Part 20

It is said I think, that no animal affords an acid except ants, which are therefore most quickly destroyed by lime, pot-ash, &c. or any strong alkali of course; yet acid must the lucciola be proved, or she can never be phosphorick surely; as upon its analysis that strangest of all compositions appears to be a union of violent acid with inflammable matter, whence it may be termed an animal sulphur, and is actually found to burn successfully under a common glass-bell; and to afford flowers too, which, by attracting the humidity of the air, become a liquor like oleum sulphuris per campanam[Footnote: Oil of sulphur by the bell.].

The colour of the sky viewed, when one dares to look at it, through this pure atmosphere is particularly beautiful; of a much more brilliant and celestial blue I think, than it appeared from the tower of St. Mark's Place, Venice. Were I to affirm that the sea is of a more peculiar transparent brightness upon the coast of North Wales than elsewhere, it would seem prejudice perhaps, and yet is strictly true: I am not less persuaded that the sky appears of a finer tint in Tuscany than any other country I have visited:--Naples is however the vaunted climate, and that yet remains to be examined.

I have been shewed, at the horse-race, the theatre, &c. the unfortunate grandson of King James the Second. He goes much into publick still, though old and sickly; gives the English arms and livery, and wears the garter, which he has likewise bestowed upon his natural daughter. The Princess of Stoldberg, his consort, whom he always called Queen, has left him to end a life of disappointment and sorrow by himself, with the sad reflection, that even conjugal attachment, and of course domestic comfort, was denied to him, and fled--in defiance of poetry and fiction--fled with the crown, to its powerful and triumphant possessors.

The Duomo, or Cathedral, has engaged my attention all to-day: its prodigious size, perfect proportions, and exquisite taste, ought to have detained me longer. Though the outside does not please me as well as if it had been less rich and less magnificent. Superfluity always defeats its own purpose, of striking you with awe at its superior greatness; while simplicity looks on, and laughs at its vain attempts. This wonderful church, built of striped marbles, white, black, and red alternately, has scarcely the air of being so composed, but looks like painted ivory to me, who am obliged to think, and think again, before I can be sure it is of so ponderous and massy, as well as so inestimable a substance: nor can I, without more than equal difficulty, persuade myself to give its sudden view the decided preference over St. Paul's in London, which never, never misses its immediate effect on a spectator,

But stands sublime in simplest majesty.

The Battisterio is another structure close to the church, and of surprising beauty; Michael Angelo said the gates of it deserved to be those which open Paradise: and that speech was more the speech of a good workman, than of a man whose mind was exalted by his profession. The gates are of brass, divided into ninety-six compartments each, and carved with such variety of invention, such elaboration of art and ingenuity, that no praise except that which he gave them could have been too high. The font has not been used since the days when immersion in baptism was deemed necessary to salvation; a ceremony still considered by the Greek church as indispensable. Why the disputes concerning this sacrament were carried on with more decency and less lasting rancour among Christians, than those which related to the other great pledge of our pardon, the communicating with our Saviour Christ in his last Supper, I know not, nor can imagine. Every page of ecclesiastical history exhibits the tenaciousness with which the smallest attendant circumstance on this last-mentioned sacrament has been held fast by the Romanists, who dropped the immersion at baptism of themselves; and in so warm a climate too! it moves my wonder; when nothing is more obvious to the meanest understanding, than that if the first sacrament is not rightly and duly administered, we never shall arrive at receiving the other at all. I hope it is impossible for any one less than myself to wish the continuance or revival of contentions so disgraceful to humanity in general; so peculiarly repugnant to the true spirit of Christianity, which consists chiefly in charity, and that brotherly love we know to have been cemented by the blood of our blessed Lord: yet very strange it is to think, that while other innovations have been resisted even to death, scarcely any among the many sects we have divided into, retain the original form in that ceremony so emphatically called christening.

These observations suggested by the sight of the old font at Florence shall now be succeeded by lighter subjects of reflection; among which the first that presents itself is the superior elegance of the language; for till we arrive here, all is dialect; though by this word I would not have any one mistake me, or understand it as meant in the limited sense of a provincial jargon, such as Yorkshire, Derbyshire, or Cornwall, present us with; where every sound is corruption, barbarism, and vulgarity.

