Part 2

"But, to return to the work from which we have been partially drawn aside. Its merits in point of style are unquestionable. It is written in a simple, vigorous, and highly descriptive form of English, and rivets the reader's attention throughout. There are passages in it of graphic eloquence, which it would be difficult to surpass from the writings of any other tourist, whatever. The topics our author selects, are, as has been already stated, not those which require long and careful study to appreciate and discuss; they are such as the poetic eye would naturally dwell upon, and a poetic hand rapidly delineate, in a cursory survey of foreign lands. Occasionally, we think, Mr. Willis enters too minutely into the details of the horrible. Some of his descriptions of the cholera, and the pictures he gives us of the catacombs of the dead, are ghastly. But the manners of society he draws with admirable tact; and personal peculiarities of distinguished men, he renders with a most life-like vivacity. Many of his descriptions of natural scenery are more like pictures, than sketches in words. The description of the Bay of Naples will occur as a good example.

"It would be impossible to point out, with any degree of particularity, the many passages in this book whose beauty deserves attention. But it may be remarked in general, that the greater part of the first volume is not so fresh and various, and animated, as the second. This we suppose arises partly from the fact that France and Italy have long been beaten ground.

"The last part of the book is a statement of the author's observations upon English life and society; and it is this portion, which the English critics affect to be so deeply offended with. The most objectionable passage in this is the account of a dinner at Lady Blessington's. Unquestionably Mr. Moore's remarks about Mr. O'Connell ought not to have been reported, considering the time when, and the place where, they were uttered; though they contain nothing new about the great Agitator, the secrets disclosed being well known to some millions of people who interest themselves in British politics, and read the British newspapers. We close our remarks on this work by referring our readers to a capital scene on board a Scotch steamboat, and a breakfast at Professor Wilson's, the famous editor of Blackwood, both in the second volume, which we regret our inability to quote."

"Every impartial reader must confess, that for so young a man, Mr. Willis has done much to promote the reputation of American literature. His position at present is surrounded with every incentive to a noble ambition. With youth and health to sustain him under labor; with much knowledge of the world acquired by travel and observation, to draw upon; with a mature style, and a hand practised in various forms of composition, Mr. Willis's genius ought to take a wider and higher range than it has ever done before. We trust we shall meet him again, ere long, in the paths of literature; and we trust that he will take it kindly, if we express the hope, that he will lay aside those tendencies to exaggeration, and to an unhealthy tone of sentiment, which mar the beauty of some of his otherwise most agreeable books."

CONTENTS.

PAGE LETTER I.

Getting under Way--The Gulf Stream--Aspect of the Ocean-- Formation of a Wave--Sea Gems--The Second Mate, 11

LETTER II.

A Dog at Sea--Dining, with a High Sea--Sea Birds--Tandem of Whales--Speaking a Man-of-War--Havre, 18

LETTER III.

Havre--French Bed-room--The Cooking--Chance Impressions, 25

LETTER IV.

Pleasant Companion--Normandy--Rouen--Eden of Cultivation--St. Denis--Entrance to Paris--Lodgings--Walk of Discovery--Palais Royal, 30

LETTER V.

Gallery of the Louvre--Greenough--Feeling as a Foreigner-- Solitude in the Louvre--Louis Philippe--The Poles--Napoleon II, 40

LETTER VI.

Taglioni--French Acting--French Applause--Leontine Fay, 48

LETTER VII.

Lelewel--Pére La Chaise--Pauvre Marie--Versailles--The Trianons--Josephine's Boudoir--Time and Money at Paris--Wives and Fuel--One Price Shops, 53

LETTER VIII.

Mr. Cooper--Mr. Greenough--Fighting Animals--The Dog Pit-- Fighting Donkey--Sporting Englishmen, 63

LETTER IX.

Malibran--Paris at a Late Hour--Glass Gallery--Cloud and Sunshine--General Romarino--Parisian Students--Tumult Ended, 70

LETTER X.

French Children--Royal Equipages--French Driving--City Riding--Parisian Picturesque--Beggar's Deception--Genteel Beggars, 78

LETTER XI.

