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;~ r-
NAVELS IN EUKOJP
•<
\VJTZER~
TRAVELS IN EUROPE;
viz.,
IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND, FRANCE, ITALY, SWITZER- LAND, GERMANY, AND THE NETHERLANDS.
BY WILBUR FISK, D.D., i (
PRESIDENT OK THE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY AT MIDDLETOWN, CONN.
WITH ENGRAVINGS.
FIFTH EDITION.
NEW-YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, CLIFF- STREET.
1839.
E47
Entered, according to Act of Congress, ia the year 1838, by
HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
As a fifth edition of " Travels in Europe" is called for, and that in the short space of about nine months from the issuing of the first, it becomes the author, doubtless, to make his acknowledgments ta the public for the liberal and gratifying notice his work has received.
That the imperfections of the work, of which none, it is believed, can be more sensible than the author, have been so far overlooked as to make way for so large a sale in so short a time, affords some evidence that the author's well-meant endeavours to interest and profit the public have not been wholly unavailing.
The world is already too full of books which afford mere amuse- ment, or, what is unspeakably worse, which corrupt the heart while they sport with the fancy. A cordial reception of such a work could afford no occasion of self-gratulation to the writer, except from the sordid motive of covetousness or a love of dishonourable fame* But as mere amusement is as foreign from the design as it is from the talents and taste of the author of the present work, and as he has carefully avoided contributing knowingly to anything that should court popularity at the expense of correct principle, the inference^ is drawn with the more confidence, from the extensive sale of these " Travels," that the public have been profitably interested in them.
This patronage does not make the author vain enough to suppose that the work is without fault. Some verbal errors, typographical or otherwise, have been noticed by the author ; some have been kind, ly pointed out by friends ; and in one case at least, a reviewer, whose style and manner indicate anything but a friendly feeling, has been pleased to give, if not a full catalogue, at least very liberal samples, of the author's imputed errors. On comparison, however, it has been found that a large portion of the reviewer's corrections are themselves errors, and the text, which in"^ these instances he has at- tempted to improve, is correct. However foreign from the design of the writer it may have been to gratify the author of the work, he nevertheless has my thanks for any real corrections whujh he
11 PREFACE.
has suggested ; and his attempted criticism, moreover, has afforded much gratification from another consideration. If one, with the ob- vious purpose of finding fault, has been able to find so few real errors, and those mostly of an unimportant character, it may be no great presumption in the author to hope there are fewer mistakes than was at first feared, even by himself. At any rate, the success which has attended the publication affords evidence that the style and manner have not so offended public taste as to render the sub- jects presented unpalatable ; and the author trusts that the new edition will not be less acceptable, since all the errors, typographical or others, which escaped notice in the other editions, have, as far as ascertained, been rectified in this. These certainly are not of a very important character, nor very numerous, and do not alter the sense or sentiment, probably, of half a dozen sentences in the entire work.
Two classes of readers the author could not with propriety even attempt to please. The first class are such as differ from him in his religious or political creed, and take offence because that differ- ence appears, however incidentally, in the pages of his work. The generous mind, however, will not take offence at this ; he would ex- pect it, and take pleasure in comparing the inferences and sugges- tions of persons of different creeds, for he knows full well that in this way only can enlarged and enlightened views on any subject be obtained.
The second class are those persons of foreign nativity, whether emigrants to our country or still resident in their own, whose na- tional prejudices will not bear the imputation of imperfection upon anything appertaining to their native land. Europeans charge us of the United States with being too sensitive under the lash of foreign tourists. This charge may be true to some extent. And yet who does not know that we have had provocations of this kind of a strong character ? Imputations have been cast upon us, which, with some mixture of truth, have consisted, principally, of unfounded asper- sions, mingled with much apparent national hostility and bitterness. If, under all this, we have been restiff, who can wonder ? and if, in some cases, we show too much sensitiveness, a little observation and experience have convinced the author of this work, that, to use a homely phrase, we came honestly by it. If a work which was cer- tainly dictated by no malevolence or bitterness, and which, as every candid reader must bear witness, manifests a much greater disposi- tion to commend than to find fault, has been complained of because its strain of remark is not in all cases uninterrupted eulogy, the
PREFACE. Ill
complainants certainly cannot wonder that we are not passive under the reiterated and bitter charges of foreign travellers. Communi- ties and nations are too apt to claim a perfection that does not belong to them. They are in a great measure blind to their own faults, but the stranger sees them ; and when he points them out, in the spirit of candour and with an evident regard to truth, his course, instead of pre- senting a just occasion of offence, is honourable to the nation he de- scribes and indispensable to his own reputation. How far the au- thor of the following pages has pursued this honourable course, he leaves it for others to decide. As he has not been convicted of any injustice to foreign nations, he sends out this edition with his views, his descriptions, and his inferences unchanged. • In conclusion, while the author tenders his sincere acknowledg- ments to the public for their liberality and candour in the reception of his work, he would not fail to express his conviction, that the taste and faithfulness of the publishers have in no small degree con- tributed to its success. In this respect the present edition will vie with any of the preceding.
Wesley an University, January, 1839.
NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS.
IT can hardly be necessary to inform any reader of the foregoing preface, that, while the new edition for which it was prepared was yet in the press, all that was mortal of the distinguished author was mouldering in the grave. His health had been declining for several years ; and the benefit which he received from his voyage to Europe and his residence in Italy proved only temporary. His complaint, one of the most tedious and distressing in the whole range of human ailments, renewed its attacks with increased violence and frequency soon after his return, and on the 22d of February, 1839, his exhaust- ed frame yielded to its severity.
This is not the place, nor are his publishers the fitting parties, for rendering the just tribute of eulogy to his worth. It is ascertained that the late President of the Wesleyan University has left a consid- erable number of manuscripts, intended for publication, which, with extracts from his correspondence and a memoir, will speedily be issued from the press. The latter will be written, and the former edited, by one most richly qualified by long and intimate friendship with the lamented deceased, by talent and education, by the pos- session of a kindred spirit, and by the enjoyment of all those facil- ities which the unreserved communication of manuscripts and the assistance of friends and relations can bestow.
INTRODUCTION.
WHAT ! another book of travels ! and that, too, describing the ground over which so many have travelled before ! What good reason can a man of principle and of sound judgment give for such a publication ? The author of the following pages for some time doubted whether he could give any good reason for bringing such a work before the public ; especially so much of it as relates to his travels on the Continent of Europe. He might plead the old excuse, the wish of friends ; he might say, what every one is aware of, that the rapid changes in this, that has been justly char- acterized the " transition age," constantly bring up new phases of observation to the discerning traveller ; and he might strength- en these considerations by the known fact, that the varieties of tastes, and professions, and intellectual habits lead different obser- vers to notice and describe different aspects of the same thing ; and thus not only does each successive traveller give a new view, but the sketches of many are indispensable to complete the por- traiture. All these might have some weight; but, perhaps, not sufficient to satisfy every one that the present publication was strictly needed, or would compensate the well-read public for the expense of purchasing and time of reading. Another considera- tion, however, has influenced the author in this publication. It is this ; if the subjects of discussion and the objects of description are not new to a great portion of the public, they nevertheless are to some, and very probably to many, into whose hands the follow- ing sheets may fall. Almost every writer has his own circles of association, greater or less, to which his personal or public influence may be extended, when more distant influences, although superior, might not reach them. It is only in this way that all classes and
INTRODUCTION.
parts of society are made to share in the vast accumulations of knowledge which characterize the age. If the religious associa- tions, or professional pursuits, or extensive personal acquaintances give the writer of the following pages any chance for extending the knowledge of facts with which so many are already acquainted, he will esteem it a pleasure to be the humble channel of such communications. He is well aware that such an agency will be attended with no posthumous reputation ; that the production must, from the nature of the case, be of only an ephemeral char- acter ; and that, at best, after it has secured its temporary object, it will fall into the great mass of transient literature, that passes into oblivion with the age that gave it birth. Still it may produce some good effects, that will remain after their origin is forgotten. Especially some of the rising generation, to numbers of whom the author, by his calling, holds an interesting relation, may receive some favourable impressions and gain some additional knowledge, which will not be lost on them, or those whom they, in their turn, may influence. This is what the author ventures most to expect, and it is certainly what he most desires.
The reasons just given for publishing the following journal have influenced the matter and manner of the composition. I have de- sired to call my readers, and especially the young, not only to such facts as will merely enlarge their knowledge of the existing state of the world, physical and moral, but also to such facts and prin- ciples as will more effectually prepare them for the great purpo- ses of their being. The signs of the times clearly indicate that the moral conflicts which have heretofore been conducted with but partial success, because they have been conducted by but few, and have been circumscribed in their sphere, must take a wider range, and must be carried on with greater efficiency in the various departments of political, moral, and religious reform. For this great work our youth should be trained. But an essential part of that training is an acquaintance with the present conditions of so- ciety. By this one is taught not only what is to be done, but how ]
INTRODUCTION. V
and where, and when he may exert his influence, be it great or small, in the common cause. If mere pleasure were to be com- municated, I should not write on these subjects, which others can adorn more tastefully than myself ; if mere description of foreign objects were the design, I should not delineate scenes which have been so often delineated, and by pencils far more skilful than mine. But if any important truths, any facts connected with politics or morals, education or religion, can be wrought into the incidents of a journal so as to make them readable or acceptable, this is most that I can hope.
With respect to the truth and general accuracy of the state ments here made, I think I may pledge myself to the public ; but still some errors will undoubtedly be noticed. When I see how many mistakes the late foreign journalists who have travelled in our country have made, and made, too, with an apparent desire to tell the truth, I cannot but feel there is great danger that I also should make similar mistakes with respect to the countries through which I have travelled ; especially as I have had too little time to accomplish all I desired in rny investigations abroad, and too little leisure since I returned to review and digest the materials which I had so hastily collected.
In my notes on England, it may be thought, without a word of explanation, that I have made the affairs of my own denomination there too prominent. It should be remembered, however, that, in connexion with other objects that claimed my attention abroad, I was specially delegated by the General Conference of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church in the United States to represent to the Wesleyan body in England the state of the church here, and to keep up that friendly interchange of Christian salutation and that official intercourse between the two churches which has heretofore existed. To Methodists this must be a matter of interest, because, ecclesiastically speaking, it is with them a family concern. To oth- ers, the subject may possess, to some extent, the interest of novelty. The internal organization and practical working of this modifica-
Vi INTRODUCTION.
tion of Christianity is but little known, I apprehend, in this coun- try ; and yet it is a subject worthy the attention of the philosopher, the philanthropist, and the Christian. Few communities are wielding such an extended and efficient influence in our world at the present day as the Wesleyan Methodists. As one of the ex- traordinary features of the present age, therefore, this subject should be understood ; and hence I have not hesitated to give it a prominent place in that part of the following journal that relates to England.
Many of the letters that are incorporated in the following work were written at different times during my tour to the persons to whom they are addressed; but these covered but a smaller portion of the topics which I wished to introduce. A question, therefore, came up, in preparing the materials for the press, whether these letters should be enlarged and multiplied so as to place all the matter in the same form ; or whether, letting these stand essentially as they were, with the necessary revision and corrections, the additional matter should be thrown into the form of plain narrative. The latter method, as will be seen, has been adopted. This, I know, is rather out of the common course, and may be the cause of a noticeable difference in the style ; but it has occurred to me that this may be no objection ; nay, that perhaps the monotony of one unvaried form may be relieved by the change, and be, at least, no drawback upon the interest of the work. I had much more matter which I might have inserted ; but -I have made my book already too large, according to the fash- ion of the day ; and fashion will have its influence in the size of a book as well as in everything else.
I commit the work to the public not without some solicitude ; but, such as it is, as it has been promised, the public must have it. If it does little good, I trust, at least, it will do no harm ; and that is more than can be said of all that falls from the press at the present day.
Wesleyan University, January, 1838.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Incidents of the Voyage.— Packet Accommodations.— Letter on Sea-sickness.— Passage from England to France. — Boulogne. — Journey to Paris. — Amiens. — Incidents of Travel. — Arrival at Paris. — Lodgings. — Acquaintances formed . . . Page 9
CHAPTER II.
Paris. — Avenue de Neuilly. — Elysian Fields. — Place de Concorde. — Views. — Bloody Executions here. — Boulevards. — Faubourgs. — Seine. — Public Gardens. — Tuileries. — Louvre.— Palais Royal.— Palais of the Luxembourg.— Churches.— Hospitals.— Place Vendome.— The Exchange 20
CHAPTER HI.
Paris. — Markets. — Fountains. — Cemeteries. — Catacombs.— Pere la Chaise. — Manufac- tories.—Gobelin Tapestry.— Porcelain.— St. Cloud.— Versailles.— Centralization of France.— Government of France.— Galleries of the Louvre.— State of the Fine Arts.— Mechanical Arts. — Philosophical Apparatus. — Surveillance of the Police. — Mode of Building 36
CHAPTER IV.
Education in France. — University. — Literary Institutions and Schools. — Literary and Scientific Associations. — Libraries. — Museums, &c 53
CHAPTER V.
State of Religion.— Letter to the Students of the Wesleyan University, containing illus trations of French Infidelity. — Protestantism in France. — Missionary Meeting.— De- cline of Romanism.— Proper Ground for American Missions.— British Missions. — Proper Cause for establishing Missions in France. — Americans in Paris .... 68
CHAPTER VI.
Departure for Lyons. — French Diligences. — Notice of several small Towns. — French Landscapes.— Comfortless Villages.— Female Degradation.— Hotels.— Cookery.— Cha- lons.— Arrival at Lyons. — Description of Lyons. — Departure for Mount Cenis and Turin. — Pont de Beauvoisin. — Passage of Eschelles. — Grotto. — Picturesque Winter Scenery. — Aerial Exhibition. — Chamberry. — Appearance of the Villages and of the Inhabitants. — Mountain Cottages. — Donkeys.— Goitrous Swellings. — Natural Aque- duct.— Lans-le-bourg— Passage of Mount Cenis.— Arrival at Turin ... 85
CHAPTER VII.
Sketches of Italian History from the Fall of the Ancient Empire.— Conquest of the Ostro- goths, of the Lombards, and of the Franks.— Feudal System.— Growth and Indepen- dence of the Cities,— War of Investitures,— Papal Assumptions.— Origin and Decline 1
X CONTENTS,
of the Italian Republics. — Frederic Barbarossa. — League of Lombardy. — Wars with Frederic, and their Termination. — War of the Crusades.— Guelfs and Ghibelines. — Cruelties of the Age.— Spanish Supremacy in Sicily and Naples. — Various Wars. — Dawning and Progress of Literature. — Fall of the Mercantile Republics. — Reforma- tion in Italy. — Its Progress. — Persecutions. — Final Extinction of the Reformation. — French Revolution. — Conquest of Italy.— Cisalpine Republic.— Kingdom of Italy.— French Influence, and its Effects.— Dethronement of Napoleon, and consequent Changes in Italy.— Present Political Divisions Page 102
CHAPTER VIII.
Further Particulars of our Entrance into Italy. — Roman Catholic Superstitions. — Turin. — King of Sardinia. — River Po. — Route to Genoa. — Asti. — Allesandria. — Ma- rengo. — Passage of the Apennines.— First View of the Mediterranean. — Reflections on its Historic Associations, and the present Character of the Population on its Shores. — Arrival at Genoa. — Its Location.— Military Defences. — Harbour. — Palaces. — Church- es.— History. — Departure from Genoa. — Gardens and Orchards. — Mountain Scenes. — Grottoes.— Splendid Views. — Sestri. — Passage of the Bracco. — Splendid Exhibition. — Modena. — Vexations of Travellers from Health-officers and from Passports.— Lucca. — Washwomen 131
CHAPTER IX.
Arrival at Florence. — Protestant Worship. — Description of Florence. — Royal Gallery. — Venus de Medicis, &c.— Reflections on Statuary. — Pitti Palace.— Gardens. — Picture Galleries. — Museum. — Academy of Fine Arts. — Manufacture of Pietra Dura. — Chapel of the Medici.— Cathedral. — Church of the Holy Cross, and its Monuments. — Educa- tion in Tuscany. — Infant Schools. — Advantage of Travellers to Italy.— Grand Duke. — His Superstition and uncontrolled Power 149
CHAPTER X.
Departnre from Florence.— Route to Pisa. — Sickness of Mrs. F. — Arrival at Pisa. — Sepa- ration of our Company. — My own Sickness. — M. Pevarada. — Pisa. —Foreign Expendi- tures in Italy.— Beggars. — River and Lung' Arno. — Cathedral. — Baptistry. — Leaning Tower. — Mode of building their Houses. — Neighbourhood of Pisa. — Farm of the Grand Duke.— Camels.— University.— Professor Foggi.— Preparatory Schools,— Learned Pro* fessions*— Romanism the Religion of the Natural Heart.— The Carnival . . 163
CHAPTER XI.
Departure from Pisa. — Leghorn.— Its Business. — General Characteristics. — Steam- boats.— Passage to CivitaVecchia. — Arrival, and Incidents of Travel. — Route toRome. — Entrance into Rome. — Departure for Naples. — Appian Way. — Pontine Marshes. — The "Three Taverns." — Fondi and Itri. — Incidents with Beggars, — Catholic Priest. — Cenotaph of Cicero. — Mora. — Three Ancient Republics. — Reflections on their Down- fall.— Capua. — Vegetation.— Arrival at Naples 177
CHAPTER XII.
Situation of Naples. — Views from the Royal Observatory. — Reflections. — Population of Naples. — Lazaroni. — Beggars. — Army. — Public Garden. — Architecture. — Church of St. Martin.— Cathedral.— Blood of St. Januarius.— Chapel of St. Severus, and its veiled Statuary. — Royal Observatory. — Reflections. — Cemetery. — Funeral.— Literature and the Arts.— Government.— Caprice and Fears of the Government. — History. — Museum.—* Different Halls and Galleries of Statuary and Bronzes. — Antiques from Pompeii. — An- cient Manuscripts and Paintings , 185
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIII.
Environs of Naples.— Route to Paestum.— Towns and Scenery on the Way.— Situation of Psestum. — Ancient Temples. — Description of them.— Associations. — Pompeii. — General Description of Pompeii. — Streets, Temples, Houses, Shops. — Tombs. — Villa of Diomedes. — Torre del Greco. — Herculaneum. — Virgil's Tomb.— Grotto of Posolipo. — Pozzuoli.— Donkey Riding.— Solfatara.— Lake d'Agnano.— Grotto of the Dog.— Monte Nuovo.— Lake Avernus.— Grotto of the Sibyl. — Fables of the Sibyls. — Cimme- rian Forests. — Baths of Nero. — Baiae.— Ruins of Temples. — Piscini Mirabile. — Ache- rusia Palus.— Cuma. — Arco Felice. — Excursion to Vesuvius. — Mode of Ascent and General Description. — Cone. — View from the Summit.— Appearance of the Crater. — Inner Crater. — Descent to it.— Danger incurred in returning.— Former Characteristics of the Mountain. — Descent from the Mountain. — Preparations for leaving Naples. — Travelling in Italy .-Caserta Page 205
CHAPTER XIV.
Arrival at Rome. — Hotel Spilman. — Hired Lodgings.— Safety in Rome. — Letter to the Editors of the Methodist Magazine. — Passion Week. — Palm Sunday. — General of tho Franciscans. — Pope. — Distribution of the Palms. — Procession. — Tenebrae. — Maundy Thursday.— High Mass. — Procession of the Host.— Benediction. — Washing Feet.— Dining of the Apostles.— Good Friday. — Offerings. — "Three Hours of Agony." — Saturday before Easter. — Baptism. — Ordination. — Easter Sunday. — Procession.— Tiara and other Robes of the Pope. — High Mass by the Pope. — Roman Courtesy. — The Holy Relics.— Second Benediction.— The Flagellation.— The Pilgrims.— Wash- ing Feet.— Supper. — Don Miguel. — Female Apartment. — Taking the White Veil. — Conversion to Romanism of an English Lady. — Church of the Trinity.— Italian Music — Illumination and Fireworks. — Religious Processions. — Holy Staircase.— Second Letter to the Editors of the Methodist Magazine. — Tendencies of Romanism to Idol- atry.— Rev. Mr. Dewey. — Romanism incompatible with Freedom. — Tends to En- courage Vice. — Impoverishes a Community 228
CHAPTER XV.
Roman Antiquities. — The Forum. — Remains of Temples. — Triumphal Arches. — Columns, — Colosseum.— Palatine Hill. — Capitoline Hill. — Velabrum. — Antiquities near the Capitol. — Mamertine Prison. — Relative Position of the Seven Hills. — Trajan's Forum and Pillar.— Pantheon.— Roman Baths.— Ancient Tombs.— Catacombs.— Aqueducts. —Columns and Obelisks * 291
CHAPTER XVI.
Vatican Palace.— Different Galleries of Statuary.— Churches.— The Basilicae.— St. Peter's. — St. John Lateran. — St. Maria Maggiore and other Churches. — Introduction to the Pope. — Singular instance of Servants. — Palaces of Rome. — Picture Galleries and Frescoes.— Halls of Raphael.— Mosaics. — Professions. — Libraries. — Propaganda.— Jews.— Dimensions of the City.— Bridges.— A Modern Hill.— Pincian Hill.— Piazza del Popolo.— Borghese Villa.— Letter to G. P. Disosway, Esq.— Excursions to Tivoli and Adrian's Villa. — Tartarean Lake. — Solfatara.— Cascades and Cataracts of the Anio.— Different Views.— Villa of Horace.— Grotto of the Sibyl.— Grotto of Neptune. — Temples of Neptune and Vesta.— Adrian's Villa. — Ancient Edifices. — Theatres.— Barracks. — Palace. — Historic Reminiscences. — Solitude of the Place. — Departure from Rome ••••• 813
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVII.
Different Routes to Florence. — Embarrassments. — Nero's Tornb. — Campania, Shepherd*, and other Incidents. — Falls of Terni. — Different Views.— Mineralogical Formations. — Donkey Driving.— Spoleto.— Perugino.— Lake Thrasymene.— A Frenchman and his Daughter.— Battle-ground of Hannibal and Flaminius. — View of Florence. — Revisit of the Galleries.— Circumstances of our Departure from Florence. — A Consumptive. — Incidents of Travel over the Apennines.— Bologna.— Arcades.— St. Mary of St. Luke. — Leaning Towers. — Bologna School of Painting. — Picture Galleries. — University, &c. — Ferrara. — Ariosto. — Library. — Tasso's Prison. — Discontent of the Citizens.— Journey to Padua. — Different Objects on the Route. — Euganean Hills. — House and Tomb of Petrarch.— Padua.— Church and F&e of St. Anthony.— University.— Hail- storm.— Arrival at Venice. — Festival of St. Mark. — General Remarks on Venice. — Canals and Bridges. — Architecture. — Public Squares. — Piazza of St. Mark. — Church of St. Mark.— Bronze Horses.— Palace of the Doges.— Paintings —Reflections on the most appropriate Field for the Arts. — Venetian School of Painting.— Halls of the Secret Tribunals. — Progress of Venice from Democracy to Tyranny. — Bridge of Sighs. — Dungeons. — Imperial Palace. — Tower of St. Luke. — Tower of the Clock. — Mechan- ical Procession. — Legacy to the Pigeons. — Churches.— Masses for the Dead. — Cano- va's Monument.— Religious Character of the Venetians.— Decline of Venice. — Its Causes. — Farewell to Venice. — Incidents of Travel. — Vincenza.— Verona. — Tomb of Juliet. — Tombs of the Scaligeri. — Ancient Amphitheatre. — Mountain of Fishes. — Lake Garda. — Brescia. — Face of the Country. — Incident. — Reflections on Italian Character. —Arrival at Milan Page 344
CHAPTER XVIII.
Milan. — Improved by Napoleon.— General Description. — Triumphal Arch.— Cathedral. —Feast of Pentecost.— The Ambrosian Church. — Business of Milan.— Education. — Government, Manufactures, and Commerce. — Canals. — Climate. — Palace of the Brera and its Various Institutions.— Libraries. — Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci. — Church of St. Ambrose. — St. Carlo Borromeo. — Departure from Milan. — Como. — Lake. — Villa of Queen Caroline. — Passage up the Lake and Description of the Scenery. — Lake Maggiore.— Borromean Isles.— Isola Bella.— Bovena.— Reflections on leaving Italy % 384
CHAPTER XIX.
Fellow-travellers.— Bad Road. — Granite.— Doruo d'Ossola. — Character of the Route. — Grottoes. — Entrance to Switzerland.— Cascades.— Commingling of Winter and Sum- mer.— Village of Simplon. — Obstructions from Snow. — Descent of the Mountain. — Brigg.— Swiss Mountain Cottages. — Cascade. — Sion. — Martigny. — Mountain Dis- eases.—Swiss Love of Home. — Cascade.— Lake Leman.— Vevay.— Scenery.— Lau- sanne.— Nyon.— Rev. J. William Fletcher— Associations of Home.— Arrival at Ge- neva ... .398
CHAPTER XX.
Geneva.— Strictness of the Police.— Reason for this.— Intolerance vf the Sardinian Gov- ernment.—Evangelical Society.— Decline and Revival of the Evangelical Cause.— Promising Characteristics of that Cause.— Some unpromising Features.— General Description of Geneva.— Schools and Learned Men.— Cathedral.— Sketches of His- tory and Government. — Society and Scenery 409
CONTENTS. Xlll
CHAPTER XXI.
Departure from Geneva.— Incidents and Scenery.— Cottages.— Costumes —Friburg.— Schools. — Site. — Suspension Bridge. — Linden-tree. — Canton of Berne. — City of Berne. — General Description.— Curious Clock. — Institutions. — Hofwyl. — Notice of Hofwyl School. — Mr. Fellenburg's Opinion of Religious Instruction.— Interspersed Reflections. — Agriculture of Hofwyl.— Mr. Fellenburg's Family. — Soleure. — Passage of the Jura. — Bale. — Division of the Canton.— Cause, and Reflections upon it.— Mis- sionary Institution. — Early Christian Movements in Bale.— College. — Library, &c. — Cathedral.— Manufactures and Trade. — Specimen of the Ludicrous.— Environs. — Departure from Switzerland Page 420
CHAPTER XXII.
Duchy of Baden. — Country. — Peasantry.— Friburg Cathedral. — Stork's Nest. — Stras- bourg.— Cathedral. — Telegraph, &c. — Town of Baden. — German Baths. — Old Cas- tle.— Secret Tribunal.— Older Castle. — Carlsruhe. — Fair. — Coarse Females.— Scwhit- zingue. — Heidelberg. — University.— Instruction and Discipline of German Universities. —Castle.— Route to Darmstadt.— Sketch of the History of Baden.— Smokers.- Darmstadt.— Town and Duchy 439
CHAPTER XXIII.
Frankfort. — Jews. — Edifices. — Fine Arts. — Schools.— General Character of German Schools. — English on the Continent. — Trouble with a Coachman. — Mayence. — Forti- fications.— Hanseatic League.— Invention of Printing. — Troubadours. — Passage of the Rhine. — Scenery. — Associations of Romance. — " Seven Mountains." — King's Stool. — Partition of the Rhenish States by the Allies.— Frederic William III.— His Religion. — Religion of the State. — Prussian School-system. — Libraries. — Universities. — Per- fidy of the King 454
CHAPTER XXIV.
Passage of the Rhine renewed. — Coblentz. — Bonn. — Cologne. — Cathedral. — P. P. Ru- bens.— Cologne Water. — German Princess. — Advantages of Female Company to the Traveller. —Hydraulic Works. — Nimeguen.— Loevestein.— Dort.— Rotterdam.— Mad Dog.— Cleanliness. — Canals and Hydraulics.— Churches.— Statue of Erasmus. — Com- merce.— Belgic Question. — Excursion to the Hague. — Scenery of Holland. — Hague. —Route to Leyden.— Notice of the University and Town.— Passage to London.— Business of the Thames.— Parting with the Princess.— Reflections.— Feelings on landing in London 473
CHAPTER XXV.
Resumption of our Journal at Liverpool. — Letter to G. P. Disosway, Esq. — Introductory Remarks. — Liverpool. — Docks. — Public Buildings. — Second Letter to G. P. Disosway, Esq.— Chester.— Roman Bath.—" Rows."— Walls.— Bishop.— Cathedral.— Castle.— Highland Regiment. — Excursion to Eaton Hall.— Scenery. — Palace. — Gardens, &c. Railroad to Manchester. — Rains. — Potteries. — Nocturnal Exhibition.— Reflections. — Coventry.— Dunstable.— English Manufactures Sectional.— St. Albans.— Arrival in London , , , . , 488
CHAPTER XXVI.
London.— Its early History. — Plague.— Gieat Fire. — Crowded Population. — Altera- tions.—Size and Population.— Influences of these.— Places of Public Worship.— In-
XIV CONTENTS.
temperance. — Temperance Movements. — London Police. — Literary Institutions. — Fine Arts. — Other Institutions. — British Museum.— Colosseum. — Zoological Gar- dens.— Regent's Park.— Hyde Park.— Green Park. — James's Park. — London Diet. — St. Paul's.— Westminster Abbey.— Chapels.— City Road Chapel.— Dr. Clarke's Tomb.— Tower.— Bridges.— Tunnel.— Docks Page 509
CHAPTER XXVII.
Parliament. — Principal Speakers. — Present Administration. — Reform. — O' Connell's Course. — Reflections on Popular Agitations. — Morbid Excitability of the English. — Manner of conducting Public Assemblies. — Public Meeting of the " Protestant Asso- ciation."— An Imposition. — Question of Church and State. — Agitation and Difficulties respecting it. — Objectionable Features of the English Church. — Danger of sudden Changes. — Impropriety of Foreign Interference. — Modes of Business in the British Parliament.— Eloquence.— Influence of Irreligion in the Ranks of the Liberals.— Colo- nial Policy 534
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Excursion to Greenwich. — Royal Observatory.— Royal Hospital and Schools. — Wool- wich.— Dover. — Situation. — Chalk-cliffs. — Barracks and Fortifications. — Castle. — Shakspeare's Cliff. — English Watering-places. — High Charges. — Characteristics. — Value of a Title.— Excursion to Bedfordshire.— Charity School of Bedford.— John Bunyan's Birthplace, &c. — John Howard's Birthplace. — Lord John Russel's Election to Parliament. — Missionary Meeting. — Missionary Tea. — Cambridge. — College Edi fices. — King's College Chapel.— Founding of the Colleges. — Sketch of the Constitu- tion and Regulations of Cambridge University. — Reflections. — Excursion to Wind- sor Castle. — Eton.— Fagging. — Windsor Castle. — Apartments. — Plate. — St. George's Chapel. — Excursion to Birmingham. — Oxford. — Mr. Hill. — Episcopal Succession. — Sketches of the University. — Libraries. — Museum. — Marbles. — Royal Honorary De- grees.— Costumes. — Warwick Castle. — Stagecoach Conversation .... 553
CHAPTER XXIX.
Wesleyan Conference. — Methodist Connexion in England. — Schism of Dr. Warren. — Chancery Decision. — Mr. Wesley's Poll-deed. — Kilhamites. — Finances of the Wesleyan Conference. — Order of building Chapels.— Missionary Operations. — Stationing of the Preachers.— Opening of Conference. — Dr. Bunting. — Respect for Seniority and Office. — Mr. Sturge's Circular. — Views of the Conference respecting the Methodist Episcopal Church.— Ordination. — Public Breakfast. — Ministerial Character. — Theological Insti- tution.— Manner of Preaching 582
CHAPTER XXX.
Birmingham.— Manufactures, &c.— Coal and Iron Mines.— Character of the Operatives.— Bishop Asbury's Birthplace.— Anecdotes of Bishop Asbury.— Return to London.— Irish Reapers.— Agricultural Products.— Landscapes.— Route to Bristol.— English Stagecoach.— Dinner.— Bath.— Lodgings at Bristol.—" British Association."— Situa- lion and General Description of Bristol.— Celebrated Men.— Wesleys in Bristol.-— Kingswood. — Voyage to Dublin 603
CHAPTER XXXI.
Approach to Dublin.— Incidents of Landing.— General View of the Town.— St. Patrick's Cathedral.— Dean Swift.— Trinity College.— General Education.— Hatred of the Eng- lish.—Difficulties in the Relations of the English Government to Ireland.— Remedies.— Methodists in Ireland.— Cars.— Departure from Dublin.— Drogheda.— Beggars.— Af
CONTENTS. XV
feeling Cases. — Wretchedness of the Peasantry. — Bogs. — Arrival at Belfast.— Route to Coleraine.— Fellow-traveller. — Coleraine. — Dunluce Castle. — Giant's Causeway. — Neighbouring Headlands. — Port Coon Cave. — Return to Belfast. — Balleymena Mar- ket.—Loch Neagh.— Notice of Belfast, &c.— Presbyterian Church.— Passage to Scot- land.—Ailsa Craig Page 620
CHAPTER XXXII.
Greenock. — Port Glasgow. — Clyde. — Glasgow. — Its Growth and Business. — Edifices.— Morals. — Christian Charities. — Cathedral. — Cemetery. — University. — Other Institu- tions.—Sir William Hooker and the Botanical Garden.— Tour to the Highlands.— Dumbarton.— Leven Water. — Loch Lomond.— Islands. — Effects of Highland Scene- ry.— Ben Lomond. — Rob Roy. — Mountain Pass to Loch Ketturin. — Rob Roy's Fowl- ingpiece.— Loch Ketturin.— Boatmen.— Trosacks.— Hotel.— Route down the Venna- char.— Stirling.— Castle.— Route to Edinburgh.— Entrance into the City.— North Loch. — Sabbath in Edinburgh. — Scottish Courtesy. — University. — Botanic Garden. — Gallon Hill. — Lord Melville's Monument. — Castle. — Holy Rood House. — Old and New Town. — Incorporated Trades. — Magistracy.— Roule to England. — Newcastle-upon- Tyne. — Durham. — Races. — English Propensity. — York.— Cathedral. — Yorkshire. — Route to Leeds. — Accident. — Lodgings at Roundhey. — Leeds. — Its Business, &c. — Factory Children. — Yorkshire Dialect.— Ignorance of America. — Yorkshire Metho- dism.— Dissenters. — Quakers. — Woodhouse Grove School. — Kirkstall Abbey. — Route to Manchester. — Advertisements. — Musical Festival. — Cotton Manufacture. — Stock- port.— Chimneys.— Derbyshire Peak. — Castleton. — Caverns. — Sheffield. — Mr. Mont- gomery.— Manufactures of Sheffield. — Rodgers's Showroom. — Grinders. — State of Religion. — Return to Manchester. — Missionary Meetings. — Departure for Liverpool. — Chapels.— Church Service.— Mr. M'Neal.— Reflections on English Character.— Fare- well to England. — Passage Home. — Conclusion 643
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Isola Bella Frontispiece.
View of Naples 204
St. Peter's 316
St. Mark's 373
Suspension Bridge 422
Tunnel 534
King's College Chapel 563
Edinburgh 662
JOURNAL, &c,
CHAPTER I.
Letter to the Editors of the Christian Advocate and Journal.
Liverpool, Oct. 28, 1835.
REVEREND AND DEAR SIRS,
I have at length arrived in Liverpool, after a short passage of about eighteen days. And I hasten, according to promise, to give you, and, through you, my friends generally, the information that, through Divine mercy, we are all in health and good spirits.
Before giving you any account of the events of the passage, I beg the privilege of acknowledging my obligations to the kind at- tentions of my friends in your city, who manifested to the last such kind offices of friendship as will not be easily erased from my memory. One looks back with feelings which none but those who have them can fully comprehend, to the expressions and acts of friendship and sympathy which they have received from those they love and honour in their own country, when in the land of strangers they find themselves alone in the midst of multitudes. Such is our present situation. As we approached the pier of Prince's Dock, many of our passengers looked out, and hailed some acquaintance or friend, some brother or sister, who stood ready to clasp them by the hand, and welcome them on shore. It was then that I felt the contrast ; the thought came over me like the chill of winter, not one stands ready to welcome me ! We left a land of friends, who attended us to the last — to the dock — to the steamboat — to the ship — to the Hook ; nor did they leave us till the last opportunity of returning ; but here all are strangers. But enough of this. We shall doubtless find or make friends here — and, if not, we may maintain an intercourse with those we have
B
10 THE VOYAGE.
left, second only in its pleasures to the delights of a personal in- terviet\y. . . .
3/Hao! heferd mnch or the accommodations of the New-York and Liverpool line of packet ships ; but, after all, my expectations did nut coioe up to ..he reality. Everything was arranged in the best order. The fixtures about the ship are just such as they should be. In fact, almost everything is a fixture. Your bed, your table, your sofa, is made part and parcel of the ship itself, so that the rocking and pitching of the vessel cannot disturb your accommo- dations. The dining-table is not only firmly attached to the floor of the cabin, but the leaf is divided into three parallel compart- ments, with elevated mouldings on the outer edges and between, so as to form three grooves — one for the public or common dishes in the centre, and the two outer ones for the plates of the guests Thus prepared, with an immoveable support for the back and an- other for the feet, you may bid defiance to the rocking of the ship and eat on — provided, however, the motion does not rock you out of your appetite, which was, in fact, my case most of the passage, as you may learn by my letter to Dr. R .
As to food, we had an abundance, and of a great variety. We had on board a cow for furnishing the ship with milk ; and for fresh provisions we had an ample stock of live geese, turkeys, ducks, hens, pigs, and sheep, besides the dressed meats brought from New-York. These, with puddings, pastry, vegetables, and fruits, were furnished us in suitable variety and appropriate ar- rangement four times each day.
The Roscoe is a fine ship, and the commander, Captain Delano, is not only an excellent commander and navigator, but he is a gen- tleman of intelligence and politeness. He gave universal satisfac- tion to the passengers, and is certainly entitled to our warmest ac- knowledgments. The subordinate officers were also fine men, the crew excellent, the servants remarkably active and attentive to our every want.
One of the causes of the quick passages of the New- York packet ships undoubtedly is the unwearied and incessant attention that is paid to the management of the ship. Every veering and varying breeze is not only noticed when it comes, but, it would seem, anticipated also, so that nothing is lost. The whole of na- ture's agency, as we may say, is used up to help us on our course
SCENERY OF THE OCEAN. 11
We had a pleasant company of twenty-five in the oabin, be- sides about forty in the steerage. It will hardly be of sufficient interest to you or your readers to give either a detailed account of the passengers or of the events of the voyage. What is there in an ordinary sea voyage worth journalizing and publishing ? We may indeed rhapsodize upon the fathomless depths and the shoreless ex- panse of old ocean; we may talk of its coral reefs and pearly beds, which we cannot see ; we may descant upon the rising and setting sun, ascending and descending like a globe of fire from and into the mighty waters ; upon the phosphorescent glow of the evening ripple, and of the white crest of the heaving billow — all this, if it had not been worked up into poetry and prose a thou- sand and a thousand times, might be very well ; but what ordinary genius can give a new form or additional interest to these oft -re- peated descriptions ? In viewing these scenes, the contemplative mind finds much 10 admire, the devout mind much to excite his veneration for the God of nature, and the imaginative mind much to enkindle the fires of poetry. The whole, however, soon be- comes monotonous, and a desire for a change seems to absorb every other. Whether it will be construed into a deficiency of imagination, a want of taste, or a lack of the spirit of devotion on the part of our company, I cannot say ; but sure I am, that nothing we met with during the voyage seemed to diffuse such universal pleasure over all minds as the sight of the light on Cape Clear, which we made in about fifteen days : and best of all was the mo- ment when we set foot on the pier of Prince's Dock in Liverpool, near the close of our eighteenth day from the Battery in New- York. So much for our voyage ; and let this suffice — with the exception that, for variety's sake, and that those who are longing for the opportunity of careering sublimely and poetically upon the mighty ocean may know something of the pleasures of such a voy- age, I have attempted a sketch of sea-sickness, which possibly may meet you through another channel.
The letter alluded to was to an errlinent gentleman of the med- ical profession in New-York, and is here inserted.
MY DEAR DOCTOR,
You will learn from other sources of my safe arrival, and other circumstances connected therewith, particularly that we were
12 THE VOYAGE.
highly pleased with the captain, the ship, the passengers, and, in short, that we had nothing to complain of except that most un- pitied, and, I may almost say, that most distressing of all diseases, the sea-sickness. This lugubrious topic I have reserved for you, partly to retaliate upon the faculty for not providing a remedy, and partly because you will better judge than one of the uninitia- ted in the mysteries of physiology whether or not what I may say on the subject will be of any consequence to the untravelling public — if there be any such in these stirring days. I say of any consequence, by which I certainly do not mean for the enjoyment of the reader, but for his information, and for the enlargement of his sphere of sympathy, and possibly for the gratification of his curiosity. If I supposed that any sketch of this disease would produce even the premonitory symptoms upon my readers, I could not find it in my heart to inflict the misery upon one of the sons of Adam — except 'on the physicians ; nor even upon them, except in hope that it would put them upon extra exertions to find a cure. On board the steamboat which conveyed us to the Hook, you suggested and sanctioned the theory, which I believe has gained extensive authority with the faculty, and certainly seems very plausible, and accords well with many of the symptoms, that the disease is the inversion of the peristaltic motion of the digestive muscles through the stomach and viscera. Alas ! what a picture of this distressing disorder ! Only conceive the unpleasant sen- sation which this unnatural action must produce ! — the loathing, the shrinking back, and the spasmodic action of all the digestive organs ! And when this system of internal " agitation" is begun, it is increased by its own action. The spasm increases the irri- tation, and the irritation increases the susceptibility to spasmodic action, until the coats of the stomach and all the abdominal viscera are convulsed. The sensations produced, however, are not those of pain, as we commonly use the term, but of loathing — of sick- ness— of deathlike sickness, until nature is wearied, and the poor sufferer feels that life itself js a burden. He is told he must not give up to it — he must keep about, take the air, and drive it off. At first he thinks he will — he believes he can — and, perhaps, after the first complete action of his nausea, feels relieved, and imagines that he has conquered ; but another surge comes on, and rolls him and his vessel a few feet upward ; and again she sinks, and he
SEA-SICKNESS. 13
with her — but not all of him ; his body goes down with the ves- sel, as it is meet it should, according to the laws of gravitation ; but that which his body contains cannot make ready for so speedy a descent. The contained has received an impetus upward, and it keeps on in this direction, while the container goes down with the ship. The result may readily be inferred.
But even then the worst is still to come. When the upward action, the distressing nausea, the convulsive retching continue, the deeper secretions are disturbed, and the mouth is literally filled with gall and bitterness. All objects around you now lose their interest ; the sea has neither beauty nor sublimity ; the roar- ing of the wave is like the wail of death ; the careering of the ship before the wind " like a thing of life" is but the hastening and ag- gravation of agony. Your sympathy, if not lost, is paralyzed ; your dear friend — perhaps the wife of your bosom — is suffering at the same time, but you have not the moral courage, if you have the heart, to go to her assistance. And even that very self, wtiich is so absorbing and exclusive, seems, by a strange paradox, hardly so interesting as to be worth an existence.
If the theory already alluded to, of the inversion of the peristal- tic motion, be true, it may yet be a curious, and perhaps not un- profitable physiological inquiry, what are the intermediate links between the motion of the vessel, which is obviously the primum mobile of all the agitation, and this inverted action of the digestive organs ? Is this latter the effect of a previous action upon the ner- vous system ? Is it the effect of sympathy between the brain and the stomach ? If a nervous derangement is a prior link, are the nerves wrought upon by the imagination ? and, if so, through what sense is the imagination affected ? Is it through the general feel- ings of the frame, the entire system, or is it chiefly through the organ of sight ? I have not skill or knowledge sufficient to answer these questions. I cannot but think, however, that the eye has much to do in this matter. If you look at the vessel in motion, it seems to increase the difficulty ; and hence, while under the influ- ence of the disease, you cannot bear to look on anything around you, but are disposed to close the windows of the soul, and give yourself up to dark and gloomy endurance.
One of the social, or rather anti-social concomitants of this dis- ease is, that it excites but little pity in those around you who are 2
14 THE VOYAGE.
not suffering. One tells you, " It will do you good" — this is the highest comfort you get ; another assures you that it is not a mor- tal disease, and that you will feel a great deal better when it is over. (" Hope so" thought I.) Another laughs you in the face, with some atrocious pleasantry about " casting up accounts," or " paying duties to old Neptune." A " searching operation," this paying custom to the watery king ! My friends forewarned me of the vexations of the custom-house before I left America ; and if this is a fair specimen, I shall beg to be excused from the fur- ther prosecution of my tour. If his majesty demanded but a large per centage of your wares, it might be tolerable ; but he takes all you have ; he searches you through and through.
Wearied out at length, you throw yourself into your berth, where, by keeping in a horizontal position, and sinking into the stupor of a mere oyster existence, you find the only mitigation of your suffering. But here, too, you have painful annoyances. Is it cold, your extremities become numb and icy — the system, as in the cholera, has all the heat and action within, while the entire surface is torpid, and the extremities are cold as death. Is it hot, you have a sense of suffocation for the want of air ; you open your eyes, and see the white drapery of your bed waving, and in a mo- ment you anticipate the fanning of the breeze. No, no ! that waving motion is not from the zephyr — it is from the same baneful agita- tion that is the source of all your distress. To this hour I can scarcely think of the waving of that white drapery in the stagnant air of my stateroom, without associating with it the idea of a ghostly visitant in the hour of midnight, flapping his sepulchral wing around the bed of agony, and boding evil to the sufferer. Again you close your eyes ; you think of home — of land anywhere — of the terra Jirma beds of the lower animals, even of the worst accommodated among them — the horse or the swine — and you feel their lodgment would be a paradise compared with your billow- tossed couch. 'But all is in vain, and you find no other alterna- tive but to give yourself up to passive endurance. And such en- durance ! You listen to the bell dividing off the hours, and you feel that time, like the slow fires of savage torments, has slackened his pace to prolong your sufferings.
But I fear that my sketch will become tedious by its length, if not otherwise. Suffice it to say, I have been describing what I
ARRIVAL AT BOULOGNE. 15
have actually felt, in a greater or less degree, with occasional in- terruptions, for fifteen days. But it is all over ; and, now that it is past, it seems like a dream. I can hardly identify myself with that being who so lately passed the painful process. The recollection, however, is sufficiently vivid to lead me to pray that I may be called to cross the Atlantic but once more. I cannot go the full length with an English lady whom we met in America, and who, in speaking of her sufferings on her voyage, said, " Dear as is old England to me, I never can consent to recross the At- lantic to visit her." No ; America — her institutions — my friends there — and, above all, my duties, my delightful duties, are too dear to me to be foregone to avoid fifteen, or fifty, or one hundred days of suffering.
If, then, a kind Providence spares my life, I shall once more throw myself upon the billows, and give myself to the tossing of the merciless waves. If, in the mean time, you discover a spe- cific for this horrible disease, the very thoughts of which give me the hydrophobia, do not fail to let it meet me at Liverpool before September next ; and believe me, in the mean time,
Yours in great respect,
W. FISK.
We spent in England the remainder of September and the whole of October; but poor health and bad weather prevented making as extensive observations as might otherwise have been made in that time. However, we were not idle ; but shall reserve for the present any and all matters that were there noticed, for the purpose of preserving, as much as may be, a unity in the sub- jects treated of, which is deemed of more consequence than mere continuity in the journal.
There are three lines of steam-packets from Dover to the Con- tinent: one for Ostend in Belgium, one for Calais, and one for Boulogne in France. We chose the latter, because there was but little difference in the sail, and Boulogne is four posts nearer Paris than Calais. In about four hours we came to anchor in the harbour of Boulogne — up to that time we had been comfortable ; but now the increase of the swell, from the shallowness of the water and the irregular motion of the steamer, from its being hove to for casting anchor, brought on anew all the horrors of sea-
16 FRANCE.
sickness, from which we had suffered so much in crossing ocean and in the trip from London to Dover. We had to be landed in a small boat, for at low water the steamer cannot ap- proach the wharf; the boatmen refused to take our baggage, be- cause they said the swell was high, and after much contention we at length were let down into the batteau, and with some difficulty reached the shore : the breakers or rollers were so high, our boat- men had to watch their opportunity and ride in upon the top of a breaker. This, if it had not been for a little apprehension of danger, would have been quite amusing, especially in connexion with the blowing, whistling, and bluster of our boatmen. How- ever, we were landed safe upon a wet, slippery beach, rendered rough and difficult by rocks, water, and seaweed, over which for a long distance we had to walk; an undertaking for which Mrs. F. was by no means fitted, debilitated as she was by her recent illness, for she had been sick at Dover. But there was no escape ; we must walk or stay where we were, and therefore pressed on. It is a most surprising thing, that both on the French and English coasts there are no accommodations for landing at low tide, but in this inconvenient way, and at an expense, too, which is nearly half of the entire passage-money besides. It is the more unbear- able from the fact that such multitudes are crossing and recrossing daily ; but I suppose all due allowance should be made for the infancy and poverty of the nations concerned ; perhaps, when they get more advanced, in age and improvements, they may have accommodations by which, in their great thoroughfares, ladies and invalids may pass with some decency and safety ; albeit that America can have no allowance made for her on this score.
We passed on to the Hotel du Norde ; but, before we arrived there, we found ourselves more emphatically than ever in a land of strangers — a strange language saluted our ears — strange cos- tumes, new customs — all seemed changed. A soldier met us at the shore, and conducted us to the police-office, where our pass- ports were taken, and sent on to Paris in advance, and provisional ones were given us, by which, when we arrived at the capital, we might recover our original passports. In this way every stranger is advertised at Paris before he arrives himself; and, in addition to this, he must be reported as soon as he arrives by the keeper of the hotel where he stops, or the former is liable to a prosecution.
BOULOGNE. 17
It is thus that the government is aware of all that come in or go out of the nation, and of all their movements and journeyings while there ; for at every considerable town our passports are ex- amined, and the names entered upon the registers.
Boulogne is rather an interesting town, pleasantly situated on the mouth of the river Saone. It is one of the several places which claim to be the Itius portus of Caesar, whence he embark- ed for Britain. At any rate, the Romans were here, for they show the vestiges of a Roman tower still remaining. It is fortified, and contains about thirty thousand French inhabitants, besides a great number of English residents, transient or more permanent • more, probably, than are found in any other town of its size in France. I inquired of the landlord for a Protestant church, of which he seemed to know but little; but stated, if I wanted amusement, the theatre was open that evening, as it would be also on Sunday evening. I thanked him, and made inquiries of others, by which I found the Wesleyan missionary, who preaches in English to an English congregation, with whom we spent an agreeable Sabbath, in a chapel that had been changed from a theatre and consecrated to the sacred purposes of Divine worship. I preached in the evening with some satisfaction, although one of my hearers, at some remark bearing upon Roman Catholicism, audibly pronounced, " That is a lie !"
During my stay at Boulogne I visited, at a little distance to the north and east, the encampment of the army with which Napoleon, during the early years of the present century, menaced England. Many speculations have been afloat as to the question whether he ever seriously intended to invade England, or whether this was only a feint to cover some other design. There is every reason, however, to suppose that he was serious in this project, and his entire history, and especially his last and fatal enterprise, shows that he was wild enough to design any extrayagance of a warlike character. Indeed, all great warriors,
" From Macedonia's madman to the Swede,"
have shown clear indications of insanity on the subject of their profession. The fact that Napoleon kept his position here so long, and only left it when his fleet was destroyed, shows that he was seriously meditating this invasion. But greater folly 2 C
18 FRANCE.
never entered the heart of man. What could he have done if he had even crossed the British Channel, and landed an army of half a million upon the English coast ? But how was he to do even this ? All the time the French army lay upon the coast, the British lion was crouching upon the white cliffs of Dover, and upon the martel towers that studded the coast, with a vigilance that never slept, and a firm defiance that never wavered.
A magnificent column was commenced by Napoleon upon the heights near Boulogne, to commemorate this celebrated intended invasion* The column is now finished, and its history should af- ford a salutary lesson to the princes of the earth. As Bonaparte never accomplished his invasion, so he never finished his monument. But when the Bourbons came back to the throne of France they resumed the prosecution of this magnificent work, with a design to make it a monument of their restoration ; but, before they could, complete it, they were driven from the kingdom, and Louis Phil- ippe has finished the column, as a memorial of his elevation to the throne from which both Napoleon and the Bourbons had been banished.
On leaving Boulogne for Paris we passed the strongly-fortified town of Montreuil, and beyond this the forest of Crecy, where Edward the Black Prince gained his celebrated victory over the French. Abbeville is the next town of note, situated on the river Somme, and contains about 20,000 inhabitants. Here are found Roman antiquities, and a mound is shown which they call Caesar's Camp.
We reached Amiens the first night. The town itself is, for the most part, uninteresting. The cathedral, however, is an in- teresting specimen of Gothic architecture. It was commenced early in the thirteenth century by Bishop Everard, and finished by his successor Godefroy. In the interior there are one hundred and twenty-six pillars, which are constructed on a scale of archi- tecture at once grand and beautiful. They support a vault 132 feet in height. Forty-four of these are detached pillars, and hence are called, from the ringing sound they make when struck, sounding pillars — Les Colonnes Sonnantes. One of them, especially, rings like a piece of metal. The interior is 360 feet in length and fifty in breadth. We were shown a case, in which is carefully preserved, as they say, the head of John the Baptist. How He-
A GALLANT FRENCHMAN. 19
rodias came to suffer it to find so honourable a deposite, I know not.
Amiens contains about 40,000 inhabitants. It was in this city, on the 10th October, 1801, that the first treaty of peace with Bonaparte was negotiated and signed. A treaty that was not kept a year, and that only served as a bait to draw numerous British subjects on to the Continent, where, on the renewal of hos- tilities, they were retained in confinement, some of them until the peace of 1814.
After spending one day and two nights at Amiens, we took the diligence for Paris, not, however, without experiencing a little of that imposition and inconvenience to which travellers are, more or less, always exposed. We had engaged particular seats through from Boulogne to Paris, with the understanding that we were to rest one day in Amiens, without prejudice to the arrange- ment. When, however, we went to claim our seats at Amiens, a Frenchman, who looked as though he might be a misanthropic philosopher, demanded the place taken by Mrs. F. Neither the claim which we set up, founded on a previous contract, nor yet an appeal to the Frenchman's gallantry, could avail. The conduc- teur said the waybill gave monsieur the seat, and monsieur said he would have it, or not enter the diligence. And there he stood, with all the firmness and patience of a philosopher, until, finding remonstrance unavailing, we yielded the position to the gallant Frenchman.
We arrived late in the evening at Paris, and took lodgings for the night in a crowded and dirty part of the city, from which, however, we were soon relieved by the kind offices of Rev. R. Newstead, one of the Wesleyan missionaries in Paris, to whom we had letters, and by whom we were introduced to delightful lodgings on the Avenue de Neuilly, in an English family, whose residence of twenty years in France had made our hostess as fa- miliar with everything French as a native. With this knowledge she united a kind disposition, an intelligent and a communicative mind, and a readiness to conduct us to everything interesting in this magnificent city.
To these advantages in our lodgings we added the acquaint- ance with Rev. Mr. Newstead, already mentioned, and his amiable lady and sister, to whose hospitality and kindness we were under
20 FRANCE.
great obligations while in Paris ; as also the acquaintance of Rey. Mr. De Jersey and lady, the other Wesleyan missionary family, the Rev. Mr. Baird and lady, of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, together with a number of other families, clergy- men, and laymen, with whom, in various social interviews and devotional exercises, we spent our intervals of leisure. Scarcely ever have I, in the course of my life, spent six weeks of greater social enjoyment, more refined and more satisfactory, than the six weeks we spent in Paris — this in addition to the interest of the city itself. By day, as our health and weather would permit, we examined the greatest objects of interest in and about this great city ; and, although the days were short, they were of suffi- cient length to superinduce all the fatigue we could well endure ; and we generally spent the evening in some delightful circle of select friends, where, without the stiffness of formal etiquette, we enjoyed that chastened, cheerful flow of soul which is followed by no languor or depression. We closed our evening interviews with reading and expounding a portion of Scripture, singing, and prayer.
CHAPTER II.
I CANNOT discharge the duties of an itinerant journalist without giving some description of this extraordinary city — and yet how to begin, and what to say, I know not. The danger is of saying too much — and, if not too much, of selecting what should be left out in a brief sketch, such as mine must be, and of omitting what should be inserted ; or, finally, the danger is, that what is selected may not be so arranged and so delineated as to make a due im- pression on the reader's mind. I will begin, however, with the most prominent features of the city.
Paris is surrounded by a wall, which is only adapted to pur poses of police and for the collection of the city customs.* This
* It is a feature of taxation altogether unknown with us ; yet it is very common in Eu- rope. At every gate of Paris is a guard and an officer of customs. All wines, meats, and various other articles brought to market from the country are subject to duty.
PARIS. 21
wall is a little more than six leagues, or about eighteen miles in circumference,* and at convenient distances it is entered by gates, which are called barrieres.
The Avenue de Neuilly, so called from its being the route from the Tuileries to the Neuilly Palace, which is situated about one or one and a half miles from the city, terminates at the Bar- riere de FEtoile, and is the most ample and splendid outlet of the city. Here is a triumphal arch, commenced by Napoleon to celebrate some of his principal victories. I will not attempt to describe it ; but believe that, when it is completed, as it soon will be, it will be the most magnificent monument of the kind in Eu- rope, ancient or modern.
Standing in front of this monument, and facing south by east, you see at a distance of nearly two miles, through one of the most splendid avenues in the world, the palace of the Tuileries. From this point commence your walk — you go down the avenue to the Champs-Ely sees, or Elysian Fields. At the entrance is a circle called Rond Point, in the centre of which it was pro- posed to erect an equestrian bronze statue of Louis XV. ; but, as the dynasty is passed away, so also is the design of the statue. From the Rond Point the avenue passes into the Elysian Fields, which are an extensive plain, lying each side of the avenue, 950 yards in length, and from 373 to 700 yards in breadth, planted with trees arranged on geometrical principles, so as to appear in straight lines in every direction. This is the place of fashion and parade, of frolic and fun. Here, on public occasions, and al- ways on a Sunday, if it be fair, you see all the fashion and fri- volity of the city ; the avenue thronged with carriages, the spa- cious sidewalk crowded with pedestrians, and the entire park alive with sports and vocal with human voices. Here in 1814 the Cossacks had their camp, and in 1815 the English army en- camped here. As you proceed down this avenue you get a view on the right, at a distance across the Seine, of the Hotel des In- valides, with its gilded dome ; and still farther on, and just before you enter the gardens of the Tuileries, you come to the Place de Concorde. And here you must pause, not only to see, but to think ; for you are now on one of the most remarkable spots on
* There are twenty-five French leagues to a degree, which will give 2.88 statute miles to the league.
22 FRANCE.
the globe — remarkable for its historic associations and for its prospective beauties. Face to the south, and you have before you, but just across the Seine, the fine edifice of the Chamber of Deputies. This is approached across the bridge of Louis XVI., a noble structure, adorned on each side with six fine colossal statues, twelve in the whole, standing upon pedestals in the para- pet walls, of such men as Conde, Sully, Richelieu, Colbert, and other statesmen, and naval and military heroes of France. At each end of the statuary colonnade, and in a line with them, is a military trophy, four in the whole, which add to the imposing perspective. Turning from this position so as to face to the right, your eye rests upon the avenue with its Elysian Fields, and terminating in its monumental barriere* Turning again, you see to the north the new and splendid Magdalen Church, directly oppo- site to the Chamber of Deputies, and at about the same distance from you, presenting her imposing front of Corinthian columns. This church is approached by the Rue Royals, which enters at a width of ninety feet, between two noble edifices of 288 feet in length each. The fronts of these have projecting pavilions, and there are arcades on the ground floor. The entire fronts of these edifices are finished in a fine style of architecture, and present to the beholder an imposing view, beautifully heightened by the perspective of the Magdalen up the intervening street, as already mentioned.
As you turn to the right, you are delayed by an oblique view of the magnificent Rue de Rivoli, with its noble range of public and other buildings, and its beautiful arcades. At length, as you face the east, your eye rests upon the beautiful gardens of the Tuileries, and the bold pavilions of the palace rising beyond them. Such are the four cardinal points of view from this most extraor- dinary spot.
But I said this spot was remarkable for its historic associa- tions ; for this was the site of the revolutionary guillotine, and the earth on which you now stand was so soaked and saturated with plebeian, noble, and even royal blood, that for a long time,
* Just before you, at the entrance of the Elysian Fields, are two lofty pedestals, one on each side of the street, surmounted by groups in marble, representing a restiff horse held by his driver. The workmanship is by Coustace. They were brought to Paris from Marly in 1794.
PLACE DE CONCORDE. 23
it is said, it would not tread down and become compact like other earth.
Here were slaughtered, from the twenty-first of January, 1793, to the third of May, 1795, in the space of two years and four months, 2800 persons, among whom were Louis XVI. on Janu- ary 21, 1793; same year, October 16, Marie Antoinette, the queen; November 14, the Duke of Orleans; and after them, in rapid succession, as the different factions were succeeded and overpowered by their successors, Herbert and his parly in March 25, 1794, and on April 8, Danton and his party ; April 16, Bishop Gobel and his faction, called the faction of the atheists ; July 28, Robespierre and his faction, and the next day seventy members of the Commune of Paris ; and on May 12, of the same year, Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI., with many others. This was truly the year of slaughter, and this spot was the slaughter-house, where licentiousness became its own executioner, and the mur- derers in turn became the murdered.
This place, like most other places and streets in Paris, has borne a variety of names. It was formerly called Place Louis XV., and here was an equestrian statue of this king, which was destroyed by the mob on the 12th of August, 1792. This statue was forced from the pedestal with difficulty, and one foot of the horse still remained in the socket, which gave occasion for a Parisian wit to say, " Royalty has yet one foot in the stirrup." It now took the name of the Place de Revolution. In 1800 it was named the Place de la Concorde ; after the restoration and accession of Charles X., it was changed to the Place Louis XVL, with a statue of that unfortunate monarch. Since the revolution of 1830 the statue is removed, and the old name of Place de la Con- corde restored.* >
In ascending up to the Madeleine Church from the Place de la Concorde, you enter the Boulevards of the North. Boulevard signifies a bulwark ; and the wide streets, so called, which form so important a feature in the city of Paris, received their character and appellation from the fact that they are formed upon the site
* Since we were in Paris a splendid Egyptian obelisk has been erected there. This, as it is a monument of no party or dynasty, but merely a work of art and an ornamental monument, will doubtless be suffered to stand, let whatever changes be made in the gov- ernment. It was brought from ancient Thebes, and is eighty feet in height
24 FRANCE.
of the walls and fortresses that formerly surrounded the city when it was a fortified town. These fortifications were demolished in the reign of Louis XIV., about 1670, and streets were commenced by this monarch on the ruins of the fortifications, which have been extended at different times, until they now form a line of spacious streets, bearing different names in different sections, of rather an irregular character, extending, with very little interrup- tion, quite round the interior part of the city. I say interior, be- cause the city has been extended in every direction beyond these ancient bulwarks, so that not half of what is now the city of Paris lies within the boulevards. This gives rise to the faubourgs, so called, which are another feature of this city that all must have noticed who have read much of Paris. The word faubourgs means suburbs, and they are so called because they are exterior to what was formerly the city. The sections against each of the boulevards respectively constitute the faubourgs, which gener- ally, though not always, take the name of the boulevard by which each is bounded, as the Faubourg de Poissonniere, opposite the Boulevard Poissonniere, and so of the rest. These general and prominent localities and streets, although they seem to have been rather accidental than from design, contribute very much to aid the stranger in examining the city, and in forming a correct idea of its parts and localities ; and the boulevards, from their ample width, their splendid shops and thronging multitudes, especially in some portion of the section north of the Seine, present perhaps the gayest and liveliest aspect of the city.
The river Seine, by a bold sweep to the north, runs through the city, dividing it into two unequal parts, leaving two thirds of the territory, and perhaps three fourths of the population, on the right or northern side ; and this has divided the boulevards into the Northern and Southern.* I will not trouble myself or the reader by giving the names of the different boulevards, but can hardly refrain from noticing, as one of the striking incongruities in names, as well as of many others in reality, which occur in Paris, that the boulevards in the southern section, d'Enfer and du Mont Par- nasse, literally the streets of Hell and of Mount Parnassus, run into each other.f
* The northern are altogether 5067 yards in length, and the southern 16,100.
t It should be noticed, perhaps, in order to perfect accuracy, that all the city south
PUBLIC WALKS. 25
In addition to these interior boulevards, a circle of streets quite round the city, outside the present walls, has been opened, called the Exterior Boulevards. These are planted with trees, and form an interesting drive. They give an air of magnificence to the en- virons, not readily conceived of unless seen, and the more so as the uniformity is broken up by the successive barriers which form the outlets of the city, and by the wide roads, many of them stud- ded with lofty trees, which lead off in various directions to different parts of the kingdom.
Another striking feature of Paris is the river Seine, especially as it is adorned on either side through its whole length by fine quays, and spanned at unequal distances by a score of bridges, some of them very beautiful, and broken into an interesting variety about the centre of the city by several islands, the largest of which, called the Isle de la Cite, is crowned, in addition to other public edifices, with the towering Cathedral of Notre Dame.
Another interesting feature of Paris is its public grounds and gardens. The Elysian Fields and the gardens of the Tuileries, stretching along on the north bank of the Seine, and extending to the very heart of the city, have already been mentioned. The principal, besides, are on the south side of the river, of which the Champ de Mars and the Esplanade des Invalides in the west, the gardens of the Luxembourg in the centre, and the Garden of Plants in the east, are the most important. All these grounds are open to the public, and the gardens of the Tuileries and of the Luxembourg, the former of which contains nearly seventy acres, are ornamented with elegant statuary, fountains, and pools, and are laid out with gravel-walks, furnished with seats, and shaded with trees. Here, in pleasant weather, the parks are filled with lounging citizens, talking or reading the gazettes, and curious strangers spying out the wonders of the place, and hundreds of playful children, with their nursery-maids, sporting in the shade or basking in the sun. The Camp of Mars is in front of the Poly- technic or Military School, and is used, as its name imports, for a parade-ground and military reviews. Of the Garden of Plants I shall speak elsewhere.
Having given this general geographical view of Paris, I shall
of the Seine is divided into faubourgs. The Faubourg St. Germaine contains most of the population in this part of the city, and is wholly within the interior boulevards
3 D
26 FRANCE.
proceed to mention briefly some of the most important edifices and other objects of art in this extraordinary city. It ought, however, to be said, by way of caution, here, that these splendid features in the physical character of Paris are but magnificent parts and points in a city, the greater part of which, after all, is crowded together without order, miserably built on narrow and crooked streets, which, for the most part, are uninteresting and in- supportably dirty.
The architecture of Paris is decidedly Grecian, and much of it Corinthian, and is of a character to excite much interest in all the lovers of the art. Among the most interesting, of course, are the royal and other palaces : of these there are ten or twelve noble edifices, of which, however, it is impossible to speak particularly. The palaces of the Tuileries and of the Louvre are the most prom- inent, both on account of their situation and present use, the one being the royal residence, and the other containing the galleries of the fine arts, as also on account of their architecture and extent. The palace of the Tuileries was commenced by Catharine de Medicis in 1 564, in a place then without the walls, and occupied as tile or brick kilns ; hence the name, palace of the Tuileries, or of the tile-kilns.
The front of the palace is 1008 feet in length and 108 in breadth. The roof is relieved by three magnificent pavilions, which give the whole an imposing appearance. On the side next the river this palace is connected with the Louvre by a gallery 1300 French feet in length, the upper part of which is appropri- ated to the collection of paintings. On the other side also a gal- lery, to correspond with this, is commenced, but is as yet unfinished. A court is thus formed between the two palaces, called the Place du Carrousel, from a splendid tournament held there by Louis XIV. in 1662. Fifteen thousand troops, it is said, consisting of cavalry and infantry, can go through their exercises with ease in this place. Here, and near to the Tuileries, is the triumphal arch erected by Napoleon in 1806 to the glory of the French arms, after the designs of Perrier and Fontaine. The arch was sur- mounted by a triumphal chariot, to which were harnessed the famous gilt bronze horses which Napoleon brought from Venice. These were returned at the " restoration of all things" by the Le- gitimates in 1815, but their places have been supplied by four
THE PALAIS ROYAL. 27
horses in bronze after the same model, and, it is thought, equal to them in form and attitude. These are by Bosio, and were placed here in 1828.
This arch, however, is too small for its position, and the general effect is not in accordance with surrounding objects.
The Louvre was commenced on the site of an old Gothic structure by Francis I. in 1528, but it was never completed until Napoleon, who accomplished almost everything, undertook it. For fifteen years the work was conducted under his direction, and finally completed in its present beautiful form. The eastern front is 525 feet in length and 85 in height. It is built in the form of a square, enclosing a court with equilateral sides of 400 feet each. This court is a splendid exhibition of architectural beauty. It abounds in sculpture of various kinds, in niches and in bassrelief, and is ornamented with 538 Corinthian columns and pilasters.
In passing up from the Place de Concorde you enter successively the garden of the Tuileries, pass under or through the palace by open arches — under the triumphal arch — through the Place du Carrousel — through the east front of the palace of the Louvre — by arches as before into the court, and thence through the western front, beyond which you are speedily buried in an irregular built, dirty, crowded part of the city. So true it is, here, as from almost every other point of interest in Paris, " from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step." But taking this whole route from the Barriere VEtoile to the western front of the Louvre, where can the like be found in Europe or in the world ? No localities that I have ever seen or read of, in one contiguous succession1, present such a splendid variety of avenues, streets, parks, gardens, bridges, monuments, statuary, triumphal arches, public edifices, courts, and palaces, as this.
The Palais Royal is the residence of the king's eldest son, the Duke of Orleans. It is very near the Tuileries, standing but very little to the north of the Place du Carrousel — and yet it is so shut in by crowded and narrow streets that it makes no show until you get into it ; and when you enter it, your first impression is that you have found a splendid edifice that had been lost. This has been the scene of many fruitful events in the history of France. The first revolutionary meetings were held in the gardens and
28 FRANCE.
galleries of this palace in 1789. Here the pope, and afterward Lafayette, were burnt in effigy. Here the tri-coloured cockade was adopted. The splendid arcades, gardens, and galleries of this palace are principally noticeable now as being the grand central point of business, fashion, and pleasure of this most pleasure-seeking and sensual city. Here are cafes, restaurans, and estaminets (smoking-houses) of the highest and most refined order. Here are shops containing everything that can be thought of or desired, arranged in the most splendid manner. Here ladies of easy virtue, it is said, resort in great numbers, and here are some of the most noted gaming-houses in Paris, the extent of which may be judged of by the fact that the owners pay to the city about 1,300,000 dollars annually, and that the sums staked here yearly amount to about 60,000,000 dollars.*
In short, if any one wishes to have a condensed view of Paris- ian frivolity, sensuality, profligacy and debauchery, splendour and fashion, let him go and spend an evening at the Palais Royal.
The palace of the Luxembourg is so called from the Duke of Luxembourg, who owned and adorned these grounds and edifices in the latter part of the sixteenth century. It has undergone various changes since, and had different names, until, last of all, since the restoration of the Bourbons, it has been devoted to the sittings of the House of Peers. But notwithstanding a marble slab placed over the entrance, announcing that it is henceforth to be called the Chamber of Peers, yet its old name is still retained in common language. A part of the interior is also devoted as a picture-gallery, where is a collection of the finest paintings of modern French artists. The edifice is built round a court, form- ing a parallelogram of 360 feet by 300, and is beautifully pro- portioned. The gardens are to me, on the whole, more interest- ing in their general aspect than those of the Tuileries, for the reason, I suppose, that the surface is more varied and uneven The statuary, however, shows the vandalism of revolutionary vi- olence, being basely mutilated and disfigured. From this garden through a spacious avenue may be seen in the distance the Na- tional Observatory.
But I must have done with palaces — of churches I would say
* All the public gambling-houses of France have lately, since I left Paris, been discon- tinued and prohibited by law.
CHURCHES. 29
something ; yet I fear these details of description will prove tedious to my readers, and I will therefore be brief.
The churches in France are generally badly kept, and bear evident marks of neglect; and though they now, it is said, are more frequented than at any former period since the revolution, still it is evident, religion is not a prominent feature in the French character. The French are Catholics three times in their lives, viz., at christening, marriage, and death. In general, but few, es- pecially in Paris, attend church. There are in Paris but about fifty churches, including chapels of ease and churches attached to convents, hospitals, &c. The average attendance on these would not, probably, exceed three hundred ; and it is the opinion of those whom I have consulted, and who have the best opportunity of knowing, that this would be a large calculation. This would give an average attendance on church service of only about fifteen thousand out of a population of not much short of a million of souls, that is, one in sixty-six ; and I verily fear that this is giving them more credit for attention to religion than is true. A number of the churches included in the above are not used at all for purposes of Divine worship. Among these is Ste. Genevieve, or, as it is now called, the Pantheon — a church for " all the gods !" and, in fact, for no god. Ste. Genevieve was buried here in 512, in a church which had been built by Clovis, the first Christian king, at her solicitation. She became the patron saint of Paris, and the church took her name. On the ruins of this church another was commenced in 1764 by Louis XV. It is a magnificent building. The dome shows at a great distance, and to great ad- vantage. The appearance of the dome is that of a smaller temple elevated on the top of a larger. It is surrounded by thirty-two col- umns, and surmounted by a ball and gilt cross. The entire height of the dome is 282 feet. The portico is adorned with twenty-two fluted Corinthian columns, forty feet in height; above this the workmen were engaged in forming some bassreliefs to take, the place of a former group, which was thought not in good taste. The church is a Greek cross 340 feet long and 250 feet broad, each branch of which is again formed into a cross, so that there is one large cross which comprises four smaller ones. One hun- dred and thirty fluted columns of the Corinthian order adorn the interior, and the dome is supported by heavy colums, ornamented 3
30 FRANCE.
with pilasters. In the latter part of the last century this church was consecrated for a burial-place for the heroes of the illustrious men of the French nation, for which the immense sepulchral vault underneath was well suited. Divine service in it was discontin- ued, and the remains of Voltaire and Rousseau were transported here in great pomp. Mirabeau was also buried here. Here is also the tomb of La Grange, and various others. The cicerone, in conducting us round, put on a bombastic air, and said off his ora- tion at each tomb with great pomposity.
In 1821, Louis XVIII., in the plenitude of his zeal for Christi- anity, restored this church to its original design. Since the last revolution, however, it has been again dismantled interiorly of its altars and shrines, and is nothing but a plain and naked monumental edifice, with here and there a tablet recording the names of those who perished in the revolution of July, 1830. The building cost above three millions of dollars.
The church of the Hotel des Invalides is a beautiful edifice. It may, in fact, be called a double church, divided by a high altar in the centre, which faces both ways, and accommodates both churches. The northern part is devoted to worship ; the other seems to be, like the Pantheon, a mere monumental edifice ; it is called the Dome, and is supposed by some to be the finest piece of architecture in Paris.
The outside of the Dome has the rare ornament of being gilt. I recollect to have heard it said somewhere that this was done by Napoleon as an alterative, as the physicians would say, to the type of a popular fever. Some indications were given among the Parisians of a restlessness that did not argue well for the public peace. " Go," said Napoleon, who well knew the temperament of the patient under his treatment, " go gild the dome of the Hotel des Invalides}'' It was done — and all the effervescence of public feeling passed off in admiration of this new wonder.
The Magdalene Church has already been alluded to. I know of nothing in France more beautiful than the external character of this church. The interior not being finished, spectators were not admitted.
A church was commenced on this site in 1764, under Louis XV. The edifice was suspended at the Revolution, 1789 But in 1808 Napoleon took down all that had been done, with the de-
THE MAGDALENE CHURCH. 31
sign of erecting a Temple of Glory, dedicated to the grand army. This edifice was commenced, and was suspended again in 1813. But after the Restoration in 1816 it was resumed for a monu- mental church to Louis XVI. and his queen, Louis XVIL, &c. This was again suspended by the Revolution of July, 1830, but is now in a state of forwardness under Louis Philippe, to whose lot it has fallen to complete more than one work designed and commenced by preceding dynasties.* It is a parallelogram, and is finished in the style of a Grecian temple, surrounded on three sides by a splendid portico of Corinthian columns, resting on an elevated basement, and surmounted by a beautiful entablature, with an ornamented frieze of bassrelief. Over the front portico is a magnificent bassrelief, representing either the Judgment, or Paradise and Purgatory, I could not tell which — I should think it was the former, only that Mary Magdalene is kneeling, apparently to supplicate mercy for the wretched sinners who are at the left hand of the judge — which would not be exactly in accordance, I should think, with good taste and good theology, even with the Catholics, who certainly cannot suppose the day of judgment a day for showing mercy. There they are, however, the Saviour in the centre, and a company of happy personages on the right hand, and on the left wretched victims writhing in torment. Among the latter Judas looks unutterable horror, as he holds up by both his hands his gushing bowels. The figure of Mary is out of all taste, being altogether too diminutive for the rest of the group. But the countenance of the judge is above all praise. It is enough to say of it that it is such a countenance as becomes the Judge of the universe.
It has already been mentioned that, for purposes of worship, the churches are comparatively deserted; they are still frequented for marriages and funerals ; and, whether there be worshippers or not, the ceremony of the mass still goes on. In one of the churches we visited there were, at one and the same time, at dif- ferent altars, the ceremonies of the mass, matrimony, and a funeral service. This spectacle struck us, who were unused to such ex- hibitions, as peculiarly incongruous. A.nd yet it was but a con- densed exhibition of what is constantly passing in society. The
* It is not to be presumed that its present destination is a monumental church for the Bourbons.
32 FRANCE.
gay bridal party and the funeral procession, marriages and deaths, make up the great portion of human history. We needed but. a christening to have rendered the picture complete.
Of the theatres in Paris I will say nothing, save that, including six small ones without the barriers, there are twenty-seven in the whole, besides six or seven other places for rope-dancing, panto- mime, and other comic performances ; and that these places, it is said, are generally crowded, and most of them are open on Sun- days.
Of the numerous hospitals and benevolent institutions I can mention but a few, and those, chiefly, which may throw some light on the French character and peculiar usages.
Among these, the Hospice des Enfans-trouvts, or Foundling Hospital, stands pre-eminent, for the reason that it designates, to a great degree, the prevalence of illicit love. The first thing that struck my attention in visiting this hospital was a box beside the door, which communicates with the room within. Here the mother or her friend, who wishes to be unknown, places her in- fant and retires, without questioning or being questioned, and, in fact, without being seen. The little stranger is immediately pulled in and committed to the care of the nurse. Within, we found some fifteen or twenty who were just rolled up in their swaddling bands, and the nurses from the country were standing by to take them. In other apartments were the sick, snugly laid by in rows of neat little cots on each side, covered with snow- white curtains. All the apartments were well arranged and very cleanly. The Sisters of Charity were the attendants and nurses.
The number received into this hospice annually is six or seven thousand, although it is not pretended that they are all born out of matrimony, since legitimate parents may place their chil- dren here if they find it inconvenient to take care of them ; but the greater part are, doubtless, illegitimate. Indeed, it is ascer- tained by the census and the records of births, that about one third of all the births in Paris are of illegitimate children. And it can- not be doubted but that the Foundling Hospital is an encourage- ment to this, by affording such a ready opportunity for conceal- ment, and so easy a method of disposing of the fruits of unlawful intercourse. On the other hand it is pleaded, with truth, no doubt, that this provision prevents, in numerous instances, the sin of in-
INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB. 33
fanticide. But is this a sufficient justification for the encourage- ment of evil ? Not more of these children are raised, probably, than would be without this provision ; for I think not more than one third of all who enter here are raised to maturity.
The Hotel des Invalides, the church of which has been already noticed, is a splendid building, the object of which is to support the old and disabled soldiers and officers of the army. The pres- ent edifice was commenced in 1670 by Louis XIV., whose nu- merous wars had greatly increased the number of invalid soldiers, and rendered an enlargement of the existing accommodations for these servants of his ambition absolutely necessary. It is now a very spacious edifice, presenting a northern front of six hundred and twelve feet in length. Through this you pass by an elegant columnar vestibule into a court, which some have supposed one of the finest specimens of architecture in France, and, of course, a Frenchman would say, "the finest in the world." It is sur- rounded by four piles of buildings, projecting in the centre, pavil- ioned at the angles, and ornamented with two ranges, one above the other, of beautiful arcades. In these piles are the various rooms for the refectories, lodgings, public saloons, &c. One in- teresting feature is the library, containing twenty thousand vol- umes, founded by Napoleon, which is open daily, except on Sun days and festivals, for all the inmates of the hospital. This hos pice can accommodate seven thousand. But probably less than one third of that number are now connected with the establish- ment ; and, if peace continues, their number will, of course, con- tinually diminish.
Time would fail to speak of the numerous charitable institu- tions of Paris ; but I ought not to pass, without a slight notice at least, the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb ; not because such an institution is now a new phenomenon, but because to France the world is indebted for the noble system of education which is now so deservedly popular, and by which this unhappy class of our fellow-beings are let into a new world of thought and useful- ness.
The Abbt de VEpte formed the first school of this kind at his own expense, and succeeded so well that he attracted the atten- tion and patronage of government to his benevolent enterprise. In 1785 it was endowed with an annual grant of 3400 livres, and
E
34 FRANCE.
in 1790, on the death of the abbe, it was put under the care of the Abbe Sicard. Eighty are here supported gratuitously, besides twenty others who are partly supported ; and then an indefinite number is taken at a price of nine hundred francs per annum for males and eight hundred for females.
The Place Vendome is of itself an elegant square of about four hundred and fifty by four hundred and twenty feet, and surround- ed by fine buildings ; but its principal interest is the column, or triumphal pillar, erected by Bonaparte to commemorate his vic- tories in Germany in the famous campaign of 1805. It is finished on the same principle with the celebrated Trajan's Pillar in Rome, but is one twelfth larger, being one hundred and thirty-five feet in height, with a diameter of twelve feet. The pedestal is twenty- two feet in height, and about twenty in breadth. The centre of the shaft is of stone, but is covered throughout with bronze cast in plates from twelve hundred pieces of cannon taken from the Russians and Austrians during the campaign above mentioned, the whole weighing about three hundred and sixty thousand pounds.
The bronze plates are cast and put on in such a manner that the bassrelief winds round the pillar in a spiral form, from the bottom to the top, covered with figures two thousand in number, so arranged as to be a chronological representation of the entire campaign, from the time the encampment was broken up at Bou- logne, where Napoleon had so long encamped to menace England, until the battle of Austerlitz, which gave him the power of dicta- ting a peace on his own terms. The figures are three feet in height, and the entire spiral band is eight hundred and forty feet. At the top is a gallery, which is approached by an interior stair- case, and surmounted by a colossal statue of Napoleon in bronze, eleven feet in height. This was taken down during the last reign of the Bourbons ; but, since their expulsion, it has been restored.
From this elevation there are not unfrequently suicidal leaps upon the pavement below by those who, weary of life, wish never- theless to die a sentimental death at the foot of Napoleon's column, and under the very eye of the hero.
La Bourse, or the Exchange, is another splendid Parisian edi- fice. It stands on the site of an ancient convent, so that where the God of heaven was once worshipped, to the exclusion alto- gether of worldly business, the god of mammon now holds his
LA BOURSE. 35
palace and his court, and receives daily the homage of thousands of worshippers. This edifice was commenced by Napoleon in 1808, after designs by Brogniard, but was left by him unfinished, and was not completed until 1826. It is two hundred and twelve by one hundred and twenty-six feet, and is entirely surrounded by a peristyle of sixty-six Corinthian columns, surmounted by an en- tablature and an attic. The principal room is one hundred and sixteen by seventy-six feet, surrounded by a gallery, and lighted from the roof. Into this gallery I entered during the hours of business, arid noticed a singular phenomenon of sound. It was owing to the ring and echo of the edifice. The thousands below were carrying on their noisy operations — for all business in Paris almost must be vociferous — and the sounds echoing and re-echo- ing from the arcades, and galleries, and dome, were as the sound of many waters tumbling over the cataract of Niagara. Here, too, another sense was deceived. The roof is ornamented with paintings in chiaro-scuro* of the colour of marble, and so finely executed, and so favoured by the light, that I mistook them for sculpture, after examining for a considerable time with great ad- miration ; nor did I discover my mistake until I left, and was cor- rected by one to whom I spake of the " beautiful sculpture" in the roof of the Bourse.
The French are a gambling nation, and they are as fond of gam- bling in stocks as in other games of chance and skill. This makes the business of the Exchange a great business for high and low. Even some females engage in this kind of speculation. I was ^old of a lady in Paris with whom this kind of gambling had become a sort of mania, by which she had ruined a splendid fortune.
* This is a species of painting of only one colour, designed, like sculpture, to give form only, which is done by the skilfulness of the shading.
36 FRANCE
CHAPTER III.
I AM aware that it is impossible for me to describe all that is interesting in the public buildings of Paris of various kinds. If my plan would permit, I might describe the various public offices in detail, and the edifices where they are kept, some of which are well worthy of attention and description. I might speak of the markets, of which there are above thirty, some of which are peculiar, as, for example, the wine-market, to which are often brought 1500 casks per day, and the buildings of which will con- tain 800,000 casks. In the front of this market is a garden, in which there are scores of neat little cabins, not much larger than large sentinel-boxes, which are the offices of the dealers in wine. I might speak of the abattoirs, or slaughter-houses, five of which, planned and commenced by Napoleon, have been fitted up with great accommodations at different sides of the city and quite at the extremities, so that no cattle are driven through the town — an arrangement greatly to be commended, and which is felt the more by the traveller recently from London, where, at times, and in certain streets, it is almost impossible to pass for the crowds of cattle that are urged through the town to Smithfield market, as though there was a necessity of devoting life, either of heretics or lower animals, on that ill-fated spot.
I might describe the fountains, of which there are nearly sev- enty, conveying water through some 130 or 140 different ori- fices. Many of these were the work of Napoleon, and some were planned by him and not finished ; one especially, the model of which still remains, on a most magnificent scale. It is situated in the Place de la Bastille, a spot very celebrated in the history of Paris, and rendered more notorious by the prison here having been broken open by the revolutionists on the fourteenth of July, 1789, and demolished the next year by order of the National Assembly. This fountain was to be erected on an arch to be thrown over the canal St. Martin, which now passes through the Place Bastille, and was to consist of a huge elephant, seventy-
CEMETERIES OF PARIS. 37
two feet high, including a tower on his back, and his legs were to be six feet in diameter, the interior of one of which was to contain the staircase, and the water was to issue from his trunk. The model still stands enclosed, but the work, it is feared, will never be com- pleted. The unfinished colossal designs of Bonaparte can hardly be grappled by his successors.
The water of the fountains of Paris is not generally conveyed by pipes to the different streets and houses, as in Philadelphia and some other cities, but is taken at the fountains by carriers, and conveyed either in casks or in pails, by neck-yokes, to the different houses, and sold. The water of Paris, it is computed, costs the citizens nearly one million of dollars annually, without reckoning anything for the cost and repair of the aqueducts.
The aqueducts and fountains are supplied with water from the Seine, elevated by steam power ; by water from the river Ourcq, which is conducted to Paris by a canal ; and by some natural springs in elevated situations in the neighbourhood.
The water of the Seine is very thick and muddy, and has to undergd a thorough filtration before it can be used, so that every family is obliged to keep a filter. And even after this process the water appears to possess a cathartic quality, which often affects strangers seriously at their first residence in Paris.
I ought also to say something of the cemeteries of this renowned city — not renowned the least for its receptacles of the dead. The catacombs were originally quarries which had been worked from time immemorial for the procuring of stone for architectural purposes, extending quite under that part of the city which is in the neighbourhood of the Luxembourg. These quarries were fitted up in 1784 and 5 to receive the bones of an extensive cem- etery in the centre of Paris, which had become a public nuisance, and endangered the health of the citizens. After this, bones from other suppressed burial-places were also deposited here ; and, after the revolution commenced, the thousands who perished in the popular tumults were thrown in here, as also the bones found in the cemeteries of the suppressed convents and churches ; so that here are gathered together, in one vast charnel-house, the millions that have been swept away by the common destroyer through scores of generations. One passage to this physical Hades is near the Barriere d'Enfer, literally the " Gate of Hell !" 4
38
FRANCE.
What a fearful association ! alas, how many whose bones are here deposited may have entered through that gate ' for " wide is the gate that leadeth to death, and many there be that go in thereat." These catacombs are not now open to the public, on account, it is said, of repairs that are in progress.
To prevent further inconvenience from burying the dead within the walls, five spacious cemeteries have been provided without the walls, the most celebrated of which, Pere la Chaise, we visited — and although we had intended to give it but a passing glance, yet the interest of the place held us there from morning till nightfall ; and even then, but for the fatigue of the visit, its interest would scarcely have been abated, much less destroyed.
This cemetery is situated on the slope of a hill, upon ground formerly occupied by Pere la Chaise, hence its name, and after- ward by an establishment of the Jesuits, and contains about one hundred acres. It was laid out by Brogniard with a great deal of judgment and taste, and has been ornamented with cypresses, poplars, and other trees and shrubbery. It has some principal thoroughfares, and numerous serpentine paths, and is adorned with an immense number of most beautiful and expensive monu- ments. Some of them are temples, others are pyramids and obelisks. Here is a column, there an altar, and there a sepul- chral chapeL These latter are numerous, and are frequently fitted up in the interior with a little altar and seats, and furnished with prayer-books, lamps, &c. Into these chapels we could look through the windows, and there, in several instances, we found we had intruded upon the solitude and grief of a widow or a mother, who had shut herself in, clad in weeds, and perhaps suf- fused in tears) to spend some hours of mourning and gloom in close association with departed friends. Here, too, were little enclosures of flowers, which are cultivated with'great care — some' of the friends hire a gardener to keep their sepulchral plants and blossoms in perpetual verdure. The monuments were al- most all hung round with wreaths, either of artificial or natural flowers,* which are duly renewed on "All Souls' Day," if not oftener ; for this is a day which, in Catholic countries, is sacieu to the dead, and almost all Pans on this day pass out to
* The natural flower most in use is the Yellow Everlasting, or Gnaphalium Glomeratum, -Ntginally from the Cape of Good Hope.
EFFECTS OF A FALSE AND CORRECT VIEW OF RELIGION. 39
the cemeteries, to garnish their sepulchres and commemorate the death of their departed friends.
In some of these little chapels where children were buried we noticed, as an extremely common practice, that there were de- posited and arranged all the little furniture, bawbles, and toys that adorned their playhouses when alive, as gloomy, and yet expres- sive and exquisite remembrances of the playful babes that had been snatched away by death.
That kind of sentimental materialism which prevails in France is well suited to prompt to this adorning of their sepulchres and attention to the relics of departed friends. The reign of vulgar atheism, such as led the revolutionary fanatics to declare death an eternal sleep, and to worship reason in the character and per- son of a harlot, was not sufficiently refined even for a decent re- spect for the dead. Then, it is said, bodies were tumbled into the pit without even the decencies of the rites of sepulture. A correct view of religion and of revelation, on the other hand, while it leads to a respectful interment of the body, and perhaps the respectful erection of some monument to the memory of the deceased, teaches us to remember, after all, that the entombed body is not the friend we have lost — that all that is essential to him or her we once loved has gone, leaving only the gross tene- ment behind. But the refined skeptic, with some vague religious feeling — mixed with much sentimentalism and materiality — doubting of everything he cannot see and feel, hangs around the mouldering dust of a departed friend as though this were all. It is in this way I account for the excessive attention to the graves and adorning of the sepulchres of the dead. It is an effort to transform the valley of bones into a terrestrial paradise ; and al- though there is an enchantment about it which for a moment al- most takes away the gloom of the grave, and makes one willing, he hardly knows why, to lay himself down in the marble temple over which the honeysuckle wreaths its fragrant blossoms, and around which the rose and the hyacinth diffuse their redolent dew — where friends record their virtues on the enduring tablet, and adorn their sepulchres with circling garlands, that at once betoken the warmth and the perpetuity of their love ; yet it is an earthly enchantment after all, and only tends to call off the mind from the paradise above, and the awfully interesting realities of the spiritual world.
40 FRANCE.
In addition to the architectural beauty, and monumental mag- nificence, and vegetable verdure and fragrance, and picturesque scenery of Pere la Chaise, there is this one most interesting and instructive feature in this marble city of the dead. It is a biographical dictionary of the illustrious men of France of the last generation — a dictionary'whose pages combine all the excel- lences of literal description and hieroglyphical representation, set off with all the fascination of art, and enforced with all the in- terest of most vivid and intimate association. This it is that gives the charm to the spot, and holds the visitant spellbound in the midst of an illustrious society, with whose character, and his- tory, and works he seems to hold immediate communion, inde- pendent of the forms and etiquette that embarrass living associa- tions. The stranger here needs no introduction — the intercourse is embarrassed by no harsh and unfamiliar accents of a foreign tongue. And when he leaves the spot, it requires no effort of the imagination to fancy that he has been in the society of a Four- croy, a La Place, a Delille, a Talma, a Sicard, a Le Fevre, a Massena — La Fontaine, David, and a host of others, whose names are known not only to France, but to the world. With these are others of various characters and professions, residing together, as in the cities of the living, in the same neighbourhood. But you are not obliged to be intimate with all ; you may select your society, and converse only with such as are agreeable to your own taste.
And here, too, among the moderns, you may find a few rare associations of a former age, transported hither since the opening of the cemetery in 1804. You will be especially struck at a view of the sepulchral temple, with its five beautifully sculptured steeples, and its fourteen columns, and ten arches exquisitely wrought, of the celebrated sinners and penitents Abelard and He- loise. This temple is formed out of the ruins of the Abbey of the Paraclete, founded by Abelard, and of which Heloise was the first abbess. Here, in monumental association, side by side, the lovers lie in peace. Who that looks upon them can but sigh for human frailty, at the same time that he feels compelled to reprobate that feature of the Roman Church which, by unscrip- tural prohibitions, lays a snare for the conscience, and, by enfor- cing human enactments, does, more powerfully than Satan himself, tempt to the violation of the law of God J
ROYAL MANUFACTORIES. 41
But I must not stop to speak of particular monuments. In discussing the subject of the cemeteries, however, it should be mentioned that a part of the ground is devoted to the burial of the poor ; and this part is broken up and used anew for the purposes of burial every five years. Others, whose friends are not able to purchase the land in fee, are buried on ground leased for six years at a moderate fee. And others again are, for a still higher price, favoured with a permanent and undisturbed resting-place for their dust until the graves shall give up their dead.
There are topics enough in Paris to employ my attention and my pen for months, but it is not my intention to dwell much longer in this city. A few things more in and about Paris, and I must leave it.
The government of France has formerly pursued a monopo- lizing spirit, by which it has sought to draw manufactories and merchandise into its own hands. Salt, tobacco, oil, &c., as mat- ters of trade, have been royal monopolies ; so, in manufactories, the government has always endeavoured to secure some of the most important to itself. At present there are six royal manufac- tories in and about Paris, viz. : tapestry, carpets, looking-glasses, mosaic-work, snuff, and porcelain. Nowhere do you find look- ing-glasses made so fine as in France. It is, in fact, a country of mirrors ; the walls of the rooms, in some instances, are almost lined with them, and they are framed into the walls of the build- ings, and let with the apartments as regularly as the chimneys. All experience, however, proves that government cannot man- ufacture as cheap as private individuals. This, therefore, shows the folly of any such government monopolies, and this, too, is a doctrine now pretty well understood, even in France, as well as elsewhere ; indeed, some of her political economists have been the most decided in condemning and the most lucid in portraying the evils of this system. Still the government holds on to a few items of trade and manufacture, merely for the puposes of revenue, such, for example, as the oil trade and the snuff manu- factory. Others, again, are conducted by the government merely for national pride, and for the purposes of court splendour or royal munificence ; and it cannot be doubted that, for perfection and magnificence, nothing can excel some of these public productions. 4 F
42 FRANCE.
I shall mention but two establishments, both of 'which are kept up exclusively, I believe, for the purpose just mentioned.
The first of these is the Manufacture Royal des Gobelins. This takes its name from a family of the name of Gobelin, who owned the premises, and occupied them in dying wool ; afterward they were used for tapestry ; and finally were, by the suggestion of Colbert, whose policy it always was to make the government an adventurer in business and trade, bought up by Louis XIV. for a royal manufactory. It is now employed to furnish the royal palaces, and for presents to foreign courts. We found the work- men looking pale and sickly, and learned that they were poorly paid. The work, however, is magnificent. We found a num- ber of splendid pieces in the looms, and there many of them will be for a long time to come, for some of the pieces are in the loom for six years. They imitate, or rather work into the tapestry, both the designs and the colours of the most celebrated pictures. The weaver frequently has his model or copy behind him, and he turns around occasionally to see the figure and the colour, which he most perfectly and beautifully transfers to his web. One of these pieces of tapestry, when finished, will sell for between three and four thousand dollars. They are, however, not often sold, and the whole concern is a tax upon government, and so far it may be considered a dead loss in a pecuniary point of view ; but how much is gained in point of refinement and the improvement and gratification of taste is another question. The pecuniary loss to the nation is certainly not so great as where government monop- olizes an article for general consumption at an extravagant price, such as it always must be if manufactured by government. It is not the paying for a comparatively few articles of luxury at an extravagant price, so much as the high price of the necessaries of life, that impoverishes a nation. In addition, it may be said also in favour of manufactures of this kind, that as they do not readily pay in market for the extraordinary expense of manufacture, they are not likely to be sustained at all, or, if sustained, not carried to so great a state of perfection by individual enterprise or private munificence. The Gobelin Tapestry, probably, never would have been carried to its present state of perfection but for the govern- ment, and the same may be said of the looking-glass factory ; per- haps, at least, individual enterprise would not at so early a period
SEVRES PORCELAIN-FACTORY. 43
have produced an article so perfect as is now manufactured at the Manufacture Royal des Glac.es. So early as 1688, the art of casting the glass was discovered, and of polishing it by ma- chinery. Now plates are cast and polished nine feet long by seven wide, and sell for 2500 dollars.
But you will think I am giving an account of the Glass-factory instead of the Gobelin. To return to them : at the Gobelin Fac- tory they not only manufacture tapestry, but carpets also, of a most splendid character, resembling the Persian carpets. Some were in the looms when we were there for the royal palace, which are thought superior even to the carpets of the East. The expense of a moderate-sized carpet made here is 7 or 8000 dollars.*
The Sevres porcelain of France obtains its name from the village where it is manufactured. This is a small village two leagues west of Paris, and near the town and palace of St. Cloud. The museum of the manufactory contains a collection of foreign china, together with specimens of all the porcelain and earthen man- ufactures of France, and also a collection of all the different wares which have been made here since its first establishment in 1755. Here we saw splendid and ample specimens from almost every civilized country except our own. From the United States a saucer only, I believe, was seen ; one of our company, an American, took the director's address, and promised to send him specimens on his return home. He said he had had many such promises, but they had all failed.
This director, by-the-way, is M. Brogniard, the great naturalist, to whom the unfinished labours of Cuvier were left at his lamented death. He possesses as fine a physiognomy as I have seen in France, and is in his manners a most complaisant gentleman.
I cannot pretend to give an account of the different steps in the process of this manufacture, although they were all pointed out to us, nor yet of the most splendid articles which were exhib- ited in the show-rooms. Here were vases, cups, pitchers, urns, figures, statues, table sets, toys, chimney ornaments, all of the most splendid and costly character. The ware itself is of the most perfect kind, and then the painting and the gilding, and the
* Some of the workmen were engaged in altering some of the old Bourbon carpets which had in them the fleur-de-lys, because the French were unwilling that this former national emblem should be seen in the palace.
44 FRANCE.
setting of brilliants and precious stones, add immensely to the ex- pense. M. Brogniard has added much to the painting department by his discoveries and improvements in the art of painting glass. He is said to have ascertained the means of equalling all the an- cient colours in glass except the red.
In connexion with our visit to Sevres, we made the tour of the palaces St. Cloud and Versailles. The former is a sweet chateau, possessing more beauties and comforts than magnificence ; such a residence as I should suppose royalty might delight in when it retired from the cares of government and the pleasures of the capital. But it has at some times been so much the resi- dence of the court, that it has given to it the appellation of the Court of St. Cloud. It has a splendid park, of two leagues in circumference, diversified by hill and dale. The palace itself is delightfully located on the slope of a hill, and below it are most beautiful water-works, consisting of basins and canals, cascades and jets cTeau. These only play at particular times, and these times are usually on the Sabbath, so that a man who conscien- tiously and strictly observes the Sabbath must, of course, deny himself the pleasure of these water-works. The grand jet d'eau here is said to throw the water to a perpendicular height of 125 feet from the centre of a marble basin covering an acre of space. This consumes 600 hogsheads of water in an hour, and all the works in full play consume 3700 hogsheads. We visited the in- terior, which was neat, and enriched with paintings, statuary, &c. The town contains -about 2500 inhabitants, and is miserably built. The place, however, is one of some historic notoriety, es- pecially the palace. It was here that Henry III. was assassinated in 1 589. It was here that Napoleon was placed, or rather place d him- self, in the supreme power as first consul on the 10th of November, 1799. In 1815 the palace was plundered by the Prussians, those pure instruments of a pure legitimacy, who made war upon Na< «poleon because he had plundered Europe ; and here Blucher had his headquarters during his stay in the neighbourhood of Paris.
Versailles is four leagues from the metropolis. It never was of much note until Louis XIV. conceived an idea of building a magnificent palace here, and then he undertook, contrary to all natural principles, to force a large town into existence, and, by his power and by an immense waste of money, he produced a hot-
PALACE OF VERSAILLES. 45
bed population of about 100,000 souls, which now has declined to 25 or 30,000.
The palace was commenced in 1664. It is a magnificent edi- fice, and surrounded by splendid grounds. The expenditure on this palace and the grounds, the outer enclosure of which is said to be twenty leagues in circumference, has been estimated at 150 millions of dollars, and some estimates make it 200 millions. Louis, it is said, burnt the accounts to prevent the world from knowing the extent of his extravagance. It was here, in fact, that the foundation of the French revolution was laid ; for these expendi tures brought on such national poverty, such exactions on the one side, and such distress and resistance on the other, as terminated finally and fatally in the bloody scenes of 1789. So ,much seemed necessary to convince the French, and the world even, that the prodigality of the rich is not the wealth of the poor. It was a maxim of Louis XIV., that the profligacy of princes was the wealth of their subjects ; that what he took from the people in one form he returned in another. Strange that this shrewd prince did not perceive that he took from the people the same amount twice ; once in the form of taxes, and once in the form of services and materials to build his palace, and that he restored them the amount but once, and that in the form of compensation or pay for these services and materials ; and that the entire amount, therefore, of this expenditure was a dead loss to the people, an entire annihilation of so much of the productive capital of the nation. But this is not more strange than some prevailing senti- ments of the present day, that the capitalist who spends annually his entire income, although it be in luxuries and pleasures, is the great benefactor of the labouring classes. Nor yet is it more strange than that a most celebrated doctor of divinity should write a treatise on political economy to prove that the luxuries of the rich are the means of supporting the greatest population in a given section of the country ! Such systems may move round the economic cycle in theory, but in real life there is too much friction and resistance to give practical and perpetual play to the machinery. Like the numerous machines for illustrating perpet- ual motion, the practical working of this system will exhibit a constantly diminished and enfeebled action until its motion ceases. In the gardens and parks are innumerable streets and avenues,
46 FRANCE.
with the bordering trees trained by art, and multitudes of other trees trained and sheered into various shapes, regular and fan- tastical. The water-works are splendid ; the basins and cascades are of great extent and variety, filled with sea-horses, crocodiles, turtles, frogs, and fishes spouting water, and performing their va- rious parts in the grand exhibitions which take place here on special occasions, when all the water-works are in operation. In. the park are two smaller palaces, called Le Grand Trianon and Le Petit Trianon, which are elegantly fitted and furnished.
Of the interior of the principal palace we can say nothing. It is undergoing repairs and improvements, and spectators are not admitted. The object is to make it a splendid national gallery, in which not only are the paintings to be by national artists, but the subjects are to be of a national character, embracing a consecu- tive series of the most important historical events, to be arranged in chronological ordex. This, if carried through with taste and skill, will form one of the most interesting, and, I might say, useful collections in existence.
I had intended to give some account of an excursion to St. Denis, and some other places ; but I perceive I am detaining you and myself in Paris and its environs too long; and yet, if it be true, as is often remarked, that Paris is France, we might afford to dwell a while in and about the metropolis. And that Paris is France to a great extent is very true. This is the concentration of all influence and of all government. The political influence is here. Here are the controlling influences and moving springs of religion and education. What other extensive country is there in the world, in which, if you revolutionize the capital, you revolutionize the whole country ? But Paris is the heart ; all besides in France are but subordinate organs of circulation, which beat slow or quick, weak or strong, just as the central influence and impulse act upon them and through them. Of this it is difficult, without a close attention to the past history and present social organiza- tion of France, readily to conceive. The very geography of the country, however, favours this ; it is- intercepted and separated by no strong natural barriers, while it is itself separated from the rest of the world, on almost every side, by strong natural barriers. Imbosomed by the Mediterranean and British seas, by the Alps and the Pyrenees, it seems formed by nature to be one and indi
POLITICAL STATE OP FRANCE. 47
visible. For centuries there have been no clans or parties that have talked of anything more limited than France, the whole of France ; and the seat of all the organization of its social institu- tions has been, by common consent, at Paris. If, therefore, a traveller wishes to see France or become acquainted with the French, he must go to Paris. If the government would sustain itself in the country, it has little else to do but to control Paris; and if a faction wish to overthrow the government, it has only to excite Paris. Of this the present government seems to be well aware ; and, therefore, it keeps a strict watch over the metropolis ; an armed police holds the city in subjection — this, and this only. It is true, the present king has the National Guard on his side, and why ? Is it because they prefer the present government to any other ? How can they do this, when they were the very men who expelled the Bourbons for doing only what the present king has done ? Did the Bourbons render themselves obnoxious by trammelling and restricting the press ? Louis Philippe has done this ; nay, he carries all his measures through by the strong arm of law, enforced by the bayonet. JBut the National Guard sustain it because such a government is to them more desirable than revolution and anarchy. They are the middling classes, the thri- ving tradesmen, shopkeepers, and mechanics of the city, and they know that public commotion is sure to operate against their inter- est, whatever may be the final result. By public quiet they have everything to hope, and by commotion everything to fear. So long, therefore, as the measures of the present government are tolerable, it will be sustained. If there be a medium of tolerable severity, by which the restlessness of a fickle populace can have a salutary restraint thrown over them on the one hand, and yet on the other hand the state of things be so far bearable in the view of the National Guard as to make it preferable to a change, then may the present king be sustained. But to do this he must balance himself on a pivot, a mere point. Thus far he has done it to ad miration, and far beyond what was anticipated. Schooled in ad- versity, and instructed in the science of human nature by a free intercourse with men, Louis Philippe is better prepared for his position than almost any other existing sovereign. No regularly educated legitimate who was trained to be a king could sustain himself on the throne of France. The exigences of the case are
48 FRANCE.
such as he would not be prepared to meet ; but hitherto the present sovereign has met them, and, perhaps, if they do not assassinate him, he will maintain his ground. He seems hardly disposed, however, to trust himself wholly to the National Guard, and the arrangement now is for one of the national militia and one of the regular soldiers to mount guard together. Thus they may strength- en each other if united, and may watch each other if they should have contrary views and designs. It is, on the whole, I think, greatly to be desired that the life of the king be spared, and that the government be sustained. It is true, we, as Americans, might feel better pleased to see a republican form of government in France, especially when it is seen that Louis Philippe adopts now a course of policy which is in direct violation of all the leading principles which were the conditions of his elevation to the throne. But France cannot bear a republican form of government; this Lafayette fully understood, or he never would have been instru- mental in placing another king on the throne of the Bourbons ; and yet there is so large a portion in France that are favourable to a republican government, that tkey will not cease to agitate the public mind and undermine the government unless they are re- strained by a strong hand. This makes France one of the most difficult nations to govern in the world. So liberal in their views are the people that they will not tolerate an absolute monarchy, and yet they are unprepared for a republican governmeni; they are not sufficiently enlightened and virtuous to sustain it. Thus a constitutional monarchy, with a representative legislature, seems the best suited to them ; and still this spirit of liberty and rage for republicanism is so strong, that this constitutional monarch can hardly sustain himself without becoming unconstitutionally se- vere and arbitrary ! and if he is unconstitutionally arbitrary and severe, the general voice of an indignant people will dethrone him. Can any one conceive of a more difficult government than this ? And if this be the true state of the question in France, will any government be likely to meet the case better than the present T And if the present order of things be broken up, have we riot rea- son to fear that the consequences will be melancholy ? Now not only is France advancing in wealth, but the public mind is be- coming informed ; the way is prepared for the spread of the gos- pel, and the physical, and moral, and religious interests of that
THE LOUVRE. 49
great nation are verging to a state of promise which indicates not only much good to the French nation itself, but a healthful influence also for our dark and sinful world. Let another revolution roll over the political institutions of France, and who can calculate the extent of the evils that may follow ? But, on the other hand, let France remain at peace at home ; let her pursue that peaceful policy in the affairs of Europe which her best statesmen are now so anx- ious to pursue ; let those moral and intellectual influences operate which have been, and may, for half a century to come, be brought into operation, and what an influence may she not exert in our world ? The resources of this nation are immense ; she is not aware herself, probably, of their extent. If she has had power and resources to sustain herself when hundreds of millions were wasted in ambitious wars, aad in extravagant palaces, and in the gratifica- tion of the most profligate of courts, and yet, after a few years of respite, finds herself so flourishing and vigorous as she is at this moment, what may we not expect from her hereafter !
One of the most encouraging features in the policy of France at the present day, and the same is true of the civilized world, is her desire to cultivate peace. This is, in part, the reaction of that bloody period which terminated at the expulsion of Napoleon ; and in part the effect of increasing light on the utter unprofitable- ness of war. It is true, the faint rumblings of the storm that des- olated Europe are still thrown back from the northern shores of Africa, and mutter among the mountains of Spain, but peace, peace is the watchword of the government; peace is the desire of the best of the nation. So long as this policy has the ascend- ency, so long will France prosper, and so long will she be a bles- sing to the world.
Before leaving Paris you may expect I shall say something of the state of the fine arts, and especially of the galleries of the Louvre.
The Louvre, all are aware, has lost much of its interest since the Restoration. Napoleon had brought many of the finest pro- ductions of the arts, ancient and modern, to enrich his capital. The Louvre then possessed the richest galleries in the world. But these have mostly recrossed the Alps, where I hope to see them in their own domiciles.
There are many elegant specimens of the arts, however, in the 5 G
50 FRANCE.
royal museums of the Louvre. The grand gallery of pictures, extending from the Louvre to the Tuileries, is a single room, 1332 feet in length, containing, perhaps, about 1300 pictures of the French, German, Flemish, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish schools of painting. There are also the Museums of Design, containing engravings, drawings, models, &c. ; and of Antiquities, containing ancient statuary, inscriptions, vases, &c., to the number of be- tween eleven and twelve hundred. Besides, a gallery for modern sculpture, an Egyptian gallery, &c. In the ancient gallery Napo- leon had placed the Apollo Belvidere, the Laocoon, the Venus de Medicis, and numerous other chefs-d'oeuvre of ancient art ; but they have all gone back to their legitimate owners, not to say rightful ; for, if their history were traced back, many of them would be found to have 'been the fruits of robbery when origi- nally placed in their present positions. This, however, was no justification of Napoleon. It only shows that, from the beginning until now, the law of war has been that the " victor is entitled tc the spoils," against which our indignation should rise and manifesi itself, not merely against Napoleon because he was a robber, but against all the legitimate and illegitimate robbers of the earth.
There are many other museums and galleries of the fine arts in Paris, not less than twenty in the whole. There are also thirty- five schools for the cultivation of the fine arts, and 1385 artists, of whom 773 are painters. The total number of artists who sent works to the last annual exhibition was 2231, of whom 1096 were painters, 150 sculptors, 113 engravers, 263 architects, and 309 draughtsmen. There are, it is reported, throughout France, eighty-two museums and one hundred and sixty schools of the fine arts. From this it will appear that quite a sufficient portion of the public talent is devoted to these branches. Whenever works of imagination and taste preponderate over the sober coun- terbalancing influences of a more solid character, the effect is de- cidedly bad. It enervates the intellect and corrupts the heart. It is the concurrent testimony of all who have the best opportunity of judging, however, that the French character is becoming more sedate and thoughtful. As the great mass of society is elevated ; as politics come to be talked of and judged of by the multitude as well as by the few; and as business of various kinds is in- creased, and draws more into its engrossing cares and labours, we
THE ARTS. 51
may well suppose the former proverbial frivolity and inconstancy of the nation will disappear. We see among our French emi- grants to the United States so many dancjng-masters, fiddlers, barbers, &c., that we are apt to think a great portion of the French must be of this stamp. Here we undoubtedly misjudge ; at the same time it must be conceded that of some of these char- acters Paris has, after all, quite a competency. There are, for example, between three and four hundred actors and actresses, and between twelve and thirteen hundred dancing and music masters. But, then, it must be recollected, that to balance these there are about 50,000 students, and about 1200 who are mem- bers of the Institute and of the University. Where there is so much of science and literature there must be solidity and gravity of mind.
With the fine arts the useful mechanical arts have an impor- tant place in Paris. Perhaps nowhere is apparatus for philosoph- ical and astronomical purposes manufactured better and cheaper than in Paris. It has been supposed by some that their work is not so .firm and lasting as that of English manufacture. There may be some force in this in regard to some instruments ; but it is possible, after all, that it is partly owing to a sort of general prejudice, that a Frenchman and his works are more showy than solid, whereas an Englishman is more solid than showy. As it was a part of my business in Europe to purchase apparatus for the Wesleyan University, I had occasion to examine the merits of this question both in London and Paris, and was surprised to find the great difference in price between the two places, insomuch that if it were not for the English duties, the English artisans would have very little custom, I believe, even for home consump- tion ; and in a great majority of cases, if the English article was superior in point of workmanship or adaptation to its design than the French, I could not discover it.* In my inquiries on this
* I made my greatest purchase of Pixii. Different artists, however, are best for dif- ferent instruments : as Gamby for theodolite, Lerebours for telescope, Gerrelet for tran- sit instrument, Pixii for physics. His instruments for electro-magnetism have an excel- lent and a deserved reputation. He generally keeps a large assortment on hand. I ought to say, for the information of whom it may concern, that. I preferred, after due in- quiry, to purchase an astronomical clock of Molyneux in London, and a most elegant instrument for altitudes, azimuths, and transits of Mr. Simms, of the old firm of Trough ton and Simons, Strand, London,
52 FRANCE.
subject I was very politely aided by General Bernard, long and favourably known in the United States in the engineer department, and now holding an honourable office under Louis Philippe.
You are under a very strict surveillance while in Paris. Who- ever takes you to lodge must report you to the polfi$. The po- lice also know where you take your dinner, when you visit the Royal Museum, &c. A singular circumstance occurred with a man who had forgotten his lodgings, and was obliged to go to the po- lice-office to obtain the necessary information. They informed him who he was, where he lodged, and where he took his din- ners ! Indeed, if a man should forget his own identity in France, the police would set him right.
The houses are built in courts opening into the streets. Around these courts, on three, and sometimes four sides, are tenements, so fitted up that all the rooms of each family are generally on the same floor. Thus the families live one above another, to the height of five or six stories. In one court there may be twenty respectable tenements. The entrance admits of carriages, and is ~_ closed by a strong gate. Within the gate is a porter's- lodge, where one or more porters or gatekeepers lodge, whose duty it is to notice all that pass in or out, and, if they are strangers, to speak to them, direct them, &c. Of these porters there are above 1200 in Paris. These make up a part of those inspectors and spies who watch a man in all his movements. But I must stop abruptly, or I never shall have done.
EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 53
CHAPTER IV.
To the Professors of the Wesleyan University.
Paris, Dec. 12, 1835. MY ESTEEMED FRIENDS,
Permit me, by way of keeping up our friendly intercourse, to give you a sketch of the established system of education in France — a system which, in many respects, is not excelled by any other in the world ; and from which we in America might derive many hints by which to improve our own. It is true, the difference in the two forms of government would prevent our adopting the sys- tem, either as a whole, or perhaps in its leading features ; but there are nevertheless features in it which ought to form a part of every system of education ; and if our views of liberty are such as to lead us to revolt against the most wholesome regula- tions for the training of the young, then have we become ultra in our notions of liberty, and are in danger of becoming so free as ultimately to abandon those principles by which alone freedom can be perpetuated. The system of education in France is truly national — it is entirely under the direction and management of the state. It is true, some individuals are permitted to establish private schools, but not until they have been officially examined by officers appointed for the purpose ; after which, if they are ac- cepted, by presenting the authenticated certificate of acceptance and testimonials of a good character, they receive a license to teach in those branches on which they are examined, but in no other. These private schools also are visited by appointed com- mittees and inspectors ; and the places and rooms where they are kept are subjected to inspection and condemnation if they are not found suitable. And, on the contrary, if the schools are approved of, and the teachers do well, they are fostered by government in various ways ; such as the distribution of rewards and the selecting of the most promising of the pupils for promo- tion to the privileges of some of the higher institutions.
But the great system itself is directly under the government of 5
54 TRANCE.
the state, and constitutes an integral and important branch of pub lie administration, at the head of which is the " minister of pub- lic instruction and religion." He is aided in his duties by a " royal council," consisting of six members, of which the minister is president. The various duties are subdivided among these counsellors ; and perhaps it may give you a general idea of the kind of supervision which the government takes of the schools, to give the official apportionment of those duties as established by law since the revolution of 1830.
The first counsellor, who is also vice-president, has charge of all matters of general interest in the administration of the facul- ties of the colleges, and of all that appertains to the instruction in languages, general literature, and history.
The second performs the duties of chancellor, and has special charge of all that relates to primary instruction.
The third is treasurer, and superintends the instruction in the mathematical sciences.
The fourth is secretary, and has charge of all that relates to philosophical studies, to the instruction in the normal schools (the schools for preparing teachers), and of the faculties of theology.
The fifth has charge of the royal colleges, and of the instruc- tion in the natural sciences.
The sixth has charge of instruction in the faculties and second- ary schools of medicine, and of the pensions, and the institu* tions, &c.
The minister of public instruction has, of course, a general supervision over all the literary, scientific, and professional sem- inaries ; and, in addition, has charge of the public libraries, of the national institute, of the schools for the deaf and dumb, the poly- technic school, &c. He and the council attend to and direct the entire machinery of education, from the highest to the lowest, in accordance with the existing statutes, and aided by inspectors, subordinate councils, &c. They fix the courses of study, author- ize the text-books, judge of impeachments, confirm nominations to various grades of instruction, transfer teachers from one insti- tution to another, regulate the prizes, decide upon the degrees, and direct the discipline of the whole. Hence you will perceive there must be great uniformity as well as efficiency in the entire system. This entire system is called the " University of France."
EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 55
The functionaries of the University are, the minister and his council, the inspectors of the University and of the several acade- mies, the rectors, deans, and professors of the faculties, and of the lyceums, provisors and censors of the lyceums, principals, fellows, and regents of the colleges, chiefs of the institutions, masters of the pensions, and masters of the studies. All these various grades of officers throughout the kingdom, bound together and regulated by the code universataire, constitute the " Royal Uni- versity of France." You are not to suppose, however, that the names above indicate in all cases the same offices as with us. These will be understood by noticing the grand subdivisions of the University. These are called academies, each of which not only embraces all the higher branches, but also comprehends all the lower and subordinate institutions in a given geographical sec- tion of the kingdom ; to govern and direct which academical councils are formed, which have a jurisdiction over these sections respectively, subordinate to the royal council.
These academies, therefore, are rather to be considered as sub- divisions of the University, having their distinct though subordi- nate jurisdictions in their own prescribed limits. They generally embrace three of the civil divisions of France called departments, although some embrace more and some less. The law is, that there shall be as many academies as there are courts of appeal, of which there are at present twenty-six.
Such is the arrangement for the general organization and juris- diction of the system. Then follow the division and organization of the schools themselves. The highest of these are the schools for the most profound sciences and for the professions. In these schools there are five faculties, so called, viz., of theology, of law, of medicine, of the mathematical and natural sciences, and of let- ters. In these faculties the various degrees are conferred ; the conditions of which are, that the students shall have attended upon the lectures (for in the faculties the instruction is all given in set lectures) a given number of terms, and shall have passed an ac- ceptable examination.
The second order of schools are the lyceums, now included un- der the general name of royal colleges. These are for the an- cient languages, history, rhetoric, logic, and the elements of the mathematical and natural sciences.
56 FRANCE.
Then follow the communal colleges, which teach the first principles of the branches taught in the royal colleges.
Next the "institutions," which give nearly the same instruc- tion with the last, but are smaller schools and more restricted in their operations.* After these the " pensions" or boarding-schools, which are also small schools, and of a lower character than the preceding.
Finally, the primary schools, which are divided into two grades, " elementary and superior." This division of the schools may be made more simple by restricting them to schools of three grades — the primary instruction, which corresponds very nearly with our common district schools ; the collegiate, which answers essen- tially to that given in our academies, and is preparatory to the " faculties ;" and the faculties, or the schools for conferring the degrees, which correspond with our universities. To these may be added the normal schools, or the schools for the training of teachers (which, however, have not, I believe, been very efficient as yet), and the polytechnic school, which is scientific and mili- tary, like ours at West Point. The normal schools promise much for the nation. There are now fifty-six, supported at an expense of about 300,000 dollars.
A particular description of all these grades of schools would be tedious to you and to me. I will notice several things in the dif ferent grades, however, and bring into view several importan facts, which may be interesting and profitable.
The schools of theology have professors of history, doctrines (dogme), and evangelical morals ; and some of them have profes- sors of Hebrew and of sacred eloquence. Of these faculties of theology two are Protestant, viz., one at Strasbourg and one at Montauban. It is worthy of special notice that France, though a Catholic country, has extended her liberality so far as to incorpo- rate into her religious establishment the Protestant religion. Instead of abolishing her establishment, she has enlarged it ; so that Protestants as well as Catholics share in her public provis- ions for the institutions of learning and religion.
* These two schools (institutions and pensions) are by private teachers, but the teach- ers are obliged to pay a certain sum to the colleges, and take their pupils to these col- leges for a part of their instruction, in those places where there are colleges.
EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 57
There are nine faculties of law. The number of professors in each differ in the different schools ; that at Paris is divided into two sections, in each of which there are seven professors, and the number of students is said to be over 2,000. There are three principal schools of medicine, viz., at Paris, Montpelier, and Strasbourg, and eighteen secondary schools in different towns in the kingdom. Besides, there are schools of apothecaries, and no man is allowed to engage as a druggist without having attended a three years' course in one of these schools, and without having been three years in a druggist's shop. And even after this prep- aration provision is made by law for the regular visitation of the druggists' shops, and an examination of all their drugs by a com- missioner appointed for that purpose ; nay, shops cannot be opened for selling medicinal herbs without a license and a strict official supervision.
With all this strictness, however, it is not necessary for a can- didate to attend one of the medical schools, in order to a license for practising physic, provided he have studied six years with a doctor in medicine, or have had five successive years of instruc- tion in the hospital practice. It is said, however, that this provis- ion has led to " enormous abuses."
One peculiar feature in the French system is, that females at- tend regular courses of lectures in obstetrics, and, after examination and acceptance, have a regular diploma to practise in that depart- ment.
The medical school at Paris is probably the largest in the world. The number of students is about 4,000. The buildings are fine and extensive, with a splendid anatomical cabinet of specimens natural and artificial, and a company of professors, some of whom are among the first men of the age. Their dis- secting rooms are as public as a butcher's shambles. They are in an open Court, where the public have free ingress and egress ; some of them on the lower floor, with windows and doors open. I walked into the court, and passed from room to room, where I saw scores perhaps of human bodies and parts of bodies in all the different stages of dissection ; and the students were poring over them with as much apparent interest and intellectual gust as if they were analyzing a beautiful flower or an elegant mineral.
In addition to the lectures on the subjects directly con-
H
58 PRANCE.
nected with the medical profession, there are very extensive courses in comparative anatomy, both at the Sorborme and espe- cially at the Jardin des Plantes. At the Sorbonne I saw the celebrated St. de Hilliear lecturing upon a fish's head ; and at the Jardin des Plantes another professor was discussing the head of one of the reptiles that are supposed to have had their day many hundreds of thousands of years before the first Sabbath ! The botanical and chymical lectures are also very fine.
When a student does not design to propose himself for an ex- amination or a degree, he is at liberty to attend the lectures gratu- itously ; and for this purpose all the lectures are open and public. The buildings of the ancient and renowned schools of Norman theology, called the Sorbonne, are now occupied by the three faculties of theology, science, and letters of the academy of Paris. The buildings of the medical and law schools are in opposite di- rections from these, but near ; all in the southeast part of the city, in the Faubourg St. Germaine. This renders Paris exceedingly favourable as a resort for students from all parts of the world. Many students from abroad are here. It is said there are thirty or more from the United States in the medical department, besides some in the other departments. In general, however, students from the United States are not of the class that come out on account of the cheapness of the instruction, but for the supe- rior advantages. But from the British isles many come to attend the medical course here on account of its comparative cheapness. Even when they take out their regular inscriptions, as they are called, and prepare themselves for examinations, the expense is comparatively trifling. Here, too, are libraries, where the students may enter at given hours, and freely consult various authors ; and here they have the privilege of inspecting some of the finest mu- seums of natural history in the world, of specimens organic and inorganic, living and dead. The Jardin des Plantes is a noble programme to the text-book of nature, spread out in extended beauty and in scientific arrangement. The cabinet of minerals and geological specimens is inconceivably splendid ; it is magnif- icent, as also is the museum of comparative anatomy. To all these advantages for the medical student should be added the hospitals, which in Paris are very extended and very various, and seem to me to be kept more for scientific purposes than for any
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other. I have heard it stated, and I believe by professional men who had a good opportunity of knowing, that they lose many more patients at the hospitals, in proportion to their numbers, than die in the hospitals of the United States ; but that is not of much consequence, so long as science is advanced ! and for the ad- vancement of science they afford pre-eminent advantages. What I have said of the superior advantages in the faculty of medicine is, in the main, true of the other faculties. With splendid appara- tus, and professors now lecturing, whose works have given them a reputation all over the scientific world, how can their lecture- rooms be other than interesting ? There is, however, a great dif- ference in the popularity of these lecturers ; some are thronged, and others are comparatively deserted. Some are clapped and applauded, while others are hissed. You will see very little order and decorum in many of these lecture-rooms ; from one to two thousand, perhaps, will be crowded into a lecture-room, all with their hats on, some standing on the seats, and others pas- sing in and out at their leisure, and according to their caprice.
The professors in all these faculties, and the same is true, in fact, of all the other schools in all the different grades, are sup- ported at the public expense. They have a fixed salary, and also a contingency.* The salaries in general are not large, but they have various privileges and exemptions, as well as numerous hon- ours ; and if they continue a given time in the corps universataire, they are permitted to retire on a pension, and their widows also are pensioned after their death.
Whenever a vacant chair is to be filled in any of the three fac- ulties of law, medicine, or theology, they form what is called Le Concours to fill the vacancy. That is, notice is given through all the different academies to those who are proper candidates that such a vacancy is to be filled, and that there is to be a concourse at a given time and place for that purpose. As many as de- termine to try for the appointment send in their names and the proper testimonials; and, on the day appointed, present them- selves for examination before a commission of professors of the
* There is a maximum amount for the salaries of the professors and other officers in all the different schools, beyond which they cannot go. The salaries-are proportioned to •ome extent according to the number of students ; the highest that I have noticed is 7,600 francs, or about 1,387 dollars.
60 , FRANCE.
same department, when they enter the lists and struggle for the ascendency in a powerful intellectual conflict ; and before the com- missioners appointed to set and judge upon their merits. After the examination is over, the judges retire and decide. This is sup- posed to give an opportunity of judging not only of their actual attainments, but also of their aptness to communicate, which is very important in a teacher. It was found, however, that favour- itism, rather than merit, too frequently governed the decisions — and now, although part of the faculties are filled as above, the faculties of science and of letters are filled in another way, viz. : in the academy where the vacancy occurs, the academic council nominates two and the faculty two, and from these the royal council selects and appoints the professor.
It is universal also to distribute the prizes in the different fac- ulties and colleges by this method of the concourse. All who contend for the prizes, presenting themselves at the time and place appointed, and before the appointed judges, where they strive for the mastery according to the prescribed forms. This business du concours is a great matter in the French schools, and occupies no small part of their machinery.
There are in France forty-one royal colleges, besides the com munal colleges, or secondary schools, as they are sometimes called. Of the communal colleges, so called because they are supported by the communes where they are located, there are above three hundred. The royal colleges are supported chiefly by the gov- ernment. Boys are admitted into these at the age of nine years, and are only required to be able to read and write. The discipline in these colleges is as strict as that of the faculties is lax. The boys are literally imprisoned ; their different apartments, in some of those which I visited, were divided off and separated from each other by grated doors of iron ; and the professor who con- ducted us round locked the doors after him, as if he was taking us over a penitentiary. The French appear to me to trust nothing to the young until they arrive at a given age, or are placed in cer- tain relations, and then all restraint is thrown off. This is verified in their management of daughters as well as sons ; the former, for instance, not being permitted before marriage to leave their mother or protectress on any account by night or by day ; but
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after marriage they are at full liberty to go anywhere, and, I like to have said, do anything, without mother or husband.
The professors and masters of study of the royal colleges, and the regents of the communal colleges, are appointed by the min- ister of instruction. The principal is called the provisor, and is " held responsible before God and man for the proper adminis- tration of the college," and is directed, when the students are not Catholics, to " afford them every possible facility for the study and practice of their own religion."
The college of Louis le Grand of Paris has one or more pro- fessors, who are Protestants, and a number of Protestant boursiers or free scholars. I mention these circumstances to show that one trait in the plan of education in France is religious liberty and toleration. Indeed, this might be inferred from the fact that the present minister of instruction, Monsieur Guizot, is a Protestant. The colleges are not, like the faculties, open for public and gra- tuitous instruction. The annual expense is, I think, about 700 francs ; but there are bourses, or, as we should say, perhaps, schol- arships, on which poor but meritorious scholars are placed for gra- tuitous education. The salary of the highest officer in the colleges is about 1,000 dollars in Paris, and 800 dollars elsewhere. The professors have from four to six hundred dollars. These salaries are certainly very low, but they are permanent, and are aided by various advantages, which make amends in part for the deficiency. At any rate, the profession of instructer in France is highly hon- ourable, and is the high road to preferment. In no government, perhaps, is the man of letters and of science more honoured and patronised than here. A number of the peers of France are the professors in the different schools, and it is their science that has raised them to this peerage.* And although now peers of the realm, you may see them every week in the lecturer's chair, elu- cidating the great principles of science. This is noble and worthy of all admiration. It is placing science on its proper basis, and giving the cause of education its appropriate promi- nency in the state. Always excepting religion, education is of the first importance ; and to it, with the preceding exception, the state must look chiefly for its elevation, pecuniary, intellectual, and po-
* Every member of the French Institute who faithfully attends the, meetings of the society is paid by the government the annual salary of 1500 francs. 6
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litical. And religion itself never elevates the state, only as it car ries with it an influence upon the intellect as well as the heart, and is, therefore, identified with education in the same manner as the whole embraces all the parts. You will see, too, in this sketch of the higher schools in France, that there is none of that narrowness of view, which too greatly prevails in our country, by which the colleges and professional schools are condemned as aristocratical monopolies. They are supposed by many with us to be altogether useless, nay, dangerous to the country, and it is thought that all public patronage should be transferred from them to the common schools for the people at large, as though the common schools could exist without the higher institutions ; or as though the latter and the former had no natural alliance and re- ciprocal influence upon each other. The fact is, as I believe, if the higher schools should be annihilated now, the healthy action of the lower schools would naturally and necessarily reproduce them ; or, in default of this, the lower schools would dwindle, be come sickly, and die. And, on the other hand, if all the subordi- nate and elementary schools should be annihilated at a stroke, the higher institutions would produce them again as naturally and as certainly as the young shoot springs from the seed or the root of the mature plant. In proof of this, the present extended system of education in France is a standing and a triumphant argument.
That the argument may have its full force, let it be understood that at the commencement of the present century France had no extended system of primary education ; let it also be understood that the genius of her government and the habits of her people have been rather aristocratical than otherwise ; and especially if there could be produced such a thing as a literary aristocracy that would trample Upon the people and keep them in ignorance, the honours that have ever awaited the learned of France would have produced this spirit \ and yet the very reverse of all this has been the fact. The higher institutions have extended and multiplied the lower. From the high places of science the seeds of knowledge have been disseminated over the entire kingdom, so that the nurseries of education are now planted in every depart- ment, and, I might almost say, in every commune.
The University was first established in 1806. Although there were as early as 1793 and 4 some efforts made by the govern-
EDUCATION IN PRANCE. 63
ment to extend the system of education to all classes, yet nothing very efficient seems to have been accomplished until the estab- lishment of the University. In 1808 the foundation was laid and the general plan was struck out by Napoleon and his ministers, which has remained essentially the same in its general features up to this hour.
It is indeed one of the unaccountable characteristics of this un- accountable nation, that in the midst of the storms and convulsions which have swept over her in successive tornadoes, her social and literary institutions have in many respects been striking a deeper root. Her system of education was commenced during the re- public, reduced to order and greatly advanced under Napoleon, held on its course at the Restoration without being either altered or retarded ; at the last revolution it was only aided ; and under the present king, by the law of 1833, the primary education especially has been materially improved and enlarged. By that ordinance every commune is to be provided with primary instruction. And in default of existing provisions for the localities of the schools and the salaries of the teachers, the municipal council is autho- rized to lay a tax for these purposes, and, in default of their action, a royal ordinance is to be issued for the assessment and laying of the authorized contributions. So fully has this been carried into execution, that more than 15,000 communes which neglected to enforce the contributions have been compelled by the royal ordinance to raise the necessary means of education. Besides this, the government provides the means for establishing suitable libraries throughout the realm, and expends annually 1,600,000 francs for providing schoolhouses, distributing schoolbooks to the poor, for multiplying the normal schools, &c. Suitable men are employed and paid by government to compose and print books proper for elementary instruction,*
The course of elementary primary instruction embraces read- ing, writing, the elements of the French language, arithmetic, and the legal system of weights and measures. That of superior pri-
* There has been some difficulty, it is said, in some of the communes, of obtaining the attendance of the children, because the parents think more of gaining by the labour of their children than of benefiting them by instruction. This is natural where parents are themselves ignorant ; but this evil will grow less every year, as public sentiment be- comes corrected and the public mind instructed.
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mary instruction embraces, in addition, the elements of geometry and its various applications, especially in linear drawing and sur- veying, some of the most useful ideas of natural history and the physical sciences, singing, the elements of history and geography, and especially the history and geography of France. The ele • mentary schools are divided into three parts, according to the age and studies of the pupils. They are to commence and close with prayer; the Holy Scriptures are required to be read, and por- tions of them committed to memory ; and when the school has pupils of different religions, care is to be taken that each receives the instruction preferred by the parent.
