Part 20
"You would hardly have been troubled with the removal of my furniture, but there is none to be had nearer than Bologna, and I have been fain to have that of the rooms which I fitted up for my daughter there in the summer removed here. The expense will be at least as great of the land carriage, so that you see it was necessity, and not choice. Here they get every thing from Bologna, except some lighter articles from Forli or Faenza.
"If Scott is returned, pray remember me to him, and plead laziness the whole and sole cause of my not replying:--dreadful is the exertion of letter-writing. The Carnival here is less boisterous, but we have balls and a theatre. I carried Bankes to both, and he carried away, I believe, a much more favourable impression of the society here than of that of Venice,--recollect that I speak of the _native_ society only.
"I am drilling very hard to learn how to double a shawl, and should succeed to admiration if I did not always double it the wrong side out; and then I sometimes confuse and bring away two, so as to put all the Servanti out, besides keeping their _Servite_ in the cold till every body can get back their property. But it is a dreadfully moral place, for you must not look at anybody's wife except your neighbour's,--if you go to the next door but one, you are scolded, and presumed to be perfidious. And then a relazione or an amicizia seems to be a regular affair of from five to fifteen years, at which period, if there occur a widowhood, it finishes by a sposalizio; and in the mean time it has so many rules of its own that it is not much better. A man actually becomes a piece of female property,--they won't let their Serventi marry until there is a vacancy for themselves. I know two instances of this in one family here.
"To-night there was a ----[67] Lottery after the opera; it is an odd ceremony. Bankes and I took tickets of it, and buffooned together very merrily. He is gone to Firenze. Mrs. J * * should have sent you my postscript; there was no occasion to have bored you in person. I never interfere in anybody's squabbles,--she may scratch your face herself.
"The weather here has been dreadful--snow several feet--a _fiume_, broke down a bridge, and flooded heaven knows how many _campi_; then rain came--and it is still thawing--so that my saddle-horses have a sinecure till the roads become more practicable. Why did Lega give away the goat? a blockhead--I must have him again.
"Will you pay Missiaglia and the Buffo Buffini of the Gran Bretagna? I heard from Moore, who is at Paris; I had previously written to him in London, but he has not yet got my letter, apparently.
"Believe me," &c.
[Footnote 67: The word here, being under the seal, is illegible.]
* * * * *
LETTER 355. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, February 7. 1820.
"I have had no letter from you these two months; but since I came here in December, 1819, I sent you a letter for Moore, who is God knows _where_--in Paris or London, I presume. I have copied and cut the third Canto of Don Juan _into two_, because it was too long; and I tell you this beforehand, because in case of any reckoning between you and me, these two are only to go for one, as this was the original form, and, in fact, the two together are not longer than one of the first: so remember that I have not made this division to _double_ upon _you_; but merely to suppress some tediousness in the aspect of the thing. I should have served you a pretty trick if I had sent you, for example, cantos of 50 stanzas each.
"I am translating the first Canto of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, and have half done it; but these last days of the Carnival confuse and interrupt every thing.
"I have not yet sent off the Cantos, and have some doubt whether they ought to be published, for they have not the spirit of the first. The outcry has not frightened but it has _hurt_ me, and I have not written _con amore_ this time. It is very decent, however, and as dull as 'the last new comedy.'
"I think my translations of Pulci will make you stare. It must be put by the original, stanza for stanza, and verse for verse; and you will see what was permitted in a Catholic country and a bigoted age to a churchman, on the score of religion;--and so tell those buffoons who accuse me of attacking the Liturgy.
"I write in the greatest haste, it being the hour of the Corso, and I must go and buffoon with the rest. My daughter Allegra is just gone with the Countess G. in Count G.'s coach and six to join the cavalcade, and I must follow with all the rest of the Ravenna world. Our old Cardinal is dead, and the new one not appointed yet; but the masquing goes on the same, the vice-legate being a good governor. We have had hideous frost and snow, but all is mild again.
"Yours," &c.
* * * * *
LETTER 356. TO MR. BANKES.
"Ravenna, February 19. 1820.
"I have room for you in the house here, as I had in Venice, if you think fit to make use of it; but do not expect to find the same gorgeous suite of tapestried halls. Neither dangers nor tropical heats have ever prevented your penetrating wherever you had a mind to it, and why should the snow now?--Italian snow--fie on it!--so pray come. Tita's heart yearns for you, and mayhap for your silver broad pieces; and your playfellow, the monkey, is alone and inconsolable.