Madame Mars--Franklin's House--Ball for the Poor--Theatrical Splendor--Louis Philippe--Duke of Orleans--Young Queen of Portugal--Don Pedro--Close of the Ball, 86

LETTER XII.

Champs Elysées--Louis Philippe--Literary Dinner--Bowring and others--The Poles--Dr. Howe's Mission, 96

LETTER XIII.

Club Gambling House--Frascati's--Female Gambler, 103

LETTER XIV.

Tuileries--Men of Mark--Cooper and Morse--Contradictions-- Dinner Hour--How to Dine Well, 107

LETTER XV.

The Emperor--Turenne--Lady Officer--Gambling Quarrel--Curious Antagonists--Influence of Paris, 114

LETTER XVI.

Cholera Gaieties--Cholera Patient--Morning in Paris--Cholera Hospital--New Patient--Physician's Indifference--Punch Remedy--Dead Room--Non-Contagion, 121

LETTER XVII.

Unexpected Challenge--Court Presentation--Louis Philippe-- Royal Family at Tea--Countess Guiccioli--Mardi Gras--Bal Costumé--Public Masks--Lady Cavalier--Ball at the Palace-- Duke of Orleans--Dr. Bowring--Celebrated Men--Glass Verandah, 131

LETTER XVIII.

Cholera--Social Tea Party--Recipe for Caution--Baths and Happiness, 146

LETTER XIX.

Bois de Boulogne--Guiccioli--Sismondi--Cooper, 151

LETTER XX.

Friend of Lady Morgan--Dr. Spurzheim--Cast-Taking--De Potter--David the Sculptor, 156

LETTER XXI.

Attractions of Paris--Mr. Cooper--Mr. Rives, 162

LETTER XXII.

Chalons--Sens--Auxerre--St. Bris--Three Views In One-- Chalons, 166

LETTER XXIII.

Boat on the Saone--Scenery above Lyons--Lyons--Churches at Lyons--Monastery, 173

LETTER XXIV.

Travelling Party--Breakfast on the Road--Localities of Antiquity--Picturesque Chateau--French Patois, 179

LETTER XXV.

Arles--The Cathedral--Marseilles--Parting with Companions-- Pass of Ollioules--Toulon--Antibes--Coast of Mediterranean-- Forced to Return--Lazaretto--Absurd Hindrances--Fear of Contagion--Sleep out of Doors--Lazaretto Occupations-- Delicious Sunday--New Arrivals--Companions--End of Quarantine, 185

LETTER XXVI.

Nice--Funeral of an Arch-Duchess--Nice to Genoa--Views-- Entrance to Genoa--Genoa, 204

LETTER XXVII.

The Venus--The Fornarina--A Coquette and the Arts--A Festa--Ascension Day--The Cascine--Madame Catalani, 211

LETTER XXVIII.

Titian's Bella--The Grand-Duchess--An Improvisatrice--Living in Florence--Lodgings at Florence--Expense of Living, 219

LETTER XXIX.

Companions--Scenery of Romagna--Wives--Bologna, 225

LETTER XXX.

Gallery at Bologna--A Guido--Churches--Confession--Chapel-- Festa--Agreeable Manners, 231

LETTER XXXI.

Regatta--Venetian Sunset--Privileged Admission--Guillotining-- Bridge of Sighs--San Marc--The Nobleman Beggar, 238

LETTER XXXII.

An Evening in Venice--The Streets of Venice--The Rialto-- Sunset from San Marc, 246

LETTER XXXIII.

Titian's Pictures--Last Day in Venice, 251

LETTER XXXIV.

Italian Civility--Juliet's Tomb--The Palace of the Capuletti--A Dinner, 254

LETTER XXXV.

Good and Ill-Breeding--Bridal Party, 259

LETTER XXXVI.

Manner of Living--Originals of Novels--Ill, 262

LETTER XXXVII.

The Duke of Lucca--Modena--The Palace--Bologna--Venice Again--Its Splendor, 266

LETTER XXXVIII.

