Part 11

For it is sure there are in this town many astonishing privations of all that are used to make other places delightful: and as poor Omai the savage said, when about to return to Otaheite--No horse there! no ass! no cow, no golden pippins, no dish of tea!--Ah, missey! I go without every thing--I always so content there though.

It is really just so one lives at this lovely Venice: one has heard of a horse being exhibited for a show there, and yesterday I watched the poor people paying a penny a piece for the sight of a stuffed one, and am more than persuaded of the truth of what I am told here, That numberless inhabitants live and die in this great capital, nor ever find out or think of enquiring how the milk brought from Terra Firma is originally produced. When such fancies cross me I wish to exclaim, Ah, happy England! whence ignorance is banished by the diffusion of literature, and narrowness of notions is ridiculed even in the lowest class of life. Candour must however confess, that while the possessor of a Northern coal-mine riots in that variety of adulation which talents deserve and riches contrive to obtain, those who labour in it are often natives of the dismal region; where many have been known to be born, and work, and die, without having ever seen the sun, or other light than such as a candle can bestow. Let such dark recollections give place to more cheerful imagery.

We have just now been carried to see the so justly-renowned arsenal, and unluckily missed the ship-launch we went thither chiefly to see. It is no great matter though! one comes to Italy to look at buildings, statues, pictures, people! The ships and guns of England have been such as supported her greatness, established her dominion, and extended her commerce in such a manner as to excite the admiration and terror of Europe, whose kingdoms vainly as perfidiously combined with her own colonies against that power which they maintained, in spite of the united efforts of half the globe. I shall hardly see finer ships and guns till I go home again, though the keeping all together on one island so--that island walled in too completely with only a single door to come in and out at--is a construction of peculiar happiness and convenience; while dock, armoury, rope-walk, all is contained in this space, exactly two miles round I think.

What pleased me best, besides the whole, which is best worth being pleased with, was the small arms: there are so many Turkish instruments of destruction among them quite new to me, and the picture commemorating the cruel death of their noble gallant leader Bragadin, so inhumanly treated by the Saracens in 1571. With infinite gratitude to his amiable descendant, who shewed me unmerited civility, dining with us often, and inviting us to his house, &c. I leave this repository of the Republic's stores with one observation, That however suspicious the Venetians are said to be, I found it much more easy for Englishmen to look over their docks, than for a foreigner to find his way into ours.

Another reflection occurs on examination of this spot; it is, that the renown attached to it in general conversation, is a proof that the world prefers convenience to splendour; for here are no superfluous ornaments, and I am apt to think many go away from it praising beauties by which they have been but little struck, and utilities they have but little understood.

From this show you are commonly carried to the glass manufactory at Murano; once the retreat of piety and freedom, when the Altinati fled the fury of the Huns: a beautiful spot it is, and delightfully as oddly situated; but these are gems which inlay the bosom of the deep, as Milton says--and this perhaps, the prettiest among them, is walked over by travellers with that curiosity which is naturally excited, in one person by the veneration of religious antiquity; in another, by the attention justly claimed by human industry and art. Here may be seen a valuable library of books, and here may be seen glasses of all colours, all sorts, and all prices, I believe: but whoever has looked much upon the London work in this way, will not be easily dazzled by the lustre of Venetian crystal; and whoever has seen the Paris mirrors, will not be astonished at any breadth into which glass can be spread.

We will return to Venice, the view of which from the Zueca, a word contracted from Giudecca, as I am told, would invite one never more to stray from it--farther at least than to St. George's church, on another little opposite island, whence the prospect is surely wonderful; and one sits longing for a pencil to repeat what has been so often exquisitely painted by Canaletti, just as foolishly as one snatches up a pen to tell what has been so much better told already by Doctor Moore. It was to this church I was sent, however, for the purpose of seeing a famous picture painted by Paul Veronese, of the marriage at Cana in Galilee--where our Saviour's first miracle was performed; in which immense work the artist is well known to have commemorated his own likeness, and that of many of his family, which adds value to the piece, when we consider it as a collection of portraits, besides the history it represents. When we arrived, the picture was kept in a refectory belonging to friars (of what order I have forgotten), and no woman could be admitted. My disappointment was so great that I was deprived even of the powers of solicitation by the extreme ill-humour it occasioned; and my few intreaties for admission were completely disregarded by the good old monk, who remained outside with me, while the gentlemen visited the convent without molestation. At my return to Venice I met little comfort, as every body told me it was my own fault, for I might put on men's clothes and see it whenever I pleased, as nobody then would stop, though perhaps all of them would know me.

If such slight gratifications however as seeing a favourite picture, can be purchased no cheaper than by violating truth in one's own person, and encouraging the violation of it in others, it were better surely die without having ever procured to one's self such frivolous enjoyments; and I hope always to reject the temptation of deceiving mistaken piety, or insulting harmless error.

