2. Continental Adventures. A Novel. 3 vols. London. 1826.
3. Diary of an Ennuyée. London. 1826.1
WHEN peace came, after many long years of war, when our
island prison was opened to us, and our watery exit from it was declared practicable,
it was the paramount wish of every English heart, ever addicted to vagabondizing,
to
hasten to the continent, and to imitate our forefathers in their almost forgotten
custom, of spending the greater part of their lives and fortunes in their carriages
on the post-roads of the continent. With the brief and luckless exception of the
peace of Amiens,2 the continent had not been open for the space of more than
one-and- twenty years; a new generation had sprung up, and the whole of this, who
had
money and time at command, poured, in one vast[Page 326] stream, across the Pas de
Calais into France: in their numbers, and their eagerness to proceed forward, they
might be compared to the Norwegian rats, who always go right on, and when they come
to an opposing stream, still pursue their route, till a bridge is formed of the
bodies of the drowned, over which the living pass in safety. The simile holds good
in
more ways than one: the first emigrants, it is true, were not wholly killed, but the
miseries they endured, of dirty packets and wretched inns, were the substratum from
which has arisen the elegant steam-packet, and the improved state of the continental
hotels. But in those early days of migration, in the summer of 1814, every
inconvenience was hailed as a new chapter in the romance of our travels; the worst
annoyance of all, the Custom-house, was amusing as a novelty; we saw with extasy the
strange costume of the French women, read with delight our own descriptions in the
passport, looked with curiosity on every plât, fancying
that the fried-leaves of artichokes were frogs; we saw shepherds in opera-hats, and
post-boys in jack-boots; and (pour comble de merveille3 ) heard little boys and girls talk French: it was
acting a novel, being an incarnate romance. But these days are now vanished: frequent
landings at Calais have deprived it of its captivating novelty. Many of our children,
under the guidance of foreign nursery-maids, lisp French as well as any little
wood-shod urchin among the natives. We have learned to curse the douane,4 and denounce
passports as tyrannical and insufferable impediments to our free progress.
When France palled on our travelled appetites, which always crave for something new,
Italy came into vogue. As preparatives for our pilgrimage to that county, whose charm
is undying, we devoured the fabulous descriptions of Eustace, and well-poised sentences
of Forsyth, and a traveller from Italy
inspired us almost with devotional respect. We do not think that we are guilty of
any
exaggeration when we affirm, that even now that the English are almost cloyed with
foreign travel, a journey to Italy is still regarded with enthusiastic transport,
and
when visited, that country is quitted with greater regret than any other, and the
peculiarity of its situation accounts for this. We all wish to burst our watery
bound, and to wander in search of a more genial climate than that enjoyed (according
to the vulgarism, he enjoys a very bad state of health)
by our native land. Neither France, Germany, nor Switzerland, content the swallow
English. La belle France is now acknowledged to be the most unpictuesque, dull,
miserable-looking country in the world. The name of Germany is sufficient in itself
to inspire a kind of metaphysical gloom, enlightened only [Page 327]by meteoric
flashes from the Hartz or the Elbe. Passing the Jura, surrounded by the mighty Alps,
we ramble delightedly over Switzerland, till the snow and ice, ushered in by the
chilling Biz, cause us to escape from the approach of a winter more severe than our
own. We fly to Italy; we eat the lotus; we cannot tear ourselves away. It is the land
of romance, and therefore pleases the young; of classic lore, and thus possesses
charms for the learned. Its petty states and tiny courts, with all the numerous
titles enjoyed by their frequenters, gild it for the worldly. The man of peace and
domesticity finds in its fertile soil, and the happiness of its peasantry, an
ameliorated likeness of beloved but starving England. The society is facile; the
towns illustrious by the reliques they contain of the arts of ancient times, or the
middle ages; while its rural districts attach us, through the prosperity they
exhibit, their plenteous harvests, the picturesque arrangement of their farms, the
active life every where apparent, the novelty of their modes of culture, the grace
which a sunny sky sheds over labours which in this county are toilsome and
unproductive.
This preference accorded to Italy by the greater part of the emigrant English has
given rise to a new race or sect among our countrymen, who have lately been dubbed
Anglo-Italians. The Anglo-Italian has many peculiar marks which distinguish him from
the mere traveler, or true John Bull. First,
he understands Italian, and this rescues himself from a thousand ludicrous mishaps
which occur to those who fancy that a little Anglo-French will suffice to convey
intelligence of their wants and wishes to the natives of Italy; the record of his
travels is no longer confined, according to lord Normanby's vivid
description, to how he had been "starved here, upset there, and robbed every where"
[The English in Italy, vol. ii. p. 229]5 . Your
Anglo-Italian ceases to visit the churches and palaces, guide-book in hand; anxious,
not to see, but to say that he has seen. Without attempting to adopt the customs of
the natives, he attaches himself to some of the most refined among them, and
appreciates their native talent and simple manners; he has lost the critical mania
in
a real taste for the beautiful, acquired by a frequent sight of the best models of
ancient and modern art.
