Different Attitudes in which Authors compose.—Bayes, Henry Stevens, Herodotus, etc.—Writing in Bed—in the Fields.—Plato and Sir Richard Blackmore.—Fiddling with Gloves and Twigs.—Madame de StaËl.—Rhyming on the Road, in an old CalÊche.
What various attitudes and ways
And tricks we authors have in writing!
While some write sitting, some like BAYES
Usually stand while they're inditing,
Poets there are who wear the floor out,
Measuring a line at every stride;
While some like HENRY STEPHENS pour out
Rhymes by the dozen while they ride.
HERODOTUS wrote most in bed;
And RICHERAND, a French physician,
Declares the clock-work of the head
Goes best in that reclined position.
If you consult MONTAIGNE and PLINY on
The subject, 'tis their joint opinion
That Thought its richest harvest yields
Abroad among the woods and fields,
That bards who deal in small retail
At home may at their counters stop;
But that the grove, the hill, the vale,
Are Poesy's true wholesale shop.
And verily I think they're right—
For many a time on summer eves,
Just at that closing hour of light,
When, like an Eastern Prince, who leaves
For distant war his Haram bowers,
The Sun bids farewell to the flowers,
Whose heads are sunk, whose tears are flowing
Mid all the glory of his going!—
Even I have felt, beneath those beams,
When wandering thro' the fields alone,
Thoughts, fancies, intellectual gleams,
Which, far too bright to be my own,
Seemed lent me by the Sunny Power
That was abroad at that still hour.
If thus I've felt, how must they feel,
The few whom genuine Genius warms,
Upon whose soul he stamps his seal,
Graven with Beauty's countless forms;—
The few upon this earth, who seem
Born to give truth to PLATO'S dream,
Since in their thoughts, as in a glass,
Shadows of heavenly things appear.
Reflections of bright shapes that pass
Thro' other worlds, above our sphere!
But this reminds me I digress;—
For PLATO, too, produced, 'tis said,
(As one indeed might almost guess),
His glorious visions all in bed.[1]
'Twas in his carriage the sublime
Sir RICHARD BLACKMORE used to rhyme;
And (if the wits dont do him wrong)
Twixt death and epics past his time,[2]
Scribbling and killing all day long—
Like Phoebus in his car, at ease,
Now warbling forth a lofty song,
Now murdering the young Niobes.
There was a hero 'mong the Danes,
Who wrote, we're told, mid all the pains
And horrors of exenteration,
Nine charming odes, which, if you'll look,
You'll find preserved with a translation
By BARTHOLINOS in his book.
In short 'twere endless to recite
The various modes in which men write.
Some wits are only in the mind.
When beaus and belles are round them prating;
Some when they dress for dinner find
Their muse and valet both in waiting
And manage at the self-same time
To adjust a neckcloth and a rhyme.
Some bards there are who cannot scribble
Without a glove to tear or nibble
Or a small twig to whisk about—
As if the hidden founts of Fancy,
Like wells of old, were thus found out
By mystic trick of rhabdomancy.
Such was the little feathery wand,[3]
That, held for ever in the hand
Of her who won and wore the crown[4]
Of female genius in this age,
Seemed the conductor that drew down
Those words of lightning to her page.
As for myself—to come, at last,
To the odd way in which I write—
Having employ'd these few months past
Chiefly in travelling, day and night,
I've got into the easy mode
Of rhyming thus along the road—
Making a way-bill of my pages,
Counting my stanzas by my stages—
'Twixt lays and re-lays no time lost—
In short, in two words, writing post.
[1] The only authority I know for imputing this practice to Plato and Herodotus, is a Latin poem by M. de Valois on his Bed, in which he says:—
Lucifer Herodotum vidit Vesperque cubantem, desedit totos heic Plato saepe dies.
[2] Sir Richard Blackmore was a physician, as well as a bad poet.
[3] Made of paper, twisted up like a fan or feather.
[4] Madame de StaËl.
EXTRACT I.
Geneva.
View of the Lake of Geneva from the Jura.[1]—Anxious to reach it before the Sun went down.—Obliged to proceed on Foot.—Alps.—Mont Blanc.—Effect of the Scene.
'Twas late—the sun had almost shone
His last and best when I ran on
Anxious to reach that splendid view
Before the daybeams quite withdrew
And feeling as all feel on first
Approaching scenes where, they are told,
Such glories on their eyes will burst
As youthful bards in dreams behold.
