Part 18

Your friend H. walked with me this morning in the Loggios of Raffaelle, and we went afterwards to the Capitol. Nothing delighted me more in the whole treasury of sculptures, than a figure in alto relievo of Endymion, reclined on the mountain’s brow: his head falls upon his breast with an ease and gracefulness, of which the Greeks alone had ever a true conception. Most of the chambers, if you recollect, are filled with the elegant remains of Adrian’s collection. The villa of that classic emperor at Tivoli, must have been the most charming of structures. Having travelled into various and remote parts of his empire, he assembled their most valuable ornaments on one spot. Some of his apartments were filled with the mysterious images and symbols of Egypt: others with Eastern tripods and strange Adriatic vases. Though enraptured with St. Peter’s and the Vatican, with the gardens and groves of pine, that surround this interesting city, still I cannot help sighing after my native hills and copses, which look (I know not how it happens) more like the haunts of Pan than any I have seen in Italy. I eagerly anticipate the placid hours we shall pass, perhaps next summer, on the wild range which belongs to our sylvan deities. In their deep fastnesses I will hide myself from the world, and never allow its glare to bicker through my foliage. You will follow me, I trust, into retirement, and equally forget the turmoils of mankind. What have we children of the good Sylvanus to do with the miseries or triumphs of the savages that prowl about London? Let us forget there exists such a city, and when reposing amongst ivy and blossoms of bloom, imagine ourselves in the ancient dominions of Saturn, and dream that we see him pass along with his rustic attendants.

LETTER XXVI.

AUGSBURG, _January_ 20_th_, 1781.

For these ten days past have I been traversing Lapland: winds whistling in my ears, and cones showering down upon my head from the wilds of pine through which our route conducted us. Often were we obliged to travel by moonlight, and I leave you to imagine the awful aspect of the Tyrol mountains buried in snow.

I scarcely ventured to utter an exclamation of surprise, though prompted by some of the most striking scenes in nature, lest I should interrupt the sacred silence that prevails, during winter, in these boundless solitudes. The streams are frozen, and mankind petrified, for aught I know to the contrary, since whole days have we journeyed on without perceiving the slightest hint of their existence.

I never before felt the pleasure of discovering a smoke rising from a cottage, or of hearing a heifer lowing in its stall; and could not have supposed there was so much satisfaction in perceiving two or three fur caps, with faces under them, peeping out of their concealments. I wish you had been with me, exploring this savage region: wrapped up in our bear-skins, we should have followed its secret avenues, and penetrated, perhaps, into some enchanted cave lined with sables, where, like the heroes of northern romances, we should have been waited upon by dwarfs, and sung drowsily to repose. I think it no bad scheme to sleep away five or six years to come, since every hour affairs are growing more and more turbulent. Well, let them! provided we may enjoy, in security, the shades of our thickets.

ADDITIONAL LETTERS.

[The following Letters, written in a second Excursion, which was interrupted by a dangerous illness, are added on account of their affinity to some of the preceding.]

LETTER I.

COLOGNE, _May_ 28_th_, 1782.

This is the first day of summer; the oak leaves expand, the roses blow, butterflies are about, and I have spirits enough to write to you. We have had clouded skies this fortnight past, and roads like the Slough of Despond. Last Wednesday we were benighted on a dismal plain, apparently boundless. The moon cast a sickly gleam, and now and then a blue meteor glided along the morass which lay before us.

After much difficulty we gained an avenue, and in an hour’s time discovered something like a gateway, shaded by crooked elms and crowned by a cluster of turrets. Here we paused and knocked; no one answered. We repeated our knocks; the stout oaken gate returned a hollow sound; the horses coughed, their riders blew their horns. At length the bars fell, and we entered—by what means I am ignorant, for no human being appeared.