Children are admitted into the primary elementary schools be- tween the ages of six and thirteen years. But that those younger than six years may be provided for, a plan has been adopted for the establishment of infant schools, private or public, which also are to be under the supervision of the government.
A system of special inspection of all the primary schools has been adopted and prosecuted at an expense of 240,000 francs per annum, which is said to have had a very great and most happy influence upon the schools. In short, not to dwell upon the details of this system, who, let me ask, can survey this entire plan of education, from the highest to the lowest grade ; who can look at its extent, its unity, its efficiency, its liberality, and its almost certain magnifi- cent results, without the greatest admiration and applause ? Well may our own boasted republic come to France for lessons of im- provement in her plans of education. Do you ask how any part of this system can be adopted among us ? On this part of the subject I must not dwell long, for I have already extended this communi- cation to a wearisome length. I will, however, say a few things.
In the first place, let the republicans of America dismiss the jealousy of the higher institutions ; it has its origin in a narrow- ness of view and an ignorance of cause and effect utterly unwor- thy of a citizen of the United States in the nineteenth century ; and when they have laid aside this prejudice, they will be pre- pared to sustain their respective state governments in making lib- eral donations to their institutions. I do not insist upon state colleges and universities like those of France, and like those of some of our states. Whatever may be said in favour of such in- stitutions in France, they are found, by all past experience, not to
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succeed well in the United States. The genius of our civil and religious institutions does not chime in well with government seminaries. They become an arena where political partisans and sectarian bigots conflict for personal and party purposes, at the expense of the sacred cause of education. Better, perhaps, that the different religious denominations manage these institutions, subject to a visitation of a commission of the state, if need be, to prevent abuses, and making their annual report the basis of grant- ing or withholding such an annual stipend as may, when granted, make the incorporated institutions successful and efficient in the cause of education.
Every state, however, should make provision by law for pri- mary schools. It is a strange anomaly that, in a republican gov ernment at the present day, a single state should be found without this provision. And, next to that, it is most strange that those states which have made this provision should suffer it in numer- ous, if not in all cases, to be so comparatively inefficient, and all for the want of some such provision as exists in France for pro- viding and licensing teachers, inspecting the schools, regulating their division, arrangement, and studies, selecting their text-books, and prescribing the character and accommodations of their school- houses. All this should be done. Will it be said the democracy of the United States will never submit to compulsory measures of this kind? I answer, I would not attempt to compel them. Republicans, I know, are as unwilling to benefit themselves even, by compulsion, as the redoubtable philosopher of Shakspeare, Sir John Falstaff, was to give a reason upon compulsion. But there are motives that will induce republicans as well as other men to adopt measures for their own benefit. Suppose, for example, the state of Connecticut, with her school fund of more than two mill- ions, should establish a law that no school society should draw its proportion of that fund until it had built and furnished suitable schoolhouses, and made the necessary preparation for keeping up the school a given proportion of the year. Suppose, as a further condition, the course of study, the character of the text-books, the proper division of the schools, and suitable qualifications of teach- ers should be insisted upon. And suppose that the fulfilment of these conditions should be carefully secured by an efficient com- mittee of supervision established in the several counties, and paid 6 I
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by the state. Would not the several societies comply with these conditions rather than lose their part of the money ? Doubtless they would. And if a few were obstinate, let them take their own course ; there would be the more for those who complied. I doubt whether all would not speedily comply, and in ten years the entire state would be ready to erect a monument to the man who should be instrumental of introducing these im- provements.
Before closing my letter I will give you a brief sketch of some other literary and scientific institutions of France, and especially of Paris.
I have already alluded to the French Institute. This is in sub- stance and design the same as the old French Academy or Acad- emies, being, in fact, the combination of learned men in the dif- ferent departments of the arts and sciences, and the union of these respective combinations under one general organization for literary and scientific purposes. The original institution was dissolved by the revolutionists of '89, who, in their zeal for change, laid their sacrilegious hands both upon the altars of religion and the temples of science. Of this latter, however, they soon repented ; and on October 20, 1795, by a decree of the Convention, the Institute was founded. Since that it has undergone some changes need- less to mention ; but it now consists of five academies, viz. :
1. The French Academy, which seems to have charge more particularly of French literature. The dictionary of the French language published by this academy is well known. This de- partment consists of forty members.
2. The Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres. The field of literature more especially belonging to this academy is, as its name imports, ancient classics, antiquities, and monuments, and history with its cognate branches. This also has forty members.
3. The Academy of Sciences, embracing mathematics, physics, and the natural sciences, including also surgery, medicine, and ru- ral economy. This academy has eleven sections, ten of which embrace six members each, and one three, making sixty-three in the whole.
4. The Academy of the Fine Arts, with forty members.
5. The Academy of Moral and Political Science. This has been created, or rather restored by the present king in 1832, with
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thirty members, divided into five sections — on philosophy, morals and legislation, international law and jurisprudence, political and statistical economy, and general and philosophical history.
These academies have secretaries, whose salaries are paid by government; and they also award prizes, &c. They meet once each week for various discussions, reading essays, &c. Each academy nominates to fill its own vacancies, which nomination has to be confirmed by the king. The design is, that the most emi- nent men in the nation should be elected to membership in the respective departments. Every member that attends all the meetings of the year receives from government 1500 francs. For each absence ten francs are deducted.
The Mazarin College, as it was formerly called, a fine edifice standing upon the left bank of the Seine opposite the Louvre, and now called the Palace of the Institute, is devoted to the accom- modation of this noble literary and scientific association, the no- blest, perhaps, in the world.*
There are various other societies, literary, scientific, &c., which I cannot now mention.
Of the libraries of Paris, however, I should say something. The principal of these is the Royal Library, in the Rue Richelieu. The number of volumes in this splendid collection is commonly estimated at about 900,000. The Mazarin Library is in the Palace of the Institute, and contains 100,000 volumes. The library of St. Genevieve contains 250,000 volumes. The library of the Arsenal 180,000. Besides several other smaller collections, such as the library of the Hotel des Invalides, already mentioned, the City Library of 45>000 volumes, the library at the Garden of Plants, &c. One valuable arrangement of these libraries is, that they are open to the public without expense.
With all these encouragements and facilities, is it surprising that Paris abounds in men of science and literature ?
I will close this letter by glancing at the Garden of Plants and the Museum of Natural History connected with it. This institu- tion has an extensive botanical garden, now under the direction of Prpfessor Jussieu, to whom I had a letter by the politeness of Professor Torrey of New- York. The collection of living plants
* The number of volumes published by this society from the beginning, as reported by Rev. Mr. Baird, is 372. See American Quarterly Register, January, 1837.
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is extensive and well arranged. One part is uneven, and devoted to forest-trees and shrubbery in such a form as to give it the ap pearance of a rural landscape and park with serpentine alleys. Here, on the slope of the hill, is a cedar of Lebanon, the first, it is said, that was brought to Paris, from which, however, other grounds have been supplied. Two of these beautiful trees spread out their elegant tops just under the window of our lodgings, and they are found in other parts of the city.
At the Garden of Plants there are twelve courses of lectures each year on the various branches of natural science, and all gra- tuitous. To aid in this, there is a collection for comparative anat- omy, the most splendid in the world, mostly the fruit of the skill and labour of Baron Cuvier. There is also a fine menagerie of living animals, and an extensive museum of birds, beasts, fishes, and reptiles, as well as a splendid cabinet of minerals and geolog- ical specimens ; all arranged and kept in beautiful order. Here are those monstrous reptiles that bear upon their hoary skeletons the records of matter, which, in the opinion of Cuvier and most modern geologists, was undergoing its various transformations thousands on thousands of years before the world was ! That is, before it existed in its present form, and was fitted up for the hab- itation of man.
It would be pleasant to give a more particular detail of this in- teresting and extensive Museum of Natural History ; but I must forbear.
Yours, &c.,
W. FISK.
CHAPTER V.
THE preceding letter will show that, in point of education, France is taking a stand equal, if not superior, to any nation in the world. Her higher branches and seminaries have for a long time stood deservedly high in the estimation of all Europe ; but her present system of primary instruction is taking hold of the public mind in its early and elementary character, and is diffusing, it is
INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. 69
to be hoped, a salutary influence through the entire population. One feature of this education is particularly promising, viz., that which connects religious instruction with intellectual culture. Indeed, Monsieur Guizot, the present minister of instruction, has issued an ordinance requiring the Bible to be used in all the schools, and the government has made a very liberal provision to carry that order into effect. Had France always cultivated Bible religion with her instruction, and especially had she, during the last century, had a diffusive system of instruction on that principle, she would neither have waded through those scenes of bloody rev- olution which have marked her modern history, nor would she now have in her bosom a generation of infidels, which give an anomalous character to the nation, and render all her political and social institutions unsettled and precarious. So true is it, that, however extensively science and literature may be cultivated in any nation, it avails nothing to the safety and happiness of the people, unless it be connected with a course of moral and religious training. But I cannot better illustrate this principle than by in- serting here a letter written from Paris to the students of the Wes- leyan University.
To the Students of the Wesleyan University.
Paris, Nov. 27, 1835.
YOUNG GENTLEMEN,
You doubtless distinctly recollect how often he who now ad- dresses you, as well as others, has insisted upon the importance of cultivating the heart at the same time with the intellect ; in other words, that religion and the sciences ought always to be united. The state of society in France at the present time illus- trates, I think, pretty clearly the truth of this doctrine, especially the state of society among the young. The minds of most of the young, particularly the male sex, are deeply poisoned with infi- delity, and this infidelity is, in a great measure, the result of edu- cation. I will not say that religion has been wholly left out of the account in the French system of education, although it must be acknowledged, I believe, that it has been, in the main, neglect- ed, especially in the higher institutions ; that it is the same thing
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in its practical results, whether the duties and obligations of reli gion be entirely neglected, or such a religion be inculcated as is inefficient in its influence on moral character, and repulsive, in all its rites and devotions, to men of thought and intelligence. To one or both of these causes we are doubtless to attribute the pre- vailing infidelity of the French youth, and of the French nation generally. Indeed, this spirit of infidelity is more prevalent than I expected to find it. I knew the French were a God-forgetting nation, and that infidelity had been taught by their philosophers, and that reason had been deified by their legislatures ; but I had hoped a better day had actually risen upon France. I fear, how- ever, this is not the case. I am told, by those well acquainted, that you can rarely meet with a young man who does not scout at the very idea of revelation, and many of them at the idea of a God. Their greatest infidels are the men whom the nation seems most delighted to honour. Voltaire has been recently enthroned in bronze in the very centre of the Royal Library ; public worship is very generally neglected, and the Sabbath is a day of universal merriment and business. But my principal object now is to show the unfavourable influence that this heartless infidelity has upon personal happiness and social institutions ; and if in the picture you see additional cause to adhere to the religion of the Bible, I shall have gained my end in writing at this time. One of the most prominent effects which are caused by infidelity is a tedium of life, and a criminal haste to get out of it. It seems to be acknowl- edged by all that suicide is increasing in France. I have heard of several instances since I have been here. They have a public place called the Morgue, where those who are found dead each day are brought and deposited ; and the bodies are exposed to pub- lic view in large trays, inside of a palisaded partition. Here those whose friends or acquaintances are missing come, and if they can recognise the bodies, they claim them for burial. As the Seine is the more common resort for those who are tired of life, a net is stretched across it below the city, by which all the bodies not taken out are stopped and recovered. True, neither the Morgue nor the net for the Seine can be supposed to have been prepared exclusively for suicides, but for any accidental or violent deaths ; yet the greater portion, probably, of those taken from the Seine, and of those, from whatever sources, which are deposited
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in the Morgue, are the victims of this infidel practice. I say in- fidel, for I consider suicide the practical consummation of infidel- ity. Indeed, when once " the fool has said in his heart there is no God," he needs only to become a little chagrined or dispirited by disappointment, and he is ready at once to bury aU in the oblivious sleep of death.
That gloomy, insupportable state of mind which is superinduced by a disbelief in revelation, a special Providence, and future exist- ence, as naturally leads to suicide, when associated with the ills that "life is heir to," as any effect follows its legitimate cause.
This of itself shows both the importance and truth of religion, for certainly our Creator would not have left us without that, which all experience teaches is so important to our safety and happiness. Another method of destroying life which is becoming quite popular, is by the fumes of charcoal in a close room. Some- times more horrible and revolting methods are resorted to. It is but a short time since one young man, who had become weary of life, threw himself from the top of Notre Dame upon the pave- ments below; and another quite lately* from the top of Bona- parte's column, an elevation of 135 feet.
Another proof of the little influence of religion upon the public mind, is the morbid sensibility which predominates, in many in- stances, over correct sentiment ; begetting a strange and anoma- lous kind of sympathetic feeling and action, a most surprising mixture of sentimentality and cruelty, of affection and hatred, of refined tenderness and savage barbarity. I can best illustrate what I mean by an example or two. The instances are all recent.
The present mode of filling the ranks of the army is by conscrip- tion. A young man, who was greatly beloved by his father, had at- tained the age at which he was liable to be draughted for the pub- lic service. This of course afflicted the father; and he anxiously desired to find some method of saving his beloved son from the conscription. On inquiry he learned that the oldest son of a widow was exempt from serving in the army. Of course it was now in his power to secure his object ; he kills himself, by which the. boy's mother becomes a widow, and he is saved from the con- scription ! ! Another case. A man and his wife not living hap-
* Viz., 24th inst. This is the fourth who has leaped from the column since its erec- tion. It is quite sentimental to die at the base of Napoleon's pillar.
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pily together, separated — a frequent, very frequent occurrence m France. One son was greatly attached to the father, another son and a daughter took sides with the mother. The mother and the two children attached to her were a great annoyance to the father in various ways. The other son, for the love he bore his father, conceived and executed the plan of murdering his mother, and brother, and sister. When arraigned for his crime, he pleaded in excuse the love he bore his father ; and although he had destroyed three lives and forfeited his own, he pleaded as authority the nu- merous instances on record of men who had nobly sacrificed them- selves for the happiness of others, and especially our Saviour, who sacrificed himself for the good of mankind. Another. A physi- cian came from some provincial town in France with another man's wife, with whom he lived in criminal intimacy. They found, however, that their felicity was not equal to their anticipa- tions ; and not succeeding in their plans to their wishes, it was thought best to cut the whole matter short by cutting the thread of life. For this the female was specially anxious, and requested her paramour, who of course could do it scientifically, to bleed her to death, and then operate upon himself. He proceeded ac- cordingly ; and having succeeded with her, he stabbed himself, but not mortally. He was found, and recovered. He was tried and acquitted by the French court, on the ground that the lady's death was not homicide, but suicide ! ! And now mark the good- ness, to speak ironically, of the doctor's heart. He finally dis- missed the idea of destroying himself, and concluded he might be of some service to the world by going into the districts infected with the cholera or the plague, and prescribing for the sick. In this way he could make a noble sacrifice of a life of which he was weary, by administering, while he might survive, to the necessi- ties of others. What a philanthropy was this ! What a morbid sensibility ! What a romantic and philanthropic adulterer and mur* derer ! A fine specimen this of refinement in educating the intel- lect, and especially the imagination, while the heart is neglected. Another evidence of the effect of irreligion in France is the pleasure the French take in strong excitement, and especially that excitement which is produced by scenes of cruelty and mur- der. The painters of the modern French school are all in proof. Go to the Luxembourg palace, where the paintings are mostly
LOVE OF EXCITEMENT. 73
new, and by French artists, and you may see a striking illustra- tion of this fact. One is chilled and horrorstruck in going from picture to picture, and finding death and agony, in all their horrid shapes, meeting him at every turn. For example, in represent- ing the scene of the elder Brutus and his two sons, most artists fix upon that point of time in which the father gives command to the lictors to take his sons to execution. This I remember to have seen a number of years since, and the view of it, at this stage of the tragedy, was more than I could well endure. But this is not the point in the tragedy that will satisfy the French artist. You have it at the Luxembourg. There lies the bleeding, headless trunk of one son, and the dripping head itself is held up in the hands of the lictor, while the other son, in view of the scene, is just being subjected to the same operation ; and the father sits and looks on, without relaxing a muscle of his stern, unpaternal countenance ! How horrible is the exhibition ! ! And yet it re- quires, such an exhibition, it seems, to meet the views of a French artist and his admirers.
There is a greater indifference to death among the French than is found among other nations — an indifference which has already been illustrated by a reference to the subject of suicide. It was shocking- ly illustrated during the revolution of 1789, when thousands jested, and danced, and sang amid flowing torrents of blood ; even when their own was just ready to flow. This also is illustrated, perhaps, in the character of the French soldier, and it may be one cause of the success of the French armies. Certain it is, however, that this contempt of death does not arise from any correct view of a here- after, or any realizing sense of what it is to die, but it is rather the result of that sensual infidelity which says " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." This strong feeling, partaking of the na- ture of cruelty, this recklessness of life so prevalent among the French, may be seen in the repeated attempts which have been made upon the life of the present king. Fieschi, who was the chief agent in the infernal machine of July last, has, in the course of his examination, given some striking proofs of the little value he set upon human life ; and although he is a desperado, and ought not by any means to be held up as a proper specimen of the French character, yet it ought to be remembered that each age and nation produces its peculiar desperadoes. Every grade 7 K
74 FRANCE.
of character takes its peculiar cast from the mass in which it was developed, and I doubt not that the history of the criminals of any age or nation would exhibit the leading characteristics of the peo- ple from among whom they sprang. But to return. Fieschi is said to have declared, on his late examination, preparatory to his trial, that at one time, while the procession was passing, his heart had wellnigh failed him, for he saw in the group near the king a friend to whom he was under special obligations. However, he recollected that he was bound in honour to his accomplices, and therefore he must not shrink ! Bound in honour to kill the chief ruler of the nation, at the expense of many others ; one of whom was his friend and benefactor ! ! However, fortune favoured him in this particular, for a movement of the procession threw his friend in another position, and he had a fine opportunity of destroying a score without harming him. Another instance of a desperate murderer, who has just had his trial, will exhibit a similar spirit. This wretch treated the court with the utmost contempt and their sentence of death with the most perfect ridicule. They told him he had the privilege of an appeal, by which his life might be pro- longed three months. He at first refused ; but when he learned that his accomplice in crime, against whom, it seemed, he cher- ished, for some cause, the most rancorous, diabolical hatred, had appealed, and would therefore outlive him, he decided to appeal also ; because it would afford him such high gratification to see this object of his hate die first.
Now although I would not have you judge, from the instances given, that the French are all a cruel, murderous race — for I pro- test against ranking a community in the same class with the most exceptionable individual cases — still I must think that in these il- lustrations there are some striking marks of national character. We must always take the strong cases when we give an example, in order to make clearly visible the lineaments and features we design to bring into view. And here, if I mistake not, we have very strongly marked, in the instances given, lines of character that to some extent distinguish the French nation. And, if cir- cumstances required it, I might carry out these illustrations further in smaller matters ; I might allude to the extraordinary circulation of the Journal des Tribunaux, in which are published all the horrid crimes and suicides that are committed in the country ; the stock
LOVE OF EXCITEMENT. 75
for the capital of which, I am told, has increased, since the first investment, fifteen hundred per cent. — so great is the circulation of this record of passion and crime.* Whence originates this mor- bid appetite for these horrid recitals but in the causes already ex- plained ? In further proof of the irreligion of this people, I might mention their disregard of serious things ; the universal prostitu- tion and desecration of the Sabbath ; the frequent and undisguised disregard of conjugal relations, by which domestic quiet and do- mestic happiness are prevented ; but I forbear. Enough is seen, I think, in the entire history and present character of modern France, to warn all against the dangerous experiment of training up a generation to disregard " the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent."
France has many noble qualities ; she is chivalrous and brave, and courtly and refined; she fosters, beyond any other nation, yes, I hesitate not to say, beyond any other nation, the sciences and the arts. But there is a worm at the root, and the gnawings of that worm wither equally the tree of national prosperity and the humbler plant of individual and domestic enjoyment. In vain shall France change her form of government ; in vain shall she multiply her sources of gratification, either of sense, of ima- gination, or of intellect ; in vain shall she swell the song and lead down the dance ; in vain shall she strive to keep up her excite- ment by the strongest stimulus of tragic representation ; in vain shall she measure out the heavens, and weigh the earth, and ana- lyze the productions of nature. She has revolted from her God — the " hope, like an anchor to the soul, big with immortality," she does not possess. In short, the entire national mind is cast loose *rom its appropriate moorings, and tossed upon a restless sea of excited feeling and unsanctified passion. In such a state, the in- tervals of excitement must be gloomy, and press the soul down to despair and loathing of life ; and the periods of excitement must be maddening and licentious.
And now, young gentlemen, since I have not been drawing any doubtful fancy-picture, but one of reality and notoriety; and since the causes and effects are not traced out by dim and ambiguous
* Recently, a second gazette of a similar character, called Le Droh, has- been estab- lished. The ground of public patronage of this character is so extensive that another similar periodical, seemed desirable.
76 FRANCE.
lines and connexions, but by striking and obvious associations, permit me to inquire whether there is one of you who would wish to see such a state of feeling in America? Nay, is there one of you who can for a moment forget how much you are in- debted, individually, to the influence of religious truth upon your minds ? Although some of you may not be particularly and pro- fessedly religious, yet, however little you may realize it, it is the influence of religion, silently thrown 'over you by the power of as- sociation and education, that checks your excesses, which other- wise might prove ruinous. It is this that keeps you from despair in the hour of discouragement. As you value your own happi- ness, then, I entreat of you, respect the institutions and principles of our holy religion ; and as you love your country, encourage, by all means, that course of education which improves the heart, while, at the same time, it invigorates and improves the intellect. Yours, in the kindest sentiments of affection and esteem,
W. FISK.
To the Corresponding Secretary of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Epis- copal Church.
Paris, Nov. 12,-I835. REV. AND DEAR SlR,
I am the more prompted to trouble you with a letter at this time from the circumstance of my having attended, last evening, a missionary meeting in this city, and from my having at that time increased to some extent my little knowledge of the state of things in this great and interesting nation on the subject of Prot- estant missionary operations. This will enable me to comply in part with the request of the Missionary Board, that I would, in my tour, make such inquiries respecting the openings for mis- sionary labour, especially in France, as my circumstances would permit.
The meeting to which I allude was held in the place of wor- ship occupied by the Rev. Robert Newstead, formerly Wesleyan missionary in Ceylon, but now stationed by the same society in Paris, in connexion with the Rev. Mr. De Jersey, who preaches in French. Mr. Newstead preaches in English to a congregation
A MISSIONARY MEETING. 77
made up of English and Americans, but mostly of the former. The chapel is a private tenement, rented and fitted up for the purpose in the Faubourg St. Honore. One circumstance which rendered the place very interesting to me was, that the apart- ments were those of our highly-venerated Lafayette at the time of his last sickness and death. Yes, in those very apartments where the " patriot of two hemispheres" breathed his last, I had the pleasure of preaching to a Protestant congregation last Sabbath, and of assembling with others last evening to celebrate a Prot- estant missionary anniversary ! The meeting was not large, but interesting. Mr. Newstead, who is much esteemed here, and who, is deeply devoted to his work and indefatigable in his labours,, had enlisted several clergymen of other denominations to assist on, the occasion. The pecuniary result of the meeting was a collect tion of about 320 francs (not far from $62). One of the speakers was Rev. John Hartly, who was formerly missionary from the Church Missionary Society to Greece, but who, for two or three years past, has been residing in Geneva. Mr. H. gave it as hi& opinion that the whole of France was open for Protestant mis- sionaries ; and publicly entreated me, in the course of his ad- dress, to make myself acquainted with the facts in the case, and urge the American churches to interest themselves in this very important field of labour. He said there was not a town in France, except perhaps the very largest, such as Paris and Lyons, where, if a Protestant missionary should go, and, having obtained the required license, should give out that Protestant worship was to be attended, there would not be crowds to hear him.* He stated, moreover, that there was a great readiness, and> indeed, eagerness, to receive religious publications and the Bible. He gave an interesting sketch, in which the late great and gra-. cious revival of religion in the Pays de Vaud commenced and was carried on. In the first place, some humble individuals, called colporteurs, were employed to carry round on their backs and distribute religious tracts, written in a form to attract attention, and also the Bible. These were cheerfully received ; and, by
* Mr. De Jersey, who has laboured a number of years in Normandy and Picardy, says this does not accord with his experience, although he finds much encouragement. The fact is, some parts are more accessible than others,, but there is more or less encourage* ment in all parts. 7
78 FRANCE.
moans of them, together with the pious conversation of the colpor- teurs, a number were converted. This opened the way for send- ing regular ministers among them, and in this way the work has been extended in a very interesting manner in the eastern part of France. It seemed to be the opinion of Mr. Hartly that the same might be done throughout the kingdom. And if nothing else were done at first but the circulating of the Bible and reli- gious publications, this would of itself produce glorious results. It is true, there might be some sections of the country, and some classes or individuals, so much under the influence of the Catholic priests as to reject the Bible ; but this would not, it is believed, be generally the case. There is probably not a Catholic country on the globe where the priests have so little power over the great body of the people of all ranks as in France. They will think for themselves, and, in thinking for themselves, they become more and more dissatisfied with the mummery, and bigotry, and yoke of bondage of the Catholic superstitions ; and the danger now is, that they will j*o over en masse to infidelity ; as, indeed, the greater portion of the higher classes have done already. Infidel- ity is the boast of by far the greater portion of the younger citi- zens of France ; they scout the very idea of revelation, and not a few of them of a God — so those say who have resided long in the country, and are best prepared to know the true state of things. The churches are in a manner deserted by the younger men, and religion is left chiefly to the women and to the old men. In this state of things, what can save the nation but the Bible, and a de- vout and faithful exhibition of Bible truth, independent of the dis- gusting mummeries and hypocrisies with which the people have heretofore seen those truths associated ! The Catholic power here is crippled, never, I trust, to rise again. Its partial resurrec- tion after the restoration of the Bourbons, and especially at the accession of Charles X. to the throne, has served to make its second downfall but the more fatal and irrecoverable. That infat- uated prince gave himself up to the dictation of the priests, and vainly thought to charm the people back again to the passive obe- dience of the old regime by religious ceremonies and processions. It was thus that he was induced by the Jesuitical influence of the clergy to venture upon those measures that drove him from the throne into banishment. The people see this ; they see that the
OPENING FOR RELIGIOUS EFFORT. 79
priests are not to be trusted ; that no one under their influence can be trusted : and hence the priests are less likely to dupe them than formerly. No religious parades have been seen in the streets of Paris since the memorable revolution of July, 1830, and the present king has carefully refrained from committing himself on the subject of religion in any form. It has been said, that the only intimation he has ever given in public of his believing in any religion, was at the instant after the discharge of the infer- nal machine, in July last, on the Boulevard du Temple ; when a score were dying around him, and himself wounded, he faced the side whence the discharge had proceeded, drew his sword, and then crossed his arms upon his breast. And even this small sig- nal might be the result of the agitation of that awful moment rather than the indication of any religious faith.
Such is the religion of the king, such is the religion of most of his principal men. One of his cabinet, M. Guizot, is a Protestant — the wife of another, the Due de Broglie, notwithstanding the duke is himself a nominal Catholic, is a Protestant, and is said to be a pious lady, although the daughter of an infidel mother, the late celebrated Madame de Stael. All these circumstances show how little power the priests have in the government ; add to this the fact that the Roman Catholic religion in this country is no longer exclusively the state religion, and that free toleration is se- cured to all religious sects, and you will see how the Catholic in- fluence in the great body of the nation is diminished.* For every one who knows anything of the Catholic Church knows that the priesthood would never give up their hold upon the govern- ment if they could retain it. But this power has departed from them for ever in France. And yet there is not inherent Protest- antism in the nation sufficient to raise and sustain the standard of Bible Christianity, nor sufficient inherent piety to save the na- tion from infidelity. Here there is a field for Protestant labour from abroad, vast in extent, ripe for the harvest, rich in promise —
* This may need some qualification. There are two different ordinances which seem to be susceptible of, and have received, in some instances, opposite constructions. How- ever, it may be said that the prevailing principle in France is altogether in favour of tol eration ; and although the present government maybe uncertain and unsettled, yet there can be little doubt that whatever changes may occur, and that there will not be changes can scarcely be hoped, every successive change or revolution must settle down in favoui of an equal or greater degree of civil and religious liberty.
80 FRANCE.
a field where thirty-two millions of souls are actually famishing for the sincere milk of the word, with but perhaps 200 evangeli- cal, spiritual Protestant preachers among them. Here is an oppor- tunity for Protestants to get a noble, a Gospel revenge, if I may so say, for the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and for all the bloody persecutions that the scarlet beast has perpetrated upon the defenceless Protestants of France throughout its past history — and here, methinks, Protestant America may pay back to Cath- olic Europe an ample compensation for all the supplies of men and money gratuitously sent over to subject American citizens to the Roman yoke ; and here, too, the United States may find an opportunity to refund to France to some extent the debt of grati- tude we owe her for the services she as a nation, and some of her sons as individuals, especially the illustrious Lafayette, have rendered us. They helped us to gain our national liberty and independence, and shall we not aid them to the attainment of the liberty of the gospel ? .
There may be some special reasons, perhaps, why America should engage in this enterprise. It is true the neighbouring kingdoms, and especially Great Britain, are more advantageously situated for this work than America. But missionaries from most of these kingdoms would be looked upon with suspicion, especially where those missionaries were connected with the state religion of their respective countries. Great Britain, at the present time, would be the least suspected ; but the fact is, there is work enough for all ; and, humanly speaking, much more than all can do. Per- haps, taking all things into the account, the most efficient mission- ary institution in the world at this time is the Wesleyan Mission ary Society of England; but they h.ve a vast work on hand. The extent of the British empire ; the number, and geographical extent, and pressing wants of the British colonies, and of the pagans under the government and in the neighbourhood of those colonies, are so great that they claim and receive most of the patronage of that society ; and still the society can furnish for that field only a very partial supply. It is true, they at present furnish twelve missionaries for France ; but three of these preach in English, to supply the English emigrants at Calais, Boulogne, and Paris. They have, in addition, on the Calais and Boulogne cir- cuit, two who preach in French ; one also in Paris, and six in
DUTY OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANS. 81
Normandy and the south of France. How much they will be able to enlarge and strengthen this department of the missionary work, I am unable to say ; evidently, however, in no degree ade- quate to the wants of the country.
Missionaries from America would be received, it is believed, by a great portion of the people of France more readily than from almost any other part of the world. The habits, especially, of the ministers of the Methodist Church in America, are pecu- liarly suited to that kind of work that is the most needed in France. Whoever undertakes the evangelization of this country must come down to the drudgery, if such it may be called, of the missionary work. He must be a hewer of wood and a draper of water ; a colporteur, a burden-bearer, in the work of the gospel. How many such are now wanted ! If scores of prudent young men were now employed in all parts of the kingdom, carrying round tracts and Bibles, taking up their lodgings with the poor, and entering freely into conversation with them on the concerns of their souls, what might they not effect ?
In my opinion, moreover, that form of worship the freest possi- * ble from all external parade and mechanical form will be the best suited to the present condition of the French, not only as it would commend itself to those who revolt at the excessive display of the prevailing religion, but also because the most simple form of religious instruction and worship is necessary to call off the senses of the multitude from images, ceremonies, and external pomp, to their own hearts, and to the one God and one Mediator. Such especially is" American Methodism. Our British brethren have judged it best, for reasons which have weight with them, to retain in their service in the missionary stations the practice of reading prayers ; and what struck me as very remarkable, they carry their nationality so far as even here in France, and in a missionary station, to pray in due form for " our most gracious sovereign lord King William." The better way, doubtless, for a missionary in this country would be to divest himself of everything that wears the aspect of foreign associations, and to come to the people as one whose sole object is to benefit Frenchmen, as such, in the great interest of their souls. And such, I doubt not, is the method our British ministers pursue in their preaching to the French. It is not good policy, however, as it strikes me, since
1
82 FRANCE.
the missionaries all come out under the same auspices, and ulti- mately for the same object — the benefit of France — not to identify themselves with the French government as much as they may, and avoid all national distinctions. I do not by this, however, mean to intimate that the English in France are unfriendly to the existing government. So far as I have seen, Louis Philippe has no warmer friends in the French nation than are the great body of the English residents.
But I am wandering ; to return. The British Protestants will, if the present kind feelings continue between the two nations, un- doubtedly do this country great good. But, as I said before, there is more work than all can do, and there are some reasons why America might be, equally with any other nation, and perhaps in a greater degree even, beneficial to the cause of Christ here, if they would enlist in the enterprise.
It is true, the present political misunderstanding (for so I must call it) must first be settled. Should the present small disagree- ment ripen into war, which may Heaven forbid, it would blast all our hopes of benefiting France, and might serve to increase the bigotry on the one hand, and the infidelity on the other, of this in- teresting nation. I cannot, however, believe that a question of mere etiquette, for such it really has become, will be suffered to produce nonintercourse, enmity, and bloodshed between two na- tions which have such strong reasons for mutual friendship.*
It might also be necessary to use some precaution as to the manner of operation and as to the number sent. The political elements of France are far from being settled. The Carlists and republicans, though the antipodes of each other, have met on the same meridian to oppose the present government. This renders the government extremely jealous of the republicans, and, by as- sociation, they might be jealous of Americans, if they appeared to be engaging in any extensive work in this country just at this moment ; a jealousy which the Jesuits, for obvious reasons, would be disposed to increase. So that while the people might prefer Americans, the government might be suspicious. This, however.
* Since writing the above, intelligence has arrived of the proffered mediation of Eng- land to settle this unhappy dispute, and it is said France has accepted it. America doubtless will accede to this mediation, and thus this affair will be settled in a way hon- ourable to both parties.
DUTY OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANS. 83
would be easily avoided, I think, by prudent management. If men came here with the sole and honest purpose of doing good to the French, by preaching unto them the gospel of Christ, their character would be ultimately understood and their motives ap- preciated.
Finally, if I might be permitted, with my short acquaintance, to make a suggestion on this subject, it would be this. That, as soon as the political relations of the country will permit, a judicious man should be sent out to France as a pioneer, who should survey the field, fix upon the points and manner of approach, and, if cir- cumstances should justify, to be followed by others, by Bibles, and by tracts. And especially that, as soon as circumstances would authorize it, a small religious periodical should be established to act upon the public mind. This, if prudently conducted so as not to alarm the government, would, I think, do wonders. A proper un- derstanding of the French character and of the state of the Prot- estant cause in France, and especially in Paris, would lead to the conclusion, I believe, that a house of worship should be built at once in Paris, and I seriously doubt whether any attempt to make an impression on the Parisians will avail without this. It does not comport with the regulations of the British Wesleyan Mis- sionary Society to build chapels or churches. They say, collect congregations, raise up societies, and they will build you houses ; all this may be very correct for most countries, but I am persuaded it is not the true doctrine for Paris, and it seems to me that a long trial in that city ought to have satisfied them of this. If we should commence a mission here, this should be our first object. Another important consideration : France is a scientific and literary nation ; and any attempt to evangelize her should be connected with a native agency, and a native agency properly fitted for the work. That the natives of France should be chiefly depended upon for this great work, there can be no doubt. This should always be the reliance in all efforts to evangelize the world. The longer an efficient native ministry is delayed, the more the work will be re- tarded. But a civilized country — a proud country — a nominally Christian country, will have her national pride excited to be con- sidered under the charitable protection and instruction of foreign- ers, and thus access to the public ear and heart might be cut off. The evangelical course, therefore, should be commenced and
84 PRANCE.
aided by Christians abroad ; but all possible aid should be secured in the nation, and to this end a school should be opened in Paris. Here, with a little expense — for the lectures of a scientific and literary character, which are open to all in Paris, would greatly dimmish the expense- — young men might be trained for the good of France. And if at first they were mostly American youth, yet if educated here, so as to preach in the French language without a foreign accent, it would greatly facilitate the work. And as Paris is France, such an establishment in the capital, aided by the press, would, by the Divine blessing, soon enable us to speak of the French Methodist Church.
As an additional consideration, it should not be forgotten that Paris contains a great many Americans ; probably there are from the United States, in the city of Paris, continually from two to three thousand, and this number is yearly increasing.* A good house of worship, conveniently situated, would accommodate, at different hours, both Americans and Frenchmen, in the English and French languages. How many might in this way be induced to attend worship on the Sabbath, and perhaps saved from dissipa- tion and sensuality, who are now drawn into the vortex of pleasure, because they lack those restraints to which they have been accus- tomed at home ! It is a general remark in Paris that Americans are more licentious than the Parisians themselves. Many youth of both sexes, doubtless, finding themselves unrestrained and sur- rounded with temptation, break over all bounds, and run the race of pleasure with the more greediness, because it is new.f Shall we not try to save them ? Shall we not endeavour to form an American Society, that shall have a public opinion of its own in Paris to restrain the young and aid the erring ? But how shall we do this without the gospel ? and are we not especially bound to follow, with the means of grace, our own wandering children, wherever they go, more particularly when they gather in any one place in sufficient numbers to make it practicable and easy to do this ?
An influential minister of the gospel, therefore, might superin-
* At the late introduction of our new minister Gov. Cass at the court of France, 1700 American citizens called to pay him their respects and welcome him to Paris.
t One young lady of decided piety, as it was supposed at home, left one of our first cities to reside a while in Paris. The first Sabbath she wept at the desecration of the Lord's day ; but in three or four weeks she herself was at the opera on Sunday evening.
ARRIVAL AT LYONS. 85
tend the mission, the school, and the press, and at the same time be usefully employed both as a preacher and a pastor to his own countrymen. How long, then, shall a work of this kind be delayed ? Suppose it require an outlay at the first of 50,000 dol- lars; suppose it require an annual expenditure of 10 or 15,000 dollars to sustain it, how could American Christians devote that sum to better advantage ? Where is there a field that promises a better harvest, or that claims our attention by stronger obligations ? But I must close this long letter. You may hear from* me again on this subject. In the mean time, I beg the privilege of saying to you, and, through you, to my friends in America, that my health and that of Mrs. F. are much better.
Most affectionately yours,
W. FISK.
CHAPTER VI.
LEFT Paris in the diligence, December 17, 1835, and contin- v-id without stopping, except to eat, for four days and three nights, when we arrived at Lyons.
The road from Paris to Lyons was excellent — contrary to all expectations and to all information, and the diligence was remark- ably convenient. Indeed, I know of no public carriage in any country more comfortable, especially in the winter, than the French
diligence. Mr. , who is now travelling in Europe, has said,
in a letter published just as I was leaving America, that England was a century in advance of America in stagecoaching. The correctness of this I have never been able to discover. I think England" is in some respects behind France. Indeed, although the French diligences have been a subject of ridicule to almost all tourists, and the English stagecoaches a subject of praise, I con- fess, for myself, that I prefer the diligence altogether. .The Eng- lish, it is true, on some of their principal routes, exceed all others for speed. This is owing, in part, to their excellent, unrivalled roads. They have also good horses. But what, besides their 8
86 FRANCE.
speed and punctuality, have the English stagecoaches to boast of? They have but four seats under cover, or inside, as they term it, and these four inside passengers are wedged in with a compact ness beyond all comfort, not to say beyond all endurance. The outside passengers are exposed to heat, and cold, and rain, have a hard oak plank generally for their seat, and an iron rod to their back. The guard and coachmen are ever and anon tipping their hats to you, and saying, " Please remember the coachman," " Please re- member the guard," both of which must be regularly feed. You are so hurried on every moment that they will neither give you time to satisfy hunger nor anything else. Now the very reverse of all this is true of the French diligence. It is the opposite of the English stagecoach in speed. It travels at the rate of about one hundred miles in twenty-four hours, always going night and day. Indeed, they seem rather to prefer the night to the day ; for if they have a journey of thirty-six hours to accomplish, they will start at night, so as to be out two nights and one day, instead of starting in the morning, so as to be out but one night. But, then, they give you ample time to eat, and you are comfortable in your seat by day and by night. I was astonished at the comfort with which we endured the ride of three successive nights ; we slept tolerably, and were well defended from the cold, although the ground was covered with snow and hardened by frost. But a French diligence, with all its rigging, is truly, to look at, a laugha- ble affair. It is a moveable edifice of three rooms. The first or foremost is called the Coupe, and holds three. This is very pleasant in comfortable weather, as it has glass in the front and at the sides, and, for the accommodation of such as may wish to see themselves, many of them are fitted up with a looking-glass, be- sides huge pockets in which to stow away your roast chicken and other eatables, of which the traveller does well to lay in a good stock^ especially in particular sections of the route, as good hotels ate scarce. But in cold weather the coupe is rather airy, and there- fore less comfortable than the Interior, which is the next apart- ment, with accommodations for six, three on a seat, vis-a-vis. The next apartment, and the least honourable, is the Rotond, which is generally entered behind like an omnibus, and the seats run, as the sailors say, fore and aft. This also will hold six. The prices
A FRENCH DILIGENCE. 87
vary in each apartment, being highest in the cowpe, and the next is the interior ; all these are separated by thick cushioned walls.
To this huge machine four or six horses are tied, generally by rope traces, with immense collars and hames covered with skins on the shoulders. The straps of the harness are wide and awk- ward ; the headstalls are heavy, and covered with nobs of faded ar tificial flowers, almost as big as teacups, or hung over with tas- sels and bows, until the poor animals look as though they were half blinded and suffocated in their own ornaments ; and now the postillion with his livery, his long boots armed with wood or iron on the interior leg, mounts his nigh wheel-horse, and if they have six, another similarly equipped mounts the next, and then such cracking of the whips and rumbling of the machine follows as would deafen one not accustomed to such noises. There were six of us Americans in company, viz., Mr. J. H. and lady and little son from New- York, Rev. Mr. H. from Boston, and Mrs. F. and myself; with this company we enjoyed social life, as well as the novelty of the scenes through which we passed. Our road lay through a number of small towns, which it will be hardly worth while to enumerate, although most of them are associated with some important event in past history. The traveller leaves Paris on the left bank of the Seine ; soon crosses the Marne, which is a branch of the Seine, and follows up the valley of that river until he reaches the Yonne, twenty leagues from Paris, and thence up the Yonne, or near its course, to its head waters, and thence across to the waters of the Saone. The principal towns passed are Melun, Sens, Auxerre, Sautter e, Autun, to Chalons-sur- Saone, or Chalons on the Saone. The distance from Paris to Chalons by this route is eighty-nine leagues, in a southwestern direction. Melun has a population of 7000. Between Melun and Sens is Montereau, where, in 1814, a severe battle was fought between the French and the allies. Sens has a population of 1 1,000. Auxerre is on the river Yonne, and has a population of 13,000. Autun was anciently called Augustodunum, in honour of Augustus Caesar. The inhabitants were the ancient ^Edui, and are said to have as- sisted Caesar in his conquest of Gaul, on which account they were greatly honoured by the Romans, and were admitted into the Roman Senate. Ancient Roman remains are still found here, but we had not time to examine them. One feels a melancholy interest in
88 FRANCE.
traversing these countries, and passing the very places where ancient heroes lived and fought, and where the very monuments of their deeds are crumbling to dust.
The geology of the country seemed mostly very similar, so far as we had an opportunity of examining it, to what it was from Dover to Paris — a chalky soil with limestone. The products of the soil are grain and grapes. The vineyards were abundant, but were different in their appearance from the images of my own fancy. I had anticipated that I should see all the vineyards hanging in festoons, and running in extended vines over trees and rustic arcades ; instead of which, the vines were short and scrubby ; not higher, perhaps, than four or six feet, some of them supported by stakes, and others, when the stock was sufficiently strong, supporting their own weight. Sometimes the vines would be in rows so near that the intervening soil was not cultivated for other crops ; but at other times they would be planted in rows at two or three rods distance, and the space between was ploughed and tilled ; thus dividing the face of the country into lovely lawns, with intermediate hedges of clustering grapes, which, in the proper season, must be very picturesque and delightful.
The public roads in France are wide, and generally ornamented with rows of lofty trees on either side, which give them a grand appearance. The French are peculiarly fond of trees planted in regular rows ; not only is this the style of their public gardens, as is seen in Paris and other towns, and of the public roads, as men- tioned above, but their more private lanes and their meandering watercourses are often lined with a range of trees on either side. These trees are not like the shade-trees that are planted in our country, with low and branching tops, but rather high and com- paratively slender.
In all the northern and central parts of France through which we passed there were no hedgerows like those of England, nor walls and fences like our own country ; but the whole country appears in one common field of extended magnificence. Let the reader imagine himself on an eminence, where nothing but the distant mountain or the arch of the sensible horizon bounds his vision ; let him fancy an agreeable variety of extended but gradual slopes of hill and dale spread out before him, over which he be- holds the surface of one boundless and undivided plantation, except
FRENCH SCENERY. 89
the long and straight lines of various colours from the different crops and different modes of cultivation; and here and there double ranges, as far as the eye can follow, of these leafy col- onnades of lofty trees already alluded to, and he will have, I think, a tolerable idea of a French landscape. It is not so beautiful as it is magnificent. It was to me, however, particularly pleasant, the more so, I suppose, because I had just come from England, where the mind is cramped and straitened by the minute chess- board divisions of the rural scenery of that country. The English think there is nothing so dull and insipid as the scenery of France. How much we are, even in our taste, the creatures of habit !
It is proper here, however, to observe, that, as you go farther south, there are more hedges and walls between the different estates and fields. The American traveller, when he first enters France, cannot but be strujck with the entire absence, apparently, of what we call comfort, in the cabins of the lower classes. They live almost universally in villages. You may travel several miles over well-cultivated fields, but see no dwelling; at length you come to a petty town or village, and here you find herded together in one dirty place the labourers for several square leagues of land. Their houses are generally built of stone, more frequently than otherwise in a low vale, where, of course, the ground is moist; the floors are as low or lower than the streets, and generally of stone, or tiles, or earth. They are placed, moreover, as near the street as it is possible to place them ; and on the same line with the house, and most always under the same roof, are their bam and stable. With these appendages, and in this locality, with a soil naturally clammy and adhesive, and with the most slovenly habits, the reader may readily conceive how much mud and manure will be likely to be carried into the house upon the wooden shoes, or sabots, as they call them, of a French family. When the dirt has accumulated so as to be uncomfortable to the inmates, you may see them sometimes scraping it out, as a farmer his stable ; add to this, these cottages are badly lighted and poorly furnished. Can there be anything like comfort here ?
Another circumstance which cannot fail to strike the American
traveller unfavourably is the drudgery and exposure of the
women. The women of France, thought I, when we first landed
at Boulogne, and saw females bending under heavy loads in bas-
8 M
90 FRANCE.
kets, and wooden frames fitted to their backs, and strapped to their shoulders, the women of France are beasts of burden. You are further impressed with this sentiment as you travel through the country, and see the women engaged in all the drudgery of the field and of other out-door labour. You see them with their spades, their teams, and their market-carts ; they are porters and common carriers in some instances, they are street-scavengers in others. Indeed, in many respects, the order of labour between the sexes is inverted in France ; for while females are engaged as above, males are very generally employed in various departments of household labour; they are sometimes cooks, and in most public-houses you have men for chambermaids. It is perhaps owing to their employment that the countrywomen appear to me so much more rustic and unrefined than the men. The latter were very much like the yeomanry of our own country. But to see by the side of a man, who with us would be taken for a de- cent and intelligent labourer, a woman with a pair of wooden shoes, a very short striped petticoat, and a short loose gown or jacket, with a tanned skin and rough features, standing, if not at work, with both hands in her pockets on either hip, seemed to me, at any rate, a very great incongruity. The man looked like other men of his standing and employment in the nineteenth century, but the woman was so unlike the decently dressed, comparatively soft, and feminine wife of an American peasant, that I am, without a moment's hesitancy, led to the conclusion, that in the one case the woman is honoured as becomes her condition, and in the other she is degraded.
The foregoing remarks, however, do not apply to a great por- tion of the common women of Paris, who are certainly a neater, better dressed, and a more cheerful class than I have ever seen of the same grade elsewhere.
Neither do these characteristics at all mark the relations of the two sexes in the higher grades of society. There the relations are reversed ; woman is placed too high. In the one case she is an idol, and in the other a mere drudge. But to return to my narrative. The general style of building in France, especially in the country, is heavy and uninteresting. This is owing in part to the material, which is a soft limestone, and in part to the style of the country edifices ; stone is plenty, brick and wood are scarce.
KILLING TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE. 91
Hence everything is built of stone ; the humble cottage and the stately mansion ; the stable and the palace. The character of the stone is dull and soft, and the external surface is generally covered with a coarse, dull stucco. If you pass a gentleman's chateau, you will find it of the same character, and it will be en- closed, and, to a considerable degree, hidden by a high stone wall of heavy masonry and coarse stucco. iSuch an edifice, with its enclosure, has with it, to my mind, associations of anything but comfort. It is a convent, a stable, a prison; anything but a convenient, pleasant residence for domestic enjoyment.
Many of the public hotels are miserable hovels ; and they are at the same time so constructed as to give the traveller a view of the worst parts of the concern at his first entrance. Not unfre- quently they are entered through the kitchen ; and such a kitchen ! I will not undertake to describe it. Suffice it to say, I tried, in one or two instances, for the sake of the female part of our com- pany, whose taste in these matters was rather delicate, to avoid this entrance ; but it was unavoidable ; we must pass to our di- ning-room through the cookshop, and be initiated into the gen- eral aspect, at least, of the mysteries of French cooking. How- ever disadvantageous this might be to us, it was certainly for the interest of the innholder ; for one must feel pretty keenly the bitings of hunger to eat very voraciously after such an initiation. In one instance, one of our company undertook to regulate the boiling of some eggs, for which purpose he found it necessary to watch the process in person. To his surprise, the eggs were put into a soup-pot that was boiling over the fire. After the process was finished, the broth that had served to cook the eggs was served up for another company that was dining in the same room.
The French, and the same is true of the Italians, have the art of disguising their meats in such a variety of forms and dressings, that it is difficult to tell what the original substance was. This enables them to dress over and serve up indefinitely the same old dish, until, by the friction of the process, and the picking and tast- ing of the traveller, the whole is exhausted. It would be a hope- less task to undertake to trace the various transformations the article before you has undergone before it appears on your dish. It was boiled for soup, perhaps ; then it was roasted ; it was fric- aseed ; it was smothered in garlics ; it was warmed over, and
92 FRANCE.
dressed in parsley ; and now it appears to you in a new form ; and if you do not like this, here is another dish, and yet another, and another still ; but, alas ! they are all nameless, and their his- tory can only be traced out by remote tradition !
These remarks do not so much apply to the best inns in the large cities ; here you often find a good table, and, in some re- spects, a very superior cookery.
The chill of the rooms, from the thick stone walls and the stone or brick floors, almost invariably destitute of carpets, renders travelling in France, especially in cold or damp weather, very un- healthy. Whatever may be thought of the climate of France, I could never recommend it as a favourable winter resort for invalids. But to return to our journey : Chalons sur Saone appears, from the imperfect view we had of it, to be a pleasant town ; its streets were cleaner, and its buildings were better than those of the towns through which we had passed ; at any rate, it afforded us a very good dinner, which was no small luxury after what we had ex perienced. This town is situated on the right bank of the Saone, and has a water communication with the interior by means of the Central Canal, which extends twenty-four leagues across to the waters of the Loire ; thijs giving a water communication between the two extremes of the kingdom.
The route from Chalons to Lyons, being a distance of thirty- two leagues down the valley of the Saone, was, for the most part, very interesting, especially the lower section. Unlike what we had before seen in France, the country generally appeared to be inhabited. Country seats and cottages were sprinkled over the hills and through the vales, and an appearance of general wealth and prosperity cheered the scene. These were multiplied as we ap- proached Lyons. As you draw near this city, you first ascend, and afterward descend, a high hill. The view from the top is fine, and gives to the public house on the height the appellation of ISHotel de la Belle Vieu. Lyons itself, according to our exam- ination and estimate of it, is only fine in its surrounding eminen- ces, which are covered with villas, and gardens, and churches, and castles. They are, in general, high and picturesque, rising some two, three, or four hundred feet above the town, and cannot fail, I think, in summer, of being highly beautiful. We had a fine view of these environs as we approached the city. The town
LYONS. 93
itself is situated on the point of land formed by the junction of the Saone and the Rhone. The former, coming from the chalky re- gions of France, is said to be discoloured, like other French rivers, with the soil through which it passes ; but the latter, coming from the limpid Lake of Geneva, and replenished by the numerous streams of the Alps, preserves its transparency up to the point of its junction with its compeer; and even then, as if reluctantly yield- ing to the polluting amalgamation, crowds the turbid stream to its own shore, and for a long time- main tains its own purity and iden- tity. So we were informed ; but, when we saw it, both streams were of the same colour, being bridged over with ice. With the exception of the bridges and the quays, Lyons is an uninteresting, I might almost say a disagreeable town. The streets are narrow and dirty. We walked through several of the streets where they had their dry goods-shops, in dark, narrow, dirty lanes, that seemed altogether unfit for the business of a shoeblack. The Place Belle CourSj we were told, is thought by the Lyonese to be splendid ; we were so unfortunate, however, as not to see its beauty. The, Hotel de Ville and the museum are worth visiting. The stranger will find some tolerable paintings, and a great variety of ancient tombstones, sarcophagi, and other antiquities, and ancient inscrip- tions.* We visited a grand hospital which fronts on the Saone, and is said to have no rival in France. The number of inmates was at that time 2000. The building appeared to be only toler- ably kept. Near the hospital is a royal college. The public library has 100,000 volumes and 800 manuscripts.
Lyons has a population of 180,000, and is a city of great com mercial importance. The principal staple of commerce for ex- port is silk stufTs of various kinds. The manufacture of silk is, for the most part, in a private, domestic way, although there are some large establishments in the vicinity.
For some cause, Lyons has given the most trouble to the pres- ent king of any city of France. There appears to be a spirit in favour of the old dynasty which requires the strong arm of law and the power of the military to restrain. This city is, in fact, an exception to the general centralization spirit that prevails in the French nation, and which concedes everything to Paris.
* These are from the site of the ancient Lugdunum, founded on a hill just above Lyons forty-two years before the Christian era.
94 FRANCE.
Rousseau is to Lyons what Voltaire is to Paris, the presiding deity of the city. Here are his residence, his gardens, his walks, &c., &c., all of which must be visited by the traveller if he would not be accounted a heretic in taste and a Vandal in respect to genius ; and yet we all had the hardihood to leave the city without visiting any of the associations of his history.
We had been in Lyons only two days, but were quite satis- fied to leave it. The weather was cold ; the hotel cheerless ; wood high, being about four or five sous or cents for each small stick. On Tuesday evening, therefore, December 22d, we took our seats for the Alps, by the way of Chamberry and Mount Cenis. We arrived the next morning early at a little town called Pont de Beauvoisin, which is the line town between France and Savoy. A small stream, called the Guieres, passing through the village, forms the boundary. On the centre of the bridge is a cross, and here the two sentinels, one of either kingdom, meet and part in their constant walk on their respective positions each side of the cross. Here, too, passports are called for and baggage is exam- ined, and not only baggage, but persons. Our ladies had to sub- mit to have their cloaks opened and their persons slightly exam- ined by the officers, who, poor fellows, seemed mortified at the necessity they were under of performing this part of their duty. They let us off very easy, giving even our trunks but a slight ex- amination, and some of them they passed without opening. While the remainder of the diligence freight was being examined, we went back to the bridge, with the design of crossing over to the other part of the village ; but the custom-house officer gave us to under- stand that we could not go without a guard, lest we should bring back some contraband goods ; so, after amusing ourselves a little by seeing the officers take hold of every villager that passed and repassed the bridge, and stroke down his or her sides to detect any concealed goods, we returned. After a detention of three or four hours we again took our seats. And now the mountain sce- nery commenced. The trees were covered with a most beautiful winter foliage of crystallized silver. The mountain sides were covered with vines and with orchards on one side, and on the other the noisy Guieres fretted along, or shot in cascades down a deep yawning gulf. Over this gulf the road formerly hung with a hazardous and defenceless approximation to the precipice below ;
PASSAGE OF THE JURA ALPS. 95
but now the gulf side of the road is defended by a strong parapet wall breast high.
After passing through the gorge of the mountains, which was quite romantic and sublime, we wound round into a pleasant val- ley, which, after a little while, seemed to come to an end ; the road turned short over a beautiful bridge of one stone arch, and nestled along under a high, abrupt mountain, which hung in proud defiance, like an impassable barrier, over the approaching traveller. Vain defiance ! What will not the ingenuity and industry of man accomplish ? Look across the valley at that little pigeon-hole that opens into the side of the precipice four hundred feet below its top. You cannot decipher its design. You advance up the mountain side ; you enter the opening, and find, to your admira- tion and delight, a grotto, with a fine lofty arch, extending about 300 paces through the limestone rock to a gorge on the opposite side. When we had passed through, and turned back to view the scene, the exhibition was stupendous j the superincumbent mount- ain over the arch ; the deep gorge through which the road passed after it debouched from the grotto; the high craggy rocks on either side towering above the clouds, together with the associate emotions arising from the contemplation of the power of human skill and industry in overcoming the greatest obstacles of nature, produced a train of emotions that I have seldom felt and never can describe.
This road and the tunnel through the mountain was executed at the first by Charles Emanuel, duke of Savoy, in 1670, but was greatly improved by Napoleon. The mountain here is called the Echelles, and is the southern part of the Jura Alps.
It was at first spoken of as a matter of regret by our party that we had to pass the mountains in the winter, as the scenery, it was supposed, would be much more interesting in the summer. But we had occasion afterward to doubt the propriety of that regret. A mountain passage like this savours at any time more of the sublime than of the beautiful ; and winter, with his fleecy clouds wreathed round the mountain-top ; with his white mantle of sleet covering the broad shoulders of the giant hills, and congealing into belts of silver, studded with pearl, the numerous rivulets and cascades that wind round and fall down their hoary sides, gives to the natural exhibition a heightened sublimity ; and when the
96 SAVOY.
winter scene is rendered peculiar, as in the present instance, by reason of the crystalline hoarfrost already alluded to, it is not only grand, but gorgeous. It was this combination of circumstances that heightened the general effect of the present passage.
But, in addition, there was a peculiar occurrence, which gave a most splendid feature to the scene ; an aerial exhibition, which I can never describe so as to give a mere reader any adequate con- ception of it ; but I will attempt a sketch of some of its principal parts. The heavy veil of rack and mist which was spread out upon the mountains associated gloom and obscurity with the other characteristics of sublimity. This mist, however, as it after- ward appeared, only extended part way up the mountains ; for a rent in the curtain disclosed, as through a window, far,/ezr upward in the blue ether, the silver turrets of the mountain- top, throwing back the bright beams of a cloudless sun. The mountain was high, very high ; but the apparent height was doubtless magnified by the narrowness of the aperture and by the darkness of the fore- ground contrasted with the intense light of the distant prospect. The world around us was indeed a world of shadows, but that world of which we gained a distant glimpse was one of unearthly brightness. It seemed like a sight of the most excellent glory — a distant yet bright vision of the
" House of our Father above, The palace of angels and God."
We watched for some time this splendid palace of the skies ; and the shifting of the misty veil without closing up the aperture served but to give new aspects to the celestial vision. At one time it hung in festoons around the cylinder of light, and at an- other it shot upward in a twisted wreath around the outbeaming glory, exhibiting a spiral column of light and shade. I have often read descriptions of that heavenly city whose walls are of jasper, whose streets are of gold, and whose gates are of pearl, and whose heavenly turrets throw back the glory of God and the Lamb. But of this I never had so vivid a conception as now flashed upon my mind and kindled upon my imagination ! It is all but reality ! It is the upper world !
" By faith I already behold
That lovely Jerusalem here ; The walls are of jasper and gold, As crystal her buildings are clear.
CHAMBERRY. 97
" Immoveably founded in grace,
She stands as she ever hath stood, And brightly her Builder displays, And flames with the GLORY of GOD."
The road, after we passed the tunnel into the deep valley allu- ded to, followed down the pass of the mountains by a long and gentle descent until it reached Chamberry, the capital of Savoy, ten leagues from Pont de Beauvoisin, where we arrived at dusk, and stopped for dinner.
The situation of Chamberry is pleasant, in a valley watered by two small rivers, Albano and Leisse, and apparently surrounded by mountains. Its population is estimated at 15,000. It has extensive barracks and a garrison of soldiers, made up mostly of recruits from Piedmont and the more distant parts of the Sar- dinian government, as Savoyards cannot be trusted to garrison their own cities ; a plain proof that the government is not accept- able to the people. And why should it be ? The father of the present King of Sardinia was indebted to the allied sovereigns, at the dethronement of Napoleon in 1814, for his present kingdom. This is a kind of barrier kingdom of mountains, as it embraces the greater portion of the Southern Alps and the Northern Apen- nines. Thus, between France, and Switzerland, and the Italian states, the natural mountain barrier is committed to a dependant king, who can at best serve the purpose of a picket-guard to his more powerful eastern neighbours ; and who, as he has little to do with the politics of Europe further than to obey his masters, has the more time to perform the part allotted him. And as this kingdom is his little all, he will feel, doubtless, a great interest in guarding and defending it. But his subjects are mostly mount- aineers, and unaccustomed to the yoke ; and some of them, in fact, in their former history, republican in their form of govern- ment. It requires, therefore, the more care to keep them in sub- jection, and this again increases their burdens, and, of course, their apposition to the power that oppresses them. What have they to hope ? Time was when, if they had nothing else, they had their liberty ; but now they have a master imposed upon them ; they have poverty and oppression.
In passing from Chamberry to Lans-le-bourg at the base of Mount Cenis, a distance of thirty-six leagues, the road follows iap a 9 N
98 SAVOY.
valley, or a succession of valleys, of varied width, but growing nar- rower as it advances, until it becomes simply fc pass of the mount- ains. Through its whole course the valley seems well cultivated, and on either side shut in by lofty mountains. There are no towns of particular interest, and the villages generally are miser- able collections of miserable dwellings. The inhabitants appeared ragged, dirty, and sickly, great numbers of them being afflicted with the goitres or swelled necks; are rather dwarfish in their stature, and many of them deformed. Like those in France, their houses are of stone, many of them thrown up in a very rough way, and slated over with flat stones rough from the quarry. Their dwel- lings were very generally, with the exception of the occasional vil- lages in the valleys, built high up the steep, and, to appearance from below, the inaccessible sides of the mountain, hanging on the precipices as if waiting the first motion of the avalanche to slide down into the vale below. By cutting steps and following zigzag courses, they not only climb these steeps themselves, but in most cases their donkeys also find foothold up and down their devious and dangerous pathways. On these donkeys they fix pack-sad- dles, with side straps fastened to either end of a bent stick, which passes round the thighs of the little animal, by which the saddle and the burden are kept in their proper position on the back. These animals are of great service to these mountaineers ; for they will live on a very little, travel where no other beast of bur- den can, endure great hardships, and perform much labour. It was amusing of a morning to see groups of these donkeys, with their drivers, collecting in every direction from the mountains to one of their little market towns, bringing what they may to market. The more common article at this season of the year is wood, such as it was, fagots, panniers of roots, and little bundles of catsticks, bound up and placed upon the backs of the asses. And even these little loads were too great for the purses of many of the villagers, who appeared to live without fire, or went themselves and gathered upon the mountains some small combustibles, which they brought upon their backs, and thus, if in no other way, they gained some heat from the exercise.
The cause of the swellings upon the necks of these Savoyards (and the same disease prevails more or less on the side of Pied- mont also) it is difficult perhaps to determine ; at any rate, there
ASCENT OF THE ALPS. 99
seem to be different opinions on the subject ; probably it is owing to the water, which is very highly impregnated with lime.
The passage of the Echelles, and, in fact, all the mountains to the Piedmont barrier, are of limestone, although the eastern side of the mountain and the valley of Suza become in a great measure granite and slate. In one place, beyond a little town called St. Jean de Maurienne, a rivulet comes down the mountain, which has, from the quality of the water, formed for itself a natural cal- careous aqueduct through its whole course. The appearance is singularly interesting. The water, by its petrifying qualities and calcareous depositions, has raised itself many inches above the ground on either side of it, and formed for itself an artificial spout or aqueduct, as far as the eye could follow it up the side of the mountain. If such an effect may be produced by the water in one case, where the calcareous solution is of a strong character, why may not the constant use of the water injure the channels of the human system ?
We arrived at Lans-le-bourg in the evening, which, as the mount- ain could not be safely passed in the night, gave us an opportunity not unwelcome, after spending two nights in the diligence, of pas- sing a few hours of the third in bed. It was, however, a short night, and on the next morning before the dawn we were climb- ing up the sides of the Alps on one of the sublimest roads in the world, for which, as for many other enterprises that have printed his name indelibly upon the everlasting mountains, the world is indebted to the genius and perseverance of Napoleon Bonaparte. Although the ascent to Lans-le-bourg was very gradual, and without a mountain except the Echelles, which was descended as well as ascended, yet this village is said to be 4332 feet above the level of the sea; and we were now to rise in one or two miles, I should judge at farthest, if we could have gone in a direct line, 1566 feet higher before we could reach the plain of St. Nicholas, the summit level of the pass. To ac- complish this it was necessary to take a zigzag course up the mountain. The scene was too magnificent to allow of a confine- ment in the diligence, and, in defiance of the cold and the fatigue, a number of us walked most of the distance to the summit. When we had been travelling about three hours, at a particular turn of the road, a little village, in a very deep valley just under our feet,
100
SAVOY.
presented itself to view ; what it was, or how it could be so near and not be observed before, I could not devise. On inquiry, how- ever, I was surprised to learn that k was the very village from which we had started that morning ! In less than another hour we reached the top. The weather was extremely cold, and the air had become exceedingly rarefied, so that I had to pant for breath, and seemed never able to inhale enough to supply the purposes of life. It was, therefore, with no small pleasure that I found the labour of the ascent completed. Here the conducteur dismissed his five extra mules by which we had been drawn up, and with one pair of horses commenced the descent. The top of the pass is by no means the top of the mountain, for it is itself a valley, and the heights on either side reared their snowy and barren crests still higher into the clouds. On this mountain plain is the barrier between Savoy and Piedmont. Here, too, is a mountain-lake and a fortification, where a small garrison is sta- tioned, who, if they can do nothing else, have an opportunity of examining travellers' passports ; a great and leading business, one would think, in the governments of Europe.
The morning was as fine, perhaps, as ever mirrored back the rays of the sun from the snowy sides and crystal glaciers of Mount Cenis, and the entire passage, although the frost was severe, was most delightful. Indeed, we could not see why the passage may not be perfectly safe and easy at any season of the year. The ascent is so gradual, and the road is so hard and so well defended with parapet walls, that a horse can trot in a light carriage with ease and safety in any part of the distance. There are avalanches, however, in some places in the spring of the year ; one in 1831 killed a number of persons and horses; and the snowstorms and winds are said to be at some times very severe and dangerous. To prevent any serious difficulty or delay, how- ever, Napoleon had " houses of refuge" established at short dis- tances, to the number of twenty-five, where reside families whose sole business is to succour travellers ; some of them are fur- nished with bells to ring in a dark night or during a storm for the direction of the bewildered travellers. There are stationed here also, to clear the roads of snow, avalanches, &c., two com- panies of men called cantonniers, to the number of twenty-six each, who reside in these refuges, and on either side of the mountain,
DESCENT OF MOUNT QSJS'IS. , ,
and are therefore always at hand for the objects proposed. With such a road and with such helps, it has been well said, " There are no longer any Alps from Lans-le-bourg to Suza." While Napoleon, as an ambitious conqueror, broke through the lines of states and kingdoms, and united numerous small sovereignties under one government, he also, as a man of genius and enterprise, broke through the barriers of nature, and joined together, by the greatest facilities of intercommunication, countries that had been separated ever since the flood. I can hardly refrain from saying, as I pass, that as, in the latter, all will give him due credit^ so every traveller, I think, who sees the withering influence of these petty govern- ments, and who has experienced, as I have every few miles, the interference and examination of the agents of some petty prince, will wish that he had been equally successful in the former. One could hardly desire to see another Bonaparte ; but a breaking up of these contemptible duchies and principalities is a most desira- ble event. But more of this hereafter.
The descent of Mount Cenis, in our way to Turin, was much more magnificent than the ascent on the other side. Leaving the plain of St. Nicholas, you descend an almost perpendicular mount- ain by several stupendous galleries cut in the solid granite. These galleries are guarded by strong walls, and the road is spacious and of easy carriage. You see it not winding, but doub- ling below you, stage after stage, upon the steep precipice ; a cas- cade from the mountain is constantly crossing your course, but conducted under you by beautiful arches ; and on the right and left of the scene, as you look into the valley of Cenis below, are Mount Genevre and Rochemelon piercing the clouds. After pas- sing into the valley of Cenis and through it, you again descend and descend till you reach the valley of Suza, which is watered by the Doria Riparia, a tributary of the Po. You see below delightful valleys, checkered with villages, and laid out into vine- yards, and at such a distance beneath you that at first you are in doubt whether the houses of the villages be not the stones of the valley ; and the vineyards, with their straight lines, look like the marks of a chessboard. On the sides of the mountains, wherever it is practicable, terraces are formed and planted with vines ; and the mountain cottages are hung out upon the verge in the manner already described. We were quite as long descending to Suza 9
: J02 c . ITALY.
as we were ' ascending from Lans-le-bourg. The distance was greater, and these postillions are remarkably careful and moderate in descending. Our coachmen in America drive down the Al- leghanies in a comparatively narrow road, and with little or no guards on the precipice side, upon a fast trot ; whereas here they put their drag upon the wheel, and drive down scarcely faster than a man can walk. Indeed, for about one hour of the descent, Mr. H. and myself walked ahead of the diligence. We arrived at Suza, situated at the base of the mountain, in a beautiful valley, a little after midday. From Suza we followed down the Doria through a delightful valley, and the most of the way very fruitful apparently, to Turin, fourteen and a half leagues from Suza, making the entire distance from Lyons to Turin eighty-one leagues.
It was evening before we reached Turin, but the approach was beautiful. The ground was covered with a light snow, or rather, perhaps, a thick hoarfrost, which clad the trees also with a foliage of silver. The road, for miles before we reached the city, was beautified on either side with a proud colonnade of trees. But the beauty of the scene did not make us regret the close of the journey, and we entered Turin gratified with our passage, thank- ful, I trust, to the kind Providence which had preserved us, and glad to find a resting-place.
CHAPTER VII.
To the Students of the Wesleyan University.
Turin, December 26, 1835.
YOUNG GENTLEMEN,
Having now entered Italy, the land of classic story and of ancient renown, I pause for a few moments to contemplate the scene be- fore me. These mountains and valleys are the same that they were in the days of ancient Rome. But all else is changed; political, social, and religious society is changed. This change has been the work of centuries, the result of successive conquests by foreign barbarians, and of numerous revolution by internal discord and civil war.
SKETCHES OF ITALIAN HISTORY. 103
With the ancient history of Italy you are made acquainted by your daily studies ; but I have good reason to suppose that you, and, in fact, a great portion of the youth of our country, are com- paratively ignorant of the intervening history of Italy, from the fall of the empire to the commencement of the present century. I have therefore thought it desirable to draw your attention, and the attention of the American youth generally, to this subject, by prefacing what I may hereafter write of the present state of this country by a brief sketch of its history since the latter part of the fifth century.
After a succession of emperors and the general deterioration of the ancient Roman spirit, in 476 Odoacer assumed the su- preme government under the title of king, having conquered and deposed the reigning emperor. This was followed in about sev- enteen years by the invasion and conquest of the Ostrogoths, who inhabited the country north of the Euxine Sea. These sub- dued the country in 493 ; and, in their turn, were overthrown in 553 by the Roman emperors, so to call them, of Constantinople.* Soon after, viz., in 568, followed the invasion of the Lombards, a fierce and cruel race from the north of Germany. These subdued and held possession of Northern Ita]y from 568 to 774, with the exception of the section around the head of the Adriatic Sea, where the brave inhabitants maintained their independence, and estab- lished the Venetian republic. That part of Southern Italy situa- ted on the shores of the Adriatic still continued under the empe- rors, and was governed by an exarch from Constantinople. Rome, however, was at this time gradually receding from under the power of the emperors, and falling more and more under the temporal, as well as spiritual, control of the Archbishop of Rome, who was already assuming that authoritative jurisdiction which was afterward claimed to such an extent and exercised with such arrogancy and tyranny. Naples also, with all the southern coun- try known by the name of Magna Graecia, maintained its in- dependence under something like republican forms of govern- ment. In 774 the Franks, allured by the wealth of the country, invaded and desolated the Lombard kingdom ; and, finally, Charles, the king of the Danes, afterward called Charlemagne, subdued the whole of Italy. But instead of pillaging and destroying it,
* The seat of the Roman empire had been transferred to Constantinople.
104 ITALY.
like the preceding conquerors, he conceived the plan of uniting it into one vast empire, in connexion with his other possessions, calling it the western Roman empire. He himself was declared emperor by the pope and the Roman people under the title of Charlemagne in 800, and governed Italy as emperor fourteen years, and his dynasty continued through eighty-eight years, when the last of the race, Charles the Gross, was deposed. For seventy years following the crown was worn by different kings, and was finally settled on the German emperor Otho I. in 961.
In the mean time the feudal system was formed, the process and character of which have been so often described that a detail is not necessary. Suffice it to say, that the system grew very naturally out of the conquests of the country, and the division of the property thus acquired among the higher and lower grades of officers in the victorious army. Each general leader had di- vided to him a portion of the conquered territory, with the sole condition that he should pay homage to his superior, and furnish men for his wars. These general leaders again subdivided their territories among their subordinate officers, under the same con- ditions. Thus the tillers of the ground became mere serfs or slaves, and each chief, in his sphere, maintained a kind of in- dependent military establishment and government of his own, not unfrequently making war in his own right upon a neighbouring chieftain, and sometimes, when he felt himself strong, or when several were disposed to make common cause, opposing the king or emperor himself. This made it necessary for every chief to have his own castle and guard. Thus every high hill be- came a military fortress, and the country and the mountain-tops were covered with ranges of military castles, which remain in multitudes even unto this day, the eloquent mementoes of that tremendous system which reduced the world to slavery, rolled back civilization to barbarism, divided the human race into clans of warlike, bloodthirsty desperadoes and robbers, whose prac- tical motto was, " Might makes right." Unfortunately, too, just at this juncture, as though Heaven had withdrawn its favour and left man an unrestrained prey to his own vile passions, that religion which is our only hope had undergone that corrupting process by which it was made to chime in with the spirit of the times and aggravate all the existing evils. Enough of religion was maintained to work upon the superstitious ignorance of the
SKETCHES OF ITALIAN HISTORY. 105
multitudes who were led on to private and public crimes, all for the love of God and the hope of paradise.
It is, however, specially worthy of remark in all the tracing of historical events — in the changes and corruptions, modifications and reformations of society — that, while there are numerous oc- casions and means of deterioration, so out of some of the most unpromising conjunctures and features of the social disorder and derangement arise frequent occasions of amelioration and means of renovation to the social system. We have seen that the fre- quent invasions and inundations of the barharians had almost effaced civilization from what had been the brightest spot on the dark disk of the world ; hence it was to be inferred that a contin- uance of these irruptions would put out the lights of civilization for ever. The reverse, however, was the fact. While the Danes and the Normans ravaged England and France, and the Hungari- ans Germany and Upper Italy, and the Saracens, having become masters of Africa, made frequent incursions upon the shores of Middle Italy for purposes of pillage and plunder, the necessity of self-defence induced the cities and small towns to urge with such earnestness and such show of reason the request of the priv- ilege of city walls and city guards as secured success to their importunities. These defences, made at their own expense, and for the imperious necessity of self-defence against foreign robbers, soon gave the villages and cities an importance and an influence by which they secured themselves more and more against the en- croachments of their domestic oppressors, the feudal chiefs. This greater security, moreover, encouraged, and, of course, increased enterprise and industry ; laid the foundation, by consequence, of wealth, of individual and social elevation, of intellectual improve- ment, and all the moral, political, and physical advantages con- nected with these improvements. This, in the end, had a decided- ly advantageous collateral action upon the condition of the peas- antry in the country. For as the citizens and villagers grew more independent and less obsequious to the nobility, these latter be- took themselves more to their country residences ; and, that they might secure the affection and loyalty of the yeomanry, and, withal, to prevent their flying to the cities for advantages denied them without, they granted them increased privileges, armed them, and in various ways meliorated their condition.
O
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From Otho I. the western empire was kept in the same line, through the successive reigns of Otho II. and III., Henry II. called the Saint, Conrad II. the Salick, Henrys III., IV., and V., to the year 1125. In the latter part of this period was the great struggle between the emperors and the church ; or, as we may more properly say, the pope, commonly called the war of the investitures. The question was simply who should invest the church dignitaries with their powers ; the church itself, or the secular authorities ? To understand this fully, it should be recol- lected, that at first the Bishop of Rome, and the same was true of the other bishops, was appointed or elected by the clergy, the senate, and the people of his diocess. As this office, however, be- came a greater object of ambition, great scandal and disorder arose in the election, and the divisions became so bitter and ir- reconcilable that the emperors were obliged to interfere and take the appointment into their own hands. This, in time, led to great abuses. As in all cases where the secular power has the disposi- tion of the affairs and emoluments of the church, these offices, which ought to be kept for pure hands and honest hearts, became the rewards of court favourites and government partisans ; the most unholy became the nominal ministers of the most holy voca- tion. So great were these abuses, that there was a universal voice almost for a reform. This afforded a most favourable occasion to the church for the greatest stride towards supreme power that ever was made by mortal man. And this was accomplished by a single individual, born in Soana, Tuscany, of the most obscure parentage, but of illustrious talents ; I mean Hildebrand, who was better known in after life by the title and name of Pope Gregory VII. His talents were early discovered, and he was sent by his convent to Cluny, in France, for his education. Here he con- ceived the plan, which he afterward executed in great part, of making the pope eligible to office only by the cardinals, and of making the pope's sanction necessary for all the other prelates ; to enable him, by his sole power, to make and depose bishops ; as- semble, preside over, and dissolve councils ; to be absolute mas- ter of princes, with power to absolve their subjects from their oath of allegiance ; and, in fine, to be the vicegerent upon earth of God himself. He was made pope in 1073. His success in humbling Henry IV., and making him wait three days and three nights,
SKETCHES OF ITALIAN HISTORY. 107
doing penance in the open court of the Chateau de Canossa in the winter, barefooted and fasting, is a piece of history well known, and is but an illustration of Gregory's spirit, his doctrine, and his success.
This power, however, was resisted, and was the fruitful source of numerous and bloody wars. The question was finally settled in the Diet of Worms, 1 122, by a sort of division of claims. The emperor conceded to the pope the right of investing the bishops with the ring and the cross, that is, with their ecclesiastical power, but reserved to himself the right of conferring or withholding the royal rights which appertain to each office. This war had lasted above sixty years, and was finally settled in consequence of the people's becoming wearied with the contest. During its continu- ance, the different cities and duchies took part either with the em- perors or the popes, according to their different affinities, and this laid the foundation for two characteristics, which strongly mark almost all the subsequent history of the Italian states ; and which, therefore, ought to be here particularly noted by all who wish to trace causes and effects in the history of this country. The first is, the divisions, the irreconcilable animosities and jealousies which were thereby begotten between the different cities and states ; animosities and jealousies that continue, to some extent, up to this hour, preventing all concert of counsel and action for the restoration of their independence and liberty, even as they prevented the union which was so necessary to their liberties when they were free. And the second is, what may seem para- doxical when viewed in connexion with the other, so true is it that results, in their different stages of development, are by va- rious collateral combinations opposite to each other, viz., that these very divisions, and the spirit of independence produced by them, were probably hastening causes of the freedom and inde- pendence of the several states. I do not say that these states, if they had kept united, and moved in harmony in attempting a com- mon advancement, would not have become free ; but they would, to all human appearance, have been far less likely to arrive, in this way, to any favourable result. And this will appear the more evident, if it is remembered that the idea of a represent- ative republic had never, at that day, dawned upon the world. Search ancient history ; trace through the republics of Greece and
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Rome, and of the more modern Italian states, and you will never, I believe, find the idea hinted at ; at any rate, never experimented upon, or proposed even for experiment. Hence all the republics were small, or, if they became possessed of large territory, the powers that governed that territory were concentrated in one prin- cipal city, and all without were rather held in subjection, as de- pendances upon the concentrated power of the democratic cap- ital. We shall see in the sequel, as, indeed, we might judge a priori, how this circumstance of itself was a sufficient occasion for the dissolution of a flourishing republic. It is alluded to here merely to show that the dissociating influence of the civil wars probably hastened to maturity the republics of Italy in the elev- enth and twelfth centuries. Each city became patriotic for itself; it thought and acted for itself. If it sent an army to the com- mon cause, that army had a distinct character ; was officered by fellow-citizens; fed and paid by them. The cities met in common council, elected their officers, civil and military, appointed their official councils, &c. Here, too, they provided for their own defence by increasing their fortresses and" strengthening their city guards. Thus, while kings, emperors, and popes were en- gaged in their great enterprises, to which, according to custom, perhaps, these cities were contributing their share, they were rapidly advancing in wealth, strength, and knowledge, and thus becoming prepared, at the first favourable opportunity, to assert their entire independence, or, at any rate, to deliver themselves by degrees from the oppressive policy of their chiefs, and gain an increase of privileges for the citizens at large. This is the origin, in general principles, of the more modern free states of Italy. Local causes, of course, hastened or retarded these states in their progress towards maturity, some of which may be traced cursorily in glancing at the several leading republics of Italian history.
It has already been intimated that, in the Lombard conquests some of the Italian cities were not subjected permanently to the yoke of the conquerors ; some of them still retaining their rela- tions to the eastern empire of Constantinople : among these were Genoa and Pisa in central Italy, western coast, Venice on the Adriatic, and Naples, Gaeta, and Amain* in the south. These, however, were so distant from the parent government, and the eastern empire became so inefficient in affording them protection,
:
SKETCHES OF ITALIAN HISTORY. 109
that they grew up into independence, and became inured to self- defence, in the same manner that the neglected orphan often gains a hardy and an enterprising character by being early thrown upon his own resources.
Venice, however, could hardly be said to belong to any empire or state. It was a retreat of low marshy islands in the Adriatic gulf, to which certain citizens of neighbouring cities had, at the time of the northern invasions of the barbarians, betaken them- selves as a protection from these foreign robbers. Here they were secure from robbery, as their enemies had no water craft to follow them ; and this became their permanent residence. They enacted their own laws, chose their own magistrates, and by in- dustry of various kinds, and especially by commerce, they grew up to be the most wealthy and powerful state of Italy. This was the origin of the Venetian republic.
The southern republics had a shorter history. The adventur- ous Normans, that had penetrated into almost every part, seeking adventures, like knights-errant, even before the days of chivalry, penetrated to the south of Italy under Roger II., and between the years 1131 and 1138 subdued these three republican cities, which had heretofore successfully resisted, for the greater part, the bar- barian invaders.
Pisa, however, and Genoa continued to prosper as independent states. Like Venice, they owed their wealth and improvement to commerce, which they conducted in every port of the Mediter- ranean ; and like Venice, also, they had escaped being plundered by the northern invaders, either because they were under the nominal protection of the eastern empire, or because, accustomed to self-defence, they were better able to secure themselves against any successful attack from a foreign foe. It is true the Saracens, in 936, succeeded in taking and pillaging Genoa, and subsequently made two unsuccessful attempts to take Pisa, viz., in 1005 and 1012. But afterward these two cities combined to attack their common enemy, and in 1050 they conquered Sardinia from the Saracens, and, not long after, the Balearic islands.
As a proof of the affluence and power of these three little mar- itime republics, Venice, Pisa, and Genoa, we are told that at the commencement of the crusades, at the close of the eleventh cen- tury, they had more vessels in the Mediterranean than all the rest 10
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of Christendom. They seconded with enthusiasm this enterprise — Venice sent two hundred vessels, the Pisans one hundred and twenty, and the Genoese twenty-eight galleys and six vessels.
Such was the advance of freedom, and wealth, and enterprise of society in Italy, that during, and a little after the eleventh cen- tury, were produced some of the most magnificent works of mili- tary and civil architecture ; works that remain until this day mon- uments of admiration and taste. The Duomo, or cathedral of Pisa, is said to have been finished before the close of this century — that of Florence was commenced in the twelfth, and the Basilica de St. Marco of Venice was finished 1071.
As wealth and power increased, however, ambition and a love of domination came in to annoy the peace and check the pros- perity of the states. These were heightened by the war of the investitures, not only as that war had increased the military spirit* but also because it had divided the cities into opposing parties, and had begotten jealousies and prejudices that, in a warlike age, were easily kindled into a belligerent spirit. This state of feel- ing, added to an ambitious desire on the part of the more power- ful cities to subdue the smaller ones under their authority, so far at least as to compel them to make common cause with them in their party wars and in repelling their enemies, led to numerous contentions and wars between the different cities. The two great parties, to one or the other of which belonged almost every city of Europe, which were formed by the war of the investitures, came afterward to be called Guelfs and Ghibelines ; the former designating the party which was opposed to the pretensions of the German emperors, and the latter those who were of the em- perors' party. Indeed, it is rather difficult to trace all the differ- ent causes of division between these violent parties. One general distinction was that already mentioned, viz., the supporting or re- sisting the claims which the German emperors set up over the free cities of Italy and over the ecclesiastical authority ; but another mark of difference seemed to be the supporting or resisting the claims of the feudal chieftains upon the free cities of Italy, the Guelfs rallying on the side of the liberty and independence of these cities, and the Ghibelines sustaining the claims of the feudal lords. As the popes were always struggling to maintain their power and influence, secular as well as spiritual, and as the em-
SKETCHES OF ITALIAN HISTORY. Ill
perors were the principal obstructions to their wishes, the former found it good policy to unite with the free cities in their resistance of the latter. In this way, anomalous as it is in the history of the Roman hierarchy, all the power of the holy see was exerted, for a number of years, in a common cause with those cities who were defending their freedom against their imperial tyrants and feudal lords. It is true Arnaud di Brescia was burnt alive by Pope Adrian IV. in 1155 for venturing to broach to the Romans the political heresy, as the pope called it, of republican liberty ; but what was heresy at Rome was, a little after, both at Rome and elsewhere, good policy with his holiness when it would subserve the claims of the church. Hence the popes favoured the Guelf party.
The latter half of the twelfth century is rendered illustrious, in Italian history, by the ambition of one man, and by that combina- tion to resist that ambition called the League of Lombardy. Fred- eric Barbarossa, duke of Swabia, of the house of HohenstoufTen, so far as the spirit and intelligence of the age will allow of the com- parison, may be called the Napoleon of his day. Brave, skilled in war, born to command, enterprising, and ambitious, he began his career with a determination to add to the crown of silver with which he was invested, as Emperor of Germany, by the German Diet of Frankfort in 1152, the iron crown of Lombardy and the crown of gold of Rome. And not only this, but he determined to reduce to obedience the Milanese, and others of the free cities of Italy, whom he claimed as fiefs of the empire, and who had proved refractory in opposing the wishes and claims of the em- peror. To this end he entered Italy in 1154 at the head of a powerful army. He marched through the country and the towns, exacting from the people, as he passed, forage, food, and lodging ; and where these were not furnished, he ravaged the country, and gave the cities up to pillage and fire. He burnt Asti and Chieri. He reduced Tortona by famine, after a siege of sixty-two days, and sacked and burnt the city. The army, however, grew impa- tient of delay, and compelled the emperor to hasten on to Rome without stopping to chastise all the rebellious cities in his way. On this occasion, therefore, the cities found the advantage of their walls. They would not suffer the army to enter their walls, but generally submitted to the exactions of forage, &c., according to
112 ITALY.
the long-established principles of the feudal system. In short, he arrived at Rome, was crowned by Adrian IV. with the crown of gold as Emperor of Rome and of the western empire, and then marched back to the mountains, as it was in the heat of summer, to avoid the consequences to his army. But the malaria had in- fused the poison already, and escape was impossible. After he had taken and burnt the city of Spoleto, because it did not furnish as speedily as he desired the supplies for his army, the sickness broke out in his camp. He hastened to return, but desertion and death thinned his ranks ; and by the time he had led his barbari- ans back to Germany he had but a remnant left him. He had spread desolation in his track, and had ruined, in a single year, one of the most formidable armies that Germany had ever sent into Italy.
Barbarossa, never discouraged by his losses, soon returned with another army, and invested Milan, which was compelled by famine to capitulate, but obtained, as she supposed, honourable terms, by a treaty signed in 1158. The citizens soon discovered, however, that the emperor determined to deprive them of their liberties, and so construe the treaty as to give him the entire con- trol, almost, of the rights and property of the citizens. Upon this they dismissed the emperor's judge, called a podesta* which, ac- cording to the treaty, he had aright to appoint, and prepared anew to defend their rights by their walls and their arms. Enraged at this, the emperor announced that he would never cease to exert his power until he had reduced the rebellious city. Instead of a regular siege, he devastated the country, destroyed the crops, cut off supplies, and, in the mean time, followed up his plan by redu- cing the smaller cities of Lombardy. As a specimen of his char- acter and of the resistance made to him, the case of the city of Crema, besieged by him, might be mentioned. After the former pacification, he had required Milan and Crema to give hostages. Several of these hostages of Crema he hung in front of their walls, ard others, who were children of some of the first families, he placed upon a moving tower, which he caused to be moved to-
* After the submission of Milan and other Italian cities, a general diet was held at Roncflglia, in which, among other things, it was decided that the emperor had the right to appoint a judicial magistrate in each town, called a podesta, who was in no case, how- ever, to be a native of the city over which he presided. This was a measure most dis- astrous to liberty.
SKETCHES OF ITALIAN HISTORY. 113
wards the walls. Thus the besieged were reduced to the alterna- tive of either not repelling the enemy, or, by defending their walls, of killing their own children. The fathers cried to their fellow-citizens to do their duty and defend their city, and to their children not to hesitate to die for it, and only asked to be excused from being witnesses of their children's agony. The tower was repulsed and driven back, covered with the dead bodies of the nine young hostages.
Crema, however, was reduced by famine, and the city, after a six months' siege, sacked and burnt. Milan also, after three years of struggle, in an unequal contest with the enemy, and after losing part of her stores by an accidental fire, was reduced by famine to the necessity of surrendering at discretion, and the enraged em- peror razed the city from the foundation, so that not one stone was left upon the top of another, and scattered the wretched in- habitants throughout the different cities of Lombardy. Thus the capital of Lombardy, and the leading city in the free states of Italy, was annihilated by the power of the victorious tyrant. But it was not as easy to annihilate principles as it was cities ; wher- ever the inhabitants went they carried with them their love of liberty, and, by the story of their wrongs, excited an abhorrence of Frederic. This odium was increased by the rigour with which the other cities of Lombardy, now mostly in the hands of the emperor, were taxed and oppressed ; their rights were vio- lated, their liberties taken from them, their property taxed until two thirds went to the state.
About this time, 1159, the death of Adrian IV. opened a door for a singular contention respecting the infallible head of an in- fallible church, which finally resulted in favour of the cause of lib- erty. In electing a new pope, the cardinals were divided between two candidates, both of which were declared elected by their re- spective parties, one under the title of Alexander III., and the other of Victor III. Frederic declared for the latter; but the church, generally, for the former. After mutual excommunica- tions, Alexander, to strengthen his cause, espoused that of liberty, and sustained the Guelf party in opposition to the em- peror. He was, however, obliged to flee to France, and Frederic visited Rome in the year 1163, to strengthen the opposing pon- 10 P
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tiff. In his absence the cities of Verona, Padua, and others sent their consuls to a congress to consult upon the common cause, and the means of defence against the common foe. Fred- eric heard of the combination, and returned to suppress it. But he soon found that the popular voice was against him, and that the Italian army, with which he had undertaken to chastise the Veronese, could not be trusted ; and he therefore precipitately re- turned to Germany. In the mean time the antipope, Victor, died, and Pascal III. was appointed his successor ; but his cause became unpopular, and Alexander III. was invited to Rome, and generally acknowledged pope.
The emperor marched another army from Germany into Italy, laid siege to Rome, and took it ; the pope, however, making his escape. But while these things were going on, the combination of the free cities of northern Italy against the tyrant, under the name of the League of Lombardy, continued to gain strength. They bound themselves to each other by oath ; they rebuilt Milan ; and, that the two cities, Pavia and Montserrat, which still ad- hered to the emperor, might have no intercourse with each other, they built a new city between them, which, after the name of the pope, they called Alexandria ; and so rapidly did this city increase that, in one year after its foundation, it sent into the field an army of 15,000 men. While this was in progress the emperor's army in Southern Italy was again attacked by disease, which swept off such multitudes, that he was constrained to hasten back to Ger- many as secretly as possible, that he might not be intercepted by the army of the league.
The emperor made another attempt to subdue Lombardy, but without success. The army that was brought from Germany for that purpose was completely routed and dispersed, and finally a truce was concluded for six years, which was followed in 1183 by the Diet of Constance, in which a general peace was agreed upon, the basis of which was an acknowledgment of the rights and liberties of the free cities and states of Italy.
Previous to this, to wit, in 1096, commenced the famous war of the crusades. This war, if it had no other good effect, pro- duced, at intervals, a suspension of hostilities among the Christian states in Europe ; and Frederic himself at this time, as if to atone for his crimes, and wash from his crown and his arms the stain
SKETCHES OF ITALIAN HISTORY. 115
of the blood of thousands, girded himself in his old age, and, at the head of an army little short of 100,000 strong, marched against the infidels. In this expedition he died in Armenia, while bathing in the river Salef, tenth June, 1190.
After these events various wars occurred between the cities of Italy and the successor of Frederic, aided by some Italian cities, and the King of Sicily ; in all of which the pope managed to increase his own power against that of the emperor ! This was the time in which the Roman see ascended to its highest pitch of arrogant assumption. Hungary, France, Portugal, Spain, and England acknowledged the papal supremacy ; and the same might be said of Italy, with the exception of Pisa and a few other cities, which sustained the cause of the emperor. At length a Guelf prince, Otho IV., was chosen emperor, and crowned by the pope at Rome in 1209. But soon the seeds of discord sprung up between him and Innocent III., who was then the sanguinary and ambitious reigning pontiff, which involved all Italy in war, arming the different cities against each other. In 1215, however, Otho was supplanted by Frederic II. of Naples, whose cause the pope had espoused, but who, in turn, became afterward obnoxious to the holy see ; nevertheless, while under excommunication, he in- vaded Palestine and procured an honourable peace with the Sultan of Egypt, and restored Palestine to the Christians. During which service for the church, the head of the church, who then was Pope Gregory IX., was fomenting treason in his empire at home. Frederic returned and quelled it ; but the pontiff was too strong for him, and procured his excommunication by a general council at Lyons, under the patronage of St. Louis of France. After many vigorous efforts to resist the current of opposition raised against him, the detail of which would be but a history of blood and slaughter, of cruelty and revenge, he died of a dysen- tery at Florence.
It should be noticed by the reader, that to be emperor of Ger- many was one thing, and emperor of the whole western empire another. This will account for the historical fact, that, for sixty years after the death of Frederic II., there was no assumption of the imperial power in Italy, for the reason that the German em- perors had no leisure or security to leave their own dominions, which were at this time torn by internal dissensions, to come, after
ITALY.
the manner of their predecessors, and claim their imperial corona- tion. During this period of exemption from German interference the Guelf and Ghibeline war raged as much as ever, assuming almost exclusively, as the ground of contention, the opposition be- tween the nobles and the people. It was, in fact, the natural con- vulsions and efforts of an oppressed people to shake off the un- natural pressure of feudal domination ; and the name of Guelf and Ghibeline being retained, the people were either the one or the other, as the circumstances of the case required. If the nobles were Guelfs, they were Ghibelines, and vice versa. These wars were marked with all the desolation, horror, and cruelty of a bar- barous age. And that the reader may form some idea of the hor- rors of those times, it may not be deemed inconsistent, perhaps, with this brief historical sketch, to notice more particularly the character of one of the feudatory tyrants of this age — Eccelino Romano of Padua. He was a monster of cruelty even in this dark period of cruelty and blood, not only on account of the num- ber of his victims, but also by reason of the various and infernal tortures which he invented to torment his prisoners. On account of his cruelty, as also because he was a prominent Ghibeline chieftain, Alexander IV., who had succeeded Innocent IV. in the pontifical chair, preached a crusade against him. An army was collected, which attacked Padua and took it, and released from the dungeons more than one thousand of the wretched victims of Eccelino's tyranny. The army which accomplished this was in part made up of refugees which had fled from the city to escape his cruelty. To revenge himself on the city for this, the tyrant, who was then absent, took about 1 1,000 of the citizens of Padua, who were serving in his army, and put them to death. Scarcely 200, it is said, escaped. He then captured the castle of Friola, and caused the garrison, together with the women and children, to be horribly mutilated by tearing out their eyes and cutting off their noses and their legs. Soon after, however, having rilled up his measure of iniquity by a bloody reign of thirty-four years, he was conquered, wounded, and taken prisoner. He refused medi- cal aid and food, tore open his wounds with the same ferocity with which he had been wont to torment others, and died. Very soon his brother was also taken, and the whole family, men and women, were put to death ; and their mangled limbs were sent
SKETCHES OF ITALIAN HISTORY. 117
to all the cities that had endured the cruelty of the tyrant ! a hor- rid visitation ! and as strikingly illustrative of the bloody charac- ter of the times as the cruelty of Eccelino himself. The instru- ments of torture of this sanguinary monster are still preserved in the arsenal at Venice. In my visit to that city I saw them, and the very sight was enough to chill one's blood. His jealousy was as great as his cruelty ; and they still show at Venice a most extraordinary memorial of this tormenting passion, the character of which delicacy forbids me to detail. So true is it that tyrants are themselves tormented in the same proportion as they torment others. Eccelino died September 16, 1259.
This triumph of the Guelf party in northern Italy, and the sub- sequent strength and ascendency of the popular cause, did not long afford the promised advantages to the people. What they had so violently and perseveringly resisted in their hereditary feudal chief- tains they yielded willingly or by constraint to demagogues from among themselves. The commanders who led their armies suc- cessfully against their hereditary enemies turned the power of the same armies against the liberties of the very cities for whose freedom they had waged successful war. And this they were enabled to do the more readily, because these armies were mostly mercenary troops which the cities had hired into their service, because their own militia, being infantry, were unable to combat with the well- trained, heavy-armed cavalry of the nobility. In this way Milan and several other cities fell into the hands of self-constituted sov- ereigns and emperors. These were at length subjugated by the Archbishop of Milan, Otho Visconti, who defeated and took pris- oner Napoleon della Torre, who, like his namesake of later date, had become a sovereign by being the man of the people ; and thus was established the Visconti dynasty, which long swayed the sceptre of Lombardy.
Nor was the cause of liberty any more successful in the south of Italy. By the intrigues and influence of Pope Urban IV., the successor of Alexander IV., Charles of Anjou, one of the Guelf party, brother to Louis IX., commonly called St. Louis of France, was invested with the crown of the two Sicilies and Naples. Clement IV., Urban's successor in the papal chair, pursued the same policy, and, after much hard fighting, Charles triumphed over Manfred, who held the crown before, and who was slain in
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battle. His successor, Conradin, was also conquered, captured, tried, and executed, with many others. Charles, the Guelf leader, in short, proved himself a cruel tyrant, to the disappointment and enslaving of his own friends.
The death of Conradin, which took place 1268, was soon fol- lowed by the death of Pope Clement ; whereupon the succession of St. Peter's representatives was interrupted three years, because the conclave of cardinals could not agree upon his successor How strange it is that the apostolic succession, so much insisted on by Catholics, and so strongly claimed by some Protestants, should have been intrusted by the great head of the church to in- triguing politicians, whose mutual jealousy and party spirit some- times gave the church two heads, and at other times kept it from having even one head, for several successive years ! Is this the boasted unbroken apostolical succession? This the only true church ? whose head, when it had one, was constituted and ap- pointed by political intrigue, and who was himself, when consti- tuted, a political intriguer ?
At length Gregory X. was chosen, and he, and his four imme- diate successors, the pontifical lives of three of whom were, uni- tedly, only of one year's duration, applied themselves to heal, rather than foment, as their predecessors had done, the divisions between the Guelf and Ghibeline factions. These efforts were attended with considerable success.
Charles of Anjou was finally deprived of his dominions in Si- cily by the interposition of Spain, and the sovereignty of that island continued in the family of Peter of Arragon until Charles died, 1 285 ; and, by a subsequent treaty and marriage, not only was this acquisition confirmed to the royal family of Arragon, but the kingdom of Naples was reunited with it ; and this laid the foundation for the subsequent influence from that time possessed by the court of Spain in the government of Naples and the two Sicilies. •
It would be contrary to the design of this sketch to follow out the various wars and contentions, the intrigues and massacres of the following years. One pope was poisoned, another resigned through imbecility. Different states and cities went to war with each other, and at length Henry, count of Luxembourg, came from Germany, and was crowned at Milan with the iron crown.
SKETCHES OF ITALIAN HISTORY. 119
and at Rome with the crown of gold ; defied Florence, was going to attack Naples, when his career was suddenly terminated by his death.
The republics of Northern Italy, except Venice, were now mostly swallowed up in the manner above explained, but those of Tuscany and Genoa were still in a flourishing condition, and, but for their jealousies of each other, might long have contin- ued so. Their mutual jealousies and wars, however, kept the en- tire country in a state of alarm, and gave an opportunity for com- panies of marauders to prowl about the smaller villages, and live by plunder, while two visitations of the plague, in one of which Florence alone lost 100,000 persons and Pisa seven tenths of her inhabitants, seemed to threaten the country with utter des- olation. At length, in a war between Florence and Pisa, the latter was conquered, ninth November, 1406, and added to the sover- eignty of Florence, and from this first war of conquest Florence began to decline. A warning this to other republics not to seek conquests and accessions of territory by this means ; for this is the high road to their own decay and ruin. The ambition that prompts to such a course will not fail to lead to an abandonment of those principles by which alone a republic can be sustained.
While these things were passing the holy see was divided be- tween rival claimants for the tiara. There was a pope at Rome, and another at Avignon in France. They mutually excommuni- cated each other ; and finally a general assembly of the cardinals, prelates, &c., at Pisa, declared the holy see vacant, and another pope was elected under the name of Alexander V. At his death John XXIII. was elected, Gregory and Benedict still claiming to be popes. John called together the famous Council of Con- stance, by which John Huss and Jerome of Prague were mur- dered, although the former had had his safety guarantied to him by the emperor. This council deposed John and his two rivals, and elected a member of the Colonna family pope under the name of Martin V., and Martin, when elected into office, dissolved the council. Here are several paradoxes in the Roman hierarchy. 1. There were three claiming to be the successor of St. Peter, and one of these, by virtue of his office, called a general council, and presided in it. 2. The council he called deposed him, as
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well as his rivals. 3. The successor elected by the council dis- solved the council itself that made him pope !
But it is unnecessary, for my present purpose, to dwell longer on the general affairs of Italy. We have traced them far enough to show, in a very brief and general way, the rise of some of the principal republics and governments of Italy. The downfall of those of northern and southern Italy ; the proximate symptoms of the decline of the central republics, together with some general features of the Roman hierarchy in its assumptions of secular power and ecclesiastical authority, and in connexion have sketched some of the characteristics of the iron age of darkness and blood.
These events have been traced up to the period in which we are called to notice three striking and eventful features in the his- tory of Italy, viz., 1. The dawning of literature. 2. The de- cline of the mercantile republics. 3. The breaking out, spread, and final suppression of the reformation. A few thoughts on each of these will prepare the way for a brief statement of the events of the French revolution and conquests, so far as they affected Italy and the situation of the country as settled by the Congress of Vi- enna in 1814 and 15.
With respect to the literature of Italy, little can be said of it after the decline of the ancient Roman literature until the four- teenth century. How the Italian language became what it is — whether it is the natural deterioration of the Augustan Latin, or whether it is the result of foreign influences by means of the suc- cessive conquests of Italy by the barbarians, is not agreed. The greater probability is, that it is the concurrent result of these two causes. It appears that so late as the seventh century the Latin language was spoken in Rome, and that the ordinary religious discourses to the common people were delivered in that tongue. But in the ninth century the clergy began to preach in the vulgar tongue, which was called rustica Romana lingua. The earliest inscription in this language now known is said to be on the front of the cathedral in Ferrara, bearing date 1135. And there are, it is said, some written specimens of obscure authors as early as the beginning of the next century. But still the language can hardly be said to have had a character, or modern Italy to have had a literature, until the time of Dante, who was born in 1 265, and died in 1321. He made the language ; that is, polished and
I
REFORMATION IN ITALY. 121
elevated it, and gave it a classical character. Immediately fol- lowing him were Boccaccio and Petrarch, the one in prose and the other in poetry. These were Tuscans as well as Dante, and they raised the language to its zenith.
During the latter part of the fourteenth and the earlier part of the fifteenth centuries the classical literature of ancient Greece and Rome was greatly cultivated ; and the savans of that period gave themselves so exclusively to the literature of antiquity, that the modern Italian was neglected, and actually declined. It was con- sidered vulgar to write in Italian, and all the poets and writers of that age studied me idiom, taste, and style of the ancients. In the latter part of the fifteenth century, however, Italian literature again revived, and, under the patronage of the family of the Med- ici, may be said to have enjoyed its Augustan age. It was du- ring this period that Ariosto, Tasso, Alfieri, Metastasio, Machia velli, and a host of others flourished and wrote.
With respect to the fall of the mercantile republics of Italy, es- pecially of Genoa, Venice, and Florence, I will speak something when I give an account of these respective cities. Suffice it to say here, that the most wealthy of the citizens gained, by degrees, such an influence as to give them the control over the liberties of the people, and finally to secure that control as a hereditary right in their families. Such were the Doria family in Genoa and the Medici family in Florence. Pisa, as we have seen, was con- quered by Florence, and a great portion of the principal citizens immediately left the city, so that its population, with its wealth and glory, faded away never to be restored. To some extent the same result happened to Lucca and Sienna, which were also conquered by the Florentines.
From a work of Dr. Thomas M'Crie, of Scotland, the English reader has now the facts respecting the reformation in Italy brought within his reach to a much greater extent than at any former period. This work had its first edition in 1827; and in 1833 the author published a new edition, revised and improved.*
* This learned and industrious historian is now dead. His death is the more to be regretted, as he had designed, as intimated in the preface of the history referred to, to pub- lish a history of John Calvin. This work, however, it is hoped, may not be deserted. His amiable and intelligent son, with whom I became acquainted at Rome, was employed by his father in Geneva to collect materials for the work. In this he was very success- ful, and found, as he informed me, many documents hitherto unpublished, that throw much
11 Q
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It is from this edition, chiefly, that the few facts here presented have been taken.
The churches of Northern Italy were among the last to submit to the high claims of the Bishop of Rome. It was not until the eleventh century that the popes succeeded in establishing their authority over the Bishop of Milan. The Ambrosian ritual, as it is called, prevailed there until that time, and the Ambrosian Church was independent of all others.
In the twelfth century the Vaudois Christians, or Albigenses and Waldenses, those ancient, and, as Mr. M'Crie calls them, "hereditary witnesses for the truth against the corruptions of Rome,'* penetrated the Alps, and established themselves in Lom- bardy, and in the thirteenth century were found in Rome. Nay, it appears that they were dispersed through Sicily, Naples, Tus- cany, and the Venetian states. They were subject to various and bitter persecutions ; but still they continued to spread, and had not only established congregations, but in the fourteenth century they had academies in Lombardy for the education of their young men. A colony of these were settled in Calabria, in southern Italy, in 1370, which existed for two centuries, and was then ex- terminated by persecution.
These scattered adherents to the faith, once delivered to the saints, were prepared to give aid and influence to the first general struggle that was made to reform the impurities of the church.
To aid them, there went out a collateral influence from the re- vival of ancient literature in the fifteenth century. Although many of the most learned were most profligate and heathenish in their views, as might be shown from the character of the Pope Leo X., and most of his court, yet there were others who were led, by the study of the Scriptures and the ancient fathers, to see and deplore the corruptions of the church. And some of the early poets, even Dante himself, appeared to have very correct views of many of the prevailing dogmas of the Roman Church, and wrote against them with great severity. The same also is true of Petrarch, of Boccaccio, Berni, and Ariosto. These wri- tings, from the pens of Catholics themselves, undoubtedly pre- pared the way for the graver writings of the subsequent reform-
Jight upon the life and times of the great reformer. It is to be hoped he may sooner or later be able to complete his father's design.
REFORMATION IN ITALY. 123
ers. Among them was Jeronimo Savonarola, who flourished the latter half of the fifteenth century. He appears not to have sought a change in doctrine so much as a reform in manners, for which he wrote and preached with great influence. He effected a great reform in the morals of the Florentines, and was doubtless one of the instruments of restoring the republic at the time of the expulsion of the Medici from Florence. He was, however, sub- sequently condemned as a heretic, and burnt by Pope Alexan- der VI.
But the writings of Luther, Melancthon, and Zuinglius were extensively circulated through Italy, sometimes under fictitious names ; for, after the rupture between Luther and the holy see, denunciations and calumnies of him and his coadjutors were so industriously propagated among the people, that their works could not circulate under their own names.
Copies of the Scriptures also, at this time, began to be multi- plied, not only in the oriental and ancient languages, but also in the vernacular tongue, and thus served as great helps to the dis- semination of light.
During the early part of the sixteenth century Charles V. marched an army of Germans into Italy, among whom were many Protestants, who boldly proclaimed their views among the people, and disseminated much Protestant influence, even in Rome itself, which, by Charles's general, the Duke of Bourbon, was taken and sacked.
There is one subject particularly worthy of remark here, that many, not only of the satirists and poets, such as Dante and Pe- trarch, but also some of the bishops and priests of the Roman Church, publicly taught, that the woman upon the scarlet beast, and Babylon, described in revelation, indicated Rome in her ec- clesiastical character. This was publicly taught by Staphylo, bishop of Sibari, in a public oration before the apostolical Rota held after the sacking of Rome by Bourbon.
About this time, through the influence of a Protestant French princess, who married one of the Este family, Duke of Ferrara, that city became a great resort for Protestants. Even Calvin himself, under a fictitious name, resided there for some time.
Somewhere between 1530 and 1540 a Protestant church was formed at Naples, under the patronage and guidance of some of
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the best men of the age. Here was Ochino, whose eloquence, un- rivalled in his day, according to the testimony of Cardinal Bembo himself, had filled all Italy with his praise. Here were Valdez, and Marco Antonio Flaminio, and Pietro Martire Vermigli; all men of renown. This latter afterward went to Lucca, and was so instrumental in spreading the reform doctrines in that city, that it reckoned more converts than perhaps any other city in Italy. Churches were also formed at Pisa, Sienna, Modena, &c. At Venice also there were many of the reformed, but were not organ- ized into a church.
Indeed, so extensively had these sentiments of the reformers prevailed in Italy, that one eminent papist, Sadolet, declares, in a letter to the pope, that there was " an almost universal defection of the minds of men from the church, and an inclination to exe- crate ecclesiastical authority." Cardinal CarafTa said that the " whole of Italy was infected with the Lutheran heresy, which had been extensively embraced both by statesmen and ecclesiastics."
What, then, checked the progress of this work ?
"In 1542 the court of Rome first became seriously alarmed at the progress of the new opinions in Italy," and in 1543 new life and power were given to the Inquisition. This ecclesiastical court was established in Italy in the twelfth century ; but the free states, which at that time covered the most of this country, refused to sanction it in all its claims. It was circumscribed in its power and limited in its jurisdiction, so that it did not answer the designs of the papal court. Already, in consequence of the favour shown to heretics by the civil authorities, many heresiarchs had made their escape, and the prospect of soaking the soil of Italy with the blood of its victims was very unpromising, un- less some more efficient measures could be adopted. Paul III., the reigning pontiff, therefore established a court consisting of six cardinals, under the title of inquisitors general, with power, on both sides of the Alps, of trying all cases of heresy, and of appre- hending and incarcerating persons of whatever rank, and of ap- pointing all inferior officers and tribunals. With papal manage- ment and hypocrisy the system was submitted to by the different Italian states, although some for a considerable time resisted. The history of this whole affair, however, shows how false the representations of some are at the present day in reference to this
REFORMATION IN ITALY. 125
subject. It has been pretended that this court was a civil tribu- nal, and that the church should not be made responsible for it. Whereas it had its head at Rome ; its subordinate tribunals were of the appointment of the supreme court at Rome ; and the secu- lar power was only called into requisition to execute the bloody decisions of this sanguinary, dark, and capricious tribunal. Nay, many of the states were reluctant to admit the court within their borders, and yielded the point only to the influence and manage ment of the papal court. And, indeed, as many of the accused as possible were procured to be sent to Rome for their trial, that the inquisitors general might be more sure of their prey.
With this bloody organization the papal court prepared herself for the extirpation of heresy from Italy ! For, as dead men tell no tales, so dead men can propagate no heresies. Heresy can be extirpated in any land, if all its heretics are burnt and butchered, " The erection of the Inquisition," say the Catholics themselves, " was the salvation of the Catholic Church in Italy." The work of blood went on. But it was twenty years before the movement in favour of reform could be got under in Italy. Nor probably would it even then have been subdued, if the retreat from perse- cution had not been so near. Germany and Switzerland were thronged with the refugees. Had they stayed and endured the most their persecutors could have heaped upon them, it would have kindled such a fire in Italy, doubtless, as would have con- sumed the papal palace, pope, conclave, and all. But retreat gave their enemies new courage, and not only thinned the ranks of the reformed, but, being deprived of their leaders, multitudes grew dispirited, and, yielding to the importunities of friends and the threats of authority, renounced their adherence to their new views.
One means of discovering who those were that were tainted with new opinions, adopted by the inquisitors, was to furnish to certain accomplished instruments of cruelty letters of recommend- ation to numerous respectable families in the different Italian states, under various characters, and with a variety of pretexts, who, by their address, insinuated themselves into the confidence of their hosts and associates, and thus drew from them their pri- vate opinions, and then, by turning informers and witnesses, caused the dupes of their diabolical hypocrisy to be dragged before the 1]
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Inquisition. Here they were imprisoned, tortured, banished, and executed in great numbers.
Inquisitors were sent out in every direction; informers were liberally paid for their accusations, until suspicion and jealousy in some places broke in sunder all the bonds of social and domestic life. Many fled ; others were banished. From the town of Lo- carno, on Lake Maggiore, two hundred, with their wives and chil- dren, were expelled in a body. These settled in the country of the Orisons and in the canton of Zurich. From Lucca some of the principal families fled to Geneva, where their descendants unto this day are reckoned among their most distinguished citizens. The colony of Waldenses, already spoken of in Calabria, had increased to the number of about 4000. These, about the mid- dle of the sixteenth century, were exterminated in the most hor- rid manner by the bloody inquisitor Panza and others.
The horrid details of torturing, burning, and butchering men, women, and children are shocking almost beyond endurance, even at this distant period ! What, then, must the amount of suffering have been to those on whom it fell ?
It was in these times also, and in reference to the same object, that the Roman Index Expurgatorius was formed by that infa- mous pope Paul IV. It was a list of authors and books that were prohibited to be imported, published, or even owned and read. Thus every measure was taken to obstruct free inquiry, and to bind in ignorance, and in entire dependance upon the dictates of the priests, the public mind; a system which is, to some extent, kept up even at the present day. The Index Expurgatorius, with all its authoritative prohibitions, meets the traveller on his ap- proach to Italy, and trammels the press in all its operations ; the Catholics thereby acknowledging that their system cannot endure the ordeal of free inquiry. Thus, if the Inquisition, as the Cath- olics themselves claim, saved Italy from Protestantism, then it has only been saved by hypocrisy, by cruelty, by oceans of blood, by stifling free inquiry, and by cutting off or obstructing all the great channels of mental and moral improvement.
It was thus that the bloody church succeeded in stopping the progress of reform !
What must at the present day be the state of a country which was under such an influence, and which applied itself with such
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
success, and by such sanguinary instrumentality, to the stifling of free inquiry and of religious reform in the latter part of the six- teenth century, may be easily conjectured, especially when it is known that the same church maintains the same doctrines, and, in point of principle, the same policy, and the same views of what she calls heresy up to the present hour.
What we might suppose a country would be under such cir- cumstances, we find Italy is at the present moment; a country enervated, broken-spirited, unenterprising, and superstitious.
And yet let it not be supposed that Italy has yielded herself up without a struggle ; that, from the close of the sixteenth century until now, she has calmly and stupidly slumbered over her politi- cal and ecclesiastical degradation and chains. This would be entirely contrary to the known laws of the human mind. The people groaned under their burdens, and sighed for deliverance. Many of them, too, became as incredulous to the religion which had imposed her dogmas by the torture and by fagots, as they were restless under the political tyranny that had consented to be the partner and the instrument in this unholy work. And this was the general state of the public mind when the French Revo- lution broke, like a tornado, over the Alps. This prepared the way for giving vent to the smothered fires that had long burnt in concealment in the bosom of society. And it was this, chiefly, and not the power of the French armies, that crippled and finally broke the power of Austria in Lombardy, and Tuscany, and some other smaller states ; it was this that threw open the watery gates of Venice to Napoleon ; that enabled him to take Genoa, and Rome itself, so as to humble the haughty pontiff at his feet, and make him his servile tool. And, finally, it was owing to the same cause that the Neapolitan government was overthrown, and a brother of Napoleon's first, and, after he was transferred to Spain, Joachim Murat, were made sovereigns of Magna Grsecia. Anx- ious for a change, trusting to the promises of the French and to the sweet sound of liberty, which was the watchword at the gates of Milan and Genoa, Rome and Naples, as it was in France, the Italians thought the deliverers of the world were come, and that a day of universal jubilee was proclaimed. They were deceived. The French had neither virtue nor intelligence enough to sustain the cause of liberty at home, and, of course, when they submitted
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to a second despotism under a victorious military chieftain, the way was prepared for an extension of the same power over Italy. It is true, Italy need not have yielded to Bonaparte because France did, but the same causes were followed by the same re- sults on either side of the Alps. The Italians were no more pre- pared for liberty than were the French. Nor had they as much unanimity and energy among themselves. Paris was France ; but what city — what ten cities were Italy ? And what bond of union between Milan and Venice, Florence and Genoa, Rome and Naples, to say nothing of the score of other separate and in- dependent governments and states ?
Besides this their weakness, arising from divided strength and internal jealousies, another foe was at the door. Austria was waiting to return to her original prey, and this, in fact, she did while Napoleon was in Egypt, in 1799. The Austrians swept victoriously over Lombardy, took Genoa, and recovered Florence, all of which had before submitted to the republican army.
When Napoleon returned from Egypt, and broke down the Di- rectory, and assumed the supreme power under the appellation of First Consul, he prepared himself to recover the lost conquests in Italy ; and to this end he crosses the St. Bernard, and throws himself upon the plains of Lombardy before his enemy could ex- pect him, gains the great battle of Marengo, by which he has control of Northern Italy. He reorganizes the Cisalpine republic.
Of this republic Bonaparte by his arts first procures himself to be chosen president. Then, after he becomes emperor, he changes the name from " Cisalpine Republic" to " Kingdom of Italy," of which Milan was the capital, and Eugene Beauharnais, the son of his wife Josephine, was the viceroy. Central Italy becomes a kingdom under the name of the Kingdom of Etruria ; and Genoa and Piedmont, Parma and Placentia, are formally united to France. Ferdinand is driven from Naples, and Joseph Bonaparte at first, afterward Joachim Murat, made king; and, finally, the states of the pope are united to the French empire, and Rome itself is annexed to France as an imperial city.
Such was the state of Italy during the reign of the Emperor Napoleon ; and during this time, although the sovereigns of these respective states might take occasion to complain, yet, on the score of justice, what rights had they more than the Emperor of
ma*
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 129
ihe French ? Was he a usurper ? So were they. By what right did Austria claim Lombardy ? or Tuscany ? What was the government of Genoa but a usurpation ? The states of the pope were no more his, nor did Magna Graecia any more belong to Ferdinand by virtue of any right of lawful origin, than did all Italy belong to Napoleon. There was as much real justice in Bonaparte's absurd claim to Rome on the ground of being suc- cessor to Charlemagne, as in any of the claims of the legitimates of Europe to that country. And certainly the Bonapartean era was of service, to wake up from the sleep of centuries this op- pressed country. Napoleon's government was a despotism, but it was a stirring, rousing despotism, that shook the public mind into action, and drew out the slumbering energies of the people. Every traveller in Italy must see this. The records of the French upon Italy, after all, whether you speak of the physi- cal aspect of the country and of the cities, or of the impress upon her institutions and upon the public mind generally, are, on the whole, records of improvement and of mental elevation. In say- ing this I am not to be understood to approve of Napoleon's ambition; of his violated faith; of his bloody wars and high- handed acts of authority. But, if I must have a despot, give me a man who has a capacious and energetic mind ; who plans great things ; who aspires to great things ; who wakes up all the ener- gies of the country in attempting to move heaven and earth to en- sure his own aggrandizement, rather than that heavy and torpid incubus who suffocates me with his immoveable weight upon my vitals, and fattens, like the vampire, by sucking my curdled and sluggish blood.
But the ambition of Napoleon drove him from the throne ; and the allied sovereigns, legislating for Europe — or rather, I should say, legislating for themselves upon Europe — restored Italy, I will not say to the status ante bellum — to the precise political rela- tions she was in before, but so meted it out that the influence of Austria was increased, and the rights of legitimacy were strength- ened, while the rights of the people were totally disregarded. England herself, in this partition, proved recreant to her own prin- ciples, without gaining much for herself either in point of territory or continental influence. What a glorious time was this for her to have secured liberty to Genoa, which her own general, Lord
R
130 ITALY.
William Bentinck,* had promised the Genoese, under the most solemn pledges, if they would unite in the league against Napo- leon ! What an opportunity to have secured, by guarantees that could not have been violated, a constitutional form of government, essentially like her own, to Lombardy, the states of Venice, and the other states of Italy, to all of whom the most specious and encouraging promises had been made, on condition that they would help put down the tyrant ! What a favourable opportunity to have secured toleration, to the true and full extent of that term, to Protestantism in Italy ! But, alas ! she who had fought the battles of the continental sovereigns by sea and land; she who has been and still is the stanch defender of constitutional liberty and the grand bulwark of Protestantism, threw all the prizes she had won into the continental box, to be hustled for by civil and ecclesiastical despots. If the memory of any man that has held power and office for the last half century in Europe ought to be held in utter detestation, Castlereagh, the betrayer of liberty, of British honour, and of the rights of man, is that individual.!
By the congress of the allied sovereigns the arrangements for Italy were as follows : — Victor Emanuel was restored to the throne of Sardinia, with a dominion embracing Savoy, Piedmont, Genoa city and territory, Nice, and a part of the Duchy of Milan. The greater part of the Duchy of Milan, and, in short, the great whole of ancient Lombardy and Venice, including the Venetian territo- ries, were adjudged to the Emperor of Austria, then Francis II. This kingdom is governed by a viceroy, and its capital is Milan. Maria Louisa, the ex-empress of France, had assigned to her the Duchies of Parma and Placentia. Modena is a separate sover- eignty, under a grand duke of the house of Austria. Tuscany was allotted to the house of Austria, and is now governed by the second son of the emperor, under the title of grand duke. The pope has all the states on the Adriatic from the river Po to the
* Bentinck went to Sicily at first with full power to say to the queen, " Either a Con- stitution or a Revolution ;" and his proclamation to the Italians, and his restoring to Genoa, after he got possession of the city, the original form of government, all held out the prom- ise of liberty to the Genoese. Well might the historian Carlo Botta say, " It was well to put down Napoleon; it would have been better still not to have imitated him."
t So early as the year 1808 the Prince Moliterno went from Naples to England to en- deavour to persuade the British government to declare for the union and independenca of all Italy under a constitutional government, But they would not listen to it.
GENOA. 131
Kingdom of Naples, together with Perugino, Spoleto, Rome, &c., across to the Mediterranean. The Neapolitan states were re united with Sicily, forming one kingdom, which was restored to Ferdinand IV.
Such are, essentially, the present political divisions of Italy. It may be proper to add that there is no constitutional government in Italy, if we except the little republic among the mountains, San Marino.* The hereditary or appointed chief of each state, whether he be pope, grand duke, viceroy, or king, is absolute. He makes the laws, levies the taxes, and executes the laws according to his own sovereign will and pleasure, save that, such at the present day is the influence of public sentiment, the reigning prince is afraid to do too great violence to public opinion, lest he drive them to in- surrection and outrage. This is the only influence the people can exert over the government ; and this is not great where the cities are filled with an armed soldiery, as is the case very gen- erally in this country.
I remain, as ever, young gentlemen,
Yours in sincere affection,
W. FISK.
CHAPTER VIII.
To the Editor of Zion's Herald, Boston.
Genoa, Jan. 3, 1835.
MY DEAR SIR,
From this distant land permit me to salute you, and, through you, the many readers of the Herald whom I love and honour in my own native New-England.
I am now, as you see, in the far-famed city of palaces. Our route hither was from Paris to Lyons, and thence through Savoy, over Mount Cenis to Turin, the capital of Piedmont, and the prin- cipal residence of the King of Sardinia. We were in the public
* This little republic seems, by its poverty and obscurity, to have maintained its inde- pendence among the mountains of Urbino for many centuries. Its population is 7000, in a territory of twenty-two square miles.
132 ITALY.
diligence from Paris to Turin, which took us, exclusive of two days' delay in Lyons, six days and nights, during which time we were in bed but about five hours. The weather also was severe, the earth and the streams being locked up in frost, and the Alps covered with snow. Our carriage, however, was comfortable, and we performed the passage much better than we anticipated. Your old friend, the Rev. R. B. H., of Boston, was in company, and Mr. J. Harper and lady and little son, from New- York (of the firm of Harper & Brothers). With this company we were ena- bled to charter the whole of the interior of the diligence, which made it the more pleasant.
The passage of the Alps was magnificent, such as I cannot de- scribe, and, as I have sketched it elsewhere, I will not attempt it again here. The population, to a great degree, is made up of priests and other ecclesiastics, and soldiers, and beggars. To support these and the royal splendour of the court, the proportion of the industrious, labouring population have, you may be sure, a grievous burden. The wretchedness and hardships of the people are great, and painful to the spectator. They hang their huts upon the sides of the mountain, and wall up little patches for cul- tivation upon steeps and among rocks where, to appearance, no human foot, at the first, without artificial supports, could find a safe yesting-place. Here poverty holds her court, and here she has erected her throne, vying with the Sardinian king in her empire. Some of the valleys and the plains of Piedmont look better ; but even here poverty and want prevail. Beggars beset you on every side ; some of them will sit in a cold winter's day, from morning to night, upon the cold stones of the street, exposing a naked foot or limb, distorted or ulcerated by disease.
The number of churches and chapels, even in the poorest part of the country, is immense. We entered Italy on Christmas day, and the priests and people were everywhere engaged in the mass and other religious ceremonies. Some of their churches and chap- els we entered, and in most cases were struck with the apparent in- attention with which the worshippers would say over their prayers — gazing at us, and at whatever else might strike their attention, while they muttered over, with the greatest haste, their allotted task. Wherever the Virgin had an altar or a shrine, there I no- ticed was the greatest throng. In some instances, where there
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was an image, I observed the worshipper would approach very near, and get his mouth close to the ear, that he might be sure of being heard. Will it be said that this is not praying to an idol ? We passed one house among the Apennines, over the door of which, as is very common here, was a Madonna with her babe, and underneath the following inscription : Me Custodem posue- runt — " They have placed me here as a keeper." Is not this trusting to graven images ? In the same region we passed a church, on the front of which was a miserable daub of an angel, and underneath the following inscription : Adsit nobis sanctus Michael Archangelus — " Holy Archangel Michael, favour us, we pray thee, with thy presence." Is not this consecrating a temple to the worship of angels ? Is it not making a god of a creature ? I say not these things captiously, but I ask in candour, and I ap- peal to the good sense of the world, how the conclusions can be avoided. If, then, the Roman Catholic Church is one, as its sup- porters boast, in every age and place ; if its decisions and conse- quent usages are infallible, and therefore immutable, be it re- membered, and let the sentiment be inscribed upon the canopy of heaven in letters of light, and in the face of the world — Whoso- ever countenanceth Romanism, transgresseth the second command- ment.
It is a favourite practice of the Catholics to unite military pa- rade with their worship. They perform mass by the aid of mar- tial music, and elevate the host under the deafening roll of the drum. I know not how it may strike others, but I confess this associating the symbols of the Prince of Peace with the clarion of war and the implements of death strikes me as very incon- gruous. I am always led to ask, is this the way the apostles and primitive Christians worshipped ? Notwithstanding the Pied- montese are in some respects so religious, they appear to have less regard for the Sabbath than for some of the feast-days of their traditional calendar. We arrived on Friday night, too late for banking business, and as we needed something in this line to settle up our diligence fare, we proposed calling the next morning to get accommodated. We were informed, however, that the next morning was the feast-day of some saint, and therefore they could not do business ; but if we called the next day (Sunday), 12
134 ITALY.
they would wait upon us ! As this, however, did not suit our hours of business, we made other arrangements.
Our party had the curiosity to go into the grand saloon of the palace at Turin, to see his majesty come out on Sabbath morning to go to church. After waiting a long hour with the rabble — fre- quently crowded forward by the mob behind, and crowded back- ward again by the military guard before, during which time some three or four hundred officers, in full dress, entered — we had the pleasure of beholding the pageant. Here were the hundreds of mil- itary officers, with their shining gold and silver trimmings and ep- aulets ; here were the pages of the court, dressed in small clothes, white silk stockings, and red coats ; here were also the grooms, in court dress, mostly flaring red ; and here was the queen, in a splendid white satin dress, inwrought with silver, with a page be- hind holding up her trail, strutting like a lord, as if conscious of his high calling ; and here was the king himself, who was so much like other men that it was difficult to identify him until we were told it was " that great man" — for, as it happens, he is of uncommonly large size. The train passed on; the pageant van- ished ; and nature kept her wonted course. I was led to exclaim, " What is a king !" and the empty echoing hall responded, " What is a king !"
Turin is, on the whole, a pleasant city ; it contains about 80,000 or 90,000 inhabitants, has a university, founded in the fifteenth century, a cathedral, a palace (such as it is), and some fine public squares. The streets are at right angles, and some of them accommodated with fine arcades. The Strada del Po is fine, and by some supposed to be one of the most beautiful streets in Europe. We pass out through this when we leave for Genoa, at the end of which we cross the Po over a splendid bridge, beyond which is a fine church, built in the form of an an- cient temple. The city is in the centre of a beautiful plain, sur- rounded at a distance with picturesque highlands, and washed on two sides by the rivers Doria and Po. In leaving Turin we followed, for a time, the Po, or ancient Padus. This is the river into which Phaeton was hurled by Jupiter for his careless driving of the chariot of the sun, by which the world was set on fire. The waters of the Po, however, were not dried up, as we had an opportunity of testing by actual observation. The poplar-trees
WINTER FOLIAGE. 135
into which his sisters were changed by the wrath of the same god have, since that time, been greatly multiplied, I should think ; for these or some other trees form beautiful lines of leafy columns, stretching along the roads and the streams. I say leafy columns — their only leaves, however, at this time, were those of silver crystals, formed by the joint action of a damp atmosphere and a severe frost. These resplendent crystals, indescribably more gor- geous and magnificent than the artificial tinsel of the Sardinian court, threw back the rays of a bright Italian sun in such dazzling beams of quivering, waving light, as were never painted by hu- man pencil or described by human language. I took my seat outside of our voiture alone, that I might enjoy unmolested this unrivalled exhibition of nature's imagery. For a time, the chill of the atmosphere neutralized the heat of the sun's rays, and they were mirrored back as cold as they were bright. At length, how- ever, the latter prevailed ; the enchantment was dissolved, and the foliage of winter melted away.
We passed the ancient but now miserable town of Asti, famous, however, for its wine, and containing about 10,000 inhabitants Also Allessandria or Alexandria, which, as already mentioned, was built expressly for warlike purposes. And well does its history correspond with the military character of its birth, as it has suf- fered the horrors of many a siege. It has a strong citadel, a mag- nificent covered bridge over the Tanaro, which runs through it, and contains about 18,000 inhabitants.
After leaving Allessandria we passed the plain and village of Marengo, where Napoleon, in 1800, gained one of his most de- cided victories over the Austrians, and where the brave Dessaix lost his life.
The plain is remarkably favourable for the strife of mighty ar- mies, being extensive, level, and unobstructed. When we passed it was covered with a wheat crop just shooting from the ground. Thus death supports life; the field enriched with human gore teems with nourishment for the living race. Alas, how many of the rich fields of Lombardy have been fattened by the blood of the slain !
The passage of the Apennines was uninteresting, especially the ascent from the northern side. It was gradual, and wound its way through bald, barren mountains, which excited emotions
136 ITALY.
neither of sublimity nor beauty. The descent, however, was more rapid and picturesque, and an intense interest was excited in my own mind when I first caught a glimpse, from the gorge of the mountains, of the Mediterranean : " The sea ! the sea !" I vociferated, as my eye for the first time lighted upon thdSe classic waters. ,Oh ! what is there of interest to man; what is there of science, of literature, of art, of history, of religion, that is not as- sociated with the waves and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea ! From the Pillars of Hercules, round every bay, and gulf, and sub- ordinate sea, in all the sinuosities of the indented coast, to the Pillars of Hercules again, there is not a league in the distance which has not its classic associations. The trough of the Medi- terranean is the centre of the world ; and on its shores or in their neighbourhood all the great transactions of the world's drama have been beheld. Not far from this man was at first created — and here, too, he was redeemed. The patriarchs, some of them at least, saw these waters, and on their eastern boundaries the tribes of Israel had their inheritance. Here literature was cradled ; and the arts were not only born here, but here they were matured and perfected. On this inland ocean navigation was so advanced, and the maiiner so trained, as prepared the way and prompted to the effort to traverse the Atlantic, and find a new hemisphere. I cannot look upon these waters without enthusi- asm. As the waves break at my feet, I fancy it may be the same billow that laved the side of the ship Argo, in which Jason sailed for the golden fleece ; or one which had kissed the ship of Cad- mus while he was conveying the alphabet to Greece ; or perhaps it is the treacherous surge that broke over the ship of old Palinu- rus, and washed him into the sea ; or, if none of these, it may have danced beside the ship of the Apostle Paul in his passage to Rome.
What has not the Mediterranean beheld. She is the chroni- cler of the world, and on her shores the history of the nations is recorded. Egypt and Carthage, Tyre and Sidon, Greece and Rome, all, all have had their day, and printed their indelible his- tory upon these shores. Even Jerusalem, the city of the great king, could almost look from the heights of Zion into the " Great Sea." Here, too, is the birthplace of republicanism, where those models of government and principles of jurisprudence were ad-
REFLECTIONS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN- 137
vanced which have been the admiration and study of all succeed- ing ages.
