Hester Lynch Piozzi

“ The truth is, a continental nobleman can have little heart of a country, where, to be treated as a man of fashion, he must absolutely behave as such: his rank is ascertained at home, and people’s deportment to him regulated by long-established customs; nor can it be supposed flattering to its prejudices, to feel himself jostled in the street, or driven against upon the road by a rich trader, while he is contriving the cheapest method of going to look over his manufactory. Wealth diffused makes all men comfortable, and leaves no man splendid; gives every body two dishes, but nobody two hundred. ”

“ A hall built in imitation of the Colonna gallery shews Frederick’s taste at once and liberal spirit: the front seems borrowed from something at St. Peter’s; all is beautiful; the gilding of his long-room makes a very sudden and strong effect, nor are marbles of immense value wanting; here is a specimen of every thing I think, and two agate tables of prodigious size and beauty. The Silesian chrysopaz, and Carolina marble of a bright scarlet colour, quite luminous like the feathers of a fighting cock, struck me with their singular and splendid appearance. Rubens’s merit was not new to me, I hope ”

“ The drive perhaps pleased us better than the palace, which is a prodigious mass of building indeed, and to my eye appears to cover more space than proud Versailles itself; court within court, and quadrangle within quadrangle; it is an enormous bulk to be sure—not pile—for it is not high in proportion to the surrounding objects somehow; and being composed all of brick, presents ideas rather of squat solidity, than of princely magnificence. Ostentation is expected always to strike, as elegance is known to charm, the beholder; and space seldom fails in its immediate effect upon the mind ”

“ Peter’s church, must be surprise at seeing it so clear of superfluous ornament. This is the true character of innate excellence, the simplex munditiis, or freedom from decoration; the noble simplicity to which no embellishment can add dignity, but seems a mere appendage. Getting on the top of this stupendous edifice, is however the readiest way to fill one’s mind with a deserving notion of its extent, capacity, and beauty; nor is any operation easier, so happily contrived is the ascent. ”

“ Here are the most excellent, the most incomparable fish I ever eat; red mullets, large as our maycril, and of singularly high flavour; besides the calamaro, or ink-fish, a dainty worthy of imperial luxury; almond and even apple trees in blossom, to delight those who can be paid for coarse manners and confined notions by the beauties of a brilliant climate. Here are all the hedges in blow as you drive towards Pozzuoli, and a snow of white May-flowers clustering round Virgil’s tomb. ”

“ Villa Pamphili is a lovely place, or might be made so; but laying out pleasure grounds is not the forte of Italian taste. I never saw one of them, except Lomellino of Genoa, who had higher notions of a garden than what an opera scene affords; and that is merely a range of trees in great pots with gilded handles, and rows of tall cypresses planted one between every two pots, all straight over against each other in long lines; with an octangular marble bason to hold water in the middle, covered for the most part with a thick green scum. ”

“ Naples is the town that can afford him most matter both of solemn and pleasing speculation.
If ruins of pristine splendour, solid proofs of universal dominion, once, nay twice enjoyed: with the view of temporal power crushed by its own weight, solicits his curiosity.—It will be amply gratified at Rome; where all that modern magnificence can perform, is added to all that ancient empire has left behind. Romantic ideas of Armida’s palace, fancied scenes of perennial pleasure, and magical images of ever varying delight, will be best realized at smiling Venice of any place ”

“ Sure he must think the fall of man a fable: he lives in Eden still. How much must such a fellow be confounded, could he be carried blind-folded in the midst of winter to London or to Paris! and set down in Fleet-street or Rue St. Honoré! That he understands his business so as to need no tuition from the inhabitants of either city, may be seen by a fig-tree which I found here ingrafted on a lemon; both bear fruit at the same moment, whilst a vine curls up the stem of the lemon-tree, dangling her grapes in that delicious company with apparent satisfaction to herself. ”