Upon the whole, the Anglo-Italians may be pronounced a well-informed, clever, and
active race; they pity greatly those of their un-Italianized countrymen, who are
endowed with Spurzheim's bump, denominated
stayathomeativeness; and in compassion of their narrow experience have erected a
literature calculated to disseminate among them a portion of that taste and knowledge
acquired in the Peninsula. Lord Byron may
be [Page 328] considered the father of the Anglo-Italian literature, and
Beppo6 as being the first product of that school; lord Normanby brings up the
rear. The plan of his work, entitled, "The English in Italy" is
excellent. It is difficult, after a long residence in a foreign country, to collect
one's variety of experience into one focus. The detached anecdotes and observations
on manners, made at various periods and places, are grouped in the mind, while it
is
impossible to select any form of journal, letter, or narrative, which will combine
the mass in an intelligible form, and cause the reader to seize, as the author did,
the conclusions to be drawn from such multifarious materials. Besides, though mere
travellers are culpably negligent on this score, the resident Anglo-Italian is
withheld by honour, from the exposition of facts and names. Lord Normanby has hit upon a
medium both novel and entertaining. He has given a series of tales, in which the
English and Italians alike figure; the contrast between the two nations adds to the
interest of these sketches, while the colouring of fiction is thrown over truths,
which it would be difficult to convey in any other manner. It is impossible to read
"The English in Italy" without being struck at every page with the
verity of the delineations of character and manners, and without admiring the skill
with which the noble author has seized and expressed the slight shadowings, and
evanescent lights, peculiar to the complicated form of Italian society, which must
have escaped a ruder pen. We frequently, it is true, dissent from his lordship's
opinions and conclusions, but we always assent to the truth of his facts.
The first (and it is the best) of his longer stories is entitled
L'Amoroso. It is the tale of a high-bred English girl, who,
enchanted with the beauty of Naples, the softness of its climate, the vivacious and
easy tone of society, and the ardour of her Italian lover, sacrifices her first half love (first loves are, for the most part, we fear,
half loves), and gives her hand to a Neapolitan count. The gradual development of
her
Italian husband's feelings, her awakening to the truth of her situation, and the
growth of her despair, is admirably managed; yet in all this there is something
besides the comparative merits of English and Italian domestic customs. We can none
of us attempt, with impunity, to engraft ourselves on foreign stocks: the habits of
our childhood cling to us, and we seek in vain for sympathy from those who have
travelled life quite on a different road from that which we have followed. We are
far
from advocating the Italian conjugal system, which puts the axe to domestic
happiness, and deeply embitters the childhood of the [Page 329] offspring of the
divided parents; nevertheless, we must observe, that the misery suffered by the
English girl in Italy would on other accounts, but in no minor degree, become the
lot
of an Italian married to an Englishman. Let us imagine the daughter of a Neapolitan
noble, dragged from her beautiful country and sunny clime, deprived of her box at
the
opera, her ride on the Corso, her cortège of devoted servants, her circle of
complaisant friends, her dolce far
niente;7 to the toils and dulness of an English
home—to the cares of housekeeping—a charge not imposed on Italian females—her snug,
but monotonous, fire-side, her sentry-box of a house; to our cloudy sky; to the
labour of giving dinners and entertaining evening parties; to those numerous
etiquettes easy to the natives, unattainable by foreigners; to the sotto voce8 tone (if the metaphor be admissible) which
characterizes our social intercourse, to the necessity of for ever wearing that thick
and ample veil of propriety which we throw over every act and word: introduce the
ardent, simple-hearted, undisguising Italian to this world, so opposite to her own,
and she would experience the same heart-sickening disappointment that visited the
heart of the heroine of the Amoroso. To us, and particularly to our
females, these laws of constraint are the music, the accompaniment by which they
regulate their steps until they cannot walk without it; and the veil before spoken
of
is as necessary to their sense of decency as their very habiliments. It is natural,
therefore, that the English girl of the tale should be transfixed with grief at the
request from her husband to conform with Italian customs; and it is also inevitable
that the first step she takes in compliance with this request must sin against
Italian etiquette, and, though liberty is offered her, that she should find that even
the excess of freedom does not permit her the exact liberty she wants.
