John William Polidori

“ He did not seek Pavia; no, it was at Gand that he sought for his last draught of worldly joy. The town was worthy of it, if beauty and antiquity, if riches and liberty with all their train, could render it worthy of him. This town has all the beauty of Bruges, but more extensive: finer houses perhaps, fine cathedral, fine paintings, fine streets, fine canal. The streets are perhaps the finest I have seen; not so unpleasantly regular as London, not so high, but more rich in outside. ”

“ In these there is much caricature drawing: a woman rising from the dead—surely a woman large as Guy Warwick giant's wife, if ever he had one: caricature physiognomies, and most hellish egregious breasts, which a child refuses, with horror in its face. His horses have much spirit— true Flemish size. Indeed, divest Rubens of his rich apparel, and he is a mere dauber in design. There is a Mary going to Elizabeth, looking more like a cardinal: indeed, my companion, Lord Byron, took her for one of the red-vested nobles. ”

“ The Corinthian-column capital is deeply, sharply, and beautifully cut. A head of Apollo in all the rudeness of first art—a capital of a strange mixed order. There is the Amphitheatre, hollow yet pretty perfect, but no stonework visible; overgrown with trees; the size, my companion told me, was larger than common. In the town there were some beautiful fragments of ornament-sculpture incorporated in the walls; all marble. In the walls of the church we sought in vain for the inscription that Mathison mentions to Julia Alpinula. ”

“ Swarrow, the Governor of Milan, when the Emperor was there, accompanying him to the theatre, saw that one poor man in the pit, leaning against a box, had dared to keep his hat on. Violently enraged, he enters the box, without leave or saying a word; and, leaning over the box with all his orders dangling at his breast, applies two hearty slaps to the poor man's cheeks, and then, rising majestically, leaves the box, and goes to receive the despot's smile. ”

“ April 25.—This day was spent at Dover. The greater part was occupied in procuring what had been neglected in London, and in seeing the carriage well packed up. After dinner, however, we went in search of Churchill's tomb, raised, we had learned, to his memory by his friend Wilkes. Arrived at the house of the sexton, he led us to a ruined church, passing through which we came into a churchyard, where children, heedless and unconscious of what they trampled on, sportively ran amid the raised turf graves. ”

“ There are more good pictures than even in the Cathedral: the columns also please me more, being round, with a Gothic approach to Corinthian capital. The most beautiful painting I have yet seen is here (though I probably shall not be held out in my opinion by connoisseurs) —by Pollent, representing the trial of the true Cross upon a sick lady. The harmony of colouring, the soberness (without the commonly accompanying dulness) of the colouring, the good design and grouping, are, in my opinion, beautiful. Not even the splendid colouring of Rubens can make his pictures, in my eyes, equal to it. ”

“ The country from Antwerp to Malines becomes more and more like England: trees more various, not the same dead flat but varied with gentle swells, many pollards, and more miserable cottages.
There is in the Cathedral [in Antwerp] a painting by Floris—the one on which is the bee—where he has shown great imagination and fire in the devils. It is the victory of the angels when fighting against the devils. ”

“ Saw a splendidly beautiful view coming down a hill, with hills covered with fir, ash, beech, and all the catalogue of trees; Morat at the bottom, and the Jura mounts behind, with snowy hair and cloudy night-caps. Arrived at Morat; neat with arcades. Stopped at the Crown inn. All the way had debates whether clouds were mountains, or mountains clouds.
May 24.—The innkeeper at Morat, being a little tipsy, and thinking every Englishman (being a philosophe) must be a philosophe like himself, favoured us with some of his infidel notions while serving us at supper. ”

“ Before beginning to mount Jamanu itself, one has a beautiful view, seeing only part of the lake, bound by Meillerie, Roches, and the Rhone. Higher up the view is more extensive, but not so beautiful—nothing being distinct; the water looking merely as an inlet of sky, but one could see the Jura as far as Genthoud. ”