But what is the Mediterranean now ? In point of literature and science, far brighter light shines upon other parts of Europe and America than shines on any part of those lands which once enjoyed the only spots of sunshine on the face of the earth. In a great part, indeed, semi-barbarism prevails ; such is Africa on the south, such is Asia on the east, and Turkey on the north. What can we find of civil liberty on the Mediterranean coasts ? Nothing worthy of the name. There are the seven specks of isl- ands called the Ionian Republic, besides which there is nothing, I believe, that bears the name of republicanism in the entire length and breadth of the Mediterranean coasts. Two thirds of the coast is under a despotism ; not one fourth of it has even a constitutional government, and not one league of its entire shore enjoys, in the true import of the term, civil liberty.* And what shall we say of religion ? This is the region where the gospel was first proclaimed ; wafted on these seas, it spread out over the islands and along the coasts in every direction ; and yet, now, alas ! " how is the gold changed, and the most fine gold become dim ?" With the exception of a little sprinkling of the Greek church in Greece, and some part of Turkey and Asia Minor, there is nothing to be found but Mohammedanism and Romanism. All the south- ern, eastern, and part of the northern coasts are under the undis- puted sway of the false prophet ; and Italy, France, and Spain are either infidel or Catholic. The Beast of the Apocalypse, it is said, rose up " out of the sea." How literally has that been fulfilled ! how fatally to the interests of the church !
Such being a brief outline of the past and present, the Mediter- ranean affords a picture to the man of literature and science, to the republican and the Protestant Christian, of melancholy interest. The sight begets feelings indescribable. We ask of every object we meet for some intelligence from the ancients, and everywhere we meet with objects that discourse eloquently of the past ; of heroes and of statesmen, of philosophers and of republics, of apostles and of evangelical churches. We ask, Where are they now ? and echo answers, " Where are they now ?"
We entered Genoa by moonlight, and found comfortable ac-
* San Marino is too small to be taken into the account.
12 S
1 38 ITALY.
commodations in the Hotel de Quatre Nations. Here we spent four days, and devoted what time and strength we had to seeing the lions of the city. There are many points in which all cities are similar ; and many of those smaller things in which any one is peculiar are not worthy of detail, at least such details come not within the scope of my present design. After stating, however, generally, that Genoa contains about 75,000 inhabitants ; that it is situated at the bottom of the gulf of the same name ; that it was once immensely rich, and abounding in commerce and navi- gation ; that it was the capital of a powerful republic, which con- tested the control of the seas with Venice, which city it on one occasion had wellnigh subjugated ; and that it bears in the walls of its arches and public edifices to this day large iron chains and hooks, as trophies of its subjugation of Pisa, I will proceed to state, briefly, some of the peculiarities of this city.
Its location is peculiar ; the country immediately about the Gulf of Genoa has a bold, mountainous character, leaving no room for a city of any size on level ground ; what land there was of this description was in the form of a crescent, circling round the bay. This, of course, is the shape of the town ; but as this affords but little room for building, most of the city has been crowded back upon the hills around in singularly romantic elevation; hence the town shows to the best advantage from the water, outside of the mole. Here you see it spread out before you and rising above you like a beautiful and magnificent amphitheatre. The steepness of the site is probably one reason that the town is built with such narrow lanes that carriages cannot pass. Never before did I see so few carriages of any kind in so large a city. The streets are mere foot-lanes. I believe carriages pass in but three or four principal streets. Sedan chairs are a substitute for coaches, and donkeys with pack-saddles for drays and wagons. You will see these little animals climbing up the steep streets, loaded on their backs with bricks, stones, and timber for building, or with firewood, furniture, &c., for the houses already built. One great inconvenience of these narrow streets is the want of lights in the houses ; and yet this is not so great as it would be if the houses were on the same level, since the upper range is, in part at least, lighted over the tops of the next lower. Another is the urihealthiness of these confined streets. It is this,
GENOA. 139
probably, that aggravated the cholera, which proved so fatal the past season.
Genoa is a place of remarkable strength, yet it has been taken. The Austrians took it, in 1799, from the French general, but this was by starvation. Again it was taken, in 1714, by the Brit- ish general, Lord W. Bentinck. It appeared to me to be a disad- vantage rather than a safeguard to the place, that there are so many fortifications in the neighbourhood of the town, rising, as they do, one above another, on each successive height and more distant mountain. If one of these, say the highest and farthest, was taken by an enemy, I see nothing to prevent his commanding the fortress next below him, and so of the others in succes- sion. I suppose, however, those who planned these fortresses understood the subject much better than I do ; certainly there are enough of them, and they are strong enough to repel a mighty army with a small force. In addition to the external fortresses, there are round the city two impregnable walls, with occasional fortresses and towers ; and, on the side of the harbour, the entire city is walled, and defended by strong batteries, at which cannons are kept constantly mounted. This is the more necessary, as his Sardinian majesty has very little naval strength, not exceeding, perhaps, fifteen or eighteen vessels of every description.
The harbour is defended from the wind on the side that opens into the sea by an artificial mole, without which vessels in south or southwest winds would not be safe. There are no wharves, and all the merchandise has to be brought from the ships by fe- luccas to one place of entrance, where is the custom-house ; and the wall around the harbour is a safeguard against all smuggling, which appears to be its only present use, except as a public promenade. All travellers notice thefanale, or lighthouse, which is a tower on an insulated rock at the west end of the town. I can hardly see, however, why it should be so worthy of special notice, unless it be from the fact that it is the only one either here or anywhere on the coast, a deficiency that appears very singular to those who have been accustomed to see their coast studded with lights. But not more so than another fact, which strikes me with great force, viz., the fewness of the ships in these waters. The Genoese were once the greatest navigators in the world, and behind no others in commerce ; but now, neither they nor any
140 ITALY.
one else appear to have much business on these waters. On our coasts and in the British seas, we see the waters whitened with canvass ; but here — " Naves natantes rarce, in gurgite vasto" — a ship is comparatively a rare sight.
Genoa is situated in the ancient Liguria, and is mentioned in Livy and Strabo, the latter describing it as furnishing fine timber from the neighbouring mountains, all of which might be true in his day ; but the mountains are quite naked of timber at this time, and the scarcity of wood shows that there is very little in the neighbourhood. It cost us about two dollars a day to keep one poor fire, although we were most of the time abroad. The wea- ther, however, was on this occasion extremely cold ; so much so that many of the fountains in the town were frozen into hanging icicles, to the great admiration of the citizens. As we were return- ing from church on the Sabbath, we saw hundreds going in and out at a court of one of the palaces ; we turned in to see the great sight ; when lo ! we found a little cascade from a fountain frozen into hanging ice spars ; and this is so rare it was a wonder of the Genoese. The greatest wonder with me was how, with the thermometer several degrees below the freezing point, the oranges and citrons in and about the city should remain uninjured.*
Another peculiarity of Genoa is the number and richness of its palaces. It is said there are above fifty of these palaces that are worthy of notice. Indeed, the rich Genoese appear to have thought that they could in no other way display their wealth and vindicate their rank so well as by building a splendid palace, and furnishing it in a princely style. We visited a number of these palaces as specimens of the whole, but deem it not necessary to go into a detail of the apartments. Suffice it to say, they were elegantly finished and furnished, not only with marble floors of various colours and workmanship, and of gilt and frescoed ceilings, and marble and mosaic tables, but they were also furnished with paintings and works of art by the first masters. The edifices are generally of marble, walls, floors, and all. We saw, among other palaces, a splendid one of Paganini, the Italian fiddler, who appears to be more splendidly lodged than his Sardinian majesty himself.
* In some parts the citrons were injured, and the olives almost ruined. In Pisa they were lamenting greatly the injury of their olive crop by the frost. The olive vields a biennial crop, and the fruit is ripe in December.
SUCCESSIVE CHANGES IN THE GOVERNMENT OF GENOA. 141
Our lacquey de place amused us as much as the sights we saw. He was a remarkably intelligent and active Frenchman, who could speak all languages with his eyes and gestures. He took us into one palace, where we saw one of the noble family sitting over a kettle of coals, deranged ; and showed us the estate of another nobleman who was in the same situation. We asked him how many mad noblemen they had. " Oh !" said he, " eight, ten, or twelve ; a great many of them have their heads disordered !"
Some of the churches of Genoa are elegant, and are furnished with some splendid paintings and statuary. In one, the Cathedral of St. Lorenzo, they have the mortal remains of John the Bap- tist, although I must believe they cannot have his head, be- cause we saw that in the cathedral of Amiens, in France ; unless, indeed, the head of the saint has been miraculously multiplied, like the wood of the true cross. Several of the pictures of the churches here were carried to Paris by Napoleon, and were at his dethronement returned to their places.
Genoa, as we have seen, gained its ascendency by its wealth ; and, we may add, by its wealth it fell. Had not its citizens been corrupted and enervated by luxury, they never would have sub- mitted to the domination either of a foreign yoke or of a native lord. They were weakened also by foreign wars, and were di- vided into factions among themselves. This last was, in fact, the principal cause of their downfall. They were conquered by the French in 1458, and, after shaking off this yoke, they submitted voluntarily to the Duke of Milan in 1464 ; after several changes Genoa was taken and pillaged by the Spaniards in 1522. By this wanton act of the Spaniards the interests of all the merchants of Europe were affected, so extensive was the trade of this city. It again passed into the hands of the French. In 1 528, however, by the intervention of Andre Doria, liberty and independence were restored to Genoa ; but, availing himself of his wealth and power, he established an aristocracy, against which the people revolted. After several conspiracies and various internal and external com- motions, they fell under the power of the Austrians in 1746. Here followed the last struggle of the Genoese worthy of their ancient character ; oppressed and insulted by the Austrians beyond all en- durance, a trifling circumstance led to the expulsion of their op- pressors. A sergeant, attempting to cane one of the citizens, was
142 ITALY.
resisted ; the citizens rallied at the commotion which followed, and, although they had no arms, they used stones and various missiles, filled the narrow streets and many of the houses with the dead bodies of the Germans, and finally expelled them from the city. This was the last glorious event in their history. The events of the French revolution affecting Genoa have already been al- luded to.
The Dorian palace remains ; some of the ancient families still have a name in Genoa ; her marble palaces and churches still tower one above another up the sides of the mountain in one mag- nificent amphitheatre, but the Ligurian republic is no more. " The soul of* the city is fled." It is subjected to a foreign yoke, and its glory is departed.
Our healths have been kindly preserved and improved. We start to-morrow morning for Florence, which is distant five days' journey, according to the slow travelling of the veturino, which carries us through, finding everything on the road, for fifty francs each, or about ten dollars.
My kind regards to all friends. Peace be with you and with the churches of Christ. W. FISK.
On Tuesday, January 5, we took our departure from Genoa to Florence.
Genoa, as you are aware, is called the native city of Columbus. He was born, however, a little out of the city, where his paternal house is still standing ; to our regret, our time and circumstances did not permit us to visit it.
The gardens and orchards of the sloping hills and sunny vales which we passed the first few miles out of Genoa were yellow with the golden orange and citron. This, being the first scene of the kind we had seen, had novelty as well as its own rich beauty to recommend it. Here also, in great abundance, far up the mount- ains, even in most cases to their very tops, the ever-green olive spreads out its branches, laden, just at this moment, with ripe fruit. Each of these mountains might be called Mount Olivet, for their entire slopes, in most cases, were terraced, cultivated, and planted with the olive. Fig-trees, too, were frequent, but " the time of figs was not yet," nay, nor yet of fig-leaves, and the tree in its undress is not interesting, except in its associations.
MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 143
Its branches are crooked, clumsy, and terminating so suddenly, and in such large blunt stems, that you may say of it, what can be said of few othei trees, it has no twigs.
In addition to the interesting foliage and fruits of these mount- ains, they are spotted with isolated dwellings, with clustering vil- lages, with churches and castles, to their very summits ; and these summits themselves, in numerous instances, capped with fortresses and towers. The mountain scene also is infinitely varied, by reason of the sea in its various bays and indentures upon the coast. At one time it throws in its watery arm, as if exulting in its power to invade the possessions of terra firma, and subjugate the land to its watery dominion ; and at another time retreating before t jutting promontory of the mountain, which comes down upon the domains of the watery god with abrupt and frowning aspect, threatening, as has often been done, to take possession of a part of his kingdom by colonial avalanche. These frequent processions and recessions of the land and water, in their apparent strife for dominion, add nothing to the facilities of the traveller's advancement, however much they may vary and beautify the scenery. It is, in point of direct advancement, like travelling up the doubling galleries of the Alpine roads ; for, after travelling most of the day, you look back upon Genoa, and find it still in your own neighbourhood. Of the city, and of the entire coast, studded with villages and indented with bays, and of the mountains, clothed with olives and sprinkled with dwellings, you have an elegant view as you look back through one of the three grottoes that you pass on the first day's journey from Genoa. The first of these grottoes is cut through under the top of the mountain, to avoid going over it, and is much shorter than the grotto of the Echelles before spoken of; it is also arched with masonry, which renders it less rustic and imposing than the Alpine grotto. The other two are near each other, and are cut through the side of the mountain as it hangs over the sea. It seems as easy to cut the road inside of the surface as to cut it through on the outside and build the necessary protections against the precipice ; and, in addition, the danger and obstruction of avalanches are in this way avoided.
At length we once more descended to the seashore, along which we passed two or three miles, the most of the way bordered on the water side by the flowering aloe, that lives and grows for a cen-
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tury only that it may blossom to die ; and, on the other side, by high perpendicular precipices, to Sestri, the ancient Segeste. Here we took lodgings for the night in the Hotel de la Belle Europe, a house of no great claims, whatever may be its pretensions. One of our company was so displeased with the wine, that, on leaving, he offered the landlord to be at the expense of repainting his sign if he would have it painted with the appropriate name of the Hotel de Vin-aigre (Vinegar). There are, however, more than one Hotel de Vin-aigre in France and Italy ; for, although they are imbowered with vines which yield the finest of grapes, yet they manufacture the wine so badly that it is often miserable. The next day we ascended the Bracco, said to be one of the loftiest passages of the Apennines. Much of the way the road, which is as fine as can be conceived of, being hard and smooth, and of gradual ascent, is hewn in the sides of mountains of marble and slate, and carried by magnificent galleries over what seem to be impassable eminences. What will not the industry and perse- verance of man accomplish ? One gazes at these stupendous sta- gings up and down these barriers of the world, at a loss which most to admire, the power that " Ossa on Pelion piled," or the Heaven- inspired enterprise by which these pigmies of the earth construct their thoroughfares over these desolate and cloud-capped mountains. I say cloud-capped mountains ; but perhaps I should have said, rather, the cloud-girded or cloud-mantled mountains ; for our obser- vation led us to conclude that these mountains oftener wore the clouds around the waist as a zone, or around the shoulders as a mantle, than over the head as a crown. At first we were dis- posed to regret that we made this pass in a foggy morning, as it interrupted our distant view, and diminished the interest of the passage ; but we afterward found that this loss was more than compensated in another way. We kept rising until we penetrated the misty veil, and found it no poetic fiction that mountains might " wear sunshine on their brow, while tempests waste their fury at their feet." The mountain top was bright, the cloud hung midway in the air below us, and such an exhibition was made to our de- lighted vision as neither poet nor painter has ever delineated. It was not a sea of glass, nor yet of water, and still we could make nothing of it but a sea, an unruffled, distant sea, somewhat blanched by a low mist hovering over the even surface, softening the light
IMPOSITION ON TRAVELLERS. 145
of the sun into a mild whiteness, and checking the intenseness of the reflected rays. There, too, were the islands, for so the mount- ain tops, which occasionally rose above the surface, appeared, and there were the bays, and even rivers of that sea, winding up be- tween the distant heights. And the depths below ! Here ima- gination had full play. How deep might be the sub-nubian caverns in that white sea, over which we hung on our mountain galleries, who could tell ? But the lowest of them we were destined to fathom, not by plummet and line, but in our own proper persons, in our descent we left the region of light, plunged into the sea of mist, and, after hours of descent, found ourselves ^underneath in- stead of above the fairy sea ; its dark side hung over us, excluding the rays of the sun, having, previous to our descent, according to appearances, moistened the earth with a gentle shower. Here we breakfasted, at 1 P. M., at a village called Borghetto; thence over another mountain to La Spezia, to lodge.
Without, however, tiring the reader with dry detail of each day's labour and travel, I will conduct him to Florence in much less time than it took us to accomplish the course ; not, however, without mentioning one or two incidents of the remainder of the journey. In passing thus far from Pont de Beauvoisin, on the line between France and Savoy, we had travelled all the way through the possessions of the King of Sardinia, thus making the entire tour of his dominions, I might almost say, from east to west* and from north to south, travelling in it, small as it is, between four and five hundred miles. But now we were destined to pass through two other sovereignties before we reached the empire of the Grand-duke of Tuscany, those of Modena and Lucca. We were to pass through but a corner of Modena, but enough of it for the puissant monarch to show his power over unarmed and defence- less travellers. At the line, not only were our passports demanded, according to custom, but we were also required to present our carte de sanite — our bill of health. We had none. " You cannot pass." Remonstrance was useless ; we had to go back five miles to Sarsana, where, by buying a dinner of the landlord, and paying his lacquey de place six or seven pauls, they procured for us from the police-officers of the town (who, by-the-way, neither by themselves or by the medical board, felt our pulse nor saw our faces) a cer- 13 T
146 ITALY.
lificate that we were in good health, and free from the infection of any contagious disease. With this humbug we went back, when, after plumbing our baggage without looking at it, another fee of a few pauls gained us a passage through the plantation of the Grand-duke of Modena ! This is the only obstruction, on the ground of health regulations, that we have met with; and whether this was anything more than a concerted scheme to get a few pauls out of us, I am unable to say. One thing is very clear in my mind, and that is, that this whole business of examining pass- ports and baggage, and the like, is but a miserable, despicable device of these petty governments to support their half-starved emissaries. In travelling from Paris to Florence, including the two places, my passport has received twenty-four official endorsements, and it has been examined, I think, a still greater number of times without being stamped. Sometimes it is done gratuitously, but in most in- stances custom, if not law, requires a fee for proving to your jailer, as you enter his prison-house (for so all these military governments have been appropriately called), by official documents, that you are an honest man ; and you are not only to prove it when you enter the kingdom, but you must prove it over and over again. When you enter a city, your name, the gate, and hour of passing it, must all be entered ; and when you leave the same ceremony must be gone through with ; and if, through ignorance or other- wise, you happen to fail of getting all the signatures at any place, you are sent back without ceremony, perhaps scores of miles ; nay, you may think yourself well off if you escape thus. One of our countrymen recorded, in one of those public books kept in almost every hotel in this country in which travellers write their names and their commendations of the house, that, for one of these mistakes in obtaining a proper signature, he was arrested and con- ducted away as a prisoner; and, after much delay and expense, succeeded in obtaining his liberty by applying to higher authority. The traveller will meet with nothing more annoying than these in- terruptions; and the more insignificant the petty state through which he passes, the more he is harassed by these public robbers. The entire system is an outrage upon civilized society, and ought to be made a subject of international negotiation, until this refinement on feudal tyranny shall be banished. It is to be hoped that France will see the propriety of shaking off this mean, despicable, sus-
POLICY OP AMERICA. 147
picious, guilt-convicting practice, and set a noble example of re form to the other nations of Europe. As I am now in the spirit of complaining, I will say a word respecting our own government as connected with this system. As things now are, it becomes necessary for our consuls, in different places, to vise or endorse the passports, and for this they are obliged to charge the poor trav- eller two dollars each ; I say obliged, for this, in some instances, is all the compensation the consul gets for his official services. He is obliged to pay every attention to his fellow-citizens (or to citizens of the United States, for the consul is not always our fel- low-citizen), and for all this official protection, protection that government owes its citizens, whether at home or abroad, he is obliged, much to his own mortification, to charge for the signa- ture of his name a paltry fee. He is unable frequently to con- ceal his mortification when exacting this fee. This is a shame to the American government. With an overflowing treasury, by which she might allow a fair compensation to all her officers, she nevertheless sends her agents abroad to unite with and keep in countenance the execrable policy of other governments, by picking the pocket of every passing traveller. Who will see to this thing, and correct our beggarly policy in this matter ?
The custom-house regulations have more plausibility for their existence than this passport system, and yet they are executed with far less exactness. Any man may buy his peace of the officer of customs for a few pauls. Our trunks were not opened by an officer from the French line to Florence, although we travelled through three sovereignties and entered a fourth. Indeed, the of- ficers did not hesitate to tell us that for two, three, or four pauls, as the case might be, we might pass unmolested ; otherwise we must be delayed, perhaps one or two hours, and have our baggage unpacked and rummaged, and even then they would be very sure to light on a book, or some trifle by which they would still exact their fee.
Lucca, which was the next empire we passed after Modena, is a miserable place ; not that the soil is poor, for this is rich and fertile all the way from Sarsana to Florence ; but the inhabitants look wretched, and seem to be subjected to great hardships for a miserable existence. What can it mean, that here is a land like the garden of Eden, and yet teeming with such a wretched popula-
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lion ? There is guilt somewhere. Who has taken the bread from the poor, and filled the land with beggary and squalid poverty ? Let those concerned see to it, for the day of retribution is at hand. Beggars constantly assailed us in the public road, and many others looked as though they might with propriety be furnished with a carte de lapauvrete to beg. One special exhibition met us frequently in this ride. The weather was extremely cold for Italy, so that the streams were freezing at the edges, and the still ponds of water were frozen over ; the wind was cold and piercing, and yet the females were everywhere, almost, on the road, washing in the cold streams ; scores of them might be seen standing in the running water up to their knees, remaining probably for hours in this sit- uation. I had seen the poor women of France washing in the Seine, in a cold winter day, reaching over the sides of long scows, fitted up with a roof and moored in the stream for the pur- pose, and this I thought was at least uncomfortable ; but to be turned into the stream feet and hands, at this inclement season, appeared unsafe, if not insupportable. It is not the fashion of the country, either in France or Italy, to wash in warm water, and there is for this a very good reason ; they cannot afford fuel to heat it, and therefore they wash in the rivers and brooks. These poor creatures, after washing all day in this situation, and after wring- ing out their clothes, and carrying them home in a tub upon their heads, some of them, perhaps, a mile up a steep mountain, have no fire to sit down by, and spend a winter evening in thawing the rheumatism out of their chilled and almost frozen limbs. They have a stone hovel, perhaps ; oh, how many of these wretched, cheerless lodges have I seen — a stone hovel ! The lower story is a stable for the cow or the donkey, if they have one, surrounded and filled with filth at any rate, and the upper story covered with rough flat stones, floored with the same, without fire, without glass windows, and filled with dirty, ragged children.
In the city of Lucca, which is the capital of the duchy of the same name, we were surrounded with beggars ; and, wherever we went, were watched and followed by soldiers and spies, who seemed suspicious that we had come to take away their place and nation. If we went into a church, they would enter and kneel near us, but were watching us rather than saying their prayers ; if we went into the street, they followed us thither ; and if we
FLORENCE. 149
walked about the town, they followed us still. In short, we were glad to leave this ancient city, which is said to have been honoured, in the days of Julius Caesar, with his taking up his winter-quarters there ; and thither most of the Roman nobility came to visit him, insomuch that there were said to have been two hundred Roman senators in the city at one time. Subsequently, and for many cen- turies, it was a free city, and had " Libertas" inscribed upon its gates. But the name has been effaced, and the thing itself lost. Upon her gates Ichabod should now be inscribed, for her glory is departed.
CHAPTER IX.
To Professor D. D. Wheden, of the Wesleyan University.
MY DEAR PROFESSOR,
ON entering Florence we found lodgings at the Hotel de Ville de Londres, an excellent house, and reasonable in price. The next day was Sabbath, and we were glad to find Protestant wor- ship in English. A doorkeeper requested a fee of three pauls for each seat ; a fee which, however revolting the charge might seem at first, we, on a moment's reflection, paid most cheerfully, and were glad in this way to contribute our mite towards the sup- port of divine worship, for English and American Protestants, in the heart of a Catholic country. That such worship is permitted in these states is a triumph over old prejudices which augurs well of the future ; especially when I add that, not only in English, but in Italian also, Protestant worship is maintained here in Flor- ence. We found, also, Protestant service in Genoa ; and it is held, we were informed, in the other principal cities of Tuscany, as well as in Naples, and Rome itself.
We devoted the following week to seeing the wonders of art in this interesting city, sometimes styled the Athens of Italy. I say interesting, but not for what the city is so much as for what it contains.* The general character of the city, like other Italian
* There is much of historical interest connected with the various palazzi, &c. of Florence ; but an allusion now to these would be tedious, and, for my purpose, useless*.
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cities, is not very pleasant ; the streets are narrow, and the houses high, which renders the rooms dark ; and, as if eager to shut out what little light, there is, it is usual to extend the eaves, or jet of the roofs out four or six feet from the wall. This, in a narrow street, almost brings the opposite eaves together. This practice of narrow streets, high houses, and projecting roofs, appears to be common' throughout Italy ; and, although it transforms their houses into gloomy prisons, and seems, to a resident in a more northern and healthy climate, an outrage upon all taste and pro- priety, yet in this climate it has its advantages. The houses in summer are much more comfortable, and, so far as the malaria is concerned, much more healthy, for they interrupt the death-bear- ing vapour, and protect the inhabitants from its fatal contact. In winter, also, the tramontane winds, which are piercing and un- healthy, are measurably shut out. On the other hand, certain kinds of diseases are greatly aggravated by these close, pent-up, dirty cities ; the cholera, for instance. It is on this account, in part, doubtless, that this latter disorder was so fatal in Genoa and some other Italian cities the past season. Indeed, I cannot con- ceive how Florence can escape being visited with frequent conta- gious epidemics. Every warm day while we were there a most offensive effluvia saluted our olfactory nerves as we walked the streets ; and, if the smell was not sufficient to make one's stomach heave, the sight of the eye, one would think, might produce that effect ; all kinds of nuisances are committed in the street, and that in open day, without any apparent shame or attempt at conceal- ment. One cannot but laugh at his own misconceptions, when the sober reality dissipates the delusions with which poesy and romance have invested Italy. He comes with an imagination glowing with blue skies, and spicy breezes, and ambrosial sweets, and he finds his room so dark at midday, frequently, that he needs a lamp, and the air around him highly impregnated, it is true, but with anything rather than an agreeable fragrance. I speak now of the cities and villages. Well may one writer have said that Cloacina, the ancient Roman goddess of cleanliness, or rather of filth and odour, had fled the country, and taken up her residence at the North ; he says, the other side of the British Channel ; but
Any one wishing details of this kind will find them spun out to their heart's content in Lady Morgan's Italy.
THE ROYAL GALLERY. 151
I would say, the other side of the Atlantic ;* for although the cities of England have not generally so much of the most offensive kind of dirt that abounds in Italian cities, still my observation thus far has inclined me to the opinion that the English cities bear no comparison with ours for cleanliness. I think, however, in England, it is more the fault of the soil and the atmosphere than of the people.
Florence is encompassed by a wall of six miles in circumfer- ence, contains about eighty thousand inhabitants, and is the capi- tal of Tuscany (which was the ancient Etruria), and the residence of the grand-duke. It is divided into two parts by the river Arno, over which are four very good bridges. It contains various churches, palaces, piazzas, and public statues, which are worthy of the notice of a traveller, but which, if described in detail, would, at best, be a dry story, unless one had a greater skill at this kind of delineation than I have. A general notice, however, of what is most interesting, cannot fail to be desirable ; and if but tolerably executed, must, to one unacquainted, be interesting.
The Royal Gallery* This is a collection of statuary and paint- ings, ancient and modern, made by the successive sovereigns of Tuscany, and especially by the Medici family. The princes of this family, who appear to owe their first elevation to wealth ac- cumulated in the commerce of the Levant, applied a portion of their vast means to the encouragement of the arts and of literature, and to the collection of the most rare specimens of the ancient artists that had survived the wreck of the northern barbarians. The works of the most celebrated artists of modern times, together with the antiques, are arranged in three long corridors, two of four hundred and thirty feet each, and one of ninety-seven feet, and numerous side cabinets and halls, making in the whole, I think, about twenty-two. The ceilings of most of these apartments are painted with elegant frescoes by the first artists. Here are ar- ranged ancient busts of the most eminent men ; here also is a great number of ancient sarcophagi, statues, and bronzes ; here are medals, inscriptions, gems, Egyptian antiquities, vases, and paint- ings. The paintings are of all the different schools, viz., Tuscan, Italian, Dutch, Flemish, French, and Venetian, and are arranged in
* The reader will bear in mind that I had not yet seen Holland nor the south of Italy Compared with the former, our cities are filthy ; and compared with the latter, the cities of Tuscany are cleanly.
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separate cabinets. Here are portraits of nearly three hundred painters, mostly executed by themselves. The cabinet of gems is most splendid, and it seems, in the various ingenious forms into which they have been wrought, that much time of the greatest artists has been employed on these splendid baubles. Millions, perhaps, of value are concentrated in this one cabinet.
But the great centre of attraction is the cabinet called the Trib- une. Here, among other ancient statues and elegant paintings, »s the famous Venus de Medici, that chef d'&uvre of art, the beau ideal of beauty, the wonder of the world. This statue was found in Adrian's villa at Rome, and is very generally attributed to Praxiteles, the Greek artist, and, if correctly, it has been in be- ing between twenty-one and twenty-two hundred years, as Prax- iteles flourished more than three hundred years before the Chris- tian era ! This goddess has not passed down the stream of time, in some of the most troublous eras of history, without loss. It is indeed wonderful that she could have escaped with only the loss of one arm and part of the other, and some small fractures in other parts. These all, however, have been restored with great care and skill, so as not to mar the general appearance of the statue ; though, perhaps, the restorations are not equal to the original. The position is modest, if a female figure in a state of perfect nudity can have that epithet applied to it, and the body and limbs are most beautifully fashioned ; but the head is too small, and phrenologists say she has every indication of being a fool. Although I have no great faith in phrenology, I must confess there is nothing in the countenance or head of this Venus that would lead me to admire her if she was flesh and blood ; as a work of art, however, it is undoubtedly admi- rable. This would accord with my own judgment; and this I must concede, at any rate, because all the world have so decided. I confess I am not as enthusiastic an admirer of statuary as some, especially of imitations of the human frame. As forms alone are the province of the sculptor, he is limited in his sphere. He can- not portray those workings of the immortal mind in the counte- nance, and those flashings of intellectual fire in the eye, which out- weigh every other visible attribute of the " human form divine." However, I have no objection to marble men and women ; they certainly have their interest; but long may the time be before naked human figures shall be exhibited on the American shores*
THE PALAZZO PITTI. 153
At present, such an exhibition would not be tolerated ; and it is at first one of the objects that surprise us, that men and women can mingle together, and examine, without embarrassment, these undraped works of art : yet so it is ; and American ladies, who, like the rest of their sex, readily fall into the fashions of times and places, soon become familiar to such exhibitions.
Another Venus has risen up at Flprence, in modern days, from the chisel of Canova, which, in the opinion of some, rivals the antique. Although this Venus is not in the gallery, but in the Palazzo Pitti, of which I shall speak presently, yet, as these two editions of the goddess of love are generally spoken of to- gether, I will here say that Canova's Venus evidently has the ad- vantage of the other in that she has a drapery thrown around her, which, instead of concealing, rather heightens her charms ; and also, that she has, in the judgment of many, a better head and a nobler countenance ; but the limbs and general form are in other respects inferior. But to be only inferior to the former is great merit; and to be superior in any respect is more meritorious still. Canova was a great artist, and it may be long before another will rise up to fill his place.
In this same Cabinet of the Tribune are various other admi rable statues and paintings, such as Apollo, the Knife-whetter, &c., of the former ; and of the latter, two Venuses by Titian, St. John by Andrea del Sarto, another St. John and two other pictures by Raphael, and several others by Rubens, Vandyck, and other celebrated masters. One can form but an imperfect conception of this gallery of the arts until he has seen it, or one similar. Months might be spent in it without exhausting the subjects.
Palazzo Pitti. This palace is so named after a noble Floren- tine, who began to build, but was not able to finish it. It is now the palace of the Gran-due, who, however, does not reside here, but has a more domestic palace near by for his family residence. The building itself has been compared, in its external aspect, to a prison ; but to me it has a grand and an interesting appearance. It is an imposing structure, with a rusticated basement, and the whole finished after the Florentine style of the fifteenth century. It is connected with beautiful gardens, which are laid out on a plan very different from the public grounds called gardens which we had seen in France. The growth was principally shrubbery
U
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of evergreens, and hence, through the winter, it is dressed in beau- tiful foliage. The day we were in it was remarkably warm for the season, which, together with the verdant appearance of the grounds, served to transport us suddenly from the severe winter we had been experiencing the preceding days into the delights and verdure of summer. The grounds are on a side hill, from the upper part of which we had. a most splendid view, not only of the city, but of the environs, the neighbouring villas, the luxuriant plains, and the more distant mountains ; a view which, in our country, would be perfect enchantment, but which, from what I have seen of Italy, is here attended with such associations as de- tract greatly from the charms of vision. These plains, melhinks, are rife with a beggarly population ; and that dazzling array of glowing white walls, throwing back the rays of an Italian sun, is nothing but coarse stucco, daubed upon coarser stone walls of cheerless and dirty edifices.
But let us go inside of this palace ; and why should I take the reader within ? for I cannot go round these splendid apartments in my description. Through a large suite of rooms the eye rests continually on the first paintings of the first artists ; such as Ra- phael, Rubens, Titian, Andrea del Sarto, Carlo Dolci, Salvator Rosa, Guido, and numerous others. The best of them, in my humble opinion, is Mars escaping from the arms of Venus, by Rubens. There are also two or three unrivalled Madonas, espe cially one by Raphael. One of these rooms, the largest, if I rightly remember, in the suite, is the most splendid, on the whole, that I ever beheld. The ceiling has a magnificent fresco painting of Homer's Council of the Gods, the walls are entirely covered with the most splendid paintings, and the room set off with elegant marble tables, with mosaic work of pietra dura. The mouldings were gilded, and the wainscoting of the room was rich silk tapes- try, and all the furniture in corresponding style. One gazes with ceaseless wonder at the triumphs of genius and of art.
Much of interest is lost in these galleries of Italian paintings by the constant repetition of the same subject : Christ on the Cross, and Christ taken down from the Cross, the Madona, the Holy Family, Mary Magdalen, John the Baptist, &c., are re- peated and repeated until one is weary of the sight. Indeed, ] cannot conceive that the artist himself is entitled to so muci
MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. 165
credit for success in these oft-repeated subjects ; for he has copies before him from which, by selection and combination, he may make an excellent picture without any originality of genius. There is also so much quaintness and fiction in many of these designs, that one cannot but be disgusted. The Holy Family, for instance, is generally painted with a little boy, designed for John the Baptist ; but how he became a member of the family of Joseph it is difficult to determine. The Virgin is often gorgeously attired ; sometimes represented as a queen ; and, in a great ma- jority of cases, whether in births, or crucifixions, or circumcisions (for there are a number of these latter), there are numerous celes- tial beings, in the form of cherubs, peeping through the clouds, and bearing wreaths and crowns. In addition to the paintings in these apartments there are most costly and splendid mosaic tables, elegant clocks and cabinets, and, finally, the Venus of Canova al- ready mentioned.
Adjoining the Pitti palace is the Museum of Natural History. This has a most splendid collection of anatomical preparations in wax. Dr. Johnson says, in his work on Change of Air, &c., that although these preparations are not " particularly correct," they are sufficiently so for general scientific purposes. They are not so much, however, a collection of the system diseased as of all parts of the healthy subject, in every possible aspect of dissection, and at every possible age, before and after birth. The spongy and thick-leafed plants also, that cannot be preserved, are here all formed in wax ; and, in addition to this, and what excels all the rest, is the representation of the plague, which is so perfect and so horrible, that the sensation produced by looking at it is exces- sively painful. Here are dead bodies in all the different stages of putrefaction, with rats, and bugs, and other vermin rioting upon the unburied carcasses. It is horribly true to the life, or rather, I should say, to the death. There is also a fine and extensive col- lection of stuffed birds, beasts, and reptiles, with an equally fine cabinet of minerals and petrifactions.
The Academy of the Fine Arts, in an opposite part of the city, is interesting, especially as it shows the history of the art of paint- ing, from its rude character in the twelfth century up to the pres- ent time. To this collection each of the proteges of government, who are supported at Rome at the public expense, are obliged to
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furnish a picture for each of the two years they are thus supported. The fine arts are cultivated in Tuscany at the expense of common education and general comfort ; nay, I may say, at the expense of food for the poor. The government can do very little for common schools or colleges even, but it can send every promising young artist to Rome, to be educated two years at the public expense, and it can build a royal chapel which costs millions.
In the same building with the Academy of Arts is the manufac- ture of pietra dura, or hard stone. It is a mosaic, which, instead of being wrought and shaded with painted glass, like ordinary mosaics, is wrought in a tablet of slate or marble, with precious stones of the natural colour ; the only manufacture of the kind, it is said, in the world ; and, like that of the Royal Gobelin tapes- try in Paris, it is wholly in the hands of the sovereign, and the artists are allowed to work for no one else. This seems a hard case too, for the poor fellows only receive, we were informed, a half a crown a day for labouring at one of the most extraordinary arts in the world, without the most distant hope of promotion, or even the slightest public reputation. So much for absolute au- thority. This is state slavery.
The great difficulty in this work is to match the stones with the requisite shades. To this end all the variegated colours of the most beautiful stones and gems are procured and arranged for the use of the artist. To give some idea of the expense of this kind of manufacture ; one table, which was pointed out to us, and which was nearly finished for the altar of the royal chapel, had employed twelve persons for eight years, and would cost twenty thousand crowns. Indeed, a great portion of the industry of this manufacture is now, and has been for many years, devoted to this chapel, generally called the Chapel of the Medici. Hence, in this connexion, it may be in place to speak of this chapel. It is designed not so much for a place of worship as for a public mon- ument. It was commenced at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and is still far from being completed. Three hundred workmen were at one time employed upon it. It is an octagon figure, and is literally encased with marble and precious stones, and much of the lower part of the walls is covered with the Flor- entine mosaic. It is thus that for mere purposes of pride and show princes empoverish their subjects, and so exhaust the re-
CHURCHES OF FLORENCE. 157
sources of the country, that they have no means of alleviating the sufferings or enlightening the ignorance of their subjects.
But I hasten to glance at one or two other subjects, and leave Florence, for I feel that I have delayed here already too long. The Cathedral, orDwomo, a majestic building, was finished in 1445, said to be four hundred and twenty-six Paris feet in length. The building is cased externally by white and black polished marble, and beside it is a Campinile, or tower of a quadrangular form, two hundred and eighty Paris feet in height, of black and red polished marble. It is counted the finest in Italy, but to me both edifices have a very quaint appearance ; nevertheless, they are magnifi- cent. The Baptistry, in the same group, corresponds with the Duomo and the Campinile, and is covered with a dome. The doors are of bronze, and are so fine that Michael Angelo said " they deserved to have been the gates of paradise."
The Chiesa di St. Croce, or Church of the Holy Cross, is partic- ularly interesting for the tombs of the great men who are buried in it. First and foremost is that of Michael Angelo himself, one of the sublimest geniuses of his or any age, and a noble champion for the independence of his country. He died at Rome in 1563, in the eighty-ninth year of his age, but his body was removed to Florence and buried here. Here also is the tomb of Alfieri, the great Italian tragedian, who left his native country, Piedmont, in disgust at the .arbitrary character of the government, and went to Florence to live and die ; this is by Canova. Here also is the tomb of Machiavelli, whose memory is honoured, although all kinds of opprobium have been heaped upon him, until Machiavel- lian policy has come to be an epithet of proverbial reproach.* Here, too, is a monument of Galileo, the great astronomer, who was at first buried in unconsecrated ground because a supersti- tious age thought his philosophical discoveries savoured of heresy ! And here is a monument of Dante, the father of Italian poetry and the great advocate of Italian liberty. All these, and many others which I cannot mention, have splendid monuments, some of them
* Machiavelli distinguished himself more than once in opposition to theMedicean tyr- anny. This brought him to the torture in one instance, and left him to live unpatronised and die in poverty ; and yet, in his work called " The Prince," he is accused of favour- ing tyranny, and reducing it to a diabolical science ! Grant it. But why did he write it ? Was it not for reasons and for purposes that more properly show his abhorrence of tyranny rather than his approbation of it ?
14
158 ITALY.
designed by the first masters. It is a rich feast to visit such a church as this ; there is something in the association with the mighty dead, whose names have sounded over the earth, and whose immortal genius has contributed to elevate the human race, that far excels any other monuments, however splendid. It is but their ashes that slumber here, we grant ; but there is a propriety in honouring them, and treating their remains with respect. Who can gaze upon the tombs of such men, whatever may be the character of the mausoleum itself, without strong emotions ? It is this feeling of our nature which, carried to ex- cess, has led to that superstitious and idolatrous veneration for relics and images so common in Catholic countries ; and it is the excessive cultivation of this principle that makes the Italians more tenacious than perhaps any other people of the remains and ashes of their great men. Although, in their lifetime, their Pe- trarchs, and Dantes, and Boccaccios, and Machiavellis, and Gali- leos were persecuted, banished, and tortured, yet the tyranny, the caprice, or the bigotry which led to this passes away with the age, and the immortal geniuses that have shone forth in their works brighten after their death, until rival cities, who vied with each other in discarding the living, are ready to claim the honour of affording a resting-place for the dead, and of enforcing that claim, as they have sometimes done, even at the expense of a national war. Abused, however, as this is — as what law of our nature may not be abused ? — still, to a certain extent, this veneration for whatever has been associated with such minds, and especially for their mortal remains, is in accordance with the best feelings of our nature, and has a tendency both to improve the heart and to encourage genius.
During our stay at Florence I made such inquiries as time and circumstances would permit into the state of education in Tus- cany, and I am sorry to be able to make but a poor report for this important cause in this Athens of Italy. Some twelve or fifteen years since the Lancasterian mode of instruction was introduced here by some of the Tuscan nobility ; it has not advanced, I be- lieve, beyond a school or two in some of the principal cities. In Florence there is one school of about two hundred boys. This is particularly patronised by a young nobleman, the Marquis Tor- rigiani. He is a commendable instance of a young nobleman's de
EDUCATION IN FLORENCE. 159
voting himself assiduously to the cause of education in a country where the government looks on with apathy, and sometimes with jealousy ; where but comparatively few of the men of standing and ability are active, and where the ignorance and degradation of the poor imperiously claim commiseration and aid. I visited this Florentine school, and met the marquis there, encouraging by his presence both teachers and pupils. The school is exercised in reading, writing, arithmetic, drawing, and music. On my ex- pressing surprise that geography was not taught, I was given to understand that it was feared, by giving these boys an extensive knowledge of the world, their ambition might be excited to raise them above their station ! ! What an argument ! The very es- sence of aristocracy, legitimate and hereditary •.* I took it to be the objection, not of those who particularly patronised the school, but of the government ; the government, it is true, was not named, for the Italians speak with great caution on any subject that re- lates to government influence, especially to strangers. t
The boys of this school were bright, active-looking children-, more so, I think, than the same number, promiscuously collected, from the lowest classes of our great cities. One only leading physical defect was noticed, that of sore eyes ; a very prevailing disease in Florence.
Yours truly,
W. FISK.
* The principle of society here, generally, seems to be, that every one must keep hi* own level. An illustration of this was noticed in a tavern between Florence and Pisa, where a man told us that he had been garcon (waiter) in that hotel forty years. This,, with us, would be a'phenomenon.
t Their names, in connexion with their observations, have sometimes been published by travellers, and these have been reported to the authorities at home, who have forth- with put them under the espionage of the police. There are many government spies and informers ; and many a man watches his words and guards his breath, lest the feelings of the heart should flow out at his lips. It is said Lady Morgan's work on Italy, in which she has certainly made very free use of names and personalities, operated most cruelly against the interest and personal liberty of numbers with whom she had been intimate.
160 ITALY.
To Professor Holdich of the Wesleyan University
Florence, January 10, 1836.
MY DEAR SIR,
I am now, as you see by the date, at the capital of Tuscany, and in the celebrated city of the fine arts — in Italy. We arrived here one week since, have seen most that is worth seeing, and have made our arrangements to leave on Tuesday next, 19lh inst., for Pisa ; shall probably go thence to Leghorn, near by Pisa, and either embark on board a steamboat for Naples, or go on by land, according to the accommodations we meet with. The winter has been quite severe for Italy, and we feel anxious to get south as soon as we may ; we can then take our course up the peninsula leisurely, and as the season advances. I begin already to feel weary of my peregrinations, and look forward to the time when I may return to my own native land. I have seen nothing that will compare with America for a comfortable residence. I see much of splendour, much of superstition, much of art ; and, at the same time, much of poverty and of sin. Poor, wretched Italy ! She may have a blue sky, a fruitful soil, elegant paintings, and unrivalled statuary ; but she has a feeble heart, a stinted intel- lect, a despotic government, a miserable peasantry, and a corrupt religion. When and how shall she arise from her degradation ? Some few streaks appear in her dark horizon, and one of the brightest is the commencement of educating the indigent children. I have this day visited a school on the Lancasterian plan, under the patronage of a young Florentine nobleman, the Marquis Tor- rigiani, who has travelled in America, and become well acquainted with our language and our institutions, and has imbibed liberal and philanthropic views, and is now devoting his time to the youth of his country. He has also been active with others in getting up two infant schools in Florence, for one of which they have obtained a grant of a public room from government.* This insti- tution of infant schools is a new thing for Tuscany. It was com- menced in Pisa by an excellent lady from Geneva, whose acquaint- ance I have had the pleasure of making. She commenced a school
* The leading patron of the infant schools in Florence is another young nobleman,
Count , who, it is said, has made himself rather unpopular at court by his ac»
tivity in this cause.
EDUCATION IN FLORENCE. 161
of six poor children in Pisa, in January, 1833, with no other re- sources than sixty Tuscan crowns, the gift of a generous foreigner, with which she hired a room, and purchased a little furniture, and threw herself upon the enterprise. With the aid of donations from foreigners mostly, assisted and sustained by a Mr. Frassi, who was with her from the first, and who has done and sacrificed much in the cause, she persevered and won upon the prejudices and op- position of the people and of the government so far, that, in the autumn of 1834, an association had been formed, and money pledged sufficient to support the school, and a commodious build- ing was obtained from government for its accommodation. The school is now very flourishing, and is divided into three divisions — one for children between two and four, one for those between four and six, and a primary school for those above six. The grand-duke himself condescended to visit it, and expressed great satisfaction at the progress of the children, &c. ; but observed that it would be necessary to watch it closely, for, said he, " We must not forget that this was introduced among us by heretics ! !" Only think of a sovereign who not only will do nothing, or next to nothing, to educate the children of his subjects, but looks upon the attempts of others to do this with suspicion ! Poor, contempt- ible policy! and that, too, in the nineteenth century, and in the country of Dante, and Tasso, and Petrarch, and Boccaccio, and Americus Vespucius of more modern days, and in the land where the ancient Latin historians and poets wrote and sung^ Indeed, this poor satellite of Austria, who is herself but a second- ary of that northern autocrat that threatens " to oppose a will of iron to the march of liberal principles," finds enough to do to keep his subjects in submission, and watch with the utmost vigilance and jealousy all foreigners. I doubt, in fact, whether foreigners would be admitted here at all if the Italians could live well with- out them. But if all foreign expenditures should be withdrawn from Italy, they would find their poverty insupportable. As it is, with millions of foreign money distributed among them yearly, they have wretchedness and pauperism in abundance ; and it must all be owing to the government and to their religion. The valley of the Arno is a second paradise. Its grapes, and its citrons, and its olives, its corn, and its wine, and its oil, are sufficient, one would think, to cheer every heart, and render a far more numerous population contented and happy. As it is, the streets abound with H X
162 ITALY.
beggars, and the residences of thousands are squalid and miser able.*
The present grand-duke, who, as you know, is of the house of Austria, is said to be a very good sort of man, although extremely bigoted and superstitious. An instance of his bigotry I have al- ready given you in his suspicion of the schools, and I might have added, that, at first, his suspicion was so operative, that he sent his soldiers, in more than one instance, and shut up the schools. A case of his superstition I will now give. You must know a new saint has, within a few years, been discovered in Italy. It is a damsel of the time of the Emperor Domitian, who was mar- tyred at about the age of fifteen, of whom there is a long story which I cannot now repeat ; but which, however, must be correct, because, after the bones were discovered, the history was revealed in the visions of the night, and has been published for the edifi- cation of all good Catholics. This saint has done great marvels ; and, among the rest, in answer to the prayers and the vows of the grand-duke, raised up his sick child from a most dangerous ill- ness ; whereupon the duke has performed a procession in her hon- our, and made, I am informed, some valuable presents to her shrine.
The only guarantee the people have for their life, liberty, or property, is the will of a single individual. I can hardly realize it when I reflect that I am in a land where the caprice, or igno- rance, or misinformation of one individual might put me beyond the reach or knowledge of countrymen or friends ; and the spies of that individual are continually looking after us. We were ex- amined when we entered the duchy, we were examined when we en- tered the city, and the very gate and hour of our entry were mat- ters of record. We had our passports taken from us, and tempo- rary ones sent in their stead ; we reclaimed them, and the place of our exit must be specified, and we can leave in no other way. We have, since that, stayed over three days, and we must apply to the police again, for any vise over three days' standing will not an- swer for a permit to depart. Thus, when we corne, while we stay, and when we go, we are watched with a sleepless vigilance, arad kept under a most offensive surveillance. Nay, in some cities where we have been, the police-officers or gendarmes have followed us from place to place when we have been visiting the
* Tuscany was once much more populous than at present. The city of Pisa, it is ssaid, once had a population of 200,000, now it has 18,000.
GREENOUGH'S STATUE OF WASHINGTON. 163
churches or other public sights. Where there is so much fear there must be guilt. And what security have this people that the present duke, who, in his way, and for one of the old divine-le- gitimacy school, is a very good sort of man, will not be succeeded by an unprincipled tyrant ? And if so, what can save them from oppression ? Nothing but the spirit of the age, and, thanks to an overruling Providence, that is secretly working wonders, and the more so from foreign influence. The thousands from Eng- land and America are disseminating sentiments and feelings that have already questioned, in language that made thrones tremble, the jure-divino of kings and tyrants, and the march of these sen- timents is irresistible. They may throw around their governments and territories their political cordon sanitaire as much and as strictly as they please ; light is a subtile fluid, and it will circulate ; and happy will it be for these absolutists, great and small, if they foresee the evil, and hide themselves by voluntarily adopting those meliorations that the spirit of the age requires before that spirit clamorously and violently seizes, in the whirlpool of a bloody revolution, what has been denied to the calm remonstrances of en- lightened reason.
Our countryman, Mr. Greenough, is proceeding rather slowly with the statue of Washington which government has ordered foi the rotunda of the capitol, owing, as he informed me, to his not hav ing had the preparations necessary to complete the work furnished him. These preparations, however, have now been made ; the plaster mould is finished, and the cast in plaster will be completed in about a fortnight. It may, however, be two years before the statue is complete. Doubtless it will do the artist and the nation honour. Mr. G. is well spoken of here as an artist.
Affectionately yours,
W. FISK.
CHAPTER X.
WE left Florence on the 19th of January, and arrived at Pisa on the 20th. Our route was down the valley of the Arno, in which we saw nothing worthy of journalizing in detail. The ancient relics of feudal castles, as usual in Italy and most of Europe, were
164 ITALY.
scattered along the way. The valley is rich, and highly culti- vated ; indeed, the whole of Tuscany is like a garden. The or- chards and vineyards are abundant and beautiful. I had occasion to remirk that the vineyards of France did not come up to my expectations ; but I cannot say this of Italy. The vines are gen- erally trained on trees planted at convenient distances for the purpose, and they run from tree to tree in continued and luxuriant garlands. The entire country, in fact, is a vineyard; and be- tween the ranges of vines, every foot of land is economically cultivated, and mostly by the spade. The plough is seldom used (and, in fact, the Tuscan plough is an awkward thing, make the best of iO ; even their extensive wheat-crops spring out of ridges thrown up by the spade.
The only drawback upon the pleasure of the ride from Flor- ence was the illness of Mrs. F., which had been more or less afflicting for several days before we left, and which now increased every hour. When we arrived at that best of traveller's homes in all Italy, the Hotel de VHussard, kept by Senior Pevarada, she was obliged to call in a physician and take to her bed. We were gratified, however, to learn from the physician that the disorder was only the chicken-pox, enraged and aggravated by ex- posures in the cold galleries of Florence just at the time when nature, in its regular course, was making an effort to throw the disease to the surface. Connected with this sickness, however, was another painful circumstance. Ever since we left Paris there had been five of us, all Americans, in company, by which we had been able to form a society of our own, and almost forget, at times, that we were in a land of strangers ; now, however, our company, unwilling to be detained, deemed it necessary to leave us. Their departure, for the moment, oppressed me with an indescri- bable sense of loneliness. To be left with a sick companion in a land of strangers, whose language I did not understand, far from my country and friends, in the hands of a strange landlord,. a strange nurse, and a strange physician; all these considerations swept over me like the gloom of the grave ; and could I have foreseen my own sickness also, the intensity of the feeling would doubtless have been greatly increased ; for, immediately upon Mrs. F.'s convalescence, I was taken ill with a severe, and, for a time, painful attack of local inflammation, by occasion of which illness,
PISA. 165
in addition to that of Mrs. F., we were detained four weeks in Pisa, a great part of which was a season of mental solicitude and bod- ily suffering. But a kind Providence restored us, and, what is more, raised us up friends when most we needed them. The reader will excuse this allusion to our personal affairs, which is made with a belief that, if he has followed us thus far, he will not object to sympathize a little with our afflictions ; and, at any rate, this will give me an opportunity of bearing testimony, as becomes me, to the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Hoadley, of New-York, who were then in Pisa for her health, and of Mr. Laughton, their trav- elling companion, and an adopted American citizen, in whose sympathy and kind attentions we daily shared during our stay ; as also in favour of several English and Italians, to whom we had introductions, and who were unexpectedly kind and attentive ; our landlord also, Mr. Pevarada, and his domestics, were uncom- monly kind and attentive. We found more comforts than at any other hotel on the Continent; everything we needed was kindly and speedily furnished, and the whole account was closed with a very moderate charge. For eight days' detention and sickness at the Ship Hotel in Dover, England, we paid nearly as much as for four weeks atrlhe Albergo deW Ussero of Senior Pevarada. I can recommend all travellers visiting Pisa to call upon mine host of the Hussar. In addition to keeping, as almost all travellers acknowledge, and as accords with my own experience, all things considered, the most comfortable hotel in Italy, he acts as banker for all the banking and exchange business of Pisa, on the most honourable terms.
On the history of Pisa I have said what may be necessary in a work of this kind, in the sketches of Italian history with which this part of my journal has been introduced. Suffice it to say now, it is greatly fallen from its former opulence, population, and strength. It is an ancient city. It is reported to have been built soon after the siege of Troy, and was certainly a place of some note early in the history of Rome ; and although, in the days of its independence and glory, it contained two hundred thousand in- habitants, the number is now reduced to eighteen thousand ; its trade is comparatively nothing, and a great portion of the citizens seem to have little employment. Like many other Italian cities,, its chief dependance seems to be upon foreigners who travel
166 ITALY.
through or transiently reside here, and especially the English. I was informed by an intelligent Italian gentleman, -who has trav- elled more extensively in Italy, and has a more extensive personal acquaintance with its general business character than perhaps almost any other man living, that a great portion of the Italian cities, under the existing policy, would be unable to sustain them- selves but for the money spent among them by foreigners. They must otherwise sink into beggary, and the population rapidly waste away.
As a specimen of what is spent here by strangers, take the fol- lowing fact, given me by Mr. Pevarada, the banker of Pisa, viz., that last year, from the first of October to the last of February, the average foreign draughts through his office alone were four hun- dred and thirteen crowns per day. These draughts must have been almost exclusively for money spent in the country, since commer- cial draughts are almost all executed at Leghorn, the principal place of trade for Tuscany, and even for all this part of Italy. The fact of Leghorn's being but fourteen miles from Pisa, and of its be- ing the chief business place for the country, will also make it the point at which most travellers will negotiate their draughts. This consideration, together with the fact that the London and Paris bankers, from whom travellers usually take their bills of credit, do not generally name Pisa, but insert only the bankers of Flor- ence, Rome, Naples, Venice, Milan, and the other larger cities, will show that Pisa gets but the gleanings of the vintage, the drops of the passing bucket. If, then, Pisa draws sixty-three thousand three hundred and sixty-three crowns during five months, what must be drawn annually in all Italy ? I venture to say, several millions. Now when it is remembered that most of this money is spent by the English, whose liberal, dashing manner of throwing out their change is well known, connected with the fact that every traveller in Italy soon learns, that most of the Italians will get double the worth of their articles, if they can, by asking it, something of an idea may be formed of the portion contributed by foreign capital in support of Italy. The beggars which throng her cities get their greatest harvest from foreigners. They know a foreigner as soon as they see him, and, passing all others, they select him as the object of importunity ; they follow his carriage, they watch round the door of his hotel, they pursue him in the
FOREIGNERS THE CHIEF SUPPORT OF GOVERNMENT. 167
streets, crying, in the most piteous tones, sono miserabile, signore ! sono multo miserabile ! " I am miserable, sir, I am very misera- ble," And who that sees them can doubt it? These appeals and importunities the stranger cannot well resist.* In short, the trav- eller, and the country is full of them in ordinary seasons, is con- stantly throwing out his money, thus giving direct employment and livelihood to tens of thousands, and indirect aid to all the rest. He supports the custom-house officers, the passport-examiners, the veturinos, the innkeepers and their servants, the gate-senti- nels, the police-officers, and furnishes cash and activity for the limited business of the country.
The present season, Italy generally, and Pisa especially, suffer seriously in consequence of the nonarrival of the usual number of strangers. • This is owing to the cholera the past autumn, and the consequent quarantine and sanitary regulations. Almost all the English stopped short of Italy, some in Belgium and Germa- ny, and many, very many, in France. The whole country, in consequence, feels the effect ; and I have been informed that the government of Rome has found it necessary to double the num- ber employed on the various public works, to prevent suffering and death, or the increase of thefts and robberies occasioned by the pressure of want. But the government could not sustain itself long if this supply of foreign patronage were cut off. Thus in- terest clashes with interest. If the pope and the cardinals mean to maintain their religious supremacy, they must not suffer so much Protestant and liberal breath to be exhaled in their atmo- sphere ; but if they exclude these, they will be thrown upon the other painful alternative. There is no doubt which policy, there- fore, will prevail. The powers that be think the poison will not work in their day, at least not seriously, much less fatally ; hence they will keep open the avenues by which they receive their daily bread, and leave the several religious and political results to be provided for by their descendants. This the priesthood can do the more readily, as they have few ties to bind them to posterity. They are barren and solitary trees, that fatten on the soil in their generation, and leave no shoots behind (at least none that are rec-
On one occasion, being pressed by two of these beggars, I directed them to a pair of full-fed priests that happened to be passing. "Ah prete ! prete !" they exclaimed, and immediately turned away.
168 ITALY.
ognised by family ties) to subsist on the moisture that may be left. They have every prospect of an increase of foreigners in- stead of a diminution. England will doubtless continue to sup- ply her quota, and America is increasing her Italian envoys annu- ally. This year, since the first of December, more than double the number of Americans have entered their names in the stran- ger's book in the hotel of the Hussar, in Pisa, to that of all oth- ers. Indeed, the landlord said, but for his American company, he should be almost destitute of patronage the present season. The Americans, having crossed the Atlantic with a view of visiting Italy, were not to be deterred from their object, although it was late before they were permitted to pass ; they entered the barriers as soon as they were passable, preferring a winter's journey, either by sea from Marseilles, or over the Alps and Apennines by land, to the relinquishment of their object.
Pisa is beautifully located on each side the Arno, which is crossed in the city by three fine bridges. The river sweeps round through the city in the form of a crescent, from east to west near- ly. This makes the Lung' Arno, or street on the right bank of the Arno, which is the principal street in the city, a concave mirror, gathering in and concentrating, through the whole day, the rays of the sun. On this side, therefore, in a sunny day, you have, even in winter, almost a summer heat, while, perhaps, on the op- posite side the thermometer may be considerably below the freez- ing point. This, together with the fact of the city's being very much defended from the tramontane winds by the neighbouring mountains, is what has given to Pisa the credit of a fine winter residence for invalids. But the poor consumptive has to keep in the focus, or at least within the perimeter of his concave lens on a winter's day, or he will find the sudden transition from summer to winter as pernicious as the mountain wind of Florence. On the one side you need a parasol to defend off the sun, and on the other you require a cloak lined with flannel. This leads to the singular exhibition, frequently, of a parasol spread over a thick winter mantle.
Pisa is of more cleanly appearance than almost any other city in Italy we have visited. Its principal works of art interesting to strangers are all comprised in a very small compass, consisting of the Duomo, or Cathedral, and its contents, the Baptistry, the Lean
PUBLIC EDIFICES OF PISA. 169
ing Campanile, and the Campo Santo. These are all in one clus- ter, and are so situated as to be taken in at one view. The Du- omo was built principally of the spoils of the Saracens of Palermo, taken in the expedition of 1063. The columns, of which there are seventy-four in the interior of the church, of different materials, and different styles, and unequal lengths, and yet so arranged by the architect that the inequality is not noticed as a deformity, were all brought from Palermo. Many elegant marbles adorn the edi- fice, besides the verde antique, lapis lazuli, bronze gilt, and por phyry, &c., which adorn the twelve altars, all of which were built after the designs of Michael Angelo. The church contains also some beautiful paintings. The external walls are adorned with various marbles and columns ; the front, especially, has six mag- nificent columns of Grecian marble, oriental granite, and porphyry. The style is singular. It is a mixture of Grecian and Arabic, and the splendid ancient materials are so mingled m with each other, although differing among themselves both in style, mate- rial, and magnitude, and so contrasted with the modern materials, which are again peculiar from all the others, that you feel amused as you gaze upon it ; and yet the incongruity is not ludicrous, but, on the contrary, you are charmed to see with what skill this vari- ety is blended and harmonized.
The Baptistry is an octagonal edifice, of white marble, built in the twelfth century, at which period it is said Pisa was so popu- lous that one^lorin from each citizen built it.
The Campanile is the celebrated leaning tower of which almost every one has read. This also was built in the twelfth century. It is circular, one hundred and ninety feet high, and leans thirteen feet from a perpendicular position. This is undoubtedly occa- sioned by the settling of the foundation on one side, although no record of the fact is preserved, and some have supposed that it might have been by design. It is a beautiful tower, divided into eight stories, and adorned on the outside in the successive stories with two hundred and seven columns of granite and marbles, connected together by intervening arches. The ascent on the in- terior is not difficult to a person in health ; but to me, who under- took it while yet feeble with my late sickness, it was very tedious, notwithstanding I was carried by friends a part of the distance. In this case I fell into the temptation that many invalids fall into 15 Y
1 70 ITALY
in Italy, that of gratifying curiosity at an expense of labour that the system could not easily endure.*
The Campo Santo, or Cemetery, is a most singular affair. The Crusaders, in their veneration for the Holy Land, brought home from Jerusalem a quantity of earth from Mount Calvary. This was holy dust, and peculiarly efficacious and appropriate for pur- poses of sepulture. Here, therefore, it was deposited, and around it was built a rectangular structure, with sixty-two Gothic arcades, open in the interior of the rectangle, and presenting exteriorly a dead wall. These arcades are covered in the walls with frescoes of the fourteenth century, and are well stored with sarcophagi, tab- lets, and various monuments, with their appropriate inscriptions.
In the other parts of this ancient city, although there are some things worth the traveller's notice, if he have time to attend to them, yet there is little that is deemed sufficiently important to detain the reader at this time. There are one or two features in the edifices generally which are worth noticing, as indicative of the spirit of the age in which these buildings were erected; these, however, are not peculiar to Pisa, but are common to most of the Italian cities, and are the relics of that period when " might gave right" — of those rough and troublous times when every man felt the necessity of self-defence, not only against robbers, but personal enemies. One of these features is, that all the houses, especially the more ancient, are strongly barricaded with iron ; all the windows of the lower story, and sometimes pf the higher, are defended by strong iron grates. My first impression on en- tering these cities was, that they were full of prisons. When I saw they were too numerous for this supposition, I then concluded that the inhabitants must be extremely vicious, and that no dwel- ling was safe from plunder without being thus guarded. This, however, I find, is not true. I doubt whether there is any part of the world where there is less danger from personal violence, or from thefts and robberies, than the northern and middle parts of Italy. I never travelled with my property and person so much exposed, by night and by day, as since I have been in this coun- try ; and everything I have seen has convinced me of the gen-
* Possibly it was owing in part to this that my legs were for months afterward subject to a peculiar numbness and dull sensation of internal pain, which complaint was not a little embarrassing in my subsequent sight-seeing.
A CAMEL RIDE. 171
eral honesty of the people. In one sense they are not honest ; in all matters of trade they will cheat you if they can. This seems to be no violation of their moral code ; but I wish every country was as free from theft and robbery. This guarding and barricading of the houses, therefore, is rather the remains of a rougher age, and what was introduced by necessity seems to be retained by habit and fashion. The same may be said of the towers which shoot up all over the city, from a great portion of the principal dwellings, some of them still remaining entire, but many levelled to the roof, showing only the foundation of what they were.
There are baths in the neighbourhood of Pisa, supposed to be on the same site with baths of Pisa mentioned by ancient Roman writers. There is also a noble aqueduct, conducting on arches a supply of most excellent water into the city, from four miles' dis- tance. The grand-duke, who resides here two or three months in the winter, has a large farm or plantation in the neigbourhood, called the Cascina. Here camels are bred, and employed in car- rying burdens ; the first, it is said, that have been bred in Europe. Formerly, writers have described the number as amounting to three hundred ; we saw but about fifty. That I might enter more fully in my associations into the oriental and patriarchal habits, I begged the privilege of one of the workmen to permit me to mount one of them. He ordered the animal to kneel ; this he did, not, however, without some reluctance, by which I was reminded of Abraham's servant, who made his camels to kneel by the well of Padanaram. The fact is, these animals are so high, they are all taught to kneel to receive their burdens ; they get down first upon their knees, and then upon their hams. Indeed, they seem to have knees before and behind, and both pairs of legs are doubled up under their bodies, and this is the position in which they always rest when they recline for that purpose. When I mounted the animal I was directed to sit close by the upright part of the frame- work or saddle that receives the burden, and hold firm, the necessity of which I soon felt ; for, as the camel raised himself one end at a time, and that, too, by rather a sudden jerk, I was wellnigh being pitched first over his head, and then backward After a turn or two, he kneeled again with the same sudden pitch, and I dismounted. They are extremely slow and awkward in
172 ITALY.
their movements, and would never have been used for burden- bearers and travelling caravans, I think, but from necessity. Their feet are large and soft, like a bag of sand ; this makes them suited to travel sandy deserts, where the hard-hoofed animals could not travel ; but I should think it would be utterly impossible for them to travel in a rough, stony country.
I must not leave Pisa without noticing its ancient and celebrated university. This institution was among the earliest of Tuscany, and long sustained a high reputation ; although it has greatly de- clined from its original eminence and popularity, yet it still has about eight hundred students, and perhaps forty professors. There are departments of theology, law, medicine, literature, and sci- ence. I was introduced to one of the professors, Professor Foggi, of the department of mathematics, who was remarkably courteous and attentive. He accompanied me to the principal university edifice, which is built, according to the common form of all these institutions in Catholic countries, around a quadrilateral court, with the entire interior surrounded by an open arcade, forming a spacious portico both on the lower and upper floor. The building is old, damp, and gloomy ; and, like all other public places in Italy, destitute of fire. The professor mourned over their poor building, and lamented that their funds, diminished as they had been by their various revolutions, would not enable them to rebuild. The rooms, he said, were gloomy, and, by their character and sombre appearance, served to depress the spirits of the best men. I sug- gested to him that an application to the government might perhaps be successful ; he shook his head. I told him I thought it would be better to take some of the money that was being expended on the royal chapel at Florence, and lay it out for a new university edifice. " Ah, but that," he said, " was a national monument, which it would be much to the honour of the nation to complete." How unfortunate must be that country, when princely incomes are laid out upon physical monuments, and the cause of education languishes for the want of support !* As we walked round the portico of the court, " This portico," said the professor, " was the stable for the French cavalry at the time they invaded Italy ; I have seen it full of their horses. Poor Italy !" continued the
* The grand-duke, however, pays the professors mostly out of the public chest. Their salary is each about five hundred dollars annually.
UNIVERSITY OF PISA. 173
professor, and I never shall forget the feeling manner in which he expressed himself, " poor Italy ! you do not see her as she was. The inhabitants were once buoyant and happy, full of joy and music ; but they have been robbed, and plundered, and trodden down, until they are broken and dispirited." Poor Italy surely She suffered, doubtless, under the pressure of the French despo- tism, and especially in consequence of the repeated wars grow- ing out of that invasion and conquest ; but alas ! while there was some life and stirring energy in the despotism of France, which would, in time, I doubt not, if it had continued, have raised and reanimated the country, the present leaden Gothic despotism presses upon the people like a suffocating incubus, curdling the blood and paralyzing the system. But to return to the University. It has a library of about forty thousand volumes ; and I was gratified to see among them the works of the most eminent reform- ers, as well as those of Catholic authors. They have also a very good museum of natural history, both in the mineral and animal kingdoms, very well arranged and kept, and a botanical garden. The library is free, and the lectures, like those of France, are open and free to all who may choose to attend. The intercourse between the students and professors is of a familiar and paternal character, and such as is well calculated to secure mutual affection and confidence. The students go into the lecture-room with their hats on, as in France ; but if a professor goes in while another is lecturing he has to stand uncovered until he obtains leave to put on his hat. I mention this trifling circumstance to show the minuteness, inflexibility, and capriciousness of the rules of these ancient institutions.
There are seven preparatory schools, answering very nearly to the French pensions, or our higher academies, where the boys are instructed in the more elementary branches ; being obliged, however, a part of the time, to attend upon the lectures of the Uni- versity. These schools are without funds, and charge, if I rightly remember, one hundred crowns annually. Many of the scholars, however, take a canonical dress, and officiate in the service of the cathedral, for which they receive twenty crowns per annum, and thus gain so much assistance towards their education. Not more than perhaps five or six per cent, of the number, however, Professor Foggi assured me, ever became priests, it being perfectly optional 15
174 ITALY-
with them afterward to study theology or not. This information explained to me what before was a matter of great surprise, that so many young ecclesiastics should throng the streets of the city.
I tried to obtain an account of the regulations, &c., of the Uni- versity, but was told they were out of print.
A great portion of the students who attend this, and, in fact, all the other universities of Italy, ar,e pursuing the study of medicine. In a despotic government but few lawyers are needed. Theology presents a more extended field, but extensive attainments are not necessary for men who seldom preach, which is true of a great portion of the priests, and all of whose other duties are stereotyped for them in the Roman ritual. And as for pursuing an education for mere literary and scientific investigations and improvements, this, compared with other civilized countries, is not so common in Italy. Literature is cramped by the restrictions upon the press. It is also poorly paid, as may well be inferred from the smallness of the professors' salaries, and from the fact that the governments are so limited in territory, that the privileges of a copyright are of little avail. In a ride of one hour in some cases, and of a few hours at farthest, the book that is copyrighted in one sovereignty may be published free of that encumbrance in another. Add to these obstructions the intellectual torpor that must necessarily result from the present social and political condition of the country, and the poverty which oppresses the greater part, and we may readily account for the fact that so few are giving themselves to literature and science.
Our detention at Pisa disappointed us in our hope and design of being at Rome for the Carnival. We had an epitome of it, however, at Pisa, and quite enough to satisfy us on this head.
This institution of masquerades, feasting, dancing, frolic, and fun, is one of the many papal observances that have been trans- planted from heathenism into the Christian church. Its principal object seems to be to give the people a satiety of feasting and amusement, that they may be the better prepared to endure the penance of Lent, which immediately follows. And here it may be proper to remark, that the fasts and penances of the papists are admirably contrived for sensual enjoyment. No man who wished to enjoy the most sensual gratification possible in this life would, if he adapted the and to the means, pamper the senses to the fill
THE CARNIVAL. 175
continually. He would have his changes and restraints at inter- vals, by which he would court the appetite, and keep alive and in- vigorate his desire and zest for pleasure. It is thus artfully that Romanism has mingled her cup, and meted out her indulgences and prohibitions ; and when to this are joined her ecclesiastical pa- geantry and splendid ritual, a system of religion is formed the best possible to gratify the pleasure-seeking man of the world. In short, Romanism is practically — I will not say a religion merely — but emphatically, the religion of the natural heart ; for in this respect there is nothing to be compared with it. It is true, to say this we must presuppose, what is generally true, that men have consciences that are troubled about sin and its consequences, and that they wish to get rid of those consequences at the same time that they are not denied their earthly pleasures. Romanism promises them the wished-for relief in the wished-for way. Its ceremonies may be tedious from their length and repetition, but they are showy, and impose no great tax upon the attention ; and although its penances and fasts may be frequent, they are so mingled with pleasures that, like the lights and shades of a picture, they cast a delightful charm over the whole. There is much of the cross, but it is a physical cross, exhibited, but not felt ; played with, but not endured. There is something of penance and self- denial, but only enough to wind up the physical machinery, that it may be prepared to start afresh in the race of sensual enjoyment. An important feature in this system is the Carnival. It lasts for a number of days, but becomes more intense until the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which last is the beginning of Lent. Among the other merry-makings on the occasion is a public mas- querade. This takes place in the public street that is used for the course* Here the carriages, and sidewalks, and public squares are filled with masked personages, representing all kinds of characters, and the costumes of all nations, together with a great number of fantasticals, who belong to no race or order. The masks, as well as the costumes, have not only every variety
* The Course, or Corse, is a public street in most of the principal Continental cities in Europe, where all that are able to keep their carriage go at a given hour to take their fashionable ride. Here extended trains of carriages move round in procession, going to the prescribed termine, and then returning, so that part of the procession is moving ifi one direction and part in the other, and thus they continually pass and-repass each other. The sidewalks are crowded with foot-passengers.
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seemingly of complexion and features belonging to our regular race, but every variety also of deformity. The more out of charac- ter they can appear, the better ; and hence a very common device is for the sexes to change costumes. Here are very delicate forms, either dressed as pages, or perhaps as sailors ; and female attire on large, awkward frames, with clumsy gaits and enormous feet, with cigars in their mouths. There goes a carriage with a com- pany of maskers, taking refreshments of cake and wine, pledging the health of the company as they pass ; the next carriage has a Turk for a footman, and a lady for a postillion. Here is a learned doctor, with his wig and red coat, giving out his oracles ; there is a beggar, yonder a prince. A very common disguise for the poorer class, who, perhaps, can get nothing else, and especially for young females, is a white shirt put on over all the other clothes. Anything, in short, for change and variety.
The employments, too, are various ; some are making love, some are playing tricks upon each other; and a very common employment, especially for the higher classes, is to pelt each other as they pass with sugarplums, and, what is worse, with little missiles in the form of sugarplums made of lime or plaster. These are not always harmless ; and one who engages in the sport, especially if he be unmasked, must look out for his face and eyes. This childish amusement closes with a grand masquerade ball, in which all who can pay the fee may mingle.
At Rome, in addition to the other amusements, they have horse- races without riders. This takes place in the Cor so ; the horses are urged on by self-inflicting spurs, which are so fitted that the faster the horse goes the more they urge him forward. Large sails or curtains are stretched across the farther end of the street, which bring up the racers without injuring them, and they are caught by persons standing ready for the purpose.
On Ash Wednesday a dark curtain falls, and the gayeties and hilarity of the comedy are at an end. A solemn service is per- formed at the church, with the ceremony of putting ashes on the head to indicate man's frailty and mortality.
Before leaving Pisa I will add that I have been particularly pleased with the Italian gentlemen with whom I have become ac- quainted. They are very courteous and intelligent. It is true, they appear not to be in the habit of inviting strangers to their
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houses to dine or to share in their domestic hospitalities. This, perhaps, in many instances, they are not able to practise on a very extensive scale, but in other respects they show themselves cour teous to strangers.
CHAPTER XL
WE left Pisa February 1 9, and rode over a level country lour teen miles by a crooked rdad, which ought to have been but ten, to Leghorn, or, as it is called in Italian, Livorno, and found a kind reception and comfortable quarters in the Hotel St. Marc, kept by a Scotchman, Mr. D. Thompson.
Leghorn, although an ancient port, was nevertheless an incon- siderable village until purchased by Cosmo L, grand-duke of Tus- cany, by exchanging for it the city of Sarsana, and by him made a free port. It is now, perhaps, the most commercial port of Italy, and the best known to our countrymen, because with it we have considerable commerce. There are few objects here to attract the notice of strangers ; but the observing traveller, if he visits this town after seeing other towns in Italy, will be struck to see what a difference circumstances make in the character and appear- ance of a community. In most of the Italian towns you see hun dreds of idlers moving about the streets and principal places at a snail's pace, or lounging as though life was a burden. You begin to think man is not the same in Italy as elsewhere ; that the* cli- mate, or something else, has rendered him physically incapable of spirited exertion and enterprise. But in Leghorn you find him like the man of business in other places : an erect figure, a prompt manner, a lively gait, make you almost believe you are in New- York or Liverpool. Such might all Italy be if her rulers "knew their duty, and would do it. It is true, it might take time to bring her up from her lethargy, but much less time, probably, than most would imagine. The constitution of man has an elasticity about it that soon elevates him if the weights that press him down are removed. Now, it is said, the beggars cannot be induced to work ; and, if employment is furnished to them, they soon grow
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178 ITAI/Y.
weary of it, and think they can make more money, and make it easier, by begging. But this is the effect of habit and of long deg- radation. Let, however, a general elevation be felt ; let an up- ward impulse be given to the public mind by a proper stimulus, and soon there would be few that would not be ashamed to beg, and few that would not be able and willing to dig.
Leghorn is supposed to contain eighty thousand inhabitants, and is increasing. They are enlarging the walls for the purpose of taking in all the suburbs, principally as a defence against smug- gling. The city is penetrated by canals in different directions, by means of which the merchandise is brought to the doors of the warehouses. There is in this city an " English factory," or a kind of incorporation of English citizens, of which there are sev- eral in the Mediterranean, with certain priviliges there unto belong- ing. The English, in fact, next to the Jews, however widely scattered and distantly removed, are the most remarkable for pre- serving their nationalities and attachment to their own usages and clanship. They are contented anywhere but at home ; but, wher- ever they are, they are nothing but Englishmen still. However long they may have resided in the country, they never say we, but they, when speaking of the citizens of the country where they re- side. Here they clan together ; worship together ; pray for their "most gracious Lord and Sovereign King William," and their "most gracious Queen Adelaide ;" transport English horses, car- riages, and dogs ; eat roast-beef and drink wine a-la-mode V An- glais the world over,* and, if they find anything very good abroad, they say it is almost equal to Old England.!
Steamboats, although at first objected to, are becoming common on the Mediterranean. They are specially very frequent from Marseilles, by Genoa, Leghorn, Civita Vecchia, to Naples ; and thence there are lines extending to Sicily and Malta. In one of the steam-packets from Marseilles to Naples we embarked on the
* This does not apply so fully, however, to Englishmen in America. Here they find the same language, and, for the most part, congenial institutions ; they mingle with our citizens, and soon take part in our political concerns. Indeed, our naturalization laws are so easy, and our citizenship so inviting, that most strangers, from all parts of the world, like the Paddy, when they get among us, take the first opportunity to become natives.
t Under a remark of this kind, recorded by a person of rank in a book for strangers in an excellent hotel in Italy, I noticed some wit had added, in pencil mark — " This is almost English modesty."
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23d of February, but were so ill from the rough sea that we were glad to land at Civita Vecchia, under a determination to travel by sea no more when we can travel by land. This, of course, led us to Rome first instead of to Naples, as we had proposed.
Civita Vecchia is the seaport of Rome, although forty-eight miles from it ; is a free port, with an artificial harbour ; and a dirty, comfortless place it is. The inhabitants appear to live chiefly upon the plunder of travellers. When you arrive, you go ashore in a boat ; a set of hungry cormorants seize your baggage, and contend who shall have it ; having settled that point by agreement or force, they distribute it among as many as they conveniently can, and carry it to the police, where you slip it through by pay- ing a fee ; you then order your baggage to the hotel, and pay each ragamuffin for his service, who always wants more. You must then send it to the custom-house to get it plumbed, for which a fee is demanded ; another for carrying it there ; another for taking it from the office to the coach ; another for fastening it on the coach ; another for opening the coach-door for you to get in ; an- other for the man who tended the horses that are to carry you to Rome, ever so long before you arrived, while he was waiting for you, or somebody else, to come and hire them ; and I know not how many other demands, besides beggars in abundance. You escape from the wretched place with empty pockets and exhausted patience; unless you have a good store of both.-
The route to Rome is very dull. A sight here and there, of a shepherd with his flock, diversifies the scene, which is barren, and, in a great part, uncultivated. Neither did I see any shepherd that reminded me of Damon or Tyterus, or any other of the classic rustics of antiquity.
The horses are generally small, but numerous. We saw scores of them in herds. The horned cattle, however, are very fine. They are generally of a mouse colour in Tuscany, but in Roma- nia they are frequently a light brindle, made up of a singular mix- ture of white and black, constituting a colour altogether different from anything we have. Farther south they are oftener a beauti- ful pure white. Ancient heathen gods might well be appeased by such an offering, if they were at all delighted with the sacrifice of beasts ; for these, doubtless, are the regular descendants of the Albus Taurus of antiquity.
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The sheep were very numerous ; but the wool, except for the coarsest wear, is sold out of the country to be manufactured, and repurchased again, with all its accumulation of profit, while thou- sands of the inhabitants are suffering for the necessaries of life, and with no means of procuring them.
We entered Rome on the side of the magnificent structure of St. Peter's. It was night, but there was light enough to exhibit the splendid piazza, with its quadruple rows of Doric columns. But I must forbear. Rome must be passed for the present. It is true, we spent a number of days in the " Eternal City," viewing its unrivalled antiquities, especially its ancient ruins and works of art, and taking a general survey of the modern city. But, as all this was only preparatory to a more thorough and extended exam- ination, any description that may be attempted of the inspiring topics of ancient and modern Rome will be postponed, and the reader will first be requested to visit Naples, according to our original purpose ; and let me congratulate him, whoever he may be, that, however little he may be able to glean of the pleasures and instruction of this Italian route, he is happily relieved from its embarrassments, fatigues, delays, disappointments, and extor- tions. A traveller, if he pleases, might fill up a volume with ac- counts ot this kind, without relieving himself or profiting his reader. Suffice it to say, that after the usual routine of the passport, first to the police, thence to the American consul, thence back to the police, and then to the, Neapolitan minister; after some demur respecting my prescribed quarantine, which was settled finally by showing a bill of health, signed by the consul-general of his Si- cilian majesty resident at Leghorn, &c., &c., \ve embarked on board a post-coach, for fourteen dollars each person, leaving Rome at nine o'clock in the evening, March 3. Our egress was by the mighty Colosseum, whose vast proportions, partially dilap- idated by eighteen centuries, towered in gloomy grandeur as it reflected back the soft beams of moonlight. We passed the Porta San Giovanni to Albano. The route from Rome to Na- ples is part of the way the same as that of the old Appian Way, so often spoken of by the ancient Romans, and that over which St. Paul travelled in his journey from Puteoli (near Naples) to Rome. Every mile of this road, almost, is connected with the history of ancient Rome and the biography of her illustrious
THE PONTINE MARSHES. 181
men.* But it will not comport with my plan to enter minutely into the historic associations of the route. We struck the Appian Way just before we reached Albano, fourteen Roman miles. The entire road to Naples is excellent.
Beyond Velletri commence the Pontine Marshes^ which ex- tend back from the sea from six to twelve miles, and reach to Terracina, twenty-four miles in length. These are at some sea- sons partially covered with water, and anciently were almost wholly so, at least a part of the year. Great and successive ef- forts have been made to drain this pestiferous pool, from the days of Appius Coecus, by emperors, princes, and popes, down to Pius VII., who, in addition to what the French had done before him, nearly accomplished the object, so that a great portion of it is now used for agricultural purposes. Immense herds of cattle graze here. This region, however, must be very unhealthy ; and this is clearly indicated by the sallow countenances of the few poor wretches who inhabit it, or who roam about these miasmatic fens watching their grazing flocks. Through these marshes ran the Appian Way, on which, as a foundation, Pope Pius VI. con- structed the present elegant road.
Here were the Tres Taberna, or the " Three Taverns" men- tioned by St. Paul. If the appearance and condition of these taverns were not better than those of the present day, I should almost wonder that a sight of them by St. Paul was a cause of thanksgiving. The gratitude of the apostle could only be ac- counted for on the principle of his own gospel maxim, " in every- thing give thanks."
The two towns of Fondi and Itri, which were the first we passed through after entering the Neapolitan States, were the most filthy, wretched, and poverty-struck we had yet beheld ; and it is sincerely hoped we may never look upon the like again. At the former place we had to undergo the " searching operation" of the custom-house, during which time we were surrounded by hundreds of miserable -looking objects of want and wo ; scores of hands were stretched out for charity, and almost all looked as though they should be tenants of the poorhouse. Some of them,
* The classical reader will find the ancient localities of this route, as far as Brundu- sium, in :he Diary of Horace, t They took their name from an ancient town in the vicinity.
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however, made shift to purchase, or retain, perhaps, as an inherit- ance from their ancestors, earrings arid other ornaments, which hung in strange discordance over dirty rags, that scarcely covered their nakedness. A sallow-looking young woman at Terracina with large dangling jewels in her ears, apparently of gold, was urgent in her importunities for alms. I took hold of her earrings, and told her to sell them for bread before she asked charity ; this turned the laugh upon her, and freed me from her importunities. Another ludicrous circumstance occurred after we had left the town ; our horses were in a full trot, when we were attracted by a stifled vociferation at the coach window ; on looking out we saw a man upon the full run, at our side, vociferating for alms, holding out his greasy cap with one hand, and cramming the other into his mouth, to indicate his extreme hunger, which, with his running, so stifled his voice as made him put forth " strange sounds ;" these, with his gesticulations, diversified by his haste to keep up with the carriage, formed an exhibition so ludicrous, that even the cries of suffering could not restrain our risibilities. If we sinned by smiling " in the venerable presence of misery," as the sentimental Sterne would say, I hope we shall be forgiven. We never know, in fact, when these beings are starving ; for, hun- gry or not, to get a bioc they will play their part to admiration ; they are starving, they have dying bambinos, a sick sposa, or they are without father or mother, and the like. Our present appli- cant, from the strength of his voice and his speed in running, seemed neither faint with hunger nor weak with disease ; Mrs F., however, threw him a piece of copper, for which he gave the usual "grazia" We went on at the same rapid rate, I should judge, nearly a mile, when, having occasion to stop the carriage a moment, who should arrive but our beneficiary, in a foaming agony to get his piece of money changed, for it was not current in the country ! I mention this case to show the condi- tion and perseverance of these beggars, as also because it was to us, at least, a scene painfully amusing.
In the interior of our coach we had a Catholic priest and his brother, with whom we formed, of course, a stagecoach acquaint- ance, to which they seemed by no means averse. We found them pleasant and polite, and the priest was remarkably strict at his devotions twice a day, viz., morning and noon. These consisted
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of long portions read out of a devotional book carried in his pocket, which he had practised upon so much that he could repeat whole pages out of the book. Whether he read or repeated from mem- ory, he hurried them over with the greatest possible rapidity ; a rapidity to which I am sure one could not attain but by long practice, crossing himself at the name of Christ, and repeating the whole in a loud whisper when the carriage was moving very still, and a little above his breath when it rumbled. I cannot judge his heart, but the whole seemed like a mere form. It re- minded me of my childish days, when every night I hurried over the prayers and hymns that my mother had taught me, merely because I dared not go to sleep without performing my task ; the whole merit of which was in repeating the sum total.
Before we entered Mora we passed the spot where Cicero was overtaken and beheaded, on which stands, to the memory of the immortal orator, an ancient and splendid cenotaph. It consists of three stories, and has inside of it a shaft extending from the top to the bottom. But this monument, stately and massive as it is, has already suffered from the corroding tooth of time, and will soon crumble back to dust, while the intellectual monuments erected by himself preserve their virgin freshness, and will carry down the name of their illustrious author, loaded with undimin- ished honours, to the latest posterity. Mora occupies the site of the ancient Formia, where was Cicero's Formian villa ; and upon the seashore, five miles distant, within sight of Mora, is Gaeta, which has been already mentioned in the sketches of Italian his- tory as being a flourishing republic. This is the most northern of the three important republics in Magna Gragcia, that sprung so early out of the ruins of the Roman empire. Alas ! that repub- licanism should ever be supplanted by such a stupid, tyrannical government as that of the present day. These three republics are on three successive gulfs. First, Gaeta, on the gulf of the same name, which gulf is separated from that of Naples by the Island of Ischia and the promontory of Misenum ; and this again is separated by the promontory of Tarento from the Gulf of Sa- lerno, on which was situated Amalfi. It is also worthy of remark, that they are all situated on the same parts relative to their re- spective bays, viz., on the northern sides or shores. They rose up together, under the same circumstances, like children of
184 ITALY.
one family ; and they fell by the same ruthless destroyer, the warlike Norman. With their liberty and independence, the im- portance, trade, and population of the northern and southern fell also ; Gaeta having now but little trade, and only about ten thousand inhabitants ; and Amain, which in the ninth century was perhaps the greatest mercantile community in the world, is dwindled down to an unimportant village.
The Ameiican citizen feels a gloomy foreboding as he almost involuntarily asks, Will some future traveller have occasion to record the same sad history of the lovely, prosperous, and popu- lous cities that now stud the shores of the Atlantic from Maine to Florida ? Yes, doubtless, unless America learn wisdom by the historic lessons of the past. If, like Italy, the states or sections of the Union should divide themselves into independent govern- ments, there will come jealousies and wars, and ruin will be in the train. If popular phrensy and illegal assemblies assume the reins of government, then will some aspiring demagogue rise up, applauded by the multitude, even as they will be flattered and pampered by him, until the foot of the conqueror is on their neck. America ought to know enough of human nature and of history to avoid the rocks on which others have been wrecked ; but alas ! how few consult the records of the past or the dictates of reason in these matters. Would that the past history and present con- dition of Italy could be hung up before the American citizen in all places of public resort, and especially at the polls, and in the capitois of the states and of the nation. This is the most I desire from Italy. I have seen her antiquities, her statuary, her paintings, her unrivalled edifices, her picturesque scenery, her olive mount- ains, and her vine-covered vales ; but all these, in view of the im- portant interests I am now contemplating, are for America compar- atively nothing. If from the deep-stained frescoes of her historic page, coloured by the blood of her once free and intelligent sons, some vivid and striking pictures could be hung up in view of the American public, methinks it would be worth more to us, ten thou- sand times, than all the works of art of which ancient and mod- ern Italy can boast. And yet who thinks of this ? Who, of the hundreds of American travellers that visit Italy, will even imbue their own minds with these subjects, much less carry back these important lessons to their countrymen ?
NAPLES. 185
But to return to our journal. At Capua we were reminded of the siege and capture, by Hannibal, of Casilinum, which stood on the site of this more modern city. From this city to Naples the road was remarkably level, and led through a rich and highly- cultivated country. The vineyards seemed to have added magnifi- cence to beauty. The trees on which the vines hung, and which were planted in regular ranges, had grown to the size and height of forest-trees, and the vines that hung upon them, some of which were stretched from tree to tree, were themselves as large as small trees. Between the rows the soil, was cultivated like a garden, and, though it was but the beginning of March, the surface was covered with a green and flourishing vegetation. Not only were the wheat-fields luxuriant, but fields of flax, which had at- tained to half its growth, and various articles of horticulture in surprising forwardness, some of which, indeed, seemed to have been vegetating during the whole winter, interspersed and varied the scene. At length we arrived at the gate of Naples ; here, although, on entering the Neapolitan domains, our baggage was examined and receipted, yet we were required to pay a piastre at the Dogana (custom-house) to prevent a second examination. In this matter of custom they are more jealous of Italians than of foreigners. Our priest's baggage was again rummaged, although it had been thoroughly turned up and taxed once before.
CHAPTER XII.
r*
THERE is something peculiarly lively and gay in the appearance of Naples. Its location is fine. The bay itself is a beautiful sheet of water, of about thirty miles diameter, protected at its en- trance by the Island of Capri, which rises up, like a mighty break- water, to resist the force of the waves. The town is like an am- phitheatre around the bay ; at one end it has some picturesque em- inences, on one of which is the king's palace and the royal ob- servatory, and on the other the Castle of St. Elmo. These are ascended by zigzag roads, to make the ascent gradual and pleas- 16 A A
186 ITALY.
ant, presenting at every turn new aspects of the beautiful scenery around; and, when you arrive at the top, the entire panorama is like an enchantment.
From the Royal Observatory you look down upon the city, the bay, the harbour, and thence the eye glances speedily over the vale spread out beyond the opposite side of the town ; a vale that can scarcely be described. It is spotted all over with cottages, appearing in the distance like so many little bird-cages, almost thick enough to be called a continual village. To the right, nearer the bay, is Portici, under which lies the buried city of Hercula- neum. Beyond is Vesuvius, covered perpetually with his wreath of smoke or flame. The associations of this exhibition add greatly to the interest of the scene. The very mountain you stand upon is a volcanic formation ; so is the entire foundation of the city of Naples, and, in fact, all the surrounding country ; while at the base of Vesuvius, a few miles distant, are cities buried, with their inhabitants, sixty and eighty feet below the present surface of the earth by successive floods of molten minerals and showers of cinders and earth. To the like fate the population of the modern cities are continually exposed ; nay, it would be no new thing in this neighbourhood if the troubled elements of the earth should burst forth in the very centre of the city of Naples, and bury its hun- dreds of thousands under a huge mausoleum of a Monte Nuovo, such as was thrown up in 1538 but a few miles distant from the city. Yet the inhabitants live without the least apparent appre- hension, fully believing, if fatal eruptions of this kind should ever happen, it will not be in their day ; just as we travellers believe it will not be while we visit the city and its environs, and even the very crater of Vesuvius itself. One cannot but feel peculiar sensations when seriously contemplating the scene around him, viewed in connexion with past history. This whole region, in- cluding, perhaps, the entire peninsula of Italy, is volcanic, and vol- canoes have been active here from time immemorial. The sub- terranean fires which some suppose are entombed and rage con- tinually in the centre of the earth, seem here to have found vent, and the craters of Etna on a neighbouring island, and of Vesuvius have for many centuries been natural safety-valves ; and though in some instances destructive to the insects that sport around them, may be instrumental of saving extensive portions of the
STATE OF SOCIETY IN NAPLES. 187
earth from destructive earthquakes and ruinous convulsions But although the subterranean fires seem to concentrate in this neighbourhood, it does not follow as certain, or most probable, that the crater of Vesuvius will always be the outlet. Naples itself is as likely, in process of time, according to all human ap- pearances, to be the crater of a volcano as Vesuvius once was. It seems, in the time of Diodorus Siculus, about half a century be- fore Christ, and in that of Strabo, who flourished about the period of the Christian era, that there was no appearance in Vesuvius of an active volcano ; but, from the appearance of the mountain, it was judged it had once been subject to irruptions, in an age so re- mote that the period was to them unknown. In the seventy-ninth year of the Christian era, however, the great irruption took place which buried Herculaneum and Pompeii. Since that time, on the other side of Naples, Monte Nuovo has been formed in a few hours, and the earth in the neighbourhood still burns beneath, sending up streams of heated sulphureous gas, and throwing out rivulets of hot water; an evidence that not in Vesuvius only, but all under these green hills and verdant vales, the fabled forges of Vulcan are in active operation, and where next they may burst forth in torrents of fire and showers of molten cinders is altogether unknown .
But I wander, perhaps, from my purpose, which was to give some general view of Naples. It is in population the third city in Europe, containing, as the most rational estimate, from three hundred and fifty to four hundred thousand inhabitants. Some Ne- apolitans say half a million ; but this is evidently erroneous. The size of the city, which is only nine or ten miles in circumference, hardly admits of such an estimate. It is true, Naples, from the great portion of the inhabitants who constantly throng the streets, appears to be immensely populous. In no city, I think (even London is not an exception), have I seen greater throngs in the streets ; but nowhere besides do the inhabitants live in the streets, as in Naples. To say nothing of the lazaroni, many of whom, it is said, have no home, but sleep at night in the open air, or under the public courts, in the doors of the churches, and wherever they can find a resting-place, there are very many who do a great por- tion of their business in the streets ; here is cooking, spinning, tshoemaking, blacksmithing, carpentering, and trading of all kinds .
188 ITALY.
in the streets. It is this doing everything out of doors which adds much, doubtless, to the apparent populousness of Naples. But it is, in fact, full of people ; many of them busily occupied, but many others miserably idle, and very many wretchedly poor. The lazaroni (the ragged ones) seem to be a distinct class, and the lowest we could well conceive of in the bosom of a civilized community. It has already been stated that many of them are without any regular lodgings ; they live upon a trifle ; the mildness of the climate and their habits enable them to subsist without fire and with but little clothing. When they can obtain employment they work (for they appear more active than the poorest classes in other parts of Italy); they act as porters, or fachinos, as they are called in Italian, whenever they can find employment, for which purpose they have a basket that serves them in their labours by day and as a bed by night. They sing and sport, play the harle- quin, or attend upon those who do so, listen to the public street- readers of Orlando Furioso, in which they seem greatly instructed, or attend to the harangues of the street declaimers, play at cards on a stone or a stool on the side of the street, stretch themselves out upon the pavements in the sun, gather the quids of tobacco and the ends of cigars that have been thrown away, and expose them for sale, beg when necessity requires, and attend to whatever else inclination prompts to, and circumstances allow of, or nature requires, without embarrassment or shame. But the most impor- tant business is hunting heads, which seems with them not only to be a matter of necessity, but also of luxury, and hence you will pass scores of them in the streets performing this kind office for each other ; an employment, by-the-way, which is not to be sneered at, since it is consecrated by genius, and identified with the fine arts in Italy. One of the standard paintings of the Pitti Palace, in Florence, was a Cupid having his head looked by, if I rightly remember, Psyche. But in Naples tl^ey attend to it in a way that saves time and blesses the blesser ; for while one is serving another, he or she is, at the same time, served by a third, and so on in an indefinite series. In many instances, too, you may see the colo- nists or emigrants from the head picked off from other parts of the body. In short (for this is not a subject to be dwelt upon further than is necessary to give some just description of the state of society here , these lazaroni are a dirty, squalid, poverty-
POVERTY OF THE INHABITANTS. 189
smitten race, amounting, according to some, to thirty or forty thousand. It is doubtful, however, whether there are so many. Indeed, it is generally said, their number is diminished of late years. Happy would it be for the city if they could be entirely removed by putting them into workhouses, or employing them in some way to improve their condition and elevate their char- acter. It is said they are willing to work when they can find it; but they have been so long degraded that their condition is not very irksome to themselves. They are, in general, a merry race, living on macaroni and vegetables, and in their habits but little removed above bestiality.
The beggars in Naples are numerous and annoying, but less so in the city than in the country and provincial towns in the neigh- bourhood. The other two unproductive classes of society here- tofore alluded to in other cities are also very numerous here, viz., the ecclesiastics and soldiers. Of the former it is difficult to as- certain the precise number, but they are abundant, and well dressed and well fed. They have " fulness of bread and abundance of idleness," both of which are indicated by their fresh visage and portly appearance. Indeed, what have they to do ? They have no families to provide for, they seldom preach, most of them never, and their pastoral duties, masses and confessions, are an easy task, divided among from ten to twenty, perhaps, in each church. In addition to these, there are the monastic orders hanging like leeches upon the social body, devouring much and producing nothing.
It is said the King of Naples has an army in actual service in and about Naples amounting to about thirty or forty thousand. These, too, appear well dressed and well fed. Some thousands of them are hirelings from Switzerland and Austria. With all these unproductive consumers living on her limited commerce and her slender revenues, what can be expected but that depression and poverty should pervade the whole nation? The wonder is that Naples sustains herself as well as she does ; nor could she, in fact, survive long, but that she is surrounded by a country rich and productive almost beyond conception, which, if nothing more, yields at least the necessaries of life, bread-stuffs and common vegetables, in great abundance, as well as great quantities of fruit for exportation.
190 ITALY.
Naples is unrivalled in the beauty of its location and surround- ing scenery. The Quarters of Chiajah, St. Lucia, and Chiatamone, on the bay, are delightful ; stretching along by the first of these streets are the public gardens, extending, I should judge, a mile, from the Victoria almost to the Grotto of Posilipo, ornamented with trees, shrubbery, plants, statuary, and fountains, with the bay on the one side and a splendid street on the other. This is a favourite and fashionable resort. Another important street is the Toledo, running through the heart of the city. At the north, with- out the city, is the Campus Martius, an extensive and fine military parade-ground, surrounded by trees. For this last, as well as for the gardens, and for additions to the palace, and great improve- ments to the grounds about Capo di Monti, and various other things useful and ornamental to the city, Naples is indebted to Murat and the French.
The architecture of Naples is not much admired. The churches are numerous, amounting to from three to four hundred, and a few of them have some interest within, for the costly finish, paintings, &c. ; but, in general, they are indifferent. The Church of St. Martin, near the Castle of St. Elmo, has a lofty location, over- looking the town and the bay, and is attached to what used to be the Certosini convent. The church is splendid, and contains some good pictures. The convent was converted by the French into a hospital for military invalids ; but it is now, I am sorry to say, undergoing repairs, in view of being restored to its original use. It is thus that the present reigning family are endeavouring to bring everything back to the superstitions of former days. The present king often makes superstitious vows, as did also his father before him. The former, it is said, recentlymade vows of various religious performances, charities, &c., provided he could be fa- voured with the birth of a son, but forgot to stipulate, it would seem, for the safety of the queen ; the result is, the son is born, but it cost the queen her life. The present king's father made a vow, when he was last driven from his kingdom by Murat, that he would build a magnificent church if he could be again restored ;to his throne. To fulfil his vow a church is nearly completed in the grand square opposite to the palace, which, in its circular colonnades, its rotunda, and its location in a circular piazza, has some little resemblance to St. Peter's at Rome. This will be a
A MARVELLOUS SAINT. 191
fine church when finished ; but, doubtless, a vow to give his sub- jects a constitution that would guard them from the encroachments and oppressions of despotism would have been much more ac- ceptable to God, and beneficial to his people, and, I may add, much more honourable to himself, and more conservative of his family dynasty, than the building of an additional church in a city where churches and priests were already multiplied far beyond the wants of the people.
The Cathedral, which is called the church of St. Januarius, is noted for being incrusted with white marble externally, for being supported internally by something more than one hundred columns of Egyptian granite, African marble, &c., taken from ancient heathen temples, for containing the body of St. Januarius, and two vessels of his blood, which is in a solid state, but is liquefied miraculously three times a year. We were shown the silver tab- ernacle where the head of this saint, together with these vessels of blood, are deposited, but were not permitted to see the blood. The tabernacle is locked by four keys, two of which are with the king and two with the cardinal, and it cannot be opened but by the joint action of these two personages, which only takes place on occasion of the ceremony of liquefying the blood. It is seri- ously believed by the Neapolitans that the ready liquefaction of the substance in these vials, which, no doubt, is a chymical com- pound, that either liquefies by the warmth of the priest's hands or by some other common chymical process, is indicative of prosper- ity, and, if it fails readily to become a liquid, it is accounted ominous of some approaching calamity. The last time the ceremony was performed there was some delay and difficulty, it is said, and the result has been the death of the queen ! ! Another marvel con- nected with this affair is, that the stone on which the saint was beheaded, and which is kept some miles distant, sweats fresh blood at the very moment that in the vial becomes a liquid. So the priests teach, and so the people believe ! This saint has several times protected the city from the irruptions of Mount Vesuvius, hence it is not wonderful that he should be in such high estimation. His chapel cost one hundred thousand ducats.* This cathedral also contains the body of Januarius in a subterranean chapel, which is supposed to be the remains of a temple of Apollo, and has an ele-
* A ducat is worth about eighty cents.
192 ITALY.
gant altar and shrine in an adjoining chapel, on which is a splendid bassrelief in massive silver, representing the entrance of the saint into Naples in 1526, at a time when the plague was raging there, and which was stayed by his miraculous interposition. This, of course, has secured to him the honour of being the tutelar saint of Naples. Here also are thirty-six splendid silver busts, which are exhibited on festal days, but at other times kept stored in closets in a private room, and shown to strangers by the custode for a fee.
The Chapel of St. Severus, erected in 1590, has been almost ruined by an earthquake, and is in some parts only kept from falling by walling up the arches with strong masonry. It is no longer used for worship, and is only remarkable as a repository of sepulchral monuments of the Sangro family. The monuments are fine, and have additional interest from the fact that the tomb and monument of each nobleman or prince of the family is also ac- companied by a monument for his wife, which is a rare occurrence. The monument for the wife is generally a symbolical figure, per- sonating some virtue of the deceased. One is a female figure of modesty, by Corradini ; she is clothed with a transparent veil from head to foot, exhibiting through it the entire form. It is a most extraordinary piece of art, in a form entirely unknown to the an- cients, and rarely attempted by the moderns. The lady was the wife of Prince Don Raymond. There are two other similar works of art in this chapel : one is a symbolic representation of vice un- deceived, and is designed to designate the change in Don Raymond himself, who, after the death of his wife, renounced his secular pursuits and became a priest. The symbol is a man escaping from a net, assisted by another figure beside him, called the Ge- nius of Common Sense. The net is already partly thrown ofF, and although it is sculptured from the same piece of marble with the statue itself, seems scarcely to touch the body. It is inconceiva- bly fine, but not more so than the other, which is a dead Christ, veiled, by Joseph San Martino. The form and the very muscles are seen through the veil, and the whole looks as if moistened by the clammy sweat of death, while the sublime resignation of our Saviour's last hour seems lingering still upon the lifeless counte- nance. This is a sublime triumph of genius. In my opinion, sculpture is nowhere so perfectly at home as in the representa-
THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY. 193
tion of death. The colour of animation, from the necessity of the case, is always wanting to the sculptured representation of the liv- ing figure ; a defect which, however it may be with others, I can never lose sight of when looking at the finest statuary ; hence I al- ways feel that something is wanting, and this feeling detracts so much from the pleasure, and mars the whole exhibition. But death has no animation ; it has no colour ; its very expression, its very associations are marble, cold marble ! Here, therefore, the works of the chisel are perfect, and its triumphs are complete. Let no one who visits Naples fail of visiting the Chapel of the Veiled Statuary.
I cannot dwell upon the other churches and public edifices of Naples. We visited one of the two royal palaces of Naples, viz., that by the grand or royal piazza. It is a large building, finely sit- uated, and containing a suite of spacious staterooms, in which are some fine paintings and rich furniture.* The palace at Capo di Monte we were not permitted to see, because the king was at that time staying there. The situation of this palace is very fine, as has already been stated. The Royal Observatory near by was not closed like the palace ; this, therefore, we entered, and examined every part. The observatory building, fixtures, and instruments are certainly very creditable to the government of Naples ; all the necessary instruments were there, and well mounted and arranged ; and the only mortification that I had in examining it was the re- flection which here, as in other places in Europe, I was constrained to make upon the deficiency of our own country in this and simi- lar institutions, and the stinted economy, or local and state jeal- ousy, which keeps the boasted republic of America from affording that patronage to science which is so liberally extended by not only the constitutional monarchies, but even the unrestricted despotisms of Europe. This consideration is extremely mortifying, and the more so because many of our citizens imagine, and this feeling is increased by those ephemeral politicians and demagogues who pander to the notions of the ignorant for the sake of temporary popularity and office, that these high institutions are not necessary ; that they savour of aristocracy, and have no relation to the general
* While I am reviewing this part of my journal (March, 1837), I learn by the public papers that all that was combustible of this edifice, together with the rich gallery of pictures and the furniture, has been consumed by fire.
17 BB
194
ITALY.
interests of the community and of the labouring classes ; where- as, if they were only able or willing to trace the relation between science and the most useful arts, they would see that the former, in her highest flights and widest range, was only gathering golden treasures for an entire people; and nowhere is the distribution so complete as in a republic. Although, in a monarchy or an aristocracy* there may be a monopoly of these advantages, as there is, more or less, of everything else, yet nothing is more diffusive in its tendencies than knowledge, and, where there are no artificial obstructions to interfere, it is sure to spread out over the whole land ; and the larger and better supplied the grand reservoirs, the more abundant and extended will be the diffusive and refreshing streams. When will all our citizens be undeceived on this impor- tant point ?
The burial-place of the Neapolitans is the very opposite of those of Paris. It is a large square, enclosed on every side by a high wall, of sufficient extent to contain as many separate pits as there are days in the year. These pits are twelve feet square and eighteen deep, and are walled up and permanently covered over, except one square opening in the centre, of perhaps fourteen or eighteen inches, into which a stone is fitted and plastered air tight. This stone has a staple and a ring, by which a machine, kept for the purpose, on the principle of the lever, can break it up and open the pit. One of these is opened in this manner every day, and the dead are thrown in without coffin or clothing ; quick lime is then thrown in, and the pit is sealed up, and the next receptacle in order is broken up, so that there is a year for the decomposi- tion of the bodies before the pit is again disturbed. We looked into the one which was open the day we visited it, and saw some half dozen of infants just thrown in, perfectly naked. But this is the charnel-house of the poor. These recent deposit.es were sink- ing down into the putrefied mass of former years. The spectacle may be conceived of by the reader, but it is too repulsive to be de- scribed. If any man wishes to take a deep lesson in the frailty and loathsome corruptibility of these pampered and idolized bodies, let him go to the Campo Santo of Naples. These pits for the burial of the poor are also common at Rome and other cities of Italy ; and, not unfrequently, rats and other vermin are seen rioting on the putrid mass.
FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF THE NEAPOLITANS. 195
Those who can afford the expense of a funeral are generally buried by fraternities, who are associated together for this pur- pose. The different societies are dressed in long loose robes of various colours, according to their respective regulations, and all of them wear masks, or, rather, a sort of close hood, with openings for the eyes. These bodies walk in procession, bearing lighted wax candles, and are frequently followed by a number of Franciscan and Capuchin monks, who are dressed in black or brown mantles, with cowls hanging back upon their shoulders, ex- posing their naked heads sometimes half shaven ; and whose feet are shod with a kind of sandal, or a shoe having only a sole and straps to bind and fasten it to the foot. We followed a procession of this kind one evening, just as the shadows of approaching night were beginning to cast a gloom upon the city, which is the usual hour for their sepulchral ceremonies. They led us into an upper room, where the corpse was lying in state, in full dress and with painted face ; after a little ceremony and religious service, the body was taken and borne off to the church in solemn procession. The scene was heightened by the hour, by the long ranges of lights streaming upon the darkness, and the deep chant of the monks, "Requiem ceternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis ."* When we arrived at the church another more extended service was performed, and the coffin, in an unaccountable manner, disap- peared. I suppose it must have been lowered down through the floor of the church ; for we went down into the vault below, and found they had just been engaged in the burial.
My stay at Naples was not long enough to enable me to become much acquainted with the schools and colleges. Of course there is no general system of primary education. This would be rais- ing the people too much for the purposes of such a government. There are, however, several schools for the gratuitous education of poor children of both sexes, and there are also several colleges ; one is appropriated exclusively to the education of the nobility. 1 could not learn that literature or science was advancing at all in Naples, although this city once took a high stand in the lit- erary world. The great rage now here, as in other parts of It- aly, is for the belle arte. I tried to get access to one of the col-
* " Give them eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them."
196 ITALY.
leges without a formal introduction, and the custode or porter not conceiving that I could wish to see anything but pictures and stat- uary, took me into a back hall, where were piles of rubbish in the form of old paintings, which he began to elevate and arrange for my inspection and gratification ! ! After informing him that I had not come to see pictures, but the libraries, apparatus, and differ- ent accommodations of the college, he gave me to understand I could not be admitted, on account of its being the hour when the professors were hearing their classes. I left disappointed, but not a little amused at the mistake of the porter. It appeared to me to be a characteristic indication, if not of what the Neapolitans most thought of, at least of what they supposed foreigners most thought of who visited them.
Having made several allusions to the Neapolitan government, it may not be amiss here to say a few words on that subject. It is absolute ; that is, the king is restrained by no constitutional laws and by no legislative authority. The property, lives, and liberties of his people are all at his disposal, checked and con- trolled, however, as he must be, more or leSs, at this age, by public opinion. Hence this idea of public opinion and fear of dis- affection is constantly haunting the Neapolitan government ; and the principal dependance to restrain any secret disaffection is placed upon the military. The king keeps a large standing army, amounting, it is said, to thirty or forty thousand. Every part of the city is guarded by sentinels, and companies of foot, and squad- rons of horse. Cannons are kept constantly mounted, and pointed into the public squares and other places where any numbers might be rallied to oppose the powers that be ; all indicating that the army is kept, not for foreign enemies, but for the king's own sub- jects. From abroad he has nothing to fear, but at home every- thing ; nor dare he trust his own subjects for his guards, but keeps foreigners in his pay, principally Swiss, and some Germans as his more immediate body-guard, who have no other interest in die government than to accomplish, like a hireling, their task, get their pay, and go home. Their interest, of course, will be wholly on the side of the government ; and, therefore, they are thought to be the safest guards. How miserably must that government estimate its own authority which cannot rely upon its own sub- jects for defence ! Certainly such a government must act contin-
SUSPICION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 197
ually under the conviction of its own weakness ; and such, evident- ly, is the conviction of the present king and ministers of Naples. They are afraid of every breath. This is illustrated by a recent occurrence. A young Frenchman at Rome, having occasion to visit Naples, and finding it difficult, for some reason, to get a pass- port, took a passport of another, and travelled all through the kingdom, and spent some time at Naples under a fictitious name. The joke took so well, it was too good for the Frenchman to keep. He boasted of his exploit, and it was soon reported to the government. This threw, them into a great fever. They feared some terrible Carbonari plot, or something else, was ready to produce an explosion ; and every foreigner, and especially every Frenchman (for the French are the most suspected), fell under suspicion. Their consular and ministerial agents abroad were di- rected to examine foreigners very closely as to their standing and object in visiting Naples before giving an official sanction to their passports. It was requested, when I was in Leghorn, that I should appear before the consul-general, and answer to an ex- amination on the subject of my character, object in visiting Na- ples, &c, ; but, on being informed that I should not choose to subject myself to such a catechism, and that he must learn my character from my passport, the subject was waived. We were informed, however, from an official source while in Naples, that it was in contemplation to pass an edict speedily by which all foreigners would be obliged to give security for their good be- haviour, especially that they would engage in no political object on visiting Naples. Be it so. For my part, although I admire the scenery of Southern Italy, yet I never shall desire to enter the kingdom of Naples again until the capricious tyranny that now sways its destinies shall be broken or restrained.
The weakness and meanness of this government are also seen in another fact, and that is, that they frequently break open letters sent or received through the medium of the postoffice. This is done, doubtless, to detect any lurking conspiracy which their guilt and their fears lead them always to think is on the eve of breaking out.
Little or no encouragement is given to manufactures or to ag- ricultural enterprise ; and as for commerce it seems to be the 17
198 ITALY.
policy of the government to embarrass it as much as possible. Their quarantine laws, founded in ignorance and executed in ca- price, are of themselves sufficient to paralyze their commercial operations. Take this, which occurred while I was at Naples, as a specimen. A steamer arrived from Marseilles ; previous to its arrival, report had reached the government that a vessel from New-Orleans, United States, had been admitted into Marseilles after only five days' quarantine ; and this was sufficient to order the steamer back upon the quarantine-ground, with all her freight and passengers ! and it was seriously proposed to subject her to a quarantine of twenty days. They, however, thought better of it, and permitted her, after thirty-six or forty-eight hours, to come into the harbour. The letters which are brought by steamers and ships are received into sacks at the end of long poles, and are thoroughly steamed and perfumed before they can be touched ; after they are made tangible on the outside, they are pierced through with a knife, so that the perfume may have an opportu- nity to circulate in the interior, and then they undergo another fumigation. A letter that I received while there was pierced with a slit of about an inch in length in some twelve or sixteen places.
After all, perhaps, Naples is doing as well as it has done for many centuries, with the exception of the reign of Don Carlos and that of Murat. For two centuries after the government passed into the hands of the royal family of Spain, Naples was governed by viceroys, whose principal object was to plunder the people as much as they could while they were in office. These exactions were so intolerable in some cases that the people revolted, and by popular violence claimed redress of their grievances. Such was the famous insurrection under the fisherman Thomas Anniello, which was excited in 1647 on account of the tax on fruit.
In 1736, by the treaty of Vienna, the contention which had ex- isted for several preceding years respecting the sovereignty of Naples and Sicily was adjusted by confirming Don Carlos, Duke of Parma and son of the King of Spain, on the throne of Naples and Sicily. He was a wise and a liberal monarch, but was called to the throne of Spain, in 1759, on the death of his eldest brother, Ferdinand VI. He left Naples to his third son, who took the
EXECUTION OF MURAT. 199
throne under the name of Ferdinand I. This monarch was a man of a very weak mind ; indeed, the intellect of the entire family was none of the best. The eldest son of Don Carlos was non compos mentis, and, therefore, incapable of being his father's heir to the throne of Spain, on which account the second son was re- served to succeed his father, and the third left at Naples. Ferdi- nand's wife, Queen Caroline, of the house of Austria, ruled her husband and the court. She was a cruel tyrant ; and, while she kept the king himself under her sway, she made him the tool of her cruelty and tyranny. This hastened the revolution which was commenced by the Neapolitans for the sake of liberty, but which, like all the other revolutions in the Italian States, ended in the domination of the French. In 1806 Joseph Bonaparte was made king. He was succeeded by his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, who held the crown until, in 1814, he was compelled to yield it to the Austrian power, when it was bestowed again by the Emperor of Austria, Francis II., upon the old King Ferdinand I.* Again the feeble old king was driven from his capital and kingdom by Murat in 1815, but was restored by the failure of Murat's effort to recover his government. This effort was fol- lowed by a second, in which the restless and ambitious spirit of this brother-in-law of Napoleon drove him upon the rash enterprise of sailing from Toulon with six barks, with the expectation of being joined by his partisans in sufficient strength to recover his crown. His fleet was dispersed in a gale, and he was driven on shore at San Lucida, where he was taken prisoner, and afterward tried by a court-martial and sentenced to be shot. This sentence was executed October 13, 1815. Ferdinand was so excited by his fears of Murat, that he could not rest until the sentence of death was executed upon him. The old king himself died in 1825, and was succeeded by his son Francis I. This monarch has more intellect than his father, but possesses a share of his illiber- ality and bigotry. If this part of Italy ever rises from its present condition, it must be by a gradual melioration ; there is little hope from revolution ; any change from this source will only be a
* Fortunately for Naples and for the world, the queen in the mean time had died at Vienna, where she had been sent by the English to prevent her intrignes against the constitutional government which they had established at Sicily.
200 ITALY.
change of masters. A great portion of the people in Calabria are but half civilized ; and these, with the lazaroni of Naples, always join the nobility in favour of monarchy. To this they are led by their ignorance, their superstition, and the influence of their priests.
If a monarch should arise who, understanding his own interests as well as the interests of the people, would establish a constitu- tional government, and provide the means of instruction for the people, they might, in time, be elevated; but, as there is little hope of this, so there is every reason to suppose that Magna Gra> cia will be the last corner of Italy that will be enlightened and refined.
The principal object of interest to the stranger in Naples still remains to be noticed. I allude to the public museum called the Museo Borbonico ; a name, by-the-way, which has more of pride in it than appropriateness ; but this is of no consequence. The museum itself is equalled by none in the world for interest, chiefly because it contains the spoils of those buried cities which have been preserved for seventeen centuries in all the freshness and perfection of their original character. As soon as any new object of interest is uncovered in the excavations which are made in the subterranean cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, it is re- moved to this museum. You are here introduced, therefore, to historical records, more expressive than description, of what these cities were at the moment they were inhumed. I do not now speak of the fine arts ; for, although some very good frescoes* have been excavated, with all the freshness of their original colouring^ as well as a great many indifferent ones ; and although some very beautiful mosaics of a coarser kind, such as are found in the pave- ments of courts and floors of rooms, have been exhumed ; and even although some most splendid sculpture has been found, such, for example, as the equestrian statues of the Balbi and the statue of Arislides, both found at Herculaneum, yet these have their equals, perhaps, in the specimens of ancient statuary found else- where. But to enter into a museum containing all the kitchen utensils, the toys of the toilet, the instruments of agriculture,
* Perhaps I ought to say, for the information of some of my youthful readers, that, properly speaking, a fresco is a painting upon a damp plastered wall.
THE MUSEO BORBONICO. 201
the contents of the shop, the furniture of the private and public apartments, the sacred implements and vessels of the altars and the temples, all, in short, that relates to war or peace, to public or private life, to business or pleasure, to arts or literature, to the licentiousness or the religion of a refined, licentious, luxu- rious, and superstitious people, existing two thousand years ago ; this is to see one of the most surprising exhibitions the world has ever beheld, and is owing to one of the most extraordinary occurrences that has marked the history of the earth since the flood.
I cannot describe these articles minutely, but must glance at the most general division of the objects.
1 . A hall devoted to ancient paintings, consisting principally of pieces of the plastered walls, with frescoes on them, containing pic- torial representations of almost every important event in ancient history and mythology ; the paintings themselves, independent of their story, are generally indifferent.
2. Gallery of Ancient Sculpture. Of this there are something like twelve divisions, or different halls and cabinets, containing five or six hundred specimens of ancient sculpture. These are not all, however, from the two cities mentioned, but all antiques from every quarter are deposited here. Among these, the finest I ever saw for a single figure is the statue of Aristides, already alluded to. The philosopher stands with his arms folded in his cloak, in all the dignity and integrity of his character. It is a work as near perfection, I think, as human art can ever achieve. This is the kind of statuary I covet for my country. I had much ado to re- frain from a violation of the command, " Thou shalt not covet" when looking at this matchless figure. Could I have it, thought I, to exhibit to the youth of America, to the young men of our uni- versities, such a dignified personification of integrity, in the person of Aristides the Just, might greatly aid in elevating their charac- ters and strengthening their principles ; although I might well be re- minded that they have not only Moses and the prophets, but Jesus Christ and the apostles, whom, if they hear not, neither would they believe, although Aristides should rise from the dead. And yet I think it would be no disadvantage to see the old philosopher even in marble ; I should like to look at him two or three times a day as long as I live. But why do I dwell so long upon one figure
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among so many ? Because I would give more for him than for a score of naked Venuses whom I saw in an adjoining hall, al- though one of them, at least, is thought to rival the famous Venus de Medicis.
3. The Egyptian and Etruscan Gallery. This contains Egyp- tian hieroglyphics, the instruments for the Egyptian worship, statues of their gods, vases, &c., besides many Etruscan vases and antiquities. The Romans and other Italians were accustomed to adopt all the respectable deities they could- meet with ; for in this way heathenism endeavours to satisfy itself, and make up for the defect of its individual divinities by worshipping multitudes. The Egyptian deities, especially, seem to have been in high re- pute. All the ancient cities of any importance appear, as far as can be traced by history or remaining ruins, to have one Egyptian temple or more. Many of the images, vessels, and implements of these temples show the licentiousness and impurity of their worship.
4. The Gallery of Ancient Bronzes. A splendid collection, mostly from Herculaneum, some from Pompeii, and other places, to the number of between one and two hundred.
5. A suite of apartments containing kitchen furniture, glass lamps, weights and measures, agricultural implements, gems, and ladies' ornaments, &c., &c.
In these relics of a former age we are surprised to see, in a great many instances, the very implements over again with which we are conversant at the present day ; the same pans, the pots and kettles, the gridirons, the ladles, the steelyards, the stoves, stamps for printing letters on bread, nay, some of the bread itself stamped, inkstands with remains of ink in them, pens or styli, opera tickets, door trimmings, bits for bridles, musical instruments, dice, spinning-wheels, distaffs, locks and keys, surgical instru- ments almost equal to the modern, moulds for pastry, skimmers, grates, stocks for the feet of prisoners,* andirons, mirrors, rouge, and other paints for the face — for ladies, it seems, improved upon nature in those days as well as now — combs, curling-tongs, and other requisites for ladies' toilets. In short, you seem here to be
* The skeleton of a man was found in a pair of these stocks which we saw in the mu- seum, showing that the prisoner in his cell and the lady at the toilet shared a common Lot in this dire catastrophe.
THE MUSBjO BORBONICO. 203
translated back two thousand years and led into all the familiar scenes of domestic life. And worse than this ; there is a reserve room, which none are allowed to enter without a special permit from the director. As the contents of this room are not decent to be publicly exposed, even in an Italian museum, of course they are not proper to be described, even if one could make up his mind to describe them. They are only mentioned here as proof of the extreme licentiousness of those cities. If one of our great cities, New-York for example, were to be buried suddenly, with all concerns just as they now are, and should be excavated two thousand years hence, there would be found, undoubtedly, in some parts of the city, the unequivocal memorials of a gross licentious- ness ; but to judge of the general character of the city by these in- dications would be incorrect. But the great evidence of universal, or, at least, general corruption in Pompeii, is the fact that some of these impure indications were taken from the houses of the first citizens, and from the toilets of the ladies of those families. Diomedes, whose suburban villa just out of the gates of Pompeii will be noticed hereafter, appears to have been a man of consular dignity ; and yet his ladies, his daughter, as is supposed, had such forms of jewelry and toys of her toilet as may not be described, and as no virtuous lady could expose on her person. No wonder these cities were overwhelmed .by the visitation of Divine provi- dence. It is but the providential exemplification of the Divine abhorrence of sin, and an early and unequivocal intimation of that coming day when this entire polluted earth shall be destroyed by the agency of the same element.
Time would fail me to speak of the ancient pottery ; the lamps, almpst innumerable ; and of the glassware, tolerably clear, con- sisting of vases, cinerary urns, &c., together with some speci- mens of window glass from Diomedes's villa, the only house where, as yet, glass windows have been discovered.
But I must not neglect to notice the papyri, or ancient written parchments, dug principally from Herculaneum, and found in one library about the middle of the last century, amounting to 1730 scrolls. When discovered they looked like black cinders ; but there were so many of them, and in such regular order, that they attracted attention ; and it was^iscovered, on close examination, that these were no other than scrolls of papyrus, rolled up in the
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manner of the ancient works, and containing treatises, poems, music, &c., in Latin and Greek. An Italian, Antonio Piaggio, has invented a machine for unrolling them ; and, although they are perfectly charred through, still, by the process adopted and the preparation applied, they are unrolled, and so far kept from falling to pieces that most of the contents of these ancient books are de- ciphered. The process is slow, but the work is still going on. Several volumes of the above works have been published ; but, as yet, little has been found that will add to our knowledge of ancient literature.
In the Gallery of the Toro Farnese are two very extraordinary specimens of statuary. The one gives name to the gallery, and is a group of a female tied to the horns of a raging bull, which is held by two young men, and another matronal lady standing by. It is supposed to be a representation of Dirce fastened by her hair to the horns of the bull by the two sons of Lycus, king of Thebes, Amphion and Zethus, and that the other female is their mother, commanding them to release her. There is a youth also, supposed to be Bacchus, seated in the same group, together with a dog, and various figures of snakes, and other reptiles, and smaller quadrupeds. The whole, it is supposed, is cut out of one block of marble, executed in Greece before the Christian era. It was carried from Rhodes to Rome, and found there in the baths of Caracalla, much mutilated, but now beautifully restored. In the same room, and found also in the baths of Caracalla, is a co- lossal statue of Hercules, judged by most to be one of the finest achievements of the chisel. It is a representation of Hercules resting on his club after he had accomplished his labours, and just before his apotheosis. It is, as an inscription on it indicates, the workmanship of Glicon the Athenian. Both this and the Toro are very magnificent productions of the artist; the latter, especially, is indescribably sublime.
In addition to the galleries already mentioned, there are, in this museum, two galleries of pictures which I cannot dwell upon. In taking leave of this interesting museum, however, I must say, in behalf of the custodes in the. different apartments, that they are as gentlemnnly and accommodating men as I have ever met with in a similar condition and office.
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cor
CHAPTER XIII.
SOME of the greatest, perhaps I may say the greatest, objects of interest to the traveller in Southern Italy are in the environs of Naples. I shall give a sketch of three excursions, which will embrace the principal objects of interest among these environs.
The first was to Paestum, fifty-four miles in a southerly direc- tion from Naples. We started in a carriage in the morning, with two young Englishmen and an American in company. Beyond Pompeii, for we passed this ancient town, we followed up a very fruitful valley, with magnificent vines climbing up lofty trees, and the soil teeming with verdure. It was like a summer's day, although it was still March.
Near the old town of Nuceria we stopped to visit an ancient and singular church, said to be built in the time of Constan- tine ; beyond this we crossed a most romantic country by the town of La Cava, built with porticoes on each side of the street, and by Vietri to Salerno. This magnificent scenery was worth the time and trouble of the excursion, if we had seen nothing else. It was the first I had seen which came fully up to my beau ideal of Italian scenery. We slept at Salerno, which is beautifully situated on one of those delightful bays that indent this coast, and is environed with hills. The next day we proceeded through a country much of the way as dreary and desolate as the former part had been delightful. It was a new road, cut through a low swampy country, which was only peopled by immense herds of buffaloes. Occasionally we passed some wretched-looking beings in human shape, who were tending their flocks or wandering over the marshes ; nor could we fully forget that we were in that land of semi-barbarians which, but a few years ago, was filled with robbers. Of this we were more especially reminded in passing the spot where, but a few years since, an Englishman and his wife were shot in their own carriage by some banditti who had concealed themselves in a little thicket, still standing, near the 18
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road. The object was plunder. The gentleman and his lady haa been to Paestum, where, in taking their refreshment, they injudi- ciously made an ostentatious display of considerable silver plate which they had taken with them. But these days of robbery have passed away. The rigorous measures adopted by govern- ment, and the stationing of soldiers on the highways, have broken up and scattered the organized bands that used to infest the country.
We passed the river Silarus, and at length came in sight of the objects of our pursuit.
Paestum is no longer a town. Its site is discovered by the ruins of its walls, in the midst of a desolate and unhealthy plain ; desert almost it may now be called. It was anciently called Pos- idonia, and its history runs back to an age too remote to be defi- nitely described by the historian. It was among the most splen- did towns of a remote antiquity. Here Ulysses landed when he was sailing in the Posidonian Gulf; Jason, with his Argonauts, it is said, landed here, and Hercules himself was here ; and, per- haps, all three worshipped in the temples now standing, for these temples, we are told, were looked upon as antiquities in the days of Augustus. Posidonia was subdued by the Romans, and be- came a Roman colony ; and finally, in the ninth century, it was taken by the Saracens and levelled with the ground, all except these massy Doric temples, which fire could not destroy nor great strength readily demolish, and on which time with his corroding tooth has been gnawing for perhaps three thousand years with but little success. These are the objects of our curiosity ; objects which stand in melancholy grandeur, in desolate sublimity, in the desert marshes of Calabria. Let him who can, conceive of our feelings as we stood in these monuments of remote antiquity, and thought of those who, three thousand years ago, worshipped at these altars and thronged these temples.
The cause of their long endurance is, first, the massiveness of the masonry and of the architecture, but especially and chiefly, the character of the material. It is the hardest kind of Travertina marble, which is a peculiar formation from water. It is harder than flint, although as porous as a buhr-millstone. There were holes in the pillars into which I could insert a stick to the depth of twelve inches, but still the sides of the orifice were hard al-
RUINS OF PJ3STUM. 207
most as the adamant.* These columns are formed of separate blocks of marble, put together without any cement. The largest of them are in the centre edifice, and are six feet nine inches in diameter, and the height, including the capitols, twenty-eight feet eleven inches. They are fluted, each pillar having twenty chan- nellings, and the dimensions of this edifice are one hundred and ninety-four by seventy-nine feet. The centre, or nave, is divided into three parts by two ranges of central columns, each range hav- ing seven in number, crowned with an architrave, above which are orders of smaller columns, which are-supposed to have been the support of the roof. Some of these small columns, also, are still standing. The number of external columns forming the en- tire peristile is thirty-six ; that is, six on each front and twelve on each side. The other two edifices have, the one fifty columns, the other thirty-four. The smaller is supposed to have been a temple of Ceres ; but the other has no indications of a place of heathen worship, such as altars, cella, &c., and has therefore been supposed to be a basilica, or hall for the civil and judicial administration of the city. These, considered as mere architec- tural ruins, are the grandest, and, for their age, the most perfect of anything, perhaps, now in existence. It would be in vain if I should attempt to describe them with a view of conveying an ad- equate conception of them. Their proportions, their situation, their age, the firmness with which even now they brave the as- saults of time, their historic associations, their lonely grandeur ! But why should I mention these things ? I cannot carry the reader with me in the tide of feeling that rushes in upon the ac tual spectator. Could he be led to the spot itself, and there call up all the historic associations of the place, then, ^as he gazed, im- agination would be quickened into action, and would fill these temples with the sweet-mouthed Greeks, rehearsing and listening to the numbers of Homer ; he would see the priests officiating at these altars a thousand years before the coming of the Great High- priest of the Christian church ; these pillars would be hung round with garlands, and the open courts would be filled with the heroes and sages of olden time ; among them is the adventurous Jason,
* The appearance of the stone is very much like cork. There are models of these temples in the museum made of cork, which are a very good resemblance both of the form and of the material
ITALY.
with his followers ; the wandering Ulysses ; and, above all, the di- vine Hercules, of whom no one can form an adequate conception until he has seen him in the hall of the Toro Farnese. See, he enters with his lion-skin upon his arm, his club in his hand, fol- lowed by the admiring populace, while the divine hero himself looks round upon the temples and the people, admiring, in his turn, that enterprise and skill which could rear edifices of such strength and durability as would lose nothing in a comparison with some of his own mighty achievements. This, you say, is rhapsody. Well, then, let us return to reality. We must acknowledge these to be splendid ruins, but their situation is most uninviting. A few wretched inhabitants lodge here, in poor dirty dwellings, living upon the liberality of strangers. Your cicerone is a ragged beg- gar ; you are surrounded by beggars on every side, who seem ready to devour you, from whose annoyance you get no relief but by buying them off at as good a bargain as you can. It is the re- gion of death ; the malaria holds its court here, and its realm is desolation. We carried our own refreshment and our own water even ; for here you may not drink, and here you can find little to eat except from your own stores. Well may the traveller shun the waters of this neighbourhood ; they turn everything to stone. We brought away, among other petrifications, a bunch of petrified macaroni, which, by a six months' submersion in the waters of the Silarus, had been transformed into travertina, as hard almost as the pillars of the temples themselves. The material of these temples is undoubtedly the production of these waters. We re- turned to Salerno to lodge, and early next morning started back as far as Pompeii, where we spent the day.
Where there is so much to be described as is found in the ruins of Pompeii, it is difficult to know where to begin or what order to pursue. I have determined to relieve myself of this embarrass- ment, however, by not entering into the details of a systematic description, and shall content myself with such general and par- ticular remarks as will give the reader some tolerable idea of this partially-excavated city.