The "Politico" contains a rapid but masterly sketch of the Piedmontese
revolution. The author, it is true, judging only from the apparent effects, blames
this sudden burst of impatience on the part of Italians any longer to bear their
galling chains. He says, that they had better have waited a few years, as if the
capacity of waiting did not engender a callousness to the evils of tyranny,
incompatible with a generous love of liberty. The revolution ended unfortunately,
it
is true; but, most certainly, if the attempt had not been made, the Italians would
have lost their characteristic of being slaves "ognor frementi,"9 and have sunk into as degraded an existence as that of the
Fanariotes of Constantinople.10 From the smothered fire of this crushed revolt a
brighter flame will hereafter rise: it was a glimmer, a flash, a reflection, sent
back from the blaze
vol. vi.—w. r.z[Page 330]just then kindled by the Spaniards: both are quenched now, but not for
ever.
If the Italians could have viewed the Spanish struggle, and still submitted
uncontending to the Austrian, they could never more have lifted their heads as a
nation, nor possessed any claim to our commiseration. One of the chief causes,
indeed, of the failure of the revolt of 1820-21 was political despair. This despair
originated in the disarmed state of the natives, and the terror engendered by the
Austrian bayonets. In every Italian state, except Tuscany, this fear was joined to
a
never-dying hatred of their oppressive rulers; which made them on the alert to seize
every opportunity to rebel against their tyrants. While the flame of revolt spread
from the Alps to Brundusium, Tuscany alone was tranquil. They talked of liberty, but
their enthusiasm began and ended in talk. The grand duke appreciated so well the
quiescence of his loving subjects, that when the Austrian minister presented him with
a list of sixty-seven Carbonari worthy of incarceration, Ferdinand refused to look
at
it. He did not believe, he said, that these men were Carbonari, but he was sure if
he
imprisoned them they would become so. Who, indeed, were to form the patriotic band?
Not the peasants: the idea of political liberty never entered their heads. They work
hard, and their genial climate lightens their labour of all the misery which renders
the peasant's life so irksome in this country; yet still, from the utter want of
money and traffic, their hardest labour only enables them to labour on. In the cities
neither the rich nor the poor are willing to risk their wealth or their safety. There
is another class of persons, the men of letters and students at the universities.
The
first are peacefully inclined, the second unprincipled: they are ready for riot, but
they are little fitted for any commotion which has for its aim a noble and
enlightened purpose. Yet we do not think the emancipation of Italy far off. In one
circumstance, Italy is far better situated than Spain—in case of a revolution.
Religion is here no enemy of political liberty. Napoleon gave a blow to Italian superstition, from which it will never
recover. By destroying the wealth of the priests, he has destroyed their influence.
The higher classes are liberal in their opinions, and the little bigotry that
subsists among the lower orders is wholly untinged by the spirit of persecution. The
great and immoveable foundation-stone, the boundary mark of Italian liberty, which
still subsists, though no superstructure is thereto added, is their natural talent.
In spite of college restrictions, in spite of almost universal ignorance, their
native genius flourishes; their untaught courtesy, their love for the fine arts, the
[Page 331]poetry with which their sunny sky endows them, prevent their being
brutified; and this Italy possesses in her own bosom the germs of regeneration,
which, in spite of their late overthrow, will in the end give birth to their
emancipation.
But to return to "The English in Italy" The "Sbarbuto"
approaches nearest to a failure of any of the sketches; the hero is a kind of ideal
of lord Byron. The "dear Corsair
expression,"11 now going out of fashion,
is introduced, and the mixed character of bandit and dandy is carried to its height.
Truth of description and liveliness of narrative, two chief characteristics of this
author, render even this strange anomaly interesting. The conclusion of the tale is
singularly abrupt, but it may be observed that all lord Normanby's catastrophes are
faulty; that of "Matilda" has been justly censured.12 The author wished to pourtray the evils
resulting from certain modes of action, and yet the tragic conclusion of the tale
is
entirely independent of the chain of unhappy events which were to appear of necessity
to arise from the heroine's departure from the moral laws of her country. The
conclusion of the "Sbarbuto" is still worse, and our imagination
received a most disagreeable baulk, when, on turning the last page of this tale, we
found that was indeed the last.
The sketches called the "Zingari," which detail a variety of
adventures which have befallen the gipsy English in Italy, are perhaps the best part
of the book. There is nothing outré, nothing of caricature in any of these portraits.