'Twas distant yet and as I ran
Full often was my wistful gaze
Turned to the sun who now began
To call in all his out-posts rays,
And form a denser march of light,
Such as beseems a hero's flight.
Oh, how I wisht for JOSHUA'S power,
To stay the brightness of that hour?
But no—the sun still less became,
Diminisht to a speck as splendid
And small as were those tongues of flame,
That on the Apostles' heads descended!
'Twas at this instant—while there glowed
This last, intensest gleam of light—
Suddenly thro' the opening road
The valley burst upon my sight!
That glorious valley with its Lake
And Alps on Alps in clusters swelling,
Mighty and pure and fit to make
The ramparts of a Godhead's dwelling.
I stood entranced—as Rabbins say
This whole assembled, gazing world
Will stand, upon that awful day,
When the Ark's Light aloft unfurled
Among the opening clouds shall shine,
Divinity's own radiant sign!
Mighty MONT BLANC, thou wert to me
That minute, with thy brow in heaven,
As sure a sign of Deity
As e'er to mortal gaze was given.
Nor ever, were I destined yet
To live my life twice o'er again,
Can I the deep-felt awe forget,
The dream, the trance that rapt me then!
'Twas all that consciousness of power
And life, beyond this mortal hour;—
Those mountings of the soul within
At thoughts of Heaven—as birds begin
By instinct in the cage to rise,
When near their time for change of skies;—
That proud assurance of our claim
To rank among the Sons of Light,
Mingled with shame—oh bitter shame!—
At having riskt that splendid right,
For aught that earth thro' all its range
Of glories offers in exchange!
'Twas all this, at that instant brought
Like breaking sunshine o'er my thought—
'Twas all this, kindled to a glow
Of sacred zeal which could it shine
Thus purely ever man might grow,
Even upon earth a thing divine,
And be once more the creature made
To walk unstained the Elysian shade!
No, never shall I lose the trace
Of what I've felt in this bright place.
And should my spirit's hope grow weak,
Should I, oh God! e'er doubt thy power,
This mighty scene again I'll seek,
At the same calm and glowing hour,
And here at the sublimest shrine
That Nature ever reared to Thee
Rekindle all that hope divine
And feel my immortality!
[1] Between Vattay and Gex.
EXTRACT II.
Geneva.
FATE OF GENEVA IN THE YEAR 1782.
A FRAGMENT.
Yes—if there yet live some of those,
Who, when this small Republic rose,
Quick as a startled hive of bees,
Against her leaguering enemies—[1]
When, as the Royal Satrap shook
His well-known fetters at her gates,
Even wives and mothers armed and took
Their stations by their sons and mates;
And on these walls there stood—yet, no,
Shame to the traitors—would have stood
As firm a band as e'er let flow
At Freedom's base their sacred blood;
If those yet live, who on that night
When all were watching, girt for fight,
Stole like the creeping of a pest
From rank to rank, from breast to breast,
Filling the weak, the old with fears,
Turning the heroine's zeal to tears,—
Betraying Honor to that brink,
Where, one step more, and he must sink—
And quenching hopes which tho' the last,
Like meteors on a drowning mast,
Would yet have led to death more bright,
Than life e'er lookt, in all its light!
Till soon, too soon, distrust, alarms
Throughout the embattled thousands ran,
And the high spirit, late in arms,
The zeal that might have workt such charms,
Fell like a broken talisman—
Their gates, that they had sworn should be
The gates of Death, that very dawn,
Gave passage widely, bloodlessly,
To the proud foe—nor sword was drawn,
Nor even one martyred body cast
To stain their footsteps, as they past;
But of the many sworn at night
To do or die, some fled the sight,
Some stood to look with sullen frown,
While some in impotent despair
Broke their bright armor and lay down,
Weeping, upon the fragments there!—
If those, I say, who brought that shame,
That blast upon GENEVA'S name
Be living still—tho' crime so dark
Shall hang up, fixt and unforgiven,
In History's page, the eternal mark
For Scorn to pierce—so help me, Heaven,
I wish the traitorous slaves no worse,
No deeper, deadlier disaster
From all earth's ills no fouler curse
Than to have *********** their master!
[1] In the year 1782, when the forces of Berne, Sardinia, and France laid siege to Geneva, and when, after a demonstration of heroism and self-devotion, which promised to rival the feats of their ancestors in 1602 against Savoy, the Genevans, either panic-struck or betrayed, to the surprise of all Europe, opened their gates to the besiegers, and submitted without a struggle to the extinction of their liberties—See an account of this Revolution in Coxe's Switzerland.