Pompeii was not buried by lava, but by a shower of cinders, ashes, and stones, which were thrown from Vesuvius for four suc- cessive days and nights. In this time the inhabitants had time to escape ; and, from the fewness of the skeletons found, it has
EXCAVATION OF POMPEII. 209
been presumed that most of them did escape, carrying with them, or recovering afterward by excavation, a large portion of their most valuable property.* The roofs of their houses, being flat, fell in under the accumulated weight, and the whole was so com- pletely buried that its exact position was not known until acci- dentally discovered by some peasants in the middle of the last century. A little more than one third of the city has been exca- vated, and these excavations have been prosecuted by following the direction of the streets, of which the Appian Way seems to have been the principal thoroughfare. This, as well as the other streets, is paved with lava, and the channels worn by the wheels are seen in the pavement, showing that the wheels of the ancient Roman vehicles were about four feet apart. The public buildings which have been excavated bear an unequal proportion to the oth- ers, which shows that the excavations have been through the most public parts of the city. The ruins of their temples, theatres, and basilicas are splendid; many of them bear marks, however, of being injured by the destructive earthquake which took place six- teen years previous to the great eruption that buried the city. In one of the temples, the Temple of Isis, several skeletons were found of priests, who appear to have been at their dinner when the suffocating tempest buried them alive. Another skeleton of a priest was found, with two or three hundred pieces of silver money in his hand. In this temple, too, you may see the secret staircase, and the passage through which, and the position to which, the priests ascended when they gave the oracles that were sup- posed to come from the god. Italy, it seems, commenced and has grown old in holy frauds.
One street is occupied by shops, the contents of which were in so good a state of preservation that the business of each could be readily designated. Most of the private buildings were one story, although some of the best houses were two or three stories. The stories themselves, however, are low, the lodging chambers small, and generally without lights, except at the doors. The construc- tion of the houses shows how little comfort was found in the do- mestic domicil. The ancient Romans lived mostly at the forum
* Money and plate, however, have been found, as well as gems and jewelry. Since I was at Naples I learn that the excavaters have discovered a dining set of silver plate, embracing, among other things, forty-four dining plates in a good state of preservation,
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and in the public places. The best houses were built round quadrangular courts, which are paved with mosaic work of small pebbles, surrounded with alcoves, dining and drawing rooms, cham- bers, &c., and generally furnished with a cistern and a fountain. The kitchen and the dining-room seem to have been the apart- ments most regarded and best furnished. Here is a hotel, a coffee- house also, as it is called, containing a marble counter or dresser, in which little circular impressions are visible, evidently occasioned by the cup or glass, and probably from medicated liquids, which were used in those days instead of the toddy of the moderns, the corrosive qualities of which affected the marble.
For some distance before the Appian Way enters the city, it is lined by double rows of tombs on each side, in which were found urns containing ashes and bones. These tombs also contained tablets and inscriptions. Just before you enter the gate is the villa of Diomedes, already alluded to. This seems to have been a fine three-story edifice, and elegantly furnished. This house has nu- merous apartments, and, among others, a court, around which is a subterranean corridor, which seems to have been a wine-cellar, To this place, it appears, the family had retreated for protection, as seventeen skeletons were found here, one of them richly orna- mented, and supposed to have been the wife of Diomedes ; near the back door were found two skeletons, one with keys, and wear- ing a gold ring, supposed to be Diomedes himself; and near the other were silver vases, and a wrapper containing eighty pieces of silver money, ten of gold, and some of bronze ; probably this was the servant bearing away these treasures after his master ; both of whom, however, were arrested and buried alive.
But, as I hope enough has been said to give some idea of this ancient city as it was, and of the awful calamity that overwhelmed it, I will refrain from further details. The site is now a mile from the sea, although, formerly, the water of the harbour washed the walls.
Curiosity grows impatient under the slow operations of the present excavations. We are anxious to know what new disclo- sures remain to be made in the buried records of this ill-omened city. The greatest part of the excavations were made under the admin- istration of the Bonapartists. Something is still doing, however, and, as fast as any new discovery is made, the object is not allowed
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to be removed until visited by one of the royal family, and, if ad- judged worthy, it is transferred to the museum.
We took some refreshment in one of the ancient temples, and, after nearly exhausting the day, which we found quite too short for our curiosity, we started for Naples, passing over in our way the site of Torre del Greco, a town of about eighteen thousand in- habitants, which was buried by an irruption in 1794. This ir- ruption burst out from the western side of Vesuvius, and about the middle of the mountain. From this orifice, which was only five miles from Torre del Greco, the molten contents of this immense caldron were poured out in an overwhelming torrent, which buried the town, and invaded the territories of the sea, driving it back and taking its place for the space of one third of a square mile.
We stopped, as we passed, to visit what could be seen of Her- culaneum. This city, although buried at the same time with Pom- peii, was covered by a different material ; by the lava instead of the cinders. When the molten lava becomes cooled, it is extremely hard, and becomes more indurated by time ; hence the excava- tion of Herculaneum is extremely difficult and expensive. There is also another obstruction; the more modern towns of Resina and Portici are built immediately over it; this latter, especially, is a town of some importance, and has a royal palace ; and ex- tensive excavations cannot be made without undermining these towns. The first discovery of Herculaneum was at the beginning of the last century, by sinking a well ; subsequently different parts of the city were laid open, the buried channel of a river discovered, the temple of Jupiter, a forum, various specimens of statuary, &c., and especially a splendid theatre, which latter is the only part of the excavations now shown, all the others having been filled up We descended to this with torches, and examined the corridors, stage, &c. Here were found the two equestrian statues of the Balbi in the Museo Borbonico. The depositions upon the top of this buried city are from sixty to one hundred feet deep.
It is worthy of remark, that the houses, walls, pavements, &c., of both Herculaneum and Pompeii, are of lava, so that this must have been a volcanic region from remote antiquity ; and how many cities have been built upon the top of cities through successive periods of our world's existence, none can tell ; nor shall we know until these buried generations shall burst from their sub-
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ITALY.
terranean prison-houses, to meet the collected millions at the great day.
Highly gratified with our excursion, but wearied with our la- bour, we returned to our lodgings.
The second excursion was westerly, through the Grotto of Po- silipo to BaiaB, Cuma, &c. This is the most celebrated region of the ancients. It is the land of enchantment, the region of fable and of song, the ancient seat of luxury and licentiousness.
The first object in this direction of special interest is Virgil's tomb. The situation is a most romantic one, quite elevated, and yet in a sequestered dell, near the mouth of the Grotto of Posi- lipo. It is just such a spot as I should suppose the poet would have chosen for his resting-place. The place itself is most charm- ing, and it is near the scene of some of the most interesting events of the ^Eneid.
The Grotto of Posilipo is cut through a hill, above two thousand three hundred feet in length, twenty-two feet wide, and in some places eighty-nine feet high ; oblique apertures are cut in the cen- tre to let in light ; lamps are also suspended for the same purpose. It is, however, a gloomy pass. By whom this magnificent work was accomplished is not known. It seems, from the early ac- counts we have of it, however, to have been very ancient. Its object was, undoubtedly, to facilitate the intercourse between an- cient Puteoli and Neapolis, or Naples. Passing through this grotto you next come to Pozzuoli, or, as it was anciently called, Puteoli.* This was St. Paul's first landing-place in Italy, and where, as he says, he found brethren, and tarried seven days, and then proceeded to Rome by land, Acts xxviii., 14. It was formerly a city of note, with one of the finest harbours on the Italian coast. Here some of the wealthiest Romans had villas ; for, in addition to its pleasant site and interesting surrounding scenery, it was fa- voured with celebrated mineral waters, which rendered it a desi- rable watering-place. These mineral waters still have a reputa- tion for their healing properties. The place, however, has suffered by the hand of pillage and violence, and by earthquakes and vol- canoes, until it is reduced to a miserable village. Some of its mag-
* Another magnificent way from Naples to Pozzuoli has been constructed within a few years, at a great expense, around the abrupt point of this promontory next to the sea ; but, when we were in Naples, it was out of repair and impassable.
80LFATARA. 213
nificent ruins have been disinterred, and show, by what remains, some mournful proofs of its former glory ; among others, the temple of Serapis. This was discovered in 1750, and excavated. It then had all its furniture in it, and the edifice itself was entire ; but it has been despoiled, not only of its ornaments and furniture, but of its material. The foundation is there still, and the lower floor, with three of its noble columns of Cipollino marble. Its di- mensions were one hundred and thirty-four by one hundred and fifteen feet. There are other ruins of interest in the place.
We obtained donkeys here, and proceeded to Solfatara. This donkey-riding, by-the-way, is rather a small business. The little animals are quite lazy and obstinate, but you are assisted in this matter by the drivers (for each animal has an attendant), who guides, and drives, and beats. The uncomfortableness of the conveyance is increased by the sympathy for the animals. Of all domestic beasts, the ass is most abused ; and the race must cer- tainly be made of different materials from other animals, or they never could endure their labour and pounding ; but, with all his beating, his obstinacy, and stupidity, and inertness will not depart from him. In this, however, he differs not materially from the biped that beats him, of whom a wise man has said, " Although you bray a fool with a pestle in a mortar, yet will not his foolish- ness depart from him." The wise conclusion in both cases, there- fore, is, that it is useless both to bray the fool and beat the don- key ; acting upon this principle, I generally take the staff or club from the fool, and let the little quadruped crawl along in his own instinctive way, which, on the whole, is as safe, nearly as expedi- tious, and far more pleasant than any other.
Solfatara is a singular spot, evidently the crater of an extinct volcano,* and yet not so extinct but the internal fires are still send- ing up their smoke, and steam, and flames of sulphur, which lat- ter are precipitated in some places in a pure state. Pits are dug in different directions for the purpose of using the materials, to obtain from them sal ammoniac, alum, and sulphuric acid, or vitriol, as it is commonly called. These materials are leached, and then evaporated in kettles bedded in the bottom of this basin, which has sufficient heat to carry on the operation. The plain of the
* There was an irruption here A. D. 1198.
214 ITALY.
basin is about eight hundred and ninety feet long by seven hun- dred and fifty-five broad, and is surrounded by hills. The an- cients called it Forum Vulcani, or Vulcan's shop. Our guide raised a large stone and let it fall upon the ground ; and, from the report, it appeared that the earth here is hollow, and that some reservoir below, of fire or water, is crusted over with a ceiling of no great thickness. It is one of Nature's laboratories, where she is compounding and analyzing in her own original way.
We next passed the villa of Cicero, which he called Academia, because here he composed his famous academic questions. No- thing, however, now remains but his wine cellar.
Thence we passed to the Lake cTAgnano. This is a body of water about three miles in circumference, imbosomed in the midst of volcanic hills, having fresh water at the top, but salt water, it is said, at the bottom. This is not at all -improbable, inasmuch as salts abound in these regions ; and the lower strata, becoming impregnated with them, would not rise on account of its increased specific gravity. The water also sometimes boils, by reason, doubtless, of the passage of gas from the bottom. Here, also, are vapour-baths, which are warmed from hot vapours that issue from the ground. In a very few moments after entering them you feel the perspiration starting out all over you; indeed, the heat is almost insupportable.
The Grotto del Cane is also by the side of this lake. This is so called — the grotto of the dog — because a dog is generally used for exhibiting to spectators the effect upon animal life of the me- phitic air which escapes here. From a kind of cave under the hill, on the bank of the lake, a stream of warm water issues, together with vapour and smoke. On the surface of the water rolls out a stratum of sulphuric acid gas ; this, being specifically heavier than the atmospheric air, does not rise, and, therefore, a man may walk into the cave and experience no inconvenience ; but for a dog to go in is speedy death. Hence the original idea seems to have been that the air of the cave was fatal to dogs, but harmless to men. Many philosophical theories have been formed on premises equally fallacious. I felt inclined to spare the poor dog the pro- cess of suffocation, as he stood trembling by, expecting his des- tiny, held by a string in the hand of the cicerone. Some of our company, however, desired it, and the poor fellow was forced in.
THE RIVER STYX. 215
He soon fell with a convulsion or two, and then appeared to be dead. He was taken out, however, before life was extinct ; and, after lying a few moments on the bank, he came to, but with much apparent agony, together with a good deal of ill-nature; his master rewarded him with a crust. This man farms the priv- ilege of showing this cave from government, for which he pays a high price; to meet which, and for his own support, he taxes every visiter. It is curious to measure the depth of this stratum of invisible gas by the volume of smoke that rolls out upon the top of it, marking so exac.tly the surface, that, wherever any ine- quality of the ground produces an undulation in the stratum of gas, the smoke above it also undulates as distinctly as if it were floating upon the top of undulating water.
Our next object was the Lake Avernus, and the interesting scenes around it. In passing thither we left at our right a mount- ain called Monte Nuovo, or the New Mountain, four hundred and twenty feet high, and one and a half miles in diameter, formed in thirty-six hours by a volcanic eruption in 1538. We first came to the Lucrine lake, which Agrippa connected, by means of a canal, with the Lake Avernus. This latter is the same as that described by Virgil, in the sixth book of the ^Eneid, under the name of Tar- tarus, and the waters of which were said, in ancient times, to be deadly, so that fish would not live in it nor birds fly over it. All this, however, is changed. There are now fish in it, and birds over it and on it. Probably the deleterious vapours that here found vent are either no longer generated, or have been changed into other channels. Here are also the ruins of a temple to Pluto, and a little farther is the fabled descent to old Pluto's realm, down which, according to Virgil, ^Eneas descended when he visited his
§~ither Anchises in the shades below. Thither, being supplied ith torches by our guide, we followed him about one hundred nd fifty paces, when we came to the river Styx : farther than this our ladies chose not to go ; having found a ferryman, how- ever, or rather several, for, whether the business is increased now, or what may be the cause, I know not, there certainly ap- pears to be much more competition than formerly, we made our arrangements for the passage. In Virgil's days old Charon had the monopoly of this ferry, and, like all other monopolists,
tas captious and unaccommodating. These modern Cha-
216 ITALY.
rons, however, only desired to get the job and the fee, which lat- ter was fixed beforehand in order to avoid imposition. When all was settled, we embarked, riot in a boat, but on the ferrymen's backs. It was dark as midnight, and the water was so deep as to make the passage slow and rather dangerous ; not to life, but the danger was, that a misstep might submerge us into the water ; and if we might thereby, like the renowned Achilles, have been made invulnerable, we would readily have forgone the inconve nience ; but, as the modern Avernus has lost its power to kill birds, so this modern Styx has lost its power to immortalize men. We were conducted safe, however, and landed on the other side, where we had an opportunity to examine the sibyl's bath and her bed-chambers, and this was the end of our voyage. The Descen sus Averni having been closed up, we returned again to the light of the day. Hie labor est.
There have been recorded two Cumean sibyls. One was named Cumea, and the other Amalthea. The former flourished about the time of the destruction of Troy. She was born in Eu- boea, but came afterward and settled in Cuma. The fable is, that Apollo, who was enamoured of her, promised her whatever she desired ; whereupon she requested she might live as many years as she had grains of sand in her hand. It was granted, and she found the grains to be one thousand. When .flEneas consulted her near this place, she had lived seven hundred years, but she had become withered and skinny ! for, although her life was se- cured, she showed all the effects of decrepitude and age. This was about eleven hundred and seventy-five years before the Chris- tian era. This was the sibyl, probably, that used to sleep in these dreary chambers and bathe in these subterranean waters. It is said that there was formerly a subterranean passage extending from this to the town of Cuma and the temple of Apollo. The other sibyl appeared five hundred and fifty years later, and is said also to have dwelt here. She it was that sold the sibylline books 1.0 Tarquin the Proud.
Around this lake also were those dark grottoes, and forests im- pregnable to the rays of the sun, where dwelt the Cimmerians, .hose famous soothsayers of antiquity. This has given rise to the poetical expression, " Cimmerian darkness" The darkness of these forests, the mephitic and poisonous character of the waters
THE BATHS OF NERO. 217
the numerous caverns and grottoes, and the wild unearthly char- acter and profession of the inhabitants, are the origin, doubtless, of all the fables that are referable to these localities. Virgil, like what Sir Walter Scott has done in our own day with Scotland, vis ited these places, made himself acquainted with all their fabulous and historical associations, and then made them the basis of some of the most inimitable scenes of his unrivalled poem, Octavius Augustus cut down these forests, and the terror and superstition of the places are no more.
We next visited the baths of Nero. There are in the sides of a hill various outward apartments and accommodations such as appertained to the ancient baths, and from these, leading into a sub- terranean hot spring, is a corridor through which they pass to get the water. The water is hot enough to boil eggs, of which we had proof, although, it must be owned, ours were rather " under done." Having made our bargain with the water-bearer (for you must always bargain with these fellows beforehand if you do not wish to be cheated), we sent him in to boil the eggs and bring the water. I also undertook to accompany him, but could proceed only a few paces ; the hot steam met me with such force as al- most took my breath away. After waiting a few minutes, until we began to feel anxious for the poor fellow who had gone in, we heard him coming, panting like a race-horse at the end of his course. He was stripped to all but. a pair of thin pantaloons, and completely bathed in sweat, and apparently all but exhausted. Although it must be a serious adventure to go down the steam orifice of this boiling caldron, still we could not but think there was some acting in all this panting and exhaustion, for the sake of getting an additional fee, for which he did not fail to apply, with most piteous importunity. The same trick was tried upon us at the river Styx, where our guides shuddered and chattered with the cold as though they had been immersed in a Greenland bath, chattering out, at the same time, their request for buono mano*
From Pozzuoli to Avernus is about three miles, thence to the baths of Nero one, and now, in another mile, we come to Baiae.
* Buono mano is a gratuity over and above the regular or stipulated price. Every- body in Italy, almost, expects buono mano. Nay if you agree with them at a price which shall cover buono mono and atf, they will, s.t the close, want a little buono mano !
19 E E
SI 8 ITALY.
This town was so named, because Baius, the companion of Ulys- ses, was buried here. It was the great seat of luxury and volup- tuousness among the Romans, and served more than anything else to corrupt and destroy them. Seneca was of opinion that no man ought to dwelt here who meant to control his passions. Juvenal and Horace both moralize on the corruptions and luxuries of the place ; and a modern poet, in apostrophizing Baiae, has truly said —
" Thy conquests all before thee lie, Man's courage — woman's modesty."
Could these ruins speak and tell the story of their past associa tions, what a revolting delineation of luxury, impurity, perfidy, and cruelty would be disclosed. It is well for the credit of human nature, and, perhaps, for the morals of the present and all coming ages, that a great portion of this history is buried by the same ru< inous and oblivious waves that have swept over the edifices and arts of that licentious age. The God of Providence, in a retribu tive justice, has visited these haunts of ancient luxury; earthquakes volcanoes, and pestilences have all united to devastate this spot So eager were the principal men of Rome to have their villas upon the seashore, that they built moles into the sea for their dwellings (see Odes of Horace) ; but their moles and their palaces are swept away, and the ruins may be seen under the water, as well as down to the very edge of the water, all around on this side of the bay. Lucullus, and Julius Cassar, and Horace, and Piso, and Domitia, and I know not how many more, had their splendid palaces here. The coast was fine, the soil fruitful, the mineral and hot springs abundant, the climate delightful, and the seas abounded with fish ;* all these considerations made Baiae a kind of earthly para- dise, which attracted the rich and luxurious from every direction, and all, or almost all, when they came, did not hesitate to take of the forbidden fruit of sensuality and criminal pleasure ; whereupon God, in his displeasure, drove them from the garden, and cursed the earth here for their sake.
We passed the ruins of three beautiful temples, viz., of Venus, Mercury, and Diana. That of Mercury is a rotunda one hundred and forty-six feet in diameter, and is still entire. We visited also what is supposed to be the tomb of Agrippina, the wicked
* Fish seem to have been counted a great luxury by the ancient Romans. One rich citizen, Vidius Pollio, had here large reservoirs for fish, which he used to feed with hu« man flesh !
USES OF A LAKE. 219
mother of the wicked Nero, and who was sacrificed here by the command of that same wicked and unnatural son. Not far off is the Cape of Miseno, so named, according to Virgil, because Mise- nus, ^Eneas's companion, was buried there.* We entered the Piscina Mirabile, a splendid reservoir, constructed by Lucullus, and designed to contain a supply of fresh water. It is a massy structure of bricks, covered with a plaster as hard as marble, and supported by huge pillars. The reservoir is two hundred and twenty-five feet long, by seventy-six in breadth and twenty in height. Although it has stood near two thousand years, it bids fair to stand as much longer, if the world should continue. But I must not stay to mention, much less describe, all these ruins. A mile farther on we came to the modern lake of Fusaro, which is the ancient Acherusia Palus, called by Virgil Palus Tenebrosa. This, it was supposed by the ancients, was connected with Avernus by the grotto already mentioned, and was the place of torment for the reprobates ; while at a little distance is the spot which was fabled also to be the Elysian Fields, to which the souls of the just passed after crossing the Acheron, or Palus Tenebrosa. This lake is now only celebrated for oysters, and for being a locality for steep- ing flax and hemp, hence its name ; and the Elysian Fields, I believe, are now chiefly a vineyard. What a utilitarian age is this in which we live ! How are the mystery and glory of these scenes of song and fable turned into the most unpoetic and vulgar haunts of oysters and pools for steeping hemp ! Well may it be said, the age of poetry is gone !
We returned by the way of the ancient Via Domitiana ; had a distant view of Linterno, the city to which Scipio Africanus retired from the persecutions of his ungrateful countrymen, and where he died. This town, too, as well as the more populous one of Cuma^ the site of which we passed, is now in utter desolation. We passed under an arch, however, which is supposed to be the gate of the ancient town of Cuma, and it is a magnificent indication of what the city was. It is called Arco Felice. The wall is sixty-- one feet high, and the arch is nineteen feet wide ; the top served also as an aqueduct.
* It was in the harbour of Misenus that Pliny the Elder had command of the Roman fleet at the time of the fatal irruption of Vesuvius in '79. Thence he crossed over the bay to have a nearer view, an,d feljl a. victim to his curiosity in Stabia.
220 ITALY.
After accomplishing this entire circuit in one day, we returned home through Pozzuoli and the Grotto of Posilipo, wearied with the labours of the day. Indeed, this sight-seeing, as a business^ followed up day after day, and pressed, too, as in our case, for the want of time, to the very end of our strength, is a most laborious exercise. But the retrospect is delightful. When the fatigue isr gone, and the facts, with all their historical and poetical associa- tions, remain, then comes the enjoyment. Happy for us, in our present situation, that man is a ruminatiag animal ; that he can crop and devour, as it were, his intellectual food at one time, and masticate and digest it at another.
Our third excursion, and the last which I shall describe, was up Vesuvius. This mountain is about eight miles from Naples. To visit it we took carriages to Resina, five miles, and there, ac- cording to custom, we made a bargain with one man to furnish the guides, the mules and donkeys, the chaises a porteurs, and whatever else was necessary for the undertaking. Thence we proceeded on mules to the bottom of the cone, three miles, which, exclusive of a stop made at the Hermitage, so called, a sort of Hospice, not far from- the base of the cone, took about two hours and a half.
The country around the base of this mountain, except where the lava has covered the soil, is very fertile, and covered with vine- yards, which produce grapes of an excellent quality, from which is made the celebrated wine called Lacrynxz Christi* The cin- ders and ashes are, after a while, very favourable to vegetation, producing a rich and vigorous growth ; but, wherever the lava comes, the land is cursed with perpetual barrenness, at least until, by the accumulations of time, a soil shall have been formed upon the steril rock. The surface over which the lava has rolled is left rough, like the convolutions of a molten mass in a semi-liquid state. Down the sides of the lower mountain, or base of the cone> as well as around a portion of the foot of the base itself, this once molten but now petrified mass is spread out in a dark dreary waste, sublime in its desolation. It indicates to you, in its silent but impressive eloquence, the intensity of those internal fires that could melt down and simmer together, into one homogeneous sea,
* The tears of Christ 1
ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. 221
the crude and heterogeneous materials of this earth; and the mighty energies which could force this sea of molten fire from the depths below through the crust of the earth, and spread it out to cool upon its surface. It is in contemplating such operations as these that man feels his impotency and nothingness.
The general colour of the lava is a dark brown ; almost all the varieties of colour, however, are found. The compounded mate- rial becomes extremely compact, insomuch that it is susce'ptible of a very high polish, and is wrought into boxes and toys, and even into necklaces, bracelets, and other ornaments..
To understand the course of ascent, the reader should be in- formed that there are three mountains having a common base, namely, Somma, Ottajano, and Vesuvius. The entire circuit of this base is about thirty miles, and the height of the base,, to the bottom of the cone of Vesuvius, is about twenty-five hundred feet perpendicular, while the length of the plain of elevation is about three miles. Up this distance we ride on mules or donkeys. The way is rough, and, at intervals, rather steep ; but, on the whole, not very uncomfortable. Most of the way is somewhat elevated above the adjacent regions, by reason of which the lava in the va^ rious irruptions which take place is turned from it to the right or left, and leaves it unobstructed, and covered more or less with veg- etation. It is on this ridge that the hermitage before alluded to is situated. This house has been often threatened, but the cir- cumstance just mentioned has, as yet, been its protection.
We had made up quite a company for this excursion, and if we could have been exhibited, at the time of our ascent, to our friends at home, the sight would have amused them. There we were, male and female, gentlemen, lackeys, and guides, mounted, some on mules, some on asses ; and our ladies faced, in their high- armed side-saddles, some to the right and some to the left, just as caprice or accident had fashioned the saddle ; one guide would be pulling the donkey by the halter or bridle before, another was whipping up behind, and another walking by the side to hold the saddle from turning or slipping off; and others, again, hold- ing on by the tail, for the double purpose of guiding the ani- mal and supporting themselves ! In this way we worked our passage up the mountain side, Indian file, with tolerable facility.
When we arrived at the foot of the cone we had to dismount 19
ITALY.
ind commence our labour. This cone is of different heights at different times ; its general estimate, however, has been put, I be«- lieve, at from ten to twelve hundred feet. Its angle of ascent is very great ;. it looks, indeed, almost perpendicular and inaccessible. However, we had ocular evidence, before we commenced the as- cent, that it was accessible, for several parties were in advance of us, and were seen at different distances, hanging, like moving mites in an anthill, and crawling their way up to the summit. I had engaged one chaise-a-porteurs for myself and Mis. F. Ambitious of the achievement, however, she started in advance, but with too much haste for endurance, so that she soon found it necessary to stop for respiration and rest. By alternating, however, between the chair and our feet, we both succeeded in accomplishing the ascent in about one hour, and with less fatigue than we had feared. The ascent is made more wearisome from the fact that the foot at every step sinks into the ashes and cinders up to the ancles-, and these ashes continue to give way under your tread as you raise your advancing foot to take the next step, so that, by the time you set it down again, you find yourself nearly as far back as be- fore you raised it. To aid you, one end of a strap is fastened round the body, and a strong guide goes forward with the other end, and pulls you up. It is no small assistance both to him and yourself that occasionally there are scoria and blocks of lava bedded in the cinders, which serve as steps and supports for the feet. The chairs are nothing more than a common chair lashed between two poles, and borne on the shoulders of four or six men. These reel and stagger under their burden ; and, as one or the other mounts a block of lava, they turn you in different di rections, and sometimes appear ready to fall backward under their load. We all arrived, however, in safety, and soon forgot our fatigue in the grand scenes around us. Below us, spread out in picturesque beauty at some points, and in grandeur and mag- nificence in others, we had Naples and the surrounding villages,, the beautiful bay and its neighbouring islands, the far-off mount- ains and the nearer hills, the surrounding plains and more distant ocean.
But the beautiful and extended prospects without do not so much interest the spectator, for the reason that somewhat similar prospects may be frequently obtained from other elevations, aa
CRATER OF VESUVIUS. 223
the novel and terrible scene within. I say novel, because, unless he has seen a volcanic crater before, he has never seen anything like it, He finds himself on a rim or edge, which extends around the top of the cone, in circumference above three miles. This forms the edge of the crater ; and, although the general descent in- teriorly is not as rapid as that of the exterior part of the cone, still you look down from a narrow rim into a yawning and horrid gulf; horrid from its black, rugged, and occasionally precipitous surface; from the streams of smoke and sulphuretted gas that issue from ten thousand crevices and fissures in the concave sur- face of the crater ; horrid also from the heat that scorches your shoes and burns your feet ; from the sulphur that not only im- pregnates the air, but gathers upon the prominent points of the broken surface, in a coating of varied colour, from the pale yellow and white to the orange and red ; and especially horrible, because below, far below, in the centre of the crater, a yawning mouth is disgorging columns of fire and smoke. Following our guides, we took a sweep round to the south, in order to obtain a point to the windward, by which we could, with more comfort and safety, ap- proach the centre. In this way we succeeded in going down to the inner crater, as it is called. This is an orifice of perpendicular sides and of uncertain depth. It was so full of smoke we could not see far down it ; but we could stand on its very brink, and drop in a stone, and, after some seconds, hear the report of its fall below ; oc- casionally, too, we could hear the boiling of the molten mass within this gigantic caldron.
It is difficult to understand the ever-varying accounts of differ- ent travellers and naturalists who have examined and described this crater ; for the reason, doubtless, that it so frequently changes its form. Most of them, however, agree in saying the crater is from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet deep; and many of them speak of the possibility of approaching to the bottom. All this, to a visiter of the mountain in its present form, would seem utterly at variance with the truth. You go down, perhaps, for half a mile, a pretty rapid descent, over cliffs and yawning chasms, and through smoke and heated gas. Here you arrive at the inner crater; at the hole, for such it seems, which has been made through the bottom of this gigantic vase, and into which is inserted the cylindrical tube, that seems to extend quite dawn
224 ITALY.
to the lambent flames and fiery pool of Tartarus. Of the depth of this cylinder you have very imperfect means of judging ; and whenever, by a favourable action of the wind or a temporary sus- pension of the smoke, you approach a little nearer, and attempt a more satisfactory examination, a heated puff of sulphureous gas and smoke drives you back, all but suffocated, to get a breath of purer air.
We had travelled over this rough way until we were quite weary, and resolved to run the hazard of a more direct route back to the ridge of the crater. This was a rash decision, and was wellnigh followed by serious consequences. We tied up our mouths to keep out the smoke, but that did not give the necessary respirative qualities to the sulphureous gas that issued from below. The wind took this directly upon us, until we were almost breath- less. The ascent was steep and difficult; the longer we were in ascending, the more we were exposed to the suffocating effects of the mephitic vapour ; and the more we hastened, by quicken- ing respiration and shortening the breath, we increased the diffi- culty. Those of our company who had weak lungs and shortness of breath suffered the most ; this was my own situation. But, bad as I felt my own condition to be, I was roused from solicitude for myself by the crying out of another of our company, our friend Mr. L., who found himself unable to proceed, and was seriously alarmed, as he could not get breath ; a little rest, however, and a more favourable turn of the wind, gave the necessary relief, and we at length reached the top.
How unlike its present form this crater must have been previ- ous to the great irruption of 1631! It had then been quiescent for centuries. The crater was one deep valley, thickly wooded, and abounding in game. It might then be descended by a cir- cuitous route of three miles to the depth of one thousand paces, and at the bottom were one or two small lakes. But at the time al- luded to it burst out anew, and carried desolation before it, destroy- ing four thousand lives, devastating the country, and ruining sev- eral villages. In 1755 the crater is described in another form. The plane of the top of the cone is said to have been but twenty- three feet deep, forming a kind of rim or staging, in the centre of which rose up another cone eighty or ninety feet high^ having its own interior crater.
RIDING POST. 225
In the great irruption of 1 822, eight hundred feet of the top of the cone was removed, so that it is now much lower than for- merly. The immense mass of lava then thrown out is still seen, and pointed out by the guides. Indeed, the lavas of different ir- ruptions are distinguished from each other by their different shades of colour, and other characteristics.
Having satisfied our curiosity as far as time and strength would permit, we prepared to descend ; and, in five or six minutes from the time of my leaving the top, I found myself at the foot of the cone, although it had taken me an hour to ascend the same dis- tance. We then mounted our donkeys and returned.
It is always a serious business in Italy, unless one rides post, to make arrangements for moving from one city to another ; for the reason that you have to negotiate a special bargain with a set of men who have no other settled principle of business but to cheat you if they can. There may be exceptions, but we had not the good luck to meet with them. There are, in all middle and southern Italy, few or no regular diligences.* The mal-post or mailcoach takes but two or three passengers, and travels night and day. This, therefore, is not convenient, especially for inva- lids or ladies.
To drive post, as it is called, you must have your own carriage, and depend upon the postmasters to furnish you with the neces- sary relays of horses. This is by far the pleasantest way of travelling ; you can stop when and where you please, and as long as you please, without any additional expense of horses. The prices are all established and regulated by government, and the entire system is arranged with as much regularity as the carrying of the government mail. And this system exists throughout all the governments in which we travelled, not only on the Continent, but in the British Isles ; with this advantage in the latter, that you can always get post-coaches as well as post-horses. On the Continent you cannot always hire a coach ; or, if you can, it is not on any regular principle, as it is no part of the posting system to furnish coaches, and it is done, therefore, at an extravagant price.
The disadvantages of posting are the expense, and the difficulty of the traveller's furnishing himself always with a coach. The
* The only exception which came to my knowledge south of the Apennines was a diligence from Bologna to Rome,
226 ITALY.
expense is much greater, more than double, besides the use of the coach ; and, in addition, all who ride post are charged much higher at the post-houses for their food and lodgings than other travellers.
The cheapest way is to hire a veturino to take you through in his carriage at a given price and in a given time, he furnishing you on the road with food and lodgings. The whole agreement is to be reduced to writing, the stopping-places and lodging-places specified, the fare and the treatment all delineated, and everything, in short, put down in black and white, and then a condition made to allow him buono mano if he gives satisfaction. When a party of five or six are travelling together, they may in this way travel and bear all their own expenses cheaper than they can live at the hotels in the principal cities.
In making our arrangements to leave Naples we had a com- pany of six Americans. Our friends Mr. and Mrs. Hoadley, and Mr. Lawton, already mentioned, had joined us from Pisa, and we also most unexpectedly met, in Naples, with our nearest neigh- bour when at home, William Webb, Esq., who had visited Italy, in a ship direct to Naples, for the purpose of finding a warmer climate as a winter residence, to restore him from a serious attack upon the chest, from which he supposed himself already conva- lescent. But he had fallen into bad hands, and perhaps, I ought to say, upon a bad climate. On arriving at Naples he was put into the lazaretto for eleven days, in a cold stone room, with a stone floor, like all the floors of Italy, without any fire. After he got on shore the winter proved exceedingly bad, and his complaint, from which he had supposed himself rapidly recovering, seemed to have returned upon him with a deathly grasp. Refreshed, how ever, with the cheering warmth of the spring, and buoyant with hope that travelling would restore him, he joined our company. With a melancholy pleasure at being able to afford him what as- sistance we might in his wearisome and hitherto disastrous pur- suit of the greatest of earthly blessings, we took him, to some ex- tent we may say, under our friendly charge.
With this company we chartered a berlin, with a long, lank, green-looking veturino, with tight buckskin unmentionables, and laige stiff-legged boots, the foreparts of which came considerably above his knees, so that when he sat they stood up in front above
PALACE OF THE KINO AT CASERTA. 227
ike horizontal plane of his lap some six or eight inches. Although he had expressly agreed to take no other passengers, yet he con- trived, before he got out of the city, to get one on forward with him, and one behind upon our trunks, by which the tops were broken in. We could not readily get rid of them, because one, he said, was his brother, and the other was along to feed and clean his horses, and they positively were not going but twenty miles ; all of which we found to be falsehoods. They continued with us to Rome ; and, as we had no other method of indemnifying our- selves or teaching him better manners, we refused him his buono mano at the end of the journey.
For the first day we turned aside to visit the magnificent pal- ace of the king at Caserta, thirteen miles from Naples. This palace, as Well as that at Portici and at Capo di Monte, was built by Don Carlos, commonly called Charles III. The architect was the Chevalier Louis Vanvitelli, of Rome. The palace itself is, perhaps, the most magnificent in Italy. It is a rectangle, eight hundred and three feet in length, and six hundred and twenty- three in breadth, and one hundred and thirteen in height. It is a noble pile ; but what journalists in Italy can afford to write, or who will have patience to read, a detailed description of palaces ? Suffice it to say, that it possesses one of the finest stair- cases I ever saw ;* that it is still unfinished, though commenced in 1752; that it is meanly furnished, or rather, to a considerable extent, unfurnished ; and that we saw them finishing off one room, which is to cost two millions of dollars ; and that, as a contrast to this royal prodigality, as we went down to enter our carriage, we found it surrounded by seventeen miserable beggars. And here I take leave of the kingdom of Naples. Beggars saluted us when we entered it, surrounded us while we were in it, and impor tuned us till we left it.
* On reflection, and after all the edifices I have since seen, I am inclined to believe this staircase not only among the first, but the first in magnificence and general beauty in materials and architecture, that 1 ever saw or expect to see.
228 ITALY.
CHAPTER XIV.
NEAR the close of the last chapter I noticed some difficulty with our veturino, as a specimen of the troubles travellers have to encounter, and of the faithlessness of this people, I must com- mence this chapter with another instance still more vexatious. We had lodged, when in Rome before, at the Hotel Spilman, in the Via della Croce ; and as Rome is generally crowded during Passion Week, I engaged lodgings at the same place for myself and lady when I should return ; and conditionally for our friends, whom we expected from Pisa. From Naples I wrote to secure all the apartments ; and at the gates of Rome I met a letter, sta- ting that all things were arranged as I desired ; but, when we arrived at the hotel, my Lord Grosvenor (from Eaton Hall, Eng.) had arrived in Rome, and taken all my apartments, and we were provided for, miserably enough, in another house near by. We stayed over the Sabbath, for it was late on Saturday when we ar- rived. We then engaged other lodgings ; upon which the landlord brought in his bill for five weeks (the time which we had pro- posed for the apartments first engaged), and refused to settle with us on any other principle than that we should pay the bill. We called in our consul, Mr. Cicognani, who gave Spilman a thorough lecture, whereupon he altered his bill to the just demand for the time we had been there ; and, when we left, very courteously re- quested us to have the kindness to recommend his hotel. I can only, however, recommend Carlo Spilman, of the Via della Croce in Rome, as a man who will consult his own interest at the ex- pense of his word, and then endeavour, if possible, to make you pay for being deceived by him. It is a matter that strikes every stranger, I believe, with surprise, that these Italians will wrangle with the greatest vociferation, so that you would think they were right mad, and all but ready to fight ; and yet, when they see it will avail nothing, they yield the point, and are as submissive as you could desire. Often have I seen individuals scolding each other with such vehemence as in our country or in England would be immediately followed by blows ; but here it all ends in
CHEAPNESS OP LIVING AT ROME. 229
smoke. So much the better, certainly, that they do not fight, but it is not so much the better that they fall to wrangling so readily. It gives a harshness and a most unlovely aspect to much of the intercourse of the lower classes with each other, and is a source of much that is disagreeable to a stranger.
Before dismissing this subject, it becomes me to say we were much indebted to our consul, both on this and on other occasions, for his politeness and professional services to us, for all of which he refused to take any fee except the two dollars for the vise to our passports, which is his perquisite. Mr. C. is an Italian, but he is a gentleman, and a kind friend to the Americans.
We were now to live in an independent manner. We had hired lodgings all furnished with everything necessary for housekeeping ; had our breakfast and tea prepared in the house, but our dinner was brought in hot and ready prepared from the traiteur's.* A din- ner for six, consisting of three kinds of meat, soup, vegetables, macaroni, and a pudding, and enough to spare for the servants, was about two dollars. Strangers in Rome are obliged also to keep a carriage, if they would visit the city to any advantage, es- pecially if they are not in robust health or have ladies in their company. The whole expense for our establishment, including the cost of the public places visited, and the coach hire, cicerone, lodgings, &c., was about two dollars a piece per day. . This will give the reader an idea of the cheapness of living in Rome, which is one cause why so many strangers, and especially English, resort here. Many an impaired English fortune has been restored and disencumbered by the removal of their domestic establishment to Italy, when a respectable residence at home would have involved them deeper in debt. At Naples, living is still cheaper than at Rome, as also in many of the provincial towns of central Italy. But Rome is the principal centre of attraction, because of its an- tiquities, and its concentration of so much that is interesting in modern art, and literature, and religion ; and so accustomed is Rome to a great influx of strangers and residence of foreigners, that there is not another city in Italy where strangers attract so little attention, and pursue their own course so perfectly unmolested and unobserved. The government is mild and paternal, the people
* The traiteur is one who keeps an eating-house, and furnishes meals in his own; place or at his customers' lodgings, as they prefer.
20
230 ITALY.
courteous, and the city itself of that grave and quiet cast which cannot fail to be congenial with the feelings of a man of thought and sobriety. The stiletto and assassination, which were once so common, are now scarcely known. The French did much to re form this and other cities of Italy in this respect. They prohib- ited the carrying of instruments of death ; they lighted the dark lanes of the city, where the nightly stiletto used to pierce its unsus- pecting victim. Now one may feel as safe, I think, in the streets of Rome in the night as in any other large city in Europe. Indeed, it might be well if some parts of our own country would adopt the course enforced by the French police, and prohibit sword-caries, Bowie-knives, pistols, and dirks. Whe,n these instruments are worn or carried, they will be used ; and every paroxysm of anger and every trifling dispute is in danger of ending in bloodshed. It is this that has multiplied homicides, especially in the south- western parts of the United States. But to return to Rome. We had hastened back to this metropolis of the Catholic Church for the purpose of being present at the religious festivities of Holy Week ; an account of which will be found in the following let- ters.
To the Editors of the Methodist Magazine.
MESSRS. EDITORS,
Thinking it may gratify your readers to be informed of some of the most prominent ceremonies of the Roman Church at the fountain-head, I have determined to communicate some sketches of what passed under my notice during Passion Week. The ex- ercises of this festive occasion commenced with
PALM SUNDAY.
Palm Sunday is instituted as a celebration of our Saviour's tri- umphant entry into Jerusalem. It happened the present year on the 27th of March. The public performances were in a small chapel called the Capella Sistina, which may be considered an appendage of St. Peter's. Why the capacious church of St. Pe- ter's should be passed by, and this splendid ceremony be crowded into a small chapel, no good reason, I believe, can be given ; it is, however, on the principle, I suppose, by which so many things are directed in Rome, viz., the tradition of the fathers ; what has
PALM SUNDAY. 231
been must be. The custom, however venerable for antiquity, is certainly very inconvenient. In the first place, one half of the church is reserved for the functionaries of the day. Then a kind of side gallery is allotted to the ladies, into which they are admit- ted until it is full ; the filling of which does not take long, as it holds only from two to three hundred. The remainder, reserving something for alleys and guards, was appropriated to the gentlemen. The crowd was insupportable ; every man had to fight almost for his stand, and then endure such a pressure as was painful and suffocating. There was crushing of hats, there was elbowing, and crowding, and scolding, and laughing, and sometimes swear- ing, to an extent that rendered the scene anything but a place of Divine worship. In this jam I was particularly unfortunate in my position, which was just in the direction of access to a reserved section of the chapel, into which none seemed to get admitted but British uniforms, ecclesiastics, and such favourites as they might introduce. Frequently some bustling favourite of this description would come elbowing and pressing his way, by mere physical force, into this place. Of course, as the space where we stood was entirely full, there was no introducing & foreign body without either crowding out or compressing some portions of the matter already there. As none of us chose to yield our position, we had to undergo the compression. This compression, when once made, was keyed up by some individual or individuals following up the wake of the man who pressed his way through, and remaining after the other had passed out. In this way we had for some time been growing smaller and smaller, with a fair prospect of testing experimentally Sir Isaac Newton's doctrine of the indefinite compressibility of matter. As I felt myself, however, to be some- thing more than inert matter, I thought a just regard to my own comfort, as well as a desire to retain my original dimensions, re- quired me to face a short, plump priest, who had been out two or three times to conduct persons in, and give him to understand he could not pass. He crowded forward, and commanded me to give place ; my answer was " non possibile ;" he threatened, but I kept my position ; he crowded back to the Swiss guard, but the Swiss would not interfere ; he came back with his eye flashing from op- parent passion, and again threatened and raised his hand ; " non possibile" was the only reply, until the eyes of the whole com-
232 ITALY.
pany around were fixed upon us, and I found myself sustained by the surrounding crowd, who pressed closer and closer, to stop the farther progress of the priest. At length a good-natured Irish ecclesiastic leaned over and whispered in my ear that perhaps it might be better to let the gentleman pass, for he was the general of the Franciscans. I replied, that might be, but he had already incommoded us several times by passing and repassing, and it had become insufferable. Behind him were two other Irish ecclesi- astics, whom the general was convoying in, and who said they had a place assigned them by his holiness, and they thought it a hard case they could not be permitted to enjoy it. But, to end this occurrence, after holding the Franciscan at bay until it was thought he would not undertake another excursion through the crowd, he was permitted to pass on with much difficulty, but was glad, doubtless, to return no more. We were now permitted to behold the entry of the pope and the commencement of the functions of the day. First of all, however (as is common on such occasions), the cardinals, bishops, &c.. must pay their respects to the pope ; which was done by going up to his throne, bowing to him, and kissing his hand by the cardinals, and his feet by the other church dignitaries. This ceremony, together, in fact, with all that followed, seemed to me a clear indication that the pope was more an object of worship than any other being. All eyes were turned towards the pope ; all ceremonies seemed to centre in the pope. When he entered all kneeled before him. His robes were of the richest character, inwrought with gold and silver ; the one worn outside was of a purple colour, with a silver plate finely gilded, embossed, and encircled with precious stones. On his head was a mitre of silver. On each side of his throne stood a cardinal deacon, whose business it was to open and fold his robe ; to wait upon him in rising up and sitting down ; others held a book, bound in gold or silver, for him to read the service ; another held up his train ; another offered incense before him ; and ever and anon cardinals, bishops, and other church dignitaries left their seats, came down into the centre, which was left vacant for the purpose, and bowed the knee. Such a scene of man-worship I never before beheld. Often during the exercise was I reminded of 2 Thess., ii., 4 : " Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped ; so that he, as God, sit-
PALM SUNDAY. 233
teth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." I accuse not the present pope, personally, of such feelings ; I judge no individual ; but the system itself has all the characteristics of the grossest creature-homage that I can conceive of. So the pope's title seems to imply, " God's vicegerent upon earth ;" and so the common people at least understand it. " The pope," said an intelligent servant who was questioned upon the subject, " is God Almighty upon the earth." But to return from these reflec- tions ; the music, which was by the pope's choir, whose perform- ances are admirable, commenced with the hosanna sung by the children on Christ's entering Jerusalem. The service was then read, which consists of Scripture lessons from the Old and New Testaments, reading the prayer of blessing, chanting by the choir, &c. By this exercise and benediction certain palms and olives are blessed and prepared for distribution. These palms are ar- tificial branches, curiously wrought from narrow strips of the palm-leaf. They are braided, festooned, and beautifully formed ; they are about three feet in length, with a beautiful open work for the stem, a circle of festoons for the centre, and a still larger fes- tooned top. The olives were mere branches in their natural state. After they were all blessed the distribution commenced. The attendants passed the palms, one by one, to the pope, and he dis- tributed them, first to the cardinals, who came up in order and bowed, kissed the pope's hand, then the palm, then his knees ; they thereupon received the palm and returned to their seats ; after this the patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops ; then follow the lower orders of mitred abbots, the penitentiaries, the governor and prince assistant, the auditor of the apostolic chambers, the major-domo, the treasurer, the prothonotaries apostolic, &c., &c., &c., to the number of twenty-nine or thirty lower grades, all going through the same ceremony, except that all under the grade of bish- ops kissed the foot instead of the knee ; last of all, such distin- guished foreigners as may have previously entered their names on the list of the major-domo go up and receive palms. During the distribution the choir is chanting appropriate anthems. The pope then washes his hands and prepares for the procession. This is commenced by the senior cardinals chanting "procedamus in pace" — " let us proceed in peace ;" to which is responded " in nom- ine Christi, Amen" — " in the name of Christ, Amen" Then the 20 GG
234 ITALY.
procession moves forward, preceded by a cross veiled, to denote the mourning of the church in the Passion Week. The pope is seated in his splendid chair, which is trimmed with rich crimson, gilded with gold, and elevated upon the shoulders of twelve porters, all richly clad, and over his head is a rich canopy, borne by eight referen- daries, all splendidly habited ; after him follow the palm-bearers in the order of their rank. Adjoining the Sistine Chapel is a large hall called the sola regia, or royal saloon. Into this hall, which is lined with soldiery, the procession advances, chanting and sing- ing as they go ; after they have passed the gates of the chapel, they are closed, and the pope, with the procession, moves round the hall, returns to the door, and voices within and without alter- nately answer to each other; the sub-deacon strikes upon the door without with the staff of the cross, the gates are thrown open, and the vicegerent of God upon earth enters in triumph, with the anthem chanted by scores of voices, " when the Lord en- tered into the holy city," &c. The soldiers and people all drop- ping upon the knee as his holiness passes, he is borne into the chapel, descends from the throne, and the whole ceremony closes by the celebration of high mass. As a splendid earthly pageant, this ceremony was certainly imposing ; but as a religious ceremony, and especially as one founded upon Christ's entering into Jeru- salem, it appeared to me the very contrast of the thing signified. Let the reader conceive, if he can, of the regal splendour and show of this entire ceremony ; let him fix his eye upon the pope in his gilded throne, himself clothed in gold and purple, borne on high and canopied by princely supporters, bowed to by his fellow-worms, and followed by dignitaries in purple and ermine ; and when the image of the entire scene is passing vividly before his eyes, let him turn to Matt, xxi., 4-1 1, where this ceremony professes to have its origin ; let him notice the condition of the Saviour at this time, so inimitably expressed by the prophet, as recorded in the fourth and fifth verses, " All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, behold thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass." Who art thou, oh worm of the dust, that personateth the Saviour, in one of the humblest exhibitions of himself, by sitting upon thy throne of state in princely robes, and being borne on the shoulders of men clad like princes l
TENEBR^E AND MISERERE. 235
Is this to be meek and lowly 1 How is it possible that the human mind can be brought to enact such contrasts with the word of God, and call them anniversaries of Scripture events ? Call up one of those children that sung hosanna when Christ entered Jerusalem, and place him, without explanation, in the palace of the Vatican to behold a Roman Palm Sunday, would he be able to identify it?*
TENEBR^E AND MISERERE.
On Monday and Tuesday of the " Holy Week" there is nothing very special to call the attention of the public ; but Wednesday P. M. there was the finest music by the pope's choir that I ever heard. The function is called the " tenebrae," or " darkness." The performance, it is said, belongs strictly to Thursday morning, in the regular reckoning of time ; and seems to be designed to commemorate the darkness and gloom of the church at the hour of betrayal, or perhaps the scene in the garden. The origin and design of this performance, however, seem not to be fully settled by the Catholics themselves, nor is it of any great consequence to determine it. It is enough for me that it was, on the whole, one of the most interesting occasions that I have enjoyed in Rome. The pope attended in the Sistine Chapel, and thither, of course, the multitude resorted ; but as there was the same music in St. Peter's, we proposed hearing it there rather than endure the crowd of the chapel. The exercise was long, and consisted, in the fore part, of lessons sung and chanted from the Psalms, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and from that part of the Epistle to the Corinthians describing the institution of the sacrament, &c. The whole was interspersed with antiphonies, and all performed with admirable skill. Indeed, it is said that none but those trained in this school can perform this music. The French, when they were in power here, carried this music to France ; but it availed them nothing, for none of their performers could sing it. But this choir perform it to universal admiration. The great concentration of excellence, however, and, of course, of interest, is in the clo- sing piece, called the miserere, which is the 51st Psalm set to
* For an explanation of the different orders, and different offices and ceremonies of the Roman Church, I acknowledge myself much indebted to a little work by Bishop Eng- land, published in Rome, 1833.
1836 ITALY.
music by Allegri. It has its name from the first word in the Psalm, which commences in Latin, " Miserere mei, deus," &c. All who have read this Psalm have noticed what humble confession, what deep contrition, run through the whole of this beautiful composi- tion. But what the psalmist has expressed so inimitably in words, seems, if possible, to be still more forcibly expressed in sounds ; at least, putting the two together, they were overwhelming. Such wailing, lamentation, and wo ! such tender, melting, agonizing strains of penitential grief and contrition ! They came over my soul like a dissolving charm, melting my heart, and opening the very fountains of grief. Every emotion of my heart chimed in with the sentiments and the music, and I felt myself entirely car- ried away and overpowered by the inspirations of the occasion. It is worthy of notice that there are no females in the choir, and yet there were some of the finest treble voices that I ever heard. I have heard before a counterfeit treble from a man, but it was not natural ; here, however, it was the most perfect, and the strains fell in, one after another, from the finest falsetto to the gra- vest bass, and all so skilfully arranged and modified as to produce but one effect ; it was like a multitude of old men and maidens, young men and children, pouring forth their united, concordant strains of chastened grief, in all the bitterness and reverence of supplication and adoring penitence.
As is usual in all cases of Catholic worship, numerous candles were at first burning ; but they were extinguished, one after an- other, until only one was left, and that was partially concealed be- hind the altar. Of the meaning of this there is not an agreement ; some say it is the gradual extinction of the prophetic lights before the coming of Christ ; others say it is designed to represent the fact, that, when Christ was apprehended, all his disciples forsook him and fled. The concealing of the only remaining lamp repre- sents Christ in the tomb, whose light was suspended, but not ex- tinguished. At the close is a short prayer ; then a loud clapping noise representing the earthquake, &c., closed the exercises.
MAUNDY THURSDAY.
This day was so called from the mandatum or command of the Saviour to his disciples to wash each other's feet. On this day there are several important functions, viz., high mass in the pres-
HIGH MASS. 237
ence of the pope, the procession into the Pauline Chapel with the host, the benediction from the balcony of St. Peter's Church, the washing of feet, and the waiting upon the pilgrims at dinner by the pope. All these, with much difficulty, through the pressure of the crowd, I succeeded in personally seeing. I will take them up in their order.
High Mass.
This was celebrated in the Sistine Chapel. Early in the gatii ering I approached the door of the reserved section, and, informing the doorkeeper that I was an ecclesiastic from America, he very politely admitted me into the interior, which at once relieved me from the crowd, and gave me a more favourable opportunity to be- hold the ceremony. The cardinals came in, dressed in purple robes, each attended by a chaplain. The robes had a train several yards in length, which the chaplain, as soon as he entered the door, very adroitly unrolled and spread out in full length and breadth, and supported it till they arrived to the seat ; after placing it properly on the seat behind his eminence, he unrolled the cape and arranged the front in flowing style. The chaplain then placed himself on a seat at the foot of the cardinal. The bishops and other dignitaries entered ; each, as he came in, paid a reverence to the place and the occasion, by kneeling, not only at the altar as he passed, but also by his seat before he sat down. I was struck, however, on this occasion as on many others, how much these external -acts of reverence were a mere form. One man, a bish- op, as I judged, came in and kneeled by his seat ; another, who seemed pleased to see him, took out his snuff-box, and offered him a pinch of snuff ; this he took, making some passing remark while yet on his knees, accompanied also with a smile ; and, after a little time, he crossed himself and arose. This talking when on their knees, and when some of the most important functions are per- formed, is very common. In most cases, I will not say always, the whole appears to be attended to as a task ; and a tedious one it must be, considering the tiresome length and monotonous rep- etition of the Catholic forms. Never, in any forms of worship, have I seen more yawning and apparent inattention, especially among ecclesiastics, than I beheld frequently among the Catholic
238 ITALY.
clergy. Snuff-taking also seems to be an almost universal prac- tice among the ecclesiastics of Italy, and especially of Rome.
High mass is distinguished from common mass merely in re- spect to the number of the celebrants and the attendant ceremo- nies. Common mass is by a single priest and an attendant — that being sometimes a mere boy — as also without any music, either vocal or instrumental. The mass is the ordinance of the commu- nion, or the Lord's Supper. The nature and design of the ordi- nance, however, are viewed very differently by Catholics and Protestants. The latter consider it a mere remembrancer, and a help to faith, agreeable to the command, " This do in remembrance of me ;" while the Catholics, to use the words of Bishop England, believe it to be an " unbloody sacrifice, in which, by the power of God, the institution of Christ, and the ministry of the priest, the body and blood of our blessed Saviour are produced upon the altar under the appearance of bread and wine, and are there offered to the Almighty as a propitiation of the sins of mankind, and in tes- timony of the adoration or homage which is his due." Hence, the more masses there are the more sacrifice is offered for the propi- tiation of sin, and hence, too, the reason why, in the mass, there is not always, nor commonly, a distribution of the consecrated el- ements to the faithful. In a great proportion of cases there are none but the priest who partake of the consecrated elements. " The nature of this," says Bishop England, " is fully understood and appreciated by those who assist, even though they should not hear a word that is spoken, or, if hearing, should not understand the exact meaning of the language that is used." On this account the priest takes no pains to be generally heard or understood. The service is in Latin, and the whole performance almost is either muttered by the priest or chanted. In either case it is equally unintelligible ; yet, strange to tell, while the Catholic Church is so very perfectly indifferent as to the intelligence of the language, she is very careful as to the pomp and extent of the ceremony of the mass, both as it respects the number of the performers in high mass, and the variety and exactness of the gesticulations and ceremonies. I will briefly notice each of these. First, then, is the celebrant, or the priest or bishop, who leads in the consecration, then the deacon, the sub-deacon, the priest, who is styled master of ceremonies, two acolyths, who carry lights, and
HIGH MASS. 239
another, who is the thurifer, or censor-bearer, the sacristan, who has charge of the sacred vestments, besides the musicians, &c. Each of these has a peculiar dress, most of which are derived from the robes of state among the Romans, or from the robes of the ancient Roman priests. The author already quoted acknowl- edges that the " antiquarian will discover the greatest portion to consist of the ancient Roman robes of state." They are chiefly the toga, or robe ; the trabea, which is thrown over the shoulders, with an aperture for the head, and a cross generally on the back ; the amyct, for the neck; the alb, or white garment, and the cincture, or girdle. When a bishop officiates, he has a tunic and a dalmatic ; he also wears a hollow gold cross hanging down in front, which is filled with sacred relics, in imitation of the bulla, or golden ball, which the ancient Roman patricians used to wear. He must celebrate mass fasting ; he washes his fingers before he commences, and then they put a pair of gloves upon his hands, and a ring with a precious gem upon his finger. They put upon him the sacrificial vestments ; a mitre is placed upon his head with two fillets hanging down behind. He has a golden crosier, which is a staff, with a turn at the upper end like a shepherd's crook. Thus habited and thus attended, he proceeds to his duties. The ceremony is very complicated, and the master of ceremonies stands by to give directions and to see that everything is performed in due order. The acolyths hold the lights to illumine the book, al- though it is midday ! the thurifer attends to the incense, which is used sometimes by him, and sometimes by the celebrant, in differ- ent parts of the service ; the sacristan attends to the vestments, and to the wine and bread for consecration, &c. ; the assistants hold the book, change it from side to side, hold up the vestments of the bishop, take off and put on his gloves, change his mitre for a cap, and again replace the mitre, &c., &c. The celebrant reads the service, chants, turns round, waves his hand, kneels, rises, prays to himself, sometimes faces the altar, sometimes the people, kisses the altar, the book, and other things, performs a variety of genuflections, and manipulations, and ceremonies, which, it seems to me, require a long study and practice to understand or per- form. At length, when the entire transformation of the bread and wine is effected, and the body and blood of Christ is supposed to be produced, follows the elevation of the host, as it is called ;
240 ITALY.
that is, due notice being given, the celebrant raises up the wafer as an object of worship, Whereupon all the people fall upon their knees in profound adoration, and then in like manner the cup, be- fore which, as before the wafer, the people bow. The priest di- vides the wafer, and puts a part of it into the wine, that the blood and body of Christ may be commingled ; he then eats one part, and afterward drinks the entire contents of the chalice. This in most cases closes the mass ; for, as before remarked, it is not common, compared with the number of masses celebrated, to dis- tribute the elements to others ; when this is done at all, which I saw in only one instance, the bread only is given, no one parta- king of the wine but the priest.
In the present instance, to wit, on Maundy Thursday, the cele- orant was a bishop, although the pope was present and took some part of the ceremony. The customary honours were paid to him when he came in and opened the exercises. There were on this occasion, also, two portions of the elements consecrated ; one being consumed by the celebrant, as usual, and the other reserved to be disposed of as will be seen in the following description of the
Procession.
Twelve esquires, dressed in red, came from the sacristy with candles : these are distributed to those who are to join the proces- sion, and are lighted. The procession consists of the same per- sons as on Palm Sunday, but the pope is not now carried in state ; he walks with his head uncovered. The choir sings beau- tifully ; incense smokes ; the pope, wrapped in a veil, and cover- ing the host, which is the wafer just consecrated, with the same veil, follows the cross that is borne before him, and proceeds to the Pauline Chapel, which is in a different part of the Vatican, to deposite the consecrated wafer in a kind of sepulchre which is there prepared for it. The multitude all fall upon their knees as it passes, for it is their god. It is desired, also, that all spectators should bow in like manner ; but, for myself, I could not conscien- tiously prostrate myself before what I believed to be as truly and literally a wafer as it was when it came from the hands of the manufacturer.
This place of deposite is called a sepulchre, though the cere- mony is more properly an anniversary of the passion in the garden
WASHING THE FEET. 241
than of Christ's death, the anniversary of which is the next day. This disregard, however, of the unities of time and place is not uncommon in Italy, either in the ceremonies of the church or in the exhibitions of the arts. Here the host reposes in state until the next day ; the altar in which it is depbsited is splendidly adorned, and lighted up in a beautiful manner with six hundred wax candles.
Benediction.
After the procession our ladies were hastened into the Church of , St. Peter's, to secure good places for seeing the washing of feet, while most of us went to the front of that church to behold the benediction. This is a splendid exhibition, to form any correct conception of which one must have some idea of the place and of the multitudes present. The pope is in a lofty gallery of this magnificent church, opening into the great area of the matchless piazza in front. This piazza, vast as it is, seems but a moving mass of living men and women. Every eye is turned upward to watch the coming of the pope. At length, borne in state, he ap- proaches the gallery from the interior, attended by his liveried retinue and the waving fabelli, which are a pair of magnificent fans of peacock's feathers. A short service is read, and the pope spreads out his hands ; the multitude fall upon their knees while he pronounces the benediction. The vast height of the pope ; the devotion with which he gives and the people receive this blessing ; the multitudes that compose the assembly, from every nation, and of every description of character ; the prostra- tion of the people upon their knees ; the sounding of the bells, and the firing of the cannon of St. Angelo, altogether make this a very imposing ceremony.
Washing of the Feet.
From the balcony the pope retires to prepare himself for the ceremony of washing the feet of persons selected for that purpose, in imitation of Christ's washing the feet of the disciples ; for in all things practicable by him, it behooveth the pope, it seems, to act the part of Christ, whose vicegerent he professes to be.
Here another scene of running and crowding occurred to secure 21 HH
242 ITALY.
good positions to behold this ceremony, which was to be per formed in St. Peter's.
On a staging, elevated for the purpose, thirteen persons were placed who had been selected to participate in this honour. It is not necessary, I believe, that they should hold any office in the church,**but they are admitted or selected in an honorary way, to act a part, for the time being, in this ecclesiastical drama. It has been a question, which has been answered in various ways by Catholics themselves, and the subject is still unsettled, why there are thirteen instead of twelve, which was the number of those whom our Saviour washed. Some say the thirteenth represents St. Paul, others St. Matthias, others the host at whose house Christ celebrated the passover. But the more plausible conjecture is, that this thirteenth person was introduced to commemorate a re- markable event in the life of St. Gregory the Great. He was in the habit of feeding twelve poor persons daily ; and on a certain occasion an angel appeared and seated himself in the company. On the Coelian Hill, in one of the chapels of the Church of St. Gregory, we were shown a table at which these poor persons were fed, on which was the following inscription : —
M Bissenos hie Gregorius pascebat egenos, angelus et decimus tertius accubuit."
"Here Gregory fed twelve persons, and an angel, the thir- teenth, came and seated himself with them."
It is in commemoration of this event, it is supposed by many, that the thirteenth individual was introduced into this ceremony, and into the one that follows, of being fed and waited upon by the pope. It is not necessary or profitable, however, to inquire too critically into the reason for all the Catholic ceremonies.
The selection of these is made in the following manner, viz. : " By the ambassadors of Austria, France, Spain, Portugal, and Venice, each one ; one by each of three cardinals, by the major- domo, by the captain of the Swiss guard ; the cardinal prefect of the propaganda names two, and an Armenian priest is selected by the cardinal protector of that nation."! The stockings were cut so as to admit of laying the foot bare with ease. The pope de- scended from his throne, robed gorgeously, and girded with a towel trimmed with lace, attended by various officers, to hold the golden
* Bishop England calls them priests. f Bishop England.
DINNER. 243
basin and ewer, to bear up his train, to hold up the foqt that was to be washed, to bear the book and the lamps, to incense the pope, &c. The pope knelt, poured on the water, and rubbed the foot with the towel ; after which he kissed the foot, and it was again covered. The treasurer followed, and gave a purse and medals of gold and silver to each. Each also was presented with a towel and a nosegay. Thus the exercise, with a concluding prayer, &c., was ended.
Dinner.
This was in the Sola Clementina, a part of the great Vatican palace, up two or three flights of stairs from the portico of St. Peter's, and at some distance round a balcony. Desirous to see the whole, we left our ladies to the care of some friends, and threw ourselves into the current of the moving thousands who were pressing upward and onward to the place of feeding. Here was a scene of crowding and pushing which exceeded all that I had before experienced. Several times my courage wellnigh failed me ; and, indeed, I believe I should have given up the en- terprise at last, but that, when the severest part of the pressure came, I found it too late to repent, and I had no other alternative but to give myself up to the moving current, and be carried on- ward by volitions and muscular energies other than my own. To give the English credit for all they do, I must say they played the principal part in this drama. On the whole, they are the most famous performers in a jam I ever met with ; and what surprised me the more was to see many English ladies in the crowd, some with their shawls and Vandykes torn off, others with their bonnets crushed, and all with their fashionable shoulder balloons well flat- tened. For myself, being naturally weak at the chest, I began to fear dangerous consequences from the compression, as I found my breath nearly suspended, and my breast wedged up as in a vice, the screws of which were gradually turned closer and closer. I found, however, by a little management, I could turn myself so as to take the pressure laterally, and thus relieve my chest. With this precaution I succeeded in gradually working my way up very near the table, where, for two very tedious hours (so long at least the time seemed to me), I had the gratification of seeing — what ? Why, of seeing those symbolical apostles eat their sweetmeats
244 ITALY.
and drink their wine, while the pope served them in person. His holiness, however, did not see the end of the meal ; he only moved round the table a few times, being himself waited upon by pre- lates, who took the dishes, and, kneeling, handed them to the pope, and he passed them to the guests. After giving them some- thing to eat, he gave them drink, blessed them, and retired. They seemed, however, determined, whether served by popes, prelates, or other servitors, to finish their meal, which they did at good length, and apparently with a good zest. At the close they took the remainder of the refreshments in sacks, and their serviettes, all of which, it seems, were their perquisites, and retired ; not, however, without having first distributed some of their consecrated flowers to their friends and others, a few of which, as a stranger, I solicited and obtained. They were given with that usual cour- tesy which the Italians, to their credit be it spoken, generally show to strangers.
The remaining exercises of the day were the repetition of the " Tenebra" and " Miserere" the latter by Bai, and a ceremony called " the washing of the altar," which is done by pouring wine and water upon it, and rubbing it with brushes, and wiping it with sponges and towels ; all of which is to represent the blood and water which flowed from the Saviour's side, and the bloody sweat with which he was bathed in the garden. Of this ceremony, how- ever, I cannot speak from personal observation, as I was too much fatigued with the preceding ceremonies to be able to attend the concluding observances of the day.
Good Friday.
Some of our friends attended on the functions of the pope on this day, but, as I was informed nothing very different was to be transacted from the ceremonies of the preceding day, I did not attend at the Sistine Chapel. I learn, however, from their report, and this also agrees with Bishop England's account of the day, that the principal ceremony consisted in the pope's going, with all his ecclesiastical court and prelates, to bring back from the Pau- line Chapel the body of Christ that had been deposited there the day before. A procession was formed as before ; the host was taken from the tomb, and given to the pope, who carried it covered with a veil, himself walking under a canopy back again to the
SATURDAY BEFORE EASTER. 245
Capella Sistina. After this was performed what is called the mass of the presanctified, so called because the wafer was con- secrated before. It might h ve been remarked, however, that, previous to this procession, his holiness goes through the cere- mony of worshipping the cross. This ceremony is in the Sistine ChapeJt. The cross is presented, before which the pope kneels repeatedly ; he then has his shoes and his mitre taken off. He then goes to the cross, bows before it with the profoundest rever- ence, kisses it, &c., after which the attendant knight throws into a silver basin a red purse of damask silk trimmed with gold, which contains the pope's offering for the occasion ; for on Good Friday all the devotees throw in their offering, more or less, into a basin placed to receive it. It seems, indeed, to be a general collecting day. We visited numerous churches, and found in each a cruci- fix, generally with the image of the Saviour upon it, and placed in such a position as to be accessible by all. To this cross a crowd of worshippers of men, women, and children were con* stantly pressing, bowing before it, and kissing the image. The more common course was to kiss the five wounds on the feet, hands, and side, and sometimes the temples ; and as they withdrew, for they were continually coming and going, they threw into the basin, which was always placed under the cross, a piece of money. The most solemn ceremony, however, which we beheld on this day was at the Jesuits' Church. It was called the " Three hours of Agony." Here a great multitude were assembled, and attend- ing alternately to reading and extempore addresses. The read- ing was a kind of service which seemed to be specially prepared for the occasion, descriptive of the Saviour's sufferings. As the officiating priest read, he was occasionally interrupted, perhaps in the middle of a paragraph, by the extempore orator or preacher, who rose up, as it would seem, at some thought which struck him at the time, and gave an impassioned address on some point con- nected with the service and with the solemn reminiscences of the day. The audience appeared solemn ; some of them affected ; and the whole ceremony was impressive.
Saturday before Easter.
On this day, at the Basilica of St. Peter's, were a number of un- important functions, the principal of which were the extinguishing 21
246 ITALY
of all the old lights, and the striking of new fire from a flint to re- kindle them, to represent, the resurrection.* Then followed the blessing of the paschal candle. The paschal candle is very large, sometimes, I should judge, three inches in diameter, and has somewhere about the centre certain knobs or protuberances so ar- ranged as to be an. imperfect representation of the crossA One of these candles, of greater or less dimensions, according to the character of the church, was found in almost every church and chapel we visited.
But the most interesting ceremonies of the day were at the Church of St. John of Lateran. The first was a baptism of such Jews as had been converted to Christianity. We arrived just at the conclusion of this ordinance, which, however, was of less in- terest on account of the fewness of the converts ; only two or three, I believe, presented themselves for this Christian ordinance. The disciples of Moses at Rome seem very obstinate in their rejection both of the Messiah and of his assumed successor and vicegerent ; judging, perhaps, that the Messiah has no more claim upon their faith than his supposed representative. Few, however, as was the number of converts, we found, on going into the church, that the agents of conversion were being multiplied abundantly. The ordination service was a splendid function, on account of the richness, and variety, and changes of the vestments, the pomp of the ceremonies, and the number of the candidates.
After some delay on the part of one of the sacristans, who promised to admit us into a temporary gallery which had been erected for spectators, and which delay seemed to be for the pur- pose of getting a higher fee, we at length obtained a position which gave us a near and distinct view of all the performances. The service was led by a bishop of middle age and fine personal ap- pearance, with a countenance that expressed more of heaven than of earth. His mitre was splendid, his robes rich and gorgeous, and his whole manner devout. The candidates, nearly, if not quite one hundred in number, all clad in their peculiar vestments, according to their standing and destination, on entering the choir, threw themselves upon their faces in solemn and devout prostration. All of them had their heads shaved, for they had a vow. Some
* The flints used for this purpose at Florence are said to have been brought from the 'oly Land, which gives, of course, a greater sacredness to the fire.
EASTER SUNDAY. 247
only had a small spot shaved upon the crown ; but the greater part had both the top and the lower part shaved, leaving only a ring or belt of hair passing round the centre of the head. They were ordained in four or five classes, according to their different grades. The ceremony consisted in prayers and music, in a multitude of incensings, genuflections, prostrations, manipula- tions, and benedictions. The bishop's vestments were changed, his mitre was taken off and put on, so also were his gloves and his ring ; he clipped a lock of hair from the candidates, bound their hands with a napkin, caused them to be ^'vested and invested in a variety of changes and by a variety of garments, and per- formed upon them and to them many other rites too numerous to mention, in all which he was assisted by numerous bishops and other ecclesiastical functionaries, who took their part in the service.
Like most other Catholic observances, however, the thing was quite overdone, both as to the number of the rites and also the length of the entire service. All parties, both spectators and actors, seemed heartily weary of the scene, and great portion of the former had withdrawn long before the ceremonies closed. The bishop himself, who appeared to be a feeble man, seemed quite exhausted ; and yawning and snuff-taking round the ecclesiastical benches showed that much form and ceremony were a weariness to the flesh. After the conclusion of the service we recreated our minds a little by taking another view of this splendid Basilica church, and then returned to our lodgings.
Easter Sunday.
This is the great day of the feast, being one of three days during the year in which his holiness himself celebrates high mass. The other two instances are Christmas and the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul. We were at our places before the hour, in order to obtain good positions to behold the ceremony ; for, in general, a Catholic church is of all places the worst for seeing and hearing. The functions are generally performed but a little above the dead level of the floor of the church, and there are for the most part neither galleries nor seats. Some temporary galleries, however, had on this occasion been thrown up, into which our ladies had the good fortune to find access ; and I took
248 ITALY.
a position directly at the side of the gate into the altar ; where, not without some difficulty, I was permitted to stand, and some- times to sit, in a free and close view of the ceremony, and directly in the way where all the vestments and sacred elements and vessels were carried past by the sacristan, who was constantly passing and repassing in the performance of his part of the service.
The procession formed in the Sola Regia, or Royal Saloon, passed down the royal staircase, and through the porch of the church into the front door, where the chapter ranged in two lines, and the military guards awaited its entrance. The pope came in state, borne in his pontifical chair upon the shoulders of his twelve " supporters," and canopied, as on Palm Sunday, by a splendid screen, elevated upon long poles, and carried over his head by eight referendaries. As he entered the church the choir chanted, " Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram cedificabo ecclesiam meam" — " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church," &c. As he passed up he stopped at the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, to descend and worship the sacred host. The stool where he knelt, like the chair from which he had descended, was covered with crimson velvet and gold. He reascended the chair, and was borne to his throne, where he was seated to receive the homage of the cardinals and prelates before the worship of the great God above was allowed to commence ; but, as this man- worship was similar to that explained already, I need not repeat it here. The pontifical prince wore upon his head the tiara or triple crown. This is a crown with three cinctures or coronets, to rep- resent the pontifical, imperial, and kingly offices united. This crown, it is said, had at first a single cincture, and it was thus worn in the time of Constantine. In about 1300, Boniface VIII. added another, and in about 1360, Urban V. completed this triune emblem of all civil and ecclesiastical power, by giving it the form of the present tiara. The large splendid fabelli of peacock's feathers waved before him, together with a large golden cross called the vexillwn.
The pontiff had to pass through the operation of robing prepar- atory to the celebration of mass ; and, in addition to the robes worn by other bishops already alluded to, he had a striped silk scarf-like cincture over his shoulders, called a fanon, a sort of maniple hanging on the left side, and called a succinctorium, and
EASTER SUNDAY. 249
a band round the neck, hanging down in pendants before and be- hind. This is made of wool shorn of lambs blessed on St. Agnes's day ; and, after it is fabricated, it is again blessed by the pope at the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul. With this double blessing it becomes a badge of great sanctity and honour.
Having been vested, the pope entered upon the solemnities of his official function for the day. He was attended by the thurifer or incense-bearer, the cross-bearer, four accolyths or light-bearers, deacons, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, priests, &c. Three cardinal priests approached him, and, after bowing profoundly, embraced him, to represent the homage of the three wise men to the Saviour. The mass was then celebrated. The form being essentially the same as already described, I will not repeat it. His holiness certainly performed the service with a great deal of solemnity ; and, just at the moment when the transmutation was about to take place, when the inert wafer was to become a god, before which, or whom, the whole multitude were to fall prostrate, he gazed at it with an intensity which seemed to indicate his full belief in the fable of transubstantiation. The language of every feature was
" A god, a god appears j"
and as he elevated the host at the given signal — I was very near him, and I think could not be mistaken — as he elevated it for the adoration of the multitude, tears gushed into his eyes, and he seemed to be melted down before the imaginary god of his own creation. Indeed, all that I saw of Gregory XVI. led me to think favourably of his sincerity and piety. Respect for a venerable old man, as well as a tender regard for the feelings of the wor- shippers near me, would have induced me, if principle had not been involved in it, to bow with the thousands that were pros- trate around me. But believing, as I verily did, that that same piece of wafer was only a wafer still, a voice from Sinai thun- dered in my ears, " Thou shall have no other gods before me." One circumstance in the celebration shows that, after all, Catho- lics themselves do not believe in the reality of the change of the elements into the actual body and blood of Christ. Before the el- ements of consecration were received by the pontiff, the sacristan, in order to guard against poison, ate two of three particles which
250 ITALY.
were brought forward for the mass, and drank some of the wine. It is hardly supposable that, at the present day, the pope fears being poisoned ; but there was a time when such fears were en- tertained, and hence originated the custom, which is now kept up merely as an established usage. But this shows that, when there was danger of poison, even popes were afraid to trust to transub- stantiation to change the poisoned wafer into the real body of Christ. What? The body of Christ poisonous, and producing death ! Christ says, " My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. I am the bread of life." But Catholics either be- lieve that Christ's body and blood may be poison indeed, and the bread of death, or they do not believe that a poisoned wafer is, by the celebration of the mass, changed into the real body of Christ. Whichever alternative they take proves fatal to their system.
And here let me say that the courtesy of the Romans far ex- ceeds that of some blustering Catholics of our own country, who have assumed to themselves the liberty of knocking off hats, if not of knocking down those who do not choose to conform to what is verily believed to be their superstition. The military behaved on this occasion with great propriety. I was specially struck with the pontiffs noble guard. They are a volunteer corps, who tender their services gratuitously to their sovereign pontiff, and are made up from the noble families of Rome. They were well dressed, and as fine looking men as I ever saw in the ranks of a military company. This guard were all around me ; and, although they could not but see that I was a decided nonconformist in the ceremo- nies of the occasion, they let all pass without censure or apparent notice.
The pope, together with the deacon and subdeacon, communi cated on this occasion ; the two latter, which is not practised on other occasions, taking the wine as well as the wafer, and taking it, too, in a very peculiar way, by sucking it through a pipe or tube, his holiness also drinking in the same way.
After mass, the pope returned in state, as he came, stopping, however, at a kneeling stool by the way to venerate
The Holy Relics.
As you face the high altar of St. Peter's, you see on the left a shrine consecrated to a damsel called St. Veronica. Here is a
THE HOLY RELICS. 251
statue of the saint, and high above it is a balcony, where, on great occasions, three most sacred, and, if we may believe the reports of several special courts that have been appointed to examine into their history, most veritable relics are exhibited. They are, ] . A part of the lance with which the Saviour's side was pierced ; 2. Parts of the true cross ; and, 3. A napkin or handkerchief, on which the Saviour wiped his face, covered as it was with blood and sweat, as he was going up Calvary. The outlines of his visage were thus miraculously left upon the napkin, which continue unto this day. With respect to the authenticity of these relics, every one, of course, must judge for himself. Even Catholics do not require a belief in them as essential matters of faith. The same subdeacon that whispered in my ear at the time of the con- troversy with the Spanish general of the Franciscans on Palm Sunday, stood by me on Easter Sunday, as I, with thousands of others, stood gazing at these relics ; and perceiving, as I suppose, by my remarks and looks, that I was somewhat incredulous, ob- served, " These are not articles of faith ; a man may believe them or not, and in either case be a good Catholic." With respect to the handkerchief, it appears that its identity and history can be traced as far back as the year 707, at which period it was an ob- ject of veneration. What its former history was, I believe even Catholics cannot definitely trace. Tradition says, however, that this St. Veronica was one of those daughters of Zion who accom- panied their Lord and Master to the scene of his tragedy, and that, being near him as he was sweating under his cross, she kindly wiped his face, or permitted him to wipe it on her handkerchief — and the miracle followed. It was taken back with the bloody portrait indelibly impressed upon it. It was, of course, preserved as an object of attention and veneration, and where else should it be preserved but at the great capital of the Christian world ? With respect to the cross, the history is, that it was found at Je- rusalem by St. Helena, the mother of Constantine. She placed the larger portion of it in a case at Jerusalem, but sent some pieces to Rome. The portion left at Jerusalem was carried away by Chosroas, king of Persia, in his war with Phocas in the year 624. It was afterward retaken and brought back to Jerusalem, and car- ried thence to Constantinople ; and, during the crusades, portions of it were brought to the west of Europe, at different times and
252 ITALY
by different persons, insomuch that it has been sarcastically said that there were pieces of wood in different places of Catholic countries, which are called parts of the true cross, sufficient to build a seventy-four. This is doubtless hyperbolic ; but that there are and have been many cords of such wood there can be no doubt. We were shown, at the Church of the Holy Cross in Je- rusalem, situated near the church of the Lateran in Rome, that portion which was brought or sent to Rome by St. Helena. One of the pieces now exhibited, for I believe there are two of them, is from the portion first sent over by the empress, and the other, probably, is from Constantinople. They are enshrined, as are also the other relics, in a rich silver case, with rock crystal and precious stones. The lance is also said to have been found at Jerusalem by the mother of Constantine, and this was carried to Constantinople in the sixth century, and was there, as the ac- counts say, divided. The point was pledged to the Venetians in the thirteenth century, in pawn for the payment of money bor- rowed, and the shank was kept still at Constantinople. St. Louis of France redeemed the pledge, and took the relic to France. The part kept at Constantinople was sent to Rome by a special embassage in 1492. At Ancona two bishops met the ambassador and received the relic ; at Narni two cardinals met the bishops and received it from them ; and at the Flaminian gate of Rome the pope himself received the relic, and carried it in solemn pro- cession to the Vatican. So much for the history of these sacred remains; and I have dwelt the longer on this, that the reader might know something of the ground on which so many sacred relics in Rome are authenticated. These relics are supposed to be the most unquestionable of any. What credit, then, is to be given to others, each must judge for himself. Where were these relics when Jerusalem was ploughed as a field ? They are now kept in a chapel made on purpose to receive them, and are al- lowed to be approached by none but the canons of the church.* The height and distance from which we were permitted to view them, as they were successively exhibited in their crystal cases from the high balcony, made the view very indistinct. We could
* Don Miguel, the ex-king of Portugal, has obtained the favour of the pope of being made honorary canon of St. Peter's, for the purpose of being permitted to examine these relics.
THE FLAGELLATION. 253
discern, however, the outlines of a human face faintly imprinted upon the handkerchief. The pope kneeled to behold the ex- hibition, and to venerate these sacred relics ; and the vast multi- tudes that thronged St. Peter's fell also upon their knees. And there they were, in one devout mass, gazing with upturned eyes, and with the same apparent intensity and adoration, until the relics disappeared, as that with which the disciples gazed upon their ascending Lord, until " a cloud received him out of their sight." The pope reascended the chair, and was borne out of the church, to appear once more at the front gallery to bless the people. This benediction was more splendid than that on Maundy Thursday, inasmuch as the crowd was larger, and there was a greater display of the military. Even the horses, it is said, were made to kneel at the spreading out of the papal hands. The pope prayed, and, although he was too high and distant to be heard, yet the form is written, as is every part of the Catholic service, and from this form we learn that the pope " asks, through the prayers and merits of the blessed Mary, ever virgin, of the blessed John the Baptist, of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints, that the Almighty God may have mercy upon them, and that, all their sins being forgiven, Jesus Christ would bring them to eternal life. Amen." A truly Catholic prayer : sins are to be forgiven through the merits of the saints ! ! The blessing was then pronounced, and plenary indulgence imparted to penitents, which, on printed notices, is thrown down among the people, all of whom seemed eager to catch them. Once more the bells rang, and the cannons of St. Angelo thundered, and the multitudes, which were variously estimated at from thirty to eighty thousand, moved off and were dispersed to the four winds.
THERE were several other features and events connected with Holy Week, or occurring a little before and after, which are wor thy of notice. I have omitted some of them in the order of time, that I might not interrupt the account of the great ceremonies of the church. These I will now notice.
The Flagellation.
Some friends informed us that a ceremony of no small interest was to be seen every night at a particular church, which they de- 22
254 ITALY.
scribed to us. We mentioned the subject to our valet de place, and requested him to conduct us to the spot. He gave that pecu- liar shrug of the shoulders which, to be understood, must be seen, and which none but an Italian, I believe, can fully enact ; and said he was there once, and never wished to go again. It seems that some of the professedly self-inflicted penance had been mis- directed, and had fallen upon poor Luigi, the bare recollection of which made him cringe. However, he consented to conduct us to the door, and wait for us there till the fearful devotion was over. When we arrived we found one single light glimmering near the altar; the church itself seemed badly kept, compared with most Roman churches, and the worshippers appeared coarse and squalid. None but males were admitted, for a very good reason, as the reader will presently see. Everything around looked sus- picious ; and, if some of our countrymen had not been there before us and described the scene, we might have supposed ourselves in dangerous circumstances. For myself, I passed back of some broken forms that lay near the wall, behind which I intrenched myself at a little distance from the theatre of action. The door was then bolted. The single candle was carried to a small tem- porary platform, beside which stood a crucifix, and a palmerlike gloomy ecclesiastic ascended and commenced an impassioned harangue, the tenour and burden of which were the sufferings of Christ, and an exhortation to the people to be willing to suffer with him ; that, as Christ was chastised, and suffered for their sins, much more should they be willing to chastise themselves for their manifold transgressions. The solitary light was removed, and in the midst of Egyptian darkness the tragedy commenced. It was as though you had been suddenly ushered into one of the chambers of Pandemonium. The first thing we heard after the extinguishing of the light was the cracking of whips or thongs, and the sound of scores of simultaneous lashes well laid on. Then followed the most bitter groans and wailings, as from miserable wretches writhing under the torture. The sounds became com- mingled ; the strokes fell thick as hail ; and groans and howlings filled the temple. It was an awful scene ! After it had contin- ued for several minutes there was a pause, and the same voice resumed the exhortations to the assembly. It was perfect dark- ness still, and the sharp voice of the preacher, keyed up almost to
THE PILGRIMS. 255
a talsetto, rung through the invisible arches of the church, and died away in the distance. He paused, and again the flagellation and the howlings were resumed. At the second pause the light was restored ; a person went around and collected the thongs or ropes, to preserve them, I suppose, for future penance, and the as- sembly broke up. Whether they lashed themselves, or each other, or the floor, I cannot say. I had intended, when the flog- ging commenced, to have put myself in a situation to receive some of the blows, being willing to run some risk of a lash or two, to determine for myself whether the blows were laid on with ef- fect or otherwise. But the light was extinguished unexpectedly, and I had made no arrangements that would enable me, situated as I was, to make the experiment satisfactorily. I can only say that there were blows enough, and they were sufficiently loud to have done good execution ; and they were accompanied by enough of wailing and of wo to have indicated an indescribable amount of suffering ; and this is religious worship ! in a Christian assembly, and at the very seat of the infallible church.
The Pilgrims.
The Hospital of the Trinity is a place for the entertainment of the pilgrims who visit Rome on great festive occasions for religious purposes. Here they are washed, fed, and lodged for a term of time not exceeding three days for the greater portion, although those who come from a great distance, as from Spain, Portugal, &c., are entertained four or five days. The institution is a charitable one, and supported chiefly by donations and contributions from the more wealthy. A long list of names of the more prominent benefactors are recorded on public tablets at the hospital. There are two grand divisions to the apartments of the hospital, one section being set apart for the females, and the other for the males. In the male apartments alone they make up, as we were informed by one of the attendants, two thousand beds. On Holy Week especially, great numbers of both sexes are expected at this hospital, and ample provision is made for their entertainment. One of the rules of the institution is, that all who come in the course of the day must have their feet washed at night, which washing is performed partly by the regular attendants and partly by the nobility of Rome and of other countries, who volunteer their services on this occasion
256 ITALY.
as a kind of voluntary humility, as well as a sort of religious rite, showing by this their readiness to " wash the saint's feet," and to serve their poorer brethren in the humblest offices of life. The pope himself, we were told, sometimes officiates in this menial service. The evening we were at the hospital, however, the high- est dignitary that officiated at the tub was the ex-king of Portugal, Don Miguel. We had also Lord Gifford, of England, and a number of the Roman nobles.
As we brought no tickets we had a little difficulty at first in getting admittance. This being settled, I left Mrs. F., whom I conducted to the entrance of the female apartment, and went down into the bathing-room of the males, where a number pre- sented themselves to be washed, not as many, however, as on former occasions, for it was approaching towards the last of the week. There was a range of foot baths quite around the room, with pipes to conduct hot and cold water, and a rail extending quite around in front of the baths, to prevent spectators from crowding upon them. After standing until we were weary, the ceremony commenced by a short religious service, read as usual. What followed was no more of an exhibition than any other case of washing dirty feet, except as to the number and quality of the actors and spectators. There was a large room full of gentlemen, from all parts of the world, to see kings and noblemen perform the work of ablution upon the lower extremities of some of the dirtiest, roughest looking subjects that Italy can produce. Some of them had sore feet from the badness of their shoes and their pedestrian journey; for these, plasters were prepared and applied. The thick rough boots of some were drawn with great difficulty ; and their stockings, when they wore any, looked as though they needed washing as much as the feet they covered, without which, to wash the latter would be of little avail. The don had a hard case ; however, he scrubbed away with might and main, and when he got to the skin he wiped it, kissed the foot, and ensconced it again in its former sheath. All kissed the feet when they had finished washing them.
After the washing we ascended to the Salle a manger, to see the feeding. Here the crowd of spectators was still greater, and here, too, were assembled all the pilgrims that had been congregated for several days. Truly they were a motley group, some with
THE PILGRIMS. 257
their long pilgrim's staves, some with shells of scallops and other shellfish fastened upon their breasts and shoulders, many of them ragged and wo-begone, although the greater part are supposed to come from cities of Italy not far distant. They gathered around the long tables, and those who washed their feet prepared to serve them. I got a position near the ex-king. He is a middle-aged man, of rather small stature, and possessing a countenance by no means indicative of that cruelty and thirst for blood which seem to have marked his public life. He is as great a stickler for Romanism as his brother, Don Pedro, was an opposer. Their course in this matter has undoubtedly been shaped very much by their political interests. While Don Pedro was thwarted and op- posed in all his plans by the priests, these have been the partisans of Don Miguel, and sustained his course, and he, in his turn, has sustained theirs. It is this that has led the pope to patronise the don in his exile, by giving him a refuge and a salary of three thousand dollars per annum ; and this, on the other hand, has led the ex-king to be very officious in matters of religion, and specially active during Holy Week in all the self-denying duties of the oc- casion. At this time he was very active in helping the pilgrims, in cutting their bread, and serving their fish, vegetables, and wine,* and, at the same time, was very social, now with the pilgrims, and now with one of the attendants, and then again with some of his fellow-servitors. He left, however, in time to be introduced into the ladies' apartments. When the company had satisfied their appetites, and some of these poor fellows ate as if they had eaten nothing for a long time before, they began to fill their handker- chiefs and sacks with the fragments and remains, and to pour the wine into their leather bottles. These were their perquisites, and they laid in liberally ; sufficiently so, I should think, to last them a considerable distance in their homeward journey. They then all rose, and in single file, chanting or singing as they went, marched up to their lodgings.
Mrs. F. found the ceremonies in the female apartments much the same as above described, except that the ladies who waited upon the pilgrims were more minute and assiduous in their atten- tions than the gentlemen. The noble ladies, as they entered the room, went to a table on which lay a quantity of red and white
* It was still Lent,
22 KK
258 IT ALT?.
aprons, the former with waists and the latter without waists. The red apron was first put on ; and then the other, which was furnished with two large pockets, to hold their napkins, &c., was tied on over the former. They then proceeded to wash the feet, after which each lady took a pilgrim by the arm and led her to the table, and waited upon her as before described, filling her wallet and her wine-sack with what remained, and taking, as they retired, a large pile of plasters up to their lodging-rooms to dress their sore feet, &c. One old woman, who had the appearance of extreme old age, and was bowed down with the weight of years, had nevertheless walked fifty miles to see this festival. For her, the ladies in attendance made up a purse to cheer her heart and relieve her wants.
In all this there is certainly much of kindness and Christian courtesy exhibited that were well worth the imitation of Protest ants. In the ceremonies before us, however, there is a drawback upon the credit we might otherwise be disposed to give to the parties concerned, from the consideration that the whole is a set form, or kind of exhibition, and a stated public observance, which has in it much of show and ostentation, much of fashion, and per- haps of superstition.
There is much more of the spirit of our holy and benevolent religion where the meek Christian, unobserved and unattended by the pomp of form and ceremony, seeks out the poor and the squalid, and with his or her own hands washes the saint's feet, and cheers the heart of the fainting ; a spirit which, to the reproach of our common Christianity, is too little prevalent both in the Catholic and Protestant churches. I cannot, however, but con- cede that, in my opinion, the Catholic takes the lead in charities of this kind ; and perhaps ceremonies, such as those I have al- ready described, may have kept alive among them a sense of duty on this point ; for such ceremonies cannot but have their influence, especially upon the young, who are thus trained, at times at least, to think of and feel for the poor and the wretched. Here young girls of ten or fifteen years of age are seen bounding along, with laughing eyes and mantling cheeks, bearing the large trays of re- freshments to the tables, while their mothers and older sisters dis- tribute those refreshments to the hungry and weary pilgrims. The impressions of one such scene upon the mind of the young
TAKING THE WHITE VEIL. 269
might be as lasting as life, and such scenes repeated might do something at least towards moulding permanently the character of the heart.
It should be observed that males are not usually admitted into the female apartments during these ceremonies except the priests, some of whom are present to lead in the religious observances, and to see, I suppose, that all things are done " decently and in order." Don Miguel, however, was on this occasion escorted in by four priests with lighted candles, for the purpose, I suppose, of showing himself to all the guests, and also, as it would seem, to be introduced to a princess, who was present and assisting at the supper.
Taking the White Veil
The Church of St. Cecilia in Trastivere is situated on the south part of the city, on the right side of the Tiber, and is sup- posed to be built on the site of the house of St. Cecilia. This saint suffered martyrdom at the time of the Lombard invasion in a bath appertaining to the house. For some time there was a doubt about the identity of the body, but at length she appeared in a supernatural way to St. Paschal, and gave him such instruc- tion as enabled him to find and identify the body. Whereupon it was taken and deposited in a sepulchre under the high altar of this church, which was erected to her memory and for the edifi- cation of the faithful. All this I learned from a copy of a Latin letter sent to the pope from Paschal, and inscribed on a marble tablet in the wall of the church. Here over the sarcophagus is a beautiful horizontal statue of marble, with the head turned under, in the very attitude, it is said, in which she was discovered after her martyrdom. Connected with this church is a nunnery, in which are the order of St. Cecilia. Thither on Tuesday after Holy Week we went to see the assumption of the white veil by two young females. On our arrival, we were invited into a private apartment adjoining the convent, where we and many others were generously treated with refreshments furnished by the friends of the candidates. This room was connected with the convent by doubly grated windows. The two sets of grates were distant from each other about eight inches, and the rods were so close as to render it impossible for persons to touch each other through them.
260 ITALY.
We could see the sisters of the order, however, and also the can- didates for the sisterhood. After refreshment we went into the church, and soon an aged bishop, with locks whiter than wool, en- tered with his attendants. A golden crosier was borne before him. He was then clad with his sacerdotal vestments, the prin- cipal of which was a robe of silver tissue bordered with gold, and a mitre studded with brilliants. Soon the candidates entered, dressed like princesses, followed by little girls with wings from their backs in the character of angels, holding up their trains. After some ceremony by the bishop and the candidates, a discourse was delivered by a priest, which seemed to be a defence of per- petual virginity, and a reference to the advantages of the monastic life. The novices then retired, and directly appeared at a grate communicating with the church. This grated window had an altar on each side, within and without, and a communication be- tween them about eight or ten inches square. Here, with the bishop and priests on one side, and the young ladies with their attendants on the other, the appointed service was performed. By the kindness of the brother of one of the candidates, I was accom- modated with a favourable position near the altar, and near the new vestments with which they were about to be clothed. These lay in two separate piles, with the name of each upon her parcel. After a portion of the service, the candidates placed their heads by the window of the grate ; and the officiating bishop, with a pair of golden scissors, taken from a plate of gold, cut off a lock of their nair. They then underwent a complete transformation as to their garments. The rich headdress and ornaments were taken off, the hair turned back, the fine tresses straightened, and a plain tight cap without a border put upon the head. The ornaments were taken from the arms, the ears, the neck-; the rich dress, in short, was removed, and left the candidates modestly blushing with only a close white underdress to cover them. The whole of this gay attire and these princely ornaments were loosely rolled together and put into the hands of the wearer, who, with some sentence which I could not understand, but which was undoubtedly ex- pressive of her abdication of the world and its vanities, as if she should say,
" I bid this world of noise and show, With all its flattering smiles, adieu,"
TAKING THE WHITE VEIL. 261
cast them from her. Her new attire was then brought forward, and article after article was received through the grate, affection- ately kissed and put on, an official nun standing by each candi- date and assisting in the investment. The order of the clothing was, as nearly as I can recollect, as follows : first, a scarf, with an opening for the head, was thrown over the shoulders, and hung down, perhaps, as low as the knees, before and behind ; around this a white sash ; over the whole a robe, which, like the other garments, was of fine white stuff like worsted ; then a peculiar collar for the neck, which was turned down before, but turned up behind, and pinned at the back of the head ; and, finally, the white hood or veil, which was made stiff and fashioned somewhat, in the part for the head, like a peasant's sunbonnet in our country, without, however, being gathered behind, for it extended down like a stiff veil over the shoulders. A crucifix, rosary, and prayer- book, together with a lighted candle, were given to each ; all of which, as they were received one by one, were kissed by the candidates, as also was the priest's hand who presented them. Last of all, the head was surmounted by an armillary crown, either of silver, or tinsel resembling silver. The whole of this transformation was sudden, and the contrast most striking. It was as if a princess, by the touch of a Roman wand, had been metamorphosed into a meek-eyed, modestly-apparelled sister of charity.
Thus habited, the two novices threw themselves again upon the altar, with their faces buried in the velvet cushions before them, when the venerable bishop, assisted by other priests, performed the most solemn part of the service, which consisted of short sen- tences and brief responses, in which all seemed to join with a good deal of spirit. The new sisters then arose and kissed their as- sistant officials, the other attendant nuns, their attending cherubs, and their female friends who were within the grate. Up to that moment the friends of the buried alive* seemed to be cheerful ; but, now that the final separation was come, there was more ap- parent difficulty in concealing the emotions which, doubtless, they had all along felt ; and I now noticed that the sister of one of them,
* I say buried a.(ve, because, although these had only taken the white veil, and there- fore may, it is pretended, at their option, come out at the end of a year, still, I believe, in most cases, having taken the first step, they are made willing to proceed.
262 ITALY.
who had been remarkably gay, drew back with swimming eyes. The candidates, on the contrary, through the whole scene mani- fested little emotion either of devotion or of excited sensibilities for friends, but seemed to pass through the ceremony with a self-pos- session and firmness that to me indicated either deep principle of duty or the indifference of disappointment. Undoubtedly many persons take the veil from both of these causes ; others from pov- erty ; and others, again, and perhaps of these there are not a few, from the solicitation of parents or brothers, who, not being able or willing to make genteel provision for the supernumerary female members of their family, find this a convenient and respectable way of disposing of them. What may have been the cause of the seclusions in the present cases I of course am ignorant of; but I have left upon my mind the deep and indelible conviction, that the church which offers facilities and holds out motives for such moral suicides has greatly mistaken her duty to the world, and must be held responsible for encouraging a system wholly unsanctioned, either by the Old or New Testament, and against the principle of which the entire economy of man's nature throws back the denial through every law of his physical and moral constitution.
A number of sonnets were composed on this occasion and dis- tributed to the spectators, and possibly some of them were sung ; for the exercises were occasionally and pleasantly varied by the sound of sweet music. At the commencement we not only had the deep-toned organ, but the sweet notes of female voices dropped down in melting strains from the lofty latticed galleries, behind which the sisterhood were concealed. Here, " through the loop- holes of their retreat," they were permitted to look out upon the ceremonies below ; a place which they doubtless often occupy at the time of public service in the church, and which so far screened them that nothing was seen, even when they stood the nearest to the network screen, but some undefined forms robed in white, which a lively imagination in this land of visions might easily transform into celestial visitants, who had come down to chant a dirge for the departing spirits, and then to accompany them to their future abodes of rest. And their sweet voices, softened by their passage through the lattice, fell gently down upon the company below, as if to say, in all the winning witchery of melody,
TAKING THE WHITE VEIL. 263
" Sister spirits, come away."
From the sonnets distributed on the occasion, we learned that the name of one of the initiated was Teresa Gauttieri Romana, daughter of Signor Vincenzo, but her new name (for all take a new name on entering the sisterhood) was Donna Marianna. The name of the other was Teresa Gauttieri, but her assumed name was Donna Maria Benedetta: Their respective ages were apparently about twenty-three and twenty-eight. They seemed to depart from this world in peace. May kind Heaven grant that no bitter disappointment blight their expectations, and no passion or oppression pollute or disturb the quiet of their prison-house !
It may be proper to notice in this connexion that, a day or two after this, a lady belonging to one of the noble families of England took the veil in Rome. Her conversion to Catholicism — for, until recently, she had been a Protestant — had, with the attendant cir- cumstances, been a subject of considerable interest in the city, and was considered by the Catholics not only as a great triumph of truth, but as a great confirmation also of their faith. It seems, strange and simple as the circumstance may appear, that the first thing which staggered her Protestantism was that phrase in the creed, " I believe in the holy Catholic church." How could she repeat this in sincerity, being a Protestant ? For it seems she understood by this, not the universal church, but the Roman church ! This put her upon an inquiry, which resulted in her conversipn to Romanism, followed by an earnest desire to become a nun of the order of St. Theresa. But, as the regimen of that order was rigorous, and her own health very delicate, her friends were unwilling she should come under the vows of the order. She then prayed to the Virgin, who, in answer to prayer, miracu- lously healed her not only as to her general health, but, as was affirmed, a lameness, which had rendered one of her limbs useless, was suddenly healed and entirely cured. This miracle not only satisfied her friends as to her duty in the case, but was the occa- sion also of converting her mother to, and confirming her in, the Catholic faith. She accordingly took the veil. We passed the place of the ceremony, where we saw an immense number of coaches and a great gathering ; but, as the crowd was great, and the ceremony not new to us, we did not attempt an entrance.
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She appeared at the grated window for a number of successive days afterward to converse with her friends. We saw some who conversed with her, and they represented her as appearing very cheerless and agitated. Indeed, it seems, from all the information I could gain, that her mind, as well as her body, was of a sickly cast, and her temperament visionary and fanciful. It was a case, however, that gave great joy to the papists, insomuch that the Jesuit priest hereafter alluded to made it a subject of one of his public addresses to a popular assembly in Rome, to confirm their faith and confidence in the " Holy Catholic Church."
Chiesa Delia Trinitd de Monti.
This church stands on the Pinchean Hill, situated in the north part of the city, near the Porta del PqpoZo, and east of the Piazza di Spagna. It is one of the most prominent points in the modern city, and is rendered still more magnificent in its western aspect by the splendid staircase by which it is approached from the Piazza di Spagna.
Connected with the church is a convent, all the inmates of which are said to be ladies of quality. The regulations of their order are in some respects peculiar, especially in that they take upon them no vows of perpetual seclusion, but hold themselves at liberty to leave whenever they choose. And yet it is mentioned, as a most extraordinary fact, that no one has ever been known to leave the sisterhood after she has once entered. If this be a fact, there is at least one conclusion to which we may safely come, viz. : that, if it is not a violation of a positive vow to leave the convent, and, therefore, an infraction of no written law, it nevertheless is a vio- lation of common law and of an implied engagement, to break which would show a disregard of all that is sacred in religion and all that is respectable in character. These are considerations, therefore, that undoubtedly operate strongly and effectually to guard the egress from these monastic walls. In addition, the rules of the order, it is presumed, are not rigorous ; their privileges, both social and religious, are great ; and their company abundant and most respectable. At least, I have noticed that priests and ecclesiastics of a most respectable appearance were among their visitors.
Hearing that they had most enchanting music there at vespers,
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on Sabbath evenings, we made several attempts to get admittance, in all of which we failed save in one instance, in which I had wandered to the church alone at an early hour, and happened to approach the private door just at the same time with two or three priests. The door on this, as on all other occasions, was locked, and, as the priests were pulling the bell, I informed them that I was a stranger, which they doubtless would readily perceive by my bad Italian ; that I had a great desire to be present at the vespers, and, if they would pass me in, I should be greatly obliged to them. They bowed assent with the usual frankness and cour- tesy of the Italians, and especially of the priests. The door was opened by a nun of a most angelic countenance ; who, at the in- timation of the priests, admitted me, and, showing me a side door into the church, conducted the clergymen into the convent.
It was early, and the church, as I thought, was perfectly empty. This gave me an opportunity of examining it leisurely. The chancel was separated from the nave by a very high and magnif- icent screen, consisting of beautiful iron balusters. This was to separate the nuns who chant the service from the congregation in the church. As I looked through the balustrade, I saw to the left a solitary priest, with his prayer-book in his hand, and so deeply intent upon his devotions that he did not observe me. I immediately recognised him to be the Count of , to whom I had been intro- duced a few evenings before at Mr. C 's, in the Corso. Al- though a count, he was also a priest, and a gentleman of soft and winning address and kindly manners. And here he was alone, in this lovely church, where silence reigned, where the sacredness of the place, the beauty of the edifice, the sweet breath and sweet light of an evening in which the setting sun gleamed faintly through the remaining mists of a recent shower, all conspired to melt the heart and mould the spirit into devout veneration of the God of the sanctuary. This it was, perhaps, which prepared me the more to enjoy what followed.
There is always a church, I believe, connected with every con- vent; and in every such instance there are private entrances to it from the convent. So it was with the Chiesa della Trinitd.
As soon, therefore, as the vesper bell rang, the nuns began to enter. Those who led the music came into the high gallery by a private passage, and seated themselves around and near an organ. 23 LL
266 ITALY.
Below, within the chancel, entered first the young ladies of the school connected with the nunnery, two and two, paired according to their size, first bowing towards the high altar, and then seating themselves facing it; then followed the nuns. They were all neatly dressed, and had heavenly countenances beaming with cheerfulness and devotion. Indeed, it was evident that an habitual frame of mind of this kind had produced a permanent effect upon the features of the face and the expression of the countenance. The services commenced ; they consisted chiefly of music from the voices of the nuns and from the organ. And such an organ ! and such voices ! The organ seemed to have been constructed on purpose to symphonize with the sweet voices of the sisters ; and sweet were those voices ! sweet was that organ ! The music was rather of a lively, cheerful cast, and was set to a hymn or song of praise, which, to the number of some twelve verses, I should think, was performed and sung on the occasion. I cannot describe it, much less can I describe the effect on my own feel- ings. It was not so overwhelming as the Tenebrce at St. Peter's, but it seemed to trickle down into the sentient chambers of the soul, and there diffuse itself to the extremities through all the con- ductors of feeling, until the whole system was exhilarated and enchanted. To this hour, whenever my mind reverts to the Church of the Trinity, I seem to hear those ravishing notes anew, "like the memory of joys that are past, pleasant, and mournful to the soul." Never, perhaps, before or since, have I felt so much devotion in a Catholic church as on that occasion. The benediction was pronounced, and I reluctantly retired from a spot that had afforded me delight as unexpected as it was refined. While on the subject of music I will add, that the common music in Italy fell far short of my expectations. I had supposed that in that musical country there would be much interest in the music of the streets and of the peasantry of the country. On the contrary, it is absolutely horrible : the braying of an ass is scarcely more repulsive. You will hear, especially in the evening, com- panies of young men walking the streets and singing ; you will hear songs in the country, and your vetturino will sing to you perhaps from morning till night, but it is all utterly destitute of music. The same may be said of much of the music of the churches. As I did not attend the operas, of course I cannot
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speak of the music there. Doubtless it is of the most scientific kind ; but, so far as my opportunities of observing go, much of the music of Italy is bad. I heard one amateur in a private party in Na- ples, whose singing was admirable ; and on a few public occasions, such as that at St. Peter's, and this at the Trinity, and some others, the music was splendid. Farther than this I cannot com- mend. Neither can I account for it that the popular airs and common singing are so bad, when those of other countries are often so superior. Switzerland, and Wales, and Scotland are not celebrated for their scientific music, and yet the native airs are the very melody of nature, and the singing of their peasantry is absolutely enchanting. Italy, on the other hand, is celebrated for music the most scientific and most refined, and yet the singing of her peasantry is rivalled by the braying of her donkeys. The inference seems to be, that the greatest refinements in scientific music avail to destroy the simplicity of nature in all classes ; but as it is possible for only a few to become successful scientific performers, the great whole are left unskilled in the melody of sweet sounds.
Illumination and Fireworks.
These usually conclude the exhibitions of the splendid festivities of the Passion Week ; and, if I had seen them, I might describe them. Unfortunately for us, however, the exhibition did not take place this year. The disappointment was felt the more because it was given out that it would take place ; the fixtures were all placed upon the dome of St. Peter's ; the rockets and other pre- paratives were all made for the fireworks ; and the time appointed for the exhibition. The first night was rainy, and it was post- poned ; another excuse was given at another time, and thus the subject was delayed and suspended, till at length the report was circulated that the whole was indefinitely postponed, and that the money which it would have cost would be given to the poor. Whether the poor ever got the money I cannot say ; I can only say we lost a fee, which we paid in part in advance for our win- dow, where we were to behold the exhibition, as doubtless did many others ; for it is usual on these occasions for all who have houses advantageously situated to rent their windows for the night for from five to perhaps twenty, or even fifty dollars each,
268 ITALY.
according to their situation and accommodations. Some of them have balconies and curtains over head. For a number of days the windows in the neighbourhood were dressed and curtained, waiting for an exhibition which was finally suspended. The rea- son for the disappointment we could never learn. If there was any good reason, it ought to have been announced ; for, as it was, there was much of surmising and hard sayings against the Romans and against his holiness. By holding out the expectation and postponing it, day after day, many persons were induced not only to rent their stands for the night, but to postpone their departure from Rome, some of them a week or ten days, waiting for the great sight, and were finally disappointed. Thus thousands of dollars were spent in the city by travellers which would not otherwise have been spent ; and some expressed their conviction that there might be some design in all this. For myself, however, I would not readily give credit to such an imputation ; but I con- fess there was a kind of injustice in the procedure, which nothing but an important reason could excuse. If such a reason had ex- isted, one would think it would have been made public. As to the plea that the money would be given to the poor, that was worse than nothing ; the situation of the poor was known before any such expectation was raised ; and much more might have been saved for the poor if no arrangements had been made for the ex- hibition. There is a great difficulty, however, not only in Rome, but throughout all Italy, of getting before the public the desired information on subjects of general interest. Instead of numerous periodicals and public newspapers, as in our country, they have nothing scarcely that deserves the name of a public periodical press. They have in Rome one or two little papers, published perhaps weekly, about twice the size of a man's hand, containing some account of the functions and ceremonies of the cathedrals, the movements of the cardinals, &c., together with some of the leading events of Europe, provided these events do not savour too much of liberalism ; and that is the extent, I believe, of Roman newspapers. It is, in fact, the most difficult thing to get informa- tion on subjects of public interest ; and this may serve in part, perhaps, as an apology for the Roman court for leaving the public in the dark in this instance, in respect to the reasons for the course adopted.
ILLUMINATION AND FIREWORKS. 269
It may not be amiss to give a general idea of the proposed ex- hibition, such as it has usually been.* Heretofore it has been usual to have this exhibition both on, or rather immediately after Passion Week, and also at the festival of St. Peter.
The illumination is on the dome and other parts of the outside of St. Peter's. It is effected by lamps, flambeaux, and various combustible matter, so arranged that every part of the church, to. the very summit of the cross over the dome, appears in a blaze. The forepart of the illumination is mild, and gleams like the light of the moon ; but at seven o'clock it changes suddenly into a uni- versal blaze, as if by magic ; and, it is said, nothing scarcely can be conceived of more splendid than this transition, and the brilliant spectacle which follows. There are between four and five thou- sand lanterns used in this illumination, and seven or eight hundred flambeaux. The lighting is effected by men on the outside, sus- pended by ropes, who are moved with pulleys by men within ; and so hazardous is the enterprise, that the performers receive the sacrament before they commence, that they may be prepared for sudden death.
At eight o'clock the fireworks commence at the castle of St. An- gel o, formerly Adrian's Mausoleum. The commencement is an explosion called the Girandola, which is effected by such an ar- rangement and discharge of four or five thousand rockets as to be, it is said, a very good representation of an eruption of a volcano. This is followed by various other modifications of pyrotechnical display, grand and beautiful ; and the whole is closed by another magnificent Girandola.
I have thus just sketched this grand exhibition for the sake of those of your readers who may not have been made acquainted with its character, although we did not see it. The pope himself gave us an animated description of it in an interview we had with him, but I should have abundantly preferred that he had let us see it ; but fearing it might be contrary to court etiquette to question the sovereign pontiff on this subject, I did not inquire his reasons for disappointing us.
* And such as it was indeed this year, at the festival of St. Peter, which took plac» since we left Rome. 23
270 ITALY.
Religious Processions.
In describing the ceremonies of this festive occasion at Rome, it might be well to notice that religious processions were at this time unusually frequent. Companies of ecclesiastics and various religious orders marched through the streets, chanting religious services, and bearing a crucified Christ, or the image of some saint, before which the multitudes bowed. This is more or less common, in fact, at all seasons throughout Italy.
The consecrated host also, especially the day after Easter, was borne in procession through the streets in various parts of the city. The object, we were told, was to convey it to the sick, for their sanctification and comfort. Whenever it passed, the people pros- trated themselves ; and why should they not ? For this material substance, thus supported like any other portion of matter, was be- lieved to be verily and truly GOD !
Holy Staircase.
I may not have a better opportunity than the present to mention the religious ceremony or penance of the holy staircase. This is not peculiar to Holy Week, although it happened more particularly to strike our attention at this time ; and perhaps, on account of the many strangers present at this festival, there may have been more votaries engaged in this penance than on other or common occasions.
This staircase is called " holy," because it is that up which, if we may believe the tradition, the Saviour passed pending his trial at Pilate's bar. How it was preserved at the destruction of Jeru- salem, especially as the Christians, who alone would be interested with its preservation, had previously left the city ; or why even Christians should be solicitous to preserve a staircase belonging to the palace of a weak and wicked ruler, who gave sentence against their Lord, are matters which neither I, nor, I presume, any one else, can satisfactorily account for. However, it is believed to be that very staircase, and, as such, is not only an object of ven eration, but is made meritorious in the forgiveness of sins ; up it no one is allowed to pass except upon his knees; and every time any one thus ascends it, he has remitted to him two hundred years from the fires of purgatory ! This, of course, makes its
CHARACTER AND TENDENCIES OP THE CATHOLIC RELIGION. 271
ascent an object of great interest ; insomuch that the marble steps have been so worn away by penitential friction as to make it necessary to cover them anew, to save them from complete destruction. Almost any time of day you may see more or less of these poor deluded votaries climbing up these steps, some of them upon their bare knees ; the females dividing their attention between their devotions and the decent adjustment of their ap- parel ; and all kissing the steps and muttering their prayers as they ascend !
When I first approached these steps, not knowing their sanctity, I started to ascend them to see what there was above ; the cicerone pulled me back with horror, and informed me of its character. Not choosing to ascend on our knees, we went up an adjoining flight of stairs, and surveyed them above and below with no other emotion than that of astonishment and disgust at this new illus- tration of the deep-rooted and all-pervading superstitions and idolatries of the Roman Catholic Church.
Yours truly,
W. FISK.
To the Editors of the Methodist Magazine.
MESSRS. EDITORS,
Having given an account, in the preceding letters, of the more prominent ceremonies of the Catholic Church, it may not be un- profitable, in the present letter, to make some reflections upon the character and tendencies of the Catholic religion. This is a sub- ject that is, at this moment, attracting to itself intense interest, and especially in the United States. The time having passed by, we hope for ever, in which the advocates of this religion can, as for- merly, enforce their dogmas by the sword and by the authority of the secular power, they now find it necessary to try the strength of the question on moral grounds. This is a position to which the opposers of Romanism have long wished to press the question, and they have partially succeeded ; and, in the United States par- ticularly, the question presents itself exclusively upon this ground. As, in the despotisms of Europe, the old ground of propagation is abandoned, the experiment is now to be tried whether the senti- ment can prevail in a country of free discussion. Here, and on these principles, we ought to be prepared to meet it. Let us,
272 ITALY.
then, examine some of its claims and tendencies by what we see and know of its character. For Romanism, to be known and judged of, must be seen and scrutinized where no motives of policy force it into unnatural positions or concealments. In short, in Italy, and in Rome itself, this system can best be tested. Against this Catholics cannot object; for if, as they teach, Christianity has a grand central capital, and that is Rome ; if it has one single head on earth to whom, as the vicegerent of Christ, the keys of the kingdom of God have been committed, and the pope is that head, then here, certainly, under the influence of the pontifical court, and under the very droppings of the pope's sanctuary, we may hope to find concentrated all the excellences of this church. Here, if anywhere, impurities will be discarded and abuses dis- countenanced.
ROMANISM HAS A STRONG AND DIRECT TENDENCY TO IDOLATRY.
I will not say that a Roman Catholic must necessarily be guilty of idolatry ; nor will I now argue from the fact that the Catholics have left out the second commandment from many of their editions of the commandments, because it speaks so directly against their image worship, which seems to be a tacit acknowledgment by themselves that they must, if judged by the light of Scripture, be convicted of idolatry.
Neither will I now insist upon the glaring idolatry of worship- ping a wafer in the form of a consecrated host ; because, if a Cath- olic can really believe that this wafer is converted into a god, as some of them perhaps do, he does not worship the thing that is, but the thing which he believes it, to be ; and, therefore, he may, even in this worship, be held, in the sight of God, innocent of idolatry. But whatever some of strong faith, or, more properly, of irrational credulity, may believe on this subject, there are many, doubtless, who are led into this worship, following the example of others who, as the apostle expresses himself on a somewhat anal- ogous subject, "with conscience to the idol unto this hour," bow down to it as to what their senses tell them it really is, a portion of matter, and yet a portion of matter which, like the gree-gree or the amulet, has some peculiar charm and talrsmanic virtue ; and thus their " consciences are defiled," and their minds are sensual- ized. Indeed, every one, it appears to me, who attempts to be
TENDENCY OF ROMANISM TO IDOLATRY. 273
lieve in transubstantiation, lays a snare for his conscience ; and the church, which inculcates this doctrine lays a broad foundation for materialism. And this the Catholics do, not merely in this doc- trine, but in their veneration for relics. Rome and all Italy is full of sacred relics ; they are considered as possessing in themselves peculiar virtue. Here are stones that sweat blood ; here are mar- tyrs' bones that raise the dead, and pieces of the cross, and scour- ges, and pillars of stone, and holy staircases, and a thousand things which have wrought more miracles than were ever wrought by Christ or his apostles.
When an ignorant African pagan talks about the virtue of his gree-gree, and relies upon it for his protection, we call him an idolater, and so he is. But is he more so than the Catholic, who believes in the virtue of his crucifix or other trinket because it has been blessed by the pope, or because it has been shaken in the porringer which, as is pretended, contained the pap from which the holy child Jesus was fed ?
But another source of idolatry is the numerous subordinate me- diators that enter into the machinery of the Catholic religion. In my former letter an instance is given in a very solemn and impo- sing service, performed by the pope himself, in which pardon was supplicated through the merits of saints. Angels are prayed to. Saints, male and female, are prayed to, and especially, and above all, the blessed Virgin is an object of universal veneration and worship. It is in vain for Catholics to plead that they only so- licit the aid of these personages to present their suit to God ; for, in the first place, many of the prayers are direct, and imply that these saints have power in themselves to give the necessary aid. Besides, the very idea that the Virgin, or that the angel Gabriel, or St. Peter can hear the prayers of Catholics, praying, as they do, in different and distant parts of the world, clothes these saints, in the opinion of the worshippers, with omnipresence ; one of the attributes of the Deity. Nay, to show that many of the people do directly worship these saints and the blessed Virgin, this one fact is sufficient, that they will sooner swear by the name of Jesus Christ, or of God the Father, than by the name of the Virgin. Hence it appears that they either consider it greater blasphemy to profane the name of the Virgin than that of God, or else they think she stands in a more intimate relation to them, and has it in
MM
274 ITALY.
her power to avenge any insult offered to her. If the latter be the idea, as perhaps in many instances it is, even this shows that they consider the Virgin as everywhere present to take cogni- zance of their insults to her character, and as having power, either directly or indirectly, of dispensing blessings and curses That this is the idea of the greater portion of the people of Italy there can be no doubt. No man can travel through Italy without noti- cing that the great whole of the worship of Italy is the worship of the Virgin. If there is one shrine in any of the churches more popular than another, it is, as a general thing, that of the Virgin. Nay, it is worse than this. The strongest features in the idolatry of the Catholics are not in the worship of the saints, but in the worship of images and pictures. The image of a saint is more worshipped than the saint himself; the picture of the Madonna more than the Virgin in heaven. It is said by Catholics that these images are destined only as helps to fix the attention ; but, •whatever may have been their design originally, it is notorious that they are now actually worshipped, and this some Catholics are candid enough to own. This the priests countenance. I have seen a priest himself praying to an image of the Virgin. They carry around the images in procession, and encourage the people, in times of calamity, to try different Madonnas, because some have more virtue than others. Nay, the devotees of differ- ent cities and churches claim superior power and merit for their respective Madonnas. The inhabitants of Pisa, for example, the summer before we were there, attributed their escape from the cholera, while it raged most fearfully and fatally at Leghorn, less than twelve miles from them in a straight line, to the superior vir- tue of their Madonna. All these facts, and a thousand others that might be mentioned, show that it is not the Virgin in heaven, but this or that particular image or picture that is supposed to have the virtue and the power of saving and blessing. They are taught this, or why is it so prevalent ? Is it not taught by the example of the pope himself, when he worships the cross, when lie bows down before the relics at St. Veronica's shrine ? when he goes, as he did on Holy Week, to the bronze image of St. Pe- ter in the church of St. Peter's, and kisses it, and rubs his face against it, and kneels before it ? Nay, is not this countenanced in the very homage paid to the pope himself, before whom the
TENDENCY OF ROMANISM TO IDOLATRY. 275
prelates and people prostrate themselves as to a god ? If a sys- tem had been formed for the express purpose of calling off the at- tention of the people from the Creator to the creature, from things spiritual to things material, could anything more appropriate to the object have been formed ? What feature is there in the en- tire system of the most splendid and fascinating forms of pagan idolatry that is not equalled or excelled by the various parts of the Roman Catholic machinery? While the institutions of the Sa- viour were few, simple, and the very opposite of anything like ex- ternal show or parade, for the express purpose of turning the mind from sensible objects to God, who is a spirit, the entire system of Catholic forms and rites is formed to dazzle the senses and cap- tivate the imagination. What else than an extended and an abun- dant harvest of sensuality, materialism, and idolatry could we ex- pect from such a religion ? And what might be expected is seen in staring capitals throughout the country ; stark staring idolatry prevails in every direction. They have become vain in their im- agination, and their foolish heart is darkened, and they have " changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man."
And, what is worst of all in this and every other unholy fea- ture of Roman Catholicism, they cannot alter without destroying the only claim of that church by which she enforces her authority — her infallibility. Wherever infallibility is supposed to exist, whether in the pope, in general councils, in tradition, or in all these, it is evident that all have united to sanction these idolatrous features of their religion. The very moment, therefore, that these usages are forbidden, the groundwork of the whole system must fall ; infallibility will be arrayed against itself, and, when once this charm is broken, the whole system is laid open to investiga- tion ; the decrees of popes and councils, which have been venera- ted for centuries, are brought into discussion, and the entire sys- tem will crumble to the dust. It is only by crying, procul, O pro- cul este profani — let not the unbelieving presume for a moment to question our authority — that Catholics can keep their system in countenance. Hence this church has entailed upon herself the errors and abuses that corrupt her whole system, by incorpora- ting those-»errors into her very framework, and making them an integral part of her very identity. There is no removing one of
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them without removing the very substratum in which they all in- here, and thereby unsettling and dissolving all its constituent parts. Before dismissing this objection to Romanism, I cannot per- suade myself to omit noticing, with decided disapprobation, the views of Rev. Mr. Dewey, who, under the title of the " Old World and the New," has lately given to the public the result of some of his observations in Europe. He approves of images and paintings in churches, and of many of the forms, ceremonies, and festivals of the Catholic Church, and expresses a wish that simi- lar practices might be introduced into our own country, and into Protestant churches. I know not whether his Unitarian brethren will generally respond to his sentiments ; but, if they should, it might solve what has been unaccountable to many in America, viz., the favour which they, as a religious sect, have manifested towards the introduction and spread of Roman Catholicism in the United States. For myself, I have generally accounted for it on the principle that they are stanch advocates of free discussion and liberty of religious opinion. They have seen that there has been the appearance of something like an intolerant spirit towards the Catholics, and this, as I have supposed, has led them to en- list their sympathies and influence in their favour. But Mr. Dewey's book has, I confess — and I express my opinion with the greatest kindness, although I do it with all frankness — led me to fear that there are between the two religions some points of har- mony and coincidence which may have been overlooked hitherto by their Protestant brethren. It has been the opinion of many Protestants that Unitarianism has a decided leaning towards mate- rialism ; that, as a religion, it has in it less of spirituality and more of formality, especially as the supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit upon the heart is denied. May there not be principles of affinity here which will enable the two religions to symbolize to- gether to some extent ? And especially since the Unitarians be- lieve in only a created Mediator, and that those strong expres- sions in the Scriptures authorizing veneration and worship to this Mediator are only expressive of such a homage as may be con- sistently paid to a creature, what objection can they have to the homage paid by Catholics to their numerous mediators, real and symbolical? If Christ is only a mere man, as some Unitarians hold, he is but a saint at best. Why, then, should not his sainted
ROMANISM INCOMPATIBLE WITH RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. 277
mother, and Sts. Peter and Paul, and the thousands of martyrs, male and female, that have been canonized, come in for an equal share, or, if not an equal share, at least for a similar kind of hom- age with Jesus Christ ? I deeply regret these suggestions of Mr. Dewey : they commend a most repulsive and dangerous feature of Romanism, and thereby strengthen, so far as his influence goes, the system itself; and, if I mistake not, they show, at the same time, how extremes in error may meet in the same diameter of the circle, and how a departure from the truth in one form may push us ultimately into the very errors we have been accustomed to oppose.
ROMANISM IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. .
I say civil and religious freedom, because I think these two generally go together. They, in fact, imply each other, and the very power which, in any government, exists in sufficient strength to take away one, can also infringe upon the other. Hence, how- ever there may have been occasional and transient exceptions, the general rule is, civil and religious freedom flourish or fall together. If Romanism, therefore, be opposed to either, it is incompatible with both.
It is no argument against the above proposition, that, both in England and America, as well as in some other places, there are found Catholics who are strong advocates for liberty. The known policy of the Jesuits, who 'are the principal movers in the popery of the United States, is to harmonize with the popular current, in >rder to make proselytes and gain influence. Indeed this is, to a great extent, the policy of Romanism in all its forms ; for it is this policy which has made it so like the idolatrous worship of paganism, both in its forms and in its images. Especially would Papists advocate toleration in a Protestant country, where, as the majority is against them, they cannot even gain a ^foothold but for toleration. It is not surprising, therefore, that Catholics should be clamorous in America for civil and religious liberty : nor is it at all surprising that the pope himself should say, as he did in
fwiversation with me, that he " liked America, because there ere many Catholics there, and they were all tolerated and in- ;sted with equal rights and immunities with others." Nor yet, .
278 ITALY.
when I told him that this was in accordance with the genius of our government, for we had no established religion, all being equally tolerated, is it very surprising that he should say in reply, as he did, that he considered " true toleration to consist in leaving every one to worship God according to his own choice." From such sentiments, uttered under such circumstances, we can form no definite opinion of the tendency of a religious system. To as- certain this we should inquire, " What are the fundamental doc- trines and usages of this system?" and "What has been, and what is now, the practical working of the system ?"
A leading and a fundamental doctrine of Romanism is, that one man is the keeper of another's conscience. This doctrine is es- tablished by the principle of ecclesiastical supremacy and author- ity,* pervading the entire body from the sovereign pontiff down- ward ; and is especially enforced through the system of auricular confession. A part of the same system is the withholding of the Scriptures from the common people, and the strict prohibition — a prohibition enforced with the severest anathemas — forbidding the people to judge for themselves in matters of faith and practice. This is, of itself, a spiritual and religious despotism ; nothing else can be made of it ; and, therefore, its natural and certain operation, where it is not counteracted by extraneous and powerful barriers, is against civil liberty. All the machinery of the monastic orders is a part also of the same system. So also is the doctrine of penance, which, of course, is a sort of sanction and enforcement of ecclesiastical authority. To this same end, also, the power of the keys, and the cognate doctrine of absolution, contribute pow- erfully ; for by these the priesthood get the power over the purse as well as over the conscience. Such power is exerted even in our own country. Instances have been known in which the poor have given all their earnings to the priest, to obtain absolution for themselves, or indulgence for some deceased friend, to get him out of purgatory, and have applied to Protestants for bread to feed themselves and families. Now look at this power in its accumu- lated form : power over men's faith ; power over their conscience ; power over their souls in this life to forgive or to condemn ; power over their souls in another world to bind in purgatory or to loose from purgatory ; and, by virtue of this power, a control over the wealth of the rich and the pittance of the poor ; can its tendency
ROMANISM INCOMPATIBLE WITH RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. 279
be other than subversive of both civil and religious liberty ? How soon will the power of the sword follow ? How soon will this ecclesiastical authority associate itself with the secular power, and both be exerted to bring the multitude into the most abject subjection ? It is thus that Romanism ever has tended, and ever will tend, to the subversion of liberty, " in all the appropriate cir- cumstances of its being." And this has been its uniform character. Nay, the decrees of councils and of popes have arrogated the right and duty to the Catholic church of punishing incorrigible sinners for their heresy and impenitency. This has kindled the fires of the martyrs, excited the bloodiest persecutions, and arrayed all the tortures, and perpetrated all the cruelties, of the Inquisition.
Even now, although the spirit of the age has literally forced the church to the abandonment of their cruelties and enormities, yet we see still in operation the same opposition to liberty. Every advance that England has made in liberty she has made in oppo- sition to Romanism, until Romanism was thrown into the minority ; since which, papists in England and Ireland have been great stick- lers for toleration. France has advanced only in opposition to the same influence ; and, if this religion had been able to maintain its sway over the nation, it would have remained in thraldom until this hour. And who are at this moment the greatest opposers of constitutional liberty in Spain and Portugal ? Who are the Carl- ists and Miguelites of the day ? The Roman Catholic priests and those under their influence.
And what, after all, is the boasted toleration of Gregory XVI. ? His definition does not come up to the true definition of toleration. It is not enough to " allow others to worship as they choose." True toleration gives the privilege of propagating as well as en- joying. But what is the true state of the case at Rome ? From the time of the dispersion of the Vaudese congregations and the Reformers in the latter half of the sixteenth century, although there were numerotfe little churches extending through Italy, there was no Protestant worship allowed in Rome until the peace of 1814. Up to 1770, or near that time, all Protestants who died in Rome were obliged to be carried outside of the city wall, and be buried under the muro torto, opposite to the ancient entrance of the Borghese villa, among the malefactors who died without penitence. About this time permission was obtained to bury a
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young German nobleman, on account of his wealth, in the open field of Testaceous, near the pyramid of Caius Sestus. Very- few other examples were known until the time of the French domination. "When the Continent was open for the English, after 1814, the part they had taken in the general struggle, and the in- fluence they had in Europe, gave the English emigrants a claim for some degree, at least, of religious toleration, and could not, with any show of propriety, be denied them. They assembled first in a room near Trajan's Forum ; but, in consequence of some unfavourable impression upon the mind of Pius VII., or, more prob- ably, perhaps, in consequence of a hope on his part of being able gradually to return to the old exclusive policy, especially as France and Spain seemed to be encouraging such a hope, the worship was removed without the Porta del Popolo, where it still re- mains. In 1819, also, the King of Prussia set up worship, con- nected with his embassy in Rome, which is still continued, and where all Protestants who understand the German language can attend and hear the gospel faithfully preached, in accordance with the Protestant faith.
In the mean time a Protestant burying-ground has been estab- lished in the field above alluded to, near the tomb of Caius Sestus, which is pleasantly situated and walled in. A Protestant hospital is also in progress, and will soon be completed, on the Tarpeian Rock ; so that the spot once celebrated for popular violence or public executions will be transformed into a house of refuge and a hospice of mercy for those who need the charities of their fellow- Christians. These are evidences that public opinion is making advancement on the intolerance of popery ; but the very reluctance and obstinacy with which this subject has been treated show what is the spirit of popery.
Look at another fact : — The Rev. Mr. Burgess, the English Protestant minister in Rome, has published a volume of discourses, preached in his own congregation, which the Catholics consider an attack upon the supremacy and infallibility of the pope, insomuch that this volume has been put upon the Index Expurgatorius by the Roman government ; still they dare not, if they would, expel Mr. Burgess from the country, for he is too highly respected.*
* This worthy and able clergyman has now left Rome, having accepted of a call to a parish in Chelsea, England.
ROMANISM INCOMPATIBLE WITH RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. 281
And yet, instead of making him answer for his heresy at the tri- bunal of the Inquisition, which was the former summary process against heretics, they have to resort to the Protestant method of settling the controversy, viz., to argument. Two pamphlets have already been issued against Mr. Burgess's book. One step more is necessary, however, before the improvement in the spirit and course of the government can be very much commended, and that is, to permit Mr. Burgess and any other Protestants to defend their own views through the medium of the press. Until the Catholic church is willing to risk herself in the open field of controversy, she voluntarily concedes her own weakness, and virtually records, in the face of the world, her own consciousness that her dogmas and her practices cannot bear the test of a fair investigation ; a concession this which ought of itself to make every intelligent Catholic suspicious of his faith. What a contemptible position is that of the Roman pontiff and his advisers at this moment, in reference to this very question ! Here is a Protestant clergyman who is tolerated, and whose lectures to his own people, when published, are prohibited ; they are, nevertheless, in circulation, and to meet them the dignitaries of the Roman church take up the defence, and endeavour to evade the force of the well-aimed arrow at the supremacy of the Roman pontiff, by argument; but, in doing it, they are careful to throw around them the shield of the government, so that they are in little danger of a return fire, which, if they had expected, doubtless they never would have provoked, or, at least, they would have guarded against it by better arguments than those with which they seem to have man- aged this affair.