We recognize many well-known faces, and at each successive narration remember a pendant that has come within our own experience. Utter
ignorance of the Italian language is the source of many of the ludicrous situations
in which the English get involved. French does not, as has been said, carry the
traveller through Italy; those who depend on it, will find their support fail them
at
the first Italian town they enter. Besides, the Italians speak French with peculiar
awkwardness; they are unable to accentuate its unutterable consonants and slip-shod
vowels. When an Italian has welcomed a foreigner with gravity, and even with
sulkiness, answering their introduction with a few misprounced French phrases, if
replied to in their own language, their case of manner returns, and they become as
graceful and facile in conversation as before they were repulsive.13 The tales
z2[Page 332] of the "Zingari," may serve as so many lessons to all
future travelers as to what they may seek and what they may shun in Italy. We may
learn the perils of Vetturino travelling14 from "The Economist," assured that the details are
by no means caricatured; and we may reap still more serious profit from the sketches
entitled, "Change of Air," and "Boyhood Abroad." And
yet, as is frequently the case, further experience overthrows the minor one, and the
discomforts and dangers which are the lot of an invalid traveler in Italy will change
to comforts and safety, if he becomes a resident there. If, indeed, the invalid
travel, like lord Normanby's
hero, from one town to another, from one bad inn and cold lodging to another a match
for the last, he may certainly return from such pursuit of health worse than he went.
But let him fix on some city for a constant residence: Pisa we recommend as most
equable in climate; let him get his English comforts about him, as he may with ease
and cheapness from the free port of Leghorn, not twelve miles distant, and he will
then find the advantage of a southern residence. The streets of Pisa are quiet, and
the whole town wears a sober, scholastic aspect. The north side of the Lung Arno,
looking towards the south, is warm at mid-winter, and always presents a delightful
promenade. The rides round the town are beautiful; you have your choice of the pine
forest of the Cascina, or the road along the plain that skirts the neighbouring
hills, which, covered with olives, chestnuts, and last, toward their summit, with
pines, are, though not high, remarkably picturesque. The whole road from Vico Pisano
to Lucca, some twenty or thirty miles, presenting successive pictures of fertility
in
the plain, and of the view of ravine or precipice in the mountains, is within four
miles of one or other of the gates of Pisa. The neighbourhood to the sea is an
advantage not to be omitted. Let an invalid to this, and he will speedily acquire
the
health and spirits, the promise of which drew him from his home.15
[Page 333]
We are surprised that lord
Normanby has not introduced more of the country life of Italy, which bears a
peculiar stamp, and which is pregnant with interest and beauty. Generally speaking,
our countrymen see only the surface of the country, and are unaware of the minutiæ
of
the peasant's life, and their mode of agriculture. They are connoisseurs in
paintings, and frequenters of drawing-rooms; but the inferior classes of their fellow
beings possess no interest for them; and yet it is in the country of Italy that you
see most of the true Italian character, and most enjoy the exhaustless delights of
that sunny clime. The very aspect of the country to a cursory observer will prove
this assertion. The use of oxen in their agricultural labours is seemingly a small,
and yet, in truth, a great improvement to the picturesque of the rural scene. The
oxen of Italy surpass, in beauty of form, in the sleekness of their dove-coloured
skin, and the soft expression of their large eyes, all other animals of their
species. In every part of Italy we encounter, during our walks, in lanes bordered
by
elms and sallows, to which the vines are trained and festooned, frequent wains drawn
by these animals, yoked by the neck; and the dark-eyed driver, with his sun-burnt
limbs, in no manner detracts from the beauty of the picture. It is curious in Italy
to observe the great advantage the peasants possess as to personal appearance, over
the town's-people. The inhabitants of the cities, whether rich or poor are for the
most part low in stature, sallow-complexioned, bent shouldered; but if while you are
induced, by the appearance of the citizens, to lament the degeneracy of Italian
beauty, you wander in the country, or enter the market-place, to which, on certain
days, the country people resort, you are immediately convinced that you now behold
the models of the Italian painters. You are struck by groups resembling those fine
fellows represented in the paintings of the Adoration of the Shepherds. Their very
occupation adds to their pictorial appearance. They are employed among the vines,
or
following the oxen-drawn plough, whose rough mechanism is such as Virgil describes; frequently in summer they work
merely in a shirt, and the white colour of the linen contrasts well with limbs whose
veins seem to flow with dark wine. The women, less hard-worked than the French paysannes,16 perform the
lighter labours of the farm, and, notwithstanding the shade of their large
straw-hats, soon acquire a[Page 334]deep but healthy hue; in an evening they are
seen returning from fetching water at the spring, bearing their pitchers of an
antique shape on their heads, stepping freely under the burthen. Of course we do not
pretend to say that all, or even that the greater part of them, are handsome; but
they have, for the most part, pleasing expressions of countenance, and the beauty
you
do encounter is of a high character; their brows are finely moulded, their eyes soft
and large; the cheeks sink gently towards the chin, and their lips remind you of
those chiselled by Greek sculptors. Such we have seen in the evening emerging from
the trellised pergole,17 or
vine-walks, singing in perfect tune, and with clear, though loud voices, the simple
but beautiful melodies peculiar to the Italian peasantry.