EXTRACT III.
Geneva.
Fancy and Truth—Hippomenes and Atalanta. Mont Blanc.—Clouds.
Even here in this region of wonders I find
That light-footed Fancy leaves Truth far behind;
Or at least like Hippomenes turns her astray
By the golden illusions he flings in her way.
What a glory it seemed the first evening I gazed!
MONT BLANC like a vision then suddenly raised
On the wreck of the sunset—and all his array
Of high-towering Alps, touched still with a light
Far holier, purer than that of the Day,
As if nearness to Heaven had made them so bright!
Then the dying at last of these splendors away
From peak after peak, till they left but a ray,
One roseate ray, that, too precious to fly,
O'er the Mighty of Mountains still glowingly hung,
Like the last sunny step of ASTRAEA, when high,
From the summit of earth to Elysium she sprung!
And those infinite Alps stretching out from the sight
Till they mingled with Heaven, now shorn of their light,
Stood lofty and lifeless and pale in the sky,
Like the ghosts of a Giant Creation gone by!
That scene—I have viewed it this evening again,
By the same brilliant light that hung over it then—
The valley, the lake in their tenderest charms—
MONT BLANC in his awfullest pomp—and the whole
A bright picture of Beauty, reclined in the arms
Of Sublimity, bridegroom elect of her soul!
But where are the mountains that round me at first
One dazzling horizon of miracles burst?
Those Alps beyond Alps, without end swelling on
Like the waves of eternity—where are they gone?
Clouds—clouds—they were nothing but clouds, after all![1]
That chain of MONT BLANC'S, which my fancy flew o'er,
With a wonder that naught on this earth can recall,
Were but clouds of the evening and now are no more.
What a picture of Life's young illusions! Oh, Night,
Drop thy curtain at once and hide all from my sight.
[1] It is often very difficult to distinguish between clouds and Alps; and on the evening when I first saw this magnificent scene, the clouds were so disposed along the whole horizon, as to deceive me into an idea of the stupendous extent of these mountains, which my subsequent observation was very far, of course, from confirming.
EXTRACT IV.
Milan.
The Picture Gallery.—Albano's Rape of Proserpine.—Reflections.— Universal Salvation.—Abraham sending away Agar, by Guercino.—Genius.
Went to the Brera—saw a Dance of Loves
By smooth ALBANO! him whose pencil teems
With Cupids numerous as in summer groves
The leaflets are or motes in summer beams.
'Tis for the theft of Enna's flower from earth,
These urchins celebrate their dance of mirth
Round the green tree, like fays upon a heath—
Those that are nearest linkt in order bright,
Cheek after cheek, like rose-buds in a wreath;
And those more distant showing from beneath
The others' wings their little eyes of light.
While see! among the clouds, their eldest brother
But just flown up tells with a smile of bliss
This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother
Who turns to greet the tidings with a kiss!
Well might the Loves rejoice—and well did they
Who wove these fables picture in their weaving
That blessed truth, (which in a darker day
ORIGEN lost his saintship for believing,[1])—
That Love, eternal Love, whose fadeless ray
Nor time nor death nor sin can overcast,
Even to the depths of hell will find his way,
And soothe and heal and triumph there at last!
GUERCINO'S Agar—where the bondmaid hears
From Abram's lips that he and she must part,
And looks at him with eyes all full of tears
That seem the very last drops from her heart.
Exquisite picture!—let me not be told
Of minor faults, of coloring tame and cold—
If thus to conjure up a face so fair,[2]
So full of sorrow; with the story there
Of all that woman suffers when the stay
Her trusting heart hath leaned on falls away—
If thus to touch the bosom's tenderest spring,
By calling into life such eyes as bring
Back to our sad remembrance some of those
We've smiled and wept with in their joys and woes,
Thus filling them with tears, like tears we've known,
Till all the pictured grief becomes our own—
If this be deemed the victory of Art—
If thus by pen or pencil to lay bare
The deep, fresh, living fountains of the heart
Before all eyes be Genius—it is there!
[1] The extension of the Divine Love ultimately even to the regions of the damned.
[2] It is probable that this fine head is a portrait, as we find it repeated in a picture by Guercino, which is in the possession of Signor Carnuccini, the brother of the celebrated painter at Rome.
EXTRACT V.
Padua.
Fancy and Reality.—Rain-drops and Lakes.—Plan of a Story.—Where to place the Scene of it.—In some unknown Region.—Psalmanazar's Imposture with respect to the Island of Formosa.