“ The Austrian officer ran from the guard-house to call his men, who seized their arms that had been piled on the outside. Monti's idea was excellent: 'Sortiamo tutti—restino solamente i titolati' (Let us all go out—only the men of title to remain) . De Brême remained, with the Marquis di Sartirana, his brother, Count Confalonieri, and Lord Byron. These gentlemen having written their names and titles, the list was handed to the officer on guard, who instantly forgot the insult offered to his fur cap, and allowed Polidori to leave the guard-house. ”

“ The people in the country show no misery; the cottages comfortable, whitewashed, large-windowed, shining with brass utensils internally, and only having as many heaps of dirt as there are inhabitants—who certainly throw away all their cleanliness upon the house, fields, roads, and windows. But I will not fill my letter with this, as some time you will either see my Journal in writing or print—Murray having offered me 500 guineas for it through Lord Byron. ”

“ From a valley we could see everything clearly, crowded in a blue tint, and in a river through it we could see the shadows of the trees. The cottages are improving, and the roads becoming the worst ever seen; paved still, but so horridly hilled and vallied that the rolling of the carriage is like the rolling of a ship. ”

“ We have seen in many places boys leading goats just in the antique style. Thence we went to Moudon—dirty town. Stopped for refreshments. One fine view we have had all the way, but nothing equal to the view descending to Morat.
Darkness came on. We saw the Castle wherein —— defended himself against the French who besieged it for a month: looks so weak, it seems a wonder. The Swiss castles are not nearly so interesting as the Rhine ones. They are very conical-roofed and no battlements. We saw the lake, but for a long time doubted whether it was a cloud below, a mist before, or water beneath us. ”

“ N.B.—Everywhere 6 francs for a bottle of Rhenish. Women generally pretty. Flemish face has no divinity—all pleasing more than beautiful—a sparkling eye in a full round. Their pictures of every age have the mark of their country.
As we went from Bruges, twilight softened all the beauty, and I do not know how to describe the feeling of pleasure we felt in going through its long roof-fretted streets, bursting on to spots where people were promenading amidst short avenues of trees. ”

“ Hardly gone a little way when our carriage broke down. The trees are more various—vegetation more advanced—more inequality of ground—more pollards—more apparent misery—more villas, some pretty—more clipped hedges—more like England—fine, large, town-like villages. Carriage broke again—walked to Malines—arrived there at ten. Women improve.
At Antwerp, in one church on the outside, saw a supposed exact imitation of the Sepulchre, though I do not know how it came seated "in purgatory"; as there certainly is a place so called round it, full of the damned and flames. The place is grotto-work. ”

“ We have only seen one country-villa, and that very English: its pasture had the only firs we have yet seen. The avenues are sometimes terminated by a church or a house—the church very ugly; and both very tiresome, as they always prove much farther off than is at first expected. The ground cultivated, and without a weed—no waste ground. The plough moves as if cutting water, the soil is so light a sand. Women work in the fields as well as men. No more difference is found in the face of the inhabitants than in the face of the country. ”

“ The trees are all young—none of above thirty years' growth. We then reached Waterloo, where were the head-quarters of Napoleon. An officious host pressed us to order dinner. We ran from his pressing, and advancing came to St. Jean, where the boys continued the offerings we first had at Waterloo of buttons, books, etc. This was the village which gave the French name to the battle, I believe, as it was the spot which Napoleon tried to gain. The view of the plain, as we advanced to the right, struck us as fields formed almost with the hopes that spirit and war would make their havoc here. ”

“ Found scenery sublime to Bingen. Men with cocked hats and great buckles hacking at the vines. The scenery after Bingen gains in beauty what it loses in sublimity. Immense plain to the mounts, with the Rhine in medio, covered with trees, woods, and forests. Fine road to Mayence made by Nap [oleon] ; his name has been erased from the inscription on the column commemorative of the work. Insolence of power!
Mayence a fine town, with a cathedral raised above it of red sandstone. Bavarians, Austrians, and Prussians, all in the town—belonging to all. The best town we have seen since Ghent. ”