It is true that, in thus eulogizing the country of Italy, our remarks must be
understood as being principally confined to Tuscany. In Lombardy the abundance of
pasture-land is inimical to the happiness of the peasantry; nor are we sufficiently
acquainted with the rural districts of the Roman and Neapolitan states, to speak with
precision concerning their inhabitants. In Tuscany the farms are usually small, and
held at long leases; the rent is often paid in kind, and the landlord receives as
his
share one half of the produce. The expenses are also shared between the landholder
and the cultivator, the former providing the heavy stock, cattle, ploughs,
out-houses, wine-presses, &c.; the peasantry the lighter utensils, and repairs of
hedges, sluices, &c. The smallness of the farms renders the farmer almost always
the labourer; a hired workman is rare among them; and the cottager, we should almost
call him, with a farm of twelve acres, whose family is sufficiently large to
cultivate the land, and whose share of corn and wine suffices to maintain that family
without extra purchase, considers himself rich; for, then, the superfluous money he
obtains by the sale of vegetables, fruit, and the better kind of wine, clothes his
family, and keeps his farm and house in repair. Their lives would be deemed, and
justly deemed, hard in England, for our unbenign climate would render painful the
continual out-door work, which is light to them.
The Tuscan name for their small farms is podere,18 and in appearance they resemble what we
imagine to have been the first attempts at agriculture, every thing being cultivated
in patches. A podere generally contains six or eight acres; they are hedged in; in
the neighborhood of Leghorn the hedges are of myrtle, which, like all evergreens,
are
fragrant even when out of bloom; and when in flower, their spicy odour gives a taste
of Indian climes. Little hay is raised, for the Indian [Page 335] corn is much
used in its stead; so after the spring-labour of pruning the vines, the wheat is the
first harvest. The wheat-fields are planted with rows of trees, to which the vines
cling; and the shade, far from being detrimental, is considered a shelter for the
crops. When the wheat is gathered in, and threshed on the threshing-floor,
constructed in the open air, with all the care that Virgil advises, the land is again sown with Indian corn. This is a
beautiful harvest. The men cut it down, and the women and children sit round the
threshing-floor, taking the grain from the pod, loosening it from the stalk, and
spreading it in the sun, till its paler orange hue deepens to a fiery glow. The
vintage follows—an universal feast. The men pluck the fruit from the trees, which
is
received and deposited in the vats by the women and children. The plucking of the
olives brings up the rear of their raccolte.19 But it is not the mere sowing, and the
harvests that demand labour; the long droughts force them to construct sluices
through every part of the podere, and the water-wheel is for ever at work to irrigate
the land; nature the while is busy and noisy. During the day the loud cicale, with
ceaseless chirp, fill the air with sound, and in the evening the fire-flies come out
from the myrtle hedges, and form a thousand changing and flashing constellations on
the green corn-fields, which is their favourite resort. Meanwhile the contadini20 cheer themselves with songs, either singly, in
harmony, or in response. One of the favourite games among the Tuscan peasants (we
have forgotten the name of it), especially during the time of the vintage, is
singularly poetic. A man on one tree, will challenge another perched afar off,
calling out the name of a flower; the challenged responds with an extempore couplet,
sometimes founded on the metaphoric meaning attached, of the flower's name, sometimes
given at random, and then returns the challenge by naming another flower, which is
replied to in the same manner. We have unluckily preserved but two of these
impromptus, and they are both on the same flower:— Fior di cent' erbe!Non bimbi voglion bene a loro mamma,Quanto io alla speransa mia.Fior di cent' erbe!Se un sospiro avesse la parola,Quanto bell' ambasciator sarebbe.21 space between stanzas
It is this exhaustless fertility that makes Italy a paradise, and affords
never-ending variety of object to the residents. With us nature is parsimonious, if
not frugal; her very magnificence is that of a well-regulated mansion, where, though
great show is made, there is no waste. In Italy she superabounds,[Page 336]
overflows, and, like a prodigal, casts immense treasures to the winds. This abundance
is not displayed alone in inanimate nature; but among the Italians themselves there
exist rich stores of talent, useless it is true, in the general sense of the term,
which are displayed to the delight of their countrymen and astonishment of
travellers. We cannot give a better idea of what we mean than by instancing their
improvisatori,22 who pour out, as a cataract does water, poetic imagery and
language; but except that the genial moisture somewhat fertilizes the near bordering
banks, it reaches the ocean of oblivion, leaving no trace behind. Sgricci may be given as an example. He is well
read, and profoundly versed in the works of the Greek metaphysicians and historians,
as well as their poets. The mode of his improvisation is wonderful, and different
from the usual style of these exhibitions. When he comes on the stage, his personal
appearance, animated countenance, and regular features, lost in his daily costume,
strike you with admiration. It is the custom for those who choose, to leave at the
door of the theatre a slip of paper, on which is written a subject for a tragic
drama. We were present at three of these performances. The subject of the first was
"Ifegenia in Tauride;" the plan of the tragedy was closely copied
from Euripides; but the words and poetry
were his own, and we were continually startled by images of dazzling beauty, and a
flow of language which never degenerated into mere words, but, on the contrary, was
instinct with energy and pathos.