But it is almost time to talk of the Rialto, said to be the finest single arch in Europe, and I suppose it is so; very beautiful too when looked on from the water, but so dirtily kept, and deformed with mean shops, that passing over it, disgust gets the better of every other sensation. The truth is, our dear Venetians are nothing less than cleanly; St. Mark's Place is all covered over in a morning with chicken-coops, which stink one to death; as nobody I believe thinks of changing their baskets: and all about the Ducal palace is made so very offensive by the resort of human creatures for every purpose most unworthy of so charming a place, that all enjoyment of its beauties is rendered difficult to a person of any delicacy; and poisoned so provokingly, that I do never cease to wonder that so little police and proper regulation are established in a city so particularly lovely, to render her sweet and wholesome. It was at the Rialto that the first stone of this fair town was laid, upon the twenty-fifth of March, as I am told here, with ideal reference to the vernal equinox, the moment when philosophers have supposed that the sun first shone upon our earth, and when Christians believe that the redemption of it was first announced to her within whose womb it was conceived.

The name of Venice has been variously accounted for; but I believe our ordinary people in England are nearest to the right, who call it Venus in their common discourse; as that goddess was, like her best beloved seat of residence, born of the sea's light froth, according to old fables, and partook of her native element, the gay and gentle, not rough and boisterous qualities. It is said too, and I fear with too much truth, that there are in this town some permitted professors of the inveigling arts, who still continue to cry Veni etiam, as their ancestors did when flying from the Goths they sought these sands for refuge, and gave their lion wings. Till once well fixed, they kindly called their continental neighbours round to share their liberty, and to accept that happiness they were willing to bestow and to diffuse; and from this call--this Veni etiam it is, that the learned men among them derive the word Venetia.

I have asked several friends about the truth of what one has been always hearing of in England, that the Venetian gondoliers sing Tasso and Ariosto's verses in the streets at night; sometimes quarrelling with each other concerning the merit of their favourite poets; but what I have been told since I came here, of their attachment to their respective masters, and secrecy when trusted by them in love affairs, seems far more probable; as they are proud to excess when they serve a nobleman of high birth, and will tell you with an air of importance, that the house of Memmo, Monsenigo, or Gratterola, has been served by their ancestors for these eighty or perhaps a hundred years; transmitting family pride thus from generation to generation; even when that pride is but reflected only like the mock rainbow of a summer sky.--But hark! while I am writing this peevish reflection in my room, I hear some voices under my window answering each other upon the Grand Canal. It is, it is the gondolieri sure enough; they are at this moment singing to an odd sort of tune, but in no unmusical manner, the flight of Erminia from Tasso's Jerusalem. Oh, how pretty! how pleasing! This wonderful city realizes the most romantic ideas ever formed of it, and defies imagination to escape her various powers of enslaving it.

Apropos to singing;--we were this evening carried to a well-known conservatory called the Mendicanti; who performed an oratorio in the church with great, and I dare say deserved applause. It was difficult for me to persuade myself that all the performers were women, till, watching carefully, our eyes convinced us, as they were but slightly grated. The sight of girls, however, handling the double bass, and blowing into the bassoon, did not much please me; and the deep-toned voice of her who sung the part of Saul, seemed an odd unnatural thing enough. What I found most curious and pretty, was to hear Latin verses, of the old Leonine race broken into eight and six, and sung in rhyme by these women, as if they were airs of Metastasio; all in their dulcified pronunciation too, for the patois runs equally through every language when spoken by a Venetian.

Well! these pretty syrens were delighted to seize upon us, and pressed our visit to their parlour with a sweetness that I know not who would have resisted. We had no such intent; and amply did their performance repay my curiosity, for visiting Venetian beauties, so justly celebrated for their seducing manners and soft address. They accompanied their voices with the forte-piano, and sung a thousand buffo songs, with all that gay voluptuousness for which their country is renowned.

The school, however is running to ruin apace; and perhaps the conduct of the married women here may contribute to make such conservatorios useless and neglected.

When the Duchess of Montespan asked the famous Louison D'Arquien, by way of insult, as she pressed too near her, "Comment alloit le metier?" "Depuis que les dames sen mélent" (replied the courtesan with no improper spirit,) "il ne vaut plus rien." It may be these syrens have suffered in the same cause; I thought the ardency of their manners an additional proof of their hunger for fresh prey.

FOOTNOTES:

Will Naples, the original seat of Ulysses's seducers, shew us any thing stronger than this? I hardly expect or wish it. The state of music in Italy, if one may believe those who ought to know it best, is not what it was. The manner of singing is much changed, I am told; and some affectations have been suffered to encroach upon their natural graces. Among the persons who exhibited their talents at the Countess of Rosenberg's last week, our country-woman's performance was most applauded; but when I name Lady Clarges, no one will wonder.