A labyrinth of narrow winding alleys, dark as the vaults of a cathedral, opened to our view. We kept wandering along, at least twenty minutes, between lofty mansions with grated windows, and strange galleries, projecting one over another, from which depended innumerable uncouth figures and crosses, in iron-work, swinging to and fro with the wind. At the end of this gloomy maze we found a long street, not fifteen feet wide, I am certain; the houses still loftier than those in the alleys, the windows thicker barred, and the gibbets (for I know not what else to call them) more frequent. Here and there we saw lights glimmering in the highest stories, and arches on the right and left, which seemed to lead into retired courts and deeper darkness.

Along one of these recesses we were jumbled, over such pavement as I hope you may never tread upon; and, after parading round it, went out at the same arch whence we came in. This procession seemed at first very mystical, but it was too soon accounted for by our postillions, who confessed they had lost their way. A council was held amongst them in form, and then we struck into another labyrinth of hideous edifices, habitations I will not venture to call them, as not a creature stirred; though the rumbling of our carriages was echoed by all the vaults and arches.

Towards midnight we rested a few minutes, and a head poking out of a casement directed us to the hotel of Der Heilige Geist, where an apartment, thirty feet square, was prepared for our reception.

LETTER II.

INSPRUCK, _June_ 4_th_.

No sooner had we passed Fuezen than we entered the Tyrol, and the country of wonders. Those lofty peaks, those steeps of wood I delight in, lay before us. Innumerable clear springs gush out on every side, overhung by luxuriant shrubs in blossom. The day was mild, though overcast, and a soft blue vapour rested upon the hills, above which rise mountains that bear plains of snow into the clouds.

At night we lay at Nasariet, a village buried amongst savage promontories. The next morning we advanced, in bright sunshine, into smooth lawns on the slopes of mountains, scattered over with larches, whose delicate foliage formed a light green veil to the azure sky. Flights of birds were merrily travelling from spray to spray. I ran delighted into this world of boughs, whilst C. sat down to draw the huts which are scattered about for the shelter of herds, and discover themselves amongst the groves in the most picturesque manner.

These little edifices are uncommonly neat, and excite those ideas of pastoral life to which I am so fondly attached. The turf from whence they rise is enamelled, in the strict sense of the word, with flowers. A sort of bluebell predominated, brighter than ultramarine; here and there auriculas looked out of the moss, and I often reposed upon tufts of ranunculus. Bushes of phillerea were very frequent, the sun shining full on their glossy leaves. An hour passed away swiftly in these pleasant groves, where I lay supine under a lofty fir, a tower of leaves and branches.

LETTER III.

PADUA, _June_ 14_th_.

Once more, said I to myself, I shall have the delight of beholding Venice; so got into an open chaise, the strangest curricle that ever man was jolted in, and drove furiously along the causeways by the Brenta, into whose deep waters it is a mercy, methinks, I was not precipitated. Fiesso, the Dolo, the Mira, with all their gardens, statues, and palaces, seemed flying after each other, so rapid was our motion.

After a few hours’ confinement between close steeps, the scene opened to the wide shore of Fusina. I looked up (for I had scarcely time to look before) and beheld a troubled sky, shot with vivid red, the Lagunes tinted like the opal, and the islands of a glowing flame-colour. The lofty mountains of the distant continent appeared of a deep melancholy grey, and innumerable gondolas were passing to and fro in all their blackness. The sun, after a long struggle, was swallowed up in the tempestuous clouds.

In an hour we drew near to Venice, and saw its world of domes rising out of the waters. A fresh breeze bore the toll of innumerable bells by my ear. Sadness came over me as I entered the great canal, and recognised (the scene of many a strange adventure) those solemn palaces, with their lofty arcades and gloomy arches, beneath which I had so often sat.

The Venetians being mostly at their villas on the Brenta, the town appeared deserted. I visited, however, all my old haunts in the Place of St. Mark, ran up the Campanile, and rowed backwards and forwards, opposite the Ducal Palace, by moonlight. They are building a spacious quay, near the street of the Sclavonians, fronting the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, where I remained alone at least an hour, following the wanderings of the moon amongst mountainous clouds, and listening to the waters dashing against marble steps.