Armenian Island--Agreeable Monk--Insane Hospital--Insane Patients--The Lagune--State Galley--Instruments of Torture, 273

LETTER XXXIX.

Venice at Evening--The Patriotism of a Noble--Church of St. Antony--Petrarch's Cottage and Tomb--Petrarch's Room, 281

LETTER XL.

Cultivation of the Fields--The Vintage--Malibran in Gazza Ladra--Gallery of the Lambaccari, 287

LETTER XLI.

Sienna--Catholic Devotion--Acquapendente--Lake Bolsena-- Vintage Festa--Monte Cimino--First Sight of Rome--Baccano, 292

LETTER XLII.

St. Peter's--The Apollo Belvidere--Raphael's Transfiguration--The Pantheon--The Forum, 301

LETTER XLIII.

The Falls of Tivoli--Villa of Adrian--A Ramble by Moonlight-- The Cloaca Maxima, 307

LETTER XLIV.

The Last Judgment--The Music--Gregory the Sixteenth, 312

LETTER XLV.

Byron's Statue--The Borghese Palace--Society of Rome, 316

LETTER XLVI.

The Climate--Falls of Terni--The Clitumnus--A Lesson not Lost--Thrasimene--Florence--Florentine Women--Need of an Ambassador, 320

LETTER XLVII.

Chat in the Ante-Chamber--Love in High Life--Ball at the Palazzo Pitti--The Grand Duke--An Italian Beauty--An English Beauty, 329

LETTER XLVIII.

Oxen of Italy--Vallombrosa--A Convent Dinner--Vespers at Vallombrosa--The Monk's Estimate of Women--Milton's Room-- Florence, 336

LETTER XLIX.

The House of Michael Angelo--Fiesole--San Miniato--Christmas Eve--Amusing Scenes in Church, 344

LETTER L.

Penitential Processions--The Carlist Refugees--The Miracle of Rain--The Miraculous Picture--Giovanni Di Bologna--Andrea Del Sarto, 350

LETTER LI.

The Entertainments of Florence--A Peasant Beauty--The Morality of Society--The Italian Cavalier--The Features of Society, 357

LETTER LII.

Artists and the French Academy--Beautiful Scenery--Sacred Woods of Bolsena, 363

LETTER LIII.

The Virtuoso of Viterbo--Robberies--Rome as Fancied--Rome as Found, 367

LETTER LIV.

The Fountain of Egeria--The Pontine Marshes--Mola--The Falernian Hills--The Doctor of St. Agatha--The Queen of Naples, 372

LETTER LV.

St. Peter's--The Fountains--The Obelisk--The Forum--Its Memories--The Cenci--Claude's Pictures--Fancies Realized--The Last of the Dorias--A Picture by Leonardo Da Vinci--Palace of the Cesars--An Hour on the Palatine, 379

LETTER LVI.

Roman Eyes versus Feet--Vespers at Santa Trinita--Roman Baths--Baths of Titus--Shelley's Haunt, 390

LETTER LVII.

The Tomb of the Scipios--The Early Christians--The Tomb of Metella--Fountain of Egeria--Changed Aspect of Rome, 396

LETTER LVIII.

Palm Sunday--A Crowd--The Miserere--A Judas--The Washing of Feet--The Dinner, 402

LETTER LIX.

The Protestant Cemetery--Shelley's Grave--Beauty of the Place--Keats--Dr. Bell, 409

LETTER LX.

Audience with the Pope--Humility and Pride in Contrast--The Miserere at St. Peter's--Italian Moonlight--Dancing at the Coliseum, 415

LETTER LXI.

Easter Sunday--The Pope's Blessing--Illumination of St. Peter's--Florentine Sociability--A Marriage of Convenience, 421

LETTER LXII.

The Correggio--Austrians in Italy--The Cathedral at Milan-- Guercino's Hagar--Milanese Coffee, 427

LETTER LXIII.

Still in Italy--Isola Bella--Ascent of the Simplon--Farewell to Italy--An American--Descent of the Simplon, 433

LETTER LXIV.