"I forget whether you admire or tolerate red hair, so that I rather dread showing you all that I have about me and around me in this city. Come, nevertheless,--you can pay Dante a morning visit, and I will undertake that Theodore and Honoria will be most happy to see you in the forest hard by. We Goths, also, of Ravenna, hope you will not despise our arch-Goth, Theodoric. I must leave it to these worthies to entertain you all the fore part of the day, seeing that I have none at all myself--the lark that rouses me from my slumbers, being an afternoon bird. But, then, all your evenings, and as much as you can give me of your nights, will be mine. Ay! and you will find me eating flesh, too, like yourself or any other cannibal, except it be upon Fridays. Then, there are more Cantos (and be d----d to them) of what the courteous reader, Mr. S----, calls Grub Street, in my drawer, which I have a little scheme to commit to your charge for England; only I must first cut up (or cut down) two aforesaid Cantos into three, because I am grown base and mercenary, and it is an ill precedent to let my Mecænas, Murray, get too much for his money. I am busy, also, with Pulci--translating--servilely translating, stanza for stanza, and line for line--two octaves every night,--the same allowance as at Venice.
"Would you call at your banker's at Bologna, and ask him for some letters lying there for me, and burn them?--or I will--so do not burn them, but bring them,--and believe me ever and very affectionately Yours,
"BYRON.
"P.S. I have a particular wish to hear from yourself something about Cyprus, so pray recollect all that you can.--Good night."
* * * * *
LETTER 357. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, February 21. 1820.
"The bull-dogs will be very agreeable. I have only those of this country, who, though good, have not the tenacity of tooth and stoicism in endurance of my canine fellow-citizens: then pray send them by the readiest conveyance--perhaps best by sea. Mr. Kinnaird will disburse for them, and deduct from the amount on your application or that of Captain Tyler.
"I see the good old King is gone to his place. One can't help being sorry, though blindness, and age, and insanity, are supposed to be drawbacks on human felicity; but I am not at all sure that the latter, at least, might not render him happier than any of his subjects.
"I have no thoughts of coming to the coronation, though I should like to see it, and though I have a right to be a puppet in it; but my division with Lady Byron, which has drawn an equinoctial line between me and mine in all other things, will operate in this also to prevent my being in the same procession.
"By Saturday's post I sent you four packets, containing Cantos third and fourth. Recollect that these two cantos reckon only as _one_ with you and me, being, in fact, the third canto cut into two, because I found it too long. Remember this, and don't imagine that there could be any other motive. The whole is about 225 stanzas, more or less, and a lyric of 96 lines, so that they are no longer than the first _single_ cantos: but the truth is, that I made the first too long, and should have cut those down also had I thought better. Instead of saying in future for so many cantos, say so many stanzas or pages: it was Jacob Tonson's way, and certainly the best; it prevents mistakes. I might have sent you a dozen cantos of 40 stanzas each,--those of 'The Minstrel' (Beattie's) are no longer,--and ruined you at once, if you don't suffer as it is. But recollect that you are not _pinned down_ to any thing you say in a letter, and that, calculating even these two cantos as _one_ only (which they were and are to be reckoned), you are not bound by your offer. Act as may seem fair to all parties.
"I have finished my translation of the first Canto of 'The Morgante Maggiore' of Pulci, which I will transcribe and send. It is the parent, not only of Whistlecraft, but of all jocose Italian poetry. You must print it side by side with the original Italian, because I wish the reader to judge of the fidelity: it is stanza for stanza, and often line for line, if not word for word.
"You ask me for a volume of manners, &c. on Italy. Perhaps I am in the case to know more of them than most Englishmen, because I have lived among the natives, and in parts of the country where Englishmen never resided before (I speak of Romagna and this place
## particularly); but there are many reasons why I do not choose to
treat in print on such a subject. I have lived in their houses and in the heart of their families, sometimes merely as 'amico di casa,' and sometimes as 'amico di cuore' of the Dama, and in neither case do I feel myself authorised in making a book of them. Their moral is not your moral; their life is not your life; you would not understand it; it is not English, nor French, nor German, which you would all understand. The conventual education, the cavalier servitude, the habits of thought and living are so entirely different, and the difference becomes so much more striking the more you live intimately with them, that I know not how to make you comprehend a people who are at once temperate and profligate, serious in their characters and buffoons in their amusements, capable of impressions and passions, which are at once _sudden_ and _durable_ (what you find in no other nation), and who actually have no society (what we would call so), as you may see by their comedies; they have no real comedy, not even in Goldoni, and that is because they have no society to draw it from.