It is said that painting is now but little cultivated among them; Rome will however be the place for such enquiries. Angelica Kauffman being settled there, seems a proof of their taste for living merit; and if one thing more than another evinces Italian candour and true good-nature, it is perhaps their generous willingness to be ever happy in acknowledging foreign excellence, and their delight in bringing forward the eminent qualities of every other nation; never insolently vaunting or bragging of their own. Unlike to this is the national spirit and confined ideas of perfection inherent in a Gallic mind, whose sole politeness is an appliquè stuck upon the coat, but never embroidered into it.

The observation made here last night by a Parisian lady, gave me a proof of this I little wanted. We met at the Casino of the Senator Angelo Quirini, where a sort of literary coterïe assemble every evening, and form a society so instructive and amusing, so sure to be filled with the first company in Venice, and so hospitably open to all travellers of character, that nothing can now be to me a higher intellectual gratification than my admittance among them; as in future no place will ever be recollected with more pleasure, no hours with more gratitude, than those passed most delightfully by me in that most agreeable apartment.

I expressed to the French lady my admiration of St. Mark's Place. "C'est que vous n'avez jamais vue la foire St. Ovide," said she; "je vous assure que cela surpasse beaucoup ces trifles palais qu'on vantetant." And this could only have been arrogance, for she was a very sensible and a very accomplished woman; and when talked to about the literary merits of her own countrymen, spoke with great acuteness and judgment.

FOOTNOTES:

General knowledge, however, it must be confessed (meaning that general stock that every one recurs to for the common intercourse of conversation), will be found more frequently in France, than even in England; where, though all cultivate the arts of table eloquence and assembly-room rhetoric, few, from mere shyness, venture to gather in the profits of their plentiful harvest; but rather cloud their countenances with mock importance, while their hearts feel no hope beat higher in them, than the humble one of escaping without being ridiculed; or than in Italy, where nobody dreams of cultivating conversation at all--as an art; or studies for any other than the natural reason, of informing or diverting themselves, without the most distant idea of gaining admiration, or shining in company, by the quantity of science they have accumulated in solitude. Here no man lies awake in the night for vexation that he missed recollecting the last line of a Latin epigram till the moment of application was lost; nor any lady changes colour with trepidation at the severity visible in her husband's countenance when the chickens are over-roasted, or the ice-creams melt with the room's excessive heat.

Among the noble Senators of Venice, meantime, many good scholars, many Belles Lettres conversers, and what is more valuable, many thinking men, may be found, and found hourly, who employ their powers wholly in care for the state; and make their pleasure, like true patriots, out of her felicity. The ladies indeed appear to study but one science;

And where the lesson taught Is but to please, can pleasure seem a fault?

Like all sensualists, however, they fail of the end proposed, from hurry to obtain it; and consume those charms which alone can procure them continuance or change of admirers; they injure their health too irreparably, and that in their earliest youth; for few remain unmarried till fifteen, and at thirty have a wan and faded look. On ne goute pas ses plaisirs icy, on les avale[Footnote: They do not taste their pleasures here, they swallow them whole.], said Madame la Presidente yesterday, very judiciously; yet it is only speaking popularly that one can be supposed to mean, what however no one much refuses to assert, that the Venetian ladies are amorously inclined: the truth is, no check being put upon inclination, each acts according to immediate impulse; and there are more devotees, perhaps, and more doating mothers at Venice than any where else, for the same reason as there are more females who practise gallantry, only because there are more women there who do their own way, and follow unrestrained where passion, appetite, or imagination lead them.

To try Venetian dames by English rules, would be worse than all the tyranny complained of when some East Indian was condemned upon the Coventry act for slitting his wife's nose; a common practice in his country, and perfectly agreeable to custom and the usage du pays. Here is no struggle for female education as with us, no resources in study, no duties of family-management; no bill of fare to be looked over in the morning, no account-book to be settled at noon; no necessity of reading, to supply without disgrace the evening's chat; no laughing at the card-table, or tittering in the corner if a lapsus linguæ has produced a mistake, which malice never fails to record. A lady in Italy is sure of applause, so she takes little pains to obtain it. A Venetian lady has in particular so sweet a manner naturally, that she really charms without any settled intent to do so, merely from that irresistible good-humour and mellifluous tone of voice which seize the soul, and detain it in despite of Juno-like majesty, or Minerva-like wit. Nor ever was there prince or shepherd, Paris I think was both, who would not have bestowed his apple here.

Mean while my countryman Howel laments that the women at Venice are so little. But why so? the diminutive progeny of Vulcan, the Cabirs, mysteriously adored of old, were of a size below that of the least living woman, if we believe Herodotus; and they were worshipped with more constant as well as more fervent devotion, than the symmetrical goddess of Beauty herself.

A custom which prevails here, of wearing little or no rouge, and increasing the native paleness of their skins, by scarce lightly wiping the very white powder from their faces, is a method no Frenchwoman of quality would like to adopt; yet surely the Venetians are not behind-hand in the art of gaining admirers; and they do not, like their painters, depend upon colouring to ensure it.