The subverters of liberty are always afraid of the press, for the reason that, when the press is free, liberty flourishes ; but, when the press is shackled, in the same proportion is liberty infringed. And what is the practice of the Roman court with respect to the press, we have seen. Indeed, the government has still in full op- eration the Index Expurgatorius, which is a list of such books as are prohibited and of such as are allowed. The luggage of travellers is liable to examination to see whether they have any of these prohibited works. So strict is the surveillance and cen- sorship of the press, that not even a sonnet can be published for a special occasion, like that of taking the veil already men.' 24 N N
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tioned, without getting it vised by the proper officer, with a con permesso.
The government and the priesthood are so fearful lest t hat pub- lic opinion, which has already done so much towards resisting the encroachments of Romanism, should finally wrest from them the censorship of the press, that they make this a part of their public preaching. During the forty days of Lent, a popular Jesuit priest from Lucca visited Rome, and preached every day. On one oc- casion he took this for his text, " Whom the Son makes free is free indeed." His object was to show the difference between true and false liberty ; and, in order to this, he drew a lively picture of what he called the liberals of the day, whose liberty, he said, con- sisted in a claim to " think what they pleased," " say what they pleased," and " publish what they pleased." After showing the inconsistency and danger of such a claim, without making any distinction between legal and moral right, or between men's polit- ical and religious opinions, and by adroitly connecting with this liberty individual slander, blasphemy, and treason, he swept the whole claim away by a popular harangue, and then burst out into gratulations of " happy Italy ! that was saved by the paternal care of government from this licentiousness." This shows how Roman- ism hangs upon despotism as her only hope.
And to what is the prevailing ignorance of the populace to be attributed but to this same spirit of despotism? If the mind of the populace were enlightened, it could not be enthralled. Hence ignorance is perpetuated. How easy it would be for the eccle- siastics that swarm all over the land, like the locusts of Egypt, to take hold of the rising generation and elevate them at once ! There are enough, who are now worse than idle, fed upon the public in- dustry, to educate the entire population. Why do they not do it ? Because this would be the death-warrant to their own usurped au- thority over the public mind. View this system, then, as you may, in every possible aspect — in its doctrines, in its theory of gov eminent, in its ecclesiastical claims, and in its practical operations — and you find everywhere, and at all times, that the spirit of Ro- manism is incompatible with civil and religious liberty. That it is incompatible with free inquiry is evident not only from what has just been said of the prevailing ignorance of the day, but also from the present intolerance of the papal government. If Catho-
-.
TENDENCY OF POPERY TO ENCOURAGE VICE. 283
'ics deny what is here declared, and, I think, proved to be the tendency of this religion, let them at least unshackle the press, let them permit Protestants to enter the states of the pope, yea, Rome itself, with the Bible, and with free liberty to disseminate Protestant doctrines, and establish Protestant churches and schools. Let the field of argument be thrown open. If the pope likes Ameri- can toleration, let him adopt it. We permit his missionaries to propagate their religion among us, to work the press and fill the pulpit, to erect ecclesiastical edifices and establish churches, and until we in turn are permitted to do this in Rome, what confidence can we place in a bustling officiousness in the cause of liberty by Catholics in Ireland or America ? What can we think of it but that it is a species of Jesuitism, designed merely as a feint to blind our eyes, until strength and numbers enable them to adjust their political course to a more perfect accordance with their own system ?
Let not Catholics in this country say this is persecution, and try to shelter themselves under the sympathies of the people. It is truth, and they know it to be, and every thinking mind must believe it to be truth until Catholics alter their course. Nor will even this avail them if the powers that be wait until public opin- ion forces them to change. Let the pope now issue his bull, and let it come sanctioned by his cardinals, declaring that he has full confidence in the power and stability of his religion, built, as it is, upon " this rock ;" that he challenges the world to meet it in the field of argument ; that Protestants may preach and publish their views of religious truth in the very seat of the Roman See. Let Rome be missionary ground for Protestants, as the United States are missionary ground for Catholics. When he does this, then may Catholics talk about liberty in this country with some plau- sibility ; but, until this is done, and done voluntarily, we are bound, by all past experience and by present doctrines and practice, to believe the spirit of popery utterly incompatible ivith civil and religious liberty.
THE TENDENCY OF POPERY IS RATHER TO ENCOURAGE THAN TO RESTRAIN VICE.
This might not strike the superficial observer, when, for the first time, he was introduced into a Catholic country, and saw all th6
284 ITALY.
array of devotional exercises and religious associations, together with all the terrors that are hung out as motives of alarm and fear to the 'ignorant populace. If, therefore, at this time, he should be informed that the history of the church shows her to have been very corrupt in the great whole, both in her laity and clergy, and that the history of those nations which have been the most fully under the influence of popery shows them to be among the most notorious for moral corruption, this would lead to an inquiry for the reason ; and a little investigation would show that there are various causes which produce this, and causes, too, that exist in the very constituent principles of popery. In the first place, he would see that the law of celibacy, which is binding on so many priests and monastic orders of both sexes, has a direct tendency to licentiousness.
In the second place, the doctrines are not suited to eradicate sin. The doctrines of penance, and of works of supererogation, and of clerical absolution, and of purgatory, and of masses for the dead, and of transubstantiation, not only leave the passions of the heart unsubdued, but do, in fact, substitute something else for per- sonal holiness. Spread such doctrines as these over the world, and give them the ascendency in every heart, and you have gained noth- ing towards the moral renovation of man. Let a man believe that a priest can procure absolution, and that he will do it for money or for penance, and will he give himself the trouble to forsake his sins ? Let him believe that he can be prayed out of purgatory if he goes there, and will he be very anxious about his course of life ? Let him believe that, by partaking of the sacrament, he eats the body of Christ, and that whosoever eats it shall live for ever, and will he not trust to this rather than to personal holiness ? Nay, Romanism being true, it is difficult to see how any one dying within the pale of the church can be finally lost. He may have to do penance in purgatory a long time, but he will sooner or later come out. And when he sees on a church door or over an altar, " Indulgences given here daily" (or every Tuesday and Friday, &c., as the case may be) " for the living and the dead — pro vivis et defunctis ;" and over another altar, " Two souls are released from purgatory every time mass is celebrated here ;" or when he learns that, " by climbing the holy staircase on his knees, he may reduce the period of his purgatorial pains two hundred years >'*
ROMANISM OPPOSED TO POLITICAL ECONOMY. 285
when he becomes acquainted, in fine, with the various ways of escaping from the punishment of sin without forsaking sin, he will be very likely to sin on, trusting to his membership in the only true church for ultimate and final deliverance, and to some of these various devices for an early escape from the flames of purgatory. In this way a man may be very superstitious and religious, and yet very wicked ; he may fear he shall hazard his salvation by neglecting his Ave Maria, although he rises from it to go and commit robbery and murder without compunction. Our vetturino would swear most blasphemously, and the next moment you might see him raising his hat to a madonna rudely painted by the way- side. In short, while I am far from thinking that the present race of Italians are sinners above all ; nay, while I believe there is as little danger of personal violence or theft in Italy as in most other countries, yet I think licentiousness prevails and dishonesty ; and my decided convictions are, that the tendency, on the whole, of the Catholic religion is to encourage vice rather than restrain it ; and, while I give due credit to individual character for morality and piety wherever found, still I believe a careful examination of the morals of Christendom will show that Protestant communities, other circumstances being equal, have the decided advantage in point of moral character.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION HAS A DIRECT TENDENCY TO EMPOVERISH A NATION, AND IS DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED TO THE SOUNDEST PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.
If it were true that there is no salvation out of the Catholic church, this objection would be of little weight, for " what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?" But we are examining its exclusive claims, and in this examina- tion we find all these considerations against it. Nor is it a small objection to any system of religion that it empoverishes a nation. There is%more connexion between pecuniary thrift and moral character than most are aware of, and a more close alliance be- tween mere worldly prosperity and intellectual and moral eleva- tion of character than any who have not examined this subject have conceived of. I speak now as well of that general diffusion of wealth, and of that kind of worldly thrift that opens the way for competency, and something more than competency, for the
286 ITALY.
great mass of the people, as also of the amassing of larger fortunes by the more enterprising and more favoured. Now it is obvious, I think, that Roman Catholicism is prejudicial to this increase of wealth in any form, and that, so far as wealth is accumulated in Catholic countries, the tendency of their institutions is to a very unequal distribution of wealth, making some very rich and others beggarly poor. We have already seen that this system encour- ages ignorance in the multitude, and is opposed to civil liberty ; and this, of itself, is sufficient to show its influence upon the ac- quisition and diffusion of wealth ; for when a great portion of the people are kept in ignorance and in thraldom, they will, of course, be wretchedly poor. This, therefore, is one argument to show the tendency of popery ; and we might draw another from the past history and present condition of Catholic countries, and we should find the same truth established. France, while she was under the exclusive experiment of Catholic ascendency, felt the force of this truth. It must, indeed, be granted, that her court as well as her religion was extravagant and prodigal, but both causes united to press her down beyond endurance ; and, since the power and influence of her clergy and of her monastic institutions have been shaken off, notwithstanding her numerous and expensive wars, she has been advancing in wealth, while Spain, and Portugal, and
Se Brazils, and Italy herself, all of which have remained under e influence of the priesthood, have remained, also, compara- tively poor. Go to Ireland, and there you will see Catholic Ire- land most miserably degraded and poor, even to a state of starva- tion, and Protestant Ireland comparatively wealthy and comforta- ble. Go to Switzerland, where all have equally enjoyed the ad- vantages of liberty and the fruits of their industry, and mark the difference ; a difference visible upon the very surface between the Catholic and Protestant cantons and towns. But, leaving other countries, let us confine our views to Italy. Italy is full of beg- gars. Italy is oppressed with poverty. It is not merely because wealth is very unequally divided, although that is true so far as wealth exists, but the real truth is, comparatively speaking, the whole community is poor, high and low, rulers and ruled. With the exception of some public edifices, religious and others, you are struck with the poverty of the country ; I speak more espe- cially of Southern Italy. Now why is this ? It might be said, I
Irnnw
ROMANISM OPPOSED TO POLITICAL ECONOMY. 287
know, that it is owing to wars and public robbery ; that, under all circumstances and in every event, poor Italy is the prize con- tended for and the country that is plundered. Grant that this has been to a great extent true ; still it is no more applicable to Italy than to many other countries. Besides, it has now been twenty-two years that she has enjoyed freedom from public plun- der and from foreign invasion. How ought a country with the re- sources of Italy to have risen up from her poverty in this period of peace and security ? But the torpor of death is upon her still. Nay, it may be safely assumed that the wars and changes of the Bonapartean period were, in point of wealth, after all, beneficial to Italy, Certain it is that during that period the national debts of Florence, and Rome, and Naples were mostly paid off.* Public works that had long been neglected were recommenced and per- fected ; roads and bridges were made, cities were adorned, anti- quities were excavated from the accumulated rubbish of centuries, and the spirit of enterprise and industry was waked up in every direction, insomuch that the old King of Naples, it is said, hardly knew his kingdom when he returned to it after the pacification of 1814. Grant, if it is required, that much of this was done by the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, still that only favours my argument, for it shows that, under the Catholic influence, a vast amount of wealth was accumulated in the hands of the church in various forms which was dead capital, and it was by breaking down this policy of the Roman church that not only were all the expenses of these wars refunded and foreign rapacity satiated, but the public debts were discharged and the aggregate of availa- ble wealth increased. The plea of exhaustion from war and for- eign plunder, therefore, cannot avail to account for the present state of the country.
This poverty cannot be from the country's being overstocked with inhabitants ; for Tuscany, for example, has but about one hundred and thirty-five to a square mile, while France has one hundred and fifty, and England about two hundred and sixty.
It cannot be for the want of resources, for the soil of the plains and valleys is very rich, producing two crops a year ; the hills are
* The Roman states were relieved of a debt of about one hundred and thirty-six mill- ions ; seventy millions of this, however, was a paper currency, which had greatly depre- ciated in value, and which the French never recognised ; and it must also be acknowl- edged that they did not pay the full value of the balance.
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fruitful in vines, olives, and other fruits ; and the mountains abound in minerals. There is also abundant water-power for machinery, and the entire country is a peninsula surrounded with navigable waters, and indented with innumerable bays and har- bours.
Will it be said the people lack enterprise ? This is grant- ed ; but what has destroyed their enterprise ? The climate ? But when and where was there a more enterprising race than the ancient Romans who inhabited the same country ? The spirit of popery has broken down their enterprise, and never will they be restored to activity and enterprise until this incubus be removed from them. It takes away the key of knowledge from the great mass of the people ; it shrouds their minds in superstition, and superinduces an intellectual torpor.
But, above all, the Catholic religion absorbs the great whole of the fruits of the industry of the people in a barren consumption. Never before, I believe, was there so costly a religion as this. Look at some of the principal items : First, notice the expense of the churches ; the traveller is astonished at the multitude of the churches that he sees in Italy, both in town and country ; in the vales and on the mountains ; where there are inhabitants and where there are none ; for it is often the case that some saint will have a church and a shrine at a distance of one, two, three, or more miles from the habitations of men, which is used, perhaps, once or twice a year on some fete day, on which a company make a pilgrimage thither to celebrate mass. Every little town and village will have a number. Rome, for example, has one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, and three hundred churches. Many of these are splendid and extravagantly expensive. St. Peter's alone, with all its fixtures, furniture, paintings, mosaics, and stat- uary, cost from fifty to fifty-five millions of dollars ; and although there are no other churches to be compared with this, yet there are a number of churches in Rome that must have cost several millions each. I should judge it a moderate calculation to esti- mate the cost of the churches and ecclesiastical edifices of Rome at one hundred and fifty millions. And what does all this expend- iture return for the outlay ? Nothing ; for the most part worse than nothing, because it only furnishes occasion for the employ- ment of an army of sinecures. It is true, an adequate number of
ROMANISM OPPOSED TO POLITICAL ECONOMY. 289
churches of reasonable expense, and a competent supply of reli- gious teachers, are an advantage to a nation even in a pecuniary point of view ; but how trifling the necessary amount compared with this ?
Secondly, look at the number of ecclesiastics, monks, and nuns of every grade. It would be interesting to know the proportion that the priests, monks, and nuns bear to the whole population. I was told, with how much accuracy I cannot say, that in Florence, which has a population of about eighty thousand, there were five thousand priests and other ecclesiastics. Probably this was a high estimate, but certainly there are very many. It seemed as though every fifth or eighth man we met in the street was a priest I tried to ascertain from the priests themselves the number of their profession in Rome. They were either ignorant or unwill- ing to tell. Their answer was, Molto ! molto ! There are, how- ever, according to the best information I could get, from one thou- sand five hundred to two thousand priests and bishops, and about double that number of monks and nuns. These monastic estab- lishments were almost wholly suppressed by the French, but have been restored by the pope. Not so many of the provincial mon- asteries, however, have been restored in the Roman states ; and in the Austrian dominions in Northern Italy none of the orders or religious houses have been restored. In the kingdom of Naples, before the revolutions there and its subsequent subjugation to the French, the whole number of ecclesiastics was about one hundred thousand, which was supported at an expense of about nine mill- ions of dollars annually. Some of the religious houses of 'this kingdom have been restored, and it is not for the want of a good will in the pope that all have not.
By this multitude of priests and other ecclesiastics it is seen that not only is there a direct tax upon the country for their sup- port, but there is also subtracted from the industry of the country the amount of what these ecclesiastics might have contributed to it if they had been engaged in some industrious calling. This is a great tax, certainly, upon the income of a nation.
tSome of these orders live upon incomes of certain estates at- ached to them ; others, and a very considerable portion, are of he mendicant orders. They possess no property, and live upon charity. We had hardly got settled in our lodgings in Rome be 25 Oo
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fore one of these licensed beggars called on us, with his creden- tials, stating that their monastery supported many of the suffering poor, &c. It is said there are ten convents in Rome that employ public beggars constantly.
The frequent feasts and religious days in this country are a great tax upon the industry of the people ; at the same time they cultivate indolent habits, and thus prove a double loss to the com- munity. To this we might add the processions and the pilgrim- ages, which are all a tax of a similar nature, and they also en- courage idleness.
In short, the wax candles that are burnt in Roman Catholic countries, most of them in broad daylight, would of themselves make a handsome revenue. I have seen large processions mo- ving through the streets of Rome and Naples, with their large wax candles flaring away in the wind ; and so valuable was the drip- ping wax to the poor, that the boys, one at each* candle, running by the side, caught it in a piece of paper as it fell. I have seen five or six hundred of these burning at a time in one church. Eighty are kept constantly burning before the shrine of St. Peter in St. Peter's Cathedral.
When all these enormous expenses are taken into the account, can any one wonder at the poverty of the people, or doubt that this system is at direct variance with the soundest principles of political economy ?
These are some of the objections that have occurred to me as operating decidedly and fatally against the character and claims of the Roman Catholic Church. And, however little they may avail with such &s are Catholics, they ought to have their weight with Protestants, as well to guard their own minds against the plausible insinuations of the system, as also to keep up the influ- ence of an enlightened public sentiment on this subject. Let Ro- man Catholics have full liberty to exercise and propagate their re- ligion ; but let Protestants ever bear in mind what have been and what are now the essential features of a church that must always maintain the same character in all its parts, or cease to be what she claims to be — the infallible and only Church of Christ.
W. FISK
Rome, March, 1836.
THE CAPITOL AND FORUM. 291
CHAPTER XV.
I have much to say of Rome if I mention but a tithe of the in- teresting objects found here. I am aware, however, that the limits prescribed to myself in this journal will not permit a very minute description of even the most prominent of these objects. But I must make a selection, and briefly notice a few.
The first thing that the stranger thinks of, in starting out from his lodgings when once he gets settled in Rome, is its antiquities. At least such were my feelings, and I could not be satisfied until I was taken in medias res. I desired to commence my observa- tions just as the great Roman poet began his ^Eneid — in the very centre of affairs. I designed, indeed, ultimately to follow out each episode, and learn all the circumstances, direct and collateral ; but who could endure to begin with these ? Take me to the Fo- rum ; to the focal point of interest ; not only because it was the theatre of most of the great public events of ancient Rome, but also because here and in this neighbourhood remain in greatest abundance and perfection the columns, the temples, the triumphal arches, and other monuments of the ancient city. Take me to the Capitol ; to the Via Sacra ; to Nero's Golden House ; to the Tarpeian Rock ; to^the amphitheatre of Titus. Take me to some pinnacle where I can see the " seven hills" of the ancient city, and whatever of ancient objects which, though now in ruins, still cluster around their classic brows, or have been excavated from the intervening valleys. It was done ; and the first week we spent in Rome, which, the reader will recollect, was before our visit to Naples, we took a general view of most that was to be seen of these ancient ruins. The first day — the first morning, we were at the Capitol and in the Forum. Full many a time afterward we revisited this spot, and hung around these relics of an ancient world, but the charm never wore off. Indeed, the more we vis- ited and gazed, the more I found my feelings clustering around these ruins ; just as you often see the modern ivy insert its fibrous root into the walls of the ancient tower, or cover with its fresh and recent foliage the crumbling capital of an ancient column.*
* « In contemplating antiquities the mind itself becomes antique."— LIVY.
292 ITALY.
The ancient Roman Forum was a space of very considerable extent, between the Capitoline and Palatine Hills ; or, more prop- erly, extending from the foot of the former on the east, along the base of the latter on the north. This was surrounded with tem- ples, basilicas, and various public edifices and monuments. At the west was the Capitol, the foundations of which still remain, and on which the modern edifice called the Capitol is built. Near to this are the remains of a temple supposed to have been dedicated to Fortune. There are still standing eight columns, six in front and one each side, of granite, and of the Ionic order, hav- ing an entablature and a pediment. Near this are three columns of the portico of a temple, built by Augustus to the honour of Jupiter Tonans, or Jove the Thunderer, in commemoration of and gratitude for his escape from lightning. A part of the entab- lature and frieze also remains. The order is Corinthian, and the workmanship and proportions very fine ; such as might be expect- ed to be built in the Roman Forum in the Augustan age. Near this also was the Temple of Concord, the base of which has been excavated. Farther down is the triumphal arc of Septimus Sev- erus, erected in the beginning of the third century to commemo- rate his victory over the Parthians. It stands directly over the Via Sacra. These triumphal arcs or arches are all built in a fine style of architecture, and generally have embossed upon them symbolical representations of the battles fought and victories won by the heroes they are designed to honour, together with appro- priate inscriptions. The top, for the most part — such, we are in- formed, was the case with this of Severus — was surmounted with a triumphal car and horses, and sometimes other figures. They spanned the road or street in architectural grandeur and beauty, and through them the processions moved in triumph. Passing east from this arch you come to that erected in honour of Titus after the taking of Jerusalem. The bassi relievi on one side of this arch represent the spoils of the temple, viz., incense vessels, the golden candlesticks, the table of show-bread, and the jubilee 1 rumpets. As it is natural to suppose that these are an exaet rep- resentation of the original, we have in this manner handed down to us, through the pride of a Roman hero, the models of these an- cient vessels, planned by the Divine Architect himself. This arch has been so much restored and repaired that most of tho
THE VIA SACRA. 293
structure is modern, the interior part of the arch being the chief that appears of the ancient structure. Still farther east, and bear- ing to the south, you come to the noblest monument of the kind now remaining in Rome — the arch of Constantine. This has twa side arches and a grand central arch ; the whole in a fine state of preservation.
But, in following out the triumphal monuments, we have left the Forum, and must go back to notice a few other objects a little more particularly. The Via Sacra, or Sacred Way, which we traversed to visit these arches, was so called because here sacri- fices were offered at the time peace was confirmed between those ancient chieftains Romulus and Tatius. Its pavements are still firm ; and well they may be, for, like another Pompeii, they have but recently been excavated from the oblivious tomb of centuries. It has never been satisfactorily accounted for that there has been such an accumulation of earth in the Forum as to bury the streets: and the temples to the depth of twenty and thirty feet. On this point history is silent, and conjecture is vague and unsatisfactory. Nor is this accumulation in this spot only, but all over the ancient city, especially the lower parts, while the hills seem lessened ; so that, by the lowering of the hills and filling up the vales, the seven hills have lost much of their prominency and distinctness.
Much still remains to be excavated from the ruins of Rome, and, at present, the work goes on slowly. While Rome was an imperial city of the French empire, most was done that has ever been done, and, unless times alter, that ever will be done, by way of exhuming these buried relics of ancient art. There were quite a number of state prisoners, with their wheelbarrows and spades, in the Forum ; most of them, however, basking or sleeping in the sun. From their appearance and idleness, I should judge that the state criminals of Rome were better provided for, and with less labour, than most of his holiness's labouring poor,
A modern street runs at oblique angles across the Via Sacra, and a little east of the arch of Septimus, from which you have to look down some twenty feet upon the pavement of this ancient street and the ruins around it. On the side opposite, that is, east of the modern street, is a beautiful column still standing, with a square base, ascended on every side by steps, called Phocas's Column, erected in honour of the emperor of that name ; farther
294 ITALY.
east, and near the Palatine Hill, stand three other fluted Corn* thian columns, surmounted by a broken entablature. These are conjectured to be the remains of the Temple of Jupiter Stator, or Jupiter who maketh to stand or stop, so called because, when his soldiers were fleeing from the Sabines, Romulus, by praying to Jupiter, was enabled to arrest their flight at this spot, and turn the battle against their pursuers with such success as to gain the victory ; in devout gratitude for which this temple was erected. We cannot so much wonder at the superstition of the ancient pa- gan Romans, who built temples to the gods who had favoured them, when the modern Christian Romans pay their religious ob- ligations in the same way. How hard for man to learn, that the only way of discharging his debt of gratitude to God, his creator and preserver, is to consecrate to him his heart and his life.
Near the last-mentioned spot, and some suppose that these columns are a part of the architectural adornings of the place it- self, was the Comitium, where the public curise were held. Here formerly grew the fig-tree called Ruminalis, under which, ac- cording to tradition, Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she-wolf. Not far from this were the Curia Hostilia, where the senate used to assemble, so called because erected by Tullus Hos- tilius. On these ruins now stands the Church of St. Theodore '* for it is the practice in Rome, and, indeed, throughout Italy, to build churches on the sites of ancient temples and other edifices. Where any part of the ancient edifice stands, it is incorporated into the modern structure ; or, if the ancient building is entire, it is metamorphosed into a church ; such, for example, is the Pan- theon, hereafter noticed.
In this part of the Forum was the Rostra, where the public or- ators harangued the people. On the north side of the Forum was the Temple of Antoninus and his wife Faustina, than which latter there has scarcely lived a more scandalous and worthless woman ; and yet to her, conjointly with her husband, the Roman senate erected a temple, some parts of which, the columns of the portico and an ancient frieze, remain, and are incorporated with the Church of St. Lorenzo en Miranda. Then come the Temple of
* Some think this church, which is itself an ancient edifice, is on the site of the an- cient Temple of Romulus. There is a difficulty in fixiag the precise locality of some of these edifices.
THE COLOSSEUM. 293
Remus, the Temple of Peace, and here the stranger is especially attracted by the extensive ruins of the Basilica of Constantine, said to have been three hundred feet in length and two hundred in breadth. Three immense arches remain almost entire, and one of the columns may be seen at the Church of Maria Maggi- ore, sixteen feet in circumference and forty-eight feet high, one entire fluted shaft of white marble.
But we must advance again to the east, and, keeping to the left of the road that leads you to the arch of Constantine, leaving on either hand the ruinous indications at every step of the splendid edifices which once crowded this region of the city, you come soon to the gigantic Colosseum, the most magnificent ruin, I doubt not, in the world. Ruin I call it, and yet, if the hand of man had not been employed in its demolition, it would have remained almost entire until now. The materials of which it is composed are principally the travertina marble, already described in the ac- count of the temples at Paestum. It is here sometimes called Lapis Tiburtinus, because the stone is formed and found in great abundance at Tivoli, the ancient Tibur. In addition to the imper- ishable nature of the material, the blocks are so immensely large that they bid defiance to the assaults of centuries ; so large, in fact, that it seems almost incredible how, in the then existing state of the mechanic arts, they could have been raised to their places in the elevated parts of the building. In addition to the character and size of the material, the form of the edifice, an oval, was the best to endure. It can hardly fail to strike all who examine an- cient edifices, how much more general and entire are preserved structures of a circular form and finished with arches, than those of a rectangular form. The reason, however, is most obvious; the former are constructed on those principles by which every part strengthens a part in the most perfect manner possible. Hence, in a great many of the structures where one portion was in one form and the other portion in another, we find the circular and arched parts remaining, while the others are gone. Much more remains when all is circular. Then, whether the edifice have to endure the assaults of war, the shocks of earthquakes, the strokes of lightning, or the more gradual corrosions of time, it is best prepared to resist. The Colosseum has endured all these, and would have withstood all these, but that, by the via
296 ITALY.
lence of a siege and the shock of #n earthquake, some of the stones were loosened, and then it became the vast quarry from which popes, cardinals, and princes obtained their materials for their palaces and churches, so that a good share of modern Rome was erected out of the ruins of this wonder of the world. This work went on for centuries, so that on one side this amphitheatre is greatly diminished and deformed. At length the place was con- secrated for religious worship, and, what good taste could not protect, superstition has effectually defended, so true is it that in many of their tendencies
"E'en our failings lean to virtue's side."
If, in the providence of God, some follies and evils did not coun- teract others, this world would long since have been a howling wilderness. Now the interior is filled with shrines and altars, crosses and images, presenting to the mind of the spectator, as he sees the devotees bowing, and praying, and crossing themselves in this once bloody arena, a pleasant reflection on the contrast between the present and former use of this theatre.
On the parts where the most injury has been sustained, repairs have been made, and buttresses built to stay the progress of dis- solution and dilapidation.
It may not be unnecessary for some of my readers to state that this stupendous work was reared under the direction of Vespasian and Titus, and opened by the latter in the year eighty of the Christian era. At its consecration (desecration) gladiatorial sports were celebrated for one hundred days, during which time it is said five thousand wild beasts and many thousands of gladiators were sacrificed. So eager were the ancient Romans for these cruel sports, that this amphitheatre, capable as it was of contain- ing in the seats and galleries above one hundred thousand, could by no means furnish room for all who crowded to the bloody scene. The seats began to be filled at midnight in order to be in time to see the morning games. Twice a day the sen- ators and principal citizens came to the spectacle. A virgin gave the signal to commence, and, when a gladiator was wounded, it depended upon this class of the auditory to decide whether he should be spared or despatched ; sometimes they gave the signal to spare, and sometimes to complete the work of death. If the vic- tim died gracefully, he had the satisfaction of hearing the whole
DESCRIPTION OF THE COLOSSEUM.
amphitheatre ring again with applause ! What a comfort ! what a triumph ! must this be to the dying slave ! And, after the butch- ery was over, while the arena was smoking in blood, the refined and polished ladies of Rome went down into it and partook of a feast ! And, finally, the water from two aqueducts was poured into the theatre, to wash out the blood and cleanse it for another exhibition. Such was the character of polished Rome ! Such the morality of the most improved and cultivated city of its day ! Such is human nature at its best estate, unaided by the light and grace of the gospel.
This amphitheatre is one thousand six hundred and forty-one Paris feet in circumference, and one hundred and fifty-seven in height ; the arena is two hundred and eighty-five Paris feet in length, by one hundred and eighty-two in breadth. This part was surrounded by a wall to protect the spectators against the wild beasts. Here first sat the emperor, and other officers of govern- ment and Roman nobles, and then the seats, range above range, falling back in wider and sublimer circles, were divided to the citizens according to their respective ranks. To each section there were separate entrances, opening by exterior arches, all of which were numbered, to direct each one to his appropriate place, and approached by flights of stairs in due order. There were, in all, seventy-six entrances for the people, besides two for the em- peror and two for the gladiators. Quite round each story, within the outer wall, was a wide covered corridor leading to the different staircases. These were rightly called Vomitorii, for thence were poured out the hundred thousand spectators when the exhibition was ended. But I feel little inclined to pursue this description further, as I am conscious of being unable to give any adequate conception of it. While in Rome I visited it by day and by night ; I saw it by the light of the sun and by the light of the moon, and it was, under all circumstances, the same magnificent, wondrous, awe-exciting monument of human art. Near it stood that colos- sal bronze statue of Nero, one hundred and twenty feet high, which is supposed to have given name to the edifice — Colosseum.
Now cross again to the Palatine Hill, noticing, as you pass out, the ruins of an ancient fountain called Meta Sudens ; Meta, be- cause it was shaped like the meta or bound of a circus, and Su- dens, sweating, because it had a jet-dteau of water at the top
"
298 ITALY.
Entering upon the Palatine Hill through the gates into the pleasure gardens surrounding the residence of an English gentleman, you find yourself upon the site of the ancient palace of the Caesars, the ruins of which skirt the hill, and are found, indeed, under the mod- ern gardens.* Here are subterranean arches and apartments in successive stories. These ruins are too multiform and irregular to be described, but they are well calculated to excite mingled and vivid emotions in contrasting the present remains, connected as they are with modern improvements, with the grand edifices that made up this splendid palace of the Caesars. This mount once contained all the Romans ; afterward it held but one tyrant and his household ; so true is it that refined tyranny as well as savage independence both produce desolation. Here were numerous temples to the gods ; among others, more common, was one dedi- cated to Moonlight, one to that monster of sensuality Elagabalus,, one to the goddess Viri-placa, or the man-pacifier, where domestic broils were settled, and quarrelling husbands and wives became reconciled. Would not such a temple be important in every country ? Here, too, in this splendid palace, were baths, to sup- ply which, as well as to furnish water for the other purposes of the palace, the Claudian aqueduct was constructed, some arches of which still remain. It was brought over the Coelian Hill, which is situated directly to the east of the Palatine, between which and the latter is a modern street passing under the tri- umphal arch of Constantine, and this, too, was the course of the ancient triumphal way. They still show a bath in which it is said the philosopher Seneca opened his veins and died at the command of Nero ; for these ancient tyrants, when they wished to get rid of a man in a respectable way, and with as little offence as possible, used to inform the devoted person officially that it was their wish he should die, and then gave him the privilege of getting out of the world the best way he could. The more common way was to open a vein in a warm bath. Poor Seneca's bath of death is now overgrown with a luxuriant vegetation, and flowers bloom, spring- ing out of the sides and bottom of the bath itself. The golden house of Nero extended quite across from this to the Coelian Hill,
* These gardens are in the centre, but they cover only a small portion of the hill. The ruins extend to the east and west, but the most interesting are in the eastern ex- tremity of the mount.
THE TARPEIAN ROCK. 299
and, it is said, from one extremity of the hill to the other. All these splendid edifices are no more, but one extended pile of ruins instead. The terrace, however, of the Casa di Augusto, and other apartments of this palace, are tolerably preserved. This is near the eastern extremity of the mount. From this place you have a splendid view in almost every direction. To the south, between this and the Aventine Mount, which is the most southern of the seven hills, and lies just beyond the valley at your feet, is the site of the ancient Circus Maximus, or the great circus, cele- brated as a place of magnificent games from a remote antiquity. Romulus instituted these games, and it was during their celebra- tion that the Sabine women were seized by the Romans. This circus, it is said, would contain two hundred and sixty thousand spectators. To the south of this circus are seen the magnificent ruins of the Baths of Caracalla.
From the west end of the Palatine you might once have crossed over the Forum to the south part of the Capitoline Hill by Caligu- la's bridge ; but, as that exists no longer, I will just translate you, by the magic power of a journalist, who is always able, or should be, to make his readers pass rapidly and safely by an air line, if need be, over every obstruction, to the south part of the Capitoline, and place you on the top of the Tarpeian Rock, where many have perished either by the hand of the executioner or by popular vio- lence. You will be surprised to find it so low, but you must re- member that time has scraped the brow and filled up the vale. One part of it is still high enough, however, for a place of execu- tion, if that method were still practised. Passing now down the declivity to the north, through a dirty, crowded street, beset with beggars, you find yourself in the region called Velabrum. What gave rise to this name is not agreed upon, but it was evidently an important part of the ancient city, for here are still standing some fine monuments and temples ; among the former is an arch, erected by the bankers and tradesmen of Forum Boarium, which was also situated here, to Septimius Severus, and, to distinguish it from the other, it is called Arco di Septimio in Velabro ; here is also the arch of Janus Quadrifrons, composed of large blocks of white marble. It has, as its name implies, four fronts, with an arch in each, and an area in the centre which might have been a market. Of temples, here is a beautiful one of Vesta, in a good
300 ITALY
slate of preservation, having, however, a modern roof ; and here* also, is a temple converted into a modern church, containing some beautiful architectural remains, built by Servius Tullius in grati- tude for his elevation from the condition of a slave to that of a sov- ereign, and dedicated to the goddess Fortuna Virilis. But a great object of interest here is the remains of the Cloaca Maxima, or the great sewer of Rome, which came down from the Roman Forum, conducting off through this immense artery all the filth of the ancient city, and emptying it but a little distance from this into the Tiber. The masonry by which this sewer is constructed is gigantic, and must endure while the world standeth. Many of the branches of the Cloaca Maxima are choked up, and are supposed now, by breeding miasma, to produce pestilence. Now, facing the north, we may take a sweep round the west side of the Capi- toline Hill, and pass in the way some splendid ruins, of which the theatre of Marcellus is the most magnificent ; and we again ascend the mount by a flight of steps in front of the modern Capitol, which is the opposite side of the Forum. This flight of steps was planned by Michael Angelo under Pope Paul III. On the tops are two antique colossal statues of Castor and Pollux, with their horses, together with a number of beautiful ancient trophies, and two an- cient mile-stones, one of which, marked I, was the first stone on the ancient Appian Way ; and in the square above is a splendid equestrian statue of bronze of Marcus Aurelius. This is said to be the only ancient bronze equestrian statue now known to be in existence. Passing by this and to the south of the Capitol, you may call at the left at a little church called the Church of St. Jo- seph, under which is the ancient state prison of Rome, called the Mamertine Prison. This prison is of an early date, and consists of two stories ; the lower, supposed to have been built by Servius Tullius, is the one in which Jugurtha was starved to death, and where St. Peter and St. Paul were imprisoned. As we went down the staircase to these prisons, our attention was called to an indent- ation in one of the massy stones that compose the walls, about the size of a man's head, and one or two inches deep, screened by an iron grating. This was produced by St. Peter's head. When he was going into the prison, the jailer knocked his head against the wall, and the concussion made this impression in the solid rock ! Such is the fable. We descended into the lower prison, and there
THE SEVEN HILLS OF ROME. 301
they showed us the stone pillar to which the apostles were bound. Here they preached the gospel to the two jailers and forty-seven of their fellow-prisoners, all of whom were converted. It was then desirable to baptize them, but what should they do for water ? A miracle supplied this ; water gushed up from the bottom of the prison ! and there the spring is unto this day, -quite a fountain of water in the centre of the prison. These -converts were then all baptized, and subsequently suffered martyrdom. How the apostles, who were chained, could baptize them, we did not in- quire, for these custodes do not like to have their stories ques- tioned. This one affirmed most gravely that all these things were true.
This lower prison is called Tullianum, after Tullius, who built it, and is about six feet high and eighteen square. It is built of heavy blocks of stone, arched over without cement, and bids defiance to the assaults of time. A small hole at the top, big enough to let down a man, is supposed to have been the only opening ; through this aperture the prisoners were let down, and here also they re- ceived their food.
The position of four -of the seven hills of ancient Rome in their relations to each other have already been alluded to. Three of them, the Capitoline, Palatine, and Crelian, forming an arc of a cir- cle opening to the east of north, the Palatine forming the centre of the arc, and the Capitoline and Coelian the west and east ex- tremities. In a tangent with the west extremity, and lying south of the Capitoline, is the Aventine, as already described. The western base of this is washed by the Tiber, which, by a bold sweep to the left, at this point almost obtrudes itself between the Capitoline and Aventine mounts. But, having looked into this valley either for the purpose of spying out the wonders of the place, or else to tender his services to bear off the spoils of the Cloaca Maxima, for all antiquity unites in giving the Tiber personality, he shoots away again to the southwest in his rapid passage to the sea.
The three other hills lie almost opposite to the concave of the
three first named, viz., a little to the west of north, so that, if they
had been a little nearer, they would have formed the cord of the
arch ; and are arranged, beginning at the west, in the following
26
302 ITALY.
order : Quirinale, Viminale, and Esquilim. Of these only the Capitoline and Quirinale are much built upon by the moderns. The other hills are covered chiefly by the ruins of the former city. The modern city lies chiefly to the west and north. Some, how- ever, of the most splendid and interesting ruins are found in the very heart of the modern city. A few of them must be noticed.
Passing down from the Roman Forum, between the Capitoline and Qurinale hills, you come to Trajan's Forum. This must have been a splendid collection of porticoes, basilicas, temples, and other structures, in the centre of which stands that beautiful and majes- tic monument, Trajan's Pillar. It is a Doric column one hundred and thirty-two Paris feet in height, including the statue, and consists of thirty-four blocks of marble, covered from bottom to top with bassi-relievi, representing the victories over the Dacii and others. This, as has been remarked, was the model for the column of Bo- naparte, in the Place Vendome in Paris. Originally, the column was surmounted with a bronze gilt statue of Trajan ; but, at the command of Pope Sextus V., St. Peter took his place, just as St. Paul has mounted the column of Antoninus.
Trajan's Forum is but partially excavated, nor can it be further without undermining churches and palaces of more modern date. What is laid open, however, shows a succession of columns and porticoes wrhich indicate the former grandeur of the place. The public are indebted to the French for this excavation. Following down to the ancient Campus Martins, which lies in the bend of the Tiber formed by a bolder and more extended sweep to the right than the one lower down to the left already described, we came to the Pantheon, or the temple erected to all the gods. This is the most perfect of all the ancient edifices.
The temple itself is a rotunda, with an interior diameter of one hundred and forty-nine feet, and with walls eighteen feet thick, making an entire diameter of one hundred and eighty-five feet. It is lighted from the top of the dome by an aperture of about twenty-seven feet diameter. From the floor to this opening the distance is one hundred and forty-nine feet. Here, in this temple, were assembled all the principal gods of antiquity, supernal and infernal, terrestrial and marine. The vestibule is indescribably magnificent. It is supported by sixteen Corinthian columns, four-.
THE BATHS OF CARACALLA. 303
teen Paris feet in circumference and thirty-nine in height, each shaft being an entire block of red oriental granite, having bases and capitals of white marble.
But I perceive I must classify a few of the many undescribed antiquities of Rome, and so finish this part of the subject.
Terme, or baths. The remains of the ancient Roman baths, from their magnificence and extent, astonish the modern spectator. Bathing was practised by all the Romans, high and low ; and hence it became necessary to provide the accommodations for the poorer classes at the public expense.* This may account, in part, for the extent of these structures. But, in addition, the rage for splendid architecture found in these baths a field for gratification beyond almost any other; for everything that luxury could require or sensuality demand was connected with these places of public re- sort. The baths themselves were but splendid brothels for the mingling of the sexes in the most refined excesses of licentious in- dulgence.! Connected with these baths also were temples, and porticoes, and even palaces, and they were ornamented with the finest statuary of the age. As a specimen of these, take the Baths of Caracalla, situated at the south of the Coelian Hill. These baths contained one thousand six hundred bathing-places, be- sides a great number of bathing tubs of porphyry, and granite, and marble, many of which remain as beautiful specimens of ancient sculpture. There were two stories above ground, and three of subterranean apartments, and the extent of all was a square of about one thousand feet each side, the whole divided up, and finished in elegant taste and style. They were excavating in one of the courts while we were there, in which they had just laid open some beautiful mosaic pavement. They promised to bring a piece of it to my lodgings at a stipulated price, but it never came. The Roman baths were of different kinds, named according to their different character, as the laconicum, or vapour bath, the caldarium, or hot bath, the warm bath called tepidarium, and the cold, or frigidarium. The aqueducts supplied the water, and there was a hypocaustum, or great stove, which heated the water, that was conveyed by pipes to different parts of the edifice. There
* Thepoor in Rome paid about one halfpenny for bathing, but their children went free, t To aid in this, the different bathing apartments generally communicated with each" other.
304 ITALY.
was a large public hall where the bathers undressed, and apart- ments heated to different degrees for the purpose of cooling grad- ually those who had been at the hot bath. Shops, also, furnished with oil and perfumes for anointing and perfuming the rich and such as could afford itr were generally found in these baths.
Many of the arches and walls of these Baths of Caraealla are remaining; but the works of art are removed, and here were found some of the finest specimens- of sculpture extant. It has already been mentioned that the Farnese Bull and the Glycon Hercules of the Miaseo Borbonico at Naples were found here. It is now, however, utterly in ruins, having enough left to show its ancient grandeur, but nothing entire.
The Baths of Dioclesian are another specimen of this class of ruins ; but here there were also a pond for swimming in the open air, called a natatio, and a scystum, or hall for gymnastic arid gladiatorial exercises, together with libraries, temples, &c. : around it were shady walks and pleasure grounds. On a part of these ruins is the beautiful church di Santa Maria degli Angeli, the transverse nave of which is supposed to be the xystum of the baths, three hundred and eighty feet long, seventy-four wide, and eighty-four high, with the ancient columns still standing, formed out of a single block of granite forty-three feet high and sixteen in circumference. I know not that I saw anything in Rome which gave me a higher idea of the boldness and magnificence of ancient architecture than these columns. The entrance of the church is also splendid, and is supposed to be the caldarium of the ancient baths. Michael Angelo planned this church at the command of Pius IV., who dedicated these baths to pious uses, for the reason that they were built by Christians, who, to the num- ber of some thirty or forty thousand, were pressed into this ser- vice by the tyrannical Dioclesian, and, when they had accom plished the service, he caused them all to be martyred.
Another part of the baths is occupied by the church, convent, and garden of the monks of St. Bernard, and another by those of the Carthusian monks, and still another by public granaries ; and some of these once splendid edifices are full of hay and straw, like a New-England barn ! Such desecrations, in fact, are not uncommon in Rome. The Temple of Antoninus, as it is sup. posed to have been,, is the pope's dogana^ or custom-house. The
MAUSOLEUM OF AUGUSTUS. <505
Temple of Pallas is a baker's shop ; and some of the finest ruins are places of the most offensive occasions. They are often fre- quented by the most squalid beggary ; and sometimes we have found concealed among these ruins of ancient grandeur and lux- ury miserable-looking bipeds, partly stripped, and picking the ver- min from their persons. Such contrasts are certainly not in good taste ; but, in the present state of things, they seem unavoidable, and, at least, afford the moralist an occasion to reflect on the con- trasts and changes of this mutable world.
The Baths of Titus were connected with his palace, and ex- hibit some fine ruins in a good state of repair, especially some of the chambers of the palace, which exhibit frescoes almost as fresh in colouring as if they were but just painted. Here also were found some fine statuary, and especially that first among thejirst, the group of Laocoon and his children, now in the Vati- can Museum. The rubbish from these baths was principally cleared away by the French.
Another class of architectural antiquities in Rome is the Mauso* lea, or tombs. Some of these are of colossal architecture, and seem to have been built under the instinctive promptings of a desire for immortality, unaided by the light of revelation. Not having sufficient and satisfactory faith in the realities of the invis- ible world and the immortality of the soul, they aimed to secure a physical immortality for their bodies, by erecting, if possible, an indestructible mausoleum ; and I know not but they have secured their object.
Mausoleum of Augustus. — This once splendid monument is now a kind of circus, and has been used, we were told, for bull- fights and exhibitions of fireworks. It stands in the midst of other modern edifices, so closely hemmed in and concealed that I failed in several attempts to find it without a guide, although I knew within a few rods where it was situated. It was once a towering monument, rising up to the north of the Campus Martius three stories high, each higher story narrowed by a circling offset planted with evergreens, so as not only to give to the house of death perpetuity, but to wreath it around with unfading circlets of perpetual verdure. On the top was the statue of the august emperor. How have the mighty fallen ! The lower story re- 26 QQ
300 ITALY.
mains of massy, and, one would think, immoveable masonry, in which are the arches constituting the sepulchral chambers. Here was pointed out to us the spot where was found the sarcophagus of the emperor himself,; but this, too, has been removed.
The Mausoleum of Adrian is on the oppositer or right bank of the river, immediately facing the ancient Pans JElicis, now called the Bridge of St. Angelo. The bridge, as well as the sepulchre, was built by Adrian, principally to accommodate the approach to his sepulchre ; but it is now the principal thoroughfare to the Vati- can palace and St. Peter's, and is lined on each side by the twelve apostles in marble. This mausoleum consisted of two stories, and was incrusted with Parian marble, and surrounded and adorned with statuary, and surmounted by a dome. It is now, and has been ever since the fall of the empire, a military fortress — stripped of its ornaments, and perforated for cannon — surmounted, however, instead of by the statue of Adrian, as for- merly, by a splendid bronze angel, with a drawn sword, which has given occasion for the modern name, St. Angelo. The origin of this statue is a vision of an angel seen by St. Gregory from the top of this edifice, announcing to him that the plague, which was then raging at Rome, was about to cease. This fortress overlooks the Tiber on the one side, and is connected by a cov- ered way on the other with the Vatican, so that his holiness, in case of sudden danger, can secretly escape to this place of de- fence.
The ancient part of this structure, however, is the most inter- esting. The entrance to the sepulchral chambers was for a long time concealed, but has been discovered within a few years, and strangers are now shown through their princely arches. In the centre is the arch supposed to have contained the ashes of the emperor, and the vaulted passage that leads to it is well worthy the notice of the stranger.
If I had room within my prescribed limits, I might describe the tomb of the Scipios, and some others of minor importance ; these, however, must be omitted. Nevertheless, another kind of tomb should be noticed, as being the more common sepul- chre among the ancient Romans i it is called Columbarium, from its resemblance to pigeon-holes cut in dove-houses. We went into one of these lately opened in the Via Latina, near
TOMBS OF THE ANCIENT ROMANS. 307
•
the Latin gate. It is subterranean, and is entered by a steep staircase to the depth of about ten or twelve feet. Here were apartments with the walls full of these pigeon-holes, of the dimensions of eight or ten inches ; in them were sunk cinerary urns, like the setting of kettles in an arch. This was the only tomb we entered which had not been rifled; for the rage of putting everything in the public museums has robbed temples and dwellings, tombs and sepulchres, of all their removable con- tents. This columbarium, however, was still possessed of most of its urns, with their burnt bones and ashes all in them, and also the sepulchral tablets, by which it appeared that some of the deposited remains were those of the family of Augustus, freedmen and children. Did the emperor need another sepulchre in addi- tion to the colossal one in the Campus Martins ? or was this erected and used previous to the erection of the other 1
It was customary for the ancient Romans to line some of the principal streets leading out of their cities with tombs. So it was at Pompeii in the Via Appia, and so it was at Rome in this same Via Appia, which, perhaps, was the greatest thoroughfare leading from this greatest of cities. For many miles out of the city this avenue was lined with these mansions of the dead, many of them still remaining in ruinous decay. But these ruins, like most others in Rome, owe their dilapidated condition more to violence than to time. The larger tombs were generally built of small stones, terra-cotta, and cement in the interior, and en- closed by a massy wall of hewn travertine, or peperino* marble. These, in the middle and later ages, were found very convenient building materials : hence the tombs of the ancient dead were torn down to erect edifices for the living. The central parts, however, remain, ragged and broken memorials of former beau- ty and elegance. Following out this road three or four miles, you come to the sepulchre of Cecilia Metella, the wife of Cras- sus. Crassus was one of the first triumviri, and attained his standing in the political world probably by his immense wealth, which he had mainly accumulated by trading in slaves. Whether he purposed his wife's celebrity mostly by this monument, or his own, we cannot say ; it seems, however, to have been used only
* Lapis Albanus, a volcanic production, of which the more ancient buildings of Rome were constructed, found near the Lake of Albano.
308 ITALY.
for his wife, whose splendid sarcophagus was found in the centre as the sole tenant, and now lies in the court of the Capitol. The walls of this tomb are about thirty feet thick, and the interior concavity perhaps twenty feet in diameter; it is several stories high, and has a castellated top, which was added to it in the middle ages, to transform this also into a military fortress, like that of Adrian. The outside wall of this tomb was composed of immense blocks of stone, but almost all from one side have been taken away.
In describing the tombs of the ancient Romans we ought not to pass by the Catacombs, which, in the later periods of the em- pire, were used extensively for burial-places, although it is gen- erally supposed they were originally, like the catacombs of Paris, quarries for building-stones. They were more particularly de- voted to purposes of burial during the times of persecution ; and, in fact, they were not only burial-places, but they were retreats for the Christians, where they concealed themselves, and espe- cially where they retired for their religious meetings and ordi- nances, for they were obliged to hide themselves " in dens and caves of the earth." These catacombs are found at different places, as at the churches of St. Lorenzo and St. Agnes ; but we visited them at the church of St. Sebastian, not far from the tomb of Cecilia Metella. This church is one of the seven that are called basilica, and is said to have been built by Constantino. It has an ancient portico, and some other parts that indicate anti- quity, although much of it is comparatively modern. From this church we descended into the subterranean apartments, and were led through what seemed to us a labyrinth of passages, some- times ascending and sometimes descending, and once, at least, passing an ancient stone staircase of some twelve or fifteen steps. Occasionally we came to little chambers, of perhaps five feet by eight, and here they had their altars, and perHaps their lodgings. In the sides of the avenues, which were generally three or four feet wide, and six or seven high, were other little recesses, from which sarcophagi had been taken ; and our cicerone, a Capuchin monk, pointed out numerous places from which, as he said, the bodies of popes had been taken. We were glad to have com- pleted our tour of the catacombs, and return again to daylight. These subterranean passages, it is said, communicate with others,
ST. SEBASTIAN. 309
with the city, and even with Ostia, eighteen miles distant. Our monk told us there was a direct communication between this and the Mamertine prison, where St. Peter was confined in Rome, more than two miles distant, and that St. Peter left the prison through this passage, and came out as far as this church ; that here he met with Christ, to whom he said, "Quo vadis, Domine ?" (Whither goest thou, Lord ?) And Christ informed him he had come to let him know that it was the will of God that he (Peter) should return to the prison, and suffer martyrdom for the sake of Christ ; and, having delivered his message, he vanished, but not without leaving a miracle behind ; the stone on which he stood when he spoke to him was left with the print of his feet upon it ; and, to convince us, he showed us the stone itself; and, truly, there was an indurated sandstone, with the exact impressions of the human foot, just as it would appear if a man should step into a soft clay or moistened sand, and leave the full impress of his foot. Whether these tracks had been artificially made in the stone by the chisel of the artist, or whether, like some other tracks discovered by modern geologists, they were impressed upon sand, which afterward became indurated, I am unable to say. Of course we gave the monk but little credit for his miracle. He had also a case full of other relics, such as the arms, legs, heads, &c., of various apostles, popes, and saints, all covered in such a manner as to prevent us from determining whether they were wood, stone, or bone. As this church was consecrated to St. Sebastian, we, of course, had many relics of that saint. Here is his tomb ; here the stone pillar to which he was bound when they shot him ; and here, also, they have one of the arrows by which he was shot. We had become very familiar with this saint, for he is a favourite subject for the artist. He was a soldier, persecuted, and finally martyred by his fellow-soldiers for his religion, which was done by binding him to a pillar, and shooting him with arrows. He is always represented as pierced through his body and limbs, and expiring with a countenance most placid and heavenly. The picture galleries and churches abound with St. Sebastians. Wishing, therefore, to learn some more particu- lars of his history, we asked the monk when this martyred saint lived. " Oh," said he, " three or four hundred years before Christ !"
310 ITALY.
A brief notice of a tomb for a priest shall close this part of the subject. This is that of Caius Cestus, supposed to have lived in the time of Augustus. It is a pyramid, one hundred and thirteen feet in height, and sixty-nine feet square at the base, terminating in a point, and appears, as far as I could discover, to remain as entire as when it was first erected. It stands in the city wall, near the Protestant burying-ground at the south of the Aventine Mount.
Another class of ruins in and about Rome are the aqueducts. These, among the ancient Romans, were numerous and splendid ;* and I scarcely saw anything more picturesque and grand than the remaining arches of these stupendous watercourses, stretching across the Campagna from various directions, some of them, by modern repairs, still rolling their refreshing streams into the eter- nal city. These aqueducts are led from the distance of twenty and thirty miles, and used to convey into the ancient city five hundred thousand hogsheads of water daily, although, at pres^ ent, only about one fifth of that amount is brought into the city. Yet Rome is still full of fountains, and many of them very beau- tiful ; indeed, I consider the fountains of Rome one of its most interesting features. The three aqueducts, designated by Aqua Vergine, Aqua Felice, and Aqua Paulina, afford the principal supply to these modern fountains. They are all, however, ancient aqueducts repaired and restored, the first by Paul IV., the second by Sextus V., and the third by Paul V. The second cost, it is said, a million of dollars to repair it ; it terminates at the Fonta- na di Termini, where are some fine and appropriate statuary of Moses smiting the rock; of Aaron leading the Israelites to quench their thirst ; with four lions, two of which are antiques from the Pantheon .f Aqua Vergine is so called from the springs having been disclosed to some famishing soldiers by a peasant girl : it was brought to Rome by Agrippa, and now empties itself at the Fontana de Treve, where are allegorical figures, rocks, cascades, and waterspouts of great beauty, and reflecting much
* In the part of the city near the Porta Maggiore remains of five aqueducts may be tseen.
t These lions, spouting water from a fountain, have a closer relation to this element than appears to most spectators. They were originally symbols of the sun in the sign of Leo, at which time commenced the inundation of the Nile.
COLUMNS AND OBELISKS. 311
credit upon the artist, Nicolo Salvi. The Aqua Paulina is from Trajan's aqueduct, and extends the distance of thirty miles, and is divided into two branches, one of which supplies the Mount Janiculum, and empties itself principally, in copious torrents, under a splendid Ionic colonnade of red granite, into a vast mar- ble basin. There is water enough poured out here to carry sev- eral mills. The other branch goes to the Vatican, and expends itself, in the magnificent piazza of St. Peter's, in two fountains, which throw up the water in foaming columns many feet into the air, whence it comes down in copious showers, and is frequently carried off by the wind, in wreaths of spray, to the distance of many yards. The main body of the water falls into magnificent basins of oriental granite, fifty feet in circumference.
Columns and Obelisks. — Ancient Rome abounded in porticoes and colonnades, in proof of which it need only be mentioned that a great portion of the churches, palaces, and other edifices are adorned by the architectural ornaments of the ancient city. Some of the streets, also, of the modern city are encumbered with the prostrate columns and fragments of columns of ancient Rome. Columns that, in an American museum, would be preserved and exhibited as antique relics of the Augustan age, are buried in the filth of the streets, or thrown by into back courts and by- places as so much cumbersome rubbish. You will see blocks of beautiful marble, also, piled up in the yards of the lapidaries and toy manufacturers, to be wrought into those models of ancient sculpture and other toys that employ a great portion of the in- dustry, and form quite a portion of the revenue of Rome. And then, what multitudes of these works of art are still buried in the unexcavated ruins and covered streets of the ancient city, and in the choked channel of the yellow Tiber ! Trajan's pillar has been mentioned. That of Antoninus is of a similar construction, with a shaft about one hundred feet high, covered with bassi-re- lievi, representing the Marcomannic war. The ancient Egyptian obelisks are numerous, and very beautiful. I noticed particularly eight or ten of these Egyptian monuments in some of the princi- pal piazzas and before some of the principal edifices, most of them covered with hieroglyphics. The one standing in the piazza of St. Peter's was transported, as we learn from Livy, from Heli- opolis to Ostia (the ancient seaport of Rome), and thence con-
312 ITALY.
veyed to the city, and placed in Nero's Circus. It is a single piece of red oriental granite, seventy-six Paris feet in length) and was placed in its present position by order of Sextus V., on a pedestal resting upon four lions.
The obelisk of the Piazza del Popolo was also executed, as is supposed, at Heliopolis for an Egyptian monarch five hundred and twenty-two years before the Christian era. This has a shaft of seventy-four Paris feet, and is covered with hieroglyphics, as is also the one on Monte Cavallo, which is forty-five Paris feet in height exclusive of the pedestal. This latter has on either side a colossal figure, one of Castor and the other of Pollux, originally from Athens, and executed, as is supposed, by Phidias and Prax- iteles. They are standing by their horses, which, however, are modern.
The largest obelisk is before the Church of St. John Lateran, being, exclusive of its pedestal, one hundred and fifteen feet high and nine in diameter. It was brought from ancient Thebes, where it was placed in the Temple of the Sun by Ramises ! !
With all the labours of Champollion and others, there is not yet light enough shed upon these dark hieroglyphics to render them legible to the modern reader. If this were done, what stores of historic facts, and what knowledge of Egyptian usages and wor- ship might not be obtained from the mysterious characters that adorn these ancient monuments ! One of them is supposed to bear date one thousand years before the Christian era.
CHAPTER XVI.
A GREAT portion of the most interesting antiquities of Rome and other ancient cities are to be found in the public museums, especially in those of the Capitol and of the Vatican palace. But who will undertake to describe these ? A volume would not an- swer to give their names and history, to say nothing of a descrip- tion of the articles themselves.
The Vatican palace, so called from its situation upon the Vati- can mount, joins upon St. Peter's cathedral, and in it are extensive
THE VATICAN PALACE. 313
galleries appropriated to works of art, and especially to specimens of ancient sculpture. Of these apartments even,I can specify but a few, and, of course, I cannot begin to speak of their contents.
The Museo Chiaramonti contains a gallery of ancient inscrip- tions, monumental tablets, and sarcophagi almost innumerable. On one side are the pagan monuments, and on the other the Christian ; many of the latter were taken from the catacombs, and, by their rudeness, show that they were not the workmanship of the Augustan age 1 Another division of this gallery contains seven or eight hundred specimens of ancient statuary.
At the farther end of this gallery is a passage to the left into a museum of Egyptian antiquities, discovered mostly a few years since at the lower cataract of the Nile, thought to be among the most ancient of the kind now extant.
The Museo Clementina is up a staircase, but not higher above ground. The palace climbs the hill, so that, although you have ascended several long flights of stairs, you now can pass out into an open court, which is surrounded by a beautiful portico and cabinets of the richest statuary. Here is the Belvid'ere Apollo, thought to be one of the finest statues in the world ; the very im age of manly grace ; the almost divine personification ; the beau ideal of the human form divine. The more you look at it, the more you desire to look. It is, of course, of Greek workmanship, and was found at the city of Antium in the fifteenth century. Here is the group of Laocoon and his two sons, writhing under the crushing coils and poisonous fangs of the two serpents. I had seen frequent casts and copies of this, one of the former de- scription in the museum at Philadelphia, but none of them come up to the original. Its painful beauties cannot be described.* This was brought from Greece to be placed in the palace of Titus, and is described by Pliny as the production of the joint labour of Agesander, Apollodorus, and Athenodorus of Rhodes. Here also are a beautiful mosaic pavement, numerous baths of splendid materials and workmanship, sarcophagi, bassi-relievi,
* I recollect, several years since, in looking at the plaster cast in Philadelphia, of ob serving to an English traveller whom I accidentally met there, that some critics thought the artist ought to have thrown into the countenance of the father more paternal solici- tude for his sons, who were suffering with him. " But," says the Englishman, in reply, " do you not see that this fellow," pointing to the serpent, " has got him by the side ?" This put an end to all further criticism on that point.
27 RR
314 ITALY.
&c. One cabinet is devoted to a modern artist, the celebrated Canova. One hardly knows which pleases most, the beautiful sculpture which stands in this cabinet, or the delicate compliment by which he is admitted to companionship with the unrivalled art ists of antiquity. With all the advantages of the ancient patterns, and with all the improvements of the kindred arts, the moderns never have equalled, and probably never will equal, the sculpture of antiquity.
The Hall of Animals is full of beautiful specimens of beasts and birds, fishes and reptiles, principally quadrupeds, however, some of them representing ancient fable, as Europa, Mithras stab- bing the bull, &c. Others represent ravenous beasts taking their prey, as a lion devouring a horse, and the like. It is generally thought, however, that the ancients excelled more in imitations of the human form than of the lower animals.
We next came to an extensive gallery called the Gallery of Statues. Here is a fi»e collection of beautiful statues represent- ing Apollo, and the Muses, and Hermae, which are portraits of distinguished Grecians, each having his or her name upon it. These were found in the villa of Cassius at Tivoli, and, perhaps, constituted his private gallery. They are doubtless correct like- nesses, as they are of Grecian workmanship. You may see here the genuine features of ^Eschines and Demosthenes ; of Aspasia and Sappho ; of Solon and Lycurgus ; of Sophocles and Euripi- des, and a host of others, of whom to think is poetry, but to see is almost inspiration.
In the centre of the Circular Hall is a splendid basin of por- phyry, forty-one Paris feet in circumference, with a number of elegant busts and statues of Jupiter, Juno, and other great char- acters. Then comes another apartment, in the form of a cross, which serves as a vestibule, but filled, nevertheless, with statuary. Here you ascend an elegant staircase to a rotunda, where you see, among other things, an ancient car elegantly sculptured in marble, with two horses harnessed to it, only one of which, however, is ancient. Here is also another extensive gallery, containing splen- did candelabra, cinerary urns, vases, sarcophagi, &c. Some of these candelabra are very elegant, and were used in the illumina tion of ancient palaces, temples, &c.
Many of the rooms of these apartments are superb in their ar
BASILICA. . 315
chitecture, with columns of ancient marble and porphyry, and frescoed ceilings.
Another splendid collection of antiquities is at the Capitol ; but, as these are similar in character lo those already described, I shall not stay to mention particulars. It may be noticed, however, that here is a hall containing busts of a great portion of the Roman emperors, and another hall of philosophers, and another of Egyp- tian statues found at Adrian's villa.
Many of the antiquities of Rome are so incorporated with mod- ern structures that it is difficult to describe the one without in- cluding the other. I shall, therefore, disregard any further clas- sification of this kind, and finish what more I may say of Rome by adopting the most convenient order for that purpose.
The churches of Rome are perhaps the most interesting feature of the modern city. Many are constructed, in part at least, of ancient materials, and some of the structures themselves are co- eval with the age of Constantine. Seven of these latter are called basilica. Basilica anciently seems to have been a term that distinguished a structure of a particular form and architecture, rather than a designation of the uses of the edifice ; and these ancient , churches are supposed to be so called from their having been erected on the site of these ancient public halls, and from their being, in some respects, like them in architecture.. They had double side aisles ; or, in other words, they had four rows of columns, dividing the whole into the central nave, and two side arcades on each side of the nave. These columns were single, and generally without an entablature, as they supported arches springing from the capitals. Many of those now called basilica churches, however, are so changed by alterations and repairs that the basilica form no longer exists.
Another reason for calling these churches basilicas might have been that they were built out of the materials of former basilicas. Constantine built all his edifices of plundered materials. Indeed, the first three centuries of the empire seem to have been to Rome what the geologists of the present day represent the antemundane ages of the world to have been to the world as it now is ; mere periods of preparation, in which were elaborated inexhaustible stores for the use of all subsequent ages.*
* It is for this reason, doubtless, that the Gothic style was never introduced into Rome
316 ITALY.
At the head of these basilica churches we must place St. Pe- ter's, which, in fact, stands at the head of all churches, if not of all structures that now exist, in point of architectural elegance and costliness of finish. In some respects the edifice is unfavour- ably situated, for it is overlooked on the one side by the towering pile of the Vatican palace, elevated on the rising hill, and on the other side it is flanked by uncouth buildings. But these defects are measurably remedied by the splendid and spacious piazza in the front, and especially by the covered galleries that wing out from each side, and the unrivalled semicircular triple porticoes that start from these galleries, and sweep round the open piazza in indescribable grandeur. These porticoes are supported by four rows of Doric columns, giving, in each wing, two side and a central arcade, the latter being wide enough for two carriages abreast, and the three are fifty-six feet in breadth. There are two hundred and eighty-four columns sixty-one Paris feet in height, surmounted with a balustrade, on which stand one hun- dred and ninety-two colossal statues. In passing up the arcades you enter the cloistered galleries, three hundred and sixty feet in length, and these bring you into the end of the vestibule. If you go up the right portico you have also in front the Scala Regia, or royal staircase. This is an enchanting position. In one direc- tion the staircase, in the opposite the gallery and portico, and in another this grand vestibule, four hundred and thirty-nine Paris feet in length, by thirty-seven in breadth and sixty-two in height, with its vaulted gilded ceiling, its doors, niches, statues, and fount- ains receding in the distant perspective, and terminating in the equestrian statue of Charlemagne. This noble statue is placed as the guardian genius of that end of the vestibule, in the same manner that a similar one of Constantine guards this.
But we must say a few things of the interior of this church, to notice which minutely would take a volume. The lower, or sub- structure, still remains, with additions and repairs, as it was built by Constantine. He chose this spot, which was formerly the site of the Circus of Nero, because it was said St. Peter was buried here. This ancient church stood until about the middle of the
Not only were her patterns of a different character, but her materials. By the former she was allured, and by the latter compelled, not to alter her style. I do not recollect that I saw a symptom of the Gothic among all the edifices of Rome.
•
•
THE BASEMENT CHAPEL. 317
fifteenth century, when it was principally removed, and the pres- ent edifice commenced under the pontificate of Nicholas V. The new structure was carried on under different pontiffs and a suc- cession of architects, the principal of whom were Rosellini and Alberti, who commenced it, Bramante, Raphael, Sangallo, and, above all, Michael Angelo Buonarroti, who planned the cupola, boasting that he would elevate the pantheon to the top of the church. This has, in effect, been accomplished. The edifice, with the exception of some of the ornaments and the sacristy,* was finished in about two hundred and fifty years.
The Basement Chapel, with its ancient ornaments, sepulchres, altars, and shrines, is a most interesting structure, but can only be seen by lamplight, as the light of the day shines not here. The principal apparent entrance is by the Sacra Confessione^ which is surrounded by a beautiful balustrade just in front of the high altar, and surmounted by a hundred lamps constantly burn- ing. This is descended by a double flight of steps to the tomb of St. Peter, whose mortal remains are said to be entombed here. The marble statue of Pius VI., however, kneeling before the bronze doors that lead into St. Peter's tomb, guards this passage, and spectators descend another way.
The modern church is of gigantic dimensions : the extreme length of the nave is six hundred and fourteen feet ; the breadth of the church two hundred and seven. It is in the form of a Latin cross, and the breadth of the cross is seventy-nine feet. The diam- eter of the cupola is one hundred and thirty-nine feet, and its ex- treme interior height from the floor of the church three hundred and ninety-three feet. The view as you enter the church is one of the finest, if not the very first, taking all things into the ac- count, that can be obtained in any position, within or without, The eye traces the entire length and height at a glance ; a glance that kindles in the soul the commingled emotions of sublimity and beauty, heightened by the overwhelming surprise and astonish^ ment that so much of grandeur and beauty could ever be thrown into one perspective by human industry and genius. One of the features of St, Peter's that adds much to its effect is the richness
and perfection of its finish : it is incrusted with marbles of vari-
*
* Indeed, it may be said that the essential parts of the architecture were completed in 1621. The sacristy was built by Pius, VI. in the latter part of the last century.
27
318 ITALY.
ous kinds, and beautifully wrought ; its pillars are elegant, and seven of them, it is said, are from the temple at Jerusalem.
Another feature is its symmetry and exact proportions. These are so perfect that they deceive the eye as to the dimensions of everything you see. The statue of an ordinary cherub, appearing about the size of a well-grown infant in his mother's arms, is found, on examination, to be gigantic. No one would suppose the pillars to be of one fourth the size they find them to be by actual measurement. Each of the four pillars on which the cupolarests is two hundred and six Paris feet in circumference; rather a large pillar this to come down in the centre of the church, and yet four of these dimensions do not appear to take an undue pro- portion of room.
Another feature which calls out the admiration of the spectator at every turn is the splendid sepulchral monuments, and the pic- tures in mosaic. Here are the tombs of the popes, of princes, and illustrious characters. Here are the most splendid mosaics of the most splendid pictures in the world, all gigantic in size, and elegant in design and execution.
Another fine view is in or near the centre, under the cupola. The interior of the dome is incrusted with mosaics ; immediately under it is a splendid baldacchino, with spiral pillars, supporting a bronze canopy overshadowing the high altar. Beyond this, at the upper end of the tribuna, is the chair of St. Peter ; and also, above it, a transparent painting of the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove. But I must break off abruptly from this description of the edifice, while of its contents or of its services I can say little more than I have said already in my account of the ceremonies of Holy Week. At the south end of the cross are confessionals, where priests, in all the different languages of Europe, officiate at stated hours, each box having over it the name of the language in which the confession is heard. When the priest is in his place a long rod runs out obliquely, with which he touches the head of any individual who, passing by, chooses to kneel to receive his benediction.
Mr. Lyman, in his work on the political state of Italy, gives a catalogue of seventy-nine sacred relics contained in this church. Most of these are the bones of saints. Here, also, in one of the chapels^ is the column against which the Saviour leaned when he
ST. PETERS.
was disputing with the doctors. Here are the cradle and hay of the manger where Christ lay, and the veil of the blessed Virgin ; the mantle and girdle of Joseph ; the holy sweat of our Saviour ; and I know not what else. But to describe the relics of Rome would take a large volume : some of the churches have many more than St. Peter's.
You ascend St. Peter's by a gradual ascent to the base of the dome. Here you may go out upon the roof, and then you perceive you have never before had any just conception of its magnitude. The roof of this church seems of itself a little city, covered with towns, cottages, cisterns, plains and hills; slopes and precipices. Returning, you ascend the cupola by a zigzag staircase, which goes up between the two walls of the canopy of the cupola, for it has double walls, to the top. Thence you go up a difficult pas- sage through a narrow throat into the great brass ball above the dome, which from below looks like a small globe ; but, when you reach it, you find it will contain sixteen or twenty men. Females can enter this with some difficulty. Mrs. F., anxious to get to the height of St. Peter's, succeeded in entering the ball. The heat, however, is almost suffocating, and, in very hot weather, must be insupportable. We were glad to hasten down. The entire per- pendicular height to the top of the cross over the ball is four hun- dred and forty-eight feet.
One of the accessory circumstances which adds to the interest of St. Peter's is the neat and cleanly manner in which it is kept; and this is true, in fact, of most of the Roman churches. They are like a lady's parlour. Dr. Johnson, of London, in his remarks on Italy, says, he thinks the goddess Cloacina has taken her flight from Italy and the Continent across the British Channel. If she has she avoids the churches in England, and still looks after this part of her duty in Rome. Let any one compare the cleanliness of St. Peter's, or, in fact, of any respectable Roman church, with St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey. Indeed, no lady can go over one of these churches, and especially St. Paul's, and keep her dress decent ; it needs a Hercules to turn another river through this augean stable, called the House of God, especially the upper apartments. In St. Peter's the statuary was bright and fresh like a chimney ornament in a lady's drawing room ; in St. Paul's there were accumulations of dust so as to deform the work of the artist.
320 ITALY.
St. John Lateran was built by Constantine, and is another of the basilicae. It is a magnificent church, and is called the mother church of Rome. The interior architecture is heavy, in conse- quence of the enlargement of the pillars to strengthen the edifice. They now contain niches in which are placed gigantic statues of the twelve apostles. Near this church is a baptistry, in which, it is said, Constantine was baptized. The whole edifice almost is made of borrowed materials ; even the baptismal, font is supposed to be an ancient sarcophagus.
The great object of the finish in the Roman churches is orna- ment, in many cases excessive ornament. But even this excites your admiration and astonishment. An illustration of this is the basilica of St. Maria Maggiore. This church is on the site of the temple of Juno Lucina, on the Esquiline Hill, and is supposed to have been built about the middle of the fourth century. This is, perhaps, the most richly-ornamented church of Rome, not ex- cepting the Jesuit's church, which may be more gaudy, but not so magnificent. I can give no idea of this gorgeous temple. It is richly ornamented and gilded. It has splendid statuary and paint- ings by the first masters, a baldacchino over the high altar with antique columns of porphyry. Its arches and .aapels are incrust- ed with mosaics, precious polished marbles, lapis lazuli, and verd antique.
From St. John Lateran to the Church of the Holy Cross in Je- rusalem the approach is very fine. This church derives its name from possessing the piece of the true cross brought by St. Helena from Jerusalem. Its vestibule is antique, and supposed to be an ancient sessorium. The antiquity of this church, being one of the basilica built by Constantine, its vestibule and its cross, from which it takes its name, constitute its principal interest. The whole of this region of the city, which, though within the walls, is mostly a waste, is becoming more and more subject to the malaria, and for a part of the year unsafe as a place of residence. How long be- fore this invisible foe, who appears to be gaining strength yearly, will desolate this boasted city ? How long before the expelled citizens will revisit their city in the winter, to hasten away, as by stealth, some of those splendid works of art which can no longer be enjoyed irt this empire of death ? Perhaps never ! yet this is not improbable.
CHURCH OF ST. LORENZO. 321
The three other basilicas are without the walls of the city. St. Sebastian's has already been mentioned. That of St. Paul is represented to have been a magnificent edifice, but we saw it only in ruins. It fell a prey to fire in July, 1824. The fire was so intense as to calcine the marble and granite pillars, and brake to fragments the columns of porphyry, and ruin a great part of the edifice. Some parts, however, including the high altar, under which repose, as they would have us believe, the mortal remains of the chief apostle to the gentiles, remain uninjured. The edifice is now being rebuilt at a great expense, notwithstanding his holi- ness is running in debt yearly for the current expenses of gov- ernment. Beyond this church is another, called St. Paul's of the Three Fountains, where they show a white stone on which they say St. Paul was decapitated.
The Church of St. Lorenzo is one mile from the gate of the same name, and is the last of the seven ancient basilicas. It is constructed upon the foundations of the Temple of Neptune, and has adopted most of the pillars from that edifice, some of them evidently standing in the very position where they stood in the ancient edifice. This appears from the fact that the lower ex- tremities of those pillars were, until lately excavated, buried some six or eight feet in the rubbish and earth below the pavement of the church. Here are catacombs, into which we descended, and saw cords on cords of bones laid up in due order of, as the priests say, martyred saints. They claim, also, to possess at this church not only the body of St. Lorenzo, but also that of St. Stephen. We called in question the validity of their claim to St. Stephen, because we had just visited the Church of St. Stephen within the walls, where they claimed to have the body of this first Christian martyr. Nay, they have recorded on the altar the account of the discovery and transportation of the body of the saint from Jerusa- lem ; and on the rail of the circular altar* some twenty or thirty instances are recorded of miracles wrought by the bones of this same saint, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, and the
* This church is of singular but beautiful construction. It is, in fact, an ancient temple converted into a church. It is circular, having three concentric peristyles of columns, including one in the wall. The two interior are insulated, and stand up in beautiful grandeur under the more modern roof of the temple. In the centre is the circu- lar altar ; and all over the walls are the most horrid exhibitions of cruelties, purporting to represent the persecutions of the saints, that my eyes ever beheld.
Ss
322 ITALY.
like ; insomuch that, if they had continued to keep these bones above ground, they must have filled the earth with their wonders. We asked these priests of St. Lorenzo whether they meant to dis- pute the question with their brethren of St. Stephen's, or whether one of the miracles of this saint was to have two bodies. The older of the two with whom we were conversing seemed inclined to waive the subject ; but the younger insisted that the other was the church of St. Stephen, but "we have his body." As the set- tling of this question did not belong to us, we left it for the priests and monks to adjust as they could, and hastened back to the city, because that afternoon we were to be introduced to the pope ; a brief account of which I will give here as a relief to this, I fear, tiresome sketch of a few of the churches of Rome.
Several Americans were introduced at the same time with us by our consul. This was by a previous arrangement. The only forms necessary to observe were, that the ladies should wear veils, and the gentlemen dress-coats, and slippers instead of boots. In- deed, no man is admitted into the presence of the pope at the re- ligious festivals with either frockcoats or cloaks.* So much for etiquette. We were received in the library of the Vatican. The officers of the domestic court were at a little distance ; the pope himself was standing, dressed in his monk's habit of close cap and white stuff robe, faced with silk, and red slippers, with the gold cross upon the top. We were not required, however, as is generally supposed requisite, to kneel or kiss his slipper. This is not expected of Protestants. His holiness, on learning that I was from America, remarked at the commencement that he thought well of the United States because there were many Cath- olics, and they all enjoyed equal privileges with others. I replied, that was according to the genius of our government ; we had no religious establishment, but gave liberty of conscience and free tol- eration to all. The pope said he thought " true toleration to con- sist in leaving every one at liberty to worship as he pleased !" He then changed the conversation, and went on to describe the fire- works that should have been ; and finally, after a little time, he bowed for us to retire, at the same time requesting us " to remem- ber St. Peter."
* The Rev. E. T. T., of the Mariner's Church, Boston, informs me that, by dint of perseverance, he was admitted to the presence of his holiness with frockcoat and boots ; but this is a rare, if not a solitary occurrence.
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PICTURE-GALLERIES. 323
The next morning one of the pope's household called to receive a donation from us, stating that it was customary for all who are introduced to his holiness to make a present to the members of his household. We asked how much was expected. Why, he said, there were five families, and they expected five piasters each Whatever may have been the origin of this custom, it certainly savours of a meanness altogether unworthy of a sovereign. But the blame should not rest exclusively, nor, perhaps, chiefly on the pope. It is the general custom of the country. If any gen- tleman makes a dining party or soiree, the guests will find the ser- vants at their door the next day, each expecting a buono mano for the hospitality of their master. In this way many are mostly sup- ported. Others, who are the servants of princes or noblemen that have villas or palaces furnished with galleries of antiquities or paintings, as is the case with a number in Rome, obtain a very respectable Roman income by waiting upon the strangers who visit them.
A great deal of time is generally spent by strangers in visiting these palaces. There are, at least, certain palaces that every one must visit if he would not be a heretic in taste ; and many of them are certainly a rich feast to the lovers of painting, as they have galleries filled with the productions of the first masters, and some of them have celebrated frescoes upon the walls and ceil- ings ; but as for the palaces themselves, few indeed are worth the time and expense of visiting. They have cheerless apartments, with some show of state in the furniture, with no fires even in cold weather, and, for the most part, in fact, no place for a fire ; with no- thing very interesting in the architecture, and much that is disgust- ing frequently in the filth of the court and the neglected staircase, which, as one writer has well said, " belongs to nobody to clean." Surely no one would be disposed to spend a great portion of his time to visit Italian palaces, either for their architecture or furni- ture— always excepting their picture-galleries. And even these, to the man who does not make pictures his study, soon tire. There is an endless repetition of the same subjects, some of them disgusting enough, and others lose their interest where we judge of everything by comparison, and where a few transcendent works shine everything else into the shade ; so that, at last, you pass over scores of pictures which are mere mediocrity, or, perhaps, somewhat above mediocrity, and fix upon here and there one as
ITALY,
alone worthy of notice. In this way you get weary in running over successive galleries, for the sake of saying or knowing that you have seen them, and especially to be sure that nothing of transcendent merit has escaped you. But there is such a propor- tion of superior works, that, with all the weariness of routine in going from palace to palace, he must be void of taste who does not enjoy much pleasure in visiting the paintings of Rome. It would be much better for the stranger, certainly, if these superior paintings were selected from the mass, although it might not be equally showy and reputable for the owner. The papal gallery at the Vatican, however, is formed on this principle, and in no- thing did I notice the prevalence of good taste more than in this. Instead of a wilderness of pictures, that might have been expected in accordance with the prevailing Italian taste, we find a gallery comparatively small, but filled with the sublimest achievements of the pencil. No wonder that this gallery is crowded every day that it is open ; no wonder that the spectators, absorbed in the ex- hibitions before them, are constantly asking pardon for treading upon each other's toes or intercepting each other's views.
The pope has another splendid palace on the Quirinal Hill, which has also a fine gallery of pictures, but far less select than those of the Vatican, and also a suite of state apartments very well furnished. Some of the other palaces are the Palazzo Rospigliosi, which contains a number of easel pictures, and the Aurora of Guido in fresco, supposed to be the finest fresco in Rome, the Palazzo Borghese, the Palazzo Sciarra, Palazzo Doria, Palazzo Corsini, all rich in pictures by the first masters, such as Raphael, Guido, Rubens, Titian, Annibal Caracci, Do^ menfchino, Caravagio, Poussinboth Gasparo and Nicolas, Girelio Romano, Carlo Dolci, Claude, Salvator Rosa, Guercino, Corre- gio, Lanfranco, Albano, Andrea del Sarto, and a host of others.
After a little study, the attentive spectator gets such a knowl- edge of the different styles and different schools of painters, that he can readily distinguish the one from the other ; and much of the interest consists in the comparisons that are instituted between those. Emotions, especially if they are strong, must, after a little, have a truce ; but, after these subside, from satiety or weari- ness, the power of comparing, discriminating, and judging re- mains, and bears you onward for hours, when only an occasional and superior picture can call into transient action the languid and
FRESCOES AND MOSAICS. 325
exhausted emotions. In this way day after day is spent in the picture-galleries of Europe, and especially of Italy.
One of the most celebrated classes of works of art in Rome are the frescoes, and among these the halls in the Vatican palace, called the Stanze of Raphael, stand prominent; nay, it is pre- sumed that not only not in Rome merely, but not in the world, can there be found their equals, considering their extent, their composition, their colouring, and general execution. These halls are four in number. One is called the Hall of Constantine, be- cause in it are exhibited the principal historic events of that emperor's life, such as his vision of the cross, his battle with his rival Maxentius, his baptism, &c. The second is the Hall of Heliodorus, so called because the principal picture represents the vanquish ment of this Syrian general in the Temple at Jerusalem by two angels, &c., an account of which is given in the second book of the Maccabees. Here, also, is the miracle of Bolsena, which is no uncommon subject for the artist in Italy. It is a pictorial representation of what is declared, among other well authenticated Roman fables, to be a fact, viz., that a priest who had his doubts on the doctrine of transubstantiation was con- vinced, in celebrating the mass, by the dropping of fresh blood from the wafer. Against such proof there is, of course, no argu- ment. The third hall is the School of Athens, so called because the artist, with admirable skill, has brought out, in all their appro- priate personal, professional, and relative characteristics, all the principal philosophers, poets, artists, and other authors of Greece. This is a most splendid affair, and worth, for its historical asso- ciations and biographical delineations, weej^s of study. The Hall of the Conflagration is the last, and is named from the principal picture, which is a representation of a fire near the Vatican, which occurred in the pontificate of Leo IV. These paintings, how- ever, are beginning to fade, and where is the modern artist that will have the courage to restore them ?
Mosaic work is much wrought in Rome. Allusion has already been made to this subject in describing St. Peter's. The princi- pal manufactory of this kind is in the hands of government, and conducted in some of the lower apartments of the Vatican. The shading is by small pieces of glass, coloured in all the distinguish- able varieties of shade, and there are many more than might at first be imagined. We visited the establishment, and saw the 28
326 ITALY.
process and all the materials. The coloured glass was all arranged in a prescribed order, according to the colours and vari- eties, to the number of twenty thousand different shades. Some of these pieces are extremely small : to form a picture, they are all set in a case prepared according to the size of the picture, and over which is spread a composition of marble dust, fine sand, gum, oil, and the white of eggs, which, being at first soft, receives readily the selected particles that are inserted to form the shades of the picture ; it grows harder, however, by time ; and, when the picture is finished and sufficiently indurated, it is polished, and thus a picture is transferred from the surface of the flexible and fading canvass to a substance as hard as marble, and as durable as the imperishable materials of which it is formed, and as fade- less as it is durable. It is the transferring of a picture to the very substance of a manufactured article, like tapestry ; but while the latter fades and decays, the former endures and resists the assaults of time. Like tapestry, however, it is a slow and costly process : some of these mosaic pictures cost several years of labour. One picture was shown us which employed twelve men eight years. All that is wanting as an artist, or, more properly, a manufacturer in this department, is a little experience, a mechanical exactness of habit, and, as the phrenologists would say, a good develop- ment of the organ of colour.
There are also many private manufactories of this kind, espe- cially in ornamental mosaics, such as broaches, pins, rings, &c. This forms, indeed, one of the principal sources of revenue to the Roman citizens ; arid the United States contribute not a little in this way to support modern Rome.
" There are only three departments or avocations," said one of the citizens to me, " that a man can pursue with any advantage in this city." " And what are they ?" " The fine arts, the law, and the priesthood," was the answer. The priests certainly ap- pear to be the most pampered and best fed class at Rome. Their full fresh faces formed a striking contrast to the great portion of the population. As to the law, I doubt whether it is a very wide or profitable field for the aspirant to fame or wealth. For public offices in Rome, with the exception of a few, a man stands the best chance, I should judge, by being a priest. Omitting those of Tuscany, the Italian courts are generally with closed doors , and there is no public advocacy, for all the leadings are in writing,
THE PROPAGANDA. 327
of which several copies are to be made out, making a great amount of manual labour ; and, to become qualified to practise, it is re- quired that the candidate study eight years, four in the profes- sional school, and four with a practising lawyer. The Roman bar, however, is said to be very respectable, and many of the pro- fession are raised to the first honours in the state.
There are a number of very respectable libraries at Rome, the most splendid of which, however, is that of the Vatican. I have not been able to ascertain the number of books in this library, nor could I form much of an idea from passing through it, as many of the presses containing books are closed by doors. The manu- scripts, however, are said to be forty thousand, and many of them very valuable. Among them are several adorned with beautiful miniatures, as was the custom in the middle ages. Of these is a Virgil, written in the sixth century, with miniatures of ^Eneas and his companions, and the Latians, in their own appropriate dresses ; also a Terence of the same century, and a Greek Bible, also of the same age, written in capital letters ; Acts of the Apostles in golden letters. But it is useless to attempt an enumeration of even the most interesting. These manuscripts are in a part of the library you first enter, and which is at right angles with the principal gallery. This latter is nearly a thousand feet long, and the whole is beautifully finished, and adorned with frescoes, vases, candelabra, busts, porphyry columns, &c., making a suite of splen- did apartments.*
In the convent of the Church of St. Maria on Minerva is the Casanateuse library, better for printed books than that of the Vat- ican ; and at the Augustine church another..
Of all the institutions of Rome, perhaps no one of so simple and definite a character was ever better planned in theory, or was ever more efficient in practice, than the Propaganda. This in- stitution, the object of which was, as its name imports, to propa- gate the papal faith throughout the world, was established by Gregory XV. At its first institution it had not a college, as it now has, and which now, in fact, constitutes its principal strength. The Propaganda, in order to have the suitable agents in the field to direct the operations of the society, appointed bishops, arch-
* Besides the rooms already mentioned, there are others in the Vatican containing tapestry, and various others too numerous to mention.
328 ITALY.
bishops, apostolical missionaries, and apostolical vicars for the different parts of the world; for Africa, Asia Minor, Central Asia, the Indies, China, those parts of Europe that had become Prot- estant, and the United States of America. Having thus marked out the field, and given to each his definite work, prefects, curates, and subordinate missionaries were sent, as they were needed, to fill up the work. These missionaries were generally selected from the secular clergy, that is, those who had taken no monastic vows. They were enjoined not to intermeddle with secular or political affairs. The higher grades, however, did not hesitate to intermeddle with politics and government. Indeed, this seemed to be a part of their office and duties. As they were scattered all over the world, and were skilled in all the literature and science of the age, they insinuated themselves as teachers and officers of government, and thus gained an influence wherever they could, and became, at the same time, by their correspondence with Rome, the medium of communication with the Catholic court, and, indi- rectly, with other courts, on all matters, political, religious, scien- tific, geographical, or historical, on which information was desired. For this purpose, and also to aid in the transmission of funds and all things else necessary to keep the entire system in operation, agents or purveyors were stationed at different points and at con- venient distances in every part of the extended work. These were engaged exclusively in the secular part of the grand system. Thus, with their agents, high and low, secular and spiritual, all acting under one head and for one purpose, they became the spies of the world, and the whole meted earth became subject to the espionage of the Roman court. No wonder Napoleon was struck with the organization and efficiency of this institution. No won- der he thought it would prove a good instrument in his hands to carry on his great purposes of universal domination ! " Certain it is," says Carlo Botta, " Napoleon delighted in nothing more than in the Propaganda." In the prosecution of its prime object, schools were established in different parts of the world, viz., three in Egypt, four in Illyria, two in Albania, two in Transylvania, one at Constantinople, together with numerous others in the Protest- ant countries of Europe, all supported by the Propaganda. In addition to this, the different monastic orders, although they had schools and colleges, and raised up missionaries of their ownj yet
tnrei
THE PROPAGANDA. 329
they were all made subject to the Propaganda, and received from them direction as to the place where and the manner how they should dispose of their labours. And that nothing might be want- ing to concentrate and enlarge the influence of the institution, a pa- rent college, called the College of the Propaganda, was established by Urban VIII., in which were educated natives of all the different countries for missionaries, the Roman church wisely judging that, if they could get natives of the respective countries thoroughly in* itiated into her doctrines and policy, an initiation that could be ob- tained nowhere else so well as at Rome, these would make the most successful instruments of proselytism among their own friends and countrymen. These youths were, of course, selected and sent to Rome by the apostolical supervisors who were al- ready in the field, and were exactly fitted to make those selec- tions which would best serve their purpose. Was there ever a system better planned or more efficiently organized than this? especially when we take into the account the numerous agents among the hosts of supernumerary ecclesiastics which the Church had at her command ; agents which were bound to home by no family ties ; encumbered, for the most part, by no pecuniary claims except their own present personal wants ; forbidden by their mo- nastic vows, in many instances, to accumulate wealth ; and pre- gared, by the most perfect system of training, to sacrifice every thing for their object. This will account for the small expense by which the whole machinery was kept in operation ; for it is said their annual income, at the time of their greatest prosperity, was but about thirty-three thousand three hundred and ninety-six crowns.
But the glory and power of the Propaganda are in a great meas~ ure fallen. Its revenues had been derived from banks, from trib* utes paid by Naples and Venice, and by various religious orders, and by fees paid by each newly-elected cardinal. These sources, by the wars of the French and the revolutions in the institutions of the country, were mostly dried up, and in the convulsions and tumults of 1 800 the Propaganda palace itself was destroyed, and the operations of the society ceased. Its archives were carried to Paris, and it was at one time seriously determined to carry thither the oriental types, which comprehended the characters of twenty- three of the eastern languages. This was prevented, however, by 28. ' T T
330 ITALY.
the earnest remonstrance of Degerando, one of the consulta or administrative council who had been appointed to manage the government in accordance with the decree of Napoleon, dated at Vienna, May 17, 1810. This was the decree which annexed Rome to his empire, and provided for its government as an impe- rial city. It was through the representations of this same Dege- rando that Napoleon became interested in the Propaganda, and promised to endow it from the imperial treasury. This, however, he was prevented from doing by his great military operations, which finally ended in his overthrow. The Propaganda, therefore, is now comparatively poor. Still it does something; and the college, especially, is kept in operation, and in it missionaries are now trained for the United States and for other parts of the world. It is because the Propaganda has become so enfeebled, doubtless, that the Leopold foundation has been established in Austria for the purpose of enlarging the funds for missionary pur- poses. With this aid, and with the same principles of organiza- tion, and the same agents, in part at least, to help on the work, the Propaganda may yet become the still, but certain and powerful instrumentality for spreading Romanism to the ends of the earth. From this should not Protestants learn a lesson of zeal, of self- denial, of efficient organization, and religious enterprise ? At least, should they not be on their guard against the influences that are in operation at their own doors, and which threaten to encroach upon their own communities ? We are apt to look upon the papal power as the measure of the strength of the Catholic church ; but this is erroneous. True, the pope, as a temporal prince, is fallen ; his voice is not heeded in the courts of nations ; his anathemas have lost their power. The last bull of excommunication that was ever fulminated from the throne of the pontiif was that against Napoleon, by Pius VII., in 1809, and a quenched thunderbolt it was, a brutum fulmen. Pius himself virtually recalled it while in his captivity at Savona. And popes have now learned, doubt- less, that neither by their intrigues in courts nor by their spiritual anathemas, much less by their secular power, will they be able hereafter to retain their former influence. But this may drive them, nay, has driven them, to other means ; the only means in which they can have any hope of ultimate success. They have taken, I cannot say the ground of fair argument, because it is a
THE JEWS QUARTER. 331
ground of concealment abroad, and of exclusive access to the minds of their people in Catholic countries ; yet it is in some sense the ground of argument, and by education and direct moral and re- ligious influence they now hope to succeed. Here they will find the Propaganda of immense service to them still ; nay, of more service than ever. It is from this source that our Catholic mis- sionaries and teachers are chiefly furnished in the United States. There are now in the college of the Propaganda young men from the United States preparing themselves to return and labour for the cause of his holiness among us.
We visited repeatedly, while in Rome, the Jews' Quarter, be- cause in that direction are some of the finest ruins of the city, and once we visited the synagogue on one of their great occasions, viz., the Passover. The Jews amount to four or five thousand, and are closely crowded up in a portion of the town south of the ancient Campus Martius, which is now the principal part of the city, and on the left bank of the Tiber. It is called Ghetto, because ghet is the term used to express their act of divorcing their wives according to the Hebrew law, Deut. xxiv., 1. This is separated from the other parts of the city by walls and gates, so that at night they are shut into their own quarters. They appear to be a poor degraded caste. Their portion of the city is excessively filthy and crowded, and the poor sons of Abraham look like the outcasts of creation. Indeed, they seem here to labour under greater disabili- ties than in any other part of Italy. In Tuscany they have much more liberty, and many of them are landholders and merchants. In that duchy it is said there are eighteen or twenty thousand Jews. I know not, in fact, that they are confined to their ghettoes in any Italian city except Rome.
Their synagogue was large, and divided into three or four rooms below, and as many above ; their women worshipping by themselves. A priest officiated in each room in a kind of pul- pit, and the service seemed to consist in chanting certain portions from the Old Testament. On one side was the most holy place : here no Gentile must approach. I undesignedly gave great oflence by standing too near, and leaning upon some of the forms or cabinets connected with the sanctum sanctorum. The wor- ship was the most clamorous, the most irreverent and disgust- ing of anything I had ever seen bearing the name. They would
332 ITALY.
say over their prayers with the greatest haste and carelessness, and, when they had got through, immediately turn to each other and commence talking quite loud about their worldly business. You would have thought you were in a market rather than a place of worship. The money-changers and the pigeon-dealers had not their tables and merchandise in the house, but in all other respects they seemed to defile the temple with their secular busi- ness as much as in the days of Christ. They were boisterous and disagreeable ; some of them very filthy ; their children en- gaged in play, and the rooms, with all this motley group, very much crowded. And this is the worship, thought I, of the de- scendants of those Jews who, in the days of David and Solomon, worshipped Jehovah in such order and beauty ! Truly, " it is written my house shall be a place of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves."
The walls of the city are about seventeen miles in circumfer- ence ; but it has already been intimated that a good part of this is comparatively uninhabited, a field of desolate ruins. That part of the ancient city which was the. last to be included in the walls, and the least inhabited, is the heart of the modern city. It is formed from a bold sweep of the river, first to the right and then to the left, leaving a rich bow of land, which constituted the wheat- field of Tarquin, from which, in the popular tumult, the people carried it and cast it into the river, wUh similar feelings, doubt- less, with those by which our patriots cast the tea into Boston harbour. The island in the Tiber formed by the wheat still re- mains, and forms a part of the modern city : on it is a church, built upon the site of the ancient temple of Esculapius, who vis- ited the island, it is said, in the form of a serpent, and, by conse- quence, had a temple erected to his honour. The more modern church is built, in part, out of the ruins of the temple, and the image of the serpent is still preserved.*
Four of the seven ancient bridges now span the Tiber,t and the ruins of the other three remain ; some of them, however, are vis- ible only at low water.
One would suppose that the hills of the eternal city would be
* Is not the brazen serpent of Moses the origin of this heathen fable ? t That is, reckoning two at the island. This, however, gives but three entire pas- sages across the Tiber.
THE PINCIAN HILL. 333
the last to be changed, and yet these have undergone almost as much change as anything else. This has already been noticed. But who would expect a modern hill 1 " What hill is that ?" said I to our cicerone, as I stood at the Protestant burying-ground, and saw a respectable mount standing to the southwest, with a cross upon the top of it. Luigi shrugged his shoulders, as if he thought that a very unimportant question. " That is modern, sir !" he replied. I suppose he meant that there were no antiqui- ties upon it; but, in truth, the hill itself, compared with the " seven hills," is modern. It seems to be wholly composed of potsherds, and is supposed to be formed of the refuse of the pot- teries, which was carried out and deposited here. It is nearly two hundred feet in height and six hundred in circumference. Here are the public wine-vaults. The pieces of pottery form such a loose soil, that the air penetrates it, and forms a noncon- ducting medium for the heat, and this it is that renders this hill so suitable for wine cellars. In Horace's day, I suppose this hill was only in process of formation, otherwise it would have been as classic as his old Falerman itself. On this hill they have an annual festival, not unlike the ancient Saturnalia, of which, doubtless, it is a remnant.
But the loveliest hill now in Rome, and one that had little ancient celebrity, and was by no means ranked with the seven, is the Pincian Hill. It is situated in quite the north part of the city, and is ascended by a zigzag road from the Piazza del Popo- lo : the ascent is made easy, and is beautifully ornamented, pre- senting new views and new beauties at every turn. When you reach the summit you have a commanding view of the town, of the surrounding scenery, and of the distant mountains, not ex- cepting old Soracte himself, who had on when we saw him, as in the days of Horace, his mantle of snow. Here are gardens, and planted avenues, and cafes, and other edifices ; above all, as the crowning structure of the mount and the most prominent object in the city, the French Academia delle belle Arti, where the fine arts are taught. For the ornaments of this hill, as well as for the academy itself, Rome and the world are indebted to the French. It is, I think, on the whole, the most beautiful promenade I saw in Europe.
The most splendid entry into Rome is at the foot of this hill,
334 ITALY.
whether we consider the gate itself, with its proximate edifices, or the magnificent piazza immediately within the gate. One part of this piazza is an oval, adorned with fountains, statuary, and an obelisk. Here the city is narrow, and spreads out from this point in a fanlike form, giving rise to three streets that, starting from this common point, run out in angles of such divergency as to in- clude within their area most of the city. The central street is the Corso, which is the grand thoroughfare, losing itself near the foot of the Capitoline Hill at the south : here, every pleasant afternoon, and especially on Sundays, you meet all the noblesse and fashion of Rome. The left street is the Strada del Babuino, which courses along at the base of the Pincian Hill to the noble Piazza di Spagna, which is the principal resort of the English and Americans, and is, in fact, the most courtly and fashionable part of the city.
Just out of the Porta del Popolo is the elegant drive to the Bor- ghese Villa. These grounds are most delightful. The park is three miles in circumference, and adorned with avenues and fount- ains. The villa itself contains pain tings -and ancient sculpture. But the richest villa in ancient sculpture and statuary is the Villa Albani. It contains a splendid collection from Adrian's Villa and elsewhere; and the edifice, with the adjoining grounds and structures, display great classical taste. But time would fail me to speak of all that is interesting in and about Rome. I am con- scious that, for my own sake and the sake of my readers, I ought to leave this interesting city ; leave it with a thousand objects un described which are worth the notice of the traveller, but which would appear dry in the details of description. I cannot do so, however, without first giving a description of a visit to Adrian's Villa, which will be found in the following letter
To G. P. Disosway, Esq.
Rome, April 20, 183&
MY DEAR SIR,
I have been long looking for a letter from you, but I find my self disappointed. Indeed, I am greatly disappointed that I have heard so little from my friends since I left America. I can ex- cuse them, however, on the ground of their various duties ; and, that I may not detain them too long by my complaints, I waive
VISIT TO ADRIAN S VILLA. 335
further reflections of this kind, and hasten to give you an account of a late visit to Tivoli.
Tivoli, as you know, is the ancient Tiber, a town celebrated in ancient Roman history as a place of resort for the citizens of Rome, both for pleasure and for health. Its situation upon a mountain, overlooking the Campagna Romana, and commanding, in the distance, the view of the capital itself — the distance being about eighteen miles from the great city — the healthiness of the position, and especially the wildness, beauty, and romance thrown around the scene by the river Anio, in its shooting, racing cata- ract down the side of the mountain, all rendered it a favourite ap- pendage of Rome. This, therefore, was the resort of men of let- ters, both for the sake of retirement and the inspiration of the scene ; it was the resort of men of wealth and of pleasure, for a pleasurable country residence in the heat of summer ; and, finally, the resort of the emperor himself for the display of taste and of princely magnificence. All its glory has not departed even in these latter days, for some of the most interesting characteristics are imprinted by the God of nature himself upon the scenery of the place; and, in addition to this, its historic associations, and the splendid ruins in its neighbourhood, shed over its fallen great- ness a lingering, melancholy light, mellowed by time and hal- lowed by classical recollections.
We left Rome by the Porta Santo Lorenzo, April 18. The present road is mostly on the same route with the ancient Tiber- man Way, the old pavements of which are, in some places, still visible. The first object of special interest which struck our at- tention was the Lago de Tartari, a small body of water, that derives its name from the peculiar property which the water has of depositing tartareous and calcareous matter, and of petrifying vegetables and other substances that come in contact with it The lake is now small, but the banks around bear indication of its having formerly been much larger. Almost all the substances, for a great distance around, are in a state of petrifaction, of the kind called travertina, the same material with that of which the temples of Paestum are constructed. This stone seems to be formed not only by a petrifaction of vegetable and animal substan ces, but also from the water alone, sometimes in large masses, and sometimes in smaller portions, not unfrequently putting on
ITALY.
the shape of stalactites, with a small perfoiation thiongh the cen- tre, as if the formation were an incrustation around a stream of water These stalactites shoot out in every possible direction, and produce fragments of the most fantastic forms ; the substance itself is that of a very hard stone, although, in some cases, as po- rous as a honeycomb, and almost bids defiance to time. This it is that has given such durability to the ruins of ancient Paestum, and to some of the relics of ancient Rome. The essential ingre- dient of the formation appears to be lime. The substance abounds in this region, and has furnished most of the material for the build- ing of modern Rome. The waters of the Tiverone, anciently called the Anio, seem to have filled this region with this stone ; hence one would suppose that the waters of the lake and those of the river are of similar properties.
A little farther on we came to the canal of the Solfatara, a most singular stream, of a size sufficient to float a small boat, of a whi- tish colour, and strongly impregnated with sulphur, insomuch that the air for quite a distance round is strongly affected with the odour, and the soil adjacent is likewise fully saturated with the same substance. The stream comes from a lake about a mile from the road, anciently called Aquae Albulae, from the whiteness of the waters. That this lake should, for twenty-five or thirty centuries, continue to pour out such a current of sulphureous wa- ter, is a surprising fact in natural history, and shows that the ma- terial which furnishes the solution is inexhaustible. This .canal discharges itself, after a short distance, into the Anio, below which no fishes are found in that river, although they abound above this juncture.
From the canal we proceeded to Tivoli, winding up the mount- ain by a new road, which, within a few years, has been made to facilitate the ascent. The view over the Campagna was very good, although not superior to many others ; and if this were all, the labour of the ascent would not be recompensed. But the wa- ter scenery is the great object of interest at Tivoli. The river Anio is precipitated from the top of the marble mountain on which Tivoli stands into the valley below. Formerly the natural course of the river down the mountain side was by a cascade, the ruins of which only remain. The action of the water and an unusual inundation broke through the rock in such a manner as to destroy
337
the beauty of the cataract, at the same time it carried away the bridge over the river. His holiness, however, in spite of his pov- erty, has repaired, or, rather, restored the bridge, and renewed the cascade. He has cut a grotto through a part of the mountain, and conducted a portion of the river through a double submontane arch, and precipitated it down the side of the mountain, our guide said, four hundred feet. It cannot, however, be that distance from the top to the bottom of the perpendicular fall, although the entire de- scent might possibly amount to that. The road you pass is cut into the side of the mountain directly over the pitch of the water ; you then wind round the mountain, which encompasses the vale like a huge amphitheatre, into which the water descends ; at every quar- ter of which you get a new aspect of the cataract and the surround- ing scenery. When a quarter round you have, on the opposite side, the mouth of the grotto of Neptune, so called, which was the ancient principal channel of the river, where it shot out from under natural arches of marble into the gulf beneath ; and above, crowning the precipice on the side of the town, are two ancient temples ; one of them is a beautiful temple of Vesta, being on the side seen from this point, in a good state of preservation ; the other is called the Temple of the Sibyl, who used to inhabit this roman- tic spot, and who had a grotto also in the glen below. A little far- ther on we had a distant prospect of Rome, with her crowning dome of St. Peter's. Half round we had the cataract full before us, and the former channel of the river, in which direction a por- tion of the water still passes ;- and here, also, two other cascades are brought in view, less extensive, and farther to the west ; one against the town, and another beyond. These are also formed by conducting the waters of the river out of their natural channel. They are both divided into several branching spouts and sporting cascades; sometimes partially concealed, and then bursting out anew with increased rapidity. Indeed, this whole circuit exhibit- ed a continued and an ever-varying scene of picturesque beauty, in some instances verging upon the grand, if not upon the sublime. Here, too, we found the site and some of the remains of what is called the Villa of Horace ; and we were shown an ancient mo*- saic floor, in a church built upon the site of his house, which is supposed to be the floor of his study. Surely the poet could hardly have selected a place better calculated to feed his poetic 29* Uu
338 ITALY
vein, and kindle up the spirit of song in his soul, than this en- chanting spot.
On returning, we descended into the valley by a zigzag course, on the side of the gulf, between the present principal cascade and the old bed of the river. The path is cut into the side of the mountain, having only a rustic fence on the precipice side a good part of the way, to defend the traveller from accident ; for here a misstep would precipitate him upon rocks hundreds of feet below. Some of the way, however, we were carried within the crust of the mountain through grottoes cut for the purpose. Low down, we left the direct route to descend a winding gallery to the grotto of the Sibyl. This originally constituted a third leap of the river, and the last before it reached the vale below. Here enough water still plays to lull to repose the mystic goddess in her cataract cell. The view through this grotto is indescribably fine. A small but bright opening at the farther end of the grotto conducted the vision through and onward, until it rested, in the distance, upon the large cascade at the west, just at that point where the falling torrent, almost dissolved into spray, was spanned by a rainbow ! To conceive of this with any approximation to- wards reality, you must see it. It cannot be described, nor ever transferred to canvass.
We commenced our ascent on the other side, but soon left our donkeys (for, steep as are the sides of this mountain, the path was so graduated as to allow of this mode of conveyance) to pass through another interior gallery in the side of the mountain, lighted by frequent windows, to visit the cave or grotto of Nep- tune. It was with much difficulty, however, we could get a view of it over the piles of ruins caused by the inundation above alluded to. When the whole body of water rushed through this cavern the exhibition must have been grand. We found here the labourers of the pope blasting the rocks, and artificially restoring nature !
We finally reached the summit on the side of the temples of Neptune and Vesta already alluded to. The former was a quad- rangle, constructed of the travertina marble, some of the pillars of which still remain in the walls of the church, into which, after the manner of the modern Romans, the temple has been con- verted. The temple of Vesta is near by, and connected by an
VISIT TO ADRIAN'S VILLA. 339
uncouth modern building with that of Neptune. This edifice is, like all the other vestal temples, a rotunda, with fine fluted col- umns of the composite order, and an interior pyramid, within which, doubtless, the vestal fires were kept ; the exterior circle of columns were an open piazza, forming a beautiful enclosure, and supporting a canopy for the sanctum sanctorum within. Some of these columns are missing, and the others are very much defaced by time, so that the flutings are, in some cases, scarcely visible, although the material was of the hard marble or travertina stone already mentioned. Here we took our last view of this romantic scene, on the like of which, taking it all in all, we shall never look again. Its classical associations, its ancient ruins, its romantic grottoes, its varied and extraordinary cascades, its el- evated situation, set off by the still higher mountains that close in around it, all unite to render the entire exhibition peculiarly interesting. «
After dining at the inn, we descended the mountain, and fin- ished the day among the ruins of Adrian's Villa, at the foot of the mountain, about one half mile from the main road. This villa, as it is called, must have been almost a city, for it had theatres, tem- ples, and public buildings in great abundance. It must have been built early in the second century of the Christian era, for the Emperor Adrian, by whom it was designed and built, died in 117. It is the most interesting collection of ruins I have yet seen. I have, indeed, seen individual edifices that exceeded any one of these ; but their number, their solitude, and their variety all con- spire to heighten the effect. The location of this villa was ex- ceedingly well chosen, being near the mountains, and on a gentle elevation above the surrounding country.
The design of the excellent, talented, and tasteful emperor, who laid out and adorned these grounds, seems to have been to unite, in one single collection, many of the most intellectual and classical associations of Greece, and something, also, of Egypt. Hence he had the vale of Tempe, the river Peneus, the Elysian Fields, the entrance into the infernal regions, and the like. For edifices he had what he called the Lyceum, which, in Greece, was the school of Aristotle, the Academia of Plato, the Prytane- um, which was the place of public business of Athens, the Poecile of the Stoics, and the Serapeon of Egypt, &c. The Peneus was
340 ITALY.
artificial, being a portion of the water of the Anio turned down the mountain in a different direction from its present course, and made to pass through a valley that intervenes between the villa and the mountain. Of this river there remains nothing but the valley through which it ran, and a very small rill in its centre. The Poecile was between four and five hundred feet in length, of an oblong figure : one of the long walls only remains, formed principally of tufa, with occasional layers of terra cotta. But this remnant shows what a magnificent edifice this must have been, especially as it was entirely fronted by a spacious portico, form- ing a stoa, or piazza of ample dimensions, like that in Athens which gave name to the sect of Stoics, in which sages and phi- losophers might walk, and philosophize, and teach.
In this villa were a Greek and a Latin library, and several splendid temples, the ruins of which are still seen. The temples are generally arched over at the tops, like the Pantheon at Rome, and frequently have chambers and other apartments adjoining for the accommodation of the priests. The Temple of Serapis, a great portion of whose massy walls still remain, is an edifice of this kind. Behind the niches where the statues of the gods were placed is a vacant space, which seems to have been entered by a secret passage from the top. Here it is supposed the priests were accustomed to conceal themselves, to give responses in answer to those who consulted the oracles, by which the ignorant multitude were deceived into the idea that the voice came from the god himself. From this temple much of the Egyptian statu- ary which now adorns the galleries at Rome was taken. In fact, the works of art, and especially the sculpture taken from Adrian's Villa, have enriched more than one gallery, and more than one city or state, with some of the finest specimens of an- tiquity. In the Temple of Venus we were shown the very niche from which the celebrated Venus de Medicis, now at Florence, was taken.
In addition to the buildings already mentioned, there were two theatres and two amphitheatres. The latter, however, are more generally supposed to be naumacJiia, or places for the exhibition of naval combats or games ; these were supposed to be filled with water at pleasure for this purpose, and around one of them are logia, or galleries, still standing, where the spectators were placed
341
to behold these exhibitions ; and underneath these logia were shops, still in a state of fine preservation, where they sold refresh- ments, £c.
The most perfect rooms now remaining among the ruins are the Cento Camerelle, or One Hundred Chambers, as they are called. They were the military barracks or lodges of the Praetorian guard. They are situated on the side of a declivity, so as, by the addi- tional help of a trench in front, they are, on that side, entirely open and above ground, while the top is on a level with the surface. They are in ranges of one, two, and three stories in different parts, according to the height of the acclivity, all arched over, and cov- ered with earth at the top ; and the rear wall made double, with an intervening space, to prevent the dampness from penetrating. These are mostly in a perfect state, and, with a little repairing, might still serve for their original purpose.
The most extensive edifice, or rather range of edifices, was the imperial palace, many parts of which still remain but partially im- paired ; here were the royal chambers, the saloons, the courts, the corridors, the gardens, the baths, and even, in one part, the prisons, all grand and majestic, though in ruins. The entire suite of archi- tectural ruins belonging to this palace must, I think, cover a num- ber of acres. One of the courts has a subterranean corridor quite round it, lighted by oblique windows slanting outward and upward into the court ; the corridor is arched, and lined with a coat of stucco, which is now hard as marble. But I must not dwell upon these ruins in detail ; they are too numerous and extensive to be minutely described. The villa, it is said, extended over three miles in length by one in breadth ; and, indeed, what less could we ex- pect when the Elysian Fields, the descent to the infernal regions, the temples of the principal deities, the schools of the philosophers, the public libraries, theatres and amphitheatres, and the imperial palace and gardens, with all their necessary appendages, were to be exhibited in connexion ? How Adrian, amid all his other duties and studies, could find time to plan and execute this work, is sur- prising, when we reflect especially that he spent the first thirteen years out of the twenty-one of his reign in travelling over his vast empire, from Spain and the British Isles in the west to Asia in the east ; and that, in the remaining eight years, he was diligently engaged in his private studies, in making laws, and in managing 29
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the affairs of his empire. He was, maeed, a most extraordinary man, both in physical strength and in intellectual endowments, and, I might add, in moral virtues. Hence, in wandering among the ruins of his villa, the associations and historical reminiscences afford a much greater pleasure than when contemplating the ruins of the palace of the Caesars, and of the golden house of Nero on the Palatine Hill in Rome. You feel that you are treading in the steps of a virtuous man, as well as of an illustrious prince and a sage philosopher. As you pass over the grounds of his extended stoa, you say, Here he walked and philosophized ; and at the li- braries, here he pursued his literary studies; and here, at the temples, he worshipped. It is true, he was not a Christian, but he became favourable to Christianity. He put an end to the per- secutions that had raged against it under former emperors ; and he thought so favourably of Jesus Christ, that he had serious thoughts, it is said, of admitting him among the number of the gods !
Another circumstance which enhances the pleasure of contem- plating these ruins is the solitude that prevails around. In Rome you find crowding around the desolations of antiquity the busy multitude of a modern race. The Pantheon and various other ancient edifices are modern churches ; the Temple of Antoninus Pius is a custom-house ; the Temple of Pallas is a baker's shop ; and the ancient Forum, with its nodding columns and crumbling temples, is a market-place ! But here you have no such intrusions ; solitude reigns over these ruins ; not even the farmer with his plough, nor the gardener with his spade, is allowed to break in upon the wildness and solitude of the scene. The wild chamois may feed here, and " the fox may dig his hole unscared." Forest trees have sprung up in every direction, overhanging the ruins and giving additional gloom to the picture. Nothing served more to impress upon the mind a vivid conception of the antiquity of the ruins than the sight of a stately pine, from two and a half to three feet diameter, growing in the centre of one of the courts of the imperial palace. Others of the same character are seen in differ- ent parts of the ground. But the tree that best chimes in with the genius of the place, and which is very abundant here, is the tall perennial cypress. They shoot up in gloomy majesty in different parts of these grounds, like silent sentinels keeping their watch over the consecrated ruins.
DEPARTURE FROM ROME. 343
We hung around these relics of former grandeur until sunset ; the shadows of the broken arches were deepened, the hollow winds moaned through the trees ; the sensations of this hour were inde scribable ; it was the deepening of feelings that had long been gath- ering strength, as I had for months been holding communion with the ages of antiquity, and had become more and more assimilated into the spirit of these associations. The musings of that hour were a kind of enchantment, and made me almost wish for some lodge in this " lone wilderness," this extended contiguity of ruins, where, undisturbed, I might muse upon the fading glories of a changing and a transitory world. The last of the company, and with much reluctance, I at length, as the shades came on, broke away from the attractions, leaving the sighing winds to chant through another night, as they have done through the successive nights of by-gone centuries, the melancholy dirge of Adrian's Villa in Ruins.
I remain, as ever, yours in affection,
W. FISK.
We spent our time in Rome most pleasantly, and formed, while there, many interesting acquaintances with our own countrymen as well as others. The visitors from the United States to Rome are growing more numerous every year. The present year there have been two or three hundred. Fifty American ladies, I was informed by our consul, were in the city during Passion Week. Very soon after the close of those ceremonies, however, the city was comparatively deserted. A part lingered a little longer than usual, in hope of seeing the illumination ; but when it was found that that was postponed, almost all were moving. We lingered a while to finish out our sight-seeing, and then followed the other birds of passage, who were hastening to a more northern climate to escape the heat and malaria of Central Italy.
341 1TALT.
CHAPTER XVII.
Six Americans of us, in one berlin, drawn by four mules, with a postilion more mulish than the mules themselves, left Rome for Florence, April 25th. Our veturino was passionate and obstinate ; his mules were slow, so that, to accomplish but little in one day, we had to rise early and travel late. The distance from Rome to Florence by the Perugia Route, which is the one we travelled, is about twenty-seven posts, in travelling which we were six days ; at the close, we decided, I believe unanimously, that we would have no more to do, if we could avoid it, with either four- legged or two-legged mules. The Sienna Route, as it is called, is nearer the sea, and one day's drive shorter, than that by Peru- gia ; but the latter is more interesting, and has, it is said, better hotels. Our road was excellent, but hilly ; and we were under the necessity, in all the mountainous parts, to have our team strengthened by oxen, whose snail-like pace tallied well with the motion of our mules. But whether they have mules or horses, travellers are reinforced by oxen up the mountains. The inns are of the same cheerless character with those already described, and, in many instances, furnishing but indifferent fare. The beds, however, were in most cases comfortable, save that the sheets were occasionally damp, an occurrence by no means rare in Italy, although, I believe, much less frequent than formerly. Whenever this is the case, the traveller is obliged, if he would preserve his health, either to have a fire by which to dry them, or use a warm- ing-pan until they are sufficiently aired. He should always ex- amine them before he goes to bed. Some, to avoid danger from this source, carry thick flannel bed-gowns, by which they de- fend themselves against the deleterious effects of the dampness Great care is certainly necessary, for one night might otherwise prove fatal, especially to an invalid.
The route was, in the main, the same with the ancient Roman road, called the Via Flaminia, but not entirely. Leaving the city through the beautiful piazza and Porta del Popolo, you soon pass the Tiber, over a fine bridge called Ponte Molle. Here the
CAMPAGNA, 345
Via Flaminia bears to the right, to Civita Castillana ; but Pius VI. made a more direct route to this latter place, which is the one now mostly travelled. Civita Castillanaw&s our first Ipdging- place. We passed, some two or three miles out of the city of Rome, a huge ancient sarcophagus, made of one piece, with a cover, which they call the Tomb of Nero. Whether it be really Nero'a tomb cannot perhaps be certainly determined. It is about the same distance from the ancient city as was Nero, when he was driven to the extremity of destroying himself. The only wonder is, how the monster, execrated as he was by all classes, should find one who would give him a decent burial, much less excavate for him such a sarcophagus. We passed over the Campagna Romana, and found it in this direction quite barren, In this respect, I confess I was disappointed ; for I had supposed the whole Campagna of a very rich soil. It appeared, however, like soil that had been exhausted by excessive tillage ; very lit- tle of it was under cultivation ; and that which was, did not ap- pear very luxuriant. Cultivated it cannot be safely, on account of the malaria ; but if the soil were fertile, it would certainly produce a more abundant crop of grass and herbage. There were, however, large herds of cattle and sheep upon these fields of death ; and the herdsmen who tended them, showed but too clearly that they inhaled a sickly atmosphere, and were hastening to an untimely end. The appearance of these shepherds, as I have had occasion to remark before, is anything but poetical. Think of a countenance cadaverous with disease, crisped and discolored by the sun and the winds, looking either stupid or fe- rocious, and dressed with a sheepskin coat with the wool on — armed, perhaps, with a gun or a long pike, and then say, Is this Meliboeus or Corydon ? — to say nothing of Endymion and Daphne, and other shepherds and shepherdesses who inflamed the love of gods and goddesses. They look more like wolves in sheep's clothing, or like banditti of the desert ; and if you meet one when alone upon these wide wastes, you involuntarily shrink as from the presence of a savage brigand whose trade is death ; and yet, 1 believe it is seldom, if ever known in modern days, that robberies or murders are committed here. For miles there were no dwellings, except occasionally a stone structure, as a station for these herdsmen and their flocks, with a stable in the
Xx
346 ITALY.
lower story, and a lodging-place above, having around them filth enough to breed the malaria, in an otherwise healthy climate.
Another characteristic of the Campagna, which is unlike my preconception of it, is the unevenness of the surface. There are few high hills, but constant inequalities, like the surface of a rough sea in a storm ; this is in fact its character in every direc- tion from Rome. We soon reached the mountains, however, in the present route, as there is little pains taken here as in our country when passing a mountainous route, to find out the val- leys. You are sometimes led to believe, that it is an object, in constructing the Roman roads, to strike the first spur that runs out from the mountains, and then mount and keep upon the top as long as possible. This is very impolitic for the most impor- tant purposes of a road, but it is very agreeable to the tourist who is travelling to see the country ; he is carried from mountain top to mountain top, in delightful visions ; getting new views from every successive observatory. This constitutes one of the charms of travelling in Italy.
The second day, we again crossed the Tiber on a bridge built by Augustus Caesar. We passed Otricoli, anciently Ocricu- lum, and Narni, anciently called Narnia, and hastened on as fast as our mules would carry us to Term', twenty or twenty-five miles, without stopping, in order to get time, the same day, to visit the cascade, called the Caduta del Marmore. These falls are four miles from Terni, at the junction of the Velino with the Nar ; and are formed by the waters of the former, being precipitated into the latter, from an elevation of between four and five hundred feet, by several successive leaps, one of which is said to be three hundred feet. We ascended the mountain on a road cut obliquely into its almost perpendicular side, from a miserable little village, in a caleche ; having first ordered donkeys to meet us at the foot of the falls. At the top of the mountain is a plain, over which the water is conducted, before it leaps into the valley below. I say con- ducted, for it is stated that some time before the Christian era, these waters were brought by Curius Dentatus in this direction, with a view of draining the country above of its standing water. The view from above is fine : the fall is so great, that almost the whole body of water seems churned into foam, and quite a por- tion of it thrown off into spray, insomuch, that the whole declivity
CADUTA DEL MARMORE. 347
of the hill around is constantly wet, as by a falling shower. At a proper time in the day, when the sun is unobstructed by clouds, it is said the prismatic colours are beautifully reflected from the shower of spray that hovers over the vortex below. Of this, however, as the sky was mostly obscured, we obtained but an imperfect and transient view during one short interval of sun- shine. There were several stations at which we had different views of this beautiful cascade as we descended the mountain ; and the only interruption or annoyance we had to our enjoyment, was the constant importunity of beggars, who made direct appli- cation for charity, or claimed that they had made this platform, formed that rustic parapet, where we stood to view the cascade ; or had repaired the road, or dug out the steps of earth, down which we passed in our descent, and for this demanded pay ; or they assailed us with an importunity that no positive denial could turn aside, with minerals or curious natural formations, which they wished us to purchase. But such annoyances are so com- mon in Italy, the traveller is wearied out with them ; and possibly the reader is weary of hearing of them ; and, in fact, unless he should be, he would not have a correct idea of travelling in Italy ; and, therefore, would read a book of travels without accomplish- ing the object of reading, which is to be able to form a tolerably .just estimate of a country, through which the tourist conducts him by his journal.
One of the most interesting features of this cataract, is the cu- rious formations by the water, of stalactites and various petrifac- tions. These alone would repay the traveller for visiting the place. They are similar to the formations, already noticed at Tivoli, of travertine marble. But there are also, as at Tivoli, depositions from the water of petrified lime, in successive strata, resembling the different and successive grains of coarse-grained wood. This substance takes a most beautiful polish, and is wrought by the artists into various handsome works of taste and ornament.
At the foot of the hill, we found our donkeys under female con- ductors, which we mounted to ascend an eminence, on the other side of the valley opposite to the falls, for the purpose of obtaining a better front view. Our conductors, as usual, commenced pound- ing the donkeys with clubs, and urging them forward by that peculiar kind of grunt, which you hear all over Italy, when an
348 ITALY.
ass is to be driven, and which to be understood must be heard ; for it is the likeness of no sound, I believe, articulate or inarticu- late, to which the ears of my countrymen are accustomed. It is the most like what I have sometimes heard, when a man is chop- ping wood, or giving a heavy blow with a sledge, and probably it had its origin from the same cause ; for as the blow and the sound naturally go together, it was found at length, that the grunt itself would sometimes answer the purpose, as the poor donkey was led, when he heard the one, to expect the other. But neither blows nor sounds accomplish much with these poor little insensi- ble animals. After I was well mounted and began to hear the blows behind, I bade my conductress desist; but she told me, if she did not bastinado him he would not go. But I was de- scribing the falls — and yet I must describe them as I saw them, which was riding upon a bastinadoed donkey. We had a fine view of the cascade, from this opposite side at several different positions ; and then returned through a delightful valley down the bank of the sporting stream, with overhanging rocks on one side, and a lofty mountain on the other. At the little village where we ordered our donkeys we resumed our carriage, amid the cries of beggars and the vociferation of guides, donkey-wo- men, &c., &c., clamouring for more buono-mano, some of whom followed our carriage for some rods, after we started. It is thus that almost every where in Southern Italy, the traveller is pounced upon by a cloud of harpies, that seem ready to devour him, and who never have enough.
We lodged at Terni. The next day dined at Spoleto, an- ciently Spoletium. Here, after the battle of Lake Thrasymenus, Hannibal was repulsed, and an ancient gate still bears an inscrip tion, recording this event. Here also is a beautiful aqueduct carried across a valley, three hundred feet high. From this place a most lovely valley extends to Foligno, the ancient Fulgineum — in travel- ling over which we passed an ancient temple, supposed to be the Temple of Clitumnus, situated near the source of the river of that name — passed the next morning near the birthplace of Francesco, in the town of Assissi — and near by, visited a church and monastery that were being repaired, or we might say, rebuilt — for they were destroyed four years ago, by an earthquake, a calamity which affected all this section of country — at Foligno the houses and
THE CATHEDRAL 349
public edifices were terribly shaken — some demolished and many injured. In this church, we found the sanctuary of St. Francesco, and the room where he resided, and the closet for his books, and the door through which he was accustomed to pass, all preserved in their original form, forming a kind of sanctum sanctorum, within the house of God. All the region around swarmed with Franciscans. The next day we were drawn by oxen up the mountain to Perugia ; although a road might have been made so as to avoid the mountain, but you may be almost sure that you will be taken over the mountain, if there is one in the route ; and this especially, because the cities of Italy are mostly built on hills and mountains. At Perugia, called an- ciently Augusta Perusia, we visited the cathedral, where we saw nothing interesting, except the deposition of a dead priest, who had been elevated upon a bed of state, or stage of exhibition, where he had lain the usual time, and was now taken down for sepulture. There was much ado in getting him down ; and when they had succeeded, they stretched^ him out upon the dirty pavement of the church, where he remained until we left, (al- though we lingered some time to see what disposition would be made of him,) surrounded by boys and youths, some of whom had on the ecclesiastical hat, who were jesting and laughing over the dead priest, in a manner the most repulsive. From Perugia, we descended to the Perugian lake, or as it was anciently called, Lake Thrasy menus, where the great battle was fought between the Roman consul Flaminius, and Hannibal, in which the former was defeated and slain, and almost his entire army exterminated. The lake is a beautiful sheet of water in the midst of surround- ing hills, and sprinkled with islands. We lodged at a miserable little village which was almost crowded into the lake by the mountain, called Passignano, from its being the only southern pass from the vale beyond, where the abovementioned battle was fought.
Lake Thrasymene, however, furnished us with a delightful supper of fish, and we had a comfortable bed. Another voiturier, which was in company with us most of the way, stopped at the same inn, and we might have been crowded as to our quarters, but a Frenchman, with his daughter, about twenty-five years of age, always took one chamber for both, to save expense, and this 30
350 ITALY.
gave us an additional chamber. The French, and indeed the European continental nations generally, have very different no- tions about such matters from those of the English or Americans. They think nothing of passing each other's lodging-rooms to get to their own beds. Indeed a very common method of building, is to have a long suite of apartments in one range all enfiladed by the doors, and entered by passing successively through the intervening chambers. We often found it difficult to get lodging- rooms where our ladies were not subjected to this inconve- nience.
The next morning we passed the famous battle-ground. It is a vale setting back from the lake perhaps two miles, and surround- ed by hills, so as to form an amphitheatre, with only two narrow vomitorii, or outlets, at either end, on the shores of the lake. Into this place Hannibal decoyed his enemy by stratagem — placing a good part of his army upon the heights near where the Romans entered, while he with the other portion of his army occupied the opposite heights ; when the Romans had entered the pass and filled the amphitheatre, the concerted signal was given — the ambuscade from the rear fell upon the Roman army, and they found themselves surrounded. The elements favoured the Carthaginians ; for it was sunshine on the hills, but a dense fog settled down upon the vale : weapons from unseen enemies were showered upon the astonished and terror-struck Romans. It was a bloody day — and a critical one for Rome. A small number cut their way through to the neighbouring heights ; but the greater part perished. We passed a rivulet called Sangui- netto, from its waters having been discoloured by the blood of the slain. This battle gave Hannibal the ascendancy in Italy ; and had not the luxury and licentiousness of the Campania been more fatal to his army than Roman arms, he might have subdued and overwhelmed the nation, and Carthage and Rome might have changed characters in the great drama of the world. As it turned, however, Rome has gained the appellation of the Eternal City, and Carthage was destroyed, and no traces of its site or existence remain, save on the page of history.
The next day we reached Florence. From the top of the high-lands, several miles distant, we had a most enchanting view of the city and its surrounding villas. It was environed in the
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distance by mountains embowered in vineyards and verdure, elegantly reposing on the banks of the Arno, and wafting up the mountain-side, to welcome our approach, the fragrant incense of an Italian spring. What a change in a place is effected by the weather and the season of the year ! Florence had certainly gained much by exchanging the drenching rains and chilling winds of January for the balmy breath of May.
We revisited the galleries ; called on our old friends ; inquired after the schools, and found them all flourishing. We learned also that the Swiss heroine of the infant-schools was meditating a new enterprise full of interest, and so far as we could learn, of promise also : but in a country where a heretic is suspected even when doing good, it may not be proper to publish her operations to the world — especially when the agents of the propaganda in our country convey to Rome all that is passing or is published here affecting the interests of the Holy See. We raised a few crowns among our countrymen and fellow-travellers for the enter- prise, and could do no more than follow her with our good wishes and prayers.
After a few days' rest and preparation, we found ourselves ready to recross the Apennines, which we had determined to do in the direction of Bologna, to try if possible to reach Venice. From the beginning I had hoped to see Venice, but had been upon the point of relinquishing the object, from the discouraging reports of prevailing cholera and consequent quarantines. In this matter, as in many others, we found it extremely difficult to obtain any satisfactory information. However, we thought the nearer we approached, the more definite would be our intelligence.
Our departure was attended with several painful circumstances. One was that our interesting and kind fellow-travellers were to return in another direction, not choosing to take Lombardy in their route. It was like breaking up a family, rendered the more painful, because we were in a foreign land. Mrs. F. and myself were to proceed alone. But what was still more painful was, that one of our company, Mr. W. already mentioned, was declining so fast that we feared we should see him no more. His case had been one of painful interest for many days. Sometimes, while in Rome, he was able to go out with us and view those ruins which accorded too painfully with the ruins of his own once
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vigorous constitution, wasting under the consuming touch of a resistless disease. Occasionally, his buoyant mind seemed to catch inspiration from the scenes around him, and he would forget his own weakness in the rhapsodies of the poets and the legends of Roman mythology. Again, he would be prostrated — and think and talk of home — pray not to be buried in Italy — and speak of the comforts which a sick man foregoes by leaving the bosom of friends to court health in a more genial clime. He that has never been sick abroad, knows not the hundredth part of the meaning that is contained in this reflection ! In the main, Mr. W. was cheerful, and it was some time before he could be per-
•
suaded that journeying by land injured him, and that his best course was to go to Leghorn and take ship for New -York. At length he became satisfied that this was his only hopeful course- Having been so long the object of our solicitude, it was painful to leave him. We parted with the usual tokens, but without words, for anguish choked utterance.*
We left for Bologna en voiturier, 6th of May. A sick fellow-passenger, was taken so ill he was obliged to stop. We left him in great distress in a solitary inn upon the Apennines. After this we had the entire coach to ourselves, and our veturino having got rid of a part of his charge without any loss of fee, made an effort to barter us off also upon another, who was going in our direction ; but not feeling disposed to be traded off in that style, and having the staff in our own hand, he was obliged to carry us through, or go home without his pay.
Our route was over the desolate Apennines, with but few trees or shrubs, and very little verdure, I should judge at best. At this time they were still sprinkled with snowbanks, and the chill of winter lingered here. There are some sublime views, however, and at one point you may see the Mediterranean on the one side
* It was the final separation until the Great Day. He embarked at Leghorn, and during the voyage his health seemed rather to improve, until the vessel reached the Banks of New Foundland ; and here the fogs hastened his disease to a speedy maturity. Difficulty of breathing, delirium, and death ensued. In all probability, if he had taken a more southerly passage, he might have lived to breathe his last with his friends. Let the consumptive, who thinks of going to Italy to recover his health, remember the sufferings and solitary death of the intelligent and estimable Wm. J. Webb. For the comfort of his friends, I will add, we have hope in his death.
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and the Adriatic on the other. We passed the Monte di Fo, a small volcano, which constantly sends forth, (it is said,) a clear flame, spreading out a number of feet, and burning brightest, or more properly perhaps appearing brightest, as all flames do, in cloudy weather.