The more I've viewed this world the more I've found,
That, filled as 'tis with scenes and creatures rare.
Fancy commands within her own bright round
A world of scenes and creatures far more fair.
Nor is it that her power can call up there
A single charm, that's not from Nature won,
No more than rainbows in their pride can wear
A single hue unborrowed from the sun—
But 'tis the mental medium it shines thro'
That lends to Beauty all its charm and hue;
As the same light that o'er the level lake
One dull monotony of lustre flings,
Will, entering in the rounded raindrop, make
Colors as gay as those on Peris' wings!
And such, I deem, the difference between real,
Existing Beauty and that form ideal
Which she assumes when seen by poets' eyes,
Like sunshine in the drop—with all those dyes
Which Fancy's variegating prism supples.
I have a story of two lovers, filled
With all the pure romance, the blissful sadness,
And the sad, doubtful bliss that ever thrilled
Two young and longing hearts in that sweet madness.
But where to choose the region of my vision
In this wide, vulgar world—what real spot
Can be found out sufficiently Elysian
For two such perfect lovers I know not.
Oh for some fair FORMOSA, such as he,
The young Jew fabled of, in the Indian Sea,
By nothing but its name of Beauty known,
And which Queen Fancy might make all her own,
Her fairy kingdom—take its people, lands,
And tenements into her own bright hands,
And make at least one earthly corner fit
For Love to live in, pure and exquisite!
EXTRACT VI.
Venice.
The Fall of Venice not to be lamented—Former Glory.—Expedition against Constantinople.—Giustinianis.—Republic.—Characteristics of the old Government.—Golden Book.—Brazen Mouths.—Spies.—Dungeons.—Present Desolation.
Mourn not for VENICE—let her rest
In ruin, 'mong those States unblest,
Beneath whose gilded hoofs of pride,
Where'er they trampled, Freedom died.
No—let us keep our tears for them,
Where'er they pine, whose fall hath been
Not from a blood-stained diadem,
Like that which deckt this ocean-queen,
But from high daring in the cause
Of human Rights—the only good
And blessed strife, in which man draws
His mighty sword on land or flood.
Mourn not for VENICE; tho' her fall
Be awful, as if Ocean's wave
Swept o'er her, she deserves it all,
And Justice triumphs o'er her grave.
Thus perish every King and State
That run the guilty race she ran,
Strong but in ill and only great
By outrage against God and man!
True, her high spirit is at rest,
And all those days of glory gone,
When the world's waters, east and west,
Beneath her white-winged commerce shone;
When with her countless barks she went
To meet the Orient Empire's might.[1]
And her Giustinianis sent
Their hundred heroes to that fight.
Vanisht are all her pomps, 'tis true,
But mourn them not—for vanisht too
(Thanks to that Power, who soon or late,
Hurls to the dust the guilty Great,)
Are all the outrage, falsehood, fraud,
The chains, the rapine, and the blood,
That filled each spot, at home, abroad,
Where the Republic's standard stood.
Desolate VENICE! when I track
Thy haughty course thro' centuries back;
Thy ruthless power, obeyed but curst—
The stern machinery of thy State,
Which hatred would, like steam, have burst,
Had stronger fear not chilled even hate;—
Thy perfidy, still worse than aught
Thy own unblushing SARPI[2] taught;—
Thy friendship which, o'er all beneath
Its shadow, rained down dews of death;[3]—
Thy Oligarchy's Book of Gold,
Closed against humble Virtue's name,
But opened wide for slaves who sold
Their native land to thee and shame;[4]—
Thy all-pervading host of spies
Watching o'er every glance and breath,
Till men lookt in each others' eyes,
To read their chance of life or death;—
Thy laws that made a mart of blood,
And legalized the assassin's knife;[5]—
Thy sunless cells beneath the flood,
And racks and Leads that burnt out life;—
When I review all this and see
The doom that now hath fallen on thee;
Thy nobles, towering once so proud,
Themselves beneath the yoke now bowed,—
A yoke by no one grace redeemed,
Such as of old around thee beamed,
But mean and base as e'er yet galled
Earth's tyrants when themselves enthralled,—
I feel the moral vengeance sweet.
And smiling o'er the wreck repeat:—
"Thus perish every King and State
"That tread the steps which VENICE trod,
"Strong but in ill and only great,
"By outrage against man and God!"
[1] Under the Doge Michaeli, in 1171.