The Cretins--The Goitre--First Sight of Lake Leman--Mont Blanc--June in Geneva--The Winkelreid, 440

LETTER LXV.

American and Genevese Steamers--Lilies of the Valley--A Frenchman's Apology--Genevese Women--Voltaire's Room, 446

LETTER LXVI.

The Jura--Arrival at Morez--Lost my Temper--National Characteristics--Politeness versus Comfort, 452

LETTER LXVII.

Lafayette's Funeral--Crossing the Channel--An English Inn-- Mail Coaches and Horses--A Gentleman Driver--A Subject for Madame Trollope, 458

LETTER LXVIII.

First Dinner in London--The King's Birth-day--A Handsome Street--Introduction to Lady Blessington--A Chat about Bulwer--The D'Israeli's--Contrast of Criticism--Countess Guiccioli--Lady Blessington--An Apology, 465

LETTER LXIX.

An Evening at Lady Blessington's--Fonblanc--Tribute to American Authors--A Sketch of Bulwer--Bulwer's Conversation--An Author his own Critic, 476

LETTER LXX.

Ascot Races--Handsome Men--The Princess Victoria--Charles Lamb--Mary Lamb--Lamb's Conversation--The Breakfast at Fault, 483

LETTER LXXI.

A Dinner at Lady Blessington's--D'Israeli, the Younger--The Author of Vathek--Mr. Beckford's Whims--Irish Patriotism--The Effect of Eloquence, 491

LETTER LXXII.

The Opera House--What Books will pay for--English Beauty--A Belle's Criticism on Society--Celebrities, 498

LETTER LXXIII.

Breakfast with Proctor--A Story of Hazlitt--Procter as a Poet--Impressions of the Man, 504

LETTER LXXIV.

Moore's Dread of Criticism--Moore's Love of Rank--A generous Offer nobly Refused--A Sacrifice to Jupiter--The Election of Speaker--Miss Pardoe--Prices of Books, 509

LETTER LXXV.

Dinner at Lady Blessington's--Scott--The Italians--Scott's Mode of Living--O'Connell--Grattan--Moore's Manner of Talking--Lady Blessington's Tact--Moore's Singing--A Curious Incident--The Maid Metamorphosed, 517

PENCILLINGS BY THE WAY.

LETTER I.

AT SEA.--I have emerged from my berth this morning for the first time since we left the Capes. We have been running six or seven days before a strong northwest gale, which, by the scuds in the sky, is not yet blown out, and my head and hand, as you will see by my penmanship, are anything but at rights. If you have ever plunged about in a cold rain-storm at sea for seven successive days, you can imagine how I have amused myself.

I wrote to you after my pilgrimage to the tomb of Washington. It was almost the only object of natural or historical interest in our own country that I had not visited, and that seen, I made all haste back to embark, in pursuance of my plans of travel, for Europe. At Philadelphia I found a first-rate merchant-brig, the Pacific, on the eve of sailing for Havre. She was nearly new, and had a French captain, and no passengers--three very essential circumstances to my taste--and I took a berth in her without hesitation. The next day she fell down the river, and on the succeeding morning I followed her with the captain in the steamboat.

Some ten or fifteen vessels, bound on different voyages, lay in the roads waiting for the pilot boat; and, as she came down the river, they all weighed anchor together and we got under way. It was a beautiful sight--so many sail in close company under a smart breeze, and I stood on the quarter-deck and watched them in a mood of mingled happiness and sadness till we reached the Capes. There was much to elevate and much to depress me. The dream of my lifetime was about to be realized. I was bound to France; and those fair Italian cities, with their world of association and interest were within the limit of a voyage; and all that one looks to for happiness in change of scene, and all that I had been passionately wishing and imagining since I could dream a day-dream or read a book, was before me with a visible certainty; but my home was receding rapidly, perhaps for years, and the chances of death and adversity in my absence crowded upon my mind--and I had left friends--(many--many--as dear to me, any one of them, as the whole sum of my coming enjoyment), whom a thousand possible accidents might remove or estrange; and I scarce knew whether I was more happy or sad.