Bologna is beautifully situated on the river Reno, at the base of the Apennines, and on the skirt of that most extraordinary and lovely vale of Lombardy — extending from the base of the Alps on the west to the Adriatic on the east, and from the Apennines on the south to the Rhoetian Alps on the north — watered by the Adige and the Po, with their numerous branches. It was the Cisalpine Gaul of the ancient Romans, and has been the seat of more wars, and the scene of more battles, probably, than any other part of Europe. For no other reason, perhaps, than that God hath blessed it with peculiar fertility and beauty !
The city of Bologna contains about seventy thousand inhab- itants, and is about five miles in circumference. A peculiarity in the streets, is, that all the principal ones are lined with arcades, or continued porticoes, which rest on single columns, and which, by narrowing the streets and excluding the light, give a sombre appearance to the city. This is certainly a great improvement, however, to a city in a country especially so exposed to intense heat as is Italy. To such an extent does this taste prevail at Bo- logna, that an insulated arcade, or covered portico extends from the city to the church of Maria di St. Luca, three miles perhaps from the town ; and a branch of it turns off to the Campo Santo, a mile from the city. The length of these arcades must interest the stranger, and must be an accommodation to the citizens, whether they wish to visit their most interesting cemetery, rich in the variety of its apartments and monuments, or their patroness saint, Maria di St. Luca ; and it is certainly an accom- modation to the saint herself — for once a year she has to make a visit to the city where she remains to be adored three days, and these are high days. All the world around, city and country, rush in to pay their devotions at the shrine of the goddess. Fortunately for us, we arrived just in time to be sharers in this great religious fete. Her madonaship, I believe, arrived in town the morning of the same day in which we arrived in the evening. We found the church and all the streets around it crowded 30
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But the next day, which was the Sabbath, was the great day of the feast. The city was full of the country costumes, the church was decorated and crowded, the ceremony and service were long and tedious, and amidst it all, collectors were going among the crowd, shaking their boxes and calling upon the people to honour the saint by contributing to the support of the shrine. So it seemed, that, although public veneration and worship were among the objects of the saint in coming to the city, yet her principal design was to make a collection. This jargon of sounds, com- pounded of the thousands around you, muttering over their own private devotions and prayers, independent and disregardful entirely of the public service ; the chanting of the service by the priests and by the organ, and the rattling of coppers in the boxes of the collectors, were to me a queer and not very profitable exercise. Perhaps it was because I did not enter into the spirit of devotion. But how could I, when the centre of attraction and the only object of worship, seemed to be an image placed over the altar. To say their prayers and to supplicate her fa- vour, seemed to be the great object of the multitude, and this the priests themselves sanctioned by worshipping most de- voutly at her shrine. I tried to obtain a view of the saint, but she was so embowered in flowers and finery, I could not get a sight of her divine face. It seems to be thought the more they can dress up these images, the more they honour them. Hence it is a very common thing to find the images of the Virgin, and other saints, profusely ornamented and dressed out in tawdry-coloured silks, gauzes, and ribands !
Bologna abounds with towers, some of them carried up very high, and all of them leaning. We ascended the highest in the city, called the Asinelli. This was built in 1109, and inclines four feet from a perpendicular line. Its height is said to be three hundred and twenty-seven Paris feet ; at any rate we found it sufficiently high to give a splendid view of the surrounding country, and to enable us to look down into the streets and courts of the little town below us, which was spread out and checkered like the divisions of a chessboard, only it lacked regularity.
The palaces and galleries of Bologna are principally celebrated for their pictures. The school of painting here was second only in Italy, that is to say in the world. Here were the three Car-
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accis ; Ludovico the eldest of the three, and cousin and instructer to the two brothers Augustino and Annibale. These laid the foundation of the Bolognese school, but Annibale was the most celebrated. Both he and his brother, however, hastened their death by dissipation and debauchery. After these were Guido, whose fame needs no panegyric, but whose love of gaming ruined him in fortune and in mind : Domenichino, who, though so slow his companions called him the Ox, yet so persevering he became one of the first masters : Guercino, whose eminent talents were adorned by a virtuous, charitable, pious life : Lanfranco, who was a native of Parma, but studied under Augustino Caracci ; Francisco and Jean Baptiste Albano — the former of whom made his most beautiful and accomplished wife the model of his Venuses, Nymphs, and Graces, and her twelve lovely children the originals of his Cherubs and Cupids — with many others of less note. All these were first rate painters ; and whoever passes through Europe will find their works in every important picture gallery he visits. Bologna was full of them, but many are gone and more are going from this city of the arts. We visited several galleries, the pictures of which were almost uniformly on sale ; and the time is at hand, it would seem, when there will be less of the paintings of Bologna in the city of the Caraccis, than in most other cities, if we except the splendid frescoes — which also would be sold if they could be.
What has happened to the school of the arts has, though not to so great an extent, befallen also the school of letters — the ancient and celebrated University of Bologna. This once con- tained six thousand students and seventy-two professors. In 1819, it had only four hundred and thirteen students, according to Mr. Lyman ; but at this time it is said there are eighteen hundred. A great portion of these are in the study of medicine, for which they have an excellent museum of specimens in healthy and morbid anatomy, and of natural history. They have also a good cabinet of instruments for physical science, and a good library This is one of the most ancient, nay, I believe the very first University founded in Italy. Some date it back as early as the fifth century.
There are many other things of interest in this city, but I must omit them — save that I should hardly be pardoned if I did not
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mention the fountain of Neptune, which is very fine — the work naanship of Giovanni di Bologna. There is also a natural curiosity near the city, on what is called Monte Paduno. It is a substance which emits phosphorescent light, and is called the phosphorescent stone. I bought two boxes to bring home ; but long before I arrived the light went out. They will retain their phosphorescent quality but a short time after they are taken from their location.
Our next stage was to Ferrara. This was the residence o* Ariosto : his house still remains as a monument of the poet's modesty or poverty, or both. It is said, when he was inquired of why he, who described such magnificent palaces, had made his own house so small, that he replied : " Words are put together cheaper than stones." The Ferrarese seem proud of having his house and his remains with them. They have erected his tomb in their library, where they show his chair, inkstand, and some of his handwriting. In this same library is the original manu- script of Gerusalemme Liberata by Tasso, and of Pastor Fide by Guarini. Of these three great poets only the last was bora in Ferrara. The first was a native of Reggio ; and Tasso was born at Sorrento, near Naples. By the residence of the other two Ferrara was honoured ; but Tasso was there a prisoner for several years — a lovesick crazy poet. Having fallen in love with the sister of the Duke who was his patron, he was hurried away by his passion beyond all bounds, and in a crowded assem- bly embraced his lovely Eleonora. The Duke pronounced him mad, and ordered him into confinement. We visited his prison. It was a dreary stone arch of heavy masonry in the Hospital of St. Anne. When Lord Byron was here he spent four days in this cell — whether for the purpose of sympathizing with Tasso's spirit and to catch his inspiration, or because like Tasso he was himself a mad poet, I cannot say. Byron left his name engraved upon the wall ; and our valet informed us that while he was undergoing his poetic penance, he used to carry him his food from the hotel near by, in which we also lodged. It seems they both had eccentricity and disappointment enough to make them great poets, but not moral principle and virtue enough to govern their passions. Tasso's disappointment, as well as Byron's, fol- lowed him to the last : for when the former was about to receive the
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laurel crown, and be honoured with a triumph by Pope Clement, VIII. at Rome, he suddenly died, and his triumphal procession was changed into his funeral obsequies. His body was entombed at Rome.
Bologna and Ferrara both belong to the pope ; much, how- ever, to the discontent of the people. In no part of Italy did I hear as much complaining of the government as in these dutchies. The pope could hardly be mentioned without a shrug or a sneer. But Austrian bayonets are a substitute for affectionate attach- ment ; and these they have in abundance. Since the disposition to revolution manifested at the time of the Paris Revolution of July, they have been guarded with greater strictness. It is evi- dent, however, that only a favourable opportunity is wanting to kindle up the flames of civil war, for the spirit is there.
The court of Ferrara was once the seat of learning and emi- nent men. It was also a city of some note among the baronies and little republics, of which, at one time, it is said, there were thirty in Lombardy. It might have contained one hundred thou- sand inhabitants ; but now grass is growing in the streets, and the edifices are going to decay. Twenty-five or thirty thousand is the limit of its population, and its business seems insufficient to sustain these.
In passing from Ferrara we crossed the Po and the Adige on a Pout-volant, .or flying bridge. In these rivers also we saw mills carried by the current ; for falls there are none. Two large scows or boats are fastened by strong cables in the current at a convenient distance from each other, over which is the structure for the mill, and between which is the water-wheel for carrying the machinery. The water-wheel is rolled round by the natural force of the current, and as the water rises and falls, the boats, mill and all of course, rise and fall with it, and thus the wheel is kept immersed at all times in the same depth of water.
The second day we passed the Euganean Hills, which rise up in picturesque beauty in the midst of an otherwise unbroken plain, as if on purpose to afford a lodge for a poet, and scenery to in spire his muse. We had learned that the tomb and last residence of Petrarch were near our proposed route, but the tameness of the flat sandy plain over which we passed, and which seemed bounded only by the sensible horizon, led us almost to doubt the
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truth of the guide-book on this subject. Truly, Petrarch, who once rhapsodized in the vale of Vaucluse, could not have chosen this Boeotian plain for his final residence ! Who ever heard of a poet, and I had almost asked, of a patriot, in a country of an unbroken level ? But as we approached the place a change came over us, which, in our measure, I suppose, is not unlike that which kindles the poet's eye into a " fine phrensy,*" and works up his heart into all the palpitation of poetic rhapsody. By an extra fee we persuaded our veturino to take us up among the hills to this poet's tomb, in the little village of Arqua. We found the house as he left it, with a female cicerone, who, I doubt not, accumulates a good rent for the edifice, although it remains unoccupied. Here is the furniture of the poet — his study — the balcony from which he was wont to gaze upon the surrounding scenery — and here were painted in fresco upon the walls, the poet and his Laura, in a great variety of relations. At the foot of the hill, below the house, stands an humble, rustic church, and in its front-yard rises the marble tomb of the celebrated Petrarch, the father of modern poetry. He was bom at Arezzo in 1304, was crowned with the poetic crown at Rome on Easter-day, 1341, and died at Arqua in July, 1374, aged 70.
We reached Padua the same evening. This is the birthplace of the historian Livy, and was a city of ancient renown, having been built as some suppose by Antenor, soon after the fall of Troy. Its ancient name was Potavium, and it is said to have been once the most flourishing town in Northern Italy. In the middle ages, under the feudal chiefs it was a town of note, and it is still a respecta- ble and strongly fortified town — has some very good edifices, especially its university which was built by the great architect Palladio, the modern Vitmvius. The churches of St. Anthony and Justina are both interesting edifices. At the former was held the day after we arrived, a splendid anniversary fete, in honour of St. Anthony, who appears to be in great repute in Padua. All were in their gala-dresses, and as is usual on such occasions the whole country were flocking to the town. In these fetes there is some religion, but more frolic and fun. If they can go to the church and say their prayers, that satisfies the conscience of the most scrupulous ; the rest of the time is for amusement. This church of St. Anthony is full of tombs and of bassi relievi. We crowded
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around among the devout as well as we could to see these splendid ornaments, as we were aware no other opportunity would be afforded us. But it does not trouble these devotees to see the curious stranger moving round to the pictures and monuments while they are saying their prayers. For as they pray by the book or from memory, and the merit consists in the number repeated, they can look at you if they choose and pray on. Knowing this, for it is a matter of universal experience in this country, led on by our cicerone we passed round the church. Rarely indeed have we seen so many^/me, " immoderately fine," sepulchral ornaments as here. Among others, is the tomb of Cardinal Bembo, the learned and licentious secretary and instru- ment of Leo X., a cardinal and a bishop. But when popes turn infidels and sell the privilege of sinning for money, we cannot wonder that their bishops and cardinals should follow in their suit.
The University of Padua once had 18,000 scholars, but like all the other Universities of Italy, it is greatly fallen. It has able professors, however, and lectures in the different departments, with a library of 100,000 vols. The most prominent department is that of medicine.
There is a beautiful public square in this city, surrounded with statuary, all of which is now, from an extraordinary cause, in a very mutilated state. In 1835, there was a violent hail-storm of stones large as cannon-balls which fell in twenty-seven minutes to the depth of one foot and a half. It broke in the tiles of the roofs of a great many edifices, made great havoc of the trees, and broke off the fingers, arms, noses, &c., of this extensive company of statues.
We arrived at Venice on the evening of the great festival of St. Mark, the patron saint of the city. This was the day on which, in the times of the Republic, the Doge was accustomed to wed the Adriatic Sea. The ceremony consisted in going out in a galley, in great state, taking up some of the water, casting a ring into the sea, and going through certain other forms, to indi- cate the espousals between this city and the waters of the
Ldriatic. Well might Venice cherish this sea, as a spouse which brought to her beloved a rich dower. It was in her bosom
lat the city rested in safety, when all Italy besides was desolated
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by the barbarians of the North, and by the mutual wars of the feudal chieftains who succeeded the conquerors. It was on her bosom, that commerce wafted her golden treasures into the city from all parts of the world. The city itself, in short, reposed as it were, upon the sea ; her streets are canals, her squares are Lagunas wrested from the waves ; and almost her entire founda tions rest upon the shoals of the Adriatic. This ceremony, therefore, was a significant one, and far more tolerable than many other Italian fetes and anniversaries, that are still crowded into almost every day in the year. At present, however, the nuptials are not celebrated, except that the religious ceremonies for the festival of St Mark, are still observed. There is good reason for dispensing with the celebration of the nuptials now ; for in the first place, the independence of Venice, and the liberties of the city, are gone ; so also, to a very great degree, the trade and the wealth of the city, have departed together. The Adriatic bears no Venetian navy, to make all the shores and the islands of the Mediterranean tremble. She has also joined herself to other lovers ; and Trieste, and Ancona, and others are sharing in those favours and exulting in those caresses that used to be reserved for Venice alone ; much to the mortification and scandal of her former husband and lord. On this account we regretted less, that we were a few hours too late, to witness the festivities of the day. After passing over about five miles, the distance from Fusina to Venice, in a gondola, we landed upon the threshold of the Hotel Royal of Signior Danieli, where we took lodgings, during our short stay in the city.
I shall proceed to give some general notion of this remarkable city, and of the things most worthy of notice in it, without pre- suming to attempt a full description of Venice, either as a whole or in parts. Indeed I know not how to describe it ; to be properly conceived of, it must be seen. If any one should ask me, if Venice was beautiful, I could hardly say yes or no. But it is interesting — it is an historical curiosity — it is an architectural curiosity — its physical constitution is a curiosity — you know not whether to say it belongs to the land or the water. It is in fact neither, and it is both — it is amphibious. It is a mermaid, or a sea-nymph — the lower part is a fish, but above the form is human. Like Venus, it sprang up self-creative from the froth of
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the sea, and, like her, it subsequently ruled both the sea and the land, until its day of rule was over, and its sceptre and its glory departed together. Venice lives, however, in history still — nay, more, she lives in the splendour of her achievements, in the mag« nificence of her temples, the wealth of many of her palaces, the productions of her artists, and the peculiar physical characteris- tics of her unique construction, although, as Byron has well expressed it,
* The soul of the city is fled."
Think of a city rising up from the sea, five or six miles from the main land, having for its commencement a few islets, on which fishermen might erect their cabins and spread their nets. Think of this marine asylum, becoming the resort of the enterprising, the afflicted, the friends of liberty, and of the lovers of adven- ture. Think of its growth to a population of two hundred thousand, of its independence for fourteen hundred years, of its immense wealth, and the spoils brought from all parts of the world to enrich and adorn it. Conceive of its having neither horse-power nor carriage ; but its coaches are gondolas, and its locomotive power the oarsman. Conceive of one hundred and forty-nine canals winding their way through all parts of the city, crowded by boats, and spanned by three hundred and six arched bridges of marble, over which pass the footpaths or streets, that in general are not wider than sidewalks, and amount to two thousand one hundred and eight in number ; and you will per- haps have some faint idea of the general appearance of Venice. There is, however, one feature that must not be left out of the account, and that is the grand or principal canal. This is per- haps from thirty to sixty yards wide, is in form somewhat like the letter S, and in its serpentine course, divides the city into two parts, leaving however much the largest on the northeast side. Over this canal, there is but one bridge, and that is called the Bridge of the Grand Rialto. This bridge is a high arch, and is in part a regular staircase of considerable height, consisting of one central and two side flights, the latter being separated from the former by a row of twelve shops on either side.
t Another peculiar feature of Venice is the architecture, which mostly of a style peculiar to the middle ages. It is a mixture the Gothic, with the most redundant ornamental Arabic. 81
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You have capitals, and architraves, and friezes, fantastically orna- mented, in connexion with Gothic arches and other features of the rustic style of architecture. You look at it with mixed feel- ings of pleasure and dissatisfaction ; you feel it to be an outrage upon all architectural taste of the present day, and yet you would not wish to see it otherwise ; and you only regret that it has the most decisive appearance of hastening rapidly to decay. Some of the most expensive palaces are all but forsaken, and the edifices are beginning to exhibit a desolate and ruinous aspect. Perhaps all the buildings have a foot as well as a water passage. In passing round or through the Great Canal, I perceived that most of the palaces fronted upon the water (which came up at high water-mark to the very threshold of the front door), with painted posts, to which to fasten a gondola, and a step to pass into it. Just as, in our country, you see near the yard a stake to which you may hitch your horse, and a block from which to mount him. At the back door there is a foot passage leading out and branching off to different parts of the city. There is also at the west end an open space of several acres, covered with green sward, and occupied as a parade-ground, or a Campus Martins, formed entirely, as I was informed, of the mud dug from the bed of the canals ; and on the east side are gardens planted with trees and laid out in gravel walks of considerable extent. There are also several squares and market-places, the largest of which is the piazza of St. Mark ; and as this is the great public centre, and the place in which the greatest interest is concentrated, I will rest here a moment, to describe some of the principal objects around it.
Here are the church of St. Mark, the ancient palace of the Doges, the imperial palace, &c. The firstmentioned edifice is on the east end of the square, having the ducal palace, or the palace of the Doges between it and the quay. This most singu- lar and interesting edifice was commenced in 976, and finished in about one hundred years. It consists of all orders of architec- ture, and is in fact without order. It is, however, rich in marbles, mosaics, statuary, and other ornaments, both within and without ; having, it is said, five hundred columns of porphyry, serpentine, veined and other precious marbles. It is in the form of a Greek cross, and measures two hundred and twenty Venetian feet in
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length, and one hundred and eighty in breadth — measuring from one end of the transverse nave to the other — and presenting a fa$ade front of one hundred and forty-eight feet. There are splendid mosaics over the front doors, and the interior is entirely encrusted with mosaics; so also is the floor of the church.* Over the front door on a gallery, too elevated to give a good effect, are the four bronze horses that have been such great trav- ellers, and are so much and so justly admired for their antiquity and beauty. Of the origin of these horses there have been dif- ferent opinions ; but the most probable and that which has gained pretty general credence, I believe, is that they are Grecians, being the work of Lysippus, and appertained to the chariot of the sun in Corinth. They were brought to Rome when the Romans conquered and plundered Greece, and from Rome, after the trans- fer of the seat of the empire to Constantinople, they were conveyed thither in the fifth century ; and when Constantinople was taken by the Venetians, they transported them as trophies to Venice, where they continued until Venice was conquered by the French in 1797, when they were conducted to Pans; at the restora- tion of legitimacy they were restored to Venice, and with great pomp introduced into the city and placed in their present position. If the hypothesis of their origin be correct, they must have been made more than three hundred years before the Christian era, as Lysippus was contemporary with Alexander the Great, who died three hundred and thirty-three years before Christ. They were originally gilt ; and a portion of the gilding still remains, although the greater part has been worn off by time and service. They are certainly of most exquisite proportions and workmanship, and bid fair to survive the city which they have so long honoured with their presence ; and most probably at some future day may again cross the Alps and honour some more northern city with their residence : perhaps St. Petersburgh may yet see these southern coursers, for they follow in the train of conquest and of power, and these attributes seem at present to be tending by a strong current towards the northern pole.
South of the church of St. Mark, and between it and the quay,
* The materials of which this church was built, like those of the Duomo at Pisak and many other Italian buildings of that age, were the spoils of enemies, and were, mostly taken from the Saracens. So also were many of its decorations.
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is the ancient palace of the Doges. It is built round a court which serves as an exchange, and has in it, it is said, several hundred apartments. This also is of various styles, but mostly of the Arabic, and therefore highly ornamented. The capitals of the columns are decorated with leaves, animals, and various sym- bolical figures, and the whole constructed of fine marble. This edifice is extremely interesting both from its architecture and paintings, and also from its historical associations. It has two fronts — one upon the quay, presenting to the harbour a beau- tiful fagade of two hundred and five feet, divided into seven- teen arches ; and the other upon the smaller square which connects the grand piazza of St. Mark with the quay, two hun- dred and fifteen feet in length, and divided into eighteen arches. These are surmounted by another row of arches half as large, and, of course, double the number, forming a beautiful gallery on both fronts : above these the walls are in diamonds of bricks of different colours. It was commenced early in the fourteenth century, but a long time in being finished ; and was, of course, directed by various architects in successive generations.
The interior is decorated by a great number of splendid paintings of the Venetian school, many of them of fine workmanship and of most magnificent dimensions. They are by Tintoretto, Titian, Bonifacio, Paul Veronese, Bassano ; many others also of the Vene- tian school of painting have contributed to the ornaments of these apartments. The ceilings as well as the walls are covered with easel paintings ; although, from their size and their peculiar adapt- ation to the walls of the apartments to which they belong, they are often mistaken for frescoes : even some of the guide-books have fallen into this error, and describe paintings for frescoes which are really tableaux, or paintings upon canvass.
I cannot speak particularly of these works of art ; but to give the reader some idea of their size, I will notice one or two. In the saloon of the grand council, now the library of St. Mark, is a painting by Tintoretto, representing the glory of Paradise. It is thirty feet in height, and its greatest length is seventy-four feet, entirely covering one end of the hall. In this hall (and the one adjoining) are other paintings of enormous size, representing mostly remarkable events in the history of Venice. Indeed, it may be remarked of the paintings generally, that they are more
VENICE. 365
decidedly historical than those of any other city which I have visited. This is as it should be. If painting ever flourishes in our country, I hope it will be in this form. That the art should be so much prostituted to the celebration and illustration of the cruelties and the licentious loves of ancient fable, corrupting the heart and inflaming the strongest passions, through the medium of the imagination — as is the case in almost all the schools of painting and sculpture, ancient and modern — can only be accounted for on the ground of the universal depravity of the human heart — a depravity which the arts themselves have greatly aggravated by the licentious manner in which they have pandered to the gratifica- tion of a corrupt taste. The most sublime efforts of these arts — the most exquisite productions of the bright geniuses who have excelled in them, have sanctioned the exhibition of the strongest and most corrupting incentives to licentiousness and crime. In the almost superhuman exhibitions of the art, we pardon the offence against moral purity, and while we admire, the more triumphant the achievement, the more insinuating the poison, which, unperceived, is drunk in and nourished by the mixture of sweets that disguises it, until the moral sense is blunted and the heart is seduced by the fascinating spell. It is on this account especially that I fear for our own comparatively moral country- men. As wealth increases, the number of travellers will increase, especially among the young, who are, of course, the most in danger. These may not all become corrupted themselves; although I frankly confess that I deem it next to impossible for a youth to visit Italy, and the continent of Europe generally, without suffering loss in the discriminating power and purity of his moral feelings. It must be a miracle of grace alone that can preserve him. But, in addition to this — for I should hope there would never be so great a number corrupted among the tourists of our countrymen as to affect materially the morals of the nation — there is to be dreaded more than anything else, the intro- duction into our country, through the medium of wealthy travel- lers and travelling artists, the corrupting causes themselves of moral principle. Already, through the medium of artists and amateurs, paintings, engravings, and statuary of a character that will contribute nothing to the purity of our youth, are finding their way into our country ; and as wealth increases among us
ai
366 ITALY.
these works of art will be multiplied. They will not be openly and publicly exhibited at first ; but gradually as that nice delicacy Which now characterizes public taste with us shall become blunted, we shall see, I fear, naked Loves and Venuses as fre- quent in our galleries and public gardens as they now are in Europe : we shall have our groups of Leda and the Eagle, of Love and Pscyhe, and all the rest, rendered more tolerable, be- cause they are either the original or the copies of the most splendid works of art, and are consecrated by the incense of their classical associations. Nay, there are many now, very many, of our travelling and untravelled countrymen who, if these remarks ever meet their eye, will doubtless sneer at the squeamishness, and superstition, and vulgar destitution of taste, which could object to these exhibitions. It is becoming fashionable with us to affect the European taste ; and there are many who would not dare be so uncourtly and vulgar as to manifest any scruples of delicacy and moral feeling on this subject. Be it so. I must do my duty in the case, whether it effect little or much ; and I therefore am constrained to raise my feeble voice against this fascinating manner of sapping the principles of public virtue, and would especially warn and entreat the rising generation against this influence ; and, if I might be permitted, I would entreat my fellow-citizens — that class of them especially whose standing in society gives them influence — to adopt the only course which, in my opinion, can resist the bad consequences here depicted, and that is, while they discountenance the intro- duction of works of art which have a licentious tendency, to encourage as much as they may, by their patronage, the pure and chaste productions of the pencil and chisel. For these pro- ductions, no subjects are more suitable than the historic events of a free country ; and by American artists, the example already set by Trumbull should be followed up and improved upon, until every important event in the settlement, progress, and inde- pendence of our country be transferred to canvass, as it has been already recorded on the page of history. Such has been the course pursued by Venetian artists with great success. It is true, the history of Venice is too much interwoven with war and bloodshed. This grew out of the character of the times and of
VENICE. 367
the nation : and in this respect our country would have a great advantage in the humanizing and moral effects of its history on canvass. Its wars have not been those of conquest or of individual aggrandizement, but of self-defence ; and for the maintenance of those great principles of national and social rights, which were never so well understood as at the present day, and never con- tended for with so much purity and success, as by the United States of America.
But to return to the description. I confess myself not so great an admirer of the style of paintings in the Venetian school as in some others. I have rarely undertaken to make critical remarks on paintings in the course of my journal, for the reason that I have not sufficient knowledge of the art to be a critic ; and as for adopting the sentiments of others, an immense number of which are stereotyped to my hand, and retailing them for my own, I can, in such a course, see no credit to myself and no profit to the public. I know, and hold myself at liberty to say, what pleases me. Although the subjects of this school please me in general better than many others, yet the style and the execution are, in my opinion, by no means to be compared with those of the Caraccis and Domenichino of Bologna — much less can they compare with Carlo Dolciy Guercina and Andrea del Sarto, and the few who, in Dolci's manner (none can equal him), threw the sweetness of angels and the softness of paradise over the forms and scenes of earth. Sweet is the name of Dolci, and sweet are the touches of his pencil. While I live I shall carry with me the impressions that his fascinating pencil has melted into my heart. With such a pencil and such a genius, consecrated to vir- tue and religion, what might not a man accomplish ? Raphael surpasses him in strength and sublimity. Salvator Rosa can paint human nature rough and rude as savages, and cruel as pirates or banditti — and the wildest scenes of nature also stand forth ex- pressive of reality from the dark conceptions of his mind and strokes of his pencil ; but give me a cabinet of pictures by Carlo Dolci, and I will be satisfied.
The Venetian school, however, stands high ; and Titian is sometimes remarkably fine. He and Jacobus Tintoretto painted so much, they could not always excel. Not only did they fill
368 ITALY.
the public halls of Venice, but the churches and palaces, also, with their works ; and they are, in fact, in every part of Italy and all over Europe. Many paintings, doubtless, bear their name, that these artists never saw ; but still they painted much. We were shown one palace (the palace Barbarigo) in Venice, where Titian painted forty years, and in the school of St. Roc, T. Tintoretto painted thirty years. He was seven years, it is said, painting the paradise of the Ducal palace. Titian lived to a great age, and painted till late in life. In the church of St. Marie dela Salute I saw a picture — the subject, the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, which, it is said, he painted when he was sixty-four years old.*
The library of the Ducal palace contains, it is said, eighty-five thousand volumes. We were shown also the chamber of the Coun- cil of Ten, and the Council chamber of the Inquisition. Here, also, is the small aperture at the side of the door leading to a box within, into which the informers used to put their secret accusations. Wo to the man who had the misfortune to be thus reported to the secret tribunals of the state and the church. After the intro- duction of an hereditary aristocracy in Venice, the character of the government was more democratic in name than in reality. In fact, although the government of Venice was at first a pure democracy, it verged more and more towards absolute power, up to the time of the French conquest in '97. And this state is a surprising instance of a progressive and peaceable movement in a direction opposite to popular rights and immunities. It is no singular thing in history that democracies should become absolute monarchies ; but this change has generally been effected by usurpation and violence, but not so in Venice. From causes which cannot be fully understood, perhaps, and which, at any rate, this is not the place to examine, the Venetians changed, first, their executive, and then their legislative power, by their own peaceably expressed act and deed, so as to throw the whole almost entirely out of their hands. First, the executive power was vested in Tribunes annually elected ; and this continued from the foundation of the government early in the fifth century up to
* In the grand hall are also the portraits of seventy-six doges in regular succes* aion, beginning with the ninth doge, Obelerio, in the year 804*
BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 369
697, when the constitution was so altered as to vest the execu- tive power in the hands of one man, who was elected for life, under the title of Doge. In 1172, a legislative assembly or council of four hundred and seventy members, elected annually from among the citizens and by the citizens, was wisely sub- stituted for the popular assemblies. But in 1297 the constitution was so modified as that this council was constituted solely and exclusively of members from an aristocratic class in the commu- nity, by which all other citizens were thrown out of all direct participation in the affairs of government ; and now it was that a system of espionage commenced, which, aided by official in- formers and secret tribunals, became one of the most cruel en- gines of tyranny ever known, perhaps, under any government. No man's life, or liberty, or property was secure. When any fell under suspicion, they were privately arrested, and, in most cases, they were heard of no more. Everything was conducted with the most profound secrecy — the accused victim knew not the secret tongue that betrayed him, or the secret hand that stab- bed him. Near the palace, and separated only by a canal, is a prison ; this prison is connected with the palace by a high cov- ered bridge, called the Bridge of Sighs* This bridge has, or had, for it is now closed up, two passages : one leading from the prison into the council chambers, and another leading to other more private apartments and dungeons under the palace itself. These dungeons were also accessible from the palace by a secret passage, which was unknown to the public until the arcana of these apartments of death were laid open by the French. In deed, it is said, that the citizens generally did not know of the existence of these wretched cells. Here the trembling victims were led to the torture and to death. We visited these gloomy prisons ; they were dark as night, and consisted each of one arch of heavy masonry, with a single hole for purposes of respira- tion, &c. They had been generally lined with wood ; but Napo- leon permitted the citizens to enter and tear out all that was moveable in these horrid cells. Here was a grated window where the victims used to be strangled. They were seated on a
* Because across this bridge the accused were led for their mock trial to the secret tribunals, where the sighing prisoner had little hope of justice.
3A
370 ITALY.
block within, and a rope, fastened at one end, passed through the grate and round the neck, and out again to a machine, by the turning of which the head and shoulders were drawn up to the grate, and the poor wretch was strangled by the cord that passed round his neck. Another place was fitted up for decapitation, like a guillotine. The heavy knife, fixed to a frame, was raised by machinery to the proper distance, (the victim being fixed in the right position,) when it fell and struck the head from the body, and a trench in the stone and holes made for the purpose, con- veyed the blood down into the waters below. All this was done by night, and with the utmost privacy ; and here was the little arches in the wall, where the executioner placed his lamp while he performed his bloody work. The whole was made so real and brought so near by the associations around us, that the blood was almost chilled with horror ; and we were glad to leave those gloomy vaults where thousands had languished out years of soli- tary confinement, or perished miserably by the hand of the exe- cutioner.*
Such was the government of Venice, up to the time when the French revolution, backed by the armies of the republic, came down upon Italy like a tremendous tornado, which hurled kings from their thrones — broke up the foundations of nominal repub- lics— unsettled the feudal aristocracies, that had for fourteen cen- turies pressed upon the social system, and, what all must approve, unlocked the prison-doors and let the prisoners go free. This was literally true, at Venice and elsewhere ; we saw one cell from which a prisoner was liberated, who had been confined four- teen years. Soon after his liberation he became blind, from the effect of the light upon eyes that had for fourteen years been ac customed only to the darkness of a dungeon.
In this building also is the library of St. Luke, which formerly was in the east end of what is now called the Imperial Palace — it consists of about eighty-five thousand volumes.
Directly opposite to this palace is the Imperial Palace — the property, at present, of the Emperor of Austria. We were shown in this, an extensive suite of state apartments, furnished in
* In the time of the persecution of the heretics by the Inquisition, the capital punish- ment was generally by drowning.— See Reform in Italy, p. 267.
THE IMPERIAL PALACE. 371
a plain way for an Emperor's palace. One room, which was formerly the hall of the library of St. Luke, contains some fine pictures, and at the opposite end, in the part that forms the west- ern side of the piazza of St. Mark, additional apartments were in progress of completion, one of which, nearly finished, was a splendid public saloon for company, dancing, &c. This palace forms two sides of the splendid square, and fronts the harbour, between which and the palace, are gardens laid out and deco- rated by the French. In this square also is the Campanile, or tower of the church of St. Luke, separate, according to a prevail- ing custom of the age in which it was erected, from the church itself. Here also is the tower of the clock, as it is called, or the Horological tower, containing the city-clock and a bell, with two large bronze human figures, who with huge hammers, regularly strike the hours. At the time we were there, and it is said the same is repeated for fourteen days in succession, at the same season every year, there was a regular mechanical procession at the striking of every hour. Midway up tjie Horological tower sits a noble bronze gilt image of the Virgin and the infant Jesus, with an open gallery in front of her, facing the square. On each side, is a door opening into the interior. At the striking of the clock, these doors fly open, and several persons move out in succession ; the first is a trumpeter, who raises his trumpet to his mouth as he comes in front of the Virgin ; then follows three others in suc- cession, dressed like eastern sages, and one of them a person of colour. They all pass in front of the Virgin round to the other side, bowing as they pass, and then halting a moment, they straighten up, and entering the other door, disappear. The whole is very well done, except that in straightening, there is an unnatural spasmodic jerk of the head, which shows that the machinery is not quite perfect in its imitation of muscular motion. This is called the visit of the Magi. Perhaps I have dwelt sufficiently long on this piazza and its local associations, but I cannot omit saying here, that this spot, so full of interest to the citizens generally and to strangers, is also one of great interest to all the doves of the city — for here, regularly, at two o'clock, the bell rings to call them together to be fed. They come in clouds, and from a high win- dow a woman throws out corn, &c., which they are so eager to
372 ITALY.
obtain they darken the window and hover over the corn as it falls, and devour it all, the moment it strikes the ground. This public feeding of the pigeons of the city is the result of a legacy left by a benevolent lady, the avails of which, are to be appropri- ated in perpetuity for this express purpose. Habit has enabled them to calculate the time so exactly that a little before two they collect in great numbers and sit upon the neighbouring roofs, wait- ing for the signal. I fear, however, that, as is too often the case, these heirs are cheated by their guardians, for their dinners seem to me altogether too stinted for so great a number.
There are a number of very interesting churches in Venice, which, if my limits would permit, might well merit a particular notice. I can, however, only make some general remarks, and notice a few particulars. Many of the churches are richly fur- nished with pictures from the pencils of the Venetian school, already named. They are generally, however, the usual sub jects, taken from the history of Christ and the legends of the saints. In every Italian city there is a patron saint. St. Mark answers for Venice, of whose life they seem not to have found so many miracles, as in some more modern saints, hence their painters, after all, are obliged to introduce other saints more fre- quently upon the canvass. They have St. Roch, who was brought from France, and performed wonders, in time of the plague. He has a church dedicated to him, and here, it is said, are his remains. In this, as in many other churches, both in Venice and elsewhere in Italy, is an attempted representation of the Eternal Father — an attempt which I never witness without feeling a kind of horror like that which comes over me, on hearing the name of God blasphemed. But so common is it with the Catholics to give everything appertaining to our religion, a sensi- ble form, that nothing scarcely is more common than this giving a visible body to God the Father. This church was erected after the time of the plague in 1630, in the fulfilment of a vow. This plague swept off forty-four thousand of the inhabitants. Another church called St. Marie Des Frari is particularly noticeable for the monuments it contains. Among others a rich mausoleum to Jaques Pesaro, who was Bishop and General, and died in 1547, and another to a Doge of the same family. This family was
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CHURCHES IN VENICE. 373
very rich, and by a legacy from one of them, given for that ex- press purpose, prayers are to be made for his soul every day, while the world stands ; as this is a cheap way of securing the income of the legacy to the church, this is regularly attended to ; the prayers prescribed were being offered up while we were in the church — poor man ! he expected to lay in purgatory a great while, and seemed to fear that the prayers of the living would never avail in his behalf. What a miserable, fearful hope is this to a dying man ; and yet, unsatisfactory as it is, how natural that those who are taught to trust in it, should perfer to live in sin for their own gratification, provided they may buy their redemption in the end, by a portion of their wealth.
In this same church lie the remains of that great artist, Titian Vicellio, He died at the time of the plague, in 1575, (not by the plague, but of old 'age,) and this calamity prevented the proper attention to his memory at the time. He was, therefore, deposited under the church, with a simple inscription (which may still be read) on the marble pavement, indicating that Titian was buried there. It was subsequently proposed to raise a monument to his memory ; and Canova, before his death, had already proposed a design for the purpose ; but the funds were not raised, and on the death of Canova, in 1827, the plan that he had designed for Titian, was taken for his own monument, which has since been admirably executed by his scholars, and placed in the same church ; on the side opposite to Titian. The expense of this work was met by subscription, made throughout Europe. In this monument is de- posited the heart of the artist — his right hand is at the monument erected to his memory at the Academy of Fine Arts, in Venice, and his body rests in his own native village. This cutting up the body of a great man, to scatter it about among his admirers, is a revolting barbarity, and a species of superstitious materialism, that ill becomes a rational believer in the immateriality and im- mortality of the soul. This is in perfect accordance, however, with that rage for relics so common in Catholic countries, and which makes up so great a portion of their feeling of devotion and vene- ration, instilled into the mind by education. This feeling shows itself in different ways. In the religionist, it is vented upon the toe of a saint, or upon a nail or a splinter of the real cross, &c., 32
374 ITiLY.
but in the man of intellectual culture it is seen in his veneration, and almost adoration, of the body, the hand, or the heart of an il- lustrious author or artist ; and in the soldier it is called into action by the relic of a general or a hero. Venice has an Academy of Fine Arts, which I cannot now describe, and a splendid arsenal and shipyard. The arsenal contains specimens of all the armour of the middle centuries, and is a place of great interest. The shipyard also shows to what an extent naval architecture was once conducted at Venice, although but little, comparatively, is now done there.
The Venetians are a very religious people, and such, I believe, has ever been their character. It is true, they have been warlike, cruel, and lovers of this world ; but all this they may be, and still be very religious in their way. If a Venetian were hastening to as- sassinate his enemy, he would stop, and cross himself, and say his Ave Maria to the image of the Virgin ; and this is true not merely of the Venetians, but of the Italians generally. Instances have been known of banditti that have been scrupulously exact in their religious services. Nay, while their hands have been reek- ing with the blood of the murdered, for which they felt no com- punction, the^y have checked themselves with great fear and hor- ror of conscience on the recollection that they have neglected some ceremony or observance that appertained to their superstition. I do not b^this mean to charge upon Romanism that it justifies these crimes, but that the religion itself is of such a character as to lead its votaries to think they are very religious if they attend to the prescribed forms, although they may live in constant and enormous sins. I have known a postillion swear most blasphe- mously in the name of his Maker, and the next moment raise his hat, and perhaps mutter his prayer, in passing the image of the Virgin. Of the connexion between Catholicity as taught in Italy and the effects here alluded to I have spoken elsewhere.
As in other parts of Italy, so here, the worship of the Madonna is the leading trait of devotion, and not of the Madonna merely, but of some image of her, painted or graven. These images are not only in all the churches, but they are by the streets, in little shrines fitted up for the purpose in every part of the city, and especially in the more public places. These shrines seem, in some instances, to be a kind of Madonna shops, fitted up by the
SUPERSTITION OF THE ITALIANS. 375
side of the streets, where relics, candles, beads, &c., are kept for sale by some mercenary devotee, who sits there continually to watch the image and sell his sacred wares. Whether any man may fit up his shrine in this way who chooses, or whether some government sanction and license are necessary, I did not learn. It was very evident, however, that some shrines of this kind were more popular than others. I recollect, among a number of these shrines that I noticed along the quay in Venice, one which ap- peared to be particularly popular ; the image of the Virgin was covered with votive offerings, such as little hearts of tin, and the like, together with little scraps of paper, with a name or some sentiment written thereon, left by the devotees for special pur- poses. All that passed raised their hats, and generally turned round, crossed themselves, muttered a prayer, and not a few bowed the knee, and this, too, where a crowd was continually pass- ing. Lamps are kept burning before these images day and night. Very often these shrines and images appear to be fitted up and lighted at individual expense before houses, and over the doors of palaces and other edifices, as a kind of a defence or talismanic charm against all physical arid demoniacal evils. Indeed, it ap- pears to me that, in a great proportion of cases, the attention paid to the Virgin is a superstitious ceremony to defend them against physical evils. Nay, it is my solemn opinion, if hearts could be laid open, and the whole secret disclosed at this moment in Italy, it would be seen that, where there was one who, with a penitent heart, paid his respects to the Virgin or her image in view of his sinfulness, and with a desire to obtain grace that he might be more holy, scores do this to obtain worldly prosperity or to avoid some dreaded evil. It is a kind of charm to keep off evil. The traveller, as he passes the numerous images and shrines which are erected by the highway, thinks if he does not raise his hat he will have bad luck, and he performs this ceremony just as he sticks up a cross in his field or upon his building, many of which may be seen in all parts of Italy, viz., to keep off evil spirits, and mildew, and lightning, and all mischief; and for a similar cause, in fact, with that for which the American sailor nails a horseshoe to his mast. And the more conscious a man is that he is living in constant violation of the laws of God, the more necessary he feels it to be scrupulous in his religious observances, for in thia
37(5 ITALY,
way he drives a profitable barter trade with his conscience, and avoids not only temporal evils, but also eternal death, by being, in all matters of religious faith and observances, a good Catholic
Venice, as has already been observed, is in a state of decline. It is melancholy to pass round her canals with one who is ac- quainted with all the families, and hear him, in pointing out many of the once splendid palaces, say, " The family who own, or who did own this, were once rich, but are now reduced to poverty '? a fact that, in many instances, needs no other attestation than ,1 sight of the edifices themselves, crumbling to decay as they are7 and forsaken. There are still, it is true, many wealthy families in Venice, but much fewer than formerly, and their number is diminishing. It is not with them as with flourishing cities, where, if one wealthy family declines, several rise up to take its place. The canals themselves seem to be going to decay, and the entire business of the city falling off. It is true, Venice is yet a free port, and there are still quite a number of water-craft, of different kinds, in her harbours ; and so long as the government of Lom- bardy remains as it is, this great valley, watered by the Po and the Adige, and their branches, will draw their foreign resources through Venice or some other city in its neighbourhood. Nev- ertheless, it is evident that the very existence of such a city as Venice, in its present locality, was not a natural, but a constrained occurrence, growing out of an unnatural state of things, and hence it will be a struggle against nature to sustain it ; a struggle which will be less likely to succeed, as the causes which originated, ele- vated, and 'enriched the city have altogether ceased. Many of the Venetians attribute their adversity to the destruction of their republic and the loss of their independence. This may have has- tened and aggravated their decline, but it by no means originated it. The first cause was the loss of the trade of the east, resulting from various circumstances, but mostly from the improvement of the art of navigation, and the discovery of the southern passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope. The proximate ef- fect of this upon several other nations, and especially upon Eng- land and Holland, was to greatly increase their marine, and ulti- mately give them the supremacy at sea. The Venetians, in the mean time, true to the Italian character, were slow to adopt any ef the modern improvements in trade and navigation. I say true
DECLINE OF VENICE. 377
to the Italian character, for it would surprise a native of the Uni- ted States, who before knew nothing of the state of things here, to see how inflexible are the habits of the people in almost every- thing. You can trace to this day, in Italy, a thousand exemplifi- cations of ancient usages in their agriculture, their commerce, their social intercourse, domestic habits, &c. I have before remarked that it may well be said of Italy, " As your fathers did so do ye." This was especially exhibited in Venice. Her naval architecture, her military tactics, her system of finance, were all falling back in the scale of comparison with other nations. These causes, connected with that imbecility and effeminacy which are naturally engendered by wealth and the loss of patriotism, which the op- pression of the government had superinduced, broke the spirit and rolled back the tide of prosperity of the nation. Its population had already declined from one hundred and ninety to one hundred and forty thousand, and its wealth and national spirit had sunk in a much greater proportion, when the French army subjugated a great part of Italy, and almost all the Venetian states, in 1796; and finally, on the 12th of May, 1797, the legitimate council of the nation solemnly sanctioned the dissolution of th© government ; the doge, the last of one hundred and twenty who, in succession, had governed Venice for one thousand one hundred and thirty years, abdicated his chair, and the French forces entered the city. Since that time its fall has been more rapid. It became, of course, under the French, a component part of the Italian Re- public, with which France flattered Italy and amused herself; and, subsequently, when Napoleon assumed the supreme power in France, and erected the countries east of the Alps into the Kingdom of Italy, Venice still formed a part of this Bonapartean transalpine realm, of which Milan was the capital, and Venice only a second-rate city ; and in the same connexion it passed over to Austria, in the new distribution of Europe made by the allied powers in 1814, to be, not a second, but a third-rate city, under a government which is fostering, but just across the head of the Adriatic, a rival city, which combines the advantages of nature with the patronage of a powerful empire for commercial pur- poses. Trieste, therefore, must increase, and Venice must de- crease. The latter has already fallen down to a little more than 32 3B
378 ITALY,
ene hundred thousand inhabitants, and still its march is retrograde. The winged lion* of St. Marc still crouches upon the towers and minarets of his ancient city, but he no longer flies upon his prey, nor brings home the spoils of the mighty. Yea, he cowers in his own lair, and feebly succumbs to the triumph of his rivals ; and the time will come, perhaps, when the two-headed eagle\ of Aus- tria will pick out his eyes, and cast his carcass into the Adriatic. In the nature of things it will be long before the accumulated wealth, the congregated works of art, and the historic associations will permit Venice to be swept from its site, and the waste of waters resume their former dominion over the lagunes of the Adriatic Gulf ; but I see not why that time will not, must not ultimately come. Whether this event will be hastened by a physical cause, which seems to threaten the city at some future day, will depend upon circumstances which cannot now be fully foreseen. The cause I allude to is the gradual rise of the level of the sea. The place St. Marc was, by an extraordinary tide in 1732, buried under the water, in consequence of which the quay has been elevated one foot ; and I noticed, at the time of high water,! that the sea came up to the very threshold of many of the houses. These were not built so near the surface, but the water has grad- ually risen. By the examinations that have been made by scien- tific men in Venice, it is calculated that this rise is about three and a half inches in a century ; some calculations make it even more than this. According to this calculation, it will not be very long before the lower floors of many of the houses will be under the water. This, if the city was prosperous, might only lead to an elevation of the floors, and a remodelling of the lower stories of the buildings ; but with the little inducements which are now held out to make extra exertions to save a sinking city, it is be- lieved that, when Neptune comes up into their palaces to reclaim his lost dominions, the inhabitants, weary of the unequal struggle^ will abandon their dwellings, as they abandoned their government at the approach of the French, take to their gondolas, and flee to the shore.
* The ensign of Venice is a winged lion, t The Austrian ensign is a two-headed eagle.
t As near as I could judge, the tide varies here", between, high and low water, mor* than two feet.
INCONVENIENCES OF A DILIGENCE. 379
The above reflections, together with the interest which I had felt in the peculiarities and history of this extraordinary city, caused me to leave it with mingled emotions of mournful pleasure. As I retire, her image dwells with me still. I see her sitting upon the waters like a dethroned princess, dignified and courtly even in her decline. I see her turrets rising from the sea, indicative at once of her former wealth and skill in the arts. I mark her labyrinthian canals, and see the shining steel-beaked gondolas, and the oars- man bending himself upon the stern with all the lightness and grace of a Mercury. The vision fades in the distance, and finally sinks in the wave. Venice ! farewell for ever. I shall see her no more, but the poetic feeling with which, as before remarked, I have been accustomed to think of Venice, has not been destroyed, but rather increased, by the sight of the reality. In addition to my former images of her, I shall hereafter associate with my con- ceptions of the city a prospective fate like that which has actually befallen Tyre, the Venice of ancient times, which, from being the most wealthy of the nations and the glory of the world, was swept by the wave of desolation that rolled over it, and is now only known as the place where the fisherman dries his net and the sea- bird whistles in the wind.
Left Venice on the evening of the 16th May, by boat, of course, to Mestre, and thence by diligence. A diligence ride is always disagreeable, inasmuch as they prefer the night to the day, and are sure to travel by night even if they lie by by day. This was our present lot. It was said to be the mercantile line, and so it seemed, for we had wares and merchandise on board ; but, what was worse than all else, we had overhead a box of fresh fish, which was conveyed from the Adriatic to Milan, put down in ice, which the hot sun melted, and the water, after it soaked through the fish, run down the sides of the coach, and occasionally into it ; against this annoyance to our clothes and olfactories we remonstrated with our conducteur to no purpose. In addition to this, he delayed some five or six hours each day in the different towns for business, &c., but at night could give us no time to stop and rest. Our route was through Padua, Vienna, Verona, and Brescia, with numerous intermediate towns which it is unnecessary to mention, twenty-four posts or about one hundred and forty miles. In accomplishing this we were forty-eight hours, including stops.
360 ITALY.
Padua has already been noticed. Vicenza is the same with the ancient Vicentia. It is pleasantly situated, and contains about thirty thousand inhabitants. Polladio, the great architect who de- signed so many of the public buildings in Lombardy and the Ve- netian states, was born here, and has left in his native city some of the finest specimens of his genius.
The next town of importance was Verona, which is situated on the river Adige, formerly called the Athesis, in the midst of a most delightful arid fruitful valley. It was an ancient town, and the birthplace of several eminent men, among whom, of the ancients, were Catullus, the Roman poet, and Cornelius Nepos, the biogra- pher, and Vitruvius, the architect of the Augustan age ; of the moderns, Paul Veronese, the painter, was born here. The greater portion of English readers know this city best as being the scene where Shakspeare has laid two of his most celebrated plays, viz., " Two Gentlemen of Verona," and " Romeo and Juliet." The latter story is a matter of record in the historic remains of the beginning of the. fourteenth century, and the tomb of Juliet, as it is affirmed to be, is still preserved. We went to visit it, a short distance beyond the walls of the town. It was certainly as well arranged for a sarcophagus of a living person as one of that di- mensions could well have been. There was at one end an eleva- tion, on which her head rested ; at one side was a place fixed for a lamp, and a hole perforated in the side near the bottom for the admission of fresh air. All things were so far well ordered and arranged to effect the contemplated object of conveying her away, under the influence of her soporific draught ; but the despair and precipitancy of poor Romeo broke up the plot and destroyed the unfortunate lovers. The rage for relics has made great depreda- tions upon the sarcophagus, for it has been broken off and carried away by piecemeal, until it was put under a custode, and further fractures forbidden. The English, our guide told us, had done this ; indeed, they seem to be the principal authors of such kinds of sacrilege, at least if we may believe the Italians.
We visited also in Verona the tombs of the Scaligeri family, a noble and ancient race, whose name signifies a ladder, and that also was their coat of arms, as seen at this day upon their tombs. This implies, I suppose, that they were fond of ascending, and so it would seem from their tombs, which are very high, as well as
BRESCIA THE RH(ETIAN ALPS. 381
very singular and magnificent : they are of the fine spiry fretted Gothic style.
But the principal object of interest at Verona is the ancient amphitheatre, in a good state of preservation, the most perfect, probably, now in existence, and a very interesting relic of antiquity. It is even now used for theatrical purposes, as there was a play performing there while we were examining it.
Some twenty miles from Verona is a mountain which abounds with petrified fish. The stone in which these fish are imbed- ded is very soft, and the entire fish is preserved in great per- fection. In some cases the mouth is distended to the utmost ex- tent of the muscles, having all the appearance of the fish's being overtaken with a thick muddy liquid, in which he struggled for existence until he was suffocated by the increasing solidification of the elements around him. In this position, with contracted muscles and distended jaws, the mass around him hardened into a sarcophagus more perfect and more preservative than that of an Egyptian mummy, giving to his substance and form a perpetuity and identity as enduring as time. I saw many of these specimens in Verona, and purchased Borne for the mineralogical cabinet of the University.
Beyond Verona, and before we came to Brescia, or Brexia, as it was anciently called, we passed the Lago di Garda, a beautiful lake about thirty miles by twelve. The ancient name of this lake was Benacus, and is noticed by Virgil.
Brescia was a town of ancient note, and within the last fifteen years some splendid Roman edifices and works of art have been excavated here ; but, as this did not happen to be one of our trading towns, our mercantile line would not stop for us to visit them. The town now contains about forty thousand inhabitants.
Our entire route was at no great distance from the base of the Rhcetian Alps, which propped the clouds with their snow-capped tops, and gave additional interest to the plains below. These latter were covered with verdure, and were in a high state of cultivation ; a part of the way, especially as we approached Milan, these plains were plenteously and beautifully irrigated by canals and water-courses cut in every direction. These water-courses were studded on each side with colonnades of trees ; so also was every road, and lane, and hedge ; all in addition to the trees which
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382 ITALY.
were planted in regular rows for the vines, and in addition, also, to the mulberry-trees, extensive and seemingly endless orchards of which are planted for the growth of the silkworm, for silk in this country is a leading article of production. This abundant growth of trees gives this country, when viewed from an eminence, at the time the foliage is full, the appearance of an extended and an unbroken forest ; and yet, as you pass through it, you find all the intervals between the trees, and every interstice and corner, in a fine state of cultivation, producing wheat, corn, beans, grapes, &c., in great abundance. In short, a richer country in its pro- ductions, or one more thoroughly cultivated, can, I believe, hardly be found. It is difficult to conceive how any soil could produce more. This, in fact, is true of all the fertile parts of Italy. It seemed to me, however, that the labouring part of the community in Lombardy, and especially in Austrian Lombardy, eat and drink and enjoy the good of their labour more than in any other part of Italy. The peasantry are apparently comfortable and happy; much more so, in fact, than I was prepared to find them ; and it was truly a matter of much gratification, after seeing so long the wretchedness and beggary of the south, to get into a country where a hand was rarely held out for charity, and where all appeared to be in circumstances of comfort.
We had two coaches in company, and, at the request of our conducteur, we changed from one to the other during the latter part of the journey. In this we found a very vfell dressed gen- tleman and lady, who appeared, when we entered, to be the sole occupants of the diligence, and seemed not a little chagrined to have company. What their relation to each other was I could not determine ; but they seemed too much engrossed with each other to be pleased with the society of others, and therefore, at first, manifested anything but a courteous deportment. Finding, Sowever, that he gained nothing by his irritation, the gentleman, in the end, became very complaisant. I mention this as a rare instance of impoliteness among the Italians. Wherever we met any respectable-looking Italians we were almost sure to meet with courtesy. In this respect we found them far before the French. The lower classes, too, were, in general, very civil, es- pecially when they expected a buono mano, which they always expected if they did you the least service or answered a common
CHARACTER OF THE ITALIANS.
inquiry. And this is common to all Italy. But this is not so bad a trait, however troublesome it is, as an almost universal disposi- tion and determination to cheat you if they can; and not only to cheat you themselves, but to play you into the hands of others, that they also may have a slice. If you hire a servant, you must calculate that he will cheat you, if he can, in every case where he transacts business for you, or introduces others to you for that purpose ; and if he is not able to make anything out of you him- self, he can give you into the hands of others. To illustrate this : Our valet, in Venice, took us to see the arsenal. At the gate a soldier was sent round with us ; and although the valet and the guard knew everything we wished to see, still they must give us over to the superintendent of each room, or shop, or ship that we visited, each of which must have his fee, to the number, perhaps, of a dozen or more ; and then the guard must have his at the end of the tour ; and, in addition, the porter must have something for letting us in and out ; and, last of all, the valet must be paid for his day's work. In this way, if a man would see Italy, his hands must be in his pocket continually ; and his little expenses of this kind will often amount to more than his travelling fare and board. A foreigner must pay comparatively high for everything, and es- pecially if he talks English. The English have ruined the for- eign market for all that use their language. They have gone round throwing out their gold and silver with such a lavish hand, calling everything cheap, and paying such exorbitant prices, that the people think they may ask almost any price, and may expect to receive money from an Englishman if they answer him a civil question. I have sometimes refrained from asking a question, which would only require a breath to answer, because I was aware that the person answering would contrive to make a fee out of it. These gratuities of a few biocs> or a half paul, are not large, it is true ; but when one has to be throwing out contin- ually such small sums, they amount, in time, to a large, perhaps the largest portion of one's expenses. If one has not a good un- derstanding of the language, he is more entirely at the mercy of the people, who know very well how to turn his ignorance to good account. Indeed, whether you understand the language or not, you must expect to be cheated ; and the only way is to keep as good a look-out as you can without giving too much attention to
384 ITALY.
the subject, and submit to unavoidable impositions with as good a grace as you may.
The reader will pardon these occasional discursions from the main thread of the journal, as my object is to give, as far as I may, the traits of character as they were developed, and as the different subjects occur to me.
We entered Milan, and took lodgings at the Gran Brittagna, and found ourselves as well accommodated as the infamous prac- tice of occupying the lower part of public houses for stables would permit. Our rooms were very comfortable, except that the fumes of the stables, which opened under us into the same street with our windows, came reeking up, in offensive effluvia, much to our discomfiture. We find the annoyance from this source much greater as the heat of the season increases. However, the mount- ains are near, so we take courage, and proceed to the examination of this capital of Lombardy.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE history of Milan is replete with interest, and shows the changes to which the important cities of Europe were exposed under the feudal lords, when the fortune of arms was the criterion of justice, and might constituted right. If we look at the city as it now is, and compare it with what it was before the French revolution, we must believe that it has gained much in the time. It is true, so far as her political condition is concerned, she has passed entirely round the circle, from absolute monarchy, through republicanism, &c., back again under the same master. But in the mean time she has waked up from the torpor of her former condition, and received an impulse that the leaden absolutism of Austria itself cannot resist. Of Bonaparte, absolute despot as he was, it may be said, " Nihil tetigit quod non arnavit — he touched nothing which he did not adorn." Look at France politically? He found her in a state of anarchy, and he reduced her to order. It was the order of despotism, I grant ; but, nevertheless, it was infinitely preferable to her licentious Jacobinism Look at her
CITY OF MILAN. 385
physical character ? He connected her various ports with roads, he repaired her public edifices, he improved and ornamented her cities. But France could not contain him, and if he visited Italy as a warrior, so also he visited her with all the improvements with which he was renovating France. He smoothed the Alps before him as he passed, and made these hitherto difficult barriers and almost perpendicular heights gently inclined plains, over which the pleasure-carriage may roll without molestation, or fear. He fixed upon Milan as the capital of his Transalpine kingdom ;* and, to say nothing now of what he did for other cities, you cannot remain in Milan without beholding the touches of his restoring and creating hand, Her Boulevards, interior and exterior, are by him ; her public gardens were by him planted and adorned ; her cathe- dral, that had lain waste, in a manner, for centuries, was by his order put in a progress of completion ; her canals were cleared and multiplied. Indeed, it is to be attributed to the French, and to Napoleon in a great degree, that Milan is what it is, a most lovely and interesting city.
But to be more particular. Like all other cities, Milan must be described by its parts. Its situation is most delightful, in tha midst of the most fruitful part of the most fertile plains of Lom- bardy. Its form is very compact and nearly circular. Its former ramparts have been formed into elevated promenades for foot-pas- sengers and carriages. It is surrounded by two most beautiful courses, one exterior and the other interior, which are adorned with elegant rows of trees of various kinds, but all rich with the most umbrageous foliage. The prevailing growth is the horse-chestnut, which, at the time we were there, was in the blossom. To him who has not beheld the like, it is difficult to communicate a just notion of the beauty of these shady streets. From the Porta Ori- entate to the Porta Romana is the grand corso, and here, every evening, the fashionable Italian course is performed by all the wealth and beauty of the town. This amusement, so common in Italy, is a very dull one ; but, to the Italians, this and the opera seem to be their chief amusement. At any rate, it gives them an opportunity of seeing their acquaintances, of exhibiting their equi- page and dress, as well as to take an airing in a pleasant and
* Transalpine to France, although, with an affectation of classic terms, Napoleon called it Cisalpine.
33 3C
386 ITALY.
healthful exercise. It is to the fashionable world what the ex- change is to the merchant ; and they assemble as regularly at six in the evening to perform the ceremonies of the corso, as the mer- chants assemble at the prescribed business-hour on change to 'at- tend to the business of their appropriate calling. In the northwest part of the city is the Forum, so called. Here is the amphitheatre built by Napoleon. Here is the Champ de Mars for the review- ing of the troops ; and here, also, are the public gardens, answer- ing to the Champs-Elystes of Paris, planted with trees, &c- These public grounds extend from the upper end of the corso quite round to the triumphal arch. This arch was commenced by Napoleon, and is now nearly completed under the direction of the Austrian government.
It was commenced in 1806, on occasion of the nuptials of the Prince Eugene with the Princess Amelie. It was then made of wood and plaster, and the design was so generally admired, it was determined to erect one of marble, and place it at the gate of the Simplon, where the magnificent Alpine road entered the city — a splendid termination of a splendid route. And it was designed under Napoleon, to be a monument of his victories. The design however is changed, and it is now denominated Arc de la Paix, a monument dedicated to peace. It is not yet finished, but is in rapid progress of completion ; nay, it may be said the arch itself is finished, but not all the ornaments. Instead of the victories of Bonaparte, as was originally designed, there are representations of the Congress of Prague, the conference of the three allies, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, the battles of Leipsic, capitulation of Dresden, the entry of the Allies into Paris, the peace of Paris, the Congress of Vienna, &c., — besides numerous others, some of which pertain more particularly to the city of Milan, and the new Lombard- Venetian kingdom. The horses, car, &c., for the top of the arch are nearly finished. The design is the "Triumph of Peace." The goddess, crowned with laurel and with a branch of olive in her hand, is to be drawn in her triumphal chariot by six horses. The figures are of gigantic size, and are cast of bronze. The arch resembles that of Constantine, although not a copy of that, or any other, and will be, when completed, say the Milanese, superior to any other ancient or modern ; and they further boast, that, when this is finished, their city will have two
MILAN. 387
of the most splendid monuments in the world — this and the Cathedral. The arch was designed by the Chevalier and Mar- quis Louis Cagnola.
May we not hope that this change in the design of this monu- ment, is ominous of a change to a considerable extent, in the spirit of the civilized world. When shall all our triumphal arches be dedicated to peace ? When will kings and princes seek their renown in promoting peace rather than war ? When they learn that war is madness and its spirit diabolical ; but that peace is divine and its spirit heavenly.
The other public monument that is deservedly the glory of the Milanese, is their Cathedral. This edifice is, taking it all in all, unlike any thing else I have ever seen. It is purely Gothic — spiry, open, towering. In the language of another, " it surprises, astonishes, ravishes." It was commenced in 1386 or '7. For two centuries the work went on slowly ; but when Charles Borromeo was placed on the archi-episcopal throne of Milan, the work was hastened, under the architect Pellegrini, who undertook to incorporate the Grecian order with the Gothic ; and in this way he constructed the front of the edifice. Subsequently, how- ever, the discordance appearing so glaring, this front was all removed, except the doors and some of the windows. These were spared for their great beauty, and the great labour bestowed upon them. The edifice, however, was far from being finished, when the French took possession of Milan; and in 1805, five millions of livres were appropriated by the French government, to finish the edifice. The work went on rapidly ; but in 1814, the revolution in favour of Austria found it still incomplete — it is however, in progress.
From every point of view this edifice is remarkable, but you are the most impressed with the view upon the top. Here are a multitude of corridors, platforms, parapets, flying buttresses, and a forest of spires — it is, you may say, an architectural porcupine, shooting out its needles of less or greater length all over its ample roof. These needles are covered with ornaments and statues. It is said the number of spires, when complete, will be one hundred and thirty-five. There are now about one hundred The entire number of statues, in and on the edifice, is now two thousand and twenty, and when all are finished, according to the
388 ITALY.
design, they will amount to three thousand five hundred. Besides these, each square of some of the immense Gothic windows, has a descriptive painting of some scripture event. These windows are beautifully painted, and many of the pictorial representations are very fine.
The form of the church is a Latin cross, the principal nave being four hundred and forty-nine Paris feet in length, and the transverse nave two hundred and seventy-five feet. The interior is rather gloomy, and not finished nor furnished in good taste. The pillars, however, are magnificent, octagonal in form, and fifty-two in number; and in the portal aore two splendid red granite columns, all of one piece,, and vie with the ancient columns of red oriental granite, found in Rome. They are of the granite of the country, and each pillar, it is said,, cost fifty- six thousand livres, independently of the transportation.
The subterranean chapel is very rich in massy silver relics of St. Charles and others ; and in the sacristy, they show you the gold crosier of this saint, and his mitre, set with jewels, and various other most extravagant and costly ecclesiastical toys. They seem in a fair way to be knocked to pieces, however, by the rough handling of the Sacristans, but not until their value has been extorted from strangers, who have the curiosity to look at them, if the sacristans charge all as they did us. They thought two dollars was the least we could give, for detaining them at their own importunity one half hour. However, we had not spent five or six months in Italy, without learning that these show-men), if they cannot get what they ask, will take up with what they can get. One needs to have a general idea of what would be a reasonable tariff, in these cases, and then be governed, not so much by what is demanded, as by what he judges fit and reasonable.
We happened to be at Milan on the feast of the Pentecost ; and on that occasion attended worship at the Cathedrak* Besides the other services which were peculiar to the occasion, a bishop preached. t His subject was the baptism of the Holy Ghost;
* We at first thought ourselves peculiarly fortunate to have fallen in with so many leading feasts of the Roman Church ; but on reflection, it is rather to be considered more singular to escape, than to meet with them, they are so numerous.
•t Preaching among the Catholics is comparatively rare. The mummery of the mass, and other ceremonies and tedious prescribed forms and offices, take the place> in a great measure, of religious instruction.
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MILAN". 389
the offices of the Spirit ; and the perpetuity of these offices in the church. In the main, the doctrine was good ; but the miracle- working power, which, of course, the Catholics claim to be con- tinued in the church, because it was originally included in the baptism of the Holy Ghost, was a claim that we had before heard much of, but had seen nothing to confirm it ; and were, conse- quently, unbelieving still — notwithstanding the reasoning of the bishop. It is, however, the firm opinion of the Catholics, and is constantly taught by them to the people, that the power of work- ing miracles is still possessed by them.
The Milanese church, though Catholic, has some things pecu- liar. Its early bishops, as we have seen in the sketches of history, were slow to submit to the assumptions of power by the Roman bishops, and never yielded many of their peculiarities.* They have many rites of their own, and some difference as to the time of commencing Lent, &c., of trifling importance how- ever, although connected with questions that formerly shook the church to its centre. They practice baptism by immersion. The church is called Ambrosian, after St. Ambrose, who was made Bishop of Milan in 374, and then, by virtue of his own independent episcopal authority, introduced what is called the Ambrosian Liturgy. A plain proof this, that at that time, the Bishop of Rome possessed no such supreme power, as was after- ward claimed by him.
The Ambrosian Church, however, is nearly, if not quite, as intolerant as Rome herself. There are a number of Protestants residing in Milan, but they have no place of worship, no church : and it is said, that the Milanese Church will not consent to such toleration ; although in some of the provincial towns of the duchy there are Protestant churches.
Milan is divided into twenty-four parishes, and contains not far from two hundred to two hundred and fifty churches, chapels and oratories, of all descriptions ; although the population itself, in- cluding the faubourgs, amounts to only about one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. It is a. great relief, however, to this city — as indeed it is to all Lombardy and the Venetian states — that the monastic orders are suppressed. It frees the community
* In the eleventh century, a civil war was excited, because the Milanese Church would not submit to the law, requiring the celibacy of the priests, 33
390 ITALY.
from an intolerable burden, and prepares the way for other reforms in church and state. By getting rid of the church mendi- cants, the way has been opened to get rid of other public beggars and idle vagrants. These are removed from the streets, and put into work-houses, and such as are able, are made to labour for their support ; so that a considerable portion of their expense is saved to the public. Indeed, it was a relief to witness the thrift and apparent prosperity of the city, compared with southern Italy. There was the hum of industry — a general attention to business — little lounging in the streets and public places. The people ap- peared comfortably clad, and comparatively happy. The city was cleanly ; the streets well paved and well built. There was this peculiarity in the paving, that on each side, where the wheels of the carriages come, were rows of broad granite flagging ; so that the carriages rolled almost as freely and smoothly as on a railroad.
One cause, undoubtedly, which has raised Milan so much above her southern neighbours is, the extensive system of educa- tion maintained here. There are two lyceums, several gymnasia, and a general plan of elementary schools ; all maintained by the government, and open to the public. Although Austria is behind her sister-kingdom to the north, in her plans of education, yet she is greatly in advance of the countries south of the Appenines. The advancement of Milan, however, is undoubtedly, in a great measure, owing to the French, who had done much to establish these institutions of learning : and being established and coun- tenanced by public opinion, they were continued under the present government.
The press is also freer here than at the south. Periodicals circulate more freely, and everything is conducted on a more liberal scale. It should be recollected, however, that in all this I speak comparatively. The present government is certainly arbitrary and absolute : but it is the spirit of the people that modifies government. The public mind becomes a constitution, more powerful than parchment. And although Francis I. refused the Milanese a constitution, when they earnestly requested it — a constitution that had been promised them, and which, therefore, they could claim as their right — yet neither he nor his successor has dared to press public opinion beyond certain bounds ; because
MILAN. 391
they knew it would not be endured. The present king and emperor has, so far, shown his wisdom, in mitigating the rigours of his father's government. Many that were confined for opinions' sake, or perhaps a little too much freedom in expressing their opinions, by Francis L, have been set at liberty, and permitted to leave the country. A more general spirit of satisfaction with the govern- ment is manifested : and there is hope, that the march of public opinion is such, as to preclude the power of any absolute will to control it.
The manufactures and commerce of the Milanese are consider- able. The principal article of manufacture and trade is silk. It is said, in this single article, the trade of the city amounts to four millions of dollars annually. On naming to one, who was engaged in this trade, that we were commencing in the growth and manu- facture of silk in our country, and should perhaps ere long be able to supply our own market : he replied, there was no danger of that ; we could not give the perfection and finish which they could give to the fabric. The greater difficulty, however, will be, probably, the impossibility of competing with them, on ac- count of the cheapness of labour in Italy. Our country has such vast resources, and such a market for industry of every kind, that it will be a long while before our poor labouring class will be obliged to toil for a mere meager livelihood. So let it be. Better that Italy should make our silks, than that we should be able, by pressing the operative down to a bare miserable existence, to compete with foreign manufactures.
The trade of Milan is greatly helped by its canals. These surround the city and extend off in connexion with the rivers, so as to give a water communication with the Adriatic. Milan seems to have been one of the first to engage in the construction of canals. So early as 1179, the citizens of Milan excavated the canal called Naviglio, which extends from the Ticino to Abbia- tigrasso. In 1220, they, in conjunction with the citizens of Lodi, cut another from Cassano into Castiglione. This is called Muzza. To these, others were subsequently added. These ca- nals, crossing this level country in different directions, make it easy to lay almost the whole under water, and in this way exten- sive fields of rice are cultivated, which makes the surrounding country to some extent insalubrious. In addition to the exhala-
392 ITALY.
tions from these waters, the atmosphere itself is damp, and the country is subject to great falls of rain. The average quantity in one year is thirty-five French inches, or a little over thirty- nine English inches.*
Milan abounds with palaces public and private, some of which we visited, but will not weary the reader with a detailed descrip- tion of them. The palace of Brera, however, should be noticed, because it is, in fact, the sanctuary of literature, science, and art. To say nothing of the edifice itself, which merits notice, here is the gallery of paintings, containing some very fine pictures — among others, that celebrated painting of Raphael — the marriage of the Virgin. It is one of his earliest works, and is doubtless more admired, because it indicates at what an early age this original and unparalleled genius burst away from the dry and steril style of his master, Peter Perugino, and, in fact, from that of the age in which he lived, and, opening up a new era in the art, gave to painting a sublime elevation and scope that had never before been conceived of. There are a great number of paintings, mostly of the Lombard school.
In this palace, also, is a fine collection of medals, schools of engraving, of anatomy, as connected with drawing, of architecture and perspective, of design in relief, &c., &c.
Here, also, is an observatory well furnished with instruments. Connected, also, with this, is a library open to the public, rich in scientific and classical works' and constantly increasing. Here is, also, one of the municipal Lyceums, and, connected with the edifice, is a botanical garden.
In addition to the library just mentioned, Milan has the Ambro- sian library, so called, founded by the Cardinal Frederic Borro- meo in 1607, containing thirty-five or forty thousand volumes, beside some fourteen or fifteen thousand manuscripts. Here is a Virgil with Petrarch's manuscript notes ; and here, also, we were shown copies of Pliny, Plato, and Cicero, of the second century.
In the suppressed convent of St. Maria delta Grazie, is still shown in the Refectory that unrivalled fresco painting of the last supper, by Leonardo da Vinci. I say unrivalled, for, although it
* In Paris, the mean quantity of rain annually is twenty and a half inches.
ST. AMBROSE. 393
is greatly injured by time and violence, it retains enough of its original sublimity and beauty to charm and chain the spectator. It was with difficulty I could leave it. How much is it to be re- gretted that this painting should be so abused. The room is damp, which has contributed doubtless to the fading of the col- ours ; but it has suffered more from violence. A door has been cut through the wall at the lower part of the picture, and the wall has been otherwise fractured and marred. The French soldiery were lodged here at one time, and they helped on the vandal work of destruction. This picture has been frequently copied, but none have caught the spirit of the original. The engraving of it, by the celebrated Morghen, is very fine. It is from this celebrated engraving that the numerous ordinary copies are ta-ken which are so common in the United States.
Although I cannot stop to describe the churches, yet I must not neglect to mention the church of St. Ambrose, where the saint himself was buried, and where are many interesting monu- ments of antiquity. But especially is it interesting from its being the place where the Lombard kings used to receive the iron crown ; and it was here that Napoleon received it at the hand of the Cardinal Caprara, on the 26th of May, 1805. As if to show his own independence, he took the crown from the hand of the cardinal, after it had been blessed, and put it upon his own head, exclaiming, with more of ostentation than became him, " God has given it to me; wo to him who touches it" It has been well remarked, that " the greatness there is in humility Napoleon had never learned." If he had put on his crown under the salu- tary lesson of the wise man, " Let not him that putteth on the harness boast as he that layeth it off," he might have worn it longer. In nine short years the iron crown* fell from his head. In 390, Saint Ambrose repulsed the Emperor Theodosius the Great from this same church, and closed the doors against him because he had caused seven thousand of the citizens of Thessa- lonica to be murdered; but in 1805, and that too on the Lord's day, Bishop Caprara crowned in this church the Emperor Napo- leon, reeking, as he was, from the blood of thousands whom his
* This was the crown with which the ancient kings of the Lombard dynasty used to be crowned. It was called the iron crown, from a small ring of iron, said to be made of a nail of the true cross, placed upon the interior of a circlet of gold.
3D
394 ITALY.
ambition had been the occasion of slaughtering. Which have changed, emperors or bishops ?
Among other great and good men in the history of Milan, St. Carlo Borromeo stands first. He was born in the year 1538, and at the age of twenty-two was made Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan. He is represented as an example of meekness piety, and benevolence. He set himself to reform the abuses of the clergy and of the monastic orders, for which he incurred their displeasure ; and a monk of the order of the Humilies fired a gun at him, while at prayer, for the purpose of assassinating him, but it did not take effect. He formed the institution of the Brera already described — established institutions for the reforma- tion of profligate females — patronised learning and the arts — ex- posed his own life to aid his fellow-citizens in time of the plague — wrote five folio volumes on moral and religious subjects — and died at the age of forty-six ; but he lives in the affection of pos- terity. His family still exist in Milan, and they own a splendid estate round Lake Maggiore. On the islands of that lake they have splendid palaces ; and up a little from the lake, overlooking Arona, his native town, stands a bronze statue of St. Charles one hundred and twelve feet in height.
We left Milan for Lake Como, on Monday, the 23d of May, after having taken our passage en voiturier for Geneva, which was to meet us and take us in at Bavena, on Lake Maggiore. We passed through a beautiful country ; and towards the close of the route, as we approached the lake, the scene became more pic- turesque and romantic. The town of Como, which we reached in the afternoon, is beautifully situated on the south end of the ]ake of the same name. We found it much more thrifty and flourishing than was anticipated. After dining upon the beautiful trout of the lake, which reminded me of the north of Vermont, and the days of my boyhood, we took a boat and made an excur- sion up the lake as far as the Villa d'Este, the former palace of Queen Caroline of England. This was built by her ; and here she lived a number of years in comparative retirement : and it was this part of her history, which laid the foundation of the charge against her, before the House of Peers in England, of infi- delity to her most continent royal consort, George the Fourth. Of her guilt or innocence, it is certainly not for me to judge : she
LAKE COMO. 395
has had the fiery ordeal of public opinion to pass ; which, I be- lieve, has not resulted, in all respects, so favourably as might be desired. But in these matters, public opinion seldom errs on the score of charity. She also passed the ordeal of an official trial in England ; and, last of all, she has gone to the Great Judge of the universe, who cannot err. These reflections, growing out of this unfortunate, if not criminal, queen's history, cast a gloom over the mind as we passed through what were once the grounds of royalty. And well did these grounds become her. They were retired and rural, and washed by the classic waters of the lake. The only carriage-road to her palace was one which she had caused to be constructed, at a great expense. The palace was directly under a mountain, whose magnificent terraces and pic- turesque cascades greatly enhance the interest of the site. I could well imagine that a queen might, without criminal asso- ciates, prefer this residence to the heartless pageantry of a court ; and especially when her husband, at the head of that court, was the licentious George the Fourth. She had gardens and rivulets, shrubbery and flowers — rustic bridges, artificial and natural cas cades — statuary, grottoes, and labyrinths ; all tastefully arranged in rural beauty. But the grounds are not well kept ; and this, with the moaning of the evening breeze, gave double force to the mournful historic associations of the past. The next day we went on board the steamboat, which runs every day to the north end of the lake, and back to Como ; starting at eight, A. M., and returning at five o'clock in the evening. This is a fine excursion. You see all the shores and villas of the lake, which at its widest part, does not exceed two or three miles. The mountains are high, and where perpendicular rocks did not prevent, were stud- ded with cottages to their very tops ; hanging above you, appa- rently midway between heaven and earth, and accessible only on foot, by tedious and tortuous paths, up the sides of the mountains. Immediately on the shores, are a great number of villages and country seats ; many of which are only accessible by water. Among these is one, supposed to occupy the site of a villa of the younger Pliny, who was a native of Como, and who had a villa on this lake, called his Tragedy — the site of which is sup- posed to have been identified by his description of it, still extant ; and especially by an intermitting fountain, mentioned by him,
396 ITALY,
which still exists. This modern edifice is called Villa Pliniana Here also are a number of English villas, and villas of the Italian nobility ; some of them in fine taste. The most beautiful part of the lake, which is forty miles long, is about in the centre, or twenty miles from Como. Here the shores assume a more in- teresting form, and are decorated with a greater number of villas, and some fine looking hotels ; and here also lake Lecca branches off, shooting down into the mountains, some fifteen miles, in a southeastern direction, and finally terminating in the river Adda, which forms the outlet of this chain of waters. On the eastern shore, at this point, the great Splugen route across the Alps strikes the lake, and tracing along the shore, sometimes hiding itself within the crust of the mountain, and sometimes finding sufficient room for its course without, passes on, to wind its way over those barriers of Nature, forming another link between Italy and central Europe. The natural scenery of this lake is much like the pass of the Highlands, up the Hudson river.
The next day we took a carriage, and crossed the country to lake Maggiore ; struck the lake at Lovena, and took boat for Bavena — visiting the Barromean Islands on our way. This lake — although a handsome sheet of water, and abounding with numer- ous villages on its shores, and white cottages on its mountain sides — does not begin to compare, in my opinion, with lake Como.
The greatest interest is in the Borromean Islands. These are ornamented with a great variety of trees, shrubbery, and flowers ; have fine palaces, especially Isola Bella. The palace on this island has a suite of subterranean apartments, fitted up like ma- rine grottoes, tastefully encrusted with shells, rock-work, and stalactites. It must be a most delicious retreat in the heat of summer. There is also a suite of state apartments, to which we were introduced, and in which was a number of paintings, by Tempesta. The garden is on an elevated part of the island, which is, at best, only large enough for the palace, and a moder- ate-sized garden, and rises up in eight successive terraces, and is crowned with fountains and statuary, and redolent with the fra- grance of plants and flowers. It cannot be described ; but the accompanying plate will give its general features.
At Bavena we found a comfortable hotel, and, what was to us a great luxury, a luxury that we had not enjoyed for the last five
BAVENA. 397
months, a wood floor. Simple as it may seem, it gave us more of a home-feeling than anything we had met with for a long time. The trout of the lake furnished our table, which was another association of early childhood ; and, last of all, the Alps were before us, which, when passed, would introduce us to our side of the world. All these awakened feelings, of which he, who has never been in exile far from home and from the language, re- ligion, and institutions of home, can form no conception.
The next morning we prepared ourselves to take our final farewell of Italy. We were, in all probability, to see her sunny plains and glassy lakes, her marble mountains and classic vales, her ancient cities, her enduring monuments of the arts, her tem- ples, and her towers no more. Here we had enjoyed much and endured much ; and, if we had not been much profited, it must have been our own fault.
What is to be the future state of this country ? I have not the spirit of prophecy and, therefore, cannot say. I infer, however, from the history of the past and from the signs of the times, that it will be better — it will, on the great whole, continue to improve. Its great hinderance is its religion ; but even this must yield to a better state of things in due time. Whether the Catholic church is to maintain its peculiar character until its final overthrow, and until it is wholly supplanted by some other, or whether it is ulti- mately to become modified and reformed, I cannot say. Re- formed and maintain its identity, it cannot ; but it may be reno- vated and still retain its organization to some extent. Whether it will do this, remains to be seen. The light that is now shining upon central Europe, and gradually working its way southward, will, must change the public opinion on this subject. The Prot- estant missionary will ere long be permitted to visit Italy — the press must be unshackled — constitutional governments must be formed. What convulsions may take place before these things are matters of history, we cannot now predict ; but intellectual emancipation has now so wide an empire and so strong an army, that universal triumph seems certain. The contest may be long and, in particular places, bigotry and ignorance, and temporal and spiritual domination may for a while prevail, but, like the contest between the house of David and of Saul, the one must grow weaker and weaker, and the other stronger and stronger. 34
398 ITALV.
CHAPTER XIX.
To Professor A. W. Smith, of ihe Wesleyan University.
MY DEAR PROFESSOR,
ONE of the unpleasant circumstances attending travelling en voiturier, where you have not a party sufficient to take the whole carriage, is the undesirable company into which you are liable to be thrown. In most cases, we had been in a party sufficient to command the whole ; but now we were to join a company of strangers. In this, however, we were most fortunate. Our com- pany was a Swiss family, consisting of the gentleman and his lady and three amiable children. They were accommodating, courteous, intelligent, of the Protestant faith, and acquainted with the route. Nothing could be more desirable than to fall in with such company. Long shall we remember these interesting fellow-travellers. Like many of their countrymen, they had gone abroad for employment and were engaged in the silk-trade in Bergamo, about thirty miles, I think, from Milan, where they in- formed me are numbers of their countrymen, and where they have a Protestant church and schools. Like others of their coun- trymen, also, their home associations were strong and ardent ; and they were now on a visit to their friends and country.
Immediately on leaving the lake, we began to see we were ap preaching mountain scenery, although for a long way we had no steep ascent. We found this grand military road very much out of repair ; insomuch that, in many places, we passed with great difficulty and danger. It appears the King of Sardinia, into whose kingdom we entered once more on the west side of Maggiore, greatly prefers that the trans-alpine travel should be through the Mont Cenis route, for that passes through the centre of his kingdom, whereas this Simplon route, the whole of which from the south end of Maggiore almost to the top of the mountain is in his kingdom, and, therefore, should be kept in repair by him, if by any one, is, nevertheless, but just on his borders, and con-
DOMO D OSSOLA. 399
centrates all its advantages in Milan and Austrian Lombardy. Hence his interest has been to let this go to decay, which, with- out repairs, it would soon do ; for what with mountain torrents carrying away bridges and washing away the bed of the road, and mountain avalanches filling it up, it soon becomes impassa- ble, so that this which used to be the best, has now become the worst Alpine thoroughfare. Public opinion and the complaints of other states, have, however, at length prevailed, and his Majesty of Turin has now a great number of workmen employed to re- store this splendid road.
Near the lake is the quarry of white marble of which the Du- omo at Milan is constructed ; and we passed, also, during our first day's route, a fine quarry of red granite. This takes a fine polish, and is as beautiful for pillars and columns as the famous oriental granite so common in ancient edifices. This quarry, too, furnishes large blocks of sufficient length for entire columns, some of which we saw at the new church of St. Paul's near Rome, said to have been a present by the King of Sardinia, to assist in rebuilding that noble basilica. These columns were each estimated at an expense of twenty thousand dollars.
Our first lodging-place was a romantic little village, at the base of the mountains, called Domo d? Ossola. Thence we departed betimes in the morning, with minds strongly excited between the hope of spending the next night the other side of the mighty Alps, and the fear that some disaster or delay might obstruct our progress and disappoint our hopes. Providence favoured us — the weather was delightful, and had been for several days. We passed gorge after gorge and valley after valley, as we gradually and slowly wound our way up this sublime pass. The reign of Nature here, is the reign of terror and sublimity, and she holds her empire still in despite of the encroachments of art. The most the latter has been able to accomplish, has been to penetrate the domains of the former, with this narrow avenue, by which the traveller is con- ducted through her realm and over some of her lowest eminences. And even to retain this advantage requires a constant warfare. Every year Nature renews the war. In the winter she throws up her ramparts of ice and snow, and places the howling tempests as sentinels to assail, and if possible overwhelm the adventurous passenger. And when the vernal sun drives back these winter
400 SWITZERLAND.
guards; like the flying Parthian, their retreat is equally fatal and fearful — the avalanche and the torrent now cut off the passage, and sometimes overwhelm the passenger. At this time, however, the elements were quiet. It is true, we were tracing up a noisy fretting stream, but it kept within its banks. It is true, numerous mountain torrents were still conveying the waters of the melting snows, from the tops of the perpendicular mountains, that rose up in wild sublimity on each side of us. But these were not of a magnitude to inspire terror — they hardly approached to the grand. They borrowed a grandeur from the height and majesty of the mountain, but these cascades them- selves were rather an element of beauty. Sometimes they come coursing down in a narrow silvery belt, whitened to foam by their rapid descent ; and sometimes falling perpendicularly, they were torn by projecting crags and by the friction of the atmosphere, until they disappeared in spray, before they had accomplished half their descent. Not unfrequently, however, the invisible spray, falling in a shower upon a less perpendicular part of the moun- tain, was again collected into a mountain belt of sparkling silver, This presented a singular phenomenon — a cascade, broken off in the middle, disappearing and again re-appearing, without any appa- rent connexion. It seemed as though the genius of the moun- tain had touched it with his fairy wand, and made it vanish and re- appear at his bidding. It was Nature's holyday. Happily for us, she had suspended her warfare, and seemed now to have put on her gala-dress arid to be sporting in her most frolicsome mood, for her own relaxation and our amusement.
We passed some noble bridges as we occasionally crossed the stream — went through a grotto of eighty paces in length — passed up the Val Vedro to Divedro, a village which is said to be one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight Paris feet above the level of the sea — thence along the bed of the Vedro, up the gorge of Isella — just beyond this we came to the confines of Italy, in passing which we enter the Swiss Canton of Valais. Further on, we came to a grand cascade, coming down from the Swis- bergen and forming its almost perpendicular cataract, close to the road, under which it is conducted by a suitable channel into the Vedro ; immediately we came to another grotto, the longest, I believe, on the route, extending two hundred and two paces
S1MPLON. 401
through solid granite ; after this another splendid cascade, and a grotto of eighty paces.
We now more distinctly perceived that winter and summer were contending with each other for the ascendancy. From the valley to the top of the mountain, you see all the different stages from the broad leaf of summer to the opening foliage — the swelling bud — and finally, to the leafless bough, still chilled by the lingering frosts of winter. Sometimes these could all be taken in at one glance ; and following up the mountain side, through the different and successive zones, you see the shrubbery springing out of the very borders of the remaining snow-bank, putting on the green livery of spring : and Mrs F. collected several beautiful and peculiar flowers of velvet softness, which grew out of the side of a bank overhung with snow. The very water that fed them dropped from the snow-bank that melted by their side^ The tim-. ber was principally the larch, a tree of the fir fcind^ but not an evergreen.
At length we turned short to the right, mounting with a bolder ascent, and serpentining with more sudden sinuosities, plainly indicating that we were approaching the last round in this Alpine ladder.
The village of Simplon is nearly at the summit^ Here we stopped to dine, but the chill of winter was upon us. The ground, it is true, was mostly bare, and the females were carrying out manure upon their backs, to try to force a vegetation into ex^ istence upon these mountain eminences. A menial employment for the softer sex, truly ; showing that if we had passed the con- fines of Italy, we had not yet reached the land where woman was placed in her true position.
After an uncomfortable rest we again commenced our route, hoping soon to find oui selves descending, but we were disap- pointed. The snow increased until we were hedged in by banks on each side, higher than the top of our coach, with several feet under us, so soft that it would not bear either the horses or the carriage. Several times we were stopped and had to shovel out the wheels. Some score of men were employed in this, while others passed ropes round the carriage and travelling upon the heights
Kon either side, kept it from upsetting, or tried to do so ; in one instance, however, they failed, and we went over as far as the 34 3E
402 SWITZERLAND.
snow would permit. We had to get out upon the snow-banks until we righted, which was a tedious labour, for these mountain cantoniers all seemed to command and none obeyed. They talked and cackled much, but worked little — and here too, for the first time, the German language struck our ears ; for that is the language of the Valais. But it was the German in its rudest provincial dialect, and their conversation was like the honcking (pardon my new coinage) of a flock of wild geese. You cannot readily conceive of the effect of this sudden transition from the heat of summer to the cold snows of winter ; and probably nothing but the excitement of the occasion prevented our taking severe colds. Our fellow-passengers went forward on foot, wading through the snow ; but we thought it the safer to take our chance in the coach, come what might. There were several other car- riages in company which rather increased our delay. In short, we were several hours passing two or three miles. Sometimes crowded by the drifts of snow, to the very verge of the precipice. We passed several more grottoes, and one especially deserving notice, called the glacier grotto, carrying us under the crust of the mountain, but not so deep but that the water oozes in and freezes, so that the interior was incrusted with ice. Well may it be called the glacier grotto. The highest point in the pass was before we arrived at this grotto, said to be four thousand six hundred and ninety Paris feet above the level of the sea. Near this is a Hos- pice inhabited by monks of St. Bernard.
At length a kind Providence brought us safely through. We rejoiced to pass out of the region of snow, and find our wheels rolling once more on the bare earth. Brigg, the object of our destination was just below us, and seemed but a step, but it was a long, long way to reach it. We traced a serpentine route, winding this way and that, into the bold sinuosities and round the projecting promontories of the mountain ; and nightfall overtook us before we reached our lodgings. But the delight of finding ourselves over this desired, yet dreaded, pass, safe and comfort- able, cannot be readily conceived by the reader. We had passed through the four seasons of the year — travelled from the sunny rales of Italy to the far-famed Republic of Switzerland — in short, we had crossed the ALPS in one short day. And here we were, in a clean, lovely Swiss tavern, abounding, literally abounding rn
TOURTMAGNE. 403
milk and honey. The milk of Switzerland is not only abundant, but very rich. As soon as we got out of the region of snow we began to see, upon the sides of the mountains, little neat- looking cottages, which, as we descended, became more numerous, but wholly uninhabited. They were generally made of logs, sometimes they were covered with boards, and often had large stones on the roof to preserve find defend them against the heavy winds. These cottages, we learned on inquiry, are the Swiss Chalet* a provincial term, which, however, Rosseau has rendered classical. When the grass gels grown the Swiss swains and dairy- maids, with their cows and goats, resort to these mountain-pastures, and tend their herds, and make their butter and cheese. These Chalets, for the time, become their homes ; and here, in rural sim- plicity, they spend a short but joyous summer, chanting their wild airs in the mountain-breeze, and in the autumn they descend again to the valleys, laden with the fruits of their industry. This is the life of poetry. These are the heroes and heroines of the genuine eclogue. The scenes, the persons, their employments, all unite in forming the most perfect elements of pure pastoral song. The milk, we are told, that is produced by this mountain her- bage, is often too rich to be taken without dilution.
We started next morning, and breakfasted at Tourtmagne, and visited, a half mile from the village, a lovely cascade. The inter est of the waterfall itself is greatly heightened by the surround ing scenery. Our lodging-place was Sion. This was anciently called Sedunum, and seems, by the Roman antiquities found in the neighbourhood, to have been a place of some consequence in the days of the empire. It stands on the successive declivities of three hills, each of which is crowned with a castle ; and there are other castles on the neighbouring heights, which give the entire scene a picturesque appearance.
Our whole route was in a narrow valley watered by the Rhine. This valley, from the mountains to the lake of Geneva, is more than one hundred miles in length, and said to be the longest in Switzerland. Near Sion is the dividing line between the Haut Valais and the Bas Valais — the higher and the lower valley. The next day we dined at Martigny, the ancient Octodurus. This is a delightful village, but situated near the confluence of * Pronounced Shally*
404 SWITZERLAND.
the Dranse and the Rhone, in a valley, so as to be exposed to inundations. A few years since, almost the entire village was overwhelmed and made a heap of desolation, by avalanches and mountain floods. It is now principally rebuilt. Indeed, this valley, in its entire length, seems the sport of the mountain tor- rents. Sometimes they sweep away small hills, and smooth them level with the valley ; sometimes they spread gravel and stones, of great size, over a fertile meadow, and convert it into a waste. The desolating effects of recent occurrences of this kind frequently met our eye.
It is from this town that travellers often set out for the celebrated valley of Chamouni and Mont Blanc. The route to Chamouni is nine leagues across the mountains, and can only be travelled on foot or by mules.
• In the neighbourhood of Martigny, as well as m other parts of Switzerland and the Alpine regions, are numerous cases of goi- trous swellings of the neck. The women are more generally troubled with these than the other sex ; but neither are exempt. Sometimes you may meet companies of these mountaineers with their necks horribly deformed. The cretins also are numerous. These are a race of idiots, of which these mountainous regions produce an abundance. They are deformed in body as well as mind ; and appear in all the different stages of idiocy — from absolute fatuity, up to such a share of sense as enables them to labour and earn their own living. Many of them are certainly the most disgusting and pitiable looking objects imaginable. Why this race is so numerous here, has never been satisfactorily ascer- tained. But this, and the other disease mentioned, together with the ravages of the avalanche, teach us, that the mountains of Switzerland, with all their romance and picturesque or sublime scenery, like all other parts of the world, have also their repulsive features, moral and physical. Still, with all their disadvantages, these residents of the valleys and the mountains, seemed wedded to their native glens. You find them, it is true, scattered over Europe — especially in France and Italy — pursuing a great variety of avocations, but returning whenever they have accumulated
enough to purchase a cottage upon the mountains, to spend their latter days in their native land. Sometimes, even before this
period of their final return, they come home and wed their maun-
LAKE LEMAN. 405
tain lass, provide for her a cottage, and return to acquire something more for the support of any offspring with which Heaven may bless their union. We met one of this description, who had just returned from Rome. He had his intended by the hand, a fresh, blushing, mountain dame, and responded to the inquiries of our veturino with all the frankness and sincerity of one who was conscious of sincere and honourable love ; while his fair one, in the picturesque costume of her canton, stood blushing by his side.
Each canton has its particular costume ; and it is as unchange- able as their patriotism. How much better this, than that rest- less chase after the ever-varying forms of fickle fashion that characterizes the peasantry of our own country !
We left Martigny in advance of the coach, and walked a league to see the cascade of the Pissevache ; a magnificent cataract, which comes tumbling down from a lofty mountain, and finally pitches in a perpendicular leap of one hundred feet, spread into a limpid sheet or veil, hung out in waiving gauze over the brow of the mountain. The waters are those of the river Salanche, which, in their course towards the Rhone, have no other alterna- tive but to make this desperate leap down the tremendous preci- pice. The fall in its full extent, is three hundred feet.
Around this valley shoot up the Dent du Midi and the Dent du Marcles, two Alpine eminences, that rise seven thousand feet above the bed of the Rhone ; and a little further in the distance, are still higher mountains, constituting a part of the group of the great St. Bernard. Here also is a great variety of minerals and of plants ; all combining to make this region one of Nature's rich, beautiful, and sublime localities.
We passed into the Canton de Vaud, and took lodgings for the night in the little town of Bex. This contains about three thou- sand inhabitants. From this we proceeded in the morning to Vevay ; a pleasant town on the north side of Lake Leman, or the Geneva lake. This lovely sheet of water met our eyes for the first time this morning. As it lies somewhat in the form of a segment of a circle — of which the north is the curve, and the south the chord — in passing to the north we traversed the longest side, and left the great military road, the course of which is on the south side of the lake. Our route, however, is supposed to
406 SWITZERLAND.
be the most interesting. The sloping sides of the hills, which for the most part are, on this shore of the lake, gentle declivities, were covered with vineyards, and studded at proper intervals with beautiful villages. The limpid mirror of the lake lay be- neath us, and the Alps reared up their successive peaks and towering heights on the opposite side, until Mont Blanc himself, that three-headed monster, terminated the prospect, by basing himself on other mountains for his pedestal, and wreathing for himself a capital from the clouds of heaven.
After leaving Vevay, we passed, among other towns, Lausanne and Nyon. At the former we spent the night. This is a beautiful town, situated about four hundred and fifty feet above the surface of the lake, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. It contains a cathedral, built in the year 1000, a castle of the thirteenth century, a college containing a library, a museum of natural history, and a phi- losophical and chemical apparatus. This institution is flourishing.
Our dining-place of the next day's journey was Nyon, at the- Hotel of the Fleur de Lis. The very place, as it happened',, where the Swiss family who was in our company, were to stop — the residence of the mother and brother of the lady. The meeting of these friends was very affecting, and afforded an illustration of the strong attachment to country and kindred, for which the Swiss are so proverbial. While yet a good way off, the lady looked out of the carriage-window, and got a distant view of her native village, and burst into tears. When she met her mother, and brother, and sister, there seemed to be no end to their mutual salutations and embraces, their tears of joy and expressions of affection.
Nyon is a pleasant little town, of perhaps between two and three thousand inhabitants, situated partly on the lake shore, and partly upon a terrace at the top of a hill, a little above the lake. Its principal interest, however, to me was, that it was the birthplace and family residence of that excellent and eminent man of God, the Reverend J. William De la Fletcher : a man, of whom Mr. Wesley says, after a long and intimate acquaintance with him : " I never knew him speak an improper word, or do an improper act.*1 A testimony which, from such a man as Mr. Wesley, is most extraordinary ; and could be true only of an extraordinary man. Such, indeed, was Mr. Fletcher : not only that he was
REV. J. WILLIAM FLETCHER. 407
* free from all improprieties, but that he was " full of goodness," and always abounding in the work of the Lord. His antagonists complained of him in controversy, it is true ; but it was only because of the keenness of his controversial sword, and the dex- terity with which he wielded it against error, and in defence of the truth. Of bitterness of spirit, none could ever accuse him ; for he lived and died in the element of love. A most illustrious example of the power of that grace which, even in this life, if received in the fulness with which the provision is made, can transform a man to an angel. Such was Fletcher : a man, of whose spirit and piety, I have as high a conception as of any that has lived since the days of the apostles ; and from the read- ing of whose biography I have received more spiritual benefit^ than from any other writings, the inspired Scriptures excepted.
We visited the family mansion, that we might see the place which gave him birth ; and as we could obtain no more appro- priate memorial of the spot, we plucked, and have carefully pre- served, a leaf of laurel that grew in the yard — a faint emblem of that fresher and more enduring wreath, with which his immortal spirit is crowned, in the bright world above. Opposite to the house, and immediately across the street, is the ancient church, where, doubtless, he was early taught the principles of that gospel he so successfully preached, and so worthily magnified, in his ministry and life.
The fruits of his piety and prayers are seen in the Fletcher family at the present day. They are an ancient and honourable family ; and a number of them, male and female, are now, as I am informed, rejoicing in the truth, and are active and worthy supporters of the evangelical cause at Nyon.
It is known to those who are conversant with Mr. Fletcher's life, that he left his charge in Madeley, England, and visited his native country for his health, which was reduced very low by an affection of the lungs. While here, however, he could not rest, but poured out his ardent spirit in exhortation, prayer, and praise, among his countrymen. It was then, and for a long time since, until quite lately indeed, a time of great spiritual dearth in Switzer land ; and the national church and clergy could not endure his zeal. They persecuted him and refused him their churches, but he used to take the open air ; and they still show a stone
408 SWITZERLAND.
about a mile distant from his paternal mansion, from which he used to exhort the people. He mentions especially, in one of his letters, a company of children that resorted to him to re- ceive instruction and to sing hymns. On mentioning this circum- stance at the inn, the good old lady said, " she well remembered it, for she was one of that company of children, and she pre- served in vivid recollection his emaciated face, and the sweet manner with which he used to sing with them and converse about the Saviour."
We were surrounded, during the last day of our journey, with more of the associations of home than at any former period of our absence. The vines had mostly disappeared, and the land was richly covered with the agricultural products more common in our own country. The frequent school-house surrounded with sprightly and neatly dressed children — the appearance of the peasantry — the face of the country — and the militia trainings, all seemed a model of our own New England. In the latter, the resemblance was too close ; for not only were the constitution of the militia system and the manner and time (for they were just now having their " May trainings ") similar to ours, but like what it used to be with us, and is now to some extent— here and there a drunken soldier was seen staggering home, or leaning upon his musket, almost incapable with this support to keep a perpendicu- lar posture. Strange as it may seem to those who have never been in similar circumstances, this entire exhibition, drunken sol- dier and all, was so like what I had beheld in the days of my boyhood among the green mountains— the Switzerland of Amer- ica—it cast a spell over my heart, and made every object an in- teresting remembrancer of early youth, of country, and of home.
With minds softened and gladdened by the scenes around us, and by the delightful reminiscences they inspired, we finished the day by a short ride of two or three hours to Geneva— the cradle of the Reformation— where we arrived at about 7 o'clock, P. M.
Yours, &c.,
W. FISK.
GENEVA. 409
CHAPTER XX.
THE canton of Geneva is the smallest in the confederation, and lies at the outlet of the lake in the southwest corner of Switzerland, the Duchy of Savoy being on one side, and France on the other ; the territory of the former coming up very near to the walls of the city itself is the reason, I suppose, why the police of the city is more rigid than any of the other Swiss towns which we visited. Our passports had been rarely called for since we entered Switzerland, but at the gates of Geneva we were closely examined. Nor are strangers allowed to remain in the city without a permit from government; a permit which Catholics do not readily obtain for a long residence. The reason assigned for this is, that if the privileges of citizenship should be readily accorded to them, Ge* neva would be overrun with a Catholic population ; and this the more speedily from the circumstance that the Sardinian govern- ment is oppressive in its restrictions and exactions, from which the citizens would naturally and in great numbers escape, if they could find a ready admittance into a city so liberal and inviting as Geneva in their own immediate neighbourhood. But should they come there under the influence of their superstitions and their priests, as they now are, enlightened and Protestant Geneva would be outnumbered and controlled by a bigoted and an illiberal Catholic colony. I say illiberal, for this epithet is emphatically applicable to the Sardinian government. In proof, we need only refer to the manner in which the Waldenses are now treated with- in the bounds of that government. We became acquainted with some who held correspondence with these Christians, and from them learned several particulars on this subject which are not, perhaps, generally known to the world. In the general declen- sion that has taken place among the Continental Protestants, these ancient churches have had their share. They had become spirit- ually dead ; but, within a few years, they have been revived ; and with their spiritual resurrection has arisen also the spirit of perse- cution. By the most rigorous measures, the government has for- 35 3F
410 SWITZERLAND.
bidden that any pastor shall be allowed to visit them from abroad. An old patriarch, who has been instrumental of much spiritual good to them, has been imprisoned. They have been driven from their places of worship and violently assailed by their opposers in their own neighbourhood.
The present king was educated in Geneva, and there imbibed sentiments entirely opposite to those which mark his govern- ment. He even assured some gentlemen of Geneva, his old associates at school, that he would change the measures of the government when he should be seated upon the throne. The result only proves that kings are slaves. He cannot do the things that he would. When the officer of government, to whom was intrusted the old patriarch above alluded to for safe keeping as a prisoner, wrote a private letter to the king, entreating him to use his authority to set the prisoner at liberty, because he was a good man and was persecuted for righteousness' sake, the king replied privately, ordering him to be released ; but, at the same time, directing the officer not to make the subject known to the king's ministers, lest his kind designs for the old patriarch should be thwarted ! The Austrian Metternich is probably the author of this policy ; for he stands at the head of intolerance in Europe, and, doubtless, infuses wherever he can the same spirit into the governments dependant upon Austria that influences the councils of the court which is more immediately under his sway. Quite recently a worse course of persecution has been adopted towards a body of Protestants under the Austrian dominion in a mountainous district called Ziller Thai. None of these govern- ments would like to adopt this intolerant policy before the face of the world ; but where they can fall upon the little flocks in the mountains, secluded from public view, they manifest the same spirit that drove Protestantism from Italy by all the bloody hor- rors of the Inquisition.
While I am on this subject I will notice another case. Some excellent Protestants of Geneva made an excursion into the borders of Savoy, and carried with them religious tracts, which they dis- tributed in the distant hamlets and villages among the mountains. These were received by the people with great joy and gratitude. In a few days, however, they came to Geneva, and informed their benefactors that the priests had taken their tracts from them and
THE "EVANGELICAL SOCIETY." 411
burnt them ; and that the government had taken the alarm, and had forbidden any further distribution of such tracts under severe penalties ; and these honest peasants had come to Geneva to give the information, lest, coming there again, these Protestant friends should fall into the hands of the officers and be imprisoned.*
With such neighbours, it is no wonder that the Genevese are very cautious of exposing themselves to a redundant population of Catholic beggars, bigoted priests, and intriguing politicians. No wonder that my host, speaking of the government of Geneva, called it, " tres sage — very wise."
I say my host, for I must now state that we found delightful lodgings at Mr. Henry Wolff's, a little out of the city, with a family whose piety, and intelligence, and courtesy have cheered many from our own country, and will be long remembered by us.
I found I had visited Geneva in a propitious time, as it was the anniversary of the Evangelical Society, and clergymen and others were assembled from different parts of the country and towns of Switzerland and elsewhere to attend this religious con- vention.
The " Evangelical Society" of Switzerland is an association for the promotion of evangelical religion in Switzerland and else- where. It had its origin in the almost total apostacy of the Swiss churches, and especially that of Geneva, into Socinianism. It might be a curious and an instructive inquiry, in a proper place, to examine into the causes of the transition of the Swiss churches from the doctrines of the Reformation to that lax and formal sys- tem which seemed little better than a heartless philosophy. For myself, without stopping here to trace the connexion, I believe it is owing to two causes : first, the connexion of the church with the state ; and, second, the ultra Calvinism of these churches. A law religion, by a most obvious process, always has a tendency to introduce a worldly clergy and a worldly church ; and we have seen in more places than Geneva that the strong dogmas of Calvin have a reacting influence on the public mind, and drive it to the other extreme. Whatever may be the causes, however, the truth is clear. In Geneva, but a single evangelical man was left when Madame de Sta'tl, according to the custom
* We had this account directly and personally from the young ladies who distributed the tracts.
412 SWITZERLAND.
of the country, selected an instructor and religious guide to pre- pare her children for the sacrament. Strange as it may seem, this very eccentric woman selected this clergyman, and the re- sult was, that her son and daughter both became decidedly pious — the former, the late Baron de Sta'd, died in the faith of the gospel ;* the latter, the present Duchess de Broglie, is a living example in the midst of the French court, not only of the Protest- ant faith, but of a devout life.
After the death of this pious clergyman, it does not appear that there was left another experimental minister in the church. Ge- neva, however, was not long to be left without witnesses for the truth of a spiritual religion. A young man, Monsieur Empeytez, became unhappy under a sense of his guilt as a sinner, but could find no relief. He thought he must punish his body for the sin of his soul ; and, for that purpose, among other methods adopted, he made him a cross of thorns, and put it next to his flesh in his bosom, that he might be constantly reminded of his guilt and punished for his sins. At length, however, he found one who, in obscurity, knew the way of faith, and taught it to him. He heard and believed. He is now a Christian minister, and has been in- strumental in turning the feet of others into the faith and experi- ence of the gospel. f Others, also, have been raised up as faithful and successful instruments, in the hand of God, of spreading holi- ness among the people. Monsieur Empeytez is now an associ- ate pastor, with two others of an independent church, which meets in an uncomfortable place in the Bourg de Four, in Ge- neva. This church, as appears by a circular lately issued, soli- citing aid from their brethren to assist them in procuring a more convenient and spacious place of worship, had its origin in the piety of a number of individuals who, as early as 1811, had commenced in their spiritual course, mauger all the formality and darkness which reigned around them. At first they only had pri-
* We visited the parents of the baron's wife, who still lives a widow, and found the family most interesting, intelligent, and pious. The father supports, at his own expense, an excellent school. The family residence is a pleasant ride of an hour from Geneva.
t We attended a social meeting one afternoon at his house, which is delightfully situa- ted at a little distance from the city. In going thither we not only had a most delightful walk, and a fine view of the scenery south of the city and of the valley of the Arvtt which enters the Rhone just below the city, but we also passed two places of opposite in- terest : the one was the spot where Servetus was burnt ; and the other the house where once lived that devoted missionary, Felix Neff.
THE " EVANGELICAL SOCIETY." 413-
rate meetings for prayer and religious conversation, but in 1817 they formed a regular church, and have, since that time, been in- creasing in their influence at home and abroad. This little church has taken a leading part in the impulse that has been given to the cause of evangelical piety in Switzerland and France. From this little company have gone forth as missionaries, instructers> colporteurs, &c., twenty-five at least ; most of whom are still in the work. Two of the most eminent, viz., Felix Neff and Henry Pitt (the latter has already been spoken of as having laboured in Paris and died at Versailles), have entered into their rest.
Connected with this church is a school, where persons are in structed as missionary schoolmasters, colporteurs, &c., for the spread of the gospel. These are found to be very efficient agents in spreading the knowledge of Christ among the lower classes in France and Switzerland. They distribute the Bible, the Evan-> gelical Magazine, and various religious publications, which tend greatly to rouse the spirit of the people to an attention to their eternal interests.
With this band of Christians we had the pleasure of Christian communion on the Sabbath, the first opportunity we had enjoyed since we left Paris. To such as have never been deprived of the benefits of Christian communion and worship for months together, I cannot fully describe the pleasure we felt in joining again with those who, in the manner the Romanists call heresy, worship the God of our fathers. This little band of Christians has been per- secuted, and reproached, and driven from place to place; and their congregation is now so unfavourably situated that they have very little chance to enlarge their field of usefulness. It is to be hoped that the appeal they now make to their fellow-Christians will be generously responded to, and that American Christians will assist in this very desirable and important charity.
But to return to the Evangelical Society. This is made up of all, in different cantons and of different churches, independent or national, who feel the importance, in the midst of spiritual death, of uniting to awake the public mind to the great work of saving their souls and the souls of their fellow-men. It is a merging of peculiar and local interests in the great and paramount cause of spreading and enforcing the truth. Their prayers were fervent, their salutations from distant and auxiliary societies were sincere
.
414 SWITZERLAND.
and their bands of union appeared strong, and their combined la- bours efficient. Numbers were there from the national churches of the other cantons ; few, indeed, from Geneva. The Geneva Church will not license nor ordain an evangelical man. One,* that was a pastor in the church, they have silenced, and excluded from his clerical functions, for they have this power ; and this shows most clearly the extreme absurdity of a state religion. A fallen church is thus standing in the way of the gospel, with all the authority of the state to sustain it.
I said this pastor was silenced, and so he is, officially, in the national church; but he preaches still. His congregation have built a separate church, called the Oratoir, where he preaches and administers the sacraments ; and he has also a theological school, where he is training young men for the work, in spite of all the threatenings and anathemas of the national church ; so that this their opposition has turned out to the furtherance of the gospel. This revival is interesting from the facts that a number of influential men have become the subjects of it ; that it is stead- ily advancing; that it is operating powerfully upon France and the other Swiss cantons, and promises much for the cause of Christ here. Pure religion, experimental godliness, is beginning to revive where the reformation from popery was first established • nay, it is said the work seems to run in the very channels, and influence the descendants of those very families that stood out foremost in the former reformation. It has refreshed especially sojne of those families that fled from Parma and other Italian cities, that they might escape from the Inquisition. This work, too, is interesting from its position, between Germany and France, where both the German and French languages are spoken ; among ail enterprising race, who circulate extensively, in their ordinary worldly business, throughout Europe, and who make excellent missionaries to go out voluntarily and preach the gospel to the nations around them. It is interesting from the instrumentalities which the great Head of the church uses in its accomplishment. In this particular it bears a striking resemblance to the revival under the Wesleys in Great Britain and Ireland. In addition to
* This was Mr. . He entered the national church in 1810, and was a gay, world- ly minister until 1816, when,.by reading the Scriptures, he was awakened, and has wiice become a very useful minister.
PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 415
regular pastors, lay-men of -various callings and employments ap- pear to have been moved to a co-operation in this work, and have not only taught and carried about Bibles and tracts, but have also preached with great success.
Connected with these features there are some not so promis- ing. First, there is too much connexion with the state, especially in some of the cantons. Then there is too strong a spice of Cal- vinism among a great portion of the evangelical ministers ; al- though this is very much let alone, I believe, in their evangelical operations ; and, so long as this is the case, there is less danger from this antinomian seed. And, finally, like all sudden and ex- traordinary revivals, it has in it some of the spirit of fanaticism. They have a sect among them called Momiers or Methodistes, which are represented to be enthusiastic, and to resemble the Quietists of a former age. Whether they are misrepresented like the Methodists of England when they first arose, I was not able fully to satisfy myself. But I conclude, from all I could gather, that they had carried the doctrine of the operations of the Spirit to a fanatical excess. At any rate, there is now found in Switzer land a tincture of the Irving heresy or delusion, which unhappily has been transplanted hither from London. A nephew of Mr Fletcher's, who was a pastor in the Canton de Vaud, and, I be lieve, in the town of Nyon, became tinctured with this while on a visit to London ; and some others also have embraced it. The wildness of these notions will undoubtedly react upon the evan- gelical cause to its reproach and injury.* The cause, however, will triumph ; and I cannot but look upon the present religious movement in Switzerland, and its already perceptible influences upon the other nations of Europe, as one of the signs of the times most favourable to the Christian cause. This work, however, does not go on without opposition. Severe persecutions have been experienced by the evangelical Christians, and in the Can- ton de Vaud a most intolerant law has been enacted against the Momiers. This, however, is only a proof that the cause is gain ing ground, and that Satan and a formal church are alarmed for their craft.
there
cal s
* I am sorry to leam that some of these teachers have visited Geneva since I was there, and have deluded away quite a number of the students in the evangelical theologi oal school, and have almost broken up the institution.
416 SWITZERLAND.
1 have dwelt thus long upon the religious state of Geneva and Switzerland, because this was to me one of the most, nay, I may say, the most interesting feature in the country. Several inter- esting facts of a local character came to my knowledge, which I should be glad to narrate, but I am aware of the danger of prolixity, and I forbear.
The situation of Geneva is delightful. The Rhone, as its limpid waters first shoot from the lake, passes through it, dividing it into two unequal parts, with an islet in the centre. The current is very rapid, and carries numerous water-wheels, which give im- pulse to machinery of various kinds — insomuch that the banks and the current, far inward towards the centre of the channel, from either side, are covered with shops of artisans and manufac- turers ; and the constantly-gliding current seems to have all its power used up for the important purposes of aiding and relieving human labour. It is an animating scene of life and industry, so unlike the torpor that hangs over the Italian cities, that you are constrained to pause, especially if you have just come from Italy, and wonder at the change. What has made the difference ? Two causes doubtless combine — religion and government. The Genevese are an industrious, enterprising, thriving people ; and the position of their city is most advantageous, not only in refer- ence to the water power just mentioned, but also in reference to its advantages of trade, by reason of the lake navigation, and its frontier position between France and Switzerland. The city is walled and surrounded by a Fosse, and the gates are guarded. It contains a population of about thirty-five thousand, and seems scarcely capable of a very great increase, on account of its straitened dimensions. It lies very uneven, by reason of the inequality of the ground ; and some of the streets are difficult of access, on account of the steepness of the hills, although a good portion of the city is comfortably level. It is watered by an hy- draulic machine, which elevates the water one hundred and ten feet into the centre of the city.
Geneva has long been celebrated for its schools and eminent men. To have produced a Calvin and a Beza, is honour enough of this kind for one city. But she has also had her Burlamaqui, in the law ; and as a statesman she has produced a Neckar, and in political economy, J". B. Say — besides numerous others in
GENEVA. 417
the various departments of science and literature. At the pres- ent day, she has in the department of history, Sismondi, and in botany the savan, whose fame is known to the world, the emi- nent De Candolle. This latter gentleman has ornamented and enriched the city by a fine botanical garden, which he com- menced in 181 6, and has made it a rich appendage to this interest- ing town.
The Academy founded by Calvin and divided into the depart- ments of Law, Theology, Sciences, and Lettres, is still flourishing, with various other schools and institutions,* libraries and literary and scientific associations. The public library has fifty thousand volumes, and many valuable manuscripts, among which are ser- mons and letters of Calvin and Beza.
The Cathedral is a venerable old building, and has the more interest from its associations ; built for Catholic service, it became the theatre of a Calvin and others, in which to proclaim the doc- trines of the Reformation. But these Catholic cathedrals and churches are, after all, very inconvenient edifices for Protestant worship. They were not built for places of instruction for the people, but for the sacrifice of the mass. Their pillars, arches, colonnades, recesses, triple naves, altars, side chapels, tribunes, and choirs, are only suited to the cumbersome ceremonies of the Roman worship, and are constructed in the very worst possible form for the worship of Protestants. Yet these constitute the principal Protestant churches in Switzerland ; for where the people become Protestants, they take their churches with them, and where they are divided, they not unfrequently, by mutual arrangement, divide the parish church between them ; the Catholics occupying it one part of the day, and the Protestants the other.
Geneva was a city in the time of the ancient Romans ; after their transalpine power ceased, it fell successively under the Bourguignans, the Ostrogoths, the Franks, &c., until in 1535 it threw off all foreign domination, and established a republic. In 1798, it fell into the hands of the French, but in December, 1813, it recovered its independence, which was guarantied in 1814, by the allied powers ; and in 1815, it was associated with the Swiss confederacy as the Twenty-second Canton. The American reader will understand, however, that there is a wide difference, after all, * The University has between three and four hundred students.
3G
418 SWITZERLAND.
between the government of the Swiss cantons and that of the United States. When we came to the gate of this walled and guarded city, and our passports were demanded, I observed that this did not appear much like a republic. A German, who was in the coach with us, (having, with a lady, taken the place of the Swiss family, whom we left at Nyon,) shrewdly remarked, that " a Swiss republic was one thing and an American republic another." This I was often reminded of while in Switzerland. The union of the different cantons is a loose confederacy, which, like the old confederation of the United States, gives rise to numerous jealousies and disputes. It answers a much better pur- pose, however, for these mountainous cantons, than it would for a large commercial country like ours, and the more because the sur- rounding nations will finally put them right, if they get too violent. When the other cantons, following Berne, which led the way, annulled, in 1813, the "Act of pacification," which had been formed by Napoleon for Switzerland, and which should rather have been called an " Act to subject Switzerland to his control," they attempted to form a confederation among themselves, that should secure their liberties and independence. But they had so many cantonal claims for indemnities, remunerations, restorations of territory, &c., that their attempts were nothing but so many renewals of contention and opposition. The Allied Sovereigns, however, to their honour be it spoken, and they should have due credit for all the good they did, when they were guilty of so many acts of oppression and injustice, took the subject under considera- tion in their Congress at Vienna, weighed the respective claims, adjusted the indemnities, and laid the foundation for the present confederation. By this arrangement each canton sends delegates to the General Diet — pays an established proportion of the gener- al expense, and furnishes a given quota of soldiers in time of war. The General Diet decides all questions that relate to the general interests, but the several cantons are, to a very great ex- tent, independent, and differ very considerably in their forms of government. Republics although they are called, yet they are in fact aristocracies — the offices being filled only from the aristo- cratic classes. In this respect, however, there is a change going on in the country, and the people are breaking down the old aristocratic barriers. In Berne, there has been of late, a revolu-
GENEVA. 419
tion in faiour of popular rights. One of the CBntons,Neufchatel, is an hereditary monarchy. This was formerly a Prussian princi- pality, and became associated with the Swiss confederacy, at the same time with Valais and Geneva, by the decisions of the Con- gress of Vienna.
There is one circumstance or custom which saves Geneva, and I know not but this is true of the other cantons, from much of that demagogical electioneering so prejudicial to the peace, and so dangerous to the liberties of society in our country. The officers of government serve for the honour of it and for patriotism — they have no pay. I asked one of the citizens what they would do, if a man elected should refuse to serve in any office. He said that would be very unpopular. For a man, whose circumstances would permit of it, to refuse to serve his country, would be con- sidered as a most glaring evidence of a disregard for the welfare of the nation. Is not this the true conservative principle ? In this way a citizen takes office not to serve himself, but his country.
One of the most interesting features of Geneva society is, the courtesy that prevails, unembarrassed with the formalities of etiquette. There are intelligence, politeness, and much of suav- ity, and yet every one is left, to a great extent, free and untram- melled by unmeaning forms. This of itself renders it a desirable residence. Another delightful appendage to a residence in Ge- neva, is, the enchanting scenery around. Do you wish to take a sail ? You have the lake on which steamboats and other water- craft ply continually to the distance of sixty miles, and along the shores of which are numerous country-seats and villages. Do you wish to ride ? You have beautiful promenades in every di- rection. In short, I saw no place in my tour which appeared to me to combine so many advantages for a summer's residence as Geneva. Our only regret was that our stay was so short. We had time to make but few excursions in the neighbourhood, and these but short. We could see Mont Blanc ; but neither time nor health would permit us to visit it. We saw the Arve rolling down its channels the melted snows of the mountains around the Chamouni valley; but we could not visit this interesting spot, which had been concealed from the rest of the world for centu- ries previous to 1741, when it was discovered by the two English travellers, Messrs. Windham and Pocock. These and numerous
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other excursions, we had to forego, and had time only to make the best route we could in our tour to the Rhine, which we pro- posed to take in our way to England.
CHAPTER XXL
PARTING with our friends, for so we must call them, though but a few days before we were strangers to each other, we left this lovely city in a steamboat for Lausanne. Here we dined and engaged a voiturier for Berne for thirty francs. The regular price is twenty francs a day (about four dollars) ; but each day you advance, is reckoned as two, unless you can meet with a re- turn carriage, because the coachman must have pay for return- ing as well as for going. This was the best specimen of veturino travelling we had enjoyed on the continent. With a new carriage, good horses, a kind and intelligent veturino, fine weather, and a most picturesque country, the route through Switzerland was in- describably delightful. There was a pleasing variety of hill and dale, in general appearance, not unlike the most cultivated parts of New-England. The forests were mostly spruce and beach, with a smaller proportion of oak. Orchards in abundance. The cultivated fields were productive of grass, rye, wheat, peas, pota- toes, &c. The meadows looked as though Nature was profligate in the bestowment of her floral beduties, and the air was redolent with their fragrance. From the tops of the hills we had splendid views of mountain-scenery, with snowy summits wreathed in clouds. We were between two elevated chains of mountains : the Alps on the one side, and the Jura on the other. The former have their greatest elevation on the south of our route, and ex- tending, from a parallel of longitude" as far west as the western extremity of Switzerland to Hungary on the east, above two hun- dred leagues ; and the latter, starting from the west and north of the Rhone, extend one hundred leagues on the northern boundary to the neighbourood of the Rhine. These mountains make the central and more level parts of Switzerland one grand amphithea-
LAUSA.NNE 421
tre. These interior parts are delightfully diversified with hills and dales ; and when the traveller arrives at the top of one of the intermediate hills where he can see the neighbouring eminences, the intervening lakes, and the distant cordon of Alpine ranges, broken into successive turrets and extending quite round the hori- zon, he feels that all is enchantment.
To these general features of interest, near and more remote, we were amused and pleased with certain other features of the picturesque — especially the cottages of the peasants, and the cos- tumes of the women. The former were unique — built generally of wood — their roofs jutting over the walls, some ten or fifteen feet — galleries, or a sort of corridor, running across the ends — the outside often carved and inscribed with texts of Scripture, and dates of the births of the children ; and, whatever might be the state of the interior, the exterior was washed and kept clean, although very generally the stable and barn were in one end, and a large pile of manure in front.
Every canton has its costume. That of Berne is very pic- turesque. The general features of it are, a black silk cap, with a high flaunting gauze border, made stiff so as to run up from the head in a waiving circlet, eight or ten inches in depth — a black velvet bodice or stays, worked and ornamented, and a black collar, which is sometimes ornamented with chains of metal resembling silver, wreathed over the shoulders and fastened to the bodice, near the waist — a black riband braided into the hair, and hang- ing down to the ground — white full sleeves for the upper, and dark mits for the lower arm, and blue skirts bound round the bot- tom with red.
In some respects the country was unlike New-England. The farms were not fenced ; the cattle are stabled winter and sum- mer ; the women are all in the fields at work, some of them in very menial employments ; one of them, decked, in her country cos- tume, I saw carrying out manure in her apron ; all were engaged in the most laborious and filthy parts of agricultural labour. When they carry burdens on their heads, they slip their caps back to save them from being crushed. How the domestic affairs go on with most of the women in the field, I cannot say ; I suppose, how- ever, there is very little done within doors. Nevertheless, the hotels were clean and well furnished — unlike France and Italy* 36
422 SWITZERLAND.
the chambermaids were females, and the servants were generally courteous and attentive.
In our way to Berne we turned a little from the direct route, for the purpose of passing through Friburg, the capital of the canton of the same name. This canton contains about eighty- seven thousand inhabitants, most of whom, with the exception of the district of Morat, which contains about eight thousand Protest- ants, are Catholics. The present reformation, however, is making some progress here. A young shoemaker, in the spirit of a missionary, established himself with much difficulty and opposi- tion, in one of the villages, where his labours were very success- ful, and the work spread to the capital itself, so that when we arrived there we found that a new Protestant church had just been opened for Divine worship, and the work was in a prosperous state. This is, however, a strong hold of the Catholics. They have here a very flourishing college, which has just been enlarged by new and convenient edifices, over which we were shown, and which contained apparatus, library, and other materials of learn- ing, with all the necessary rooms to accommodate a large institution. They have faculties of law, theology, mathematics, philosophy, ancient languages, &c., together with a number of inferior semi- naries and schools. These public edifices stand upon the highest grounds of this romantic city, and appear like a citadel. The whole are under the order of the Jesuits.
The town of Friburg is most romantically situated on an uneven promontory, partly surrounded by a stream, which glides in pictu- resque beauty at the bottom of a glade or gorge, that in its depth and abrupt cliffs, associates with the scene the attributes of the sublime. This gulf is several hundred feet deep, reckoning from the tops of the hills, on either side. The narrow and almost perpen- dicular part, however, is only about two hundred feet. Over this, a suspension bridge has been recently thrown, one hundred and eighty feet in height, and about one thousand feet in length. It is a splendid work, and the greatest curiosity of the kind I ever saw. It is so well represented in the accompanying plate that I need not describe it ; and will only add, that the view, whether you look at it above or below, is indescribably fine, set off as it is by the accompaniments of nature and art, with which it is surrounded.
-
llbrar
the view
BERNE. 423
We spent several hours in this little town, which contains only about seven thousand inhabitants, and were amply paid for our visit to it. Among other curiosities, was a linden-tree, growing near our hotel, which was planted on the occasion of the great victory gained by the Swiss confederates at Morat, over Charles the Bold. This great battle, the most memorable, perhaps, that marks the Swiss history, was fought on the 22d June, 1476, and resulted in the annihilation of an army sixty thousand strong, with which the Duke of Burgoine had, in the month of March preceding, crossed the Jura, threatening to annihilate the states in the mount ains, that presumed to resist his claims. Patriotism and valour, however, with but about one third of the number of soldiers, en- tirely overwhelmed him. This memorial of the battle and of the victory, is at present on the decline, and will soon die of age or disease, after bearing the verdant honours of the confederacy for almost four centuries. T trust its defay is n°t ominous of any approaching decline in the liberties and independence of the Swiss republics.
We left this delightful town for Berne, where we arrived the same evening.
The canton of Berne is situated in the heart of Switzerland, and is the most extensive in territory, and has the largest population of any other in the Swiss confederation.* It contains three hundred thousand souls, who, with the exception of about forty thousand inhabiting the country of the Jura Alps, are of German extraction and of the Protestant faith. This canton is beautifully watered and rich in agricultural products. The peasants live upon their farms and get their bread by the sweat of their brow. They ap- pear courteous and kind-hearted, giving, as they pass, the accus- tomed " God greet you" in all the simplicity and honesty of primitive times.
The government of Berne, like most of the other Swiss can tons, was very aristocratic ; notwithstanding, it was called a re- public. The nobility had exclusive privileges, and were alone eligible to the important offices. Such was its character at the time of the arrangement of 1815. With this the people were
* The population of all the cantons is reported at 1,687,900. The least populous is Un, which has only 11,800 in the canton. One thirty-seventh of the lerritory of Switzerland is lakes, and a much greater portion uninhabitable mountains.
424 SWITZERLAND.
dissatisfied ; and what with the growing light of the age, and the onward march of popular principles, and the whole temporarily excited, by the return of the Swiss guards from France after the revolution of 1830, the people claimed, and, to avoid the unequal conflict by force, the nobility accorded to them, the privileges which they had so long been denied. Thus, a bloodless reform, we may almost say a radical change, was effected in the govern- ment. It is said, however, that there are still discontents and jealousies — the principles of popular reform not having yet re- ceived their full development ; but as the reform hitherto has ad- vanced without bloodshed, it is to be hoped that any further changes will be effected in the same way. Happily for the world that resort to arms is not so frequent as formerly ; and important changes are accomplished by peaceable means — by the power of reason rather than by the sword.
Berne is an elegant city. Its site may hf» called a peninsulair
promontory, for the river Aar flows on three sides of it, in a deep-cut valley, giving this beautiful town a smiling throne, on which she sits in princely beauty, as the queen of the surround- ing country. The principal streets run parallel to each other, east and west, and are crossed at right angles by alleys and some wide streets. The main streets are lined with arcades, and the basement stories of the houses are shops, so that the sides of the streets have the appearance of extended bazars, filled with life and business. In these streets, also, are numerous fountains to supply the city with water. The houses are well built, of a gray freestone ; and, like the other cities of Switzerland, it is fortified, and a part of the deep fosses are now used as a sort of den for a number of large bears, which appear to be maintained at the public expense, by way of honouring the race. In the centre of the city is a square tower, called the Tower of the Clock, having in it a curious piece of mechanism, made probably at the time of repairing the tower, which, according to an inscription, was in 1770, about six hundred years after it was first erected. The1 principal parts of the mechanical exhibition are as follows : dif- ferent faces, representing the phases of the moon, the signs of the zodiac, and the twelve months of the year ; a cock, made of wood, stretches up his neck and crows twice, a minute before, and twice a minute after the clock strikes ; a queer figure strikes
1
HOFWYL SCHOOL. 425
the hour, with a small hammer, on two bells ; a troop of little bears, in various pastimes, rim out and in, in a circle ; another figure, sitting on a throne, counts the hour, by opening the mouth, lowering her sceptre with one hand, and turning an hour-glass with the other ; a little lion holds a sword in his paw, which he motions to designate the hour, at the same time that he gives a slight nod of the head. So much for curious trifling, by which the artisan, Gaspard Brunner, has perpetuated his name, at least until his machinery wears out.
The Bernese have a library of about forty-five thousand volumes,* and fifteen thousand manuscripts ; a cabinet of coins, of natural history, and of artificial curiosities ; and a garden of plants. They have, also, a public academy, divided into high and low : the latter for the preparatory course, and the former for the professions and the higher walks of literature and science : all well sustained with professors in the several grades and departments.
From Berne the excursions are short and very practicable, to some of the most interesting mountain and lake scenery in Swit- zerland ; but time would not permit us to make any of these excursions. We could not, however, forego the pleasure and profit of visiting the famous school of Mr. Fellenburg* at Hofwyl, which is but six miles from town. After spending two nights in Berne, therefore, we left on a beautiful morning for Hofwyl, where we met with our amiable and intelligent countryman, Reverend W. C. Woodbridge, and spent the day most pleasantly, and, J trust, profitably, in examining the premises, and making ourselves ac- quainted with the plans and operations of this excellent institution.
The Hofwyl School has been so long and so favourably known to a portion of our citizens, that I hardly feel justified in taking up the subject very extensively here ; especially as I cannot present it in as full and perfect a portraiture as has been drawn in the " Annals of Education," and in other works in this country. How- ever, as these pages may fall into some hands that have not been favoured with these works, I will notice a few things, by way of adding my testimony to what has been said of this excellent in- stitution.
This institution was got up by the individual exertions and pri-
* Count Fellenburg, he was formerly called 5 but, like Lafayette, he has renounced his title, to be consistent with his republican principles,
36 3H
426 SWITZERLAND.
vate fortune of Monsieur de Fcllenburg. It was designed to give a practical illustration of an idea, conceived by Mr. Fellenburg, of " reforming society by means of education." For this purpose, he has fixed on a site, at a distance from a large town, and com- menced his operations and matured his plans, until the institution is expanded to its present dimensions. Without tracing it through its various stages, I will describe it as I found it.
1. The Buildings. These of themselves constitute a little village. The family mansion is in the centre ; and around it are four or five different edifices for the schools, several farmhouses, granaries — a house for the washerwoman and laundress — hotel for the institution — swimming school, &c., to the number of be- tween twenty and thirty buildings. These are interspersed with play-grounds, a park, and private and public walks ; and sur- rounded by an extensive plantation, in a high state of cultivation,
2. The Division of the Institution. To carry out his plan, Mr. Fellenburg seems to have thought it necessary to establish schools of different grades, suited to the different ranks or condi- tions of society. To this end, he has several schools, one for the poor, a scientific institute for the rich and noble, and an inter- mediate school for the middle classes. In addition to these, there is a normal school, or a department for educating teachers ; for one of the leading objects of the proprietor, is to train and qualify teachers. This department, however, was not in distinct opera- tion when I was there, although a constant eye is had to this object ; and if any one in the rural school manifests a talent for a good instructer, he is transferred to the higher school, to be train- ed for that profession. Nor is this the only case in which the students are transferred from one school to the other. Any special developement of talent, promising superior scholarship, is encour- aged in the same way.