[2] The celebrated Fra Paolo. The collections of Maxims which this bold monk drew up at the request of the Venetian Government, for the guidance of the Secret Inquisition of State, are so atrocious as to seem rather an over-charged satire upon despotism, than a system of policy, seriously inculcated, and but too readily and constantly pursued.
[3] Conduct of Venice towards her allies and dependencies, particularly to unfortunate Padua.
[4] Among those admitted to the honor of being inscribed in the Libro d'oro were some families of Brescia, Treviso, and other places, whose only claim to that distinction was the zeal with which they prostrated themselves and their country at the feet of the republic.
[5] By the infamous statutes of the State Inquisition, not only was assassination recognized as a regular mode of punishment, but this secret power over life was delegated to their minions at a distance, with nearly as much facility as a licence is given under the game laws of England. The only restriction seems to have been the necessity of applying for a new certificate, after every individual exercise of the power.
EXTRACT VII.
Venice.
Lord Byron's Memoirs, written by himself.—Reflections, when about to read them.
Let me a moment—ere with fear and hope
Of gloomy, glorious things, these leaves I ope—
As one in fairy tale to whom the key
Of some enchanter's secret halls is given,
Doubts while he enters slowly, tremblingly,
If he shall meet with shapes from hell or heaven—
Let me a moment think what thousands live
O'er the wide earth this instant who would give,
Gladly, whole sleepless nights to bend the brow
Over these precious leaves, as I do now.
How all who know—and where is he unknown?
To what far region have his songs not flown,
Like PSAPHON'S birds[1] speaking their master's name,
In every language syllabled by Fame?—
How all who've felt the various spells combined
Within the circle of that mastermind,—
Like spells derived from many a star and met
Together in some wondrous amulet,—
Would burn to know when first the Light awoke
In his young soul,—and if the gleams that broke
From that Aurora of his genius, raised
Most pain or bliss in those on whom they blazed;
Would love to trace the unfolding of that power,
Which had grown ampler, grander, every hour;
And feel in watching o'er his first advance
As did the Egyptian traveller[2] when he stood
By the young Nile and fathomed with his lance
The first small fountains of that mighty flood.
They too who mid the scornful thoughts that dwell
In his rich fancy, tingeing all its streams,—
As if the Star of Bitterness which fell
On earth of old,[3] had touched them with its beams,—
Can track a spirit which tho' driven to hate,
From Nature's hands came kind, affectionate;
And which even now, struck as it is with blight,
Comes out at times in love's own native light;—
How gladly all who've watched these struggling rays
Of a bright, ruined spirit thro' his lays,
Would here inquire, as from his own frank lips,
What desolating grief, what wrongs had driven
That noble nature into cold eclipse;
Like some fair orb that, once a sun in heaven.
And born not only to surprise but cheer
With warmth and lustre all within its sphere,
Is now so quenched that of its grandeur lasts
Naught but the wide, cold shadow which it casts.
Eventful volume! whatsoe'er the change
Of scene and clime—the adventures bold and strange—
The griefs—the frailties but too frankly told—
The loves, the feuds thy pages may unfold,
If Truth with half so prompt a hand unlocks
His virtues as his failings, we shall find
The record there of friendships held like rocks,
And enmities like sun-touched snow resigned;
Of fealty, cherisht without change or chill,
In those who served him, young, and serve him still;
Of generous aid given, with that noiseless art
Which wakes not pride, to many a wounded heart;
Of acts—but, no—not from himself must aught
Of the bright features of his life be sought.
While they who court the world, like Milton's cloud,
"Turn forth their silver lining" on the crowd,
This gifted Being wraps himself in night;
And keeping all that softens and adorns
And gilds his social nature hid from sight,
Turns but its darkness on a world he scorns.
[1] Psaphon, in order to attract the attention of the world, taught multitudes of birds to speak his name, and then let them fly away in various directions; whence the proverb, "Psaphonis aves."
[2] Bruce.
[3] "And the name of the star is called Wormwood, and the third part of the waters became wormwood."—Rev. viii.
EXTRACT VIII.
Venice.
Female Beauty at Venice.—No longer what it was in the time of Titian.— His mistress.—Various Forms in which he has painted her.—Venus.—Divine and profane Love.—La Fragilita d'Amore—Paul Veronese.—His Women.— Marriage of Cana.—Character of Italian Beauty.—Raphael's Fornarina.— Modesty.
Thy brave, thy learned have passed away:
Thy beautiful!—ah, where are they?
The forms, the faces that once shone,
Models of grace, in Titian's eye,
Where are they now, while flowers live on
In ruined places, why, oh! why
Must Beauty thus with Glory die?