Inez de Castro was a tragedy he gave at Lucca, the subject being
imposed on him by the arch-duchess, who was in the theatre. When towards the end,
he
caused the audience to understand that the prince, Don Pedro, husband of Inez,
drawing a curtain, suddenly displays to his father the bodies of his murdered wife
and children, the same thrill was felt, nay, far greater than if the real mock bodies
(the implied bull must be excused) had been brought forward. His words were so
living, that you saw them, not decked out with stage trickery, but in the true livery
of death, livid, stiff, and cold. The last tragedy we heard was the Death of
Hector.23 In it you were
trans-[Page 337]ported within the walls of Troy, and heard mad Cassandra denouncing its fall. Speaking
afterwards to the poet, he said that he did not remember much about any other part;
but he had a vivid recollection that when he poured forth the ravings of the
prophetess, he no longer saw the theatre; Troy was around him; Troy burning; Priam
stabbed at his altar, and the women dragged lamenting away in chains. From all this
magical creation of talent, what resulted? The poet himself forgets all his former
imaginations, and is hurried on to create fresh imagery, while the effects of his
former inspirations are borne away with the breath that uttered them, never again
to
be recalled— Nec revocare situs, aut jungere carmina curst.24 space between stanzas
For the rest, he acquires the enthusiastic praises of some few
of the more refined of his countrymen—for Sgricci's poetry is of too classic and elevated a nature to please the
multitude—and the animated recollection of those few English who understand
sufficient Italian to appreciate his genius.
Italy is an exhaustless theme to those who, having been long residents there, are
familiar with its novel and beauteous aspect. But our limits warn us not to pursue
our digression, and oblige us to turn our attention to those other works whose titles
head our article. We shall not dilate much upon them; for the scope of our present
writing is to treat of Italy, and as these volumes do not bear the same perfect
Italian stamp as those of lord
Normanby, they may be passed more cursorily over.
"Continental Adventures" are the production of the very clever authoress of "Rome in the Nineteenth
Century." This latter publication is an inestimable guide to all who visit the Eternal
City, and even to those at home, more than any other work on the same subject, gives
a faithful account of the wonders of that metropolis of the world.
"Continental Adventures" is on another and a worse plan. It mixes
real scenes with fictitious ones, not in the style of the "English in
Italy," where the manners of the natives form the ground-work of the
tales, but in the mode of a common novel—a novel of the day: a lady and her lover,
the baulks to love, the rival, and the denouement, all English: and the
"Continental Adventures" are merely, that while the hero and
heroine are progressing towards the fulfillment of
their hopes, they ramble about Switzerland, and the lady, in particular, endures so
many perils, that we really think that no female in real life could have undergone
them without becoming prematurely grey. She commences by breaking her collar-bone
and
two of her fingers;[Page 338]is twice in imminent danger of perishing in
snow-drifts; narrowly escapes tumbling down a precipice; is nearly shot by a robber
in one of the Alpine Ravines; and last, is carried away by Italian banditti, at whose
hands death was the least evil she expected, and from whom she saves herself by the
administration of a piece of opium, which she had fortunately put into her pocket the day before. The story of the novel is
commonplace enough, and the gordian knot, tied just at the end, then to be cut, is
confused, and even displeasing. The discovery of relationship in a forbidden degree
between lovers is always disagreeable; and the mode by which these lovers are found
to be related, disfiguring the sacred associations always blended with a mother's
name, is even revolting. The authoress
is evidently nearly related to Scotland, though we believe she is not Scotch. She
has
a taste for humour, and her comedy is generally very entertaining, though she too
often falls into a comedian's worst fault, of wire-drawing a comic scene, till it
becomes tedious; and once or twice she is guilty of giving them for their foundation
subjects hardly admissible on the score of propriety. The book is, however, written
with great spirit, and is very entertaining. Some of the scenes of real life are
sketched with fidelity and true humour. The Côche-d'Eau on the Rhone is one of these,
and the Reverend Saunders M'Muckleman is throughout a genuine comic character. Her
descriptions of scenery are, however, the best part of the book; they are varied and