We made Cape Henlopen about sundown, and all shortened sail and came to. The little boat passed from one to another, taking off the pilots, and in a few minutes every sail was spread again, and away they went with a dashing breeze, some on one course some on another, leaving us in less than an hour, apparently alone on the sea. By this time the clouds had grown black, the wind had strengthened into a gale, with fits of rain; and as the order was given to "close-reef the top-sails," I took a last look at Cape Henlopen, just visible in the far edge of the horizon, and went below.

OCT. 18.--It is a day to make one in love with life. The remains of the long storm, before which we have been driven for a week, lie, in white, turreted masses around the horizon, the sky overhead is spotlessly blue, the sun is warm, the wind steady and fresh, but soft as a child's breath, and the sea--I must sketch it to you more elaborately. We are in the Gulf Stream. The water here as you know, even to the cold banks of Newfoundland, is always blood warm, and the temperature of the air mild at all seasons, and, just now, like a south wind on land in June. Hundreds of sea birds are sailing around us--the spongy sea-weeds, washed from the West Indian rocks, a thousand miles away in the southern latitudes, float by in large masses--the sailors, barefoot and bareheaded, are scattered over the rigging, doing "fair-weather work"--and just in the edge of the horizon, hidden by every swell, stand two vessels with all sail spread, making, with the first fair wind they have had for many days, for America.

This is the first day that I have been able to be long enough on deck to study the sea. Even were it not, however, there has been a constant and chilly rain which would have prevented me from enjoying its grandeur, so that I am reconciled to my unusually severe sickness. I came on deck this morning and looked around, and for an hour or two I could scarce realize that it was not a dream. Much as I had watched the sea from our bold promontory at Nahant, and well as I thought I knew its character in storms and calms, the scene which was before me surprized and bewildered me utterly. At the first glance, we were just in the gorge of the sea; and, looking over the leeward quarter, I saw, stretching up from the keel, what I can only describe as a hill of dazzling blue, thirty or forty feet in real altitude, but sloped so far away that the white crest seemed to me a cloud, and the space between a sky of the most wonderful beauty and brightness. A moment more, and the crest burst over with a splendid volume of foam; the sun struck through the thinner part of the swell in a line of vivid emerald, and the whole mass swept under us, the brig rising and riding on the summit with the buoyancy and grace of a bird.

The single view of the ocean which I got at that moment, will be impressed upon my mind for ever. Nothing that I ever saw on land at all compares with it for splendor. No sunset, no lake scene of hill and water, no fall, not even Niagara, no glen or mountain gap ever approached it. The waves had had no time to "knock down," as the sailors phrase it, and it was a storm at sea without the hurricane and rain. I looked off to the horizon, and the long majestic swells were heaving into the sky upon its distant limit, and between it and my eye lay a radius of twelve miles, an immense plain flashing with green and blue and white, and changing place and color so rapidly as to be almost painful to the sight. I stood holding by the tafferel an hour, gazing on it with a childish delight and wonder. The spray had broken over me repeatedly, and, as we shipped half a sea at the scuppers at every roll, I was standing half the time up to the knees in water; but the warm wind on my forehead, after a week's confinement to my berth, and the excessive beauty lavished upon my sight, were so delicious, that I forgot all, and it was only in compliance with the captain's repeated suggestion that I changed my position.

I mounted the quarter-deck, and, pulling off my shoes, like a schoolboy, sat over the leeward rails, and, with my feet dipping into the warm sea at every lurch, gazed at the glorious show for hours. I do not hesitate to say that the formation, progress, and final burst of a sea-wave, in a bright sun, are the most gorgeously beautiful sight under heaven. I must describe it like a jeweller to you, or I can never convey my impressions.