"Their conversazioni are not society at all. They go to the theatre to talk, and into company to hold their tongues. The _women_ sit in a circle, and the men gather into groups, or they play at dreary faro, or 'lotto reale,' for small sums. Their academic are concerts like our own, with better music and more form. Their best things are the carnival balls and masquerades, when every body runs mad for six weeks. After their dinners and suppers they make extempore verses and buffoon one another; but it is in a humour which you would not enter into, ye of the north.
"In their houses it is better. I should know something of the matter, having had a pretty general experience among their women, from the fisherman's wife up to the Nobil Dama, whom I serve. Their system has its rules, and its fitnesses, and its decorums, so as to be reduced to a kind of discipline or game at hearts, which admits few deviations, unless you wish to lose it. They are extremely tenacious, and jealous as furies, not permitting their lovers even to marry if they can help it, and keeping them always close to them in public as in private, whenever they can. In short, they transfer marriage to adultery, and strike the _not_ out of that commandment. The reason is, that they marry for their parents, and love for themselves. They exact fidelity from a lover as a debt of honour, while they pay the husband as a tradesman, that is, not at all. You hear a person's character, male or female, canvassed not as depending on their conduct to their husbands or wives, but to their mistress or lover. If I wrote a quarto, I don't know that I could do more than amplify what I have here noted. It is to be observed that while they do all this, the greatest outward respect is to be paid to the husbands, not only by the ladies, but by their Serventi--particularly if the husband serves no one himself (which is not often the case, however); so that you would often suppose them relations--the Servente making the figure of one adopted into the family. Sometimes the ladies run a little restive and elope, or divide, or make a scene: but this is at starting, generally, when they know no better, or when they fall in love with a foreigner, or some such anomaly,--and is always reckoned unnecessary and extravagant.
"You enquire after Dante's Prophecy: I have not done more than six hundred lines, but will vaticinate at leisure.
"Of the bust I know nothing. No cameos or seals are to be cut here or elsewhere that I know of, in any good style. Hobhouse should write himself to Thorwaldsen: the bust was made and paid for three years ago.
"Pray tell Mrs. Leigh to request Lady Byron to urge forward the transfer from the funds. I wrote to Lady Byron on business this post, addressed to the care of Mr. D. Kinnaird."
* * * * *
LETTER 358. TO MR. BANKES.
"Ravenna, February 26. 1820.
"Pulci and I are waiting for you with impatience; but I suppose we must give way to the attraction of the Bolognese galleries for a time. I know nothing of pictures myself, and care almost as little: but to me there are none like the Venetian--above all, Giorgione. I remember well his Judgment of Solomon in the Mariscalchi in Bologna. The real mother is beautiful, exquisitely beautiful. Buy her, by all means, if you can, and take her home with you: put her in safety: for be assured there are troublous times brewing for Italy; and as I never could keep out of a row in my life, it will be my fate, I dare say, to be over head and ears in it; but no matter, these are the stronger reasons for coming to see me soon.
"I have more of Scott's novels (for surely they are Scott's) since we met, and am more and more delighted. I think that I even prefer them to his poetry, which (by the way) I redde for the first time in my life in your rooms in Trinity College.
"There are some curious commentaries on Dante preserved here, which you should see. Believe me ever, faithfully and most affectionately, yours," &c.
* * * * *
LETTER 359. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, March 1. 1820.
"I sent you by last post the translation of the first Canto of the Morgante Maggiore, and wish you to ask Rose about the word 'sbergo,' _i.e._ 'usbergo,' which I have translated _cuirass_. I suspect that it means _helmet_ also. Now, if so, which of the senses is best accordant with the text? I have adopted cuirass, but will be amenable to reasons. Of the natives, some say one, and some t'other: but they are no great Tuscans in Romagna. However, I will ask Sgricci (the famous improvisatore) to-morrow, who is a native of Arezzo. The Countess Guiccioli who is reckoned a very cultivated young lady, and the dictionary, say _cuirass_. I have written cuirass, but _helmet_ runs in my head nevertheless--and will run in verse very well, whilk is the principal point. I will ask the Sposa Spina Spinelli, too, the Florentine bride of Count Gabriel Rusponi, just imported from Florence, and get the sense out of somebody.
"I have just been visiting the new Cardinal, who arrived the day before yesterday in his legation. He seems a good old gentleman, pious and simple, and not quite like his predecessor, who was a bon-vivant, in the worldly sense of the words.