faithful. We select one, as a specimen of the style in which they are executed:—
The glaciers of the Aar, which we visited from the Grimsel, present a scene which
I am convinced the world cannot equal; which none who have beheld it can ever
forget, and none who have not seen it can ever conceive. I will not mock you with
a futile attempt at description. You cannot picture the scene; but you can form
some idea of the awe-struck astonishment which filled our minds, when, after
surmounting all the difficulties of the way, we found ourselves standing amidst a
world of ice, extending around, beneath, above us; far beyond where the straining
sight, in every direction, vainly sought to follow the interminable frozen leagues
of glaciers, propped up in towering pyramids or shapeless heaps, or opening into
yawning gulphs and unfathomable fissures. The tremendous barren rocks and
mountains of the impenetrable Alps, amidst which the terrific Finsteraarhorn
reared his granitic pyramid of fourteen thousand feet, appeared alone amidst this
world of desolation. Eternal and boundless wastes of ice, naked and inaccessible
mountains of rock, which had stood unchanged and untrodden from creation, were the
only objects which met our view. Hitherto, with all we had seen of desolation and
horror, there was some contrast, some relief. The glaciers of Chamouni are
bordered by glowing harvests; the[Page 339]glaciers of Grindelwald are bounded
by its romantic vale; the glaciers of the Schiedeck shine forth amidst its
majestic woods. Even among the savage rocks and torrents of the Grimsel, though
animated life is seen no more, the drooping birch and feathery larch protrude
their storm-beaten branches from the crevices of the precipices; and the lonely
pine-tree is seen on high, where no hand can ever reach it. But here there is no
trace of vegetation, no blade of grass, no bush, no tree; no spreading weed or
creeping lichen invades the cold still desolation of the icy desert. It is the
death of nature. We seemed placed in a creation in which there is no principle of
life; translated to another orb, where existence is extinct, and where death,
unresisted, holds his terrific reign. The only sound which meets the ear is that
of the loud detonation of the ice, as it bursts open into new abysses, with the
crash of thunder, and reverberates from the wild rocks like the voice of the
mountain storms.—Vol. ii. p. 134,
These volumes contain the best description and guide to Switzerland that we have ever
seen, but Italy makes only a small portion of them. We have some animated scenes on
the romantic lake of Como, and visit, with the personages of the novel, the galleries
and palaces of Florence; but a guide-book and a romance form an incongruous mixture,
and we certainly wish that they should be separated in future.
"The Diary of an Ennuyée,"is a very well written and interesting
imposture. Well written and interesting it is true, but still an imposture, and that
not of a kind which is admissible. The very laws of cavaliere serventeism in Italy are not more delicate, subtle, and yet
strict, than those of fiction, and they are transgressed in the volume before us.
A
fiction must contain no glaring improbability, and yet it must never divest itself
of
a certain idealism, which forms its chief beauty. Once in Italy we saw a drama, which
was any thing but dramatic, and we were reminded of it by the pages of the book
before us. The hero was an English Milord who had a diseased arm; no medical
attendant was able to afford him any relief; one doctor, one alone could cure this
otherwise mortal disorder; but this doctor refused to exert his skill until his
friend Jenkisson, who was imprisoned in the Tower under
suspicion of treasonable practices, should be liberated by the sick Milord, who was
also a secretary of state; but Milord was too patriotic to sacrifice public good to
his private advantage. Miledi, in the mean time, ran from her husband to the doctor,
adjuring the one and supplicating the other, while Milord, with his bound-up arm,
groaning when on the stage, and shrieking while behind it, formed a most distressing
foreground to the picture. You actually felt for the poor man; and a greater verity
of scenic illusion (such as it was) was produced by that bandaged arm, and the
moaning and crippled action of the patient than Kean or Pasta[Page 340] usually effect in their portentous identifications with ideal woe. That
our readers may not be left in a painful suspense, we proceed to inform them, that
when Milord was at his last gasp, and the doctor stood unmoved in the midst of his
kneeling and supplicating relatives, Jenkisson himself, whose innocence had been
discovered, appeared; a general reconciliation took place; and the doctor was
proceeding to work a cure, when the curtain fell.