First of all, a quarter of a mile away to windward, your eye is caught by an uncommonly high wave, rushing right upon your track, and heaping up slowly and constantly as it comes, as if some huge animal were ploughing his path steadily and powerfully beneath the surface. Its "ground," as a painter would say, is of a deep indigo, clear and smooth as enamel, its front curved inward, like a shell, and turned over at the summit with a crest of foam, flashing and changing perpetually in the sunshine, like the sudden outburst of a million of "unsunned diamonds;" and, right through its bosom, as the sea falls off, or the angle of refraction changes, there runs a shifting band of the most vivid green, that you would take to have been the cestus of Venus, as she rose from the sea, it is so supernaturally translucent and beautiful. As it nears you, it looks in shape like the prow of Cleopatra's barge, as they paint it in the old pictures; but its colors, and the grace and majesty of its march, and its murmur (like the low tones of an organ, deep and full, and, to my ear, ten times as articulate and solemn), almost startle you into the belief that it is a sentient being, risen glorious and breathing from the ocean. As it reaches the ship, she rises gradually, for there is apparently an under-wave driven before it, which prepares her for its power; and as it touches the quarter, the whole magnificent wall breaks down beneath you with a deafening surge, and a volume of foam issues from its bosom, green and blue and white, as if it had been a mighty casket in which the whole wealth of the sea, crysoprase, and emerald, and brilliant spars, had been heaped and lavished at a throw. This is the "tenth wave," and, for four or five minutes, the sea will be smooth about you, and the sparkling and dying foam falls into the wake, and may be seen like a white path, stretching away over the swells behind, till you are tired of gazing at it. Then comes another from the same direction, and with the same shape and motion, and so on till the sun sets, or your eyes are blinded and your brain giddy with splendor.

I am sure this language will seem exaggerated to you, but, upon the faith of a lonely man (the captain has turned in, and it is near midnight and a dead calm), it is a mere skeleton, a goldsmith's inventory, of the reality. I long ago learned that first lesson of a man of the world, "to be astonished at nothing," but the sea has overreached my philosophy--quite. I am changed to a mere child in my wonder. Be assured, no view of the ocean from land can give you a shadow of an idea of it. Within even the outermost Capes, the swell is broken, and the color of the water in soundings is essentially different--more dull and earthy. Go to the mineral cabinets of Cambridge or New Haven, and look at the _fluor spars_, and the _turquoises_, and the clearer specimens of _crysoprase_, and _quartz_, and _diamond_, and imagine them all polished and clear, and flung at your feet by millions in a noonday sun, and it may help your conceptions of the sea after a storm. You may "swim on bladders" at Nahant and Rockaway till you are gray, and be never the wiser.

The "middle watch" is called, and the second mate, a fine rough old sailor, promoted from "the mast," is walking the quarter-deck, stopping his whistle now and then with a gruff "How do you head?" or "keep her up, you lubber," to the man at the helm; the "silver-shell" of a waning moon, is just visible through the dead lights over my shoulder (it has been up two hours, to me, and by the difference of our present merideans, is just rising now over a certain hill, and peeping softly in at an eastern window that I have watched many a time when its panes have been silvered by the same chaste alchymy), and so after a walk on the deck for an hour to look at the stars and watch the phosphorus in the wake, I think of ----, I'll get to mine own uneven pillow, and sleep too.

LETTER II.

AT SEA, OCTOBER 20.--We have had fine weather for progress, so far, running with north and north-westerly winds from eight to ten knots an hour, and making, of course, over two hundred miles a day. The sea is still rough; and though the brig is light laden and rides very buoyantly, these mounting waves break over us now and then with a tremendous surge, keeping the decks constantly wet, and putting me to many an uncomfortable shiver. I have become reconciled, however, to much that I should have anticipated with no little horror. I can lie in my berth forty-eight hours, if the weather is chill or rainy, and amuse myself very well with talking bad French across the cabin to the captain, or laughing at the distresses of my friend and fellow-passenger, Turk (a fine setter dog, on his first voyage), or inventing some disguise for the peculiar flavor which that dismal cook gives to all his abominations, or, at worst, I can bury my head in my pillow, and brace from one side to the other against the swell, and enjoy my disturbed thoughts--all without losing my temper, or wishing that I had not undertaken the voyage.