I closed my evening at my friend M. de R.’s, and sung over the airs I composed in the dawn of our acquaintance.

Next morning the wind was uncommonly violent for the mild season of June, and the canals much agitated; but I was determined to visit the Lido once more, and bathe on my accustomed beach. The pines in the garden of the Carthusians were nodding as I passed by in my gondola, which was very poetically buffeted by the waves.

Traversing the desert of locusts, I hailed the Adriatic, and plunged into its bosom. The sea, delightfully cool, refreshed me to such a degree, that, upon my return to Venice, I found myself able to thread its labyrinths of streets, canals, and alleys, in search of amber and Oriental curiosities. The variety of exotic merchandize, the perfume of coffee, the shade of awnings, and the sight of Greeks and Asiatics sitting crossed-legged under them, made me think myself in the bazaars of Constantinople.

’Tis certain my beloved town of Venice ever recalls a series of Eastern ideas and adventures. I cannot help thinking St. Mark’s a mosque, and the neighbouring palace some vast seraglio, full of arabesque saloons, embroidered sofas, and voluptuous Circassians.

LETTER IV.

PADUA, _June_ 19_th_.

The morning was delightful, and St. Anthony’s bells in full chime. A shower which had fallen in the night rendered the air so cool and grateful, that Mad. de R. and myself determined to seize the opportunity and go to Mirabello, a country house, which Algarotti had inhabited, situate amongst the Euganean hills, eight or nine miles from Padua.

Our road lay between poplar alleys and fields of yellow corn, overhung by garlands of vine, most beautifully green. I soon found myself in the midst of my favourite hills, upon slopes covered with clover, and shaded by cherry-trees. Bending down their boughs I gathered the fruit, and grew cooler and happier every instant.

We dined very comfortably in a strange hall, where I pitched my pianoforte, and sang the voluptuous airs of Bertoni’s Armida. That enchantress might have raised her palace in this situation; and, had I been Rinaldo, I certainly should not very soon have abandoned it.

After dinner we drank coffee under some branching lemons, which sprang from a terrace, commanding a boundless scene of towers and villas; tall cypresses and shrubby hillocks rising, like islands, out of a sea of corn and vine.

Evening drawing on, and the breeze blowing fresh from the distant Adriatic, I reclined on a slope, and turned my eyes anxiously towards Venice; then upon some little fields hemmed in by chestnuts in blossom, where the peasants were making their hay, and, from thence, to a mountain, crowned by a circular grove of fir and cypress.

In the centre of these shades some monks have a comfortable nest; perennial springs, a garden of delicious vegetables, and, I dare say, a thousand luxuries besides, which the poor mortals below never dream of.

Had it not been late, I should certainly have climbed up to the grove, and asked admittance into its recesses; but having no mind to pass the night in this eyrie, I contented myself with the distant prospect.

LETTER V.

ROME, _June_ 29_th_.

It is needless for me to say I wish you with me: you know I do; you know how delightfully we should ramble about Rome together. This evening, instead of jiggeting along the Corso with the puppets in blue and silver coats, and green and gold coaches, instead of bowing to Cardinal this, and dotting my head to Abbé t’other, I strolled to the Coliseo, found out my old haunts amongst its arches, and enjoyed the pure transparent sky between groves of slender cypress. Then bending my course to the Palatine Mount, I passed under the Arch of Titus, and gained the Capitol, which was quite deserted, the world, thank Heaven, being all slip-slopping in coffee-houses, or staring at a few painted boards patched up before the Colonna palace, where, by the by, to-night is a grand _rinfresco_ for all the dolls and doll-fanciers of Rome. I heard their buzz at a distance; that was enough for me!

Soothed by the rippling of waters, I descended the Capitoline stairs, and leaned several minutes against one of the Egyptian lionesses. This animal has no knack at oracles, or else it would have murmured out to me the situation of that secret cave, where the wolf suckled Romulus and his brother.