That maid whose lips would still have moved,
Could art have breathed a spirit through them;
Whose varying charms her artist loved
More fondly every time he drew them,
(So oft beneath his touch they past,
Each semblance fairer than the last);
Wearing each shape that Fancy's range
Offers to Love—yet still the one
Fair idol seen thro' every change,
Like facets of some orient stone,—
In each the same bright image shown.
Sometimes a Venus, unarrayed
But in her beauty[1]—sometimes deckt
In costly raiment, as a maid
That kings might for a throne select.[2]
Now high and proud, like one who thought
The world should at her feet be brought;
Now with a look reproachful sad,[3]—
Unwonted look from brow so glad,—
And telling of a pain too deep
For tongue to speak or eyes to weep.
Sometimes thro' allegory's veil,
In double semblance seemed to shine,
Telling a strange and mystic tale
Of Love Profane and Love Divine[4]—
Akin in features, but in heart
As far as earth and heaven apart.
Or else (by quaint device to prove
The frailty of all worldly love)
Holding a globe of glass as thin
As air-blown bubbles in her hand,
With a young Love confined therein,
Whose wings seem waiting to expand—
And telling by her anxious eyes
That if that frail orb break he flies.[5]
Thou too with touch magnificent,
PAUL of VERONA!—where are they?
The oriental forms[6] that lent
Thy canvas such a bright array?
Noble and gorgeous dames whose dress
Seems part of their own loveliness;
Like the sun's drapery which at eve
The floating clouds around him weave
Of light they from himself receive!
Where is there now the living face
Like those that in thy nuptial throng[7]
By their superb, voluptuous grace,
Make us forget the time, the place,
The holy guests they smile among,—
Till in that feast of heaven-sent wine
We see no miracles but thine.
If e'er, except in Painting's dream,
There bloomed such beauty here, 'tis gone,—
Gone like the face that in the stream
Of Ocean for an instant shone,
When Venus at that mirror gave
A last look ere she left the wave.
And tho', among the crowded ways,
We oft are startled by the blaze
Of eyes that pass with fitful light.
Like fire-flies on the wing at night[8]
'Tis not that nobler beauty given
To show how angels look in heaven.
Even in its shape most pure and fair,
'Tis Beauty with but half her zone,
All that can warm the sense is there,
But the Soul's deeper charm has flown:—
'Tis RAPHAEL's Fornarina,—warm,
Luxuriant, arch, but unrefined;
A flower round which the noontide swarm
Of young Desires may buzz and wind,
But where true Love no treasure meets
Worth hoarding in his hive of sweets.
Ah no,—for this and for the hue
Upon the rounded cheek, which tells
How fresh within the heart this dew
Of love's unrifled sweetness dwells,
We must go back to our own Isles,
Where Modesty, which here but gives
A rare and transient grace to smiles,
In the heart's holy centre lives;
And thence as from her throne diffuses
O'er thoughts and looks so bland a reign,
That not a thought or feeling loses
Its freshness in that gentle chain.
[1] In the Tribune at Florence.
[2] In the Palazzo Pitti.
[3] Alludes particularly to the portrait of her in the Sciarra collection at Rome, where the look of mournful reproach in those full, shadowy eyes, as if she had been unjustly accused of something wrong, is exquisite.
[4] The fine picture in the Palazzo Borghese, called (it is not easy to say why) "Sacred and Profane Love," in which the two figures, sitting on the edge of the fountain, are evidently portraits of the same person.
[5] This fanciful allegory is the subject of a picture by Titian in the possession of the Marquis Cambian at Turin, whose collection, though small, contains some beautiful specimens of all the great masters.
[6] As Paul Veronese gave but little into the beau idÉal, his women may be regarded as pretty close imitations of the living models which Venice afforded in his time.
[7] The Marriage of Cana.
[8] "Certain it is [as Arthur Young truly and feelingly says] one now and then meets with terrible eyes in Italy."
EXTRACT IX.
Venice.
The English to be met with everywhere.—Alps and Threadneedle Street.—The Simplon and the Stocks.—Rage for travelling.—Blue Stockings among the Wahabees.—Parasols and Pyramids.—Mrs. Hopkins and the Wall of China.
And is there then no earthly place,
Where we can rest in dream Elysian,
Without some curst, round English face,
Popping up near to break the vision?
Mid northern lakes, mid southern vines,
Unholy cits we're doomed to meet;
Nor highest Alps nor Apennines
Are sacred from Threadneedle Street!