“ This charming Adriatic gulph beside, though more than delicious to drive by, does not, like the Mediterranean, convey homeish or familiar ideas; one feels that it belongs exclusively to Venice; one knows that ancient Greece is on the opposite shore, and that with a quick sail one should soon see Macedonia; and descending but a little to the southward, visit Athens, Corinth, Sparta, Thebes—seats of philosophy, freedom, virtue; whence models of excellence and patterns of perfection have been drawn for twenty succeeding centuries! ”

“ Nothing can in fact be grander than the sight of the Austrian eagle, all made out in arms, eight ancient heroes sternly frowning round it. The choice has fallen on Cæsar, Pompey, Alexander, Scipio, Hannibal, Fabius Maximus, Cyrus, and Themistocles. I should have thought Pyrrhus worthier the company of all the rest than this last-named hero; but petty criticisms are much less worthy a place in Vienna’s arsenal, which impresses one with a very majestic idea of Imperial greatness. ”

“ This old-fashioned country, which detests the sight of suffering majesty, hisses off its theatre a performance calculated to divert them at the expence of a sovereign prince, whose character is clear from blame, and whose personal weaknesses are protected by his birth and merit; while it is to his open, free, and politely generous behaviour alone, they owe the knowledge that he has such foibles. Paisiello, therefore, cannot drive it down by his best music, though the poor king of Sweden is a Lutheran too, and if any thing would make them hate him, that would. ”

“ The whole looks at its worst now; all the churches are in mourning, so are the coaches: no theatre is open, and no music heard, except now and then a melancholy German organ droning its dull round of tunes under one’s window, without even the London accompaniment of a hoarse voice crying Woolfleet oysters. Come! Berlin can boast an arsenal capable of containing arms for two hundred and fifty thousand men. The contempt of decoration for a place destined to real use seemed respectable in itself, and characteristic of its founder. ”

“ Our weather continuing particularly fine, it was curious to watch one picturesque beauty changing for another as we drove along; for no sooner were the rich vineyards and small inclosures left behind, than large pasture lands filled with feeding or reposing cattle, cows, oxen, horses, fifty in a field perhaps, presented to our eyes an object they had not contemplated for two years before, and revived ideas of England, which had long lain buried under Italian fertility. ”

“ Attachments formed by love or friendship, though they give charms to every place, cannot be admitted as a reason for commending any one above the rest. A traveller without candour it is vain to read; one might as well hope to get a just view of nature by looking through a coloured glass, as to gain a true account of foreign countries, by turning over pages dictated by prejudice.
With the nobility of Naples I had no acquaintance, and can of course say nothing of their manners. Those of the middling people seem to be behind-hand with their neighbours ”

“ The road hither is all a heavy sand, cut through vast forests of ever-green timber, but not beautiful like those of Bavaria, rather tedious, flat, and tristful: to encrease which sensations, and make them more grievous to us, our servants complained bitterly of the last long frosty night, which we spent wholly in the carriage till it brought us here, where the man of the house, a bad one enough indeed, speaks as good English as I do, and has lived long in London. ”

“ At Rome however no such indecorous absurdities are encouraged: we saw a beautiful figure of the Madonna, dressed from a picture of Guido Rheni, borne about one day; but no human creature in the street offered to kneel, or gave one the slightest reason to say or suppose that she was worshipped: some sweet hymns were sung in her praise, as the procession moved slowly on; but no impropriety could I discern, who watched with great attention.
It is time to have done with all this though, and go see the Ambrosian library; which, as far as I can judge, is perfectly respectable. ”

“ The villages and churches hereabouts resemble those of Merionethshire, only that not a mountain rears its head at all—one vast, wide, barren flat, through which roads that no weather can render better than barely passable brought us at length to Hanover, which stands, as all these cities do in the north of Germany, upon an immense plain, with a thick wood of noble timber trees breaking from time to time the almost boundless void, and relieving the eye, which is fatigued by extent without any object to repose upon, in a manner I can with difficulty comprehend, much less explain ”

