustrious men ofhistory, beside whom its crowned heads and harnessed warriors showso poor and small, and are so soon forgotten. Here, theimperishable part of noble minds survives, placid and equal, whenstrongholds of assault and defence are overthrown; when the tyrannyof the many, or the few, or both, is but a tale; when Pride andPower are so much cloistered dust. The fire within the sternstreets, and among the massive Palaces and Towers, kindled by raysfrom Heaven, is still burning brightly, when the flickering of waris extinguished and the household fires of generations havedecayed; as thousands upon thousands of faces, rigid with thestrife and passion of the hour, have faded out of the old Squaresand public haunts, while the nameless Florentine Lady, preservedfrom oblivion by a Painter's hand, yet lives on, in enduring graceand youth. 

Let us look back on Florence while we may, and when its shiningDome is seen no more, go travelling through cheerful Tuscany, witha bright remembrance of it; for Italy will be the fairer for therecollection. The summer-time being come: and Genoa, and Milan, and the Lake of Como lying far behind us: and we resting at Faido, a Swiss village, near the awful rocks and mountains, theeverlasting snows and roaring cataracts, of the Great SaintGothard: hearing the Italian tongue for the last time on thisjourney: let us part from Italy, with all its miseries and wrongs, affectionately, in our admiration of the beauties, natural andartificial, of which it is full to overflowing, and in ourtenderness towards a people, naturally well-disposed, and patient, and sweet-tempered. Years of neglect, oppression, and misrule, have been at work, to change their nature and reduce their spirit;miserable jealousies, fomented by petty Princes to whom union wasdestruction, and division strength, have been a canker at theirroot of nationality, and have barbarized their language; but thegood that was in them ever, is in them yet, and a noble people maybe, one day, raised up from these ashes. Let us entertain thathope! And let us not remember Italy the less regardfully, because, in every fragment of her fallen Temples, and every stone of herdeserted palaces and prisons, she helps to inculcate the lessonthat the wheel of Time is rolling for an end, and that the worldis, in all great essentials, better, gentler, more forbearing, andmore hopeful, as it rolls!

Footnotes:

{1} This was written in 1846. 

{2} A far more liberal and just recognition of the public hasarisen in Westminster Abbey since this was written.