If up the Simplon's path we wind,
Fancying we leave this world behind,
Such pleasant sounds salute one's ear
As—"Baddish news from 'Change, my dear—
"The funds—(phew I curse this ugly hill)—
"Are lowering fast—(what, higher still?)—
"And—(zooks, we're mounting up to heaven!)—
"Will soon be down to sixty-seven."
Go where we may—rest where we will.
Eternal London haunts us still.
The trash of Almack's or Fleet Ditch—
And scarce a pin's head difference which—
Mixes, tho' even to Greece we run,
With every rill from Helicon!
And if this rage for travelling lasts,
If Cockneys of all sects and castes,
Old maidens, aldermen, and squires,
Will leave their puddings and coal fires,
To gape at things in foreign lands
No soul among them understands;
If Blues desert their coteries,
To show off 'mong the Wahabees;
If neither sex nor age controls,
Nor fear of Mamelukes forbids
Young ladies with pink parasols
To glide among the Pyramids—
Why, then, farewell all hope to find
A spot that's free from London-kind!
Who knows, if to the West we roam,
But we may find some Blue "at home"
Among the Blacks of Carolina—
Or flying to the Eastward see
Some Mrs. HOPKINS taking tea
And toast upon the Wall of China!
EXTRACT X.
Mantua.
Verses of Hippolyta to her Husband.
They tell me thou'rt the favored guest
Of every fair and brilliant throng;
No wit like thine to wake the jest,
No voice like thine to breathe the song.
And none could guess, so gay thou art,
That thou and I are far apart.
Alas, alas! how different flows,
With thee and me the time away!
Not that I wish thee sad, heaven knows—
Still if thou canst, be light and gay;
I only know that without thee
The sun himself is dark for me.
Do I put on the jewels rare
Thou'st always loved to see me wear?
Do I perfume the locks that thou
So oft hast braided o'er my brow,
Thus deckt thro' festive crowds to run,
And all the assembled world to see,—
All but the one, the absent one,
Worth more than present worlds to me!
No, nothing cheers this widowed heart—
My only joy from thee apart,
From thee thyself, is sitting hours
And days before thy pictured form—
That dream of thee, which Raphael's powers
Have made with all but life-breath warm!
And as I smile to it, and say
The words I speak to thee in play,
I fancy from their silent frame,
Those eyes and lips give back the same:
And still I gaze, and still they keep
Smiling thus on me—till I weep!
Our little boy too knows it well,
For there I lead him every day
And teach his lisping lips to tell
The name of one that's far away.
Forgive me, love, but thus alone
My time is cheered while thou art gone.
EXTRACT XI.
Florence.
No—'tis not the region where Love's to be found—
They have bosoms that sigh, they have glances that rove,
They have language a Sappho's own lip might resound,
When she warbled her best—but they've nothing like Love.
Nor is't that pure sentiment only they want,
Which Heaven for the mild and the tranquil hath made—
Calm, wedded affection, that home-rooted plant
Which sweetens seclusion and smiles in the shade;
That feeling which, after long years have gone by,
Remains like a portrait we've sat for in youth,
Where, even tho' the flush of the colors may fly,
The features still live in their first smiling truth;
That union where all that in Woman is kind,
With all that in Man most ennoblingly towers,
Grow wreathed into one—like the column, combined
Of the strength of the shaft and the capital's flowers.
Of this—bear ye witness, ye wives, everywhere,
By the ARNO, the PO, by all ITALY'S streams—
Of this heart-wedded love, so delicious to share,
Not a husband hath even one glimpse in his dreams.
But it is not this only;—born full of the light
Of a sun from whose fount the luxuriant festoons
Of these beautiful valleys drink lustre so bright
That beside him our suns of the north are but moons,—
We might fancy at least, like their climate they burned;
And that Love tho' unused in this region of spring
To be thus to a tame Household Deity turned,
Would yet be all soul when abroad on the wing.
And there may be, there are those explosions of heart
Which burst when the senses have first caught the flame;
Such fits of the blood as those climates impart,
Where Love is a sun-stroke that maddens the frame.
But that Passion which springs in the depth of the soul;
Whose beginnings are virginly pure as the source
Of some small mountain rivulet destined to roll
As a torrent ere long, losing peace in its course—
A course to which Modesty's struggle but lends
A more headlong descent without chance of recall;
But which Modesty even to the last edge attends,
And then throws a halo of tears round its fall!