“ The Tyrolese Alps are not as beautiful as those of Savoy, though the river that runs between them is wider too; but that very circumstance takes from the horror which constitutes beauty in a rocky country, while a navigable stream and the passage of large floats convey ideas of commerce and social life, leaving little room for the solitary fancies produced, and the strokes of sublimity indelibly impressed, by the mountains of La Haute Morienne. The sight of a town where [267] all the theological learning of Europe was once concentred, affords however much ground of mental amusement ”

“ The march of soldiers morning and night to music through the streets is likewise agreeable, and gives ideas of security; but driving great heavy waggons up and down, with two horses a-breast, like a chaise in England, and a postillion upon one of them, is very droll to look at. Ordinary fellows too in the Elector’s livery (blue and yellow) would seem strange, but that as soon as Dover is left behind every man seems to belong to some other man, and no man to himself. The Emperor’s livery is very handsome, but I do not admire this. ”

“ The wonder is, that nobody gets killed by venturing so near, while red-hot stones are flying about them so. The Bishop of Derry did very near get his arm broke; and the Italians are always recounting the exploits of these rash Britons who look into the crater, and carry their wives and children up to the top; while we are, with equal justice, amazed at the courageous Neapolitans, who build little snug villages and dwell with as much confidence at the foot of Vesuvius, as our people do in Paddington or Hornsey. ”

“ The Elbe is here as wide I think as the Severn at Gloucester, and rolls through the most varied and elegant landscape possible, not inferior to that which adorns the sides of the little Dart in Devonshire, but on a greater scale; every hill crowned with some wood, or ornamented by some castle.
As soon as we arrived, tired and hungry, at Aussig, we put our shattered coach on board a bark, and floated her down to Dresden; whither we drove forward in the little carts of the country, called chaises, but very rough and with no springs, as our very old-fashioned curricles were about the year 1750. ”

“ I could not endure a place where one heard no sound in the whole country but frogs croaking and ducats chinking. Maladetti! so I went to Spain, where I narrowly escaped a sun-stroke for the sake of seeing those idle beggarly dons, that if they do condescend to cobble a man’s shoe, think they must do it with a sword by their side. I came here to Naples therefore, but ne’er a woman will afford one a chase, all are too easily caught to divert me, who like something in prospect; and though it is so fine a country, one can get no fox-hunting, only running after a wild pig. ”

“ The ceremony of washing the pilgrims feet is a pleasing one: it is seen in high perfection here at Rome; where all that the pope personally performs is done with infinite grace, and with an air of mingled majesty and sweetness, difficult to hit, but singularly becoming in him, who is both priest of God, and sovereign of his people. ”

“ The theatre has fallen down, but they are building it up again with a nicety of proportion that will ensure it from falling any more. Italians cannot live without a theatre; they have erected a temporary one to serve during the fair time, and even that is beautiful. The Terzetto of charming Guglielmi was sung last night; I liked it still better than when we heard it performed by singers of more established reputation at St. Carlo; but then I like every thing at Bergamo, till it comes to the thunder storms, which are far more innoxious here than at Naples or in Tuscany. ”

“ The clumsy churches here are more violently crowded with ornaments than I have found them yet; and for one crucifix or Madonna to be met with on Italian roads, here are at least forty; an ill carved and worse painted figure of a bleeding Saviour, large as life, meets one at every turn; and I feel glad when the odd devotion of the inhabitants hangs a clean shirt or laced waistcoat over it, or both. ”

“ The prospects round Naples have another fault, resulting from too great perfection: the sky’s brilliant uniformity, and utter cloudlessness for many months together, takes away those broad masses of light and shade, with the volant shadows that cross our British hills, relieving the sight, and discriminating the landscape. ”

“ JOURNEY from NAPLES to ROME.
The morning of the day we left our fair Parthenope was passed in recollecting her various charms: every one who leaves her carries off the same sensations. I have asked several inhabitants of other Italian States what they liked best in Italy except home; it was Naples always, dear delightful Naples! When I say this, I mean always to exclude those whose particular pursuits lead them to cities which contain the prize they press for. English people when unprejudiced express the like preference. ”