About nine, I returned home, and am now writing to you like a prophet on the housetop. Behind me rustle the thickets of Villa Medici; before, lies roof beyond roof and dome beyond dome: these are dimly discovered; but don’t you see the great cupola of cupolas, twinkling with illuminations? The town is real, I am certain; but, surely, that structure of fire must be visionary.

LETTER VI.

ROME, _June_ 30_th_.

As soon as the sun declined I strolled into the Villa Medici; but finding it haunted by fine pink and yellow people, nay, even by the Spanish Ambassador, and several more dignified carcasses, I moved off to the Negroni garden. There I found what my soul desired, thickets of jasmine, and wild spots overgrown with bay; long alleys of cypress totally neglected, and almost impassable through the luxuriance of the vegetation; on every side antique fragments, vases, sarcophagi, and altars sacred to the Manes, in deep, shady recesses, which I am certain the Manes must love. The air was filled with the murmurs of water, trickling down basins of porphyry, and losing itself amongst overgrown weeds and grasses.

Above the wood and between its boughs appeared several domes, and a strange lofty tower. I will not say they belong to St. Maria Maggiore; no, they are fanes and porticos dedicated to Cybele, who delights in sylvan situations. The forlorn air of this garden, with its high and reverend shades, make me imagine it as old as the baths of Dioclesian, which peep over one of its walls. Yes, I am persuaded some consul or prætor dwelt here only fifty years ago. Would to God, our souls might be transported to such solitary spots! where we might glide along the dark alleys together, when bodies were gone to bed. I discovered a little cave that would just suit us; celandine, Venus’ hair, and a thousand delicate plants, growing downwards from the cave; beneath lies a clear spring.

At the close of day, I repaired to the platform before the stately porticos of the Lateran. There I sat, folded up in myself. Some priests jarred the iron gates behind me. I looked over my shoulder through the portals, into the portico. Night began to fill it with darkness. Upon turning round, the sad waste of the Campagna met my eyes, and I wished to go home, but had not the power. A pressure, like that I have felt in horrid dreams, seemed to fix me to the pavement.

I was thus in a manner forced to view the dreary scene, the long line of aqueducts and lonesome towers. Perhaps the unwholesome vapours, rising like blue mists from the plains, affected me. I know not how it was; but I never experienced such strange, such chilling terrors. About ten o’clock, thank God, the spell dissolved; I found my limbs at liberty, and returned home.

LETTER VII.

NAPLES, _July_ 8_th_.

The sea-breezes restored me to life. I set the heat of midday at defiance, and do not believe in the horrors of the sirocco. Yesterday I passed at Portici, with Lady H. The morning, refreshing and pleasant, invited us at an early hour into the open air. We drove, in an uncovered chaise, to the royal Bosquetto: no other carriage than Sir W.’s is allowed to enter its alleys. We breathed a fresh air untainted by dust or garlic. Every now and then, amidst wild bushes of ilex and myrtle, one finds a graceful antique statue, sometimes a fountain, and often a rude knoll, where the rabbits sit undisturbed, contemplating the blue glittering bay; at least, I should do so, if I were a rabbit.

The walls of this shady inclosure are lined with Peruvian aloes, whose white blossoms, scented like those of the magnolia, form the most magnificent clusters. They are plants to salute respectfully as one passes by, such is their size and dignity. In the midst of the thickets stands the King’s Pagliaro, surrounded by gardens with hedges of luxuriant jasmine, whose branches are suffered to flaunt as much as Nature pleases.

The morning sun darted his first rays on their flowers just as I entered this pleasant spot. The hut looks as if erected in the days of fairy pastoral life; its neatness is quite delightful. Bright tiles compose the floor; straw, nicely platted, covers the walls. In the middle of the room, you see a table spread with a beautiful Persian carpet; at one end, four niches with mattresses of silk, where the King and his favourites repose after dinner; at the other, a white marble basin. Mount a little staircase, and you find yourself in another apartment, formed by the roof, which being entirely composed of glistening straw, casts that comfortable yellow glow I admire. From the windows you look into the garden, not flourished with parterres, but divided into plats of fragrant herbs and flowers, with here and there a little marble table, or basin of the purest water.