This exquisite Passion—ay, exquisite, even
Mid the ruin its madness too often hath made,
As it keeps even then a bright trace of the heaven,
That heaven of Virtue from which it has strayed—
This entireness of love which can only be found,
Where Woman like something that's holy, watched over,
And fenced from her childhood with purity round,
Comes body and soul fresh as Spring to a lover!
Where not an eye answers, where not a hand presses,
Till spirit with spirit in sympathy move;
And the Senses asleep in their sacred recesses
Can only be reached thro' the temple of Love!—
This perfection of Passion-how can it be found,
Where the mystery Nature hath hung round the tie
By which souls are together attracted and bound,
Is laid open for ever to heart,
ear and eye;—
Where naught of that innocent doubt can exist,
That ignorance even than knowledge more bright,
Which circles the young like the morn's sunny mist,
And curtains them round in their own native light;—
Where Experience leaves nothing for Love to reveal,
Or for Fancy in visions to gleam o'er the thought:
But the truths which alone we would die to conceal
From the maiden's young heart are the only ones taught.
No, no, 'tis not here, howsoever we sigh,
Whether purely to Hymen's one planet we pray,
Or adore, like Sabaeans, each light of Love's sky,
Here is not the region to fix or to stray.
For faithless in wedlock, in gallantry gross,
Without honor to guard, to reserve, to restrain,
What have they a husband can mourn as a loss?
What have they a lover can prize as a gain?
EXTRACT XII.
Florence.
Music in Italy.—Disappointed by it.—Recollections or other Times and Friends.—Dalton.—Sir John Stevenson.—His Daughter.—Musical Evenings together.
If it be true that Music reigns,
Supreme, in ITALY'S soft shades,
'Tis like that Harmony so famous,
Among the spheres, which He of SAMOS
Declared had such transcendent merit
That not a soul on earth could hear it;
For, far as I have come—from Lakes,
Whose sleep the Tramontana breaks,
Thro' MILAN and that land which gave
The Hero of the rainbow vest[1]—
By MINCIO'S banks, and by that wave,
Which made VERONA'S bard so blest—
Places that (like the Attic shore,
Which rung back music when the sea
Struck on its marge) should be all o'er
Thrilling alive with melody—
I've heard no music—not a note
Of such sweet native airs as float
In my own land among the throng
And speak our nation's soul for song.
Nay, even in higher walks, where Art
Performs, as 'twere, the gardener's part,
And richer if not sweeter makes
The flowers she from the wild-hedge takes—
Even there, no voice hath charmed my ear,
No taste hath won my perfect praise,
Like thine, dear friend[2]—long, truly dear—
Thine, and thy loved OLIVIA'S lays.
She, always beautiful, and growing
Still more so every note she sings—
Like an inspired young Sibyl,[3] glowing
With her own bright imaginings!
And thou, most worthy to be tied
In music to her, as in love,
Breathing that language by her side,
All other language far above,
Eloquent Song—whose tones and words
In every heart find answering chords!
How happy once the hours we past,
Singing or listening all daylong,
Till Time itself seemed changed at last
To music, and we lived in song!
Turning the leaves of HAYDN o'er,
As quick beneath her master hand
They opened all their brilliant store,
Like chambers, touched by fairy wand;
Or o'er the page of MOZART bending,
Now by his airy warblings cheered,
Now in his mournful Requiem blending
Voices thro' which the heart was heard.
And still, to lead our evening choir,
Was He invoked, thy loved-one's Sire[4]—
He who if aught of grace there be
In the wild notes I write or sing,
First smoothed their links of harmony,
And lent them charms they did not bring;—
He, of the gentlest, simplest heart,
With whom, employed in his sweet art,
(That art which gives this world of ours
A notion how they speak in heaven.)
I've past more bright and charmed hours
Than all earth's wisdom could have given.
Oh happy days, oh early friends,
How Life since then hath lost its flowers!
But yet—tho' Time some foliage rends,
The stem, the Friendship, still is ours;
And long may it endure, as green
And fresh as it hath always been!
How I have wandered from my theme!
But where is he, that could return
To such cold subjects from a dream,
Thro' which these best of feelings burn?—
Not all the works of Science, Art,
Or Genius in this world are worth
One genuine sigh that from the heart
Friendship or Love draws freshly forth.
[1] Bermago—the birthplace, it is said, of Harlequin.
[2] Edward Tuite Dalton, the first husband of Sir John Stevenson's daughter, the late Marchioness of Headfort.
[3] Such as those of Domenichino in the Palazza Borghese, at the Capitol, etc.
[4] Sir John Stevenson.