The States of Italy being all under different rulers, are kept separate from each other, and speak a different dialect; that of Milan full of consonants and harsh to the ear, but abounding with classical expressions that rejoice one's heart, and fill one with the oddest but most pleasing sensations imaginable. I heard a lady there call a runaway nobleman Profugo mighty prettily; and added, that his conduct had put all the town into orgasmo grande. All this, however, the Tuscans may possibly have in common with them. My knowledge of the language must remain ever too imperfect for me to depend on my own skill in it; all I can assert is, that the Florentines appear, as far as I have been competent to observe, to depend more on their own copious and beautiful language for expression, than the Milanese do; who run to Spanish, Greek, or Latin for assistance, while half their tongue is avowedly borrowed from the French, whose pronunciation, in the letter u, they even profess to retain.

At Venice, the sweetness of the patois is irresistible; their lips, incapable of uttering any but the sweetest sounds, reject all consonants they can get quit of; and make their mouths drop honey more completely than it can be said by any eloquence less mellifluous than their own.

The Bolognese dialect is detested by the other Italians, as gross and disagreeable in its sounds: but every nation has the good word of its own inhabitants; and the language which Abbate Bianconi praises as nervous and expressive, I would advise no person, less learned than himself, to censure as disgusting, or condemn as dull. I staid very little at Bologna; saw nothing but their pictures, and heard nothing but their prayers: those were superior, I fancy, to all rivals. Language can be never spoken of by a foreigner to any effect of conviction. I have heard our countryman. Mr. Greatheed himself, who perhaps possesses more Italian than almost any Englishman, and studies it more closely, refuse to decide in critical disputations among his literary friends here, though the sonnets he writes in the Tuscan language are praised by the natives, who best understand it, and have been by some of them preferred to those written by Milton himself. Mean time this is acknowledged to be the prime city for purity of phrase and delicacy of expression, which, at last, is so disguised to me by the guttural manner in which many sounds are pronounced, that I feel half weary of running about from town to town so, and never arriving at any, where I can understand the conversation without putting all the attention possible to their discourse. I am now told that less efforts will be necessary at Rome.

Nothing can be prettier, however, than the slow and tranquil manners of a Florentine; nothing more polished than his general address and behaviour: ever in the third person, though to a blackguard in the street, if he has not the honour of his particular acquaintance, while intimacy produces voi in those of the highest rank, who call one another Carlo and Angelo very sweetly; the ladies taking up the same notion, and saying Louisa, or Maddalena, without any addition at all.

The Don and Donna of Milan were offensive to me somehow, as they conveyed an idea of Spain, not Italy. Here Signora is the term, which better pleases one's ear, and Signora Contessa, Signora Principessa, if the person is of higher quality, resembles our manners more when we say my Lady Dutchess, &c. What strikes me as most observable, is the uniformity of style in all the great towns.

At Venice the men of literature and fashion speak with the same accent, and I believe the same quick turns of expression as their Gondolier; and the coachman at Milan talks no broader than the Countess; who, if she does not speak always in French to a foreigner, as she would willingly do, tries in vain to talk Italian; and having asked you thus, alla capi? which means ha ella capita? laughs at herself for trying to toscaneggiare, as she calls it, and gives the point up with no cor altr. that comes in at the end of every sentence, and means non occorre altro; there is no more occurs upon the subject.

The Laquais de Place who attended us at Bologna was one of the few persons I had met then, who spoke a language perfectly intelligible to me. "Are you a Florentine, pray friend, said I?" "No, madam, but the combinations of this world having led me to talk much with strangers, I contrive to tuscanize it all I can for their advantage, and doubt not but it will tend to my own at last."