These sequestered inclosures are cultivated with the greatest care, and so frequently watered, that I observed lettuces, and a variety of other vegetables, as fresh as in our green England.

AN EXCURSION TO THE GRAND CHARTREUSE IN THE YEAR 1778.

THE GRAND CHARTREUSE has exceeded my expectations; it is more wonderfully wild than I can describe, or even you can imagine. It has possessed me to such a degree that at present I can neither think, speak, nor write upon any other subject.

_June_ 5_th_.—I left Geneva, and after passing through a succession of valleys between innumerable mountains, and after crossing a variety of picturesque bridges, thrown over the streams which water them, arrived at Aix, in Savoy, famous for its baths, which, as disagreeable things are generally the most salutary, ought doubtless to be of the greatest efficacy; for more uninviting objects one seldom meets with.

Advancing beneath a little eminence, partly rock, partly wall, we discovered the principal bath, filled with a blue reeking water, whose very steam is sufficient to seethe one without further assistance.

Scarce had we stood looking on it a minute, before down dashed three or four dirty boys, as copper-coloured as the natives of Bengal; who by splashing us all over, and swimming about _à la crapaudine_, convinced us that it was not their fault, if we would not have companions in the delights of bathing. I soon hurried away from this salubrious cauldron, and stepping into a little chapel hard by, where they were singing vespers, prayed heartily to the Virgin, that I might never need the assistance of those wonder-working waters over which she presides. As there was but little company in the town, and little amusement, I went to bed at nine, and rose at four the next morning, that I might reach before sunset the celebrated road, which Charles Emanuel had cut through a rocky mountain. My plan succeeded, and after dining at Chambery (a place scarce worth speaking of to you), and passing by a cataract that throws itself from a lofty steep, I began to discover a beautiful woody vale, terminated on one side by the hallowed cliffs of the Grand Chartreuse, and on the other by the mountain which Charles Emanuel had perforated in so extraordinary a manner. The sun was just sinking in a brilliant cloud, which seemed to repose on a swelling hill, covered with cattle, when we quitted the cheerful valley, and began to descend between two ridges of precipices, that at some distance had the appearance of towering ramparts. Pursuing our route, we found ourselves in a deep cleft, surrounded by caverns, echoing with a thousand rills which trickle down their sides, and mingling their murmurs with the rattling of our wheels and the steps of our horses, infinitely repeated and multiplied, formed, altogether, the strangest combination of sounds that ever reached my ears. The road itself is admirably cut, and hewn with such neatness that, were it not for the savage and desolate air of its environs, I should have imagined myself approaching some grand castle or considerable city. Toward the summits of the precipices, that in some places rise to a majestic elevation (the two sides here and there nearly meeting in an arch), hang light woods of glossy green, which, being agitated by a gentle wind, cast a moving shadow over the cleft beneath, and, at a little distance, gave our road the appearance of a chequered pavement.

Having wound through the bosom of the mountain for some time, I was struck by the unexpected appearance of a grand edifice, resembling a vast portal, supported by Doric pilasters, and crowned with an ornamented pediment. Upon my nearer approach I found a smooth tablet filling up the space I had allotted for an entrance, on which was engraven a pompous Latin inscription, setting forth with what incredible labour and perseverance his Majesty, Charles Emanuel the Second of Sardinia, Cyprus, and Jerusalem, King, had cut this road through the mountain; which great enterprise, though unattempted by the Romans, and despaired of by other nations, was executed under his auspices. I very sincerely wished him joy, and, as the evening was growing rather cool, was not sorry to perceive, through an opening in the rocks, a wide-extended plain, interspersed with meadows, embosomed by woods, in which I distinguished Les Echelles, a village, where we were to lie, with its chimneys smoking, under the base of one of the Carthusian mountains, round which had gathered a concourse of red and greyish clouds.