"Enclosed is a letter which I received some time ago from Dallas. It will explain itself. I have not answered it. This comes of doing people good. At one time or another (including copyrights) this person has had about fourteen hundred pounds of my money, and he writes what he calls a posthumous work about me, and a scrubby letter accusing me of treating him ill, when I never did any such thing. It is true that I left off letter-writing, as I have done with almost everybody else; but I can't see how that was misusing him.
"I look upon his epistle as the consequence of my not sending him another hundred pounds, which he wrote to me for about two years ago, and which I thought proper to withhold, he having had his share, methought, of what I could dispone upon others.
"In your last you ask me after my articles of domestic wants; I believe they are as usual: the bull-dogs, magnesia, soda-powders, tooth-powders, brushes, and every thing of the kind which are here unattainable. You still ask me to return to England: alas! to what purpose? You do not know what you are requiring. Return I must, probably, some day or other (if I live), sooner or later; but it will not be for pleasure, nor can it end in good. You enquire after my health and SPIRITS in large letters: my health can't be very bad, for I cured myself of a sharp tertian ague, in three weeks, with cold water, which had held my stoutest gondolier for months, notwithstanding all the bark of the apothecary,--a circumstance which surprised Dr. Aglietti, who said it was a proof of great stamina, particularly in so epidemic a season. I did it out of dislike to the taste of bark (which I can't bear), and succeeded, contrary to the prophecies of every body, by simply taking nothing at all. As to _spirits_, they are unequal, now high, now low, like other people's I suppose, and depending upon circumstances.
"Pray send me W. Scott's new novels. What are their names and characters? I read some of his former ones, at least once a day, for an hour or so. The last are too hurried: he forgets Ravenswood's name, and calls him _Edgar_ and then _Norman_; and Girder, the cooper, is styled now _Gilbert_, and now _John_; and he don't make enough of Montrose; but Dalgetty is excellent, and so is Lucy Ashton, and the b----h her mother. What is _Ivanhoe_? and what do you call his other? are there _two_? Pray make him write at least two a year: I like no reading so well.
"The editor of the Bologna Telegraph has sent me a paper with extracts from Mr. Mulock's (his name always reminds me of Muley Moloch of Morocco) 'Atheism answered,' in which there is a long eulogium of my poesy, and a great 'compatimento' for my misery. I never could understand what they mean by accusing me of irreligion. However, they may have it their own way. This gentleman seems to be my great admirer, so I take what he says in good part, as he evidently intends kindness, to which I can't accuse myself of being invincible.
"Yours," &c.
* * * * *
LETTER 360. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, March 5. 1820.
"In case, in your country, you should not readily lay hands on the Morgante Maggiore, I send you the original text of the first Canto, to correspond with the translation which I sent you a few days ago. It is from the Naples edition in quarto of 1732,--_dated Florence_, however, by a trick of _the trade_, which you, as one of the allied sovereigns of the profession, will perfectly understand without any further spiegazione.
"It is strange that here nobody understands the real precise meaning of 'sbergo,' or 'usbergo[68],' an old Tuscan word, which I have rendered _cuirass_ (but am not sure it is not _helmet_). I have asked at least twenty people, learned and ignorant, male and female, including poets, and officers civil and military. The dictionary says _cuirass_, but gives no authority; and a female friend of mine says _positively cuirass_, which makes me doubt the fact still more than before. Ginguené says 'bonnet de fer,' with the usual superficial decision of a Frenchman, so that I can't believe him: and what between the dictionary, the Italian woman, and the Frenchman, there's no trusting to a word they say. The context, too, which should decide, admits equally of either meaning, as you will perceive. Ask Rose, Hobhouse, Merivale, and Foscolo, and vote with the majority. Is Frere a good Tuscan? if he be, bother him too. I have tried, you see, to be as accurate as I well could. This is my third or fourth letter, or packet, within the last twenty days."
[Footnote 68: It has been suggested to me that usbergo is obviously the same as hauberk, habergeon, &c. all from the German _halsberg_, or covering of the neck.]
* * * * *
LETTER 361. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, March 14. 1820.
"Enclosed is Dante's Prophecy--Vision--or what not.[69] Where I have left more than one reading (which I have done often), you may adopt that which Gifford, Frere, Rose, and Hobhouse, and others of your Utican Senate think the best or least bad. The preface will explain all that is explicable. These are but the four first cantos: if approved, I will go on.
"Pray mind in printing; and let some good Italian scholar correct the Italian quotations.