Such a sentiment, so expressed by a footman, would set a plain man in London a laughing, and make a fanciful Lady imagine he was a nobleman disguised. Here nobody laughs, nor nobody stares, nor wonders that their valet speaks just as good language, or utters as well-turned sentences as themselves. Their cold answer to my amazement is as comical as the fellow's fine style--è battizzato[Footnote: He has been baptized.], say they, come noi altri[Footnote: As well as we.]. But we are called away to hear the fair Fantastici, a young woman who makes improviso verses, and sings them, as they tell me, with infinite learning and taste. She is successor to the celebrated Corilla, who no longer exhibits the power she once held without a rival: yet to her conversations every one still strives for admittance, though she is now ill, and old, and hoarse with repeated colds. She spares, however, now by no labour or fatigue to obtain and keep that superiority and admiration which one day perhaps gave her almost equal trouble to receive and to repay. But who can bear to lay their laurels by? Corilla is gay by nature, and witty, if I may say so, by habit; replete with fancy, and powerful to combine images apparently distant. Mankind is at last more just to people of talents than is universally allowed, I think. Corilla, without pretensions either to immaculate character (in the English sense), deep erudition, or high birth, which an Italian esteems above all earthly things, has so made her way in the world, that all the nobility of both sexes crowd to her house; that no Prince passes through Florence without waiting on Corilla; that the Capitol will long recollect her being crowned there, and that many sovereigns have not only sought her company, but have been obliged to put up with slights from her independent spirit, and from her airy, rather than haughty behaviour. She is, however, (I cannot guess why) not rich, and keeps no carriage; but enjoying all the effect of money, convenience, company, and general attention, is probably very happy; as she does not much suffer her thoughts of the next world to disturb her felicity in this, I believe, while willing to turn every thing into mirth, and make all admire her wit, even at the expence of their own virtue. The following Epigram, made by her, will explain my meaning, and give a specimen of her present powers of improvisation, undecayed by ill health; and I might add, undismayed by it. An old gentleman here, one Gaetano Testa Grossa had a young wife, whose name was Mary, and who brought him a son when he was more than seventy years old. Corilla led him gaily into the circle of company with these words:

"Miei Signori Io vi presento Il buon Uomo Gaetano; Che non sà che cosa sia Il misterio sovr'umano Del Figliuolo di Maria."

Let not the infidels triumph however, or rank among them the truly-illustrious Corilla! 'Twas but the rage, I hope, of keeping at any rate the fame she has gained, when the sweet voice is gone, which once enchanted all who heard it--like the daughters of Pierius in Ovid.

And though I was exceedingly entertained by the present improvisatrice, the charming Fantastici, whose youth, beauty, erudition, and fidelity to her husband, give her every claim upon one's heart, and every just pretension to applause, I could not, in the midst of that delight, which classick learning and musical excellence combined to produce, forbear a grateful recollection of the civilities I had received from Corilla, and half-regretting that her rival should be so successful;

For tho' the treacherous tapster, Thomas, Hangs a new angel ten doors from us, We hold it both a shame and sin To quit the true old Angel Inn.

Well! if some people have too little appearance of respect for religion, there are others who offend one by having too much, and so the balance is kept even.

We were a walking last night in the gardens of Porto St. Gallo, and met two or three well-looking women of the second rank, with a baby, four or five years old at most, dressed in the habit of a Dominican Friar, bestowing the benediction as he walked along like an officiating Priest. I felt a shock given to all my nerves at once, and asked Cavalier D'Elci the meaning of so strange a device. His reply to me was, "E divozione mal intesa, Signora[Footnote: 'Tis ill-understood devotion, madam.];" and turning round to the other gentlemen, "Now this folly," said he, "a hundred years ago would have been the object of profound veneration and prodigious applause. Fifty years hence it would be censured as hypocritical; it is now passed by wholly unnoticed, except by this foreign Lady, who, I believe, thought it was done for a joke.

I have had a little fever since I came hither from the intense heat I trust; but my maid has a worse still. Doctor Bicchierei, with that liberality which ever is found to attend real learning, prescribed James's powders to her, and bid me attend to Buchan's Domestick Medicine, and I should do well enough he said.

Mr. Greatheed, Mr. Parsons, Mr. Biddulph, and Mr. Piozzi, have been together on a party of pleasure to see the renowned Vallombrosa, and came home contradicting Milton, who says the devils lay bestrewn

Thick as autumnal leaves in Vallombrosa:

Whereas, say they, the trees are all evergreen in those woods. Milton, it seems, was right notwithstanding: for the botanists tell me, that nothing makes more litter than the shedding of leaves, which, replace themselves by others, as on the plants stiled ever-green, which change like every tree, but only do not change all at once, and remain stript till spring. They spoke highly of their very kind and hospitable reception at the convent, where

Safe from pangs the worldling knows, Here secure in calm repose, Far from life's perplexing maze, The pious fathers pass their days; While the bell's shrill-tinkling sound Regulates their constant round.

And

Here the traveller elate Finds an ever-open gate: All his wants find quick supply, While welcome beams from every eye.