The scientific institute contains at present only about forty students. The reason for this may be found in the political course of Mr. Fellenburg; for, in the late contest between the aristocracy and the people, Mr. Fellenburg, true to his republican principles, took the side of the latter, which gave such offence to his fellow-citizens of the same rank, that many of them have with- drawn their patronage from the school. There is about the same number in the rural school ; these, independent of what they earn
THE HOPWYL SCHOOL. 427
by their labour, are educated gratuitously. In the intermediate school there are about one hundred.
3. The Government. — As Mr. Fellenburg is sole proprietor, so he is absolute governor of this institution, or, more properly, he is the father of this family ; for the government is truly patri- archal. All the subordinate teachers are solely under his con- trol, and all the students look up to him as the common father ; all needful liberty is given to throw them, in a great degree, upon their own responsibilities, and yet due care is taken to follow them with such a parental solicitude as to prevent them from being exposed to too strong temptations, and with the view to call their attention, speedily and kindly, to the beginnings of error. This trains their moral feelings, calls conscience into action, and teaches them to resist temptation, not for wrath, but for con- science' sake. This is the very reverse of the French system of government. They put their eleves under a lock and key, and trust almost entirely to seclusion and physical restraints to guard their morals and habits. This prevents the overt act of moral delin- quency, but causes, on the one hand, a rank growth of many of the nascent passions, and, on the other, effectually excludes all educa- tion of conscience and the moral feelings. The truth is, there are two wrong ways, and but one right way, of governing a literary in- stitution. The two wrong ways are the easiest for the instructer, buf are both equally ruinous to the pupil. They appear to have been adopted with a view to the good of the student, but with a design to secure some good to him with the least possible trouble to the teacher. The first of these is that of the French already alluded to, and is the same with that of most Catholic countries, and is a part of the same system that encourages convents and monasteries ; founded, in fact, upon that anti-scriptural doctrine, that we are to be " kept from the evil of the world" by being " taken out of the world." True, if you put your pupil in prison he will not get out to do any mischief, if your locks and walls are safe ; but, when he gets out, whether by stealth or at the time of his legal enlargement, you may be quite sure he will do mischief with but little remorse.
The other extreme is to give the student up entirely to his own responsibilities under the sanction of fixed penal laws. This is nearly the plan of the English, and too many qf the American
428 SWITZERLAND.
universities and colleges. This, too, is an easy process ; for it takes much less time to decide a case and affix a penalty, in view of a Jixed statute, than it does to look after the exposed youth with a parental eye ; to fortify his mind with the strong persua- sives and dissuasives of moral and religious obligations ; and to call his attention to the elements of sin in his heart and the earli- est deviations of his practice. Yet this latter is the true course. The man who is not willing to watch with a vigilance that never sleeps, and to rebuke, and exhort, persuade and correct, with a diligence that never tires, is not the man to have the care of youth. Mr. Fellenburg adopts the right course. To parental authority and counsels he adds the obligations of religion. Indeed, reli- gion, not in its controverted dogmas, but in its moral precepts and holy sanctions, is made a prominent part of instruction ; and thus, like the hydraulic works of Fair Mount, near the city of Phila- delphia,* the very element that is elevated into the moral reser- voirs of the soul for future usefulness furnishes the power also by which the process itself is conducted with regularity, beauty, and efficiency.
Perhaps I ought to say here, that there is one point, and that an essential one, in which there appears, from all I can learn, to be a deficiency. The necessity of a supernatural work of grace upon the heart seems not to be sufficiently insisted on. Of this point I could not be informed by actual observation from the short time I was there, but infer it from the facts with which I became acquainted on the spot and elsewhere. This, however, in all teaching of religion, while it should never detract from the moral precepts, nor be substituted instead of devotional exercises, should be inculcated as the only permanent foundation of all correct reli- gious practice, moral and devotional. Here we must take our stand ; however, some may say this is introducing " controverted dogmas," and, therefore, is not to be justified in a school ; yet, to the man who believes in the work of the spirit, the depravity of the heart, and the consequent necessity of supernatural regenera- tion, there can be no option ; he must give up his religion, or he must enforce it on evangelical principles. I am inclined to the ©pinion that, in this respect, there are schools in our own country
* In these works the same river, the water of which is elevated to be conveyed into the city, furnishes also the water power for their elevation.
THE HOFWYL SCHOOL. 429
which have the advantage over the institution at Hofwyl ; but, for the inculcation of duty and of religious obligation, and for a careful interweaving of our holy religion with the whole course of education, probably the equal of the Hofwyl school cannot be found.
To avoid any plea of sectarianism, as the students are part Calho lies and part Protestants, Mr. Fellenburg keeps two chaplains, a Catholic and a Protestant. And while the general principles of religious obligations are inculcated by Mr. Fellenburg, and also by the respective chaplains in turn, each chaplain has an oppor- tunity, a part of the day, to instruct his respective charge in the peculiar dogmas of the religion he prefers. Thus, while their mutual intercourse and the authority of Mr. Fellenburg prevents any unpleasant collision of sentiment, these same causes tend probably to soften their sectarian asperities.
Mr. Fellenburg, in conversation on this subject, expressed his very great surprise at the neglect of religious instruction in our schools in America ; that the Bible was excluded as a regular text- book ; in short, that in the United States, among a religious, a Protestant, an enlightened, and a free people, man should be edu- cated so much in view of his physical wants and his temporal ex- istence, while the moral feelings of the heart, and our relations to God and eternity, should be left so much out of our schools. What could I say in extenuation of such a just accusation ? I told him our love of religious liberty and our dread of sectarianism led us to be jealous of religious instruction in our schools. But he said the great principles of our religion would come in collision with no man's views who believed in Christianity, and that, at any rate, party views were nothing in comparison with the im- portance of religious training; and, therefore, every good man ought to be willing to make some sacrifices of party views for the great benefits of an early religious education. How true are these sentiments ! how worthy of the philanthropist of Hofwyl ! When will the citizens of the United States feel their force ? There is, I trust, a better state of feeling on this subject dawning upon our country, and it is to be hoped that, in spite of narrow bigotry on the one hand and Jacobinical looseness on the other, for these two extremes generally exist together, an intelligent, hallowed, and hallowing public sentiment will be formed on this subject that
430 SWITZERLAND.
shall wipe away our just reproach, and pour into our schools of every grade the soul-preserving and soul-reforming influences of Bible truth.
4. Course of Instruction. — I have in part anticipated this by enlarging as I have upon the government, and the moral and re- ligious restraints involved in the control exercised over the pupils. Mr. Fellenburg aims not so much to perform the office of a teach- er, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, that is, one who im- parts knowledge, as that of an educator, that is, one who trains and fashions the man; the whole man, intellectual, moral, and physical. Hence the course of education has not respect so much to the amount of knowledge imparted as to the effect produced upon character. To this end the principles of morality and reli- gion are inculcated as above described. The physical man is trained by rural labour, by gymnastic exercises, &c., and the in- tellect is instructed by such kinds and degrees of study as the cir- cumstances of the pupil may require and will admit of. The classification is not at all governed by time or age, but by attain- ments, and by mental and physical capabilities. The severer studies are in the morning, when the powers of body and mind are in the most vigorous exercise, and the lighter studies are re- served for the after part of the day. No rewards are held out to excite ambition and rivalry, but each is encouraged to make the best use of the powers God has given him ; and for this course, whether his success be brilliant or moderate, he is approved and honoured. It is the wish of Mr. Fellenburg to have his pupils so long with him as to give him time to stamp the mark of Hofwyl upon them. He seeks not to have students to come to him for the purpose of obtaining a particular science, but to be educated. He only asks an opportunity to join his endeavours with natural, powers and the student's own efforts, to make the man what he should be for the important purposes of time and eternity.
The instructers are mostly young men ; several of them are performing the duties of assistant teachers, and at the same time pursuing their own studies.
It is impossible to go into the minutia of the system of educa- tion at Hofwyl. In fact, education, so far as it is an art, and it is both an art and a science, cannot be described. Certain ob- jects may be proposed, and certain general principles may be laid
THE HOFWYL SCHOOL. 431
down ; but the practical adaptation of those principles to the varied circumstances of the case is a matter of skill, a matter of experi- ence, a matter of natural aptness, a matter of taste. Out of five hundred youths whom Mr. Fellenburg has instructed in his school for the indigent, only thirteen have been found who were judged well adapted to the profession of a teacher, or, more properly, of an educator. This, if it be a fair proportion, and I know of no place where that proportion would be more judiciously designated and recognised than here, shows how rare is the talent for this most important of all professions. The instructers formed by Mr. Fellenburg " devote their most conscientious solicitude and care to their pupils ; they share in their pleasures and their painsy and to them the task is sweet and full of delights." The painter and the poet may be assisted by the rules of their art, but they must have taste and genius of their own, or they will never suc- ceed. The rules would be infinite that should dictate, in every combination, where and how to touch the pencil or guide the pen. Having the principles within him, and his whole soul in his sub- ject, the artist touches the image by the instinctive promptings of genius, and the production springs forth true to the life. So the educator. He may draw his bold outlines by the rules of his art, but the filling up, the perfecting of the character, depends upon those eyery-day, oft-repeated touches which are small and unim- portant in themselves, but are constantly working out and perfect- ing the colouring and lineaments of the mental character.
It may be asked, does Mr. Fellenburg succeed according to his theory ? It would be strange if it was not found here, as elsewhere, that to theorize on education is one thing, and to do the work an- other. But from all I can learn of the Hofwyl Institution, it is more interesting and important in its practical operations and in its results than in its theories. The Rev. Mr. W., whom I met at Hofwyl, and who has spent months there, both now and at a former period, informed me that his attention was attracted almost every day to some new feature of this interesting institution. I cannot but hope that the excellences of these schools will be ictically introduced into our country ; a young man from New- England, who is an enthusiast in the cause of education, is now icre as an assistant instructer ; and will, I doubt not, catch the rerv spirit of Hofwyl and transfer it to America. True, some
r
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things are not desirable. The grading of the schools, whatever may be its advantage there, would not answer for us ; we want no aristocracy of that kind introduced into our literary institutions. It is also true that some of the best features of the Hofwyl sys- tem are beginning to be adopted with us. We have schools where the physical and moral, as well as the intellectual man, are edu- cated ; we have schools where the principles of our holy religion, are faithfully inculcated ; we have schools where the paternal government is exercised ; but, in our primary schools especially, there is still too much despotism, and in our colleges too much foreign legislation. It is mortifying to know that we have so many colleges and universities that have a code of laws for the moral government of the students enacted by one board, and put into the hands of another for execution. It appears to me that every president and faculty of a college ought to be made respon- sible for their government ; and, if they cannot regulate their inter- esting household without this array of legislation, judicial powers, and magisterial execution, they are unfit for office, and should give place to others.
But to return. I found much interest in the agricultural ar- rangements of Hofwyl. Mr. Fellenburg is a great lover of agri- culture. He has invented numerous agricultural instruments, which, taken altogether, constitute quite a museum. He had forty-four of the finest cows I think that I ever saw. These are all kept stabled, and fed on fresh clover in the season of it, and were as fat as the fattest stall-fed beef, and their milk was almost cream. Indeed, a leading employment of the agriculturists in this part of Switzerland, at this season of the year, is to cut the fresh grass to feed their stock, which is universally kept stabled. This saves fencing and preserves the manure, but engrosses much time that our farmers, by their method of keeping their cattle in summer, save for other purposes.
We were also much charmed with the family of Mr. Fellen- burg— his excellent wife and daughters. Courteous, pious, intel- ligent, and affectionate, they received us with open arms, and treated us as strangers love to be treated. We dined and took tea with the family, enjoyed a most delightful social interview, and were entertained, among other things, by one of the young lady's playing us some of the wild and enchanting airs of the
BALE. 433
Swiss mountaineers. We were compelled at last reluctantly to bid them farewell, and returned to our lodgings.
We started on Friday, 10th of June, for Bale ; found the country, as before, picturesque and beautiful ; dined at Sol cure, the capital of the canton of the same name. It is situated on the river Aar, is not large, but rather pleasant than otherwise. Has a public library of ten thousand volumes ; a museum of natural history, which is especially rich in petrifactions,* and, like the other cantonal capitals, is a fortified city. Soon after leaving So- leure we reached the base of the Jura Alps ; and, after coasting along at their feet three or four leagues, we turned up a valley which led us gradually to the top almost without our perceiving it. Indeed, the mountains here had considerably subsided, and they were cut through by streams and inhabited valleys on either side, so as to render the entire route easy and pleasant. There are some very good views in this passage. We lodged on the top of the pass, and the next day at eleven A. M. entered Bale.
This city was the capital of the canton of the same name ; but the political divisions which have long disturbed the peace of many of the Swiss cantons, viz., the contention between the city and the country, has led to an entire cantonal separation, so that there is now two cantons of Bale : the canton of the country, of which Liestall is the capital, and the canton of the city of Bale. The city persisted in its old feudal rights of monopolizing the whole power, and of holding the country as a kind of an appen- dage to itself. Against this the country remonstrated, and claimed its full share in the government, until the contention assumed a serious aspect ; and, after some violence on both sides, it was ter- minated by a formal separation, which was sanctioned by the Diet of the Cantons .
One hardly knows which to admire most, the arrogancy of the city, or the patience of the country in submitting to such claims so long. But this is accounted for on the principle of the strength of the old feudal system, which gave all the power to the cities and the castles, and from the effects of which, in this and in other things, society has not yet fully recovered itself on the eastern con- tinent, even among the most free and most enlightened ; and would have advanced, doubtless, much slower in its progress towards
Many of these are from the Jura Alps, where marine petrifactions are abundant
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434 SWITZERLAND.
emancipation, but for the example that has been set in the New World, where society was unencumbered with the accumulated rubbish of ages of ignorance and sin.
The more we examine the past and present history of the world, the more we must admire the secret workings of that Providence which kept in reserve one hemisphere until the vari- ous combinations and corruptions of society should have time to develop themselves, and the errors in social and political life should have shown practically their pernicious results. In the darkest hour of these dreadful corruptions the portals of the new theatre were thrown open, and the fugitives from oppression and error, who could with difficulty have wrought a radical reform amid the inveterate evils of old institutions, had an opportunity of forming and presenting, on a virgin soil and in an infant society, the need- ed exhibition of a new, a free, and an enlightened social system. This infant society was, even in its cradle, a Hercules, and stran- gled the serpent which the Goddess of Error sent from the Old World for its destruction. Since that time it has grown up to its manly maturity, and, like a reforming genius, is reacting upon the eastern hemisphere, accomplishing the Herculean labours of de- stroying the more than twelve political plagues that have so long infested the earth. This work may go on slowly, but go on it must ; the monsters of error and oppression will struggle hard for existence, but they must finally fall, maugre all their temporary and local triumphs.
There can be no doubt, I think, but that the political character of the world has a direct bearing upon those moral and religious triumphs to which the Christian church has for a long time been looking to change the character of our race. Not only the polit- ical changes in Switzerland, as well as elsewhere, stand remotely connected with these expected moral and religious changes, but we generally find the religious movements to correspond, in their advancement, very nearly with the political melioration of society. This, as we have seen, is true in Switzerland generally, and it is especially true at Bale. This city seems, in fact, to be the point of radiation, from which spiritual light has emanated to different parts of the Continent.
The first institution that I visited in Bale was the Missionary Institution, under the care of the venerable Dr. Blumheart, to
THE MISSIONARY INSTITUTION. 435
whom I had letters of introduction. I found the old patriarch sitting in a room hung round witli the printed portraits of his chil- dren, as he termed them. Every student who becomes qualified and leaves the institution for the missionary field leaves his like- ness behind him ; and these are preserved and arranged so as to constitute a kind of chronological calendar of the graduates. One , hundred and twenty-five have already been sent out from this in- stitution, thirty-two of whom have gone to their reward, leaving ninety- three still in the field, in different parts of the world.
This institution seems to have led the way for all the other mis- sionary operations in Switzerland and France. It was formed at (humanly speaking) a very inauspicious moment. It was at the time of the great military movements in Europe for the dethrone- ment of Napoleon. Bale was then encompassed with armies ; the French on one side and the other Continental powers on the other. The city itself was bombarded all one day, but was saved by a strong east wind, which checked the momentum of the bombs, so that all but two or three exploded short of their desti- nation. Amid this scene of war and tumult, the hearts of some of the good men of the place were moved to establish this mission- ary institute ; and the present principal, then a secretary of a so- ciety for the circulation of Christian publications, was called to make the commencement. He began with one scholar, and from this beginning it has grown up to its present standing. The build- ing, which is by no means an imposing one, has been purchased by the proceeds of their missionary publications ; and they have also collected a small library. Besides these they have no funds except the " love of Christians" as the venerable Blumheart ex- pressed it, and " the heart of our God and Father" They have now forty-three students, all of whom receive a gratuitous educa- tion, at an expense of about twenty thousand dollars per annum, and yet they have never lacked. " We .have not known," says Dr. Blumheart, " at the beginning of the year, where our money was coming from, and yet we have never failed, at the close, to have a surplus." Much of their support and many of their schol- ars are from the neighbouring kingdom of Wurtemburg. A num- ber of the small villages from that kingdom send them from two to three nundred dollars per annum. The scholars stay five yearsp in the institution, unless they come somewhat advanced in their
•
436 SWITZERLAND.
studies, in which case their stay is proportionately shortened ; and during this time they are expected to obtain their classical and professional education. If they go out with the spirit of their ven- erable president, they must certainly do good. I was specially pleased with the simplicity, the zeal, and the piety of this mission- ary patriarch. " The present is a day," says he, " when all Chris- tians should forget the distinctions of nations and of sects to unite in the common cause of evangelizing the ivorld" This is a sen- timent worthy of the father and founder of a missionary school. Let this spirit prevail in the church, and the world will soon be made better.
During the triumphs of infidelity in the last century it became extremely difficult and almost impossible to print and circulate Christian books. There was such a public and general feeling against it, that no bookseller or publisher dare undertake it. In this state of things, the few who did not bow the knee to the infidel spirit of the day combined together to- print and circulate Christian books. The centre of this society was at Bale, and it was sustained by numerous auxiliary societies in different parts of Germany. From this society sprang the first Bible society on the Continent, which was formed the same year with the British and Foreign Bible Society, but a little before it. So that Bale has the honour of taking the lead in mission schools, in religious tract societies, in Bible societies, and, in faetr we may say, in the entire evangelical work, which may be called the second Reform- ation, in Germany, Switzerland, and France. It seems as though an overruling Providence has delighted to honour the place where sleeps the dust of that great and good man, Erasmus, and make it the special instrument of blessing the surrounding nations and the world.
Erasmus, however, is not the only great and good man that has sanctified the history of Bale. The great Swiss reformer, Zuin- glius, who took the field in the west of Switzerland against the er- rors of popery while Calvin was yet in his childhood, graduated to the degree of doctor in divinity at the university in this town. Nay, it may be said that he paved the way for Calvin himself; for when the latter was driven by persecution from Paris, he found an asylum prepared for him at Bale by the previous labours of Zuinglius. Here Calvin dedicated to Francis I. his famous apol- ogy for the reformers. To Bale also Arminius himself retreated
LITERARY INSTITUTIONS. 437
for a while in 1583, being driven from Protestant Geneva (for Protestant Geneva has always been rather notorious for its intol- erance) because he espoused and boldly defended the philosophy of Ramus in opposition to that of Aristotle. A clear indication, by-the-by, of his early discrimination, and a noble presage of his future independence and eminence.
They are well provided with literary institutions in Bale. Here is the " College of Erasmus," the room where that great scholar used to lecture ; and on one of the benches is still seen a rude likeness of the professor, carved with a penknife by some idle wight of a scholar who, like some modern pupils, preferred whit-* tling to study, and taking a likeness of his professor's face to obtaining a transcript of his intellect. The university is divided into the four sections of theology, law, medicine, and philoso- phy. They have also five parish schools, a gymnasium, &a They have in Bale some very good collections of natural history, and a very interesting public library containing many old books and manuscripts, and a great number of paintings by that cele brated artist, Hans Holbein ; especially some fragments of his far-famed Dance of Death ; an excellent portrait of Erasmus, a less perfect one of Luther, and various others of more or less merit. Holbein was a native of this city, and hence we might naturally expect to find here many of his paintings ; although, probably, the best part of his painting days, for they were the last years of his life, were spent in England, under the patronage of Henry the Eighth. The cathedral is the most prominent church, elevated upon a terrace, in which are the tombs of the Empress Anne, wife of the Emperor Rhodolphus of the house of Hapsburg ; of Erasmus, with a monument of black marble, and of other em- inent persons. In this cathedral also is the hall where the cel- ebrated council of Bale held its sessions from the year 1431 to 1444. Truly, a long parliament, but. not quite equal to that of Trent, which, a century afterward, lasted eighteen years. The popish councils were long enough to be infallible.
Bale contains about seventeen thousand souls, and is a place of a great deal of business. Its manufactures are cotton-prints, leather, paper, hose, gloves, silks, &c, We visited some most splendid and extensive riband factories, many of which, especially the belt ribands, which were the finest I ever saw, were destined,
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438 SWITZERLAND.
we were told, for the American market. This city claims the honour of having invented the manufacture of paper.
The trade of the city is aided by the waters of the Rhine, on the banks of which it is situated ; not so much, however, by the channel of the river, the navigation of which is very difficult on account of the great rapidity of the current, as by a canal near its banks, and connecting with the river lower down.
There is much wealth among the principal citizens of Bale, which is increased yearly by their industry and frugality. Their spirit of saving is thought by some to be excessive, for they are said to live niggardly, and that without spending one tenth of their income. Sumptuary laws are still in force in the city ; and the citi- zens are prohibited the wearing of diamonds, Cashmere shawls, &c. This, probably, may have laid the foundation, in part, for the rare economy, not to say parsimony, which marks the family expenses.
There is a bridge over the Rhine at Bale, which connects the principal city with a smaller town on the other side, called Little Bdle. Between these two towns, it is said, there was formerly much contention and local jealousy, of which there is still remain- ing a most laughable monument. In a tower directly facing the bridge is a public clock and a carved image of a human face, whose perpetual business seems to be to make faces at Little Bale. The image has its mouth a little open, and is furnished with a long tongue of a fiery red colour, which is so connected with the pendulum of the clock, that every vibration in one direc- tion runs it out in a threatening, scornful, venomous brandishing towards Little Bale, and the return stroke draws it in. The de- vice is so queer, so expressive, and, at the same time, so ludicrous, that I could scarcely refrain from laughing right heartily in the public thoroughfare when I saw it, and I have felt my risibles excited ever since whenever my mind has reverted to the perpet- ual spitting out of that scornful red tongue towards the momently insulted and scorned town of poor Little Bdle.
From Bale there is a number of interesting excursions. One to a village a little distance from the gate, where, in 1444. six hundred Swiss fought ten hours with forty thousand French, commanded by the dauphine, afterward Louis XI. of France, and, Spartan-like, all perished in arms save twelve, who were marked with infamy by their countrymen for having survived
DEPARTURE FROM SWITZERLAND. 439
their brave compatriots. It is by such deeds of almost superhu- man valour that the Swiss have been enabled to assert and main- tain their liberty and independence.
Another excursion is two leagues distant to the town of Augst, the ancient city of Augusta Rauracorum, built by Munatius Plan cus, under the reign of Augustus. Here have been found a great number of Roman antiquities. But we had no time for this and other interesting excursions. Having exchanged our respectful, accommodating Swiss coachman and pleasant coach for an indif- ferent carriage, and, what was worse, for an ignorant, selfish Ger- man boor, we prepared to leave Switzerland. As in no part of our tour had we travelled with so much unmixed pleasure as in these cantons, so there was no country which we had left with so much regret as we felt at leaving this. We wanted the en- tire summer to penetrate these valleys, climb these mountains, and navigate these lakes. We wanted to linger longer even here in Bale. Our dining-room of the Three Kings (that is the name of our hotel) literally hung over the waters of the Rhine, so that, like some of the ancient feudal chieftains from their castles, we could, from our hotel, fish in the river. The wall next to the river was mostly glass, so that we had as full view of the Rhine, the bridge, and the opposite banks, as though we were dining in an open portico over the border of the river. But we must leave all. We go most sincerely praying, if we are ever banished from our own country, we may be permitted to find a home in Switz- erland, the New-England of Europe.
CHAPTER XXII.
LEFT Bale 13th June by the Duchy of Baden, one of the states of the German confederacy, which we entered very soon after leaving Bale. The route to Strasburg, on the right bank of the Rhine, is generally through a fertile country, and the fertility in- creased as we advanced. For some leagues on the right was a succession of vineyards on the side of a range of hills ; after which we came to extensive intervals of grass, rye, wheat, barley, Indian corn, hemp, tobacco, &c. The most prevalent growth,
440 GERMANY.
however, was rye, a great portion of which, I suppose, is manu- factured into Holland gin. Thus in this country, as in our own, the good creatures of God are metamorphosed into poison to de- stroy our race, and the hard earnings of the labouring class are prostituted to purposes of destruction of life rather than for sus- taining it. The females seemed almost universally to be em- ployed in the field, and very commonly with bare heads and naked arms.* Their petticoats had high wastes, which came up over the shoulders, and they wore no gowns, so that they had nothing upon their arms but the short sleeves of the chemise. Thus equipped, they laboured under a hot sun in the field or meadow until their skin was seared with the heat and wind. They seemed to be an industrious, hard-labouring class of peasants ; and, at the same time, not favoured, apparently, with all those comforts which hard work and a rich soil united ought to furnish. Whether this is the fault of the government, or whether the aristocratic few eat up the earnings of the many, I cannot say. There cer- tainly appeared to be very few lordlings among them. I never travelled a country so productive and prosperous where I saw so few princely houses of nobility or costly country-seats as here, The inhabitants appeared very much on an equality, living in villages, as in France, and not each on his own land, as in Switz- erland. Their houses were generally framed ; and then, instead of being covered with boards, the frames were filled in between the timbers with bricks, and sometimes with a kind of crooked lath locked in and plastered over in an even surface with the frame, leaving all the timbers exposed, however; and as the studs and braces, posts and girths, are numerous, and sometimes fantastically and irregularly arranged, they give the buildings a singularly streaked appearance — white plastered walls striped in with wooden timbers. The houses are usually, in their agri- cultural villages, but one story high. Hence they do not live over their cattle, as in Italy and Switzerland ; but their stables are not far off, and the manure heap is still frequently seen fer- menting in the front yard.
We dined at Friburg. This is a respectable little town, con- taining an ancient university, which still numbers about four hun-
* As we descended lower down near Kiel their heads were generally covered with a straw hat as large as a small clothesbasket.
FRIBURG CATHEDRAL. 441
dred students, and has a library of forty thousand volumes. There is also a theological school distinct from the university contain- ing thirty students.
But the great object of interest at Friburg is the splendid Gothic cathedral, said to be the finest in Germany. It was commenced in the fore part of the twelfth century, and was three hundred years in being completed. The spire is light, arched, and orna- mented with niches, statues, and most exquisite fretwork to the very top, which is an elevation of three hundred and eighty feet. The Gothic roses, embossed flowers and buds, filagree-work, arches, statuary, and pyramids, all displayed with architectural art and industry, exhibit one of the finest specimens of the kind I have ever seen. In fact, the whole exterior is a curious affair, A commissioner of one of the hotels, who speaks indifferent Eng- lish at best, has thus described the tout ensemble of the exterior, " We see windows framed in ogee-arches, with Gothic roses in boundless windings and turnings, the different compartments crossing in every direction ; it is a vast labyrinth of intertwisted ramifications (!) — balusters nicely interwoven with different con- tortions, surmounted hy Gothic ornamental pinnacles ; elegant niches, with figures surmounted by Gothic canopies, towering high in air ; pedestals of exquisite workmanship ; pillars with capitals of varied foliage ; buttresses surmounted by Gothic pyramidal pinnacles ; Gothic crownwork high in air ; flying buttresses and angles, adorned with Gothic flowers and buds, embossed in varied foliage ; high embossed lines, with foliage throughout the whole length, underneath the balusters of the nave and collaterals ; the Gothic staircase, winding up by numberless slender pillars, so light and airy ; rain-spouts formed in the shape of different figures of men, animals, and monsters, gaping and projecting out from the cornered buttresses ;* and the mysterious train of allegorical figures and animals."
I have introduced this quotation, partly because it seems to me that this " Gothic," " ornamented," " fretted," redundant style is of itself a pretty good representation of the style of architecture it attempts to describe ; and partly because I wished to intro- duce to the reader this curious cicerone, who, for the time he
* Some of these rain-spouts, in the manner of the age, were truly grotesque, and, in •oine instances, presented aspects not only ludicrous, but indecent.
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was with us, afforded us some interest and amusement. His name is John Andrew Ritschil, which name, as he seems to think, he has immortalized by an " English poem," which is an allegory representing the attack of the vicious upon the good, by the powerful assault of the winds upon the tower of the cathedral, in which the cathedral, like the good man in affliction, stood firm and defied the tempest. And long will it defy it, I believe, and the corroding tooth of time also ; for, although it is constructed of red sandstone, it seems only to grow harder by time, and pre- sents a firmer wall now than at its first erection.
The only things of interest to us at Nemmingin, the little vil- lage where we stayed the first night, were an excellent hotel with clean and airy apartments, and a magnificent stork's nest, which was perched upon the top of a church. There is something in these nests piled up like a haycock upon the ridges of the high- est edifices, so strongly fixed as to defy the fiercest storms, at- tended, as they generally are, by one or both of the noble pair to which the nest belongs, watching with a parental assiduity and so- licitude their rising charge, and connected with the almost sacred character which they sustain, and which protects them from all annoyance from man, that renders them objects of intense inter- est. The second day we arrived at Kiel, which is a village oppo site Strasburg ; and here, to avoid the vexations of the custom- house, we left our carriage and baggage, and took another vehicle to cross over and see the city of Strasburg. We passed the Rhine on a bridge of boats. Strasburg, although formerly a Ger- man city, belongs to France ; the territory of which country is now brought up to the Rhine, on its eastern boundary in this re- gion. The place has been a bone of contention and the scene of many a battle ; the environs are fattened with the blood of the slain. On an island formed by^tn arm of the Rhine is a fine monument to the gallant Dessaix, on which is this simple inscrip- tion : To General Dessaix, by the army of the Rhine. Stras- burg is a fortified city, strongly protected and compactly built, containing about fifty thousand inhabitants, and pleasantly situa- ted in the midst of a fertile country. It is not immediately on the banks of the Rhine, but it has water conveyance by means of a branch of the Rhine which passes through the heart of the city. Its object of greatest interest is the cathedral, We ascended
STRASBURG TELEGRAPH. 443
four hundred and sixty-one feet to the top of its magnificent tower, and had a fine view of the city and its environs. While we were there a telegraph was playing on a tower at the other end of the cathedral, and such was the expedition with which it communi- cated with Paris, that they proposed a question and received an answer in six or eight minutes. The master of the telegraph had a house the other side of the square, where he sat in his window, and with a small telegraphic machine exhibited the various forms in which the main machine upon the tower was to be exhibited ; and this was speedily taken by the next, which was at a conve- nient distance to notice the position with a telescope, and this again was taken by the next, and so it passed from hill to hill and from mountain to mountain with a speed that outstripped the winds, and back again with the same speed. Thus, by this wonderful device, France, from all her extensive frontiers, may be reported every few minutes to Paris ; and so, indeed, a great part of it is. Not a ship arrives off Havre de Grace, but it is known at Paris, I like to have said, as soon as by the citizens of Havre ; the differ- ence is so small that it is not noticeable ; for the same telegraphic sign that conveys the intelligence to the town of Havre sends it with the rapidity almost of a shooting meteor to Paris.
The clock of this cathedral is a planetarium, and gives also the days of the week as well as the usual indications of a clock. It is a very fine piece of machinery.
In the church of St. Thomas is the splendid mausoleum of Marshal Saxe. Here also is an embalmed Count of Nassau, who has lain there for about four hundred years, and his daughter, about sixteen years of age, both well preserved, and dressed in the costumes of the fifteenth century.
From Kiel we took otr departure, June 16, to Baden, a village in the Duchy of Baden, *bout twenty-four to thirty miles from Kiel, and a little out of om direct road to Frankfort, back under the base of the mountains. Our object in visiting this place was to have a specimen of a Germbn watering-place, of which this is thought to be a very fair sample. The mineral waters are hot, and have the properties of iron, a little sulphur, salts, &c. The village itself contains about four thousand inhabitants, and is vis- ited annually by eleven or twelve thousand strangers, some for
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disease, more for pleasure, and perhaps still more for gaming. The gaming here is very deep, and by the princes of the land, as well as by others.
There are several hotels where they have convenient baths for visiters. The hotels are large, but not as elegant as those in our public watering-places. The lodging-rooms, however, are much more spacious* and convenient than the little cells in which they stow away their visiters at Saratoga and Ballston ; and the accom modations are at much lower prices ; for while at Saratoga, for ex- ample, you pay, at the best hotels, from six to ten dollars, you get accommodations at the first hotels in Baden for about two dollars. In addition to these baths at the hotels, there are public baths for the poor, and cheaper houses, where they can live for a very mod- erate sum.
The Duchy of Baden, as well as other parts of Germany, has numerous medicinal springs,* many of which are hot-springs, which show that there are subterranean fires in constant opera- tion, elaborating perpetually these chymical waters, and sending them forth scalding hot from their subterranean caldrons; and they have been of long standing, for the ancient Romans had baths here, the ruins of which still remain.
The walks and gardens in and about Baden are very fine. They are not so artificial as to destroy the pleasing rusticity of the natural scenery, and yet sufficiently improved by art to render the places of resort accessible and pleasant. There is an old chd- teau here, with pleasant gardens, which used to be the residence of the former Margraves of Baden. The most interesting part of this edifice is the subterranean apartments, which used to be oc- cupied by a branch of the secret tribunal. These apartments are very deep, and constructed of strong and heavy masonry, with nu- merous divisions for prisons, a judgment hall, a room for torture, and a deep pit for the execution of .'hose appointed for death. This pit was situated under one of th* dark avenues that led from one of these gloomy cells to the otfeer, and the condemned victim, as he was walking forward, found a drop suddenly give way under his feet, and let him int0 the pit, where he was crushed to
* In one of the itineraries seventy-seven public watering-places of mineral waters are particularly described, besides a number of others which are incidentally mentioned is being of less note. It is said there are one thousand in Germany.
SECRET COMBINATIONS. 445
death by a wheel. These cells were closed by heavy stone doors, all of one piece, ten inches thick, and hung on hinges ; and the unfortunate beings who fell into the hands of these secret murder- ers were let down into the cells by a secret trapdoor from above, through which the light was seen faintly to glimmer as we looked up to it from the dark depths below. Happy for society that such institutions cannot flourish, and such deeds of darkness cannot be perpetrated at the present day. At the same time we ought not to forget that secret combinations may be abused in any age, even the most enlightened, to the danger of public liberty and of individ- ual rights ; and that, therefore, all such combinations should be dis- couraged. However well-intentioned many may be who have, in our own day, countenanced such institutions, and I certainly would not deal in wholesale and indiscriminate censure towards such, for this would be unjust and ungenerous, still, in view of past history, and of the known character of man, I think the public have a right to expect, in this day of light and reflection, that all philanthropic and patriotic men will hereafter, whatever may have been done formerly, discountenance, by their example and precept, all such institutions. So obvious, as it appears to me, is the duty of good citizens in this respect, that it is surprising there should be in active operation, at the present time, in Germany and Switzerland, more than three hundred secret associations, all bearing the gen- eral name of Freemasons, although existing, I believe, under differ- ent forms and modifications.
There are the ruins of a still older chateau or castle something less than a mile from this, upon the side of the mountain overlook- ing the town. It was a*Veritable feudal castle, and the ruins are truly picturesque and imposing. The approach is through a very dense pine forest up the mountain -side, and the castle itself is in the midst of a forest, with large forest-trees growing out of the walls and in the centre of the courts of this ancient fortress of feu- dal chivalry. .They are ruins in a wilderness, and yet so magnifi- cent that they still resist all the efforts of nature either to dissolve the massy walls, and towers, and princely halls, or to overshadow them with the luxuriant vegetation that flourishes around. The mouldering turrets still overtop the forest, and, rising up in maj- esty, overlook the meandering Rhine and its wide and fertile val- ley far beyond Strasburg on the one side and Carlsruhe on the 38
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other ; showing numerous villages sprinkled over the valleys, and giving the eye an enchanting range equal to its strongest power of vision. We climbed still higher, to a fortress some two hun- dred feet above, where there seems to have been a strong citadel overlooking the castle, and serving as an outwork for its defence and greater security. The prospect was indescribably fine. We were obliged, however, to leave our elevation and the chivalrous associations around us, and descend to the valley, to start, accord- ing to arrangements, for Carlsruhe, which we reached that even- ing.
We arrived at Carlsruhe, the capital of Baden, in time to visit the extensive gardens of the grand duke, and to take a superficial survey of the palace, the park, the public squares, fountains, &c. This is a very pleasant town, containing twenty thousand five hundred in- habitants. The streets are laid out in the form of a fan, all radiating from the palace as a centre. Round this centre, at a given distance, is struck a circle, which bounds the public squares in front of the palace and the gardens in the rear. The public gardens are hand- some ; the avenues through the park, which is a noble forest, are straight and long, and the perspective is very beautiful. The streets of the city are ample and clean. To add to the interest of the occasion, it was the time of one of their semiannual fairs, and the public grounds were occupied by long ranges of moveable shops, which are erected so as to give the appearance of a tem- porary city. These shops, or shantees, as we should call them in the United States, are taken down when the fair is over, and the parts stored until the next exhibition. To these fairs persons come, with their wares and merchandise, from quite a distance, rent their temporary shop, and spread out their goods for sale. The lime being known to all the country and towns around, the people and village retailers come hither also to make their pur- chases. In this way many people are drawn together, and vari- ous amusements are connected with their business transactions. At night they close up the front of their shops, and some of them pack their wares in their boxes, to be displayed again in the morn- ing. The Carlsruhe fairs are twice a year, and continue a fort- night. This feature of commerce is entirely unknown among us, but has been continued, in many towns in Europe, from the cus- toms of the earlier ages, when commerce was in its infancy, and
HABITS OP THE FEMALES. 447
might, therefore, require such extraordinary seasons and concen- trated efforts to sustain it ; but at present they seem to me un- necessary, and, although they may have their advantages, are, I should think, disadvantageous both to commerce and to morals. Carlsruhe is the capital of Baden, and the residence of the grand duke.
From Carlsruhe we went to Heidelberg to lodge and spend the Sabbath. We found the quality of the land less fertile, the cottages and villages about the same, but the common people seem of rather an under stature, their skin shrivelled and seared. This is especially true of their women, who, from exposure and hard work in the fields, have lost most of the interesting characteristics of their sex. Their appearance was very coarse, and their manners, in many instances, what with us would be considered indelicate. We passed young girls of eight or ten years of age bathing in a state of nudity close by the high road, in the centre of a village, and in the presence of a number of older females, who did not ap- pear at all embarrassed at our passing. The women in the field have the habit of tucking up their petticoats when they are at work so as not only to expose their most interior garment, but also to leave the leg naked from above the knee. I do not men- tion this as any proof of the want of chastity in their females, for they are probably as virtuous as others ; but to show how that slavish kind of labour to which the females are subjected breaks down those delicate sensibilities whiph are so prevalent even in the lower classes among us, and to give, as far as I may, a portrait- ure of society as it is exhibited to the passing traveller.
We stopped at Scwhitzingue to visit the public grounds and edifices of the grand duke in this village. Here he has a palace, gardens of about two hundred acres, extensive parks, a grotto, a Temple of Apollo, an elegant bathhouse, an artificial lake, jets tfeau, on which danced the rainbow, with various other artificial fountains and waterworks, statuary, a Chinese bridge, artificial ruins of a Temple of Mercury, and a Turkish mosque and minarets ; the whole of which cost more than three millions of dollars, and re- quire six thousand dollars annually to keep them in order.
Heidelberg is beautifully situated on the river Neckar, a branch of the Rhine, in a recess of a narrow valley, where the former river just disembogues itself from the mountains into the wide
448 GERMANY.
valley of the Rhine. It contains about eleven or twelve thousand inhabitants, and is principally remarkable for its literary institu- tions, and for its noble castle, now in a ruinous state, overhanging the town.
At the head of the literary institutions is the University, one of the most ancient in Germany. It contains about five hundred students. Formerly it had nearly a thousand. But there has been, as I was informed by Professor Schwarz, who is at the head of the theological department, and at present, in fact, pro tempore at the head of the University, a great falling off throughout Ger- many of those who are pursuing a liberal and a professional course of study. The reasons he assigned were, that the learned profes- sions were full, and that with them, as with us, money-getting and the wants of the physical man had become the all-engrossing subjects of attention.
The University of Heidelberg is conducted upon the same gen- eral principles of the other German universities. The instruction is by lectures, and these lectures, for the most part, support the pro- fessors. The government has the appointment of the professors, and it allows them also, either from the public chest or from en- dowments, a small annual stipend, altogether inadequate, how- ever, to their support. To make up for this deficiency, they are allowed to give a private course of lectures, at a price fixed by authority. The result is, that, in many cases, the public course is neglected both by studentsnand professors, so that they become rather nominal than otherwise ; while all the labour is bestowed upon the private course, to render them more attractive, and, of course, more productive. Hence the most industrious and the most popular lecturer secures the most pupils and the greatest income. With some disadvantages, this course has some striking advantages. It makes it for a man's interest to be industrious and eminent ; and this, taking man as he is, has a powerful, per- haps, on the great whole, the most powerful influence, to produce vigorous efforts in the discharge of professional duties.
There are public lecture-rooms in the University buildings, but the private courses are generally delivered at the professor's own house. The students lodge and board at private lodgings in the town. They are, in general, a restless and contentious class of the community, and are often engaged in skirmishes with the citizens
UNIVERSITY STUDENTS. 449
and duels with each other. I speak not now particularly, much less exclusively, of the students of Heidelberg, but it is said of the students of the German universities generally, that duelling pre- vails among them to a great extent, and the authorities, although they do not actually sanction it, nevertheless wink at it. It is believed, if there were a general understanding among the univer- sities to put it down, it might be done ; but, as it is, no one institu- tion will do it, lest it should drive away their students. Thus, as in many other cases, self-interest and rivalry lead to the tolera- tion of popular vices, to the great injury of the cause of educa- tion and of morality. These duels, however, are generally fought with swords, and seldom end fatally ; but faces and breasts are hacked, and eyes are put out, and sometimes other parts wound- ed. The more scars of this kind they can exhibit, the greater the proof that they have been good fellows at the university.*
Many of the students are very poor, and not unfrequently sup- port themselves by charity, as they go to and from their places of study. I could not conceive, at first, what it might mean, that decently-dressed and healthy-looking young men should accost us on the road with solicitations for charity. I at first supposed that they did it for sport, and replied to them by returning the compliment, and held out my hat to them for charity, intimating that I considered them as much obliged to give to me as I to them ; and that, if they trifled with me, I should answer the fool according to his folly. I afterward learned, however, that these were real objects of charity, and that they were begging their way through the world, in order to obtain an education.
The students who can afford it generally receive private in- struction from tutors, employed and paid by themselves, in addi- tion to the lectures of the prefessors ; in this way the poor stu- dents sometimes find employment, especially when they have advanced in their studies, and not unfrequently, in this way, they bring themselves into notice, and prepare the way for an enlarged sphere of action as private lecturers and professors.
The lectures are so arranged, that each student can, if he
* There is evidently some discipline at the universities, for I saw posted up in the public halls that such and such individuals were expelled, others censured, &e. J noticed, too, that they posted up in a similar way those who had been admitted to degrees, and other college honours.
38 3L
JWMV
I notice degrees
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pleases, attend them all. All religions meet together at Heidelberg, for the students are made up of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. The theological professors, however, are Protestants, but in this department the Catholics arid Jews are not obliged to attend.
Connected with the University were good geological and minera- logical collections, and a library of sixty or seventy thousand volumes. This institution was founded in 1386, and was early enlisted in the Protestant cause, and became a resort for many of the most eminent divinity students in the first century of the ref- ormation. It was here that the famous Heidelberg Catechism was formed, which was incorporated with the Belgian Confession of Faith, and was so often appealed to in the' disputes in the Netherlands between Arminius and his followers on the one side, and the high Calvinists on the other. The population of Heidel- berg, however, at present, is mostly Lutheran.
It has already been stated that Heidelberg is situated in a narrow valley, under the mountains. The hills rise up so sud- denly and abruptly, that they overhang the houses and streets, and give a picturesque appearance to the place ; and especially as on one of these eminences, several hundred feet above the town, is the famous Heidelberg Castle. This is a splendid memorial of feudal times, the finest, perhaps, on the whole, that we visited. It is in some sense in ruins, having been tremend- ously shattered by the French in the war that arose concerning the succession, at the extinction of the reigning family in 1693. It is not, however, so demolished or dilapidated as to destroy the principal apartments ; and one may, by attention, ascertain the general divisions and arrangements of this splendid seat of feudal chivalry and strength. Here is the Hitter Saal, or " Hall of the Knights," still hung round with ancient armour. Here are the fortresses, the towers, the offices, the courts, the chapel, the halls, and the chambers, in a tolerable state of preservation — and all in ruinous and solitary grandeur. What affrays have occurred here ! what revelling and banquetting ! what broils between contending knights ! what sieges and defences ! what deeds of heroism ! what scenes of courtly intrigue ! In true chiv- alrous spirit, love and war, dancing and fighting, sonnets and blood, have been commingled together, or have followed in quick succession in these princely halls. But now all is silent ! In
ROUTE FROM HEIDELBERG TO DARMSTADT. 451
proof that the ancient inmates were fond of good cheer, the Heidelberg Tun is a stupendous monument ; it is still seen in one of the lower apartments of the castle ; it is made in the form of a hogshead, but is the size of a small cottage, being in dimen- sions twenty-eight feet by thirty-two, and will hold, it is said, two hundred and eighty-three thousand two hundred bottles ; they speak also of two or three times in which this gigantic reservoir was filled with wine. Near it, as large as life, stands the image of old Clemens, a toper (perhaps a tapster of the castle) of noto- rious memory in the history of this chateau, who used to drink his fifteen bottles per day — a real John Falstaff.
The grounds around this chateau are very interesting. They are romantically rural and wild, and yet have upon them the stamp and order of art and of science. You would at first think it was Nature's forest encroaching upon what was once the seat of a military court ; but, after a little examination, you find your- self in the midst of a botanic garden, planted with a numerous variety of trees, shrubs, and flowering plants, labelled and named, and yet so artfully done that it seems but the spontaneous growth of Nature's own planting.
Our route from Heidelberg to Darmstadt was most delightful. It ranged along just at the base of the mountains, or highlands, which stretch almost the whole length of the eastern border of Baden. The Rhine was at our left, two leagues distant, present- ing a rich intervening valley in a high state of cultivation. The sides of the mountains at our right were covered with vineyards, and their highest points were crowned with towers and feudal castles in ruins, rising up in the midst of extensive forests, as the gloomy monuments of a semibarbarous and warlike age. These monuments constitute the most striking feature to the eye of the traveller in this country. This gives to the scene the air of ro- mance, and makes one almost imagine that he still sees some ghostly knight, who was murdered in a fatal affray, stalking in ar mour amid the ruins. No wonder the inhabitants in the vicinity of these castles fancy that uncorporeal knights still haunt these ruins. We passed this day a castle of this description, which is notorious in all the regions round for the ghostly visitations of these chivalrous heroes of a former age.
This day's journey finished our travels in the Grand Duchy of
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Baden, and a few words will finish what more I have to say of it. This was formerly a margraviate, and was founded in 1009 by Hermander I., who died in 1059. We saw in the chateau at the town of Baden the portraits of all the margraves, in consecu- tive order. This formed one of the states of the German con- federacy previous to the Bonapartean conquests; but in 1806 Napoleon dissolved that confederacy, enlarging Westphalia, which is lower down on the Rhine ; he erected it into a kingdom, and placed upon the throne his brother Jerome. Bavaria and Wur- temberg were also erected each into a separate kingdom ; and the other smaller states, with Baden, enlarged by the addition of Bres- gau on the north, were united together upon certain confederated principles and provisions, under the name of the " Confederacy of the Rhine." In 1815 the Congress of Vienna restored the German confederacy, which now consists of thirty-five different sovereignties, besides the four free cities, Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, and Frarikfort-on-the-Maine, which latter city is the seat of the diet for the confederacy. In this diet all important ques- tions relating to the general interests of Germany are settled. Each state furnishes its quota of delegates, according to a consti- tutional arrangement. In all matters, however, relating to the in- ternal government, each sovereignty is independent. Some of them are democracies, like Frankfort, but most of them are abso- lute monarchies ; but Baden, whose sovereign bears the name of grand duke, which title has been assumed since the restoration of the confederacy, has a legislature and a constitution. Of course, he must keep up the splendour of a court, as must all the other petty sovereigns, and this will account for the otherwise unaccountable fact, that a great portion of the common people la- bour hard for barely a livelihood ; for, to meet the expenses of so many sovereigns and courts, taxes are enormous and oppres- sive. Commerce, too, and the freedom of trade are very much embarrassed by these numerous states. Resources are divided ; public enterprises are obstructed ; intercommunications are inter- rupted ; so that a fertile and a populous country, which, united under one government, would be rich and powerful, is compara- tively feeble. It shows, in fact, what the United States of Amer- ica would be if once their bond of union were dissolved. Let American citizens be jealous of the spirit of disunion. As it is
SMOKING. 453
personal ambition which keeps the German states from forming a strong consolidated government, so it will be personal ambition that will dissolve our union, if it is ever destroyed. Will Amer- ican citizens ever suffer themselves to be deceived and ruined by such a spirit ?
Baden contains about five thousand six hundred square miles, and one million of inhabitants.
But to return to our journal. Ever since we crossed the Ap- ennines we have noticed that the practice of smoking tobacco was increasing. There was more of it in Lombardy than in Southern Italy, still more in Switzerland, and most of all in Ger- many. The men are almost universally smokers, and, what is worse, they smoke everywhere; in the shop and in the field, and often in the bed the pipe is seen dangling from the mouth ; as their pipes are secured by a cap, so as to prevent any danger from fire, they can smoke in bed with safety. These pipes are often curiously wrought and painted, and are so constructed that when the stem hangs down upon the breast the bowl is perpen- dicular, so that they are more out of the way, and more easily held by the teeth, than the common pipe used in the United States. The fabrication and sale of pipes constitutes a very im- portant item of manufacture and trade in this country. You see many shops in every town devoted almost exclusively to this arti- cle. So common is the practice of smoking, that it is hardly considered an offence in any place or company. A gentleman who, I was afterward told, was a professor in the University of Heidelberg, having had his dinner served a little before us, at the same table, lighted his segar as he commenced upon the dessert (for he, for a rarity, had a segar instead of a pipe), directly at my elbow, while I was eating. I begged him to spare me the fumes of his segar until after dinner ; he very politely complied, but gave me to understand that he had no idea it could be any offence.
We lodged at Darmstadt, the capital of the duchy of the same name. We saw in it nothing remarkable. It is a neat town, with some fine buildings and spacious streets, containing a population of about twenty thousand, a library of more than a hundred thou- sand volumes, and several public institutions, and collections in literature and the arts. It is pleasant to see with what attention every government in Germany fosters literature and the sciences ;
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and this is extended not only to the accommodation of the favoured few, but all classes are made to share in the benefits of instruc- tion. The primary school is frequent, and the children of both sexes are all favoured with an opportunity of at least some degree of education.
The Grand Duchy of Darmstadt, so called from the river Darme, extends to the north and south of Frankfort, by which, with some adjoining territory, it is divided into two parts. It contains four thousand square miles, and about six hundred thousand inhabit- ants, mostly Lutherans.
We arrived at Frankfort in the morning of June 21, and took lodgings in the Hotel de Russie.
CHAPTER XXIII.
FRANKFORT is a distinct sovereignty, embracing the city and some few square leagues of territory without the walls. At the arrangement in 1814, and the modifications that subsequently took place, the government was established on democratic princi- ples. It is, however, a part of the Germanic confederacy, and is itself the seat of the Germanic diet. Its situation is on each side wf the river Maine, about twenty-two miles above its entrance into the Rhine at Mayence. By means of this river, which is navi- gable for boats, its commerce is facilitated, which, in consequence of its being a free port and possessing much wealth, together with the advantage of two annual fairs, is considerable. Its population is from fifty»eight to sixty thousand, the greater part of which is Protestant. There are, however, seven thousand Jews, among whom are the Rothschild family, the great bankers, who hold the purse-strings of Europe.
They have a large banking-house here, as also in London, Paris, and Vienna, in each of which cities one of the brothers now resides. Frankfort, however, is the family residence ; and hither the families from London and Paris had come, when we arrived, to celebrate the nuptials between two of their respective children, who were intermarrying, as had been done by branches of the same families before, to preserve the wealth of the parties,
FRANKFORT. 455
doubtless, in their own family. One of the families was lodging at the hotel where we stopped, and what, with their servants and equipage, their visiters, sorties, and returns, they kept the whole house in a state of bustle and excitement. They constantly rode in state, with the plumes of their footmen streaming in the air like princes.* Not many of their countrymen, however, bear indications of an approximation towards such style. We passed through the Jews' Quarter, which, as in all other cities, was the most filthy part of the town. The houses were a curiosity ; they not only bore evident marks of antiquity in the style of architec- ture and materials, but they were covered externally with soot or smoke, so as to make them resemble the inside of a smokehouse. The inhabitants looked miserably filthy, and their narrow, crowd- ed streets were lined with shops full of old clothes, boots, hats, iron, &c. : so true it is, that to this day this people are a prov- erb and a byword among the nations where they dwell. How strikingly do they authenticate the sacred history !
If any caviller chooses captiously to inquire for existing mira- cles in confirmation of the revealed and inspired scriptures, let him look at the dispersed of Judah, and note in their history and character a standing miracle of the fact that " God did, at sundry times and in divers places, speak unto the fathers by the proph- ets," and afterward " by his Son." If they credit not this evi- dence, neither would they believe though one rose from the dead.
Frankfort in general, notwithstanding what I have said of the Jews' Quarter, is a very clean, cheerful city. It has a number of fine streets and many well-built houses, both in the city and the suburbs. Its public buildings are not numerous or splendid. In the City Hall are the portraits of the German emperors, from Conrad II., who was crowned in 911, to Francis II., who died in 1806. For the last emperor there was no room. They paid his successor, however, the present emperor, due honour ; for, at his coronation, they roasted two oxen in the square before the state house, and the fountain in the court was made to run with red and white wine.
The churches are not elegant, but several of them are ancient. The cathedral, which is an edifice of the fourteenth century, con-
* Soon after we left Frankfort this wealthy banker died. " All the glory of man is a» the flower of grass; the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away."
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tains the chapel where the ancient emperors were crowned, and the tomb of one who was assassinated the next day after his coro- nation, and laid his bones where he took his crown.
There is a collection of pictures and plaster casts, and about thirty thousand engravings, in what is called the Staedel Academy of painting. The name is from J. F. Staedel, a merchant of Frankfort, whose liberality in 1816 founded the institution. There are also several private museums, among which is that of Mr. Bethmanns, which contains a celebrated statue of Ariadne mounted upon a leopard, by Dannaker. Ariadne is certainly very fine ; but if the leopard is a good one, I have no correct idea of what a leopard ought to be. There are various literary, and scientific, and humane societies and institutions ; but the schools were what most interested me. Among them I visited a gymna- sium of one hundred and fifty boys, under the direction of Mr. V., and a large school of about five hundred children of both sexes, under the direction of M. Bagge. Both of these gentlemen were very polite in showing and explaining the principles of their respective schools. Of the gymnasia of Germany I need add but little, after the description given of the Hofwyl school, beg- ging the reader, however, to bear in mind that that school is more extended, and unites a greater number of objects, than most of the gymnasia of Germany. This gymnasium in Frankfort, for example, is for the boys of the city, who, except at the hours of school, are in their respective families ; others frequently lodge and board their students, but have not the department of industry connected with them like that of Hofwyl.
These institutions, in respect to the kind of studies pursued, correspond with our highest academical institutions ; but, in. re- gard to the perfection with which instruction is imparted, I fear we are, in general, very much behind the institutions of Ger- many.
The great object seems to be to discipline the whole man, physical, intellectual, and moral. There are several features in the German system of education that seem specially worthy of notice : one is, their religious instruction. This is not mere accidental business ; but, as it is considered an essential, so it constitutes an integral part of the regular instruction. Certain lessons in the week are devoted to this, in which the appointed
.
SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. 457
classes are duly instructed and lectured, not in the speculative and abstruse points of theology, but upon the subjects of Christian and moral duties, and the essential doctrines connected therewith. In some instances, to meet sectarian jealousies, teachers of differ- ent religious sentiments are employed, and the children are placed under each respectively, according to the wish of their parents or guardians. In this instruction the Bible is, as it should be, the principal text-book. Nothing more surprises the Germans than to team the Bible is generally excluded from the regular text- books in our schools, high and low, a fact which they hardly know how to reconcile with the idea of our being a Christian nation. " Christianity," they maintain, " should be the basis of all education, and the great teachings of inspiration paramount to all other writings."
Another trait in the German system of education is, a general attention to some branches which are commonly neglected in. America, such as singing and drawing. These are introduced into their common schools, especially so far as relates to the ele- mentary principles* In one of the schools I visited at Frankfort, for example, I entered a room where the teacher was instructing his class in the rules of music upon the black board, and for my gratification he stopped and exercised them in singing a beautiful tune, which their young and sweet voices chanted in the most exact time. I think this an improvement in education, as it affords a pleasing relaxation from severer studies, and secures the exer- cise of voices that might otherwise remain entirely uncultivated. Drawing, to a certain extent, is important for every person. It is next to writing itself, for the common business of life ; and yet, ultra-utilitarian as we are in America, we count drawing as be- longing only to the ornamental accomplishments. The mode of instruction is also a subject which is much more attended to here than with us. It is true, we are of late waking up to the science of education, but it is still an infant science with us. Here they have numerous normal schools, which are devoted entirely to the work of forming teachers. The business of teaching is a business for life — a regular profession ; and hence the teachers have all the advantages which a regular business ever has over a mere occa- sional employment. The teachers, so far as I have been able to judge, keep up a greater interest in their schools than is common 39 3M
judg
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GERMANY.
with us. A specimen of instruction in geography in a class I visited shall illustrate what I mean. I found a teacher, surround- ed by about fifty happy faces, lecturing, with a little globe in his hand, on the different astronomical and other divisions of the earth, its form, motion, &c. Every eye was fixed upon him ; and, as he walked from one end of the room to the other, he put his questions sometimes generally to any or all, and sometimes to individuals, and, in either case, all who understood, or thought they understood the question, would reach out their hands, and sometimes rise up, to give indications that they were ready to answer. The scene cannot be described, but the impression on my mind was, that I had rarely, if ever, seen so happy a teacher amid such happy pupils. Another, a female teacher, was exer- cising her class on orthography and etymology : she gave a word, and they wrote upon a slate the primitive and derivative words, and such various modifications in the declinations and conjuga- tions as were proposed to them. In short, they were taught to think, and thus the powers of the mind became developed and strengthened in the same proportion as their stock of ideas was increased, and, in learning the rules of grammar, they became initiated, almost imperceptibly, into the philosophy of language. In addition to the schools I have mentioned, they have in Frank- fort two infant schools, for those who are able to pay, consisting of about one hundred and fifty scholars each, besides infant schools for the poor, and four large primary schools for the same class, with many other smaller and more private seminaries. Frankfort has a public library of about fifty thousand volumes, an academy of medicine, with a botanic garden, an anatomical theatre, and a museum of natural history.
In Frankfort, as well as in other parts of the valley of the Rhine and in Switzerland, we found many English ; more, indeed, than we met with in Italy. The English, it would seem, must ulti- mately take the Continent. They are everywhere. Switzerland at this season of the year swarms with them. They are out " in search of the picturesque," and inquiring everywhere what there is worth seeing. The Americans are uniformly taken for English- men ; and we are known before we speak. I have been surprised to see with what instinctive knowledge we are recognised by all classes. The beggars will pass their own countrymen in a crowd
DIFFICULTIES WITH A VETURINO. 459
of thousands, and come directly to the Englishman for alms ; so also the veturinos and the servants of the hotel. You are often surprised to hear a servant's voice in broken English, before you have uttered a word, as you are stepping from the diligence or the packet boat, " Will you take lodgings in our hotel, sir ?"* Many voung Englishmen are visiting Switzerland at this season to travel among the mountains on foot, which, if one has time and strength, is much the pleasantest, cheapest, and most healthy way of visit- ing the Alpine scenery.
At Frankfort we have had our last trouble, as I hope, with a veturino. Most of the way from Bale our German coachman had greatly annoyed us by setting up additional claims for extra services, detentions, &c., which were perfectly groundless and un- reasonable, but which, he supposed, we would sooner pay than contend with him. Determined, however, not to yield to imposi- tion, though it cost additional time and money, I absolutely refused his claim, and tendered him the money which was his due ; but he refused to take it, and I could get no settlement with him up to the time of my departure. I left the money with the master of the hotel, and departed in the diligence, not without serious ap- prehensions that we should meet a police officer at the gate to ar- rest us. This was the first time, I think, that I ever left a city with apprehensions of an arrest. However, we were not molested ; and, after a very pleasant ride of about three hours down the Maine, we crossed the Rhine on another bridge of boats, and took lodgings in Mayence or Mentz. This town belongs to Hesse Cassel, but is garrisoned by Austrian and Prussian, as well as Hessian troops. This, also, is the case with Coblentz and seme other cities. It is by an arrangement entered into by treaties between the respective powers, and is caused by their mutual jealousies of each other, and by the insufficiency of the small states of the Germanic con- federation to support a garrison adequate to the supposed necessi- ties of the case. These towns are the great portals of Germany, especially on the side of France, and hence the necessity of guard- ing them with great caution and ample forces. Mayence and the little town of Cassel opposite to it are strongly fortified and garri- soned. It is finely situated in the midst of a deligthful and fertile
* In Switzerland and Germany you find servants, and sometimes masters, in the prin- cipal hotels speaking English.
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country, and contains a population, including the garrison, of about thirty-two thousand. It was originally a Roman fortress, and va- rious Roman antiquities have been found in the neighbourhood, some of them dating back to a period as early as the Christian era. Here the twenty-second legion of the Roman army, which had served under' Titus in the taking of Jerusalem, came as a garrison in the seventieth year of the Christian era, at which time, it is said, Christianity was first preached on the Rhine by Cres- centius, who came with this legion.
The town was, however, destroyed in the wars between the Romans and the Germans, but was restored about the time of Charlemagne. This town has the honour of originating, by one of its citizens, Arnaud Walpoden, the Hanseatic League, in 1355. It was a combination entered into by numerous towns to secure the navigation of the Rhine, which was greatly interrupted and embarrassed by the rude chieftains, who had built castles upon the borders of the river, and plundered, or, at least, laid heavy im- posts upon all merchandise that passed the Rhine. Their ch&- teaux were burnt, and the banditti were driven from their positions by the arms of the confederates.* The ruins of these castles still remain, and form a principal feature in the scenery of the Rhine between Mayence and Bonn. Mayence also claims, and perhaps justly, the honour of inventing the art of printing by one of its citizens by the name of Guttemberg. We saw the statue of the inventor, with the appropriate symbols and inscriptions, commem- ora*:ve of the event, in a court of a large public house in the city. Haerlem and Strasburg lay claim to the same honour, but Gut- temberg is generally acknowledged, I believe, to have been the original inventor, although it is not impossible but Laurence Cos- ter of Haerlem might also have originated the same invention, and about the same time. Faust, to whom this honour has been some- times, although incorrectly, attributed, was also a native of May- ence, and was the first to make use of cast types for printing. It was this that enabled him to make Bibles so cheap as to cause him to be suspected of having made a league with the devil, and gave rise to the old romance of " John Faust, or Faustus, and the
* This confederation in favour of commerce was extended not only to the valley of the Rhine, but a great number of cities in France and other countries of Europe entered Ike league for the purpose of commercial security.
PASSAGE DOWN THE RHINE. 461
Devil," the reading of which, I well remember, in early childhood* almost chilled my blood with horror. There are preserved in the library of this city, which consists, it is said, of about eighty thou-- sand volumes, a number of the books printed as early as 1460,. especially a Psalter, Bible, &c. This library is open to the pub- lic every day except Saturdays and Sundays. Mayence has been celebrated, not only for its printing, but for its poets and musi cians. It was the principal seat of the Troubadours, so celebra^ ted in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. We were shown m the court of the cathedral a tombstone of one of the most cele- brated of these, by the name of Henry Frauenlob, who died in 1318, and who was such a favourite with the women of the cityr that they honoured his memory by bearing his coffin to the grave. The cathedral also contains the tomb of Fastrada, the wife of Charlemagne, and of several other eminent personages. A part of this cathedral was built as early as the ninth century. There is also in Mayence a museum of Roman monuments found in the neighbourhood, which is said to be more complete than any other this side of Italy, and a gallery of pictures. This city was sub- jected to the French in 1797, but was restored to Germany in 1814, and is the capital of Rhenish Hesse.
From Mayence we commenced our passage down the Rhine on board the steamboat, with a great number of other passengers,, with their charts, and guides, and panoramas of the Rhine, all prepared to enjoy the celebrated scenery of this famous river.
For a number of leagues we passed through a valley called the RheingaUj which is very fruitful, and exhibiting numerous coun- try-seats, castles, &c. The hills were covered with vineyards ; but the vine here is not the garland vine of Italy, but the low bush vine. In general, the wine made on the Rhine is white, al- though there are some exceptions, and is, as is well known, an acid wine. It was not agreeable to my taste, although many pre- fer it to any other. The productions of some years are more es teemed than those of others, and some particular spots are famous for the peculiar flavour of their wine, the most' celebrated of which is a vineyard we passed about two leagues before we reached Mentz, on our way from Frankfort.
The principal features of the Rhine, in this celebrated section of its course*, are the picturesque highlands that rise in varied 39
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beauty on either side ; the verdant intervening slopes and vales , especially the frequent towns and villages, and, above all, the old feudal castles and convents that crown almost every eminence. These castles are, most of them, in a ruinous state, although a few have been repaired as summer residences for German princes, and are situated sometimes upon the top of the mountain that rises up upon the bank of the river, and sometimes down the side, and occasionally based even in the water's edge, so that the chieftains and their households used to fish out of their windows. Here, too, they had their fortresses and their towers, by which they commanded the entire channel of the river, narrowed, as it frequently is, by the obtrusive mountains, which seem to grudge to this princely river a channel for his accumulated waters. He has been able, however, to force himself through in spite of rocks and opposing hills, although, according to appearance at one place near Bingen, the contest was long and difficult, and was not effected, probably, until the immense valleys above, as far up as Strasburg and Baden, had collected all the watery forces of the Alps into mighty inland seas, which pressed down upon the rocky fortresses of the enemy with such tremendous power as to make an entire breach in the ramparts, and smooth for themselves a navigable passage to the ocean. The interests of commerce, however, have greatly deepened this channel by the improvements that have been made in it, at different times, to facilitate the pas- sage of boats. The Frankfort merchants, since the invention of gunpowder, have done good service here by blowing a channel through a ridge of rocks that crosses the river, so that now, with a good pilot, large steamboats may pass in safety.
I have heard the passage of the Rhine, from Mayence to Co- logne, compared to that of the Hudson from New-York to Albany ; but the natural scenery of the former will not compare with that of the latter. The passage of the Hudson is bolder and more magnifi- cent, even Mrs. Trollope herself being judge ; for this she has con- ceded, as we were informed by a gentleman on board the boat who had sailed through this passage with her. But we have nothing on the Hudson to compare with the feudal and ecclesiastical ruins, the churches, convents, palaces, and castles that hang over this picturesque valley of the Rhine. Many of these fortresses are rich in historic associations, and some of them are veiled in all
SUPERSTITIOUS ROMANCES. 463
the witchery of superstition and romance by the mysterious fa- bles that a dark and superstitious age has hung over their remote history. In one place, near Rudesheim, in the Rheingau, the wa- ters are rough and turbulent, which were occasioned on this wise. A chieftain of Rudesheim, who was one of the crusaders, and had been taken prisoner by the Saracens, made a vow that, if he should be rescued, he would return home and dedicate his daughter, the beautiful Giesela, to Heaven. She had other thoughts, and had plighted her love to a knight by the name of Odon, and was only waiting the return of her father to consummate her fondest wishes. The crusader T? turned, and, learning the facts, in a transport of rage he cursed his daughter. In the bitterness of her anguish she precipitated herself into the river, and was drowned ; from that time the troubled river has exhibited upon its disturbed estuary the turbulent monument of the event.
At another place near the .town of Lorch, which forms the southern boundary of the Rheingau, is a precipitous mountain, which " has received the name of the Devil's Ladder, because it is said the devil himself rode up this hill on horseback." A famous knight also rode up this precipice to rescue his " ladye- love," whom the gnomes, a ghostly race that dwelled near, had con- fined in a lofty tower. In proof of this exploit, the saddle on which he rode is still shown in the town-house. At another place is the site of the former residence or haunt of a water- spirit by the name of Lurley, whom the boatmen still invoke as they pass, and she answers in an echo sounding like her name — Lurley or Lurely. An enormous rock near by is called Lurley- berg. The origin of the fable seems to be the remarkable echo produced here, which repeats a sound five times. A more interest- ing, because a more real character, occupies these haunts for the present. It is an old man who seems to be partially insane, and spends his time chiefly in firing muskets as boats pass up and down the Rhine, that the passengers may enjoy the echo. For this service he gets no other fee than the gratification of giving pleasure to others. This must be called, I think, a species of benevolence.
I might mention other fables, and numerous tender or heroic historical events connected with these feudatory castles, but my limits will not permit. The part of the passage richest in these
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historical associations is below Coblentz, between that and Bonn, in Westphalia. This is the region of the " Seven Mountains ;" they are seven distinct heights, that rise on or near the right bank of the river, all of which are crowned with fine ruins towering in gloomy grandeur over the valley of the Rhine. Some of these castles, it is said, were built in the fourth century ; most of them, however, are works of from the ninth to the twelfth centuries.
The territories on the Rhine were formerly divided into four Electorates, or Circles, called the Circles of the Rhine ; they were Mayence, Treves, Cologne, and the Palitinate. The electors of these four territories often made and deposed the emperors, and otherwise controlled and directed the destinies of Germany ; and they still show near the small town of Rhense, a little above Coblentz, the site of the Konigstuhl, " King's Stool" or Royal Seat, where these electors met to consult upon the interests of the empire. This spot was selected because the four territories cornered here, or so near this, that one town or more in each territory could be seen from this spot. This, like many other royal seats, was destroyed in the revolution, and will probably never be restored. At the restoration, after the dethronement of Bonapart, this country, from Bingen, a little below Mayence, to the Netherlands, was given to Prussia, embracing about eight thousand three hundred square miles, and containing a million of inhabitants. This is called the Grand Duchy of Westphalia. It is thus that the larger European powers took advantage of the derangement occasioned by the changes of Napoleon to help themselves to a portion of the spoils. The settlement, therefore, was not exactly a restoration, but, to some extent, a partition, so that the larger powers increased their own territories by swallow- ing up a portion of the smaller. This was a crime in Napoleon, because he did it on such a large scale, and took it all himself ; but in the allies it was a legitimate virtue, I suppose, because they only helped themselves and one another, each to a few slices ! I know not, however, as it would have been any worse for the world, nay, I am not sure but it would have been better, if all the little states had in this way been swallowed up, except so far as the principle of doing it because they had the power would have been a dangerous one to be sanctioned by those who were fighting " for the liberties of Europe." But the principle was sanctioned,
CHARACTER OF FREDERIC WILLIAM III. 465
at any rate, to some extent; and, after they had commenced, they might as well have carried it through ; as it is, all the evil of sane tioning a bad principle stands out in bold relief upon the historic tablet that records the transactions of the allies ; and, at the sama time, most of the inconvenience of these petty sovereignties re- mains.
The allies professed much and promised fair, but their practice is quite another thing. This practice is what might have been expected of the northern autocrat, and also of the Austrian court, the counsels of which are governed by that sworn enemy to liberty, and that notoriously practical enemy to truth and honesty, Prince Metternich j but not of the King of Prussia. In many respects he certainly appears to be a good man ; he makes a pro- fession— which, by-the-way, is a rare thing for kings — of experi- mental piety. The venerable and learned Tholcuk, professor at Halle, stated, in a speech before the Wesleyan Missionary Society in London, that his sovereign had declared, alluding to the memorable campaign of 1813 and 1814. when Napoleon was overthrown, that the " snows of Russia had kindled up the fires of devotion in his heart ;" and with this profession there are, ac- cording to all accounts, many correspondences in his life. And since I have introduced this subject here, it may not be amiss to allude to a few things connected with the character and policy of the reigning King of Prussia, Frederic William III.
To Frederic William's religion I have just alluded, and his re gard to vital piety, and his wish to promote it in his realm, ap- pear in his continued efforts to put down Neology, which is so prevalent in Germany at the present day. Perhaps, for the ben- efit of some of my younger readers, I ought here to say that by Neology is meant a sort of philosophical religion, which takes some cognizance of the scriptures, and claims to be founded on the principles of Christianity, but which so effectually discards all the essential principles of the gospel, and so fabulously and figuratively explains away all its miracles and spirituality, that it is no other than downrighr undisguised Deism. I say undis- guised, for it has no other disguise than the name of Christianity and the forms and ordinances of a Christian church. Its doctrines,
I philosophy, are plain, palpable Deism, or rather worse than me kinds of Deism, for some of its supporters seem to give to .„
466 GERMANY.
the Deity himself no other personality than a kind of all pervading energy, the anima mundi of the ancients. That the character and extent of this philosophy may be seen, I take the liberty to intro- duce here some extracts which my esteemed friend and Christian brother, the Reverend John Beacham, one of the Wesleyan Mis- sionary secretaries in London, permitted me to make from a letter which he had just received from Professor Tholuck, to whom allusion has been already made.
" Quite recently a book has been published, the name of which I am sure will reach England also, for it will commence a new era in theology and religion in our country — .The Life of Christ, by Straus of Tubingen. This book intends to prove that all our gospels are spurious and supposititious productions, and all the relations about Christ mystical." " Hundreds of clergymen, pro- fessors, and laymen have received his assertions, and many be- lievers despair of its being answered. I am just about to write a volume for its refutation." "A general separation must take place ; a small flock of believers will range on one side, the large bulk of complete infidels on the other. Straus is not a Deist, but a Pantheist. He believes in no God, but some eternal impersonal principle spread and manifested in the world."
Such is the character and prevalence of the German theology. Against this enemy, which has come in like a flood, " the Spirit of the Lord has lifted up a standard," a revival of evangelical re- ligion has been experienced to some extent in Germany, and a few are struggling against the tide that has overspread the land. The court throws its influence into this side, and the king does what he can to accomplish a change in the creed and religious character of the country. He does this by extending court pat- ronage to the evangelical clergy ; by promoting to professorships, chaplaincies, &c., as vacancies occur, such as favour orthodoxy ; and also by attempting a kind of an amalgamation creed and re- ligious establishment, by which he is%ndeavouring to persuade, and, in some sense, coerce* the Calvinists and Lutherans to coalesce.
* A law was passed in 1830, commanding the use of the new national liturgy, by which it is proposed to unite the Lutheran and reformed churches. Under the operation of this ordinance many nonconformists have been dismissed from office and fined, and a number of ministers imprisoned.
STATE OF THEOLOGY. 467
That he is sincere in this there is little doubt, and that he is taking the wrong course to accomplish his object is not so much his fault as the fault of the times — the fault of all Europe. But it is, nevertheless, a serious fault. When did the church ever ex- tensively and grossly apostatize, except in its connexion with the secular power, and by reason of that connexion ? And when did a reform from such gross apostacy ever take place, except inde- pendently of the secular power, and, for the most part, in opposition to it ? Let the readers of church history examine this subject, and find the true answer to these questions ; for an answer to them is of vital consequence to the religious operations of the present day. The secular power introduced the apostacy of Rome. The Prot- estants commenced, in opposition to the governments, to reform the church ; but most indiscreetly, as soon as they obtained the power, strengthened their own cause, for the time being, by form- ing the same unholy alliance. And what has been the conse- quence ? Like causes, in the moral as in the physical world, produce like effects, and will to the end of time. Protestantism has become corrupted in every case where such alliance has ex- isted. This is pre-eminently true, I apprehend, in Germany, and hence the greater folly for the King of Prussia to make use of that as an antidote to cure the poison of infidelity in his church, which is the very bane that has infused that poison into the ecclesiastical sy stern. Would these men that are now professedly Christian clergymen in Germany have been clergymen, or even nominal Christians at this time, but for the legalized salaries of ecclesias- tical benefices and the honours of ecclesiastical preferments ? It is this that has kept up the forms of Christianity, and deluded the people with the idea that they were the members of a Christian church, while their entire system was becoming perverted. It is this that has kept out an influence, which, but for the strength of government patronage, would have combated these growing er- rors in their early development, and would have purified the church. But, as it is, all has been lost, and one can but regret that a prince who seems well disposed towards the Christian cause, not merely for state purposes, but for the sake of the truth, should, now that the inherent energy of truth is beginning to com- bat with error, run into the same old, oft-tried, and fallacious method of restoring the purity of the gospel. The orthodox cause
468 GfcttMANY.
may in this way be strengthened for the time ; nominal, and, per- haps, in some cases, real converts may be multiplied; but the church can never in this way in Prussia, or anywhere else, be essentially and permanently purified and reformed. Reason, his- tory, common sense, and revelation, all combine to establish this proposition.
But much as Frederic William is missing the mark in his at- tempts to promote the interests of religion in his realm, the evil will be remedied, in part at least, by his excellent system of gen- eral education ; a system which, for its symmetry, energy, practi- cal efficiency, and utility, has become the admiration and imitation of both hemispheres. Absolute monarch as he is, the King of Prussia has, in this respect, shown himself to be the father and friend of his people. I would do nothing more than allude to this subject here, were it not that this system of education is, after all, but partially known in our country ; and I should rejoice in being instrumental in calling to it the attention of such as may not have examined it, by briefly noticing a very few of its leading features. I have less need, however, of going into detail on this subject, because I have done this to some extent with the French system, which corresponds, in many respects, with this of Prussia.
1 . One of the features of education in Prussia, as in France, is, that the superintendency of the schools is made a distinct department of government, with an efficient minister at its head.* He, with his council and subordinate officers, looks after the whole system. He not only takes care of the funds and of their distribution, but he sees that well-qualified teachers are employed, proper text-books intro- duced, suitable houses provided, &c. To carry out the system effi- ciently, the country is divided into provinces, and these into regency circles, and these again into smaller circles, and, finally, the smal- ler circles into parishes. Each parish must have a school. This school is under a parochial committee and inspector, subject to the supervision of the higher councils, and of the minister of instruction.
2. Every parent is obliged by law to send his child to school from the age of seven years to fourteen. He can, however, by permission of the committee, take out his child before the age of
* Why should not this feature be introduced into the respective states in our country ? In Connecticut there is an officer to superintend the school fund. But of how little avail •is it to have a fund and have it well taken care of, unless it is also properly expended I
PRUSSIAN SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. 469
lourteen, if the pupil shall have gone through the course of primary instruction ; and, if the parent is not able to furnish the child with suitable clothing, &c., to attend school, the public furnishes
them.
3. Each parish is obliged by law to establish and maintain a primary school,
4. The schoolhouses are well fitted and suitably located. A play-ground is generally laid out in connexion with the school- house, and often a garden, orchard, &c.
5. In addition to suitable books and maps, cheap apparatus and collections in natural history are required.
! 6. Religion is taught in the schools, and, where there are differ- ent religions, a spirit of accommodation is enjoined ; and, if there is more than one master, when the parish is divided in its reli- gious views, the head-master is to be of the religion of the major- ity, and the assistant of that of the minority.*
7. Girls' schools are required, as far as practicable, to be sep- arate from the other sex.
8. In addition to the ordinary branches of a primary education as given in our country, drawing, singing, and the elements of ge- ometry are required. Agricultural instructions and gymnastic ex- ercises are also insisted on. ;
9. But that which, more than anything else, gives character to these schools is the competency of the instructers. To secure this there are forty-two normal schools, where teachers are trained to their profession. They are not only taught wliat to teach, but how to teach ; and, to this end, they are required to take a three years' course ; at the end of which, if found qualified, they receive a certificate, specifying their qualifications, aptness to teach, &c. As these teachers are educated at the public expense, they are required to pursue the business of teaching where the consistories appoint. Those who excel are promoted ; those who are negligent are fined, and, if they continue unprofitable, they are dismissed. No one is allowed to teach who has not his regular diploma or certificate.
* It should be recollected that this accommodation is effected where the population is divided between Catholics and Protestants ; as is the case in a great part of Prussia. How much easier might this accommodation be effected between different Protestant sects?
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10. Although there seems to be much of the exercise of strong authority in this system, it is nevertheless remarkable that a great portion of the machinery that enters into it is made of the man- aging committees and councils appointed by the different parishes and circles ; so that the business of government, after all, seems to be to form the general plan and exercise a general supervision, while the immediate superintendency falls upon the 'people imme- diately concerned. This gives a general interest in the schools, which could not otherwise be secured, and which is indispensable to the success of the plan. So satisfied is the government of the necessity of enlisting the popular feeling in order to secure suc- cess, that, when the new provinces on the Rhine were acquired by the arrangement of 1815, the law requiring parents to send their children to school under the sanction of severe penalties was suspended until, by gentler means, a public sentiment could be formed in favour of popular education. In 1825 this law was also put in force in these provinces.
It is supposed that there is now scarcely a child in all the Prussian dominions capable in body and mind of attending and receiving instruction between the ages of seven and fourteen, who is not in a process of primary or higher instruction. In 1831, out of a population of twelve millions, seven hundred and twenty- six thousand, eight hundred and twenty-three, which was the re- ported population of the entire kingdom, there were attending the public primary schools two millions, twenty-one thousand, four hundred and twenty-one.
In addition to her primary schools and private seminaries, Prussia has one hundred and ten higher schools called gymnasia ; and, above these, she has six universities ; viz., at Berlin, the capital of the kingdom ; at Halle in Saxony ; at Bonn on the Rhine ; at Breslau in Silesia (this is principally under the con- trol of the Catholics) ; at Konigsberg in East Prussia ; and at Greifswalde in Pomerania. These universities are generally in a very flourishing condition, and are, as well as the other universi- ties of Germany, supplied, for the most part, with splendid libraries.
I had the pleasure of an extended and very agreeable travel- ling acquaintance while passing down the Rhine, during our stay at Rotterdam, and on our passage to London, with Count Falken stein a counsellor of Saxony, and royal librarian at Dresden ,
LIBRARIES AND UNIVERSITIES. 471
from whom I derived much information concerning the character and management of the German libraries. The following facts respecting the Dresden library may give some general idea ot the regulations and extensive advantages of the German libraries. The number of volumes is three hundred thousand. To manage the library there are one principal librarian, two assistants, and four secretaries. Every man, high or low, appertaining to Sax- ony, may, by giving a sufficient guaranty that the books shall be returned, take out three or four volumes ; and even strangers and foreigners are favoured with the advantages of the library. During the last year (1835) there were two thousand four hun- dred and eighty-five readers in Dresden, and five hundred and twenty out of the city, making three thousand and five different readers for the year.
The library at Gottingen has three hundred thousand volumes , at Munich four hundred thousand ; at Berlin two hundred and fifty thousand ; at Vienna three hundred and fifty thousand, with numerous others. Every important town, in fact, has its library of a greater or less extent.
The universities of Germany are also well attended. The most prominent are that of Berlin, with two thousand five hun- dred students, and that of Halle, with seven hundred. The uni- versity of Gottingen, also, in the Duchy of Brunswick, has nine hundred students ; and that of Leipsic in Saxony eight hundred and twenty. The German universities vary considerably at dif- ferent times in the number of their students, according to the celebrity of their professors. A popular lecturer, in any one de- partment, will draw students from the different sovereignties far and near, and thus, for the time, increase the patronage of the in- stitution. From the above specimens, it is evident that there are at this day very many who are pursuing a liberal and a profes- sional course of study in Germany. Many of these become, in their turn, professors, authors, and teachers of various grades. It is here, and here only, in many of the states, that the lower classes have a chance to rise. In the republic of letters the field is open for competition, and the rush to this theatre of action, and the press for distinction, is surprisingly great. Poverty is re- sisted, obstacles are overcome, and thousands are stretching on- ward in their eager course for knowledge. The entire public
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mind feels the impulse, and absolute royalty itself swells and fa- cilitates the tide of mental elevation by the salutary regulations and princely munificence of the throne.
Whether the King of Prussia perceives that this will ultimately subvert the irresponsible exercise of absolute power, or vvhethei he vainly imagines that absolutism and universal education can subsist together, does not appear. The result will show, doubt- less, that a constitutional government in fact, if not in form, must follow this general diffusion of knowledge. And who can say that this is not the intention of Frederic William ? I see no other way_after all that has been said of his religion — to vindicate his character as an honest man. He, with other sovereigns of Eu- rope, who, like him, have hitherto disregarded their solemn pledges, promised his subjects a constitutional government if they would rally and unite in putting down Napoleon. They took him at his word. The farmer left his plough in the furrow ; the me- chanic closed the door of his shop ; the student left his books, and all rushed to the field of conflict. This unanimity and ardour ensured success. Napoleon fell ; and up to this hour the reward of their zeal has been perfidy, falsehood, and disappointed hopes. But, if the king hesitates to adopt this form of government, not because he loves power and disregards the truth, but because he fears the consequences until the people are educated ; and if he is diffusing light over his subjects that he may safely give them lib- erty, then is he worthy to be reckoned among the benefactors of the world The result will be seen, and, in the mean time, suspi- cion darkens by this long delay, and by certain rigorous measures of government against those who hold and teach constitutional doctrines, and especially by that cruel intolerance that incarce- rates a minister of the gospel because he conscientiously refuses to conduct Divine service in accordance with a royal dictation of a newfangled liturgy. Every day the plague-spot of perfidy grows darker upon the crest of the Prussian monarch ; and, if he dies leaving it an inheritance to his successor, it will be infamous to his character and a curse to his house.
COBLENTZ. 473
CHAPTER XXIV.
BUT it is time, perhaps the reader will think, to return to the passage of the Rhine. Our first stopping-place was at Coblentz, eighteen leagues from Mayence. This town derives its name by corruption, it is said, from Confluens, because it is situated at the confluence of the rivers Moselle and Rhine. The business of the city consists principally in storing and forwarding the mer chandise of the Moselle ; over this river is a bridge, built, it is said, by Bishop Baldwin, with money collected by the sale of in dulgences. There is also a bridge of boats over the Rhine, con- necting the town with the valley of Ehrenbreitstein. These bridges of boats are very common on this river, and they are very convenient. The platform of the bridge is laid upon the top of a succession of boats, which are moored close to each other, being made fast to posts or anchors above by means of cables. The rapidity of the current is favourably resisted by the sharpness of the prows, and the cables permit the entire mass to rise and fall with the waters of the river.
Coblentz, though small, containing but about eleven thousand inhabitants, is, nevertheless, in connexion with the fortresses in its immediate neighbourhood, one of the strongest positions, prob- ably, in the Prussian dominions. It appears to be strongly gar- risoned also ; for the Place d'Armes was full of soldiers the day we called, whose gay uniforms, contrasted with the verdant Linden- trees that surround this public square, made a very beautiful appearance.
The next town of importance is Bonn, which, like Coblentz, is situated on the left bank of the Rhine, and contains about twelve thousand inhabitants. This town is principally noted for its uni- versity, which now occupies the buildings formerly called the castle. The situation is elevated, and commands a fine view of the Rhine and the " Seven Mountains,11 The old Rheister Saal, or " Knights' Hall," once the scene of feudal conviviality and mirth, Is now a place of intellectual refreshment ; it is the room for the 40 30
474 GERMANY.
library. One would think the students of Bonn would be inspired with romance and poetry. Their academic halls, and the entire circle of their sensible horizon, are all rife with the associations of romance and chivalry ; and the scenery itself is most poetically picturesque.
We arrived at Cologne, and debarked for the night, for these Rhenish boats afford us no berths for sleeping. Here all the interest of the Rhine ceases ; below this the banks are flat and low, and the entire scene is as monotonous and dull as it is pic- turesque and animating above. Hence many travellers leave the river here and strike across Belgium, and taking Brussels, and Ghent, and the Field of Waterloo in their route, they embark for London or Dover at Ostend. We were somewhat in doubt which route would afford us the most interest; but having, from my earliest recollections, associated something peculiar with my idea of that land which has been wrested from the domains of Neptune, and presuming that this would be my only opportunity of gratifying curiosity in reference to it, I determined to retain my berth and visit Holland.
We had a little time in the evening and morning for examining this ancient city, which dates back to the time of Marcus Agrippa, who laid the first foundation of the city by making this site a place of encampment for the Roman army.* It is on the left bank of the Rhine, and lies in the form of a crescent, extending on the river about one league. It contains about sixty thousand inhabi- tants. Formerly it was entirely under the influence of Romanism and superstition, and, as a matter of course, its government was ty- rannical and oppressive. At one time, in the fifteenth century, on account of an insurrection among the weavers, seventeen hundred looms were burnt by order of government, which impolitic act drove the cloth manufacturers from the city. In 1618 all the Protestants were expelled the city ; in 1425 all the Jews were banished. No wonder, after such a course of bad policy, the French, when they took the city in 1794, should find in it twelve thousand mendicants, whose particular stations, in many instances, had become a sort of property, and descended to their children as an inheritance. These, with twenty-five thousand ecclesiastics, were enough, one would think, to drink up all the lifeblood of the
'* By some it is supposed that this was the site of the capital of the ancient Uhlans,
COLOGNE. 475
city. The French, however, broke in upon this system of men- dicity and superstition, and the city is improving.
Cologne contains a fine specimen of German architecture in its unfinished cathedral, which was commenced in the thirteenth century. Among other tombs and monuments, this cathedral, it is said, contains the relics of the magi, or " three kings," who came from the east to worship the babe Jesus in the stable. The sarcophagus was superbly ornamented with gold, and silver, and precious stones, but it suffered much by removing it when the chapter fled at the time of the French invasion in 1794. It was returned in 1804, much mutilated, but has since been par- tially restored. Here, too, is the tomb of Queen Mary de Medicis, mother of Louis XIII. The sainted Empress Helena built a church here, as well as at Bonn, thus showing that the enter- prising spirit of this Christian heroine led her to the West as well as to the East; a missionary of unremitting zeal in Palestine, in the deserts of Arabia, and in the barbarous regions of Transalpine Gaul. Bating her superstition, which was rather the fault of the age than of any one individual, what a worthy example of Christian enterprise was exhibited in this extraordinary woman ? Who of modern days can compare with her ? On the site of the church which she built in Cologne stands now the church of St. Gereon, which is a fine structure, built in the eleventh century.
P. P. Rubens, who was born in a house in this city, still shown to the stranger, was baptized in the church of St. Peter. The fount in which he was baptized, and the tombstone of his father, are still preserved in the church, as also a beautiful picture of his, representing the crucifixion of the Apostle Peter.
Cologne is almost wholly Catholic, there being less, probably, than two thousand of Jews and Protestants within its walls.
Among various other manufactories, the famous eau de Cologne or Cologne water, which takes its name from this city, where it was first invented, is still very extensively manufactured here We were told there were fifteen manufactories of this article, which furnish for exportation to the amount of three hundred thousand francs annually. We went to the old shop of M. Jean Marie Fa- rina, and bought several bottles, so that we might be sure, for once in our lives, that we had obtained the "genuine article"
Our next day's sail was to Nimeguen, the capital of the prov«
476 GERMANY.
ince of Guelderland, one hundred and twenty-five miles from Co- logne. On going on board in the morning we found our compa- ny had very much changed, and had become considerably dimin- ished. One party, however, in which we had become very much interested, was with us still. It was that of a German princess and her suite, consisting of a young lady, Count Falkenstein, be- fore mentioned, a colonel of the Austrian service, &c. They were all fine companions, and contributed not a little to the inter- est of the rest of our voyage, not only to Holland, but thence to England. They were intelligent, social, and courteous, and uni- ted, to a great degree, simplicity of manners with dignity of char- acter. By some means we became acquainted with each other, and consorted together with a freedom and an attachment not com- mon with strangers, especially with strangers so unequal in rank as that of plain republicans on the one side and princes on the other. All etiquette in the matter was waived, and we became, for the rest of the way, in a manner, of one party. The intimacy commenced, I believe, in the first place, between the ladies, who, although generally more wary and tenacious of etiquette than the opposite sex, have also stronger sympathies, which, under some circumstances, will strangely draw together and cement in one distant and unaffiliated minds. And when this union is once ef- fected between them, we of the other sex, whose affinities are not so strong, are, as a matter of course, readily drawn into the same association. On this account, as well as many others, I should advise travellers to take their ladies with them. True, they will, by this means, be retarded somewhat in their speed ; will be en- cumbered with more baggage, in the ratio of three to one, and will have more solicitude and responsibility ; but not more than they ought to have, to form a proper ballast to the mind. And then how does such company heighten the pleasures of the traveller ! how does the female influence open the way for the stranger, where otherwise he could not go ! How does it attract to him sympathies and courtesies in a foreign land which otherwise he could not secure ; and, in addition to all, and I speak feelingly here, if sickness come upon him in that far-off land, how cheering to his heart to enjoy her soothing and assiduous attentions, when otherwise he must be abandoned to the mercenary sympathies of a hireling stranger !
BRANCHES OF THE RHINE. 477
Our passage to Nimeguen was mostly devoid of interest from without. We passed a number of small towns on the low banks of the Rhine, which afforded a little variety to the flat, tame scenes that, in every direction, and hour after hour, met our sight.
In fifteen or eighteen miles of Nimeguen we came to the point of the division of the waters, the old Rhine, as it is called, pass- ing off to the right, while the branch called Waal keeps to the left to Nimeguen, and thence to the sea ; not, however, in one channel, for the arms are multiplied as you approach the sea, and run in dif- ferent directions, and are subdivided into various subordinate chan- nels, natural and artificial. The Rhine, in fact, is like a mighty tree, with various and extended roots and multitudinous branches. By its roots it connects with the sea, and with its branches it pen- etrates the Continent, and spreads out over the Alpine mountains. I said by its roots it connects with the sea. This, however, is not true of all its roots. The right branch, or the old Rhine, passes down to Utrecht, where a small arm shoots off to the north into the Zuyder Zee, and the principal branch, passing down by Leyden, seems to labour much to bear its accumulated treasures to the ocean ; but is overpowered by the opposing sands, which, like a mighty leviathan, " drink up the river," and are thirsty still.
At the point of division first mentioned, hydraulic works are erected to regulate the course of the waters, on which depends, it is said, the very existence of Holland. But for these works, in the great flood of 1784 that province would have been deluged and destroyed.
Nimeguen is an interesting town, and the more so as contrasted with the flatness of the surrounding region, being itself so eleva- ted and precipitous as to enable one to overlook the tops of one range of houses from the windows of the other ; and from the high- est part is a fine and an extensive view of the country around, and of the four rivers, Meuse, Waal, Rhine, and Issel. Here Julius Caesar built a castle, which was afterward inhabited by Charle- magne. At this place we lost more of our company, who took a route to Utrecht, and thence to Amsterdam ; but we preferred to keep on our course to Rotterdam, especially as it was now the last day of the week.
In the remainder of our voyage we had very little to interest us except the dikes by which this stolen world is kept from re-
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turning to the dominion of the ocean, and here and there a village, which, if it had no other attraction, was sure to be connected with some historic event that made it a spot of associated interest. Among these was Loevestein, where that great and good man, Grotius, was imprisoned three years for daring to be a friend of liberty, and afterward made his escape by the stratagem of his wife (what will not conjugal affection in a woman's breast accom- plish ?) who caused him to be conveyed away in a box used for carrying books. A very expressive transaction this ; for any box containing the living head of Grotius might well be represented as full of books ; for Grotius's head contained all the books of the
age.
We also passed the town of Dort, or Dordrecht. This place is celebrated on various accounts. The land on which it is situated was constituted an island by being torn from the shore in a ter- rible inundation which occurred in 1421, and which destroyed seventy-two villages and one hundred thousand persons. Here also was born the celebrated Dewitt. Dort is famous, moreover, for enduring a number of sieges without ever being taken ; so strong is its natural situation. But not floods, nor wars, nor great men have done half as much to give this city celebrity as the fa- mous (I might j.ustly say infamous] synod which, in 1618 and '19, was convened here to CONDEMN, what had already been prejudged, the tenets of James Arminius. I believe the great body of the Christian world now, both Calvinistic and Arminian, unite in con- demning the course of this council, whatever may be thought of the truth or falsity of many of their decisions. That a Protestant council should proceed with such partiality, bigotry, and violence against men of eminent learning, and amiable manners, and unim- peachable lives, high in office, and sustained by a large circle of friends and followers, merely because they differed from their brethren on the vexed abstrusities growing out of the doctrine of predestination, is a disgrace to the Protestant name. As one sails by this noted city, he may almost fancy he hears the rough and angry voice of the president, Bogerman, driving the defenceless remonstrants from the council with their cause unplead ; and fan- cy pursues them still as they walk back to their lodgings with their dignified spirits unbroken ; the hisses and scoffs of the cit- izens, and of the very rabble of the streets, assail them as they
A FORTUNATE ESCAPE. 479
pass. What an unenviable character have that council and the citizens of that age entailed upon Dort. I know this generation is not to be criminated for the transactions of more than two cen- turies' standing ; but it is difficult to pass the city without feeling that this generation " are the children of them that did these things." Would that the doings of that council could be blotted from the history of Protestantism. There is, however, one consolation, and that is, that such transactions are not only not in accordance with, but directly opposed to, the teachings and spirit of genuine Protestantism.
A sail of ninety-five miles from Nimeguen brought us to Rot terdam early in the afternoon ; in time, in fact, to take a genera, view of most that is interesting to a stranger in this commercial city.
We sallied out, as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made and a valet procured, to examine Rotterdam. We had walked but a few paces before we passed a dog on the sidewalk in violent convulsions, and a moment after he passed us at full speed, snapping at us as he went by, and just in advance of us he turned aside to a man who was at work upon the quay, who for- tunately had on thick boots. With these the rabid animal pitched battle, and, after repeated repulses, he was at length kicked off the wharf into the dreaded element of the dock, where he was fal- len upon by numbers, and undoubtedly soon despatched. We have had no hairbreadth escapes to give life and incident to our journal, but, in this case, we had occasion at least for gratitude to a protecting Providence that saved us from so dangerous a foe.
The first thing that strikes the attention of the stranger in this country is the extreme cleanliness of the place and of the people. Cloacina, it must be confessed, after all, holds her court in Hol- land ; and well does she administer her government. Her chief executive officers appear to be females, whose banner is a scour- ing-cloth. And as Saturday is the day of general exercise and review, we had an opportunity, to our great annoyance, of noticing a full share of the administration ; for it must be understood that the outside has to be scoured as well as the inside. The streets, the sidewalks, the walls, all must undergo a lustration once a week ; and the pedestrian may think himself well off if, after a good look-out, he has not a share of the rinsings upon his clothes.
480 GERMANY.
Some features of this town are like those of Venice. It is pen- etrated by numerous canals of different sizes, and vessels go into the very interior of the city in various directions. These canals and water-channels, however, are lined with trees, which grow in abundance in the city, and the streets are wide and commodious for carriages in every part of the city ; and there are also beauti- ful quays, the most magnificent of which is called the Boom-Tees, beautifully ornamented with double rows of trees. A street runs through the centre of the city called High-street, which is on the top of a dike erected to protect Holland from inundations. How necessary this may be, the reader will judge when he is informed that so late as 1825 the water rose to the height of twenty -four feet above the level of the province of Holland ; and but for this dike the whole must have been submerged to that depth under the water. Truly, these inhabitants, with such exposures contin- ually menacing them, ought to be aquatics, or, at least, amphibious. As the neighbourhood of Naples is continually threatened with a deluge of fire, so this is constantly exposed to a deluge of water. The inhabitants of both, however, seem to have become used to it, and live without fear. What a paradox is man ! There are also other dikes, and all of them are planted with double rows of trees, with an intervening pavement. Under the dikes there are sluices and tide-gates, by which, at low tide, the interior country is drained of its surplus water, the pressure of which opens the gates for the purpose ; but when the tide rushes in it shuts these gates, and prevents the interior country from being flooded. Windmills are also used for the purposes of draining off the surplus water.
Many of the edifices of Rotterdam, both public and private, are elegant. The great church or cathedral is one of the four princi- pal churches that belong to the Dutch Reformed. This has a tower two hundred feet high, which gives a most extended view to the spectator over this flat country, embracing arms of rivers, and canals almost innumerable, and a great number of towns and villages. The organ is thought to be the most magnificent in the kingdom. It was thirty-five years in being built, and cost three hundred thousand florins.*
There is an English, and also a Scotch Presbyterian church, an English Episcopal church, a French Reformed church, an
* A florin is about forty-two cents.
KIJ1 _..!
BRASS STATUE OF ERASMUS. 481
Evangelical Lutheran, two churches for the Remonstrants, one for the Anabaptists, and six for the Roman Catholics (two of these last are for the Jansenists), and a synagogue of the Jews. I mention these to show how vain was the mighty effort of the Synod of Dort to introduce uniformity, and stop the spread of what they called heresy, by the strong arm of authority. One thing they have accomplished, I believe ; and that is, they have banished the power and spirit of the gospel from among them almost en- tirely. While contending violently for the peculiarities of doctrine, and persecuting others, the holy fires upon the sacred altars ap- pear to have become almost extinct. Of a great part of the churches of the Netherlands it might, perhaps, be said in truth — " Having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof."*
In the public square of the great market is a beautiful brass statue of Erasmus, having on his doctor's hat and toga, and hold- ing a book in one hand, while the other is employed in turning over the leaves. Among other inscriptions is one in Dutch, which has been translated as follows :
" Here rose the great sun that set at Bale. May the imperial town honour and celebrate the saint in his tomb ; the city that gave him birth gives him this second life. But the luminary of the languages, the spirit of morality, t{ie glorious wonder that shone in charity, peace, and divinity, is not to be honoured by a mausoleum nor to be rewarded by a statue. Hence must the heavenly vault alone cover Erasmus, whose temple scorns a more limited space*"
The house where he was born, in 1467, stands near this public
uare. It is said, when the statue was first erected, it was annu- ally scoured so bright that it shone in the sun like gold ; but as this would in time mar the likeness, by wearing out the more del- icate lineaments, it was discontinued.
Rotterdam has little in it of interest to the stranger, except the general features of the town, the principal of which have been al- ready alluded to. In its population and trade it is only second to Amsterdam among the cities of Holland ; and it may, perhaps, in time, rival Amsterdam itself. Its ship channel is about to be im- proved by a new passage, which, it is said, will give a depth of
* The Sabbath is much abused. The tea-gardens around Rotterdam are crowded in fce afternoon of the Sabbath with pleasure-taking multitudes.
41 3P
482 GERMANY.
thirty feet instead of twenty, which is the depth of the present channel. The ice leaves the port sooner than at Amsterdam, and the tide alone will float a ship to sea in three hours. The site is at the point where the river Rotte connects with the Merwe ; this latter is the most northern branch of the Meuse. When, however, we speak of rivers in Holland, the reader must under- stand only one of those watery arteries that run across this coun- try in almost every direction, which are not supplied by fountains of their own from the interior, but are arms of the Rhine, of the sea, &c. The population of the city is about sixty thousand.
The commerce of Holland is somewhat embarrassed by the ex- cessive taxation imposed by the government. The necessity for this has been increased, rather than diminished, by the late diffi- culties with Belgium. It is not supposed, however, by the intel- ligent citizens with whom I conversed, that the loss of that country will be any disadvantage to the Dutch Netherlands ; but, on the contrary, an advantage. The king, however, thinks otherwise, and he contends for the integrity of his realm with great pertinacity and obstinacy. He not only refuses to recognise the separation, but he will not acknowledge any of the public functionaries of Belgium, nor any of their official acts. A passport even, which is only stamped and signed by a Belgic officer, is rejected, and the traveller holding it is not allowed to pass. An instance occurred when we were coming down the Rhine of two English gentle- men, who, because they came through Belgium, were refused a passage through the country, and were obliged to turn back.
The entire population of his Dutch majesty's present domin* ions is three millions. Of these, about two hundred and sixty thousand are Roman Catholics, and forty thousand are Jews ; the remainder are Protestants.
In an excursion to the Hague, a distance of about fourteen miles, we had an opportunity of seeing a fair specimen of the stiff, yet peculiar and interesting scenery of Holland. We trav- elled by coach, although the more common way is by canal ; for the canals here are more numerous than the highways of most countries. The country is everywhere perfectly flat ; the canals are generally planted with trees ; and these, with the numerous small canals, and ditches shooting out in every direction, consti- tute the general features of the landscape, with the addition of the
THE HAGUE. 483
windmills, which are more prominent *nd magnificent than any- thing else in the country. These windmills have high towers, many of them neatly finished, and the lower stories not unfre- quently constituting convenient tenements. You see them in every direction, sometimes ranged along in extended rows, and skirting the horizon as far as such an object can be visible to the naked eye.
The houses and country seats by the side of the canals were pleasant : their gardens extended to the bank of the canals, and frequently, in addition to other appendages, had a summer-house in one corner, finished in a beautiful airy style, with a convenient room, or parlour, in which, as we passed at the hour of tea, the families were generally assembled to drink their favourite bev- erage. Tea-drinking is universal in Holland, more so than smo- king, for both sexes drink tea ; and they contrive to have both going on together. I noticed in their tea-gardens, when a party of gentlemen and ladies were sitting round the table, while the latter were sipping their tea, the former would have their long pipes lighted, the bowls of which reached the centre of the table, and thus they regaled the olfactories of the ladies with the fumes of the West India weed, while they were refreshing another sense with a decoction of the East Indian plant. The drinking of in toxicating liquors seemed also very common in Holland ; intem- perance, in fact, appears to have taken deep root in society.
We found a delightful hotel at the Hague, called the Old Doelan; it had commodious apartments and a most splendid drawing-room. Indeed, the town itself, though not very large, containing about thirty thousand inhabitants, is most magnificent : it seems to be filled with palaces. The streets are broad and clean ; the squares are elegantly built, and beautifully ornament- ed with trees and walks. The Vyverberg especially, which is a large oblong square, is very fine ; it has an avenue of trees on the one side, and the royal palace and an artificial lake on the other. The principal street is called Voorhaut, and seems to be built up with a succession of palaces.
The Royal Museum has a splendid Chinese cabinet, which comprises the most extensive collection of Eastern curiosities I have ever seen. Here, also, is a beautiful model of a Dutch town ; and the model of the interior of a house, made by order of
484 GERMANY.
Peter the Great, at an expense of thirty thousand francs. In this museum there is also a fine collection of pictures, mostly of the Flemish school. The royal library contains, we were told, one hundred and twenty thousand volumes, although some of the guide-books say seventy thousand volumes ; and in the same building with the library is a collection of medals amounting to thirty-four thousand pieces. There is in this city, also, a muse- um of natural history, which was carried away by the French, but restored again at the peace of 1814.
Near the Hague is a wood two miles long and three quarters of a mile broad, consisting of very large and noble forest-trees, that reminded me of the trees of our own native forests. The proximity of this grove to this splendid city, and the deep, dark, venerable aspect of the grove itself, give it a character of beauty and sublimity seldom met with. In this wood is a palace called the "palace in the wood?
Leaving Mrs. F. somewhat indisposed at the Hague, I jumped into a coach and paid a short visit to Leyden, a distance of twelve and a half miles. Part of our route was very pleasant, but the greater part was over a sandy country, comparatively barren. The sea was about two miles distant from us at the left, befcweea which and us were piled, in barren confusion, the sand-banks which were thrown up in a terrible storm in the year 860, by which the principal mouth of the Rhine was buried, and the waters have ever since been lost in the sand. My time at Leyden was short, and unfortunate in respect to the principal object of my visit, which was to see the far-famed university, as the profes- sors were mostly absent. I found one of the professors at home, however, who treated me with great courtesy. This celebrated seat of learning has at present about three hundred students, and an extensive board of professors. The old system of giving the instruction in Latin is still kept up in most of the departments ; the lectures, however, in the natural sciences, and, I think,, in the department of medicine, are given in the vulgar tongue. The university is well provided with a museum of natural history and comparative anatomy, in which is a splendid collection of Eastern birds, formerly belonging to Mr. Zemmink of Amsterdam. They have also a fine botanical garden, and a library of about fifty thou- sand volumes. These Dutch towns are very fine ; there is a sort
llcl
th
V
PASSAGE TO ENGLAND. 485
of general elegance about them that renders them the very re- verse of the Italian towns. The latter have their points and spots of interest, while the great whole is filthy, or, at best, pov- erty-smitten and dull. But the Dutch towns have a general ele- gance; cleanliness is everywhere apparent; the houses are well built, the streets are commodious, trees abundant and flourishing, and the gardens verdant and beautiful. All this is especially true of Leyden. The environs of Leyden are also beautiful, abound- ing with country seats, gardens, and fruitful fields. The waters of the canals sometimes spread out into pools, and artificial lakes add also to the interest of the scenery. I cannot say, however, what effect the heat of a long summer may have upon these low grounds, covered with a luxuriant vegetation, and abundant in bodies of water almost stagnant. Already, though but the month of June, the surface of the water in some of the canals, and pools is almost as green as the banks themselves, and the natural infer- ence would be, that they would soon become extremely offensive and deleterious to health. Experience proves, however, that Holland is not unhealthy. Their northern latitude (fifty-two de- grees) and their cleanliness are probably the causes why the summer exhalations do not breed contagion. I had a great desire to linger longer around these enchanting scenes at Leyden, whose natural and artificial beauties were heightened and hallowed by
e memories of such worthies as Arminius, and Episcopius, and Vossius, and a host of others whose names are immortal. What land had done more for learning, and, I might add, for religion, and for the cause of civil liberty, up to the period of the Synod of Dort, than Holland ? The spirit and principles that then tri- umphed finally withered, as they must always wither, the intel- lect and the heart of the nation.
We returned to Rotterdam in time to join our old friends of the Rhine in taking the steamer the next morning for London, The distance is two hundred and twenty miles, and the passage, which we -had long dreaded on account of our strong propensity to sea- sickness, proved one of the most delightful, I venture to say, that was ever experienced in the British seas. The weather was fine, and the bosom of the deep was scarcely disturbed by a swell or a yipple during the whole voyage. On the morning of the 28th June, 1837, we entered the mouth of the Thames with feelings 41
486 ENGLAND.
of joy and gratitude, second only to those we expect to experience if Providence permit us again to reach our own native land.
In working our way up the Thames on the beautiful morning of our entering that extraordinary river, we were more than ever impressed with the vast amount of business upon this outlet of the British metropolis. It was covered with steamboats, ships of dif- ferent sizes, and water-craft of all descriptions. Of the bustle and crowd upon this river no one can have any conception who has not seen it. Some little idea can be formed by noticing in detail some of the agencies and items of business transacted on this river. From the mouth to the metropolis, following the windings of the river, the distance is sixty miles. In this distance twelve hundred revenue officers are on duty continually ; four thousand men are employed in shipping and unshipping goods ; eight thou- sand watermen navigate the small craft and wherries. The num- ber of vessels of various kinds engaged in the river is estimated at thirteen thousand four hundred and forty-four, embracing a ton- nage of between two and three millions. The number of pack- ages annually received and discharged at the port is calculated at three millions, at an estimated aggregate value of seventy million pounds sterling.
From the extended and contiguous villages on either side, there seems almost a continuous city from the port to some twenty miles down the river. As the channel is not wide, the reader can judge something of the crowded and bustling character of the scene, especially at those hours of the tide most favourable to the entry and departure of the larger sized vessels ; for as the tide rises and falls many feet, and with a strong current, the motion of the larger vessels is regulated very much by the ebbs and floods of the tide. At full tide the largest sized vessels can float up to the port, and they generally wait the favourable turn of the tide for entering or departing. This, indeed, to some extent, regulates the arrival and departure of the more than one hundred steamboats that float upon this river. On this occasion our own boat could not get up to its proper landing-place on account of the lowness of the tide, and we were obliged to take passage in one of the wherries which are always in attendance for this purpose. This was very annoying to the princess, for the custom-officers who came aboard would not suffer the baggage to be moved^ and the
ARISTOCRACY OF THE ENGLISH. 487
princess would not move until she could take her baggage with her. It was in vain we all told her it would be safe ; in vain we offered to watch it and see it up ; her decided answer was, " I go not till my baggage goes." At length we got our baggage started and ourselves on shore. Here again, and for the last time in a foreign land, we had to wait the movements and submit to the searching operations of the custom-house. In this, however, in consequence of our intimacy with the princess and her suite, we were highly favoured. Our trunks were scarcely opened, and all were passed immediately, and we were permitted, after this nom- inal ceremony, to take our luggage and depart ; whereas we might otherwise have been detained until nearly night, and have been obliged to have our clothing and effects all unpacked and deranged. Here we parted with the amiable princess and her intelligent and interesting companions ; long shall we remember them ; they are among the worthies of the earth ; noble, yet humble, well calculated among kindred minds to give and receive pleasure; they travel to their own profit, and take pleasure in communica- ting profit to others. If all travellers possessed this spirit, how much would the pleasure and profit of travelling be enhanced ! But too many, and this is emphatically true of a great portion of the English, wrap themselves up in their own dignity, and appear to lose a great portion of the social enjoyments of life through a fear that their caste will be desecrated by any chance familiarity with persons of a lower or a plebeian rank. When the English gentleman or lady meets you abroad, they look at you with a sort of inquisitorial scrutiny, that asks, in language too plain to be misunderstood, " Are you respectable ?" The feeling of an Amer- ican, in turn, is generally intimated by a look that says, " It is nothing to you whether I am or not ; you take care of your own dignity and I will attend to mine," and this puts an end to all further intercourse. It would be unjust, however, not to say here, that although this prevails to an extent that gives a general char- acter to the English abroad, yet it is far from being universal ; we met with many very pleasant exceptions, and, I believe, wher- ever we were known as Americans, there was less of shyness than is generally manifested between Englishmen who meet as strangers. This I attribute to the less fear they have of possible embarrassment hereafter by an acquaintance and familiarity with
488 ENGLAND,
Americans, even though they should not prove to be as " respect- able" as themselves. In the first place, in consequence of the distance, they have little fear of their association and familiarities being afterward revived by the parties concerned, or their friends ; and, in the second place, as our scale of rank is not so distinctly and definitely graduated as with them, there is no great danger of an imputed inferiority which would prove embarrassing to either of the parties. But to return to our narrative. The first thing that struck our attention when we landed was the strange sound of our own language in the mouths of boatmen, porters, hackmen, waiters, and, in fact, of all we met. We had not, for the eight months of our absence, been destitute of the sound of the English language, but from these classes it was a rare sound ; and we had so long been accustomed to hold an imperfect intercourse with them through the medium of different foreign languages, the change seemed the more striking. It was like waking from a dream, and finding one's self at once among former delightful as- sociations. Never did the distinct accents of the polished and sweet-toned orator give such surprise and pleasure to my ear as did, on this occasion, the uncouth accents of these London Cockneys.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE reader will perceive, by the concluding remarks of the last chapter, with what different feelings we approached the British shores now from those which we experienced when landing in 1835. Then we were, for the first time, entering upon a foreign country ; now we have become familiar with transitions from one foreign nation to another. Then we were taking the first step in our temporary banishment from country and friends ; now we have come back to England for the purpose of taking our last step in our return from that banishment. Besides, our stay in England at the first had made us acquainted with numbers, to whom we returned as to old friends ; and to come back to mingle again with our own literature and our own religion, and to resume our wonted habits of social intercourse, was so unlike what w.e
ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 48B
had experienced during most of our absence, and such an ap- proximation to the endearments of home itself, that the change in our feelings can excite no surprise.
Indeed, the feelings of loneliness with which we entered Eng land at the first were soon removed. Directly after arriving I sent letters of introduction, with which my friends had favoured me, to Thomas Sands, Esquire, whose kind and prompt hospi tality introduced us to his family residence, in Everton, near Liverpool, two or three miles from town. With this truly polite and hospitable family we enjoyed greater opportunities for an acquaintance with the people than we could have done at a public house. To know the habits and social character of a people, we must see them at their own homes, and have an opportunity of mingling with them in the unrestrained intimacies of social and friendly intercourse. And I consider it as peculiarly favourable to one of the leading objects of my visit to England, that we have been mostly thrown, during our stay and travels in this country, into the very bosom of social and domestic life ; with these ad- vantages, I have endeavoured to gain what knowledge I could of this our fatherland. With what feelings I entered upon this work may be gathered, in part, from the following extract of a letter to G. P. Dissosway, Esq., written from Liverpool : —
And now here we are on the shores of Albion. And do you ask, " What are your ' first impressions V " I dare not trust to first impressions ; I am suspicious of them ; they have deceived many, and they may deceive me. I have come to England ex- pecting to be gratified and instructed. I have no prejudices against her. I have many and strong feelings in her favour. She is the mother of us all. From her we have received the grand outlines of our own social, political, and religious institutions. These have been modified by us, it is true, and, we think, improved in most cases. So much the more interesting, however, is the examination of the original models; models which are rendered peculiarly venerable by the very rust of antiquity with which they are discoloured and corroded ; for by this examination, com- paring the institutions as they now exist in the respective coun
ies with individual and national character, we can best judge the comparative excellences or deficiencies of each. It is
3Q
490 ENGLAND
natural for a traveller to compare ; his whole course of observa- tion is carried on by a comparison of what he sees with what he has been accustomed to. And here, it strikes me, is the point where most of the errors and false deductions of tourists originate. In this comparison they are extremely apt to give the preference to their own country. Habits, and local attachments, and, perhaps, what some would call patriotism, all unite to lead us to judge too favourably of our own institutions, and to censure others, of course, where they differ from us. Besides, the bearings, and dependences, and results of social institutions, together with physical causes, vary in their influences indefinitely ; and, there- fore, a condition of society that may be unfavourable in some re- spects may nevertheless be very desirable for other and more important influences, which the casual journalist entirely over- looks. Judging of the character of the cause by a part, and per- haps a less important part of the effects, a most erroneous deduc- tion is drawn, and the sage philosopher announces his discovery and passes his decision with oracular authority. This has been the course of numerous tourists in America. They have seen on the surface of society an apparent roughness of character and in- dependence of manner most decidedly unlike the character of the English in the same grades of society. It is in itself an unlovely feature, and it strikes the stranger with greater disgust than it does the American gentleman, and that for two important rea- sons : in the first place, the stranger is unused to it ; it comes upon him unexpectedly ; and, in the second place, nine times out of ten he provokes it — unintentionally it may be — because the manner with which he has been accustomed to address his ser- vants is that which indicates his conception of his own superi- ority. This the American servant will not bear; and he imme- diately gives the gentleman to understand that he calls no man master.
It must be confessed, however, that the character of our politi- cal institutions does give to many of the uneducated and unre fined a coarseness and bluntness of manner that is not agreeable. The gentleman is a gentleman anywhere and in every nation ; but the uncultivated will be likely to be coarse and uncorteous in his manner whenever he feels himself free from the restraints of dependance, especially if he wishes to show that he is free from those restraints. But what then ? Is this of itself sufficient to
LIVERPOOL DOCKS. 491
condemn our institutions ? Are there no advantages to offset against this evil ?
You will perceive, from the foregoing, that I have been long enough in England to see the difference between the deportment of the poor man here and the poor man in Amerca ; a difference that is written in legible characters on the very surface of society ; and it requires no great experience or shrewdness to discern it or write about it.
Never was I before so fully impressed with the buoyant and elevating character of republican institutions. How far this, on the whole, tends to human happiness is another question. One thing is clear, it is human nature for those who have superiority to wish to keep it, and for those who are inferior to wish to rise. But it seems to be according to the laws of a sound philosophy, as well as of our holy religion, that each man should be free to find that level in society to which his intellectual powers and moral worth, unshackled by any artificial arrangement in the social system, can elevate him.
But I forget. I am not so much called to philosophize and moralize at this time as to inform you of what I see and hear.
You must expect that whatever communications I may make will relate more to men than to the physical world ; more to the moral, intellectual, and political character of man than to his physical comforts and embellishments.
You will expect, however, that I should say something of Liv- erpool, as I have now been in the city some days. But a few- words must suffice. Every traveller mentions the large, commo- dious, and substantial docks of Liverpool, which are, in fact, above all praise, and are the first feature that interests the stranger as he approaches the town by water. On seeing these, the first inquiry of the American is, Why does not New- York build such docks ? The answer is at hand — America does everything for the present. This, however, may not be the only reason why , Liverpool is so much in advance of us in this matter. The tides of the river Mersey, on which Liverpool is situated, are so great, and the water at low tide is so inadequate for the largest sized ships, there seems to be almost a necessity that a place shut in from the sea, and, therefore, unaffected by ebbs and floods, should be provided for the vessels in the harbour. Such an accommo-
492 ENGLAND.
dation these docks afford. They are large reservoirs of substan tial stone masonry, in which the vessels are provided with any desirable depth of water, and are as perfectly secured as if housed in one of the large buildings of your Brooklyn Navy Yard, with the exception of the roof.
The public buildings, so far as I have examined, are not nu- merous ; at least such as are interesting. The Exchange is the best. In the court of this is a monument to Lord Nelson, the de- sign of which is to represent his principal victories. The device seems to be in bad taste, although the workmanship is very well. Fame is crowning him at the same time that Death is laying his fleshless hand upon the hero's heart. Beneath, at equal distan- ces, are the representations of the conquered in chains, with their faces most piteously resting upon the hand, and the hand upon the knee. There they sit, " for ever silent and for ever sad." It is a sight of monumental sorrow that makes one sad to look upon ; and, to add to the offensiveness of the design, the British lion holds the chain in his mouth, and never lets go. Does this rep- resent " the genius of universal emancipation ?"
The general exterior of the city is sombre and gloomy. This is what is said of all English towns. The reason is, doubtless, that the smoke of the coal, here universally used for fuel and for manufacturing purposes, renders any attempt at external bright- ness and freshness altogether futile ; and to this may be added the fact that the dampness of the climate operates powerfully upon paint and masonry, whether of stone or brick, to impart a dark and ancient appearance to the edifices. Hence this has become the English fashion, and now, therefore, the inhabitants would not have a fresh-looking edifice if they could ; it would be out of taste. This, to one accustomed to the bright and fresh walls of an Amer- ican city, has a most gloomy aspect, and I am not sure but it con- tributes something towards the low spirits of the inhabitants them- selves. This must be greatly counteracted, however, by the in- creased comforts within ; for, while Americans may have a live- lier exterior to their dwellings, the English appear to have, in general, a greater share of interior accommodations and conveni- ences.
I know not that others may have the same impression, but ev- erything almost in England seems, compared with what I have
EXCURSION TO CHESTER. 493
;n accustomed to, out of proportion as to length. The boats are short ; the carriages are short ; so are the people ; the houses are lower in general than is common with us. In fine, at first view, when coming on shore, everything seems to wear a novel aspect ; and yet that novelty is so much in small things that it gradually melts away, and in a little time the general features, which are essentially the same in both countries, are all that leave any lasting impression upon the mind. But I must for the present bid you adieu.
Yours truly,
W. FISK.
Liverpool, Oct 6, 1835.
Having, by the foregoing remarks and letter, translated the read- er from London, where we landed from the Continent of Europe, to Liverpool, where we first landed in 1835, I will continue my journal from that time and place,
The following letter, written at the time, will narrate our excur- sion to Chester.
To G. P. Dissosway, Esq.
MY DEAR SIR,
The old town of Chester is about fifteen or sixteen miles from Liverpool, and is a place of considerable interest, as is also Eaton Hall, which is in the same neighbourhood. I will amuse myself by giving you a short description of our excursion thither from Liverpool.
You have to cross the Mersey in a. ferry-boat to take the coach for Chester ; and here let me caution you against drawing any analogy in your own mind between your Brooklyn, Hoboken, or any other New- York ferry-boats and those of Liverpool. I did not come to England to find fault, but to tell the truth. Now the truth is, the New-York boats are as much before these, as these are before the old flat-bottomed scows which were formerly used for ferry-boats. But let that pass ; they may improve as they grow older. We crossed in the rain and dirt, took seat in the coach at Berkenhead, and arrived at Chester about five o'clock P. M., and put up at the " Feathers' Inn." And this, by-the-way, is as good a place as I can fix upon for the commencement of my 42
494 ENGLAND.
sketch of the city. This is the part of the town that has the greatest appearance of antiquity. Everything around you bears the marks of age ; and some monuments remain, showing that the city had an existence and a reputation as early as the days of the Roman conquest. Immediately under the Feathers' Inn, and back of a smith's shop, are the remains of a Roman hypocaust, or sub- terranean passage, and a sweating-bath. The interior of it is something like an oven. Here, in a space of about fifteen feet by six, the fire was built, and the heat was carried into the suda- toria above by small tubes, the holes for which are still seen. This is only one of many Roman antiquities which, according to the accounts, have been found here, many of which have been carelessly destroyed or lost. One other I shall have occasion particularly to mention when I come to speak of Eaton Hall.
One of the curiosities of Chester which will assist you in form- ing a better idea of the bath already mentioned is as follows : Some of the principal streets appear to be cut into the solid rock to the depth of one story of the buildings, so that the floor of the second story in the front is on a level with the ground in the back yard. Suppose, then, this smith's shop to occupy this lower story in front, you will readily conceive that the rear has the rock for its perpendicular wall ; and into this wall of rock, by an entrance as before described, is the furnace of the sweating-bath. The rock, however, is of easy excavation, being of a red sandstone, very similar to the red freestone of the Chatham quarries of Con- necticut. This, in fact, is the stone that forms the entire bed of this part of England a very little below the surface.
The next peculiarity of this old city is its " rotus" a word that, without an explanation, will carry no definite idea to your mind ; and which is used to designate a feature that I shall find it diffi- cult to describe. To give you an idea of it, however, suppose that the second story of all the buildings on a street were cut out fif- teen or twenty feet back into the body of the buildings, with posts and pillars left standing in front to support the upper part ; you will at once conceive, by such an arrangement, of a continuous portico running the whole length of a square, with one range of shops underneath. Now imagine this portico connected with the street by flights of steps, as often as convenience requires, and floored with flagging stones mostly, or some of the way with thick
ROWS." 495
oak plank, varying in its altitude by the varieties in the heights of the lower stories, not, however, by abrupt steps, but by gentle slopes, so as to give this interior walk a " pleasing variety of hill and dale," and you will have a tolerable idea of the Chester " rows,"
In the interior of these "rows," and fronting them, are the va- rious retail-shops of dry goods,* &c., constituting the " Cheap- side" of Chester. As these shops are, of course, badly lighted in front, most of them are accommodated with skylights. These shops make the " rows" the liveliest part of the town. Here all ages and ranks are passing and repassing continually on their in- terior sidewalk, free from molestation, from sunshine or rain. When this exhibition first met my eye, as I was riding into the town in a stage-coach, the novelty, and the mystery, and the pic- turesque character of the scene produced an indescribable effect. I could not tell what to make of it. There was a kind of enchant- ment about it ; and the more so as the front of the row was walled rap two or three feet, and, occasionally, a small shop or case of goods of some kind would be thrown in for economy's sake, or for exhibi- tion of wares, which partially intercepted the view ; and thus the passing multitudes appeared and disappeared in constant succes- sion, and yet without rule or order, and all in such a manner as to leave the stranger to doubt whether they were in doors or out.
The origin of these " rows" is so ancient that their design is not certainly known. Various speculations are afloat, the most plau- sible of which, in the opinion of most, is, that they were designed for greater security and defence in the early ages, when the town was harassed by the depredatory invasions of the Welsh. I will venture to suggest another theory : almost ever since I have been in England it has rained ; it was rainy while I was in Chester, and I found these " rows" very convenient for walking about the city while it rained without ; and so, apparently, did the citizens, for the ladies and others were busy in doing their shopping, as though it were a fair day. Now if such is the general character of the English weather, instead of wondering at the Chester rows>
Fbould wonder that every city was not built with "rows" and i archways over the streets. But if the antiquarian think my
* Dry goods is an Americanism. The English never understood the term wheu we it without in explanation.
496 ENGLAND.
theory savours too much of utilitarianism, a sin which, you are aware, I am more than half suspected of where I am known, then he must reject it, and adopt the one already suggested, or some other equally chivalrous and poetical.
Another feature of Chester, new, and, of course, interesting to me, is its walls. It has been a walled town time out of mind, and has repeatedly endured the terrors and horrors of a military siege. The old walls are still kept in a state of good repair, but " in these piping times of peace" they are only used for a promenade for pleasure and exercise, for which they are peculiarly adapted by the improvements they have undergone. The walls are about two miles in circumference, with occasional towers and gates most of which are fraught with historic associations. The city has always been remarkably loyal, and hence it has the honour- able appellation of the " Loyal city of Chester," This, perhaps, is owing to the fact of its having been one of the fortified posts where his majesty's troops were quartered. Nothing is better calculated to promote loyalty, even in the worst of times, than the presence of a strong garrison. But, whatever may be the cause, Chester has generally stood by the legitimate sovereign. Under Lord Byron, one of the ancestors of the late poet of that name, it endured against the republican army of Cromwell a twenty weeks' siege of extraordinary suffering ; and it was from the Phoenix tower, between the east and north gates, where the unfortunate Charles I. stood in 1644, and beheld the defeat of his army on Rowton Moor, after which the king fled to Oxford, and the city fell into the hands of the usurper Cromwell.
Chester is a bishop's see The present bishop (Sumner) is brother to the Bishop of Winchester jvho was so constantly with George IV. in his last illness and at his death, to whom the dying monarch addressed himself when he said, " Oh God I is this death ?" Alas ! poor man, he lived a profligate life, and died ***. But if anything of the kind could give the dying king consolation, it must have been the reflection that he had elevated to the epis- copal office two such men as these brothers, both of whom are represented to be pious, faithful, evangelical men ; and especially as he insisted upon the appointment of the Bishop of Chester against the remonstrance of the Duke of W., who, it is said, did not like Sumner, and suggested to the king that the government
THE CATHEDRAL. 497
was under greater obligations to some others ; but the king per- sisted, and the appointment was made. The see, however, is the poorest in the kingdom, and is generally considered only a step- ping-stone to something higher. Hence few ever die Bishops of Chester. This saying, therefore, has gone abroad, that "the Bishop of Chester is immortal." ^
The cathedral is venerable for age. Its site is an ancient ab- J bey, a part of which is contained in the present edifice. The bishop's throne, also, is said to have been the pedestal of the shrine of St. Werburgh, who was the abbess, and for whom the abbey was built eleven hundred years since. I cannot, however, stop to give a particular account of the edifice ; but as we have nothing in America except our forests, mountains, &c., that show the marks of age, I will once for all give you, if I can, in a few words, the idea of a stone edifice corroded by the slow but finally destructive gnawings of the tooth of time. The appearance is sadly interesting, and unlike, perhaps, what you might imagine. The effects are most seen at the corners of the stones. Hence a stone which is square when put into the building approaches more and more to a globular or spherical form. This gives the whole a very uneven appearance, and, as the corrosion and decay are not equal even in all the relative parts, owing to greater or less ex- posure, or to some variation in the character of the stone, or other causes, the surface assumes a very rugged appearance. Here and there, perhaps, a stone falls out ; another hangs in scales ; there is a recess where moss is gathering ; and here the wall is so discoloured that the character of the material is concealed. You gaze upon the wall until you see standing out in legible characters, " Man and his works are doomed to decay."
The castle stands on the site of the old castle, part of which still remains, and is incorporated with the new edifices. Here are the courtroom, the prisons, barracks, &c. Of these I cannot speak particularly, but must not pass over the costume of the Highland soldiers, some of whom are stationed here. They still wear the plaid kilts, which come a little more than half way down the thigh, leaving the remainder naked down to the middle of the calf, where is the top of the red and white plaid gaiter which cov- ers the ancle and foot. The kilt is faslened round the waist, and hangs loose like a skirt. The body is covered, and the head 43 3H "
498 ENGLAND.
adorned with a splendid cap and feathers. Indeed, the entire dress is an imposing and showy uniform ; but this nudity is al- most as indelicate as it must be uncomfortable, for it is worn in all climates and at all seasons. The wonder is that such a dress should be retained, and can only be accounted for on the known principle of habit and tradition, " As your fathers did so do ye."
But I must hasten to Eaton Hall. This is the country residence of the late Earl Grosvenor, now Marquis of Westminster, and of his son, who now takes his father's former title.* The ride thither, four miles from Chester, is most delighful. As you leave the city you cross the fine new bridge, which with one arch spans the river Dey just below the castle. Immediately after you leave the main road, and take a gravelled carriage road skirted on either hand at a little distance with beautiful shrubbery and woodland, leaving between the woodland and road an intervening lawn of about one rod on each side. The grass on this lawn is kept sheared close by a broad knife or scythe. This constant shearing (which is common, I believe, throughout the pleasure-grounds of England) gives to the greensward a thick, fine, velvet character, which greatly adds to the beauty of this lovely carpet of nature. Into this beautiful lawn, from the adjoining thickets, the game comes out to feed, numbers of which were seen as we passed along, especially hares, rabbits, and English pheasants. These greatly added to the life and interest of the scenery. We passed the cottage of one of the gamekeepers, numbers of whom are lo- cated in different parts of the grounds to guard them from invasion by unauthorized sportsmen, and to look after the game. The game laws are very severe. The hunting is a monopoly, and any not privileged presuming to shoot a bird or a quadruped is> heavily fined or imprisoned if detected. A little farther on we passed the northern lodge,f which has a fine Gothic arch springing sublimely over the entrance to the park. Here we passed, in un counted numbers, deerj of various kinds and colours, with theii proud antlers waving over their shoulders, and also large herds of
* The young earl and family are now on the Continent.
i Every important nobleman's, and even many gentlemen's seats, have entrances sometimes of arches and sometimes of noble pillars and statuary, with a cottage con aected for the porter. These are called lodges. They are generally some distance froo, and out of sight of the houses themselves.
t Our coachman informed us that " they killed a power of these every year.**
EATON HALL. 499
sheep. I ought to have mentioned that before entering the park we passed the marquis on horseback, who, with a single mounted groom attending him, turned off just before us into a road leading through another part of his grounds. We had the good fortune also to meet the marchioness in the farther part of the park (which extends quite up to the palace yard), who was just going out to take an airing in her phaeton, drawn by two elegant ponies. She drove her own carriage in graceful and horseman-like style, as be- came an English marchioness. The only other person in the car- riage was her footman, who sat much at his ease in his place be- hind. He, one would think, was the man her ladyship delighted to honour, for he was seated in her own carriage, and she, at her own expense (nay, doubtless, paid him for it also), drove him in lordly style over her family domains. Leave names and titles out of the question, and look at the thing as it is ; who is the ser- vant and who is the served ? On our return we met her ladyship returning in the same style.