We do not wish to cast an air of ridicule over the volume before us, which we read,
really believing in it as we read, with great interest; but having discovered that
the sensitive, heart- broken, dying, dead diarist is a fictitious personage, we are
angry at the trick of art that excited our real sympathy; and we were led to a
conviction that the circumstances that demand our deepest interest as a reality, are,
when feigned, not of an high order of idealism, and consequently the fraud being
discovered, the fictitious part of the book falls below the usual rate of novel
interest.
But to leave this criticism, or hypercriticism, let us advert to the real merits of
the work. It is written with great spirit and great enthusiasm: the descriptions are
vivid, the anecdotes entertaining, and the whole style displays intelligence and
feeling. The few traits recorded of Italian manners are felicitously seized, and the
English party is well sketched, from the quiet, retiring, suffering, ideal authoress,
to the blundering and vivacious L——, who may stand as a specimen of a whole tribe
of
English rovers in Italy. We turn over the pages to find an extract, which our limits
will not permit us to make long. We hesitated between the account of the eruption
of
Vesuvius, the description of the improvisatore Sestini,25 the Capanna and Gesu Bambino, always
exhibited in the convents during Christmas,26 the Diarist's
Adventure with the Governor of Lerici—between these and the following one, which we
have fixed upon as one of the most interesting anecdotes in the book:—
Last night we had a numerous party, and Signor P—— and his daughter came to sing.
She is a private singer of great talent, and came
attended by her lover, or her fiancé, who, according
to the Italian custom, attends his mistress every where during the few weeks which
precede their marriage. He is a young artist, a favourite pupil of Camuccini, and of very quiet, unobstrusive
manners. La P. has the misfortune to be plain; her features are irregular, her
complexion of a sickly paleness, and though her eyes are large and dark, they
appeared totally devoid of luster and expression. Her plainness, the bad taste of
her dress, her awkward figure, and her timid and embarrassed deportment, all
furnished matter of amusement and observation to some young people (English of
course), whose propensities for quizzing exceeded
their good breeding and good nature. Though La P. does not under-[Page 341]
stand a word of either French or English, I thought she could not mistake the
significant looks and whispers of which she was the object, and I was in pain for
her and for her modest lover. I drew my chair to the piano, and tried to divert
her attention, by keeping her in conversation, but could get no farther than a few
questions, which were answered in monosyllables. At length she sang, and sang
divinely; I found the pale automaton had a soul as well as a voice. After giving
us with faultless execution, as well as great expression, some of Rossini's finest songs, she sang the
beautiful and difficult cavatina in Otello, "Assia al piè d'un salice," with the most enchanting
style and pathos, and then stood as unmoved as a statue, while the company
applauded loud and long. A moment afterwards, as she stooped to take up a
music-book, her lover, who had edged himself by degrees from the door to the
piano, bent his head too, and murmured, in a low voice, but with the most
passionate accent, "O brava, brava, cara!" She replied only by a look, but it was
such a look! I never saw a human countenance so entirely, so instantaneously
changed in character; the vacant eyes kindled and beamed with tenderness: the pale
cheek glowed, and a bright smile playing round her mouth, just parted her lips
sufficiently to discover a set of teeth like pearls. I could have called her at
that moment beautiful; but the change was as transient as sudden; it passed like a
gleam of light over her face, and vanished; and by the time the book was placed on
the desk, she looked as plain, as stupid, and statue-like as ever. I was the only
person who witnessed this little bye-scene, and it gave me pleasant thoughts and
interest for the rest of the evening.—p. 207.
We hope to heaven all this is true, and not false as the Ennuyée herself. One thing
alone at all atones for her deception. We longed, while reading her work, to thank
the fair authoress for reviving many a
half-forgotten Italian scene, and for shedding a beautiful light over many a
favourite spot; we regretted that our gratitude was due to the dead; but since the
writer lives, we no longer have this painful debt heavy at our hearts, and we pay
it
with the praise she entirely merits.
We shall hail with pleasure any new production from the pen of any one of the writers
of these works; and we were not a little gratified at the announcement of Lord Normanby's
"Historiettes." We hope that in these he has a little abated an
offensive display of superiority of rank. It is unworthy of the enlightened heir of
a
peerage thus to prize himself above nine-tenths of his readers on account of his
adventitious advantages, and very absurd to shew it. We remember, in former times,
that this nobleman had a warm love for talent, though its possessor was unendowed
either with rank or fashion; we hope the generous feeling is not dead. His lordship
has too much real talent not to feel and appreciate the nobility of nature as well
as
that of birth, and some indication of such a feeling would give a grace to his
productions, in which, at present, they are deficient.