“ Finch is a great admirer of architecture and Italy.—Wotheron, Mr., a gentleman most peaceable and quiet I ever saw, accompanying Finch; whose only occupation is, when he arrives at a town or other place, to set about sketching and then colouring, so that he has perhaps the most complete collection of sketches of his tour possible. He invited me (taking me for an Italian) , in case I went to England, to see him; and, hearing I was English, he pressed me much more.—Locatelli was the physician of the hospital, a good unimpostoring physician. ”

“ My life at Milan was very methodical. I got up, went to the hospital, breakfasted, came home, studied, dined, and then at 7 went to the theatre. Between breakfast and study went to de Breme to help him in English. It was proposed too, by him, to teach English, which I had intended to do.
I saw only the dome under which is the chapel of St. Borromeo—very rich in silver, crystal, and jewels. The body is vested in pontificals, and quite dry. The orbits seem only filled with a little heap of black dirt, and the skull etc. is black. ”

“ Liège has a pretty neighbourhood, but the town itself is filthy and disagreeable. They visited our passports here at three different places. The hill above the town is enormously steep; and from some way beyond it has a beautiful view of Liège with its towers and domes—of the country with its many cots and villas—and of the Meuse. The road now lies through a scene where cottages are spread like trees, and hedges like furrows of corn, the fields are so minutely divided. A little farther still we had a most splendid view through many miles. ”

“ As we shall see in the Diary, Polidori began, near Geneva, a tale which (according to Mrs. Shelley) was about a "skull-headed lady," and he was clearly aware that Byron had commenced a story about a vampyre. After quitting Byron, Polidori, in conversation with the Countess of Breuss, mentioned in his Journal, spoke (unless we are to discredit his own account) of the subject of the great poet's tale; the Countess questioned whether anything could be made of such a theme, and Polidori then tried his hand at carrying it out. ”

“ It is the finest and [most] flourishing we have seen since Ghent and Antwerp. We saw the tomb of Hoche at a distance; went to it. There was inscribed "The army of the Sambre and the Moselle to its general-in-chief Hoche." The reliefs are torn off, the marble slabs broken, and it is falling. But—
"Glory of the fallen brave
Shall men remember though forgot their grave,"
and the enemies may launch malicious darts against it. After Andernach the Rhine loses much. The valley is wider, and the beautiful, after the almost sublime, palls, and man is fastidious. ”

“ The green turf was beginning already to decay upon his tomb, which when the sexton heard us lamenting he assured us that his grave, as well as the rest, would be newly decked as soon as Nature had vested its fullest green—for that was an old custom. Churchill owed, then, only to a common hand what the pride of a friend refused—the safety of his burial-place. Wilkes only sought the gratification of his vanity. While he consigned his friend's last relics to the keeping of a tablet, he consigned his own pride in such a friend to the keeping of a column in his own grounds. ”

“ Your obedient servant, John Polidori.
The prefatory note to The Vampyre, in The New Monthly Magazine, runs thus: "We received several private letters in the course of last autumn from a friend travelling on the Continent, and among others the following, which we give to the public on account of its containing anecdotes of an individual concerning whom the most trifling circumstances, if they tend to mark even the minor features of his mind, cannot fail of being considered important and valuable by those who know how to appreciate his erratic but transcendent genius. ”

“ In Ghent, as well as in all other places where I have been, the barber's sign is Mambrino's helm. On the Sunday mornings there is a market for flowers in pot in the Place des Armes.
We set off at 11 in the morning, and passed through some fine villages: one of which, St. Nicholas, the mistress of the inn told me Buonaparte made into a town—" mais il n'y a pas des postes." The country is tiresomely beautiful. Fine avenues, which make us yawn with admiration; not a single variation; no rising ground—yes, one spot raised for a windmill. The landscape is as unchangeable as the Flemish face. ”

“ In Florence I stayed two days, and saw Cavalier Pontelli, Abate Fontani, Dr. Frosini, and others. Thence I went on foot to Arezzo, where I found my uncle, my aunt, Pippo, and Teresa, all well; and they received me with great cordiality into their house, where I now am.
Seeing, by your letter to my uncle, in how much trouble you are on my account, I have determined, after learning whether Lady Westmorland will employ me or no—if yes, to go to Rome; if no, to go straight from Leghorn to London, to the bosom of my family. ”