We approached Eaton Hall on the west front. But, before we enter, let us look at the extevior. It is a superb Gothic edifice, finished with towers, turrets, pinnacles, and battlements of white freestone. The material, however, soon vegetates with moss, and becomes discoloured, so that the building, although begun in 1803, has now the appearance of age. The style is Gothic, and the entire length, including the two wings, which are finished with octagonal towers, is said to be four hundred and fifty feet in length. The stables, &c., adjoining, are built in the same style, and, at a little distance, appear to be a part of the same building; with these, the whole facade front is about seven hundred feet. It is, in- deed, a noble pile ; from whatever point you view it, you feel the same satisfaction, and seem never weary of the sight. The inte- rior is finished and furnished with equal magnificence. You ring the bell at the bottom of the stone steps ; a servant in full dress of tight smallclothes and white silk stockings ushers you into a splen- did entrance hall hung with paintings, and in the niches are effi- gies in full dress of ancient steel armour. Here you amuse your- self with the wonders of the place, until the " groom of the cham- bers," who, perhaps, may be showing another company through the apartments, is ready to wait upon you. You are shown suc-
jssively into the saloon, the state bedroom, the dining-room, the
500 ENGLAND.
chapel, the large and small drawing-rooms, the library, &c. I could not think of giving you a detailed description of this superb suite of apartments. They are finished in the best style, adorned with paintings of the first order, some of them with painted glass, and all with draperies of crimson, salmon coloured, and yellow satin and gold, with gold fringes and tassels. Four of the paintings are by our countryman, West, of whom the earl was an early and a munificent patron. In the large drawing-room was a screen of silk and gold, wrought by the present Queen of France. The mahog- any doors are said to have cost one hundred guineas each ; a pier- glass, which is fourteen feet in one plate, said to be the finest in the kingdom, cost, if I rightly understood the groom, one thousand eight hundred guineas. The furniture was in good keeping with the rooms, and discovered great chasteness of taste as well as elegance of design and costliness of execution. The motto of the Grosvenor arms was everywhere displayed, and a better one never was inscribed upon a coat of arms.
"Nobilitatis virtus non stemma character;"
or, as it is generally contracted,
" Virtus non stemma" " Virtue, not descent, the true mark of nobility."
This is truly a republican motto, and one we should least have ex- pected to see on the arms of a family whose blood has been noble from before the days of William the Conqueror, in whose suite the Grosvenor family came to England.
But I forget that you have not yet been introduced to the pleas- ure-grounds and gardens. The land on the east is a gradual slope to the Dey ; this slope is laid out in gravel walks, and adorned with trees, shrubbery, plants, and flowers in great vari- ety, and arranged singly, in clusters, and in parterres, in great taste. On one end of these grounds is the conservatory of exotic plants ; among which was the peerless flowering aloe, which blossoms at the age of one hundred years and then dies. The one we saw had about arrived to its goal, and will soon be crowned with its short-lived honours and expire ; sad representative of man's years of toil to grasp the crown of earthly honour, which fades almost as soon as enjoyed.
PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 501
On the opposite side is the Roman antiquity I promised to mention. It is contained in a little temple which the marquis has erected for its reception — an appropriate receptacle ; for the antique is a Roman altar ; it has inscribed on both its opposite sides the following : —
N YMPHIS
ET
FONTIBUS
LEG. XX.
V. V.
" To the Nymphs and Fountains, the 20th legion, the invinci- ble and victorious," so it has been interpreted and translated. The altar is four feet high, and was dug up near Chester in 1821. The floor of the temple is from the palace of Tiberius, in the island of Capri, and was purchased from the Duke Casserano. But I must hasten ; the other grounds are a kitchen garden and a fruit garden, the latter containing many hothouses for the pro- duction of foreign and tropical fruits. Here are grapes, and figs, and oranges, and lemons, and pineapples ; five hundred of these last are consumed in a year grown on the premises. The plant bears the second year, and then dies, producing but one apple. In some parts we noticed what is called rockwork, and rustic arches where plants spring out of artificial hills, and from be- tween ledges of rocks ; some of which were large fine specimens of minerals, which I could but covet for our mineralogical cabi- net, rather than see them exposed there for mere show to the corrosive influence of the weather.
The gardener was very polite, and took much pains to cull a choice boquet of various flowers for Mrs. F. ; and, at parting, gave us a specimen of the fruit, which had hung round us in tempting profusion during the latter part of our walk.
We started for our lodging a little after sunset, highly gratified with our afternoon's excursion ; and, I trust, as well satisfied with our own humble lot and plain republican mode of living as we were before we saw the splendour of the Grosvenor palace.
You need not fear that I shall trouble you or any of my friends with many such long descriptions. As we in America have no opportunity of examining such splendid establishments, I thought it might not be improper to give a somewhat detailed account of one
502 ENGLAND.
noble residence, as a specimen of British aristocracy. We returned to Chester to have our carriage surrounded by squalid poverty, begging for a penny to procure bread to satisfy their hunger, so true is it that luxury and want are always near neighbours. The marquis is said to be charitable ; but, alas ! what is a charity like this, which gives a little out of a princely estate, the most of which, however, is spent in superfluities. It is said one may ride twelve miles in a direct line without going off the Grosveruor estate, besides extensive possessions in the city of Chester and elsewhere. With such a fortune at command, what might not a man accomplish for our dark, wicked world, if he had the knowl edge and the heart necessary for the work !
Yours, in much esteem,
W. FISK.
We left Liverpool on the 6th of October for London on the Manchester railroad. This great channel of intercommunication has proved of immense service to the business of Manchester and Liverpool. Although the distance is about forty miles, yet it is accomplished in ordinary times in two hours; and sometimes much sooner. So that goods purchased in Manchester, the great cotton mart, are sent to Liverpool and shipped in the course of two or three hours, without the trouble of storage.
We stopped in Manchester but one night, but this was long enough to give us some little conception of the extent of English manufactories ; and long enough, also, to convince us of what we had often been reminded, that this was a smoky dirty town. Be- fore we reached it, and while approaching its borders, it was concealed from our vision by a dense cloud of smoke, which, like a black muffler, veiled the town from mortal eyes. We hurried through it and hastened on in our journey, to escape, as soon as we might, the fogs and rains of this humid and smoky atmo- sphere. We expected to give all these 'places another hearing under better auspices, and, therefore, we suspended all judgment for the present. It had rained most of the time since our arrival. The morning sometimes promised fair, just enough to tempt the uninitiated stranger abroad without his mantle or umbrella ; but before he was apprized of the approaching shower he was drenched in rain. November, they say, is the dark rainy month
THE POTTERIES. 503
in which Englishmen hang themselves ; but if any one has a tendency to hypochondria, he need not wait until November this year, I am sure, for the fit to overtake him. At all events, al- though, through Divine mercy, my spirits seldom sink, and, there- fore, I was in little danger of the hanging mania, still my catarrh and pulmonary complaints were so aggravated by this wretched climate, I had no wish to risk the experiment of a worse state of the atmosphere, and hence we hastened on to London as fast as prudence would justify. A few things, however, should be noted. Our second day's ride was to Birmingham, through Burslem and the potteries, in Staffordshire. This is the great porcelain and earthenware region ; for the reader should be aware, if he is not already, that a great portion of the different trades and manufac- tures of England is confined to particular towns and sections of the country. The district of country above alluded to, in • extent about eight miles by six, is called " The Potteries." And here, for the first time in my life, much and often as I had read on the subject, I obtained a tolerably adequate conception of Brit- ish manufactures ; of their extent, and of the vast amount of capi- tal vested in them. It seemed as though all the porcelain and earthenware for the supply of the world might be made here. Acre after acre and mile after mile of kilns and furnaces, crowded together in some instances, or a little more scattered in others, covered this region. Burslem is the principal town, and con- tains about eleven thousand inhabitants. It has nearly doubled its population since this century came in, so great has been the increase in this branch of industry. The first pottery institution in England is spoken of here. This was greatly extended in 1690 by two brothers from Holland, who settled here and made some improvements in the art. This might have been extended still farther, but Old England had not then learned to appreciate her manufactures above the value of a pure atmosphere. The neighbouring inhabitants quarrelled with the Hollanders on ac- count of the bad odour of the fumes of their potteries, and they returned home. In 1763 Mr. Josias Wedgwood, a gentleman to whom science and the arts are greatly indebted, and whose in- ventions and improvements are well known to the world, made great advances in the art of pottery, and got up a large estab- lishment in this district, which, after that country in Italy where
504 ENGLAND.
ancient pottery was carried to such great perfection, he called Etruria. This establishment is still in the hands of his sons or grandsons. The reason, doubtless, why this section abounds in potteries is, that coal is abundant here, and also those kinds of clay which are most used in this art are found in this region in great quantities, while the soil itself is unfit for agricultural pur- poses. Much of the clay, however, is brought from Dorsetshire and Devonshire. Besides Burslem, there are fourteen other towns in " The Potteries" which contain extensive establishments. In this, as in most of the manufacturing districts, there are many dissenters from the established church, and Methodism especially has extended itself here more than any other sect.
As we approached the lower part of Staffordshire, in Wolver- hamptom, Wednesbury, West Bromwich, &c., we had a noctur- nal exhibition of another kind of manufactory, which was alto- gether unexpected, and of a character entirely new to us. Be- fore we reached this region it was night, and that was a cloudy, dark night. Suddenly we found ourselves in a region of fire. Flames were bursting out of the earth in every direction, some- times in a steady blaze, and sometimes in fitful, flashing alterna- tions of flame and smoke. Here were large masses of molten fire, and there were vast piles of smouldering and gleaming em- bers ; and all these commingled, and extending as far as the eye could reach, and continuing through successive miles of our journey.
The occasion of these phenomena we found to be the combined operation of working mines, and of roasting, smelting, and forging iron. In the coal districts the coal is all raised from deep subter- ranean pits by steam power ; so also are the iron ore and the lime which are used for a flux in smelting the ore, both of which are found in the same district of the coal, and in different strata of the same shaft or pit. The fires which generate the steam usually blaze out at the top of the flues, and the workmen also commonly have fires blazing at the mouth of the pit. Frequently large masses of fine and unsaleable coal are set on fire to get them out of the way All this makes a good deal of fire ; but the most vivid is from the roasting of the iron, and from the furnaces and forges. Altogether, the scene was to us terribly sublime, the more so, doubtless, be- cause it was perfectly new to us, having never heard of the exhi- bition till it burst upon us through the thick gloom of that dark night.
505
At one time the image of Tophet of old would rush across our minds, and the perpetual fires of the Valley of Hinnom, with the smoking sacrifices of writhing infants offered upon the altars of Moloch. The tall black figures of the workmen, as they loomed up passing and repassing between us and the fires, might readily be taken for the officiating priests in these cruel rites of human sacrifices ; and when we consider the character of many who la- bour here, the prevalence of intemperance and blasphemy, and especially the manner in which many of these parents, generation after generation, devote their children as heirs to this same drudg- ery, degradation, ignorance, and sin, the idea suggested above is not far from the reality. Here, in too true a sense, doubtless, are thousands of children made to pass through these fires to Moloch.
At another time the turning wheels, and creaking machinery, and hissing forges brought up the recollections of
" Vulcani domus et Vulcania nomine ttfttus*
Here Vulcan's forges breathe out fire and flame } The region here must bear old Vulcan's name.*
From this time forward, I said to myself, I will call the lower part of Staffordshire Vulcania.
And yet, again, as the scene varied and the prospect was en- larged, as the bursting flames glared more vividly upon the wall of impenetrable darkness in the distance, more awful and solemn images were suggested ; the exhibition of that day when the in- ternal fires of our globe shall burst through their barriers and wrap the earth in flames ; or the associated thought hovered over scenes still more painful, over that lake of fire where the incorri- gibly wicked experience the pains of the " second death," and " the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever"
We rested one night at Birmingham, the British toyshop. In our passage to London the next day we passed some interesting towns, among which was the city of Coventry. This is an old town, having had some character as far back as the time of Ed- ward the Confessor, 1041. It was about this time that Leofric, the Earl of Mercia, as the story goes, consented that his lady, Go- diva, should be gratified in her importunity to confer a public fa- vour upon the town, on condition that she should agree to ride
* The classical reader will excuse my free translation,
43 3S
506 ENGLAND.
through the city naked. Her benevolence overcame her feelings of modesty, and she, for the public good, consented ; the more readily as she had long and abundant hair, with which she could mostly conceal her person ; and especially as all the inhabitants were, by agreement, to keep within and close their windows. Only one, a tailor by the name of Tom, ventured to peep out. He, it is said, was immediately struck blind ; and, to perpetuate his shame, he was for ever after called "peeping Tom." The window out of which he peeped has been formed into an open niche, and in it is placed an image of the curious tailor, where it remains unto this day a monument of his disgrace. To commem- orate this event, and in proof that, in its essential features, it is true, there is an annual festival in Coventry, on which occasion a female slightly attired in close flesh-coloured apparel rides through the city, personating the character of the benevolent Godiva.
Coventry contains a population of about twenty-seven thousand, and carries on an extensive business in the manufacture of ribands. It is the " Riband Region" of England. It does considerable, also, in the manufacture of watches.
We also passed the " Straw-bonnet Region," the centre of which is Dunstable, a town in Bedfordshire containing about two thousand inhabitants. From this town the well-known Dunstable straw re- ceives its name. It is supposed that the peculiarity of the straw takes its character from the soil. Just above Coventry we leave the coal region, and here at Dunstable we strike a range of chalk hills, which extend across the counties of Bedford, Buckingham, and Oxford, and this soil probably gives a peculiar character to the vegetable products. In this, as in the instance of the Stafford- shire ironworks and potteries, we see the reason for the different manufactories being found in different sections of the country. Each region has its peculiar adaptation to the prevailing busi- ness of that region ; and the populousness of the country has of necessity presse^ffiT industry into the most advantageous posi- tions. Here capital accumulates, and takes the form in which it becomes most productive for the respective departments. Thus the business of the country is made more or less sectional, until it becomes a fashion, and then this classification is extended to other departments, for whose location no special reason can be given. Chance, perhaps, first formed the nucleus around which the same
ST. ALBANS. 607
and kindred or collateral trades began to congregate, and thus a character was given to the business of the place or neighbourhood. In this way, perhaps, the cotton trade of Manchester, and the wool trade of Leeds, and others that might be mentioned, have been accumulated and enlarged in their respective localities. This gives to the country adopting the practice a great advantage in another respect. It may be laid down almost as an axiom in political economy, that, other things being equal, the more the capital of the nation, vested in any one department and its collat- eral branches, can be concentrated, in respect to territorial extent and division, the more perfect may be the division of labour, and, therefore, the more perfect the manufactured article and the cheap- er the price.
It is this natural economy of natural agents and human indus- try that has rendered the island of Great Britain so productive and so wealthy. Add to this the fact that the surrounding seas and oceans seem to have been employed in the early ages of the world in accumulating from the depths and from the distant shores a vast variety of minerals, vegetables, and earths, and to have thrown them up in regular sections and compartments, for the purpose of making this speck of land, in the bosom of the waters, the most stupendous and productive theatre of industry and wealth the world has ever beheld.
St. Albans is the only other town that I will mention before our arrival at the metropolis. This was a very ancient town, and once, it is said, was the capital of Britain. The Romans made it a town of peculiar privileges, and so attached the inhabitants to the Roman government that the anger of the native Queen Boa- dicea was excited against them, and she massacred seventy thou- sand of the citizens. In the Dioclesian persecution at the com- mencement of the fourth century the saint whose name the town now bears was martyred here. In the ninth century the celebra- ted abbey was founded here by Offa, king of the Mercians, which continued until Henry VIII., when, with other similar institutions,. it was demolished, and only the gate remains. The church, how jver, still stands, as a venerable relic of antiquity, and is a very extensive ecclesiastical edifice ; having, however, a variety of parts, lilt at different times, and, like numerous similar edifices in Eng- ind, exhibiting the most dissimilar and incongruous styles of ar- litecture.
508 ENGLAND.
f The Romans called this place Verulam, and it was this thai gave the title of Lord Verulam to Francis Bacon, the disgraced chancellor of James L, but the honoured philosopher of the civ- ilized world. The family residence is about two miles distant, at Gorhambuxy, where the present earl now lives. At this family residence Lord Verulam wrote his Novum Organum Scientia- rum ; and here his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, used to entertain Queen Elizabeth.
St. Albans is also celebrated for two famous battles fought be- tween the houses of York and Lancaster about the middle of the fifteenth century. And in this town was born the celebrated trav- eller, Sir John Mandeville.
On our arrival in London we stopped at a comfortable house called the George and Blue Boar, in " High Holb©rn." This last name is familiar to every American almost, by no very elevated association ; but still High Holborn never before obtained so ex- tensive a notoriety as it has- since its association with " Day & Martin's shoe blacking f so true it is that fame itself sometimes rides in an humble car. The hotel also, queer as its name may sound, has some celebrity; for here, we were told, Cromwell himself used to lodge. It is, at any rate, a comfortable house; so much so that when we returned from our Continental tour we drove directly to our old lodgings. It is due, however, to the hos- pitality of our London friends to say here, that we were not al- lowed> either at our first or second visit, to stay long at a public inn. At our first arrival we were most cordially received and welcomed to England by that venerable patriarch, Rev. Rich- ard Reese, president of the Wesleyan Conference, and with his amiable daughter and her husband we were hospitably entertain- ed during our first visit ; and after our return our excellent and kind friend, the Reverend Robert Alder, one of the missionary secretaries, pressed us to his house, where, with him and his es- timable lady, we found ourselves much at home during our stay in London.
LONDON. 509,
CHAPTER XVI.
HAVING once and again visited the British Metropolis, it behooves me to say something of this great Babel, this queen of cities. And yet I know not where to begin, or what topics ta select ; as one may spend months in this great city without ex- hausting the interest which even novelty itself can impart, sa numerous and diversified are the scenes and objects here concen- trated ; so he might write volumes of descriptions and reflections, upon what he sees and hears, without tautology or repetition.. Well may it be said, " London is the world in miniature." Nay, I might almost say, it is something more, than the rest of the world. For we have here, not only specimens from all parts of the world, but these, by new combinations in their association and commixture, present new aspects and formations, unlike the simple elements from which they are combined.
London owes its origin and wealth to the river Thames,, which, as has already been noticed, is navigable for large ships; up to the port of London, and for barges arid boats, more than one hundred miles above the city. The tide flows fifteen miles above the city. This city is spoken of by Tacitus, and other early historians, as a place of commercial importance. It is said, that in the middle of the fourth century, it employed, in the corn trade alone, eight hundred vessels j and in the reign of Charles I., it was reckoned the chief commercial port in the world. It has, from that time, been constantly increasing in wealth and popula- tion. It has, indeed, met with several temporary checks : for a considerable time, the government used every precaution to pre- vent its extension. At this time, the city was badly built ; the houses were of wood, thatched with straw ; the streets narrow ; and each story of the houses projected over, until the eaves from either side nearly met at the top, confining the air, and greatly contributing to, if not actually producing, that malignant disorder called the plague, with which the city was so frequently visited. The last serious visitation from this disorder^ was in tKe reign of 43,
5W ENGLAND.
Charles II., in the years 1665-6, which continued for the space of thirteen months, and is supposed to have swept away one hun- dred thousand victims. Immediately after this, viz., in 1666, occurred the " great fire," which lasted four days, and destroyed about five sixths of the city, and a great portion of the suburbs. This event is commemorated by a noble monument, erected in Fish street, by Sir Christopher Wren, near the spot where the conflagration commenced. This monument is built of the Port- land stone, fluted, and of the Doric style, is two hundred feet in height, and contains Latin inscriptions, describing the conflagra- tion, and the measures taken by government to facilitate the res- toration of the city.
This fire was the greatest blessing London ever experienced. The city was made anew, and rebuilt on new and improved prin- ciples. The streets widened and straightened ; the small streams arched over, and made into sewers for the city ;. every howse was built with party-walls ;. the steep hills excavated, and the valleys filled up -t. and the whole completed in about three years. Since that period, no very extensive contagious disorder has prevailed in London; nay, perhaps there is scarcely a large city in the world more salubrious than London. The improvements, however, thus made in the city — adequate as they were for the purposes ot health — were far from meeting the necessities of business, in these latter days.. The streets are still too narrow, the great thorough- fares too few, and the public places all too crowded. The throng of the city, both of carriages and of footmen, is absolutely oppres- sive, and to the stranger astonishing. He dodges in every direc- tion to make his way through to his place of destination, until baffled at every turn, and wearied with the almost fruitless effort, jostled and dirtied by the friction of the crowd, he shrinks into some angle or recess to get a little respite, and wait until the procession shall pass by. From his retreat he looks out upon the busy world, and the more he looks, the more he is astonished. His first mental inquiry is, Do all these persons know what they are after, or where they are going ? It seems impossible thas they should all have a definite object in view. The tide rolls on in one incessant current, from early in the morning until late at night ; and the stranger soon finds he might as well wait for the waters of the Rhine to exhaust themselves, and run their channels
LONDON. 511
dry, as to wait for some of the principal streets of London city to clear themselves of their immense moving multitudes. In despair of a better tide or a freer channel, he throws himself again into the whirlpool, and with much delay and difficulty, reaches his place of destination. One never feels this embarrassment more, perhaps, than when he gets short of time, on his way to the steamboat in a hackney-coach. The more impatient he grows, the more he is obstructed, and at length, perhaps, he finds him- self absolutely at a stand : he looks out. and beholds one entire and unbroken mass of coaches, omnibuses, cabs, carts, drays, and wagons — -wedged in on every side as far as the eye can extend. There is no relief; patience alone can sustain him, and time alone can bring him relief.
To remedy these evils, alterations are made yearly in the very heart of the city ; so that at some points — such as in the neigh- bourhood of London Bridge — he who, a few years ago, was well acquainted with the city, and returning after an absence, would be at a loss to recognise his position. What is called the " city," is comparatively but a small part of London. The town has been enlarged, until suburb after suburb, and village after village, have been connected with the main body, and swallowed up in the con- tinuous, extended, and extending metropolis. From being a little city of two miles in circumference, it has swelled ta the dimen- sions of thirty miles in circumference, and contains one hundred and fifty-six thousand houses and public edifices, and one million and a half of inhabitants.
Everybody feels, when travelling over London, that it is " too big," and yet when its growth will stop cannot be foreseen ; its march is still outward and onward, and its vast population is rapidly in- creasing. In such a city, there are certainly great commercial advantages, great facilities for the arts, for science, for literature, and for refinement in all its forms : great advantages for the central points of the great moral and religious enterprises of the day. In short, whatever advantages man can promise himself, in the development of the social principle ; the division, of labour ; the mutual action of intellect upon intellect ; the juxtaposition md concentration of all kinds of agencies and instrumentalities : all icse are enjoyed in London, as they are enjoyed nowhere else in ie world. Still, it may well be questioned, whether, on
512 ENGLAND.
such an unwieldy extension of one city is desirable — whether the disadvantages do not overbalance the benefits, by a great majority. It seemed to be the opinion of those best qualified to judge, with whom I had an opportunity of conversing, that the metropolis was unfavourable to piety. It swallows up all the salt that is annually thrown in upon it from the country, and still it remains, to a great extent, a putrid mass. True, there is a vast amount of piety in London ; an army of faithful ministers and Christians, of different denominations : but it may be a question, whether, in spite of all their effort, sin is not increasing; and whether the proportion of the good to the bad is favourably main- tained. Some public indications are certainly very unfavourable. At the head of these, are the violation of the Sabbath, and intem- perance. The Sabbath is worse kept, by far, in London, than in any other town I visited in the British isles. Many shops are open in some parts of the town ; and in one place I noticed a public market on the Sabbath morning, where the streets were crowded with noisy customers. During our first residence in, London, in the fall of 1835, we lodged in Drury Lane, not far from the noted Drury Lane Theatre, and when we went out to go to public worship, on Sabbath morning, we generally found the sidewalks and lanes filled, for the most part, with a low, squalid population, of both sexes, whose vulgar and profane lan- guage showed that the Sabbath was by them no otherwise remembered or regarded, than as a day of greater relaxation, for the freer indulgence of licentiousness and sin. These scenes are, of course, limited to certain sections ; and, on the great wThole, the Lord's day is much better observed, even in London, than in most cities on the continent.*
Something may be inferred, (especially in Protestant countries, where there are not generally more places of public worship than are occupied,) of the religious turn of the people, by the number of places of public worship, compared with the population. The number of places of public worship in London, all told, do not much
* It cannot but be deeply regretted, that persons high in office, and that public regulations, sanction the violation of the Sabbath. The Duke of Wellington used to hold cabinet meetings on Sunday, until public opinion put them down. The Tower is open to the public on Sundays, and great crowds frequent it. The Postoffice, how- ever, in all its branches, is— to the honour of the British Government— closed on the. Lord's day.
INTEMPERANCE- 5t3
exceed five hundred.* Now, supposing these houses, on an aver- age, accommodate one thousand persons each — which is probably a large calculation for the actual worshippers — we have but one third of the population, who attend upon public worship on the Lord's day. And, if we make the very liberal allowance of one third, who from age, infirmity, and occasional necessary absence, cannot attend, we have still one third of the population of Lon- don who might attend worship, but who do not ; to which add one half of the preceding third, and we have one half of ths inhabitants of London who are living like heathens in a Christian land. This calculation, I have no doubt, is more favourable than would be found true on actual inspection. What a mass of moral death is here ! Seven hundred and fifty thousand souls in one town, who are not brought under the means of grace ! To say nothing of the hundreds of thousands, who, for form's sake, for state purposes, and other causes, attend worship, statedly or oc- casionally, who are not only not truly pious, but many of whom are most licentious and corrupt.
Intemperance is another most unlovely and unpromising feature of the metropolis. Indeed, this may be said of the whole ©f Great Britain and Ireland. For, as yet, but little, comparatively, has been done in these countries, to check the fearful progress of this vice. The intemperance of the metropolis, however, is, I think, of a more hopeless character than that of the provincial towns and villages. Among the latter, the lower classes, for the most part, drink strong beer ; but in London they add to this a free use of gin.
They have numerous large and splendid establishments which they call gin palaces. Here the work of death goes on by the wholesale. The custom is so great that the very drippings from the glasses, all of which are saved by lattice-work counters and large trays underneath, are sufficient, it is said, to pay the clerks who wait upon the customers. I stopped at the door of one of these palaces one evening on Holborn Hilly and took out my watch to see how many, in a given time, passed out of this palace of death. In nine minutes seventy came out ; and by that time
* Of these churches, the denominations shared, in 1833, in the following propor- tions : the Established Church, one hundred and ninety-four ; Roman Catholics, fif- teen ; foreign Protestants, eighteen ; Jewish Synagogues, six 5 Dissenters of various kinds, two hundred and sixty-eight.
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I saw there was another door from which others had been passing in and out at the same time. So I left my post of observation, and that the more readily, because I found my pocket had been picked of my handkerchief while I had been standing there ; and I know not but they would have had my watch, if it had not been in my hand. I thought it was time, therefore, to make my escape. During my stay, however, I perceived that there were more wo- men than men who came out of the palace. Their dress and ap- pearance were most squalid and wretched. Many of them seemed to be mothers leading up their children — sometimes a young child in the arms, and another at the side. These poor little children, when hungry for bread, are fed with whiskey, and thus early trained to habits of intemperance. Truly the time is come when, if a child ask for bread, the parent gives him a poisonous serpent. * To remedy the evils just alluded to, some exertions are made by the good people of London. The ministers and members of the establishment responding to the call of the Bishop of Lon- don, and roused to action by the statistical exhibits of Rev. Bap- tist Noel and other good men, showing the moral wants and re- ligious destitution of the metropolis, have resolved upon raising a large fund for the erection of new churches and the support of additional clergymen, to meet the necessities of the people. The Methodists also, with their accustomed zeal, are preaching in the streets and public places to win over to the gospel, if possible, those who refuse to go into the houses of worship to hear it preached.
Some efforts are also made in the temperance cause. But these are comparatively few and feeble. The honest truth is, the religious people of England and ministers of the gospel do not generally enter into the temperance reformation, as they have in the United States. I speak now of those special and exclu- sive efforts for the suppression of intemperance which have occu- pied so much of the attention of Christians and Christian ministers with us for a few years past. This remark, I think, is more ap plicable to the established church and to the Wesleyan Metho- dists, than to the dissenters generally. The Methodist societies plead that they are a temperance body already, and that any fur- ther organization and pledge than those by which they are bound to their religious fraternity, would not only be useless but self
INTEMPERANCE. 515
condemnatory. Nay, some of them plead that temperance socie- ties and exclusive and direct temperance efforts, are a reflection upon the gospel — implying that the gospel is not sufficient, without other and collateral aids, to accomplish the great object of public moral reform. But few, therefore, of the preachers or people co- operate heartily in the enterprise ; and many, both of ministers and people, speak of the temperance society with strong disapprobation. One cause, perhaps, for this, is the ultraism, which in England, as well as in this country, has marked some of the tem- perance measures. Among other causes that have disaffected many, I heard it stated that some of the leading and most talented men in the Wesleyan connexion had been publicly and most offensively denounced by certain agents and editors in the tem- perance cause. In this country, as in the United States, this pub- lic exhibition of men's names and characters has become too fashionable. A practice which good feeling, as well as gentle- manly and Christian courtesy, decidedly forbids. It would seem that certain subordinate writers and public declaimers imagine themselves at liberty, in a good cause, to deal out their denuncia- tions and censures against all who follow not. with them. In this way they are exclaiming, like Jehu, " Come and see my zeal for the Lord," when it is more than possible, that, in many cases, like him, their zeal is more the promptings of their own personal ambition than of a holy benevolence. At any rate, this rash and censorious zeal always justly renders the purity of a man's mo- tives suspected,
I do not by this mean, however, to justify the course which the Wesleyans and others in England take in reference to the tem- perance cause. I greatly lament and highly disapprove of this course. I believe it is founded in error, and will be a means of retarding the great and good work which certainly, with all its embarrassments, has had an auspicious commencement, and has enlisted in its interests some of the best and most sanctified tal- ents of the nation. And why should not all the churches unite in putting down this hydra-monster which is destroying the na- tion. So far as I am able to judge, there is no part of the world where intemperance prevails so fearfully at this moment as in the British isles ; and there is no part of the world probably, where, if the good people of the country would unite in it, so effi.
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cient a moral influence could be brought to bear against this evil* In our own country the universality of the elective franchise gives such a power to the lowest of the people, and holds out such a temptation to the aspiring demagogue to pander to the appetite of the dissolute and unprincipled, that, with the same amount of moral power enlisted on the side of temperance, we cannot act with half the efficiency and success in this great moral enterprise, at least in some of its departments, as that with which British philanthropists might act. What a fearful amount of responsi- bility then do they assume in neglecting this, when the gigantic evil is stalking over the land and the remedy is so obvious. Britons boast of their liberty and their abhorrence of slavery, in- somuch that many of them seek abroad to find channels for the exuberance of their philanthropy, while at home they have more than a half million in the very worst kind of slavery ; subjecting themselves and families to the worst kind of suffering, inevitably pressing the body down to the grave and the soul to endless wo, and yet very little special effort is made for their emancipation.
But to return to my remarks on London. It would, at first view, be supposed that the preservation of good order, in so great a city as this, would be extremely difficult. This, however, is not corroborated by experience. Although there are frequent street rows in some parts, either between men or women, quite as frequent, I should think, with the latter as the former ; still these are of a very partial and limited character, and are soon terminated by the interposition of the police, which is always at hand, and prompt in its interference. The present police of London is excellent. The credit of this organization is due to Sir Robert Peel, and it was established by law in June, 1829. The following abridged statement of its essential features may not be unacceptable to the reader ; —
" The metropolitan police extends to all parts of the metropolis and its vicinity, beyond the jurisdiction of the city, and within twelve miles of Charing Cross. It supersedes the old watch- men, patrols, street-keepers, &c., by uniting all parochial police authorities. These are placed under a board of police, consisting of three commissioners, who superintend and are responsible for all acts of the inferior officers. This police was commenced in the parishes of Westminster, September 29, 1829, and has been
LONDON POl/TCE. 517
gradually extended to other districts. A general police tax of 4d. in the pound, is levied on all householders, to defray the expense. The police district is formed into divisions, varying in size, but each has the same number of men and officers. In each is a station-house. Every division is designated by a local name, and every man is designated by a letter of the alphabet : every divi- sion is again divided into eight sections, and each section into eight beats,
*' The police force consists of as many companies as there are divisions. Each company comprises one superintendent, four inspectors, sixteen sergeants, and one hundred and forty-four police constables. A company is divided into sixteen parties, each consisting of one sergeant and nine men. Four sergeant's parties form an inspector's party. The collar of each man's coat is marked with a. letter indicating his division, and a number cor- responding with his name in the book of the office. The first sixteen numbers in each division denote the sergeants. Police men are required to patrol the streets, lanes, &c., of their respect- ive districts ; arrest disturbers of the peace, house-breakers, re- puted thieves, and beggars, and preserve good order. They are dressed in blue coats and pantaloons, and at night wear great coats. Each man is furnished with a cutlass, a rattle, and a staff.* They are constantly on duty, but more are out during the night than the day."
This system succeeds so well, that it is adopted by other im- portant towns in the kingdom, and will, ere long, probably, be universal. Those selected for police duty, are all youngerly look- ing men, of a fine and sober character, and gentlemanly manners. Every few rods you meet one of them, whom you instantly recog- nise by his dress ; and if you have any occasion to make inquiries for persons or places, he is the man to whom you should make application, and you are sure to receive a civil and an intelligent answer. Their general appearance is quiet and unostentatious. To see them moving about in the city, you would think they, ot all men, had least authority to- intermeddle with the affairs of others ; but if occasion require, you find them very decided and efficient. It produced on my mind the most gratifying feelings, to contrast this unarmed city-guard, with not even a stick in their
hands to enforce their authority, with the armed guards of the *These they seldom carry.
44
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cities of the continent. It shows the triumph of moral power over physical force, and is a practical refutation in one of the strongest conceivable cases, that large masses of men collected together cannot be privileged with free institutions.
Institutions of London. In noticing these, my attention was first attracted to the schools and seminaries of learning. Among these, the London University and King's College hold the highest rank. Both of these have fine edifices, but are not very flourish- ing, except in their preparatory departments, and in the medical departments. The London University, however, may now rise, perhaps, in all its departments, for during the present summer (1836) a royal charter has been granted to it, with power to con fer degrees in all the departments, except Divinity. This is an- other step towards the breaking down of the' old system of exclu sive monopolies, which, in many instances, has been so detri- mental to the best interests of the nation. Now, other denomina- tions besides members of the established church, may receive academic honours.
For the purposes of primary and general education, there are extensive schools, where gratuitous instruction is imparted, in different parts of the city. In the different parishes there are parish schools, supported by voluntary contributions, and a great many of the Methodist and other dissenting chapels, both here in London and in other large towns, have schools connected with them, for the education of the children of their respective congre- gations. Lancasterian schools also are numerous, to which all> without distinction of sects, are admitted.*
The establishment of the London University led to the establish ment, on the part of the aristocracy and the high-church party, of King's College. The same spirit of emulation and jealousy for the national church establishment, led to the institution of what is called the national schools, where the creed and the service of the national church are introduced. Of these, there are forty large schools containing from two hundred to one thousand pupils each.
It is computed that there are sixty-six thousand children edu- cated in the Sunday-schools of the metropolis. These are from
* It is said there are at this time, in different parts of the kingdom, not fewer than three hundred of these schools for boys, and one hundred for girls ; forty-three of these are in London, in which are educated twelve thousand children of both sexes.
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'vhe poor classes not otherwise provided for. Thus, in addition to their instruction, these poor children are brought to attend reli- gious worship, which is a part of the system ; where, otherwise, they might be left without religious restraint, to roam in idleness on the Sabbath exposed to temptation and vice.
In addition to the foregoing, there are numerous schools of an- cient charter supported by special endowments. Among these, is Christ's hospital in Newgate street. It is commonly called the "blue-coat school," from the peculiar dress which the pupils wear. And here it should be observed, that most of the schools existing under old charters and old endowments, are required to have a prescribed costume. You see them in different parts of the kingdom, with dresses so antiquated, and appearing in these days so quaint and queer to the eye of the stranger, that one can- not well restrain his risibles at the exhibition. To see the garb of our great grandfathers and grandmothers, on little boys and girls of eight and ten years of age, has a strong resemblance to the ridic- ulous. The " blue coats," however, are peculiar ; they are a long blue tunic of cloth made close to the body down to the waist, and then descending loosely almost to the feet, and open in front. Under this coat is a yellow under-coat and yellow stockings, with drab-coloured small-clothes, a round flat worsted cap, and a leath ern belt round the waist. This school was originally founded by Edward VI., and has received subsequent endowments ; so that now twelve hundred are educated on the foundation, five hundred of whom, however, are at ad establishment in Hartford. The Lord Mayor and corporation of London are the official guar- dians of the institution. The right of naming pupils to fill the vacancies as they occur, is vested in different individuals and cor- porations. Schools of a similar character are founded in differ- ent parts of the kingdom. As the patronage of these schools, that is, the right of presenting scholars to the benefits of the insti- tutions, vests either in private individuals or in certain public offices and corporations, there is great room for party and personal fa- vouritism, so that the benevolent designs of the original founders are often perverted ; and, as the income is sure, even though the institution languish and retain only a nominal existence, strong inducements to neglect have, in many instances, resulted in a gross perversion of the funds to the support of sinecures. To
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the honour of the government, however, it should be stated thai these old charters and the present character of the schools have of late been, carefully examined and many abuses corrected.
Among the chartered professional institutions of London, are the college of physicians and the college of surgeons. None can practise in these departments without being fellows of the col-" leges to which none are admitted without having received their degree at one of the universities. They both have splendid edi- fices, especially the former, which is in Pall Mall East — the lat- ter, in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
With respect to the fine arts,, one is not at first impressed by what he sees in London that the English are very great patrons of these, especially after having visited the continent, for the rea- son that there are no splendid national galleries or public collec- tions, as in the principal cities of continental Europe. Still a further acquaintance will show that there is much attention paid to these subjects by the English nobility and gentry. The pal- aces and noble seats of England contain a great number of pie tures by the first artists, and not a few of fine specimens of stat nary. In the higher classes, there is a sufficiency of taste and m terest in these works. I cannot but believe, from all the existing facts and from past history, that there is danger of carrying this taste to excess ; and if the British government has not spent mill- ions on the fine arts from the public treasure, but left these more to the private patronage of individuals, it? may be- that the- nation is on the whole the richer arid the happier on that account ; and cer- tainly what show there is in these departments by private patron- age, is not of forced aiad factitious growth, but the promptings of a spontaneous taster. There are in the metropolis numerous coL- lections of the fine ants. The Royal Academy, founded 1768, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds was the first president, and our coun- tryman Benjamin West the second, is well known. The rooms of this society are at the Somerset House, where there is an an- nual exhibition, of only the new works never before exhibited, from May till July. I cannot say that the exhibition this year (1836) gave me a very high opinion of the skill of the present artists in England. There were many of the productions of nov ices, apparently, but there were but few, if any, foum&and touches worthy of the great masters..
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The various literary, philosophical, and scientific societies are too numerous to be mentioned here ; and those that are the most worthy of attention, are too well known in the United States to require a notice. Their number is increasing with the advance- ment of science and the increase of the city. The same remarks will apply, and perhaps with greater force, to the benevolent in- stitutions of London — its various charitable associations — its hospitals — its missionary and Bible societies. Many of these have made themselves known to the remote corners of the earth by their out-bearing and far-stretching rays of light and love,, while others, in a more circumscribed sphere, are combating with darkness and suffering at home — darkness and suffering which, strange and paradoxical as it may seem, are abundantly generated and matured in the grand radiating centre of light and benevolence.
There is, perhaps, nothing in London which presents such a concentration of interest to the intelligent and curious stranger as the British Museum. It is a matchless collection of natural his- tory, antiquities, and literature. The library is made up of six- teen different libraries, the last of which was that of George IV., consisting of sixty-five thousand volumes ; besides the numerous additions by purchases, bequests, donations, &c., which have been and still continue to be made to this noble institution. All authors or publishers, are required to present a copy of their work within a month after publication to this library. This of itself, in such a book-making age and in the centre of such a book-making nation, must constitute a most productive revenue to enrich these literary treasures.
Here, also, is a gallery of sculpture and antiquities, and a col- lection of curiosities from all parts of the world. Among the Egyptian antiquities are a sarcophagus, which is said to be the tomb of Alexander the Great, and the Portland vase, found in the Monte del Grano, near Rome,* and some bricks from the walls of Babylon. Here, also, are the Elgin marbles, so called, from their having been collected by the Earl of Elgin, while he was ambassador at the court of Constantinople. They are the sculp-
* This has its name from the Duchess of Portland, who purchased it from Sir Wil- liam Hamilton. The vase is of glass, with figures in relief of white enamel, and the whole most exquisitely executed..
44 3U
ENGLAND.
tural and architectural embellishments of ancient Grecian temples, by that great master in his art, the unrivalled Phidias : and con nected with these are the Phygaleian marbles, being specimens of a still more ancient date, from the temples of Apollo, at Phygaleia..
The collections in natural history are a very extensive suite ol shells, minerals,, and geological specimens, conveniently arranged and labelled, in glass cases,, and a fine collection of birds, fishes, &c Around the great hall^ containing the minerals, is a great number of ancient portraits of persons celebrated in British history,
We were requested to enter our names in a book kept for the purpose, in a little room near the entrance, and here, in a glass ease, we were shown the original copy of the Magna Chart®. The number of annual visitors to this museum is about one hun- dred thousand.
In mentioning some of the localities, edifices, and public works of London, I must necessarily be very partial and brief. A few, however, will be touched upon.
The Colosseum, so called, after the splendid amphitheatre of Titus at Rome, is- a large edifice in Regent's Park, four hundred feet in circumference, having a portico of seventy-five feet, and a glass cupola one hundred and twelve feet from the ground. Con- nected with this are several artificial curiosities, well calculated to amuse the spectator : such a& a marine grotto or cavern, ap- parently formed in the bowels of the earth ; a beautiful fountain, with a splendid jet-$eau ; a Swiss cottage, with water-falls, a lake, &c., and a custode, in the Swiss costume, to point out the curiosities of the place ; conservatories of exotic and rare plants, &c. But the most interesting object here, is the grand panorama of London, painted upon a surface of forty-six thousand square feet of canvass. It is, doubtless, the most magnificent thing of the kind in the world. It is a representation of London, as it appears from the dome of St. Paul's. The artist, in fact, copied \t from reality, by spending years at his stupendous; enterprise, on» ihe top of St. Paul's. You ascend up the dome of the Colosseum,, as if you were going up the dome of that cathedral, and go out on. successive galleries, one above another, from each of which you have views of the city, perfectly answering to the reality, as seei* from different altitudes. The streets and lanes- — the public
REGENT'S PARK. 523
squares, churches, and other public edifices — the river, the bridges, the curling smoke, from the tens of thousands of chim- neys, the thronging crowds in the streets, markets, and other public places, with the various carriages, and different costumes, all lie out before you, and beneath your in the most perfect represent- ation of the scene conceivable ; while the sky above your head, with the passing clouds and gathering smoke, complete the illu- sion. There was nothing in the whole exhibition that would lead the uninitiated spectator to suspect any illusion, except some streaks in the sky and clouds, that look as though small cords had been drawn over the cerulean canopy ; or I would say, more naturally and familiarly, the appearance was as though there were cracks in the sky. This, I suppose, must be owing to some cracks in the canvass, after its completion. To carry out the representation, London appears, in this panoramic view, just as it is seen in reality, at different times, from St. Paul's. If it is a dark, smoky day, of which there are not a few in the British metropolis, the appearance of the panorama will be smoky and obscure, for the reason, that the light by which the picture is viewed, is the light of London ; hence the exhibition is more perfect here than it would be elsewhere.
Near this, at the northeast part of Regent's Park, are the Zoo- logical Gardens, containing by far the most extensive collection of living animals, of all classes and of all countries, that we saw in Europe ; all of them placed, as nearly as possible, in a condi- tion corresponding with their natural state. The amphibious animals have a lake of water for their indulgence ; the tropical birds and quadrupeds have an artificial temperature suited to their habits : and so of the rest.
In visiting the foregoing, you are necessarily introduced to the magnificent parks, crescents, porticoes, mansions, terraces, and palaces of the west of London, the seats and promenades, of wealth and fashion, of nobility and royalty.
Regent's Park, already mentioned, contains about three hun- dred and sixty acres, laid out in pleasure-grounds, and planted with trees and ornamental shrubs, adorned with water and ver- dure within, and surrounded by elegant edifices of varied and classical architecture. We walked and rode around, surveying these beautiful grounds and splendid edifices with admiration :
524 ENGLAND.
but there was one single exhibition, unimportant in itself, but .SFO expressive of man's brief history and frail nature, that it cast a gloom over the whole scene, and excited sensations more mourn fill than if we were walking in the midst of the tombs. It is customary, when a member of the family dies, to hang out upon the exterior wall, in the front of the dwelling, the family crest, veiled in black, in whole or in part, according to the station of the deceased in the family. Here it hangs for, if I mistake not, twelve months, a sad index to all that pass by, that death has been there. Now, we knew, of course, that
" Death, with equal step, Knocks at the palace and the cottage gate,"
yet, to see so frequently hanging from these splendid palaces, filled with wealth and beauty, talent and fashion, these emblems, not merely of man's mortality, but of his actual dissolution, con- trasted so strongly with the worldliness of the scene around, and the probable worldliness of the inhabitants within — (for alas ! how hard for the rich and great to enter into the kingdom !) — the rich and gorgeous vision was clouded over by the sombre shades of the tomb.
Hyde Park lies some distance, a little to the west of south, from Regent's, and is somewhat larger. As the latter is not open to the public — for the reason, it is said, that the trees are not yet sufficiently grown — Hyde Park is the great promenade. Here, fifty thousand are sometimes seen at one time ; and especially is it crowded, I am told, on the afternoon of the Sabbath. Hackney and stage coaches are excluded ; but with these exceptions, these grounds are open to the public from six in the morning to nine in the evening.
At Hyde Park Corner, which is at the southeast corner of the park, is Apsley House, the town residence of the Duke of Wel- lington. Here you pass out of Hyde Park under a triumphal arch, of the Ionic order, with three archways for carriages, and two for footmen, extending one hundred and seven feet ; and on the opposite side of Piccadilly, is another triumphal arch still more magnificent, opening into Green Park, and leading to the new palace, which is situated at the farther extremity of Green Park, and adjoining St. James's Park. These two latter parks would not, unitedly, equal in extent half of either of the others ;
525
but they are beautifully laid out, and ornamented with trees and sheets of water, and surrounded with noble edifices. In short, the whole of the court end of London is well built, elegant, and tolerably cleanly. The «reat consumption of coal for fuel, how- ever, and the clammy, bituminous character of the mud, prevent any part of London's having the character of cleanliness in wet weather ; — that is, for the most part of the time ; and the central and business parts of the town are wretchedly dirty. The labour- ing and common classes appear unwholesome : their clothes- often look as though they were glazed over with dirt ; you are con- stantly afraid, as you walk the crowded streets, of coming in contact with bodies, from whose surface you might gain to your- self, by the friction, some undesirable accessions. This is, un- doubtedly, owing to the impossibility of attending to business, without contracting a share of the soot, and smoke, and mud-, which adhere to everything they touch, until at length the people become familiar with the association, and as it ceases to be offen- sive, no pains are taken to avoid it. The Londoners do not real- ize their dirt. They complain of the filthiness of some of the continental cities, especially the Italian, because their filth is of a different character ; but they fancy Cloacina has fled to England, and made London her metropolis. Maybe so : and perhaps she labours hard to keep it clean ; but she evidently has more than her match. These remarks, so far as personal cleanliness is con- cerned, of course, do not apply with the same force to the more respectable classes. These learn, however, to adjust themselves to their circumstances, and hence dark dresses are much more common among the ladies than with us ; and hence, too, when they go into the streets to walk, for business or for recreation, they dress much less than our ladies are accustomed to do-, when they walk out in our large cities.
In miscellaneous descriptions of great cities, we frequently feel the need of some kind of connexion between the different sub- jects, so as not to make the transitions too abrupt. The foregoing remarks remind me forcibly of that noble structure, St Paul's Cathedral, which stands as a noble, though uncleanly, monument of English architecture. I say uncleanly, for whoever visits it, will find it, unless, it has improved; a fair illustration of what I have just said of the filth of London. I allude not now to the
526 ENGLAND.
sombre and smoky hue of its external walls, for this cannot be avoided, and has become, in fact, not only in London, but in England generally, to be an architectural beauty ; but the interior was excessively dirty. The various monuments, which were, in my estimation, generally, not of the first order of sculpture, were marred in their apparent proportions, by the accumulated dust that hung upon them in such depth, that you might have inscribed upon them new epitaphs, with no other graving tool than your finger ; and the stairs and passages were not decent for a lady, with a respectable dress, to pass over. They certainly take fees enough of visiters, to keep it clean, for they demanded an addi- tional shilling of us at almost every new angle we turned. What a contrast between this church and the beautiful cleanly churches of Rome ! In the architecture of St. Paul's, however, the spec- tator will find much to admire.
St. Paul's, as is generally known, was built by Sir Christopher Wren, on the site of a former cathedral of the same name, which was so injured by the fire of 1666, that it was wholly removed, to make room for this new edifice. It took thirty-five years to com- plete it. Its form is a Greek cross, and is of the following dimensions, viz. : length, from east to west, five hundred feet, from north to south, two hundred and eighty-six feet ; circuit of the edifice, two thousand, two hundred and ninety-two feet. It is surmounted by a dome, on which rises a ball six feet in diameter, and this is surmounted by a cross thirty feet high. The style is of the Corinthian and Composite orders, and, but that the site is too crowded and closed in with other edifices, the exterior would present a very imposing aspect from every point of view. As it is, indeed, the edifice has a noble appearance, and especially the west end fronting Ludgate Hill.
There are various monuments within and about the cathedral, but the finest of all is the one erected to the great architect of this edifice, the character of which may be understood by the reader, from the following translation of a Latin epitaph, inscribed upon a slab over the entrance of the choir : — -
" Beneath, lies Christopher Wren, the architect of this church and city, who lived more than ninety years, not for himself alone, but for the public. Reader, do you seek his monument ? Look around /"
WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 527
The statue of Dr. Johnson is said to be the first erected here.
[ere are also those of Howard, Bacon, Sir William Jones, Rey- nolds, Nelson, and many others. The sepulchral monuments are too uniform in their designs, and the statuary generally did not strike me very favourably. In one of the rooms of the church
Kan ecclesiastical library, and in another various architectural odels, among others, a great lantern which was suspended from the dome, at the funeral of Nelson. The whispering gallery in the dome is very good, but not equal, I think, to St. Peter's, in Rome.
The cathedral is open for service three times each day. It is to be feared, however, that these stated seasons for public service, in the English cathedrals, are much like the same ceremonies in Catholic churches — -cold and formal — exciting little attention, and observed more in accordance with some canons and ecclesiastical usages, than from any heartfelt interest. Few attend, and those apparently from official duty : like the Catholics, they have a company of little boys, in canonical dresses, who make the responses, chant, &c. Artificial service of this kind seems so un- like the simple and spiritual worship of the true Christian church, and so much in accordance with the pompous and heartless cere- monies of Rome, that another reform and expurgation seem to be imperiously required, to bring the English church back to the simplicity of the gospel. Even in an ordinary church, and at the regular Sunday service, I have seen a class of the boys attached to the charity school of the church, seated near the reading-desk, to perform the responses, much to the relief of the congregation generally, who seemed to feel themselves excused from the bur- den by this substitution of the children.
Westminster Abbey is of a character very unlike St. Paul's — its architecture is Gothic, and its origin dates back to the reign of Henry III.; although this,too, received its finishing touches from Sir Christopher Wren. One writer ^expresses himself very per- tinently and descriptive of the realiflBBen he says of this edifice — "It appears as if the artist had fl Bded to give to stone, the character of embroidery, and enclosBR walls within the meshes of lace-work." It is spiry, fretted, ^Hted, vaulted, divided into
lapels, and filled with monuments.^^fcre most of the sover- of England have been buried, sir^^the foundation of the
lurch up to George II. The remains ofme subsequent kings.
628 ENGLAND.
viz., George III. and George IV., as well as those of the other members of the royal family of George III., are deposited at Windsor, which is henceforth to be the royal cemetery.
Westminster Abbey is milch better kept than St. Paul's, and to the curious stranger, a place of much greater interest, from its historic associations and its monumental records. It is rather a monumental temple, consecrated to eminence and genius, than a temple of worship. So abundant and interesting are the sepulchral monuments, and so pre-eminent in British history are the names and characters of those whose memory is here per- petuated and honoured, that the spectator is entirely absorbed and engrossed by the mementoes of human genius and fame. He for- gets that he is in the temple of the Almighty God, by his imme- diate association with the almost innumerable and overwhelming reminiscences of the mighty dead. Since the human mind is finite in its comprehension, I know not that the spectator is to be blamed for this state of mind in such circumstances ; but whether it is not reprehensible to convert the temple of worship into a monumental depot and registry of human mortality, and human character, is a thought worthy of more attention than it seems to have received. In such an edifice, however, as West- minster Abbey, there is plenty of room for many mausolea, and the place of worship still be free. Henry the Seventh's chapel has been recently repaired, (from 1809 to 1822,) at the public expense of about fifty thousand pounds, under the direction of James Wyatt. Here are many royal monuments. In Edward the Confessor's chapel is the celebrated stone taken by Edward the First from Scone, in Scotland, in 1 267, which was thought to be the identical Jacob's pillar, on which the patriarch rested his head. It is said the Scotch made great efforts to regain this stone, and when they could not succeed they became reconciled to the union of the two kingdoms, in consequence of the following distich, which had been inscribed upon it by King Kenneth : —
Where'er this stone is found (or fate's decree is vain)
The Scots the same shall hold, and there supremely reign.*
The chapel of St. John and St. Michael, has a splendid monument to Lady Nightingale, by Roubiliac. The workmanship is beau-
* Which seems to have been fulfilled in the fact that the heir of the Scotch throne became also the heir and king of England.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 529
tiful, and the design is the most expressive of anything of the kind I ever saw. She is sitting above a tomb, out of which Death, with his naked skeleton, is issuing ; and reaching up with his long fin- gers, he aims a dart at her breast : but the husband, with intense anxiety and vigilance, stands by her like a guardian angel, and wards off the blow. Comment and paraphrase on this consum mate monumental composition, are impossible ; the beholder has thoughts and feelings that can never be put into words. The ten- derness of conjugal love, the relentlessness of Death, the exposure to his shafts, of loveliness and beauty, the temporary protection we sometimes enjoy from the care and kindness of friends, and, finally, the triumph of the skeleton king, in bringing down this lovely victim to his palace of bones, the great charnel-house of death, all stand out, in this pantomimic drama of monumental marble, in indescribable force and pathos. There are many other fine monuments in this chapel ; but the great concentration of in- terest is in the Poets Corner — so called, because here are the monuments of the great and illustrious family of the British Poets. But in this department I cannot begin to mention names and individual monuments. Here are Chaucer and Spencer and Prior, Dryden, Cowley and Milton, Gray, Johnson, Goldsmith, and a host of others, whose works are to them more enduring and more honourable monuments than the sculptured marble. Many of these have very appropriate designs and epitaphs ; among others, the facetious poet, John Gay, has the following, written by himself : —
w Life is a jest, and all things show it; I thought so once, and now I know it."
Not so — by this time he has doubtless discovered that life is a momentous reality : short, it is true, but pregnant with future and eternal consequences ! What an imposition upon the living, and what an insult to the dead, is such an epitaph !
Many heroes and statesmen have also their sepulchral monu- ments or cenotaphs here. Among others is that of Major Andre, who was condemned and executed as a spy during our revolu- tionary war, being concerned in the treasonable negotiations of the infamous Arnold. Britannia is represented as mourning over his fate. So honourable is it to have a mausoleum in Westminster
Ibbey, that the great Nelson, on the eve of one of his most im- .,
530 ENGLAND.
portant naval battles, gave out, as the rallying watchword and motto, " Victory or Westminster Abbey /"
This church, in its greatest length, including Henry the Sev- enth's chapel, is five hundred and thirty feet ; greatest breadth, three hundred and seventy-five ; height of the highest towers, two hundred and twenty-five.
Of the other churches, I cannot speak in detail. More than forty are still standing in London, which were built by, or after the designs of, Sir Christopher Wren.
The places of worship for dissenters and Catholics, are called chapels. Some of these are, not only in London, but all through the kingdom, well built ; and they are more numerous, taken alto- gether, by more than one hundred, than the churches of the establishment. The one which most interested me, was the City Road Chapel, built by Mr. Wesley, and this chiefly by its asso- ciations and monuments. Here the great Wesley preached, and here his mortal remains are deposited, as also those of several others of the most eminent Wesleyans of England. In this chapel are chaste and beautifully designed and executed monu- ments to John Wesley, Charles Wesley, Dr. Clarke, Mr. Watson, and others, with appropriate epitaphs. Mr. Wesley's tomb is in the chapel-yard, surrounded by an iron balustrade, and Dr. Clarke's close by, in the same form and with a similar enclosure. This has occasioned some unpleasant feelings, especially as the doc- tor's tomb is so near as to leave no passage between them, and seriously to embarrass the reading of the inscription on the prox- imate side of Mr. Wesley's tomb. Hence some have said, that there is an appearance of a design not only to exhibit the doctor as the equal of Mr. Wesley in evel*y respect, but also of eclipsing him by obscuring his monument with the juxtaposition of the doctor's rival mausoleum. It can hardly be supposed that there was any design of this kind, whatever may be the appearances ; but the altercations that have arisen from this cause, added to some jealousies that existed in the lifetime of Doctor Clarke, have produced very unpleasant feelings on both sides. It is much to be regretted that these great and good men — both prominent in their respective spheres ; both, while living, contributing, though not equally, yet eminently, to the advancement of the same com- mon and holy cause — should, in death, be the innocent occasion of
THE TOWER. 531
heart-burnings and discord. It is not their fault. While they were contemporaries, they lived and labored in unison as an obe- dient son with an affectionate father. In death, their bodies sleep together in peaceful fraternity, and their spirits doubtless are united in the paradise of God.
It will be impossible for me to dwell upon the particular local- ities of London. I ought, however, perhaps briefly, to notice the Tower and a few other places of note in the city. The Tower was originally built to keep the city in awe ; it afterward became a royal residence, and, subsequently, a royal prison ; and it is also used for a royal arsenal and a place of deposite for the regalia of the British sovereigns. The site comprehends twelve acres, sur- rounded by a ditch and a high wall, close by the left bank of the Thames. There are in two rooms arms for thirty thousand sol- diers ; in addition to this, there are several other rooms of armour and a great quantity of heavy ordnance for the royal artillery. The armour is tastefully arranged in a variety of figures, monu- ments and military trophies. There is in fact much here to gratify the curiosity of the stranger ; at the same time it must ex- cite painful reflections on the character of man, and the constitu- tion of society, which have made the work of death a science, and a preparation for human slaughter a principal feature in the policy of human government.
Among other curiosities of this kind, is a room filled with Asiatic armour. Here are the arms of Tippoo Saib, and other eastern princes, together with many military trophies, and the spoils of the Spanish Armada. In another room is a collection of armour of the age of chivalry, both for the horse and his rider. In an apartment one hundred and fifty feet in length, are effigies of horses mounted by knights, arranged in chronological order, armed cap-a-pie, each wearing the particular costume of the age in which he lived, and bearing his appropriate arms ; and over each waves a banner, on which are recorded the name, rank, and period of the hero beneath. It is a magnificent display, and con- veys at once a better idea of this ancient armour, and the method of wearing it, than can possibly be obtained by the most careful description. It is said, the armour of every kind in this arsenal, is sufficient to arm two hundred thousand men.
The jewel office contains a magnificent array of brilliants, dis-
532 ENGLAND.
played within enclosures of plate glass, lighted by six splendid Argand lamps. These throw a dazzling light upon the crowns and sceptres and other regal toys, to the number of about forty, which lie there in state, to astonish beholders. Here, as chief among the royal diadems, sits the unrivalled crown of the ex- travagant George IV. Its value is inestimable. It is arched with diamonds, frosted with brilliants, having in the centre, on the one side, a peculiar sapphire stone of a deep azure colour, and on the other, the rock ruby, worn by Edward the Black Prince, and by Henry V. at the battle of Agincourt ; around the base of the diadem is a fillet of large pearls, interspersed with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and amethysts, of varied size and brilliancy. What were all these to the proud and prodigal prince, at that moment, when, in the last agonies of life, he called for the Bishop of Winchester, and exclaimed, as his- deathless spirit flut- tered on his lips, " O God ! is this death ! "
The river Thames is spanned by six bridges, of whieh two are cast iron, and the others of stone. The most splendid is the Waterloo, which is, in fact, the most magnificent work of the kind I ever saw. Its length, including the abutments, is one thousand three hundred and eighty feet, being the longest of the six. The others do not, in general, come up to one thousand feet. But the most magnificent enterprise, for crossing the Thames, is the Tunnel, which, although commenced in 1824, has been completed to but little more than half the distance, the whole of which is computed at thirteen hundred feet. There i« no reason, however, to apprehend that it will require an equal length of time to complete the undertaking. Past experience enables them to prosecute the work with greater facility, and has taught them to secure it, as they advance, with greater safety. After the river broke into the Tunnel in 1827 and 'S, the works were suspended for seven years ; they have been recommenced, however, with renewed vigour, and will, it is- confidently expected, be prosecuted to their completion, with but little danger of another rupture. The possibility of the speedy completion of this enterprise may be inferred from the fact, that the first four hundred feet were excavated, and the arches completed, in two and a half months.*
* Since writing the above, I learn that there has been, another irruption of wate$j without any loss of life, however ; and it is hoped it will not long impede the work* men.
THE TUNNEL. 533
The excavation is thirty-eight feet in breadth, and twenty-two feet and six inches in height ; and this is filled with brick ma- sonry, with the exception of two archways for the passage of carriages each way, with a sidewalk for footmen. A perspective view of these arches may be seen in the accompanying plate ; as also a view of the shield, which protects the works as they advance. This is a strong iron frame, in the different cham- bers of which the workmen stand to prosecute the work of excavation and masonry — the frame being moved up as soon as an entire section is completed.
The Tunnel was commenced by sinking a shaft on the right bank, or Surry side of the river, sixty-three feet in depth. The excavation gently declines to the centre of the river, where the base is seventy-six feet below highwater mark. At the horizontal shaft is a steam-engine, for pumping out the water and elevating the earth. The arches, when we visited them, were perfectly dry, and brilliantly illuminated by gas-lights ; and from anything we saw, or heard, or felt, we should not have supposed that we were in a sub-undarian grotto, with a navigable river rolling its swelling tides over our heads, and bearing upon its bosom the merchandise of the world ; — yet so it was, and the thoughts of our situation, at that moment, were of thrilling interest. When the horizontal portion of the Tunnel shall have been completed, the excavations will, of course, be extended at either end, so far as to make the descent and ascent easy and pleasant ; and then, with the arches lighted, I see not why this will not be as com- modious and advantageous a passage across the Thames as any of the bridges : and as it is two miles below London bridge, which is the lowest of the existing bridges, and below which none can be constructed, on account of the obstruction to the immense navigation of the river, it must form a very important and advan- tageous thoroughfare for the increasing and already extended population and business of that part of the town. At the same time it will exhibit a stupendous and wonderful monument of human industry and skill.
We procured in the Tunnel a dioramic representation of this extraordinary work, which presents to the spectator as perfect a. view of the interior, as though he stood by Mr. Brunei's steam* 45
534 ENGLAND
engine, at the bottom of his perpendicular shaft, looking down the illuminated arches of the Tunnel.
There are two sweeps in the Thames through London, in op- posite directions, somewhat resembling the letter S, save that the upper bend is much bolder and deeper than the lower. The latter, however, is sufficiently large to give place, in the arch, for the spacious, splendid docks that accommodate the larger ship- ping, secure from the ebbs and floods of the tide, in the heart of a populous section of the town. These docks will accommodate altogether, perhaps, two thousand vessels at one time. Besides these, the quays, and the wharfs, and the channel itself, are con stantly full.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE new Parliament House is not yet finished. The tempo- rary rooms in which the Parliament now meets, were formerly the Chapel of St. Stephen. No one is admitted without a mem- ber'}s order, which, by the interposition of a friend, I was fortunate enough to obtain at the door, from Mr. Buxton, the prominent and influential advocate of West India emancipation. I had the privilege of hearing the principal speakers of the house, but none of them in their most elaborate and weighty discussions. One evening, when I was present,. Mr. Spring Rice was carrying a bill through the house, for the reduction of the newspaper tax. He managed the subject with a good deal of tact and skill — with complete self-possession ; he was prepared to ward off every attack, or adjust himself to the exigences of the case. Sir Robert Peel was the finest speaker I heard on the floor. His person is good, his voice fine, his conception clear, and his elocution persuasive and winning. Everything about Sir Robert Peel is preposses- sing. As a statesman, he may have made some mistakes, but probably fewer than most men ; and for honesty of purpose, ex- tensiveness of practical knowledge, chastened liberality of views,
bill
and -v Everything
kno
I ; M ti I ti |
0 CONNELL. 535
and sound common sense, he is probably a safer man to direct the councils of the British government, than any other man now prominent in the national councils. The appearance of O'Connell is that of a clown ; his hair is bushy, his features coarse, his neck short, and his head is drawn into his coat collar. From hia appearance, I would readily take him for a boxer, but never for a statesman. Lord John Russell, who now leads the ministerial part of the house, is a small, inferior-looking man, although there is some shrewdness apparent in his countenance. He may be a managing politician, but nothing that he has ever done indicates any extraordinary intellectual powers, or great statesmanship. His family, and the peculiar state of the public mind, have, pro- bably, given him a prominency which, under other circumstances, he would never have gained. The Bedford family (for Lord John is the son of the Duke of Bedford) have always been stanch whigs ; and now that the popular party is in the ascend- ant, it is natural that so wealthy and .honourable a family, if it can furnish a respectable man, should have a commanding influ- ence in the national councils. The state of political parties is at this time very unfavourable to a comfortable and a profitable ad ministration of public affairs. The party favourable to popular rights is divided. The smaller fraction, with Mr. O'Connell of Ireland, Mr. Hume of Scotland, and some others, to lead the way, are thorough-going radicals, and would, probably, if they could have their way, break up the very foundations of the ancient order, and drive the car of reform so rapidly as to jeopardize the state. Mr. O'Connell's main object seems to be his own aggran- dizement, through the influence of the Catholics of Ireland. Without wealth to carry on his plans, he is supported by O'Cew- nell pence — a tax imposed upon all the Irish party, to sustain their leader — and by contributions in England and Scotland, as well as Ireland, for the same object. It is not uncommon to see a sign out, over a shop door, even in London, giving information that contributions to the O'Connell fund are received there. Without possessing the confidence of either of the leading parties, he is powerful, because his trained band, of some forty members, have the balance of power, and they are ready to come or go at his bidding. The present ministry, therefore, cannot do without him, and they can do nothing with him. It has been shrewdly
536 ENGLAND.
said, " the present government can do nothing ; for O'Connell will not permit them to do any good, and the House of Lords will not suffer them to do any harm, and, therefore, they can do nothing." The division between the two houses has certainly frustrated a number of very important measures of the present administration : and with this friction to the machinery of the government, it has been a wonder to all that the present ministry should endure as long as they have. The general voice seems to be in favour of a new ministry, made up of the moderate of both parties ; by which the ultra-tory spirit on the one side, and the ultra-democratic spirit on the other, might be controlled, and the work of reform be gradually and safely carried forward. That much work of this kind remains to be done in Great Britain and Ireland, there can be no doubt — work that must be done — the spirit of the age imperiously demands it, and the popular voice will carry it for- ward. The only question is, will the opposing party have wisdom enough to yield the point so far, as to submit to a gradual im- provement of their social state, political and ecclesiastical, and submit with such cordiality as to keep a controlling influence in the work — or will they resist, until popular feeling and power shall break over all bounds, and in a wild revolution, destroy, in- stead of reform ?
For the last few years, the work of political reform has ad- vanced quite fast enough for the safe action of a constitutional government. The greatest danger for England now, is on the popular side. There is a reckless heated spirit abroad — the popu- lar mind is restless and feverish, and, of course, extremely excita- ble, and there are numerous demagogues, with O'Connell at their head, who are constantly blowing up the flames of popular ex- citement. O'Connell makes it his business in the recess of Par- liament to travel over England, get up popular assemblies, and harangue them on political subjects. His great wrath has been poured out of late chiefly upon the House of Lords, because they have negatived some of the favourite measures which he has procured to be carried through the Commons, for the relief, as he terms it, of his oppressed country Ireland. We, in the United States, are apt to sympathize with everything that strikes against royalty and an hereditary nobility ; but we ought to be aware it is one thing to favour the establishment of a nobility
REFORM. 537
\vliere it never existed, and quite another to sustain it when it is interwoven with the very frame work of society. No one in his senses, I believe, would wish to see an attempt to introduce an hereditary sovereignty or nobility among us ; but does it there- fore follow that these should be suddenly and rashly overturned where they exist ? Is it easy to form a new structure of strength and beauty out of the irregular and scattered fragments of disnip- tured and demolished institutions ? There may be some political communities in a condition so utterly hopeless as to require, at all hazards, a radical breaking up of the social order ; but such is not England. With a judiciary sound to the core ; with an exec- utive administration always either directly or indirectly under the control of the most enlightened and stable part of the population ; with a more intelligent, and, on the whole, (though this I confess is not saying a great deal,) a more virtuous aristocracy than can be found beside in Europe ; with a free press and an extensive and extending system of popular education, England contains in her- self, and in her present social compact, the inherent principles of a safe and an efficient improvement. The only fear is, that the machinery which is put in operation by designing demagogues for exciting the feelings of the populace, will be propelled with too much violence, and in directions dangerous to the public weal. And, at this juncture, from the peculiar state of political parties, and the character of the political questions which are now canvassed, the ten- dency to ultraism is great. The more so, because from its supposed success in the cause of West-India emancipation, popular agita- tion is very much the order of the day. In the West-India question, this course was safe for several reasons. In the first place, the evil proposed to be removed was local, very limited, insulated, at a dis- tance from the heart and main arteries of the social system, and by no means and to no extent interwoven with the framework of the government ; and, in the second place, the community brought under the influence of the agitating process, were immediately and legally responsible for the existence of West-India slavery. They virtually and actually held the chains of the enslaved in their own hands, and had, therefore, the immediate power to unclasp or rivet these chains at their own will. If, then, a practical way could be presented, for a safe emancipation, it became a matter of duty to act in the premises. All that was necessary was to
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538 ENGLAND.
devise the plan, and then excite to action. But even hi this case, as I have elsewhere shown, the agitators were too violent, and had well nigh ruined the cause at last. However, the bill for the gradual redemption of the slaves, passed ; and African sla- very has received its death-warrant in the British empire — to her honour be it recorded ; and that, to all present appearances, with- out endangering the safety and prosperity either of the govern- ment or of the islands. Would that the same could be said of our own and of every other land ! But, although the bill itself and its immediate consequences appear favourable, yet the agita- tion by which the passage of the bill was preceded and accom- panied, has not proved so favourable. It has left the public mind in a feverish state ; it has opened up to the eager eye of the dem- agogue a highway to popular influence and power ; it has sane • tilled that way, because here Philanthropy herself, it is thought, has accomplished one of her noblest achievements ; and now, all that travel this way, justify themselves by this illustrious prece- dent. This is a hazardous course, especially in all cases where the questions involved are in any way connected with topics that act upon our sentient natures and particularly our sympathies-. When once the demagogue can get the control of popular sympa- thies, he is a potentate — an absolute sovereign. Now he can carry his measures in spite of law or constitution, in spite of order or public safety. None understand this better than O'Connell and his colleagues. Hence their object is to connect with their political plans some topic of popular excitement. The slave question was too important in this point of view to be read- ily given up ; and, therefore, when the question was settled in the British parliament, the political philanthropists, who still desired the control of the public sympathies for their own purposes, con- nected with their public harangues the subject of slavery in the United States. This, for some time, was the practice of the Irish orator. He knew he had only to name the subject of sla- very, and ne would set the whole audience in a flame. When, therefore, he concentrated his powers on this point, when he stretched himself upon the western coast of the British isles, holy philanthropist as he was, and with his stentorian voice rolled back the western winds by his blast ,of anathemas against the domestic despots and political hypocrites of the United States,
PUBLIC ASSEMBLIES, 539
then it was that the English populace threw up their caps and huzzaed for the orator, and felt their souls moved within them to follow such a leader ) so pure and philanthropic to any and every enterprise his patriotic soul could devise, or his fearless spirit could attempt to execute. Such, for a season, were the public harangues of the " honourable and learned member from Kil- kenny," and such is the course of many others up to the present time. But O'Connell has changed his course. American sla- very is no longer his theme. Rumour, with her more than usual credibility, has revealed the cause. The only hope of O'Connell is in the unflinching devotion to his cause of the Irish Catholic population. To secure this, he must have the confidence of the priests ; and to have their confidence, it must be conceded or be- lieved by the undivided universal Roman Church, that his course is promotive of the general interests of Romanism. Now it has so fallen out, that the great body of Catholics in the United States think that it has a tendency to bring them into suspicion in this country, to have their great political champion in Europe dealing out such wholesale anathemas against the United States. Letters, therefore, it is said, have been sent to Ireland to this effect, and the orator has changed his theme.
While on the subject of the morbid excitability of the British public, amounting almost to a mental disease, and the constant effort to keep up that state of the public mind, I might mention their manner of conducting their public assemblies, religious* as well as political — the deliberations of the national legislature as well as popular assemblies. Public speakers on these occa- sions are constantly applauded or opposed, by clapping, stamp- ing, cries of hear ! hear ! or hisses and cries of 720 / no ! In a great proportion of cases the appearance is that the public orators are coveting the clap and the cheer, rather than conviction by grave and solid argument. In missionary meetings and bible anniversaries, you often notice this as well as in the speeches in parliament. Sometimes this is carried to very great excess. A case in point was a meeting I attended in Exeter Hall,f of the
* Assemones for public worship, 01 course, are not included.
t Exeter Hall is a noble building, erected on the Strand for public meetings. It has ft majestic entrance of the Corinthian order, and the principal room is one hundred and six feet by seventy-six, and is computed to hold four thousand persons.
540 ENGLAND
" Protestant Association," so called. It is a society formed among statesmen and others, to oppose Romanism. At this meeting an Irish orator, by the name of M'Ghee, a Protestant clergyman, and an agent of the society, addressed the meeting. His topic was chiefly relative to an edition of the Bible, called the Douay Bible, with a Catholic commentary) commonly called " Rheimish Notes." These " Notes " savour of persecution and justify the po litical assumptions of the Pope and of the Roman Catholic Church, The object was to prove that editions of this bible and commentary had been published in Ireland and circulated among the people ; and that to avoid the suspicion of having been active in this high- toned inquisitorial publication, the church dignitaries in Ireland had practised a good deal of tergiversation and falsehood ; and that Mr. O'Connell had been identified with the hypocrisy of the priests, by pretending to disapprove of the Rheimish Notes, and making a great public parade on the subject, but that he afterward neglected to carry out his promises, and slunk away as if priest- smitten, from final action in the case. Such was the tenor of the arguments supported by documents and testimonies, which the orator presented with great clearness, much sarcasm, and biting irony, and no little share of moving declamation. If he had stopped here, he certainly would seem to have made out a strong case. It would have appeared from very strong documentary testimony, that the Catholics cherished the same enmity to popu- lar liberty, claimed the same ecclesiastical prerogatives and authority over the bodies and souls of men, and practised the same Jesuitism in the dissemination of their sentiments, that had at any period marked the history of that church. The audience was highly excited, vociferous applauses acted upon the speaker, and the speaker again acted upon the audience. And now the way was prepared for the after-piece — and the exhibition convinced me more forcibly than I ever realized it before, how strong and con- tinued excitement, on any particular subject, becomes a monoma- nia, and cuts off, entirely, on the exciting question, the enlightened dictates of the judgment.
The orator presented a pamphlet, which he said had, in the providence of God, fallen into his hands the night before at a late hour, while he was preparing for that meeting. This pamphlet was to finish the work for the Romish church, and the very read-
PUBLIC ASSEMBLIES. 54 3
ing of it would make all our ears tingle. It was an encyclical letter from the Pope, instructing the priests of Ireland, how they were to manage to deceive the Protestants, by the most consum- mate hypocrisy, and the most flagitious chicanery, and at the same time secure the advancement and ultimate triumph of the papal cause in that island, and perhaps in Great Britain. The letter, it would seem had been written originally in Latin, and the translator had inserted some of the Latin phrases, to show the ex- act spirit of the original ; and among these our orator had found infallible proofs of the genuineness of the document.
The whole affair was new to all. The document was new— • the design of bringing it forward was new — and all listened with breathless suspense ; presently, however, the reading of the pamphlet and the comments by the orator, carried the audience all away. Grave senators and graver clergymen, aristocrats and plebeians, were mingling their voices, and clapping and stamping with feet and canes ; some swung their hats, some laughed and cheered, and a few Catholics hissed and contradicted. It might seem natural enough to those who were used to it, but to me it was a scene of tumult and disorder, and became every moment the more painful, because every successive paragraph confirmed me in an opinion that I formed before he had completed one page, that the whole was a hoax, and that all this transient uproarious triumph would end in a painful mortification, and a resistless re- action upon the Protestant cause. I sat between gentlemen that were habited like clergymen — I said to one — " That pamphlet must be an imposition. The pope never could have written such a letter." " It is undoubtedly true," he replied, " they are capable of anything." Directly I turned to the other, and asked — " Is Mr. M'Ghee a judicious man ? is he not easily imposed upon ?" " He is a very judicious man," was the reply ; " he knows what he is about." I said, "You may rest assured the pope never wrote that letter ; for on the supposition that Gregory XVI. was both a knave and a fool, neither of which was I prepared to admit, still he had counsellors around him who understood themselves better than to suffer such a document to receive the official sanc- tion of the Vatican." But it was all to no purpose ; and as I could find none to join me in my judgment, I sat extremely uneasy, distressed even, until the conclusion. I thought, however the 46
543 » ENGLAND.
enthusiasm abated a little, towards the last, as a fear had taken possession of some portion of the audience, that the document might be an imposition ; but the clapping and cheering kept up to the last. The next day it came out, that the whole affair was an imposition. The letter was written by a Protestant clergy- man, one of the professors of Trinity College in Dublin ; and Mr M'Ghee, the great Protestant agent and champion, who had but the day before boasted that he should show the nakedness of the papal church to the abhorrence of the world, had to come out and make his public recantation of his foolish and insane ad- venture. The effect of such an explanation may readily be imagined. OConnell had been invited to come on the occasion, and defend himself and his church, against the charges about to be presented. He declined, and his refusing to meet the charges face to face, was set off to good effect, in the fore part of the meet- ing ; but the result gave him and his friends a complete triumph, and struck such a blow to the " Protestant Association " and their special agency, as will not be readily recovered from. This is the fruit of ultraism. It is a circumstance that is symptomatic of the present age. Happy for England, if she check that spirit before it carry away her strongest social and political bulwarks ; and happy for the United States if they also avoid the same danger- ous course.
One of the great questions that have agitated the nation under the present administration, and will continue to agitate it for years to come, doubtless is that of the English church establishment. The dissenters, of course, consider this a burden ; most of them proba- bly would gladly throw it off altogether, while all desire to see it greatly modified and reformed. Hence the contest assumes a form, in many respects, very unpleasant and unfavourable to the cause of pure religion. Ministers and bishops become politicians, and members of the Christian churches become heated partisans, and throw themselves into the political arena — the one part to de- fend religion, as they term it, and the other part to secure religious liberty. Both justify themselves for their violent political parti- sanship, on the ground that their party is identified with the best interests of religion. The effect, as might be supposed, is very deleterious. The spirit of devotion is supplanted by the spirit of political party — and the work of preaching Christ is neglected
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in too many instances for electioneering and political purposes — and spiritual death, by consequence, pervades the religious com- munities. And this is thought to be specially true, among the dissenters. I found the Wesleyan Methodists generally freer from this destructive influence, than most other religionists. The greater portion of the Wesleyans with whom I met, are conservatives, but still they are not in general so strong for the church, as church-men themselves. They hold a medium posi- tion— wishing the integrity of the establishment to be sustained — at the same time they are desirous of some reform. This saves them from an ultra party-spirit on either side, which is very favourable to the piety of the body, at this time of political ferment. It is curious to see how both parties, in this contest, quote the United States, in favour of their particular views. Those who contend for the voluntary principle, as it is technically termed, that is, those who wish to have religion supported only by voluntary contributions, refer to our country as an instance of great religious prosperity, without a legal support. On the other hand I notice in the political journals, frequent allusion to certain reports that some of our " home missionaries " make, respecting the great destitutions of the western and new parts of our coun- try— " no ministers " — " no churches " — " no gospel."* Here, say they, is the proof that the voluntary principle is not efficient, in supplying the religious wants of the people ! They seem aware, neither of the rapid extension of our frontier settlements, nor yet of the fact that rapid as this is, the voluntary principle is carry- ing the gospel to them, with a promptness abundantly more timely, and to an extent far more adequate to their increasing waiits, than ever has been known to have been done by the slow machinery and worldly policy of legal provision. Even in London itself, as we have seen, in the very metropolis of church and state, the government provision would have left four fifths of «the population to perish for lack of knowledge, but for the dissenters : and even now, that the established church has waked up to this work, at this late hour, it has been by the excitement to emulation, which has been produced by the action and influence of the dissenters.
* It is to be regretted that religious agents, in their zeal to make out a strong case, perhaps deceived by sectarian partialities, should suffer themselves to be the cause such erroneous impressions.
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There is every reason to believe that, but for the fear that the dissenters would gain upon them, unless they bestirred them- selves, the establishment would have slept over this subject, until now. But what is still more to the purpose, and utterly subver- sive of the argument urged by the sticklers for church and state is the fact, that now the established church has been roused to action on this subject, they have been compelled to resort, for the accomplishment of their object, to that very principle which they condemn as inadequate and inefficient — the voluntary principle. For it is by voluntary contributions, that the bishop of London and others are now endeavouring to raise a magnificent fund, for the erection and endowment of churches, in connexion with the establishment. How will these advocates for a union of church and state reconcile their arguments with their practice. " Reli- gion will not be sustained," say they, " if left to the option of the people. The public will not be adequately provided with reli- gious instruction." " Ours is the only adequate system to meet the wants of the people ;" and while iheir words are on their lips they see the deficiency, the ruinous deficiency of their own governmental provisions, and practically adopt the discarded sys- tem of voluntary contributions, to help out their own cherished but imperfect plan ! When man theorizes, his prejudices often betray him ; but when he is driven to action, his common sense is apt to lead him to adapt the end to the means, in despite of his theory. Nothing is more clearly and satisfactorily established, in the United States, even to those who among us once opposed the measure, than that religion is the most pure, most efficient, most abundant in its provisions for instructing the public mind, and reforming the public heart, when its support is left entirely to the voluntary offerings of the people.
The present state of the English church, with all its advan- tages and improvements, is to my mind demonstration that an ecclesiastical establishment is, on the whole, pernicious; nay, that its legitimate tendencies are fatal to the cause of Christianity. Much is said of the great reform that is now in progress in the English church. And by how much that reform is magnified, by so much is the cause of dissent and of the voluntary principle illustrated and accredited. What produced this reform ? What sustains it ? What is carrying it forward I The dissenters and
CHURCH AND STATE. 545
Methodists. These have excited the establishment to emulation ; these have provoked them to love and good works ; these have waked up the torpid spirit, rebuked and aroused the sleepy con • science of a worldly priesthood and a formal church.
But the worst of all is, that, although much has been done and mch more may be done, still the English church, under its pres^ jnt organization, never can be fully reformed. There is a worm
the root. To say nothing now of numerous points that might be noticed as illustrative of this position, the single fact that church preferments are in the hands of worldly men, is enough to prove not only that the constitution of the church is unapostolic, but also that the tendency of its organization is directly opposed ta the spirit of the gospel. The sovereign is the head of the church.. This, to begin with, is an essential feature of the Roman apostacy. This places the appointment of the highest dignitaries of the church directly in the hands of a worldly, and most probably, an ungodly man. Or, more properly, it places the power of appointing the highest offices of the church in the hands of the ruling ministry ; and what chance there is for genuine piety in the breasts of the successful and political party leaders, can readily be imagined. Having the power to make important and desirable appointments in the church, they will doubtless appoint such as will strengthen their political party. Of this the present administration has been accused in more than one instance. This, in fact, is human na ture. It is the very course we might expect worldly men of any party to pursue. Here then is corruption, the worst kind of corruption, at the very head ; and if the whole head is sick, the the whole heart will be faint ; the influence will be felt, and it is felt, more or less, through the entire ecclesiastical body. And this political influence will probably grow worse, as party be- comes more organized and more exclusive.
But the evil rests not here. The right of disposing of the livings as they are called, is private property, and descends like any other property of the posessor to his heirs. This is called the right of advowson. Some of these belong to the king ; some to the bishop, but many more to other individ uals. In the first case the king, of his own authority, institutes his candidate or clerk ; in the second case, the bishop institutes h's own candidate without presentation ; and, in the third case, 46 3Y
546 ENGLAND.
the patron, whatever he may be, presents his clerk or candidate to the bishop, and the bishop institutes him. Of this latter kind of advowson, some are appended to the manor, and can never be separated from it ; so that he who owns the estate, possesses also the advowson. But others are not only inheritable, but they are an article of traffic and are bought and sold in the market like any other goods and chattels. In a benefice that was thrown into the market in Bristol, the present summer, it is said that a Roman Catholic ecclesiastic was one of the competitors for the purchase. It will be readily seen how such a disposition of the livings of the church, must tend to secularize the clergy. The younger sons of noblemen and gentlemen will select the church for their profession, because there is a chance to get a respecta- ble living in it ; perhaps the father or some friend holds the ad- vowson, and he has the promise of it as soon as he has gone through the forms of an education ; and he, perhaps, after he ob- tains it, may not choose to do the work himself, but farms it out to a curate who will attend to the duties for a small portion of the income, and the legal incumbent gives his dinners, drinks his wine, and keeps his horses and hounds upon the balance. Sometimes one man may have several of these livings, and drive a profitable speculation in farming them out to the lowest bidder. One can readily see how such a course must greatly pervert a religious ministry. Indeed it is sacrilege ; it is making gain of godliness ; every Christian that has not been trained to it and become fa- miliar with it by habit and education, must turn from it with hor ror as a most base prostitution of gospel ordinances. It is true, no man can, without being obnoxious to the charge and penalty of simony, enter upon his own advowson ; neither can the patron prefer a man to the benefice for a stipulated reward ; but he can give it to his own son, as a substitute for making some other pro- vision for him ; he can give it to his friend, with a view of re- warding him or obtaining his influence, or for mere caprice and private partiality ; or, what probably is quite common, he can dispose of it for political purposes, to promote his own ambitious designs or the designs of his party.
In view of the great importance of having the benefices in the hands of good and evangelical men, Doctor Simpson, of Cambridge, with some others, has laid out considerable sums to purchase up
CHURCH AND STATE. 547
such advowsons as he could find in the market, for the purpose of preferring evangelical men to these livings. All this looks very fair as far as it goes ; but, can Doctor Simpson assure himself that his heirs may not be worldly men, and be influenced by other motives ?* Moreover, if Doctor Simpson, out of pure motives, could secure a portion of the patronage of the church for money, that shows that another man, who, because he is a man of the world, is quite as likely to be rich as Doctor Simpson, may pur- chase that patronage for ambitious and worldly motives. The sub- ject, therefore, in whatever aspect it is viewed, is not only deci- dedly bad, but it is ahorrid desecratian of the sacred office. And this will appear almost as strong when we look at its bearing in another point of view, viz., that the more good men endeavour to get a control over these benefices in order to hold them in reserve for evangelical men, the greater will be the demand, in the ec- clesiastical market, for evangelical men, the more sure men of this reputation will be of professional success, and the more of them, of course, will be presented professedly of this character ; and thus, while, perhaps, an open, worldly, and irreligious spirit will be restrained and diminished, a zealous, canting, bigoted hy- pocrisy will take its place. And, if I mistake not, this effect al- ready begins to show itself. To be evangelical in the view of many is to be zealous supporters of certain dogmas and bold as- serters of certain hackneyed propositions ; if to this is added a certain manner, and the use of certain cant phrases, the popular character of an evangelical man will be quite established. To com- plete the portraiture, he must be a great croaker about the danger of THE Church, a great eulogist of all her forms and pretensions, and exclusive in his views of apostolical succession and ordination. But it does not follow, because these and many other evils appertain to the English church, that, therefore, it should be suddenly divorced from the state. Modern political empyr- icism is for experimenting with a rude and revolutionary legis- lation upon the objectionable features of the body politic; and especially it is common for individuals of one nation to decide very positively and thoughtlessly upon what ought to be the course of other nations on cases which they but imperfectly
* Doctor Simpson is now (1837) dead ; and his patronage has, of course, already passed into other hands.
548 ENGLAND.
understand. In this way some individuals in England have very foolishly and impertinently undertaken to legislate for us, and to dictate with the confidence of an oracle what is our duty in cer- tain matters vitally affecting our constitution and government. And in this way certain declaimers in our country are, with equal folly and impertinence, giving out their oracular decisions of po- litical wisdom on the importance of speedy and radical changes in the British constitution. Now as we, on some points, may do too little, so it may also be with them ; but the truth is, as we un- derstand our own business best, so do they also theirs ; and the better way will be for each of us to meddle with our neighbours less, and attend more to ourselves. We must, of course, have our opinions, and it may be well at proper times to express them ; but to attempt by agents, associations, or popular declamations, to ex- ert an influence on each other in questions pertaining to our re- spective constitutions, is an unjustifiable interference, that will be only productive of mischief.
Evils may exist in governments which, in themselves consid- ered, are every way pernicious ; their nature and their tendency may be evil, and only evil, and yet it may not be either good pol- icy or moral duty to extirpate them suddenly. The English es- tablishment is vitally interwoven with the principles of the British constitution, and a sudden disruption might be fatal to the gov- ernment ; still something, doubtless, might be done ; something, indeed, has been attempted the present session of parliament. The princely incomes of some of the bishops' sees have been re- duced by transferring a part to others less lucrative, and the bound- aries of the sees have been altered so as to bring the jurisdiction of all more nearly upon an equality ; but this is only tinkering upon the scaffolding ; when this is arranged they will be better prepared, perhaps, to approach the main edifice. It appears to me most evident that, sooner or later, great reforms will be made in the English church ; and, finally, as the social state can adjust itself to the change, an entire divorce between church and state will probably take place. I say this, because I believe this is the true apostolic relation which the church should sustain in the world ; and she will never appear in her appropriate robes, like a bride adorned for her husband, until she disrobe herself entirely of the
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toga of state. To this point public sentiment is gradually verging in England.*
Touching upon the British parliament has opened the way for the introduction of several questions connected with the British government and the present state of political parties ; which, as I wished to notice them somewhere, have been as well brought in, perhaps, in this connexion as in any other ; but I have not yet said what I intended concerning the parliament itself. Their hour of meeting is peculiar to themselves ; I believe it is always in the evening. The worst time, one would think, for doing business, If there is any danger of dulness from a hearty dinner, or of ex- citement from the free use of wine, both of which indulgences, as is well known, are rather common with the English gentry and nobility, all this must be experienced by an evening session. A good part of the night is often consumed in these sessions ; and this, perhaps, has given the general character of turning the night into day and the day into night, so common in London. It is next to impossible for any one in London to accomplish anything abroad early in the day. Everything is late ; and whoever mixes in society must retire late, and, of course, will be late up in the morning.
The speaker of the House of Commons, when he is in the chair, sits with great dignity, with a large powdered wig upon his head and a huge mace lying before him. When he leaves the chair for the house to go into committee of the whole the mace is laid one side.
If a question is about to be taken on which a division of the house is called for, the speaker rises and proclaims, " Strangers must withdraw." No matter how trifling the question may be, or how often a division is called for, all that are not members must leave the house. The only reason that I can conceive of for such a rule is, that the public may not know how their repre- sentatives vote. It does not now, however, have this effect ; for, on all important questions, it may be easily known how each one
* I have not thought it expedient to enlarge upon the fact that there is no moral dis- cipline either in the ministry or membership of the English church. A state of things that almost necessarily grows out of its relations to the state, and a feature most ruin ous to the cause of Christianity.
550 ENGLAND.
votes Like many other cumbersome and useless forms, it is kept up now from custom.
The eloquence of the parliament had nothing very strong or agitating to call it out when I happened to be present. I must say, however, that, as a general thing, I was not pleased with the manner of the speakers. There was too much of a tone, too much of " mouthing the words," too much like an effort which sa- voured of affectation. There were some exceptions. Sir Robert Peel was one ; his manner was easy and natural.
From all I could learn of the British parliament, there was very little of genuine piety in the house. As liberalism in politics in- creases, the cases of truly religious members of parliament dimin- ish. This is certainly no great compliment to the spirit of reform ; but it can be easily accounted for without making irreligion a neces- sary characteristic of republicanism. It has already been stated that the great contest now is between the church establishment and the spirit of dissent. The religious dissenters may be consid- ered opposed to the exclusive claims and prerogatives of the estab- lishment from religious considerations, or, at any rate, from consid- erations not opposed to religion ; but there is another class, of very considerable influence as to wealth and numbers, who are opposed to the establishment because they are opposed to Christianity ; they are opposed to all religion. Neither of these would be suf- ficiently strong as distinct parties, hence they make common cause, and by this means form an anti-church party of individuals pos- sessing very different characters and feelings. This is an unfor- tunate state of things ; unfortunate in its influences upon the cause of religion and upon the character of parliament. Religious men are not so fond of office ; are not so ready to play the demagogue to get into office ; but when they are identified with a political party to accomplish an object which seems to them important,, they support the infidel, the Catholic, the demagogue of whatever character, who pledges himself to their cause. Hence many of the dissenters, religious laymen, and ministers, are found among the foremost constituents of most irreligious men.* In this way, although infidelity and irreligion may not be the most prevailing
* Since I left England, Dr. Pye Smith, of Hackney, a dissenter, and a minister of dis- tinguished talents and piety, has come out publicly in favour of the election of Mr. Hume, a notorious infidel and scoffer at sacred things ! !
THE PRESENT ADMINISTRATION. 551
ingredients of the party, and by no means essential to the prin- ciples of it, still men of infidel and irreligious character become the principal and prominent leaders ; they get the offices ; they give character to the cause. Such is the state of the question now in England, to some extent ; and the more it assumes this aspect, the more the friends of religion and good order, who are more moderate in their views of reform, and who are favour- able to the establishment, shrink back from the cause of reform, although they had before supported it. A powerful reaction, I have reason to believe, has already taken place in the whig ranks. I have conversed with a number, and heard of others, who have been disgusted and driven over to the ranks of the tories on ac- count of this unholy alliance.* So that the fair prospect is, as this alliance is the only ground that sustains the present govern- ment in power, so it will be the very cause, in the end, which will throw them out of office ; or, should the anti-church party finally succeed by the help of such an alliance, the effect would be to throw the whole administration into unholy hands. We have seen in more than one state in our own country the deleterious effect of such an amalgamation for political purposes. The purpose it- self may be a good one, but it must be an extraordinary case when the political good obtained in this way is not greatly counterbal- anced by the moral and social evils consequent upon it. The wicked and the worthless, by intrigue, effrontery, and ambition, almost invariably get the control of the party ; and if you are de- pendant upon them to accomplish your measures, you must be led by them to accomplish theirs. The Christian should be cau- tious how he places himself in such a copartnership.
It is a matter of much surprise to many that the present gov- ernment! should sustain itself so long as it has. That it should hold out much longer can hardly be expected. A thorough tory government, however, it is believed, can never again sustain itself in England. Every administration must admit of such reforms and improvements as can be safely adopted in accordance with the principles of the British constitution, and, very likely, these
* Lord Stanley, Sir Francis Burdet, and even Sir Robert Peel himself are prominent cases of friendship to reform, but of opposition to the present administration, for the rea- sons given above.
t " The government," in common parlance in England, means the administration for the time being, or the present ministry.
552 ENGLAND,
improvements will advance not only to the gradual demolishing of the ecclesiastical prerogatives of the establishment, but also to the curtailment of the hereditary power and privileges of the no- bility.
The present government have certainly done some good. They have greatly favoured the colonies. Their colonial policy, so far as I can judge, has been more liberal and enlightened than that of any of their predecessors. There is now in London a dele- gation from New-Brunswick to lay " at the foot of the throne" their complaint of sundry abuses in the administration of their colony, and to pray for a redress of grievances. They have been met most promptly and favourably by Lord Glenelg, the minister of the colonial department, and have, in fact, obtained all they have asked for their colony. This department has also sought to become acquainted with the condition and wants of the colonies by seeking information from the most unquestionable sources. The Wesleyan missionary secretaries have often been called to the colonial office to give information on these topics ; information which, in many cases, can better be given by them, perhaps, than by any other men in England. They watch with a sleepless eye the moral and social condition of the colonies, and their missiona- ries are communicating to them every week from almost every section of the British empire. The government certainly shows its wisdom in resorting to such sources for information.
Another act of this government worthy of high commendation is the charter of the London University, by which literary degrees and professional diplomas can be dispensed now under other au- spices than those of the established church. This is as it should be. There is no good reason why these degrees should have been monopolized so long by one sect (the high churchmen will pardon me for calling them a sect instead of the church) when such a por- tion of the nation was of different sects.
Similar to the above was that act by which a royal charter has been procured this season also, and a little before the charter of the London University, for the Coburg Academy, in Upper Can- ada, under the patronage of the Methodists. This was said to be the first charter of a literary institution ever granted to dissenters by the British government.
GREENWICH. 558
CHAPTER XXVIII.
WE were much interested in an excursion to Greenwich, ceie* >rated over a great part of the world as the English meridian of longitude. Here, on a beautiful hill, stands the Royal Observatory. Its location is fine in evety respect save one ; the prospect is, for the most part, obscured by a smoky atmosphere. Its proximity to London, being but five miles distant, the extended population around it in almost every direction, together with the incessant volumes of smoke from the steamboats passing the river, all unite to obscure the naturally misty atmosphere of the British Isles, This must be a great obstruction to astronomical observations.
The instruments were very abundant and very excellent. The mural circles, the equatorial telescope, the transit instruments, the zenith sector, were splendid instruments of the kind, and worthy of the Royal Observatory of Greenwich.*
The Royal Hospital at Greenwich for disabled seamen, their widows and children, is one of the most splendid charitable insti- tutions I have seen in Europe. There are four grand edifices de- tached from each other, but yet so near as, at a little distance, es- pecially from the river Thames, on the right bank of which it is situated, to have the appearance of one plan. The architecture is fine, and the material the Portland stone. Here are pensioners to the amount of two thousand seven hundred and ten ; besides whom they have about thirty thousand out-pensioners, who receive an annual stipend. These pensioners looked remarkably comfort- able and happy. They have books for the aliment of the mind, and a comfortable, provision for the body, besides two or three shillings a week for pocket-money. There is connected with the institution a spacious chapel, which will accommodate one thou- sand three hundred persons ; and a splendid public hall, the ceil- ing of which is beautifully painted by Sir James Thornton. In
* On one of the cupolas is a large ball, which is elevated on a pole, and falls, when the tun passes the meridian, with such a report as to inform the people for miles around of the precise hour of twelve,
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accomplishing this work, he lay upon his back, and painted from the year 1703 to 1727. The designs are principally historical al- legories. Kings and queens are represented adorned with more graces and virtues than often falls to human nature, much less to royal blood.
In passing from the hospital to the observatory you go through a fine park, venerable with branching oaks, at the entrance of which stands the naval school, consisting of a centre and two wings, con- nected by a colonnade. Here are three schools, two for boys of four hundred each, and one for girls of two hundred ; all children of seamen of the Royal Navy. Thus liberally does England pro- vide for her seamen and their children.
A railroad is just about completed from London to Greenwich, constructed on arches, and appears, at a little distance, somewhat like one of the ancient aqueducts.
Three miles below Greenwich is Woolwich, which must be an object of curiosity to the stranger, as it contains the royal dock- yard where one thousand hands are employed, and a splendid ar- senal. Neither this nor any of the other towns on the coast of Kent, many of which are popular watering-places, did we find it convenient to visit, with the exception of Dover, where we stop- ped on our way to the Continent in the fall of 1835, as already mentioned.
By reason of the sickness of Mrs. F., which detained us a week, I saw rather more of Dover than I cared for. It is, however, a very interesting little town, containing about twelve thousand inhabitants. Its chief interest consists in the peculiarity of its site and of the soil around it. It is on a level spot in the form of a crescent, bounded on the one side by the sea, and overtopped on the other by the high chalky cliffs of which everybody has heard who has heard of Dover. These boundaries are so limited in depth that the town extends pne mile in length, and runs into the sea on the one side and into the cliffs on the other. Literally into the cliffs, for these are so dry that you may cut apartments into the side of the perpendicular precipices without inconve- nience ; and the material is such that you can excavate it with the greatest ease, and with very little danger of caving in. Hence, in the bowels of these hills are not only cemeteries for the dead,
ai
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DOVER. 555
but also domicils for the living, stables, covered fortifications, and barracks. The stranger, in fact, finds curiosities here that he cannot find elsewhere in this wide world. The material is chalk, filled with small flint stones, most of which have the appear- ance of pebbles ; as though this entire mass had been subject to the abrasion of water, until the flints were worn into pebbles, and then the whole mixed up with a mass of marl chalk. These ills, in short, are English plum-puddings, the flour of which is chalk, and the plums flint-pebbles. And, to carry out the anal- ogy, like the plums in a pudding not well mixed, or from some inequality in the consistency of the mass, you sometimes find these flints settled into strata cutting the mass horizontally or a little inclined to the horizon. These cliffs are in the immediate neigh- bourhood of the town, and from three hundred and fifty to four hundred feet in height. Immediately back of the centre of the town is a horizontal shaft, running back into the mountain, per- haps, a hundred yards ; and then a perpendicular shaft, with a winding staircase, carrying you up two hundred steps to the bar- racks. Still higher up the hill are extensive fortifications, parts of which are subterranean, the tops of the arches being twenty- four feet below the surface, and containing bomb-proof accom- modations for three thousand men. There are a great number of subterranean apartments twenty feet in height. These subterra- nean fortresses have openings at the angles into deep fosses cut round the brow of the hill, which are raked by cannons in a man- ner that would render it extremely difficult for a besieging army to approach them. Here, too, is a well, sunk four hundred and twenty feet (ten feet below the surface of the sea) to secure water to the garrison ; and two spacious tanks for water, holding each one hundred thousand gallons. On a northern cliff, separated from the one just mentioned by a deep romantic valley, which forms a prin- cipal entrance into the town from the interior, is an ancient castle, well worth visiting, both for its interesting character, its romantic situation, and the fine view it affords of the straits, the town, and even of the coast of France. The castle and tower are supposed to have been founded by Julius Caesar. In the side of this cliff are soldiers' barracks, now, however, occupied for magazines. The chimneys come up forty feet through the mountain, and shoot
556' ENGLAND.
out of the top as if they were the flues of some Cyclopean artificers, whose forges were in the bowels of the earth.
In ascending the winding avenue up to the castle, we were at- tracted by the ringing of a little bell by the side of the way. On examining, we saw a cord attached to the bellyand extending quite a distance to the top of the cliff and into the grated windows of one of the apartments of the castle, now used for a prison. There, through the iron lattice, a hand was thrust out, beckoning most earnestly. The whole was explained by a little alms-box fixed near the bell, and a card under it,, with the following, tender in scription : —
"Oh ye, whose hours exempt from sorrow flow, Behold the seat of poverty and wo. Think, while your hands the entreated alms extend, That what to us ye give, to God ye Tend."
Among other curiosities on the cliff we saw a most beautiful gun, a twelve-pounder twenty-four feet long, cast at Utrecht, in 1544, and given by the states of Holland to Queen Elizabeth. It is called Queen Elizabeth's pocket-pistol ~
One mile from Dover Harbour to the south rises Sliak- speare's Cliff, in a bold elevation of three hundred and fifty feet per- pendicular height. It is supposed to be the cliff alluded to by Shakspeare in his " King Lear," in the following dialogue be- tween blind Gloucester and his son Edgar, disguised as a mad- man: —
Gloucester. Dost thou know Dover ?
Edgar. Ay, master.
Gloucester; There is a cliff) whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in the confined deep t Bring me but to the very brink of it, And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear With something rich about me ;. from that place I shall no leading need, &c_
The cliff has been DroKen off until it no longer hangs over, but rather recedes towards the top. The view from k- was very fine-. We could see the chalky cliffs of the coast of France ; and, in the intervening straits, nearly a hundred sail of water-craft of dif ferent sizes. The following description, which the great dramat rst puts into the mouth of Edgar, though doubtless purposely overwrought by the poet, will, nevertheless, help to a vivid con* of the view i —
DOVER. 557
" Come on, sir, here's the place — stand still— how fearful And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low ; The crows and choughs that wing the midway air Show scarce so gross as beetles : halfway down Hangs one that gathers samphire : dreadful trade I Methinks he seems no bigger than his head. The fishermen that walk upon the beach Appear like mice, and yon tall anchoring bark,, Diminished to her cock : her cock a buoy Almost too small for sight : the murmuring surge^ That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes, Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong."
Dover has become rather popular of late as a fashionable watering-place. To understand this, perhaps, some of my read- ers ought to be informed, that, in addition to the great resort to the mineral waters in the interior, such as Bath, Cheltenham, &c., multitudes rush every year from the interior to the seaside, for sea-bathing, relaxation, and pleasure. Different places have their day of popularity, and then, perhaps, fall into discredit, either by becoming too common and vulgar, or because some other place in the neighbourhood offers greater advantages, or from some other cause. Many of the flourishing villages on the coast owe the chief of their business and wealth to this cause. Indeed, it is surprising to see the extent of this practice of resorting to the seaside. One would think that there was sea-air enough in any part of the island ; but the people think differently, and hence they go in crowds to the coast. In our country we should hardly talk of a difference of climate, between the parts of a section of territory as large as the whole of England, sufficient materially to affect the health. But the English make very nice distinctions ; talk about the difference in small distances ; and, either for health or for pleasure, are constantly discovering new places, and multiplying their varieties indefinitely; so that such as do not enjoy foreign travel, make up the lack by an almost endless variety at home. It all helps in the diffusion and distribution of wealth ; and, wherever the nobility resort, there especially wealth flows in and population increases, and everything bears an extrav* agant price. How far this has affected the prices at Dover I cannot say ; but I found them most extravagant. England, in fact, is the most expensive in its tariff of duties upon the traveller 47
558 ENGLAND.
®f any country I ever travelled in. You have to fee, three ser- vants, at least, dai'.y, viz., the waiter, the chambermaid, and the bootblack, who also acts as porter. To the former two, each individual pays about twenty-five cents per day, and to the latter half that sum. This income supports the servants,, and even more ; for there are frequent instances of the servants hiring their places. Such was the case in our hotel in Dover. The princi- pal chambermaid, for instance, gave a bonus to the landlord for the privilege of taking care of his bedchambers. She then hired her under-chambermaids, and paid them, out of the income from the lodgers.
I had been in Dover a week ; Mrs. F.. had been so ill she was unable to eat a meal during the time ; and at the close, our bill at the hotel was between forty and fifty dollars. Let all travellers who go to Dover beware of the Ship HoteL The physician and the apothecary, on the other hand, on whom I drew very freely, would take nothing for their services. One thing more, also, is worthy of notice. During the time of our stay in Dover, I had made myself known to the people, and had preached once or twice in the neat Methodist chapel, lately finished, and the leading members, at least, knew that I was there,, a stranger, and with a sick wife ; and yet not an individual, with the exception of the Wesley an Superintendent of the Dover Circuit, called to know whether we were dead or alive, or to proffer to us the least assistance or sympathy. Could such an instance take place in the United States, in reference to a minister of the gospel of any reputation or standing ? If there should be such a case in my own denomination, I should blush for my sect. I have sometimes said, with respect to Dover, that we had there illustrated extor- tion> generosity, and inhospitality to strangers. I will not put the epithet British before these characteristics, because I do not think the Dover case a. fair representation of the nation ; and yet the incidents here alluded to are only strong shadings of what are truly national characteristics. The liberality of the English is above all praise. Jn this respect, they are a noble nation. They are hospitable, too, in their way ; but their hospitality is more formal, more tardy, and at first, at least, with more appa- Tent coldness than that of most others. This coldness is some- times withering to the feelings of a stranger ; and yet, perhaps^
INCIDENT AT DOVER. 559
where he at first saw it and felt it, he, after a little acquaintance, finds solid friendship. A stranger will never, at first, fall in love with the English character, especially if he has been accustomed to find his enjoyment in the social sympathies ; but a further ac- quaintance will disclose excellences that were at first concealed.
One incident more at Dover, which I will mention for the same reason that I mention the preceding, because it is illustrative of character. Our passage was a most wretched one. Mrs. F. and myself had been most miserably sick for the last few hours of the voyage, and when we arrived at the harbour it was low tide, and there was no approaching the wharf but by going some dis- tance in a small boat. The wind was up, the waves were rolling, and the night was dark ; we chose, therefore, cheerless as was our condition on board, to remain until we could float up to the wharf. This brought us into town late at night. Not expecting either packets or stages at that late hour, the waiters, when we arrived at the public house, looked upon us with suspicion, espe- cially as we appeared wayworn and out of time. They declined receiving us ; they had " no room — no bed" We inquired for another hotel, and were about leaving to go to it, when, recollect- ing that Mr. Lane, our travelling companion, who was coming from London that night, would expect to find us at this hotel, I said to the waiter, " If a young gentleman in the London coach should inquire for Dr. Fisk, say to him, I am at the ' Union.' " The chambermaid and waiter exchanged looks. "Don't you think," says the latter, " you can give this gentleman the bed you were reserving for the gentleman you were expecting in the coach ?" The thing was arranged, and we soon found ourselves in a comfortable room. Thus Dr. F. gained what the untitled stranger could not. So, thought I, hereafter I will let the title have its weight if it can profit me aught. I am not sure, how- ever, but the title came in to help swell the bill at the final settlement ; for, although a title goes a good ways in England, still the lower classes expect pay for it. A dealer in laces, for instance, thought it mean in the present queen that she objected to the price of his goods. Queens, and so of noblemen, and those of still lower titles, are expected to pay, not merely accord- ing to the worth of the article, but also according to their rank.
Another excursion from London was to Bedford, the county
560 ENGLAND.
town of Bedfordshire, fifty miles from the metropolis, containing about six thousand inhabitants. A good portion of the county belongs to the Duke of Bedford. It is mostly agricultural. The town of Bedford is in the midst of a rich valley on the river Ouse, and contains several institutions, and has in its neighbour- hood some localities very interesting from their historical asso- ciations.
Sir William Harper, who died in 1566, gave, for a charity school &c., at Bedford, about twelve acres of land, in that part of London lying in the neighbourhood of High Holborn, which, in those days, was of comparatively little value. This property is now very productive, yielding about thirteen thousand pounds sterling annually. -From this fund a most beautiful range of Gothic school edifices has been built ; and they now support from the fund a classical school, a commercial school, a national school of three hundred pupils, a blue-coat school, for girls and boys, a grammar school, an hospital — besides supporting several students at the university — giving money to the boys, when they are bound out as apprentices, from ten to thirty pounds sterling ; and money to the girls, who are put out to service, from two to five pounds sterling per annum ; and finally, twenty pounds when they get married; and they also contemplate erecting another girls' school. It is one of the richest charities in the country. But there are, in fact, many similar charities in England. There is, probably, no country in the world in which there are so many valuable charities as in England. True, many of them have been neglected and perverted ; but government is looking after them with increased strictness and vigilance.
John Bunyan was born at a little place called Elstow, about a mile from Bedford town. We visited the humble cottage, which is still standing, and found residing in it a pious old couple, who were astonished to see any one from so great a distance as Amer- ica, and particularly so to perceive that we were not black. We persuaded the good man to give us a chip from the beam of the house. Bedford was the place of Bunyan's ministry. His chap- el is still standing, which we visited — sat in his armed-chair — saw, at Mr. Hilliard's, the present pastor of the church, the jug in which they used to carry him refreshment when in prison ; for it was here, also, that he was imprisoned for his religion, and
BEDFORD. 561
in the Bedford jail he wrote his Pilgrim's Progress. We saw, also, at Mr. Milliard's, the record book of his church, entitled "A Booke containing a Record of the Acts of a Congregation of Christ in and about Bedford" Many of the entries of this book are in Bunyan's own hand, and some of them at the very time he was in prison ; showing that he was sometimes permitted to come out, which is said to have been by the indulgence of the jailer. Near Bedford, also, in Cardington, was the residence of How ard the philanthropist. We visited his mansion, as also the parish church, in which is a tablet to his memory, with this inscription: —
" Mr. John Howard died at CJierson, in Russian Tartary, January 21, 1790, aged 64. Christ is my hope"
In the same church was a monument, by Bacon, to Samuel Whitbread, Esq. Here is the family residence of the Whitbreads, the great brewers of London. They are now the owners of the Howard estate, and how much more I know not, for, like many others of their profession, they have accumulated an immense estate by manufacturing ruin for the nation. One of the present family, together with Lord John Russell, son of the Duke o-f Bedford, used to represent Bedford in Parliament ; or, in English phrase, were " the members " for Bedford. Lord John, however, in the plenitude of his spleen against Methodism, wrote a book, entitled " Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe, from the Peace of Utrecht," in which he took occasion to censure Mr. Wesley and the Methodists with great freedom and flippancy. This finished his Parliamentary career, so far as the constituency of Bedford was concerned. The Methodists met him at the next election, and told him plainly that a man who could not only vilify them, but, through them, the cause of experimental religion, was not the man of their choice ; and, notwithstanding, his lordship, and his grace the duke, both made an effort to reconcile matters and save a defeat — the apology come too late — Lord John was defeated, and his colleague fell with him, defeated too, in the centre of his father's estate, and with all the family influence to sustain him. However, they have a ready manner of accommodating such a defeat in England. If a man, whose presence is greatly desired in Parliament by his party, is defeated in one place, he can offer himself in another — anywhere in the kingdom — and it is not un-
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frequently the case that an elected member resigns, in order to make a vacancy for a more prominent candidate, who has been defeated in some other place. Lord John is in Parliament still, but he has to seek constituents elsewhere than in Bedfordshire.
We attended a missionary meeting in Bedford, where we had an opportunity of noticing what is by far too common in England, and carried to too great excess, viz., public compliments and flattery. This, however, is a small matter in the great system. The mis- sionary meetings of England excite great attention, and are remarkably well sustained: if the speakers would have less of personal flattery and aim less at getting applause, the religious in- fluence, I think, would be better, and, of course, the entire influence would be improved. Nevertheless, it behooves us rather to copy their zeal, and aim at equally successful efforts in this holy cause. One item in the catalogue of measures for the promotion of the missionary cause is what they call a missionary tea. The Eng- lish are remarkable for connecting, with all their operations, " meats and drinks." By eating and drinking over a subject, their sympathies are awakened, their social feelings are called out, a fuller tone is given to physical, and, of course, to moral pulsation. This great business of eating and drinking, therefore, must be incorporated into the missionary enterprise — hence the " mission- ary tea." This we had at Bedford the day after the missionary meeting, and it was managed on this wise : There was a commit- tee to make the arrangements. The vestry or schoolroom of the church was selected for the place. The ladies agreed each to furnish a given proportion of the vessels, &c., necessary for the occasion ; the cold ham, bread and butter, cake, tea, &c., were paid for out of the sale of the tickets, which were put at a price, not only to cover the expense, but also to yield a handsome balance for the missionary cause. The young men assisted in waiting on the table. After tea several of us were called on to give addresses, in addition to which we had singing and prayers, and much pleasant conversation. The whole was well calcu- lated to promote Christian social intercourse, and to interweave our sympathies with the hallowed cause that had brought us together. These missionary teas are well worthy of the atten- tion of American Christians. It is true they might be abused by being left too unrestrained, and by suffering the lighter social
One item
ion tc
e tha:
lericar
CAMBRIDGE. 563
feelings to take the place of the devotional ; but, properly directed, they cannot fail, I think, to do good. In the present case, the excellent and devoted superintendent of the circuit gave the whole a decidedly religious turn, and yet it was social and free.
We took Cambridge in our route on our return to London, where we spent two nights, and devoted our time to an examina- tion of the celebrated university in that town. The university is all that is worth visiting here. The town lies low and flat, and is badly built ; the streets are indifferent, and the surrounding scenery tame and dull. The population is about 20,000, and the business of the place dependent mostly upon the colleges. Many of the col- leges are splendid edifices, and some of them, especially on the banks of the river Cam, which sweeps round the north part of the town, and gives name to it, are pleasantly situated.
I dare not commence upon a description of these edifices. They are built mostly in courts or quadrangles, and of the Gothic style. The entrance is frequently sheltered by a splendid Gothic screen, the most beautiful of which is a new front of St. John's College, on the south of the fourth court. This is magnificent, and several others are very fine. King's College chapel is cele- brated for its architecture. It is, perhaps, the finest Gothic struc- ture in the kingdom. The accompanying print will give the reader some idea of its external appearance, and a general idea of the style of architecture most prevalent in these edifices. It has towers at the corners, pinnacles along the sides, and frequent buttresses in the walls. The view within is finer than that with- out. The roof hangs over your head like fanwork, unsupported by a single pillar, and yet it is all of heavy stone. If any one asks what supports it, I must answer, I cannot tell. It is reported that Sir Christopher Wren used to say, " If any man will show me where to lay the first stone, I will engage to build such an- other ;" and it is also said he went once a year to survey this roof. There are two roofs, between which I walked upright. The lower roof constitutes the ceiling of the chapel, and is orna- mented with ribs and tracery. The architect was Nicholas Cloos, who commenced the edifice in 1441, under the direction and patronage of Henry VI.
The colleges are seventeen in number, and were founded at different times. The first was St. Peter's, in 1257, and the last
564 ENGLAND.
was Downing College, founded in 1800. Five were founded in thd fourteenth century, five in the fifteenth, and five in the sixteenth., These colleges are of different sizes, and vary very much in the number of undergraduates ; but the whole number is about two thousand. One of the students of Trinity College, to whom I had letters, introduced me to his tutor, from whom I obtained what information I could for the time ; and this, together with the de- scriptions of the " University Calendar," gave me a better view of this celebrated university than I was ever before able to form. For the information of American students and such others as may feel interested in these matters, I shall subjoin a general outline of the constitution and regulations of this university. If any of my readers are uninterested in it, they can pass over this brief sketch.
Each college is a body corporate by itself, and is bound by its own statutes, has its own funds, and educates separately and in- dependently its own students, and has its own collegiate examina- tions. The college is made up of, 1. The head, who, in*all but King's and Queen's College, is called Master. In the former he is called provost and in the latter president. 2. The Fellows, who in all the colleges but two, are graduates, and, generally, masters, or bachelors, and doctors in divinity, civil law, or physic. These fellows are a kind of literary monks : they are bound tc celibacy while they remain fellows ; and, for the most part, re* quired to live in Cambridge, and can generally hold no other living or income, or, at any rate, not above a specified amount. This last regulation differs, however, in different colleges. They are appointed for their merit or scholarship after a rigid examina- tion, and are supported by funds appropriated for that purpose, by the founders, in the respective colleges. Some of these fel- lowship foundations are restricted to residents of particular coun- ties or towns, and some even to pupils of particular schools. Their advantages are rooms and commons free of expense, and annual dividends of money, according to the value of the respect- ive foundations. They have also other advantages. All college officers are chosen from these fellows, some of which are very lucrative and honourable ; and, besides this, each college has more or less of benefices or church-livings at its disposal, and to these livings the fellows are preferred by seniority. The whole
COLLEGES 565
number of fellowships in all the colleges is above four hundred. These fellows eat in the same room with the students, although they have a higher seat and a better table ; and, after they finish their dinner in commons, they have what is called a " Combina- tion Room" (an ominous name), where they retire to drink wine, eat fruit, &c., and cultivate sociality with each other. They be- long, therefore, as will be readily seen, not to the eremites, but the cenobites* They are generally reputed to be fond of good cheer, and, although the original design was to promote the cause of literature and science by the separate maintenance of a literary community, yet I seriously doubt whether the institution answers, on the whole, a valuable purpose, I hope we may never see fellowships introduced among us,
In addition to the master and fellows, each college has scholars* These are graduates resident in the college, and supported by scholarships* which are also foundations for the support of such as may, on examination, be admitted to them, and which afford •emoluments of different kinds. The instruction is given by tu- tors, who are chosen from the fellows, and are, in fact, the prin- cipal working men in the community. They are appointed by the master, and there is this peculiarity, that each student may select from among them his own tutor. Then they have bursars to attend to the college estates and funds ; stewards, chaplains, deans, lecturers, and a great number of porters, hairdressers, cooks, and other inferior servants.
Notwithstanding the colleges are, in many respects, indepen- dent of each other and of the university in their operations, yet they are all under the paramount laws of the university. They are imperium in imperio, and must submit in all general matters to the higher sovereignty. No degrees are conferred by the col- lege ; these are the prerogatives of the university.
The university is directed by a senate, consisting of doctors in divinity, law, and physic, and of all who have been admitted to the degree of A.M., if their names are on the college boards,! or if they live in Cambridge, or hold an office in the university. There are belonging to this senate about two thousand five hun-
* Some of these scholarships are also available for undergraduates, f By this is meant if they pay an annual fee of from two to four pounds, by which they retain their right to vote in the senate when admitted masters.
48
560 ENGLAND.
dred ; but twenty-five is a quorum for doing business. The offi- cers of the senate are, 1. A chancellor, who is at the head, is cho- sen by the senate once in two years, and is generally one of the principal noblemen. 2. A high steward. 3. A vice-chancellor, who is elected annually by the senate, and is, in fact, the officer •who generally presides over the senate, as the chancellor is sel- dom here. 4. Commissary, &c., &c., for the officers are too nu- merous to be mentioned. Among these officers are two courts ; one by the high steward, and the other by the commissary. The limits of their jurisdiction are, as to persons, the students who may be impeached of felony, or any other persons belonging to the university ; as to local limits, their jurisdiction extends to a mile distant from the town in every direction, reckoning from the extremities. The senate also adopts all the regulations necessary for the government of the university, in subordination to the char- ters and the statutes of parliaments, which are the constitutional law, binding and limiting the senate. The senate also elects two members to parliament, and has various other powers and prerog- atives. An ordinance of the senate is called a grace, and the as- sembly of the senate is called a congregation.
The annual income of the university, independent of the colle- ges, is about five thousand five hundred pounds, which is derived from various sources. The university has also an extensive influ- ence from church patronage, amounting to about two hundred and fifty livings, in addition to the patronage belonging to the respect- ive colleges.
In addition to the governmental powers possessed by the uni- versity, it has the professional schools of divinity, law, and medi- cine, and a school of philosophy under its direction. Connected with these schools, or otherwise belonging to the university, are about twenty-seven professorships, which are worth, besides the income from their lectures, on an average, from fifty to two hun- dred pounds per annum. Two of them have an income of a thou- sand pounds each. Some of these professorships were founded by the king, and are, therefore, called regius professorships ; oth- ers are founded by private individuals.* There is a suite of rooms in an edifice erected for that purpose, where these professors lec-
•* Many of these professors are chosen by the executive officers of the senate ; some are appointed by the king, and others are nominated by individuals.
. COURSE OF STUDY. 567
ture ; and here also, in the upper story of the same edifice, is the university library, consisting of about one hundred and ten thou- sand volumes, many of them choice and rare books and manu- scripts. Among the latter is perhaps the oldest Biblical manu- script extant. It is the four Gospels and the Acts, in uncial let- ters, on vellum, in Greek and Latin. In this library are paintings and statuary, and various curiosities. The university has also a line senate house, a university press, in which its many classical works have been executed, and which is a source of revenue to the corporation, and a fine collection of paintings, called the Fitz- william Museum. This was given by Richard, Viscount Fitzwil- liam, who died in 1816, and is the best collection of the old mas- ters we saw in England. Among them were the works of the Caraccis, Paul Veronese, Rubens, &c.
The colleges have libraries of their own, some of which we visited. That of Trinity College contains about thirty thousand volumes. Here also we saw several interesting manuscripts, among which was the original plan of Paradise Lost, in the hand- writing of Milton, and in the form of a tragedy; showing that the first conception of the poet on this subject was in a dramatic form, but was afterward changed to the epic. Here are also pre- served the globe, ringdial, quadrant, and compass which formerly belonged to Sir Isaac Newton, with many other curiosities. This college boasts of having educated the greatest men of the world : Newton and Bacon, as also the poets Cowley and Dryden, and many others. Each college has, in general, a chapel, a public hall, a combination room, rooms for the master and fellows, and also rooms for the students, together with the necessary refectory apartments, and lodges for the servants of all grades. \
The course of instruction and study necessary for a degree is, on the whole, not as extended as in the United States. It is di- vided into three parts, viz. : philosophy, including pure and mixed mathematics and astronomy ; this is about the same as in our col- leges. Theological and moral, or, as we should term it, depart- ment of intellectual and moral science ; this is not as extended as our course in the same department. Locke is the text-book in intellectual philosophy ; Duncan in logic ; to which if you add Paley and Butler, you have the great whole of this important class of studies. The third division is called belles lettres, but only em-
568 ENGLAND,
braces the Latin and Greek classics and literature. In classical studies they certainly make maturer scholars than we do, for these languages are studied eight years before the pupil enters college. Here is nothing of chymistry,. mineralogy, geology, botany, politi- cal economy, or rhetoric ; nor is there need of much hard study in the authors required, unless the student reads for the honours ; in that case he needs to apply himself closely, especially to the mathematics, which are the principal thing at Cambridge. They are pretty strict in requiring students to keep term,, as they call it f that is, be present in Cambridge, and attend to some of the duties,, such as dinners, and prayers also, at least once a day °r and if they are guilty of any small offence, they are required, as a punishment, to attend prayers twice a day. A good way this to bring praying into bad odour. As to study, they may attend to that or let it alone. They arer in general, not even examined when they en- ter, but must bring a certificate from some master of arts that they are suitable persons I® enter. The students have examinations' before the college, attend, if they please, the lectures of the tutor and of the professors of the university, and frequently, in addition, have a private tutor. They have two examinations before the uni- versity. One in the second year, called the previous examination? and one at the close of their collegiate course.
At the previous examination,, which is before four examiners appointed by the senate of the university, and who have twenty pounds each for attending to that duty, the junior sophs, as they are called, are examined in one of the four Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles in the original Greek, Faley's Evidences of Chris- tianity, one of the Greek and one of the Latin classics-. It i» often the case that the student has not looked at his authors until' perhaps a few weeks before the examination. He then gets him a private tutor, and commences what, in the Cambridge technics? is called cramming; a very expressive appellation, a-nd one- which we give to the method of fattening turkeys speedily by cramming down their throats more than they would naturally be inclined to eat. So these tutors cram their students, against their stomachs, doubtless, to prepare them in a short time for the exam- iner's knife. The fat acquired in this way is probably lost about as speedily as gained. However, they can be crammed again for the second examination^ which takes place preparatory to a degree.
UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS. 569
All who present themselves to this examination are called ques- tionists. The first exercise is three questions : one taken from the Principia of Newton, one from some other writer in mathe- matics or philosophy, and one from Locke, Paley, or Butler. These questions the respondent, as he is called, pledges himself to maintain against all opposition. The moderator assigns three opponents to oppose this respondent. At the time appointed he appears and reads a Latin thesis on one of the questions, at his own option ; generally it is the moral question. Whether the re- spondent writes his own theme cannot be known, and, therefore, unless he should be called upon as an opponent to some other, this examination, so far as he is concerned, may be said to go for nothing. To him the opponents answer in turn. Then another respondent is brought on, and so of the rest The most part wha graduate go out, as they term it, in the pol ; an abbreviation of *«7 fl-oAAo/, meaning that they graduate with the multitude. They, it is true, have a further examination, but in mathematics it only extends to arithmetic, algebra, and Euclid ; and in the classics to the first six books of Homer and six of Virgil ; less than our col- leges require to enter ; and in moral and intellectual science they are examined in Paley's Evidences and Philosophy, and in Locke ! A little cramming soon fits them for this. And this is all to ob- tain a degree at the University of Cambridge !* It is true, those who present themselves for the mathematical honours undergo a more rigid and severe trial, and are carried over the general range of the ordinary course of mathematics, pure and mixed.! All the examinations are conducted in a manner entirely different from ours. The questions or problems are all printed, and distributed to those who are to be examined, and they are allowed a given time, and pen, ink, and paper, and nothing else to make out their written answers. These are done in the presence of the exam- iners and moderator, who take the papers, and, after examining them, assign the rewards or prizes to the most meritorious. This saves the embarrassment of an extempore answer, and more cer- tainly calls out the knowledge of the student than our method.
* Sometimes the questionist fails even in this, and is denied his degree. This they call being plucked.
t This is called the examination of the tripos, probably because the patients used to sit on a three-legged stool. The technics of Cambridge are amusing, not to say ludicrous, &r I suppose it will not do to apply the latter term to this ancient seat of learning.
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570 ENGLAND.
The student who passes the best examination in the senate-notise is called senior wrangler, and then follow the other wranglers in their respective grades, all arranged according to their rank.
On the whole, this system of education seems very defective. No wonder it should confer degrees on thousands of blockheads, and no wonder it should learn thousands of youths to be ensnared and corrupted by vicious influences. There seems very little pa- ternal watchcare over these youths ; very little prompting to duty. Ambition and rivalry are the great motives by which any are prompted to action, and, of course, feelings are begotten that con- travene all the principles of the gospel, even in the minds of those inost attentive to their collegiate duties.
The students are generally of the nobility or gentry, and the expenses are considerable. A few fag up, that is, maintain them- selves by menial services. Some have exhibitions, a term ex- pressive of certain allowances for the support of undergraduates from specific funds willed or appropriated for that purpose, and belonging sometimes to the college, and sometimes to some lower school, and sometimes to particular trades and companies, as to the carpenters, fishmongers, hatters, &c., of London. The stu- dent deposites a sum at his entrance called caution money, viz. : noblemen, fifty pounds ; fellow-commoners, twenty-five pounds ; pensioners, fifteen pounds ; and sizers, ten pounds each. This caution money is to secure their attention to certain academic ex- ercises, which, if not attended to, the money is forfeited. Money, it seems, win secure at Cambridge almost any exemption from duty, and gain almost any college degree. There is also another entrance fee to the college of from six to eighteen shillings, ac- cording to the rank of the student, for the expenses are mostly graduated by rank ; and also another to the university called matriculation fee, graduated in the same proportions as the cau- tion money, viz. : noblemen, ten pounds ; fellow-commoners, five pounds ; pensioners, two pounds ten shillings ; sizers, one pound five shillings each. These are also precisely the sums paid quarterly for tuition, with the exception of the sizer, who pays but fifteen shillings tuition-fees. Besides this, there are fees for everytMng. I will not attempt to enumerate all the small expen- ses that are required of the student in his progress. The fees for bachelor's degree varies, at the different colleges, from two to four
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY. 571
or five pounds sterling, and for the higher degrees still in advance according to the dignity of the degree. The highest I noticed was twenty-seven pounds thirteen shillings.
It should be noticed, in respect to the preceding grades, that a fellow-commoner is the younger son of a nobleman, or a young man of fortune, who has the privilege of dining with the fellows , pensioners form the great body of the students, and are such as pay for their commons, chambers, &c. ; sizars are the poorer class of students, and have their commons free.
To one who is disposed to make the best use of his time, whether he be an undergraduate, or a student in the professional schools, or, in fact, holding any other relation to the university, there are in Cambridge great advantages. The material for learning is, for the most part, here ; and here are many learned men : but here, also, is much sinecurism, much idleness, much to tempt the footsteps of the young astray. The funds that are here available might be laid out to much better advantage, and the university might be much better adjusted to the present state of literature and science. There is not, for example, any chymi cal apparatus, except what belongs to the professor as his private property — a most vital deficiency this — and others might be mentioned. There is, in fact, at Cambridge, more form than study ; and the arrangement and operations of this ancient and venerable seat of learning are more suited to the purposes of ex- ternal pomp — to public display — to the pampering of an over- grown aristocracy — to the sustaining of a defective church establishment,* than to the great purposes of intellectual and moral elevation. I say this with the greatest respect for the learned men who are now there or have there been educa- ted. Why should there not be great men there ? With two thousand undergraduates, with between four and five hundred fellows, who have none of the anxieties of domestic or public life ; who have, in fact, nothing to do but to cultivate science — besides more than as many more men, in the different offices of the colleges and the university — what ought not the world to ex- pect ? There should appear not merely an occasional star, bu the whole sensible horizon of Cambridge should be one expanded
* Every student, before he is admitted to his degree, must take an oath that he is- bonajidet a member of the Church of England, as by law established.
572 ENGLAND.
galaxy of crowded constellations. But is it so? and is there not some serious defect in all this splendid array of wealth and show, when the results are so much below what they should be ? No man can look at Cambridge without admiration, and almost veneration ; but, at the same time, it must be with mingled regret.
Evangelical piety, it is thought, has in Cambridge, as else where in the kingdom, advanced within a few years. To this Mr. Simpson has contributed much. He deservedly stands in high repute here ; and it is to be hoped the savour of an influ- ence like his may be greatly extended.
Our next excursion from London was to his majesty's royal residence at Windsor Castle. This is twenty-two and a half miles from London, up the Thames. In going thither we pass the beautiful parks, and many other beautiful and interesting objects. It seems, in fact, most of the way, like a continuous city. Twenty miles out is Slough, the late residence of Sir William Herschel. Here we saw, still standing, the frame of his large telescope. He has gone where he needs no telescope, and his son has left Eng- land to point his glass into the southern hemisphere from the Cape of Good Hope. Two miles farther is Eton, celebrated for its classical school, founded by Henry VI. in 1441. It is the great literary gymnasium for the children of the nobility, and the most wealthy and aristocratical of the gentry. The number of pupils, I believe, is between three and four hundred. Some of the peculiarities of the school are, that it consumes a great por- tion of childhood and youth in the study of the ancient languages, and sanctions the practice of fagging ; the younger pupils, whether they be noble or gentle, serve the elder — by doing their errands, blacking their shoes, and performing other menial offices ; and the senior students have power to exact obedience and ser- vice by corporeal punishment. This is doubtless often abused ; at any rate, our country youth, Zerah Colburn, complained bit- terly of the cruelties practised upon him when placed in this school ; and he and his father took such a stand against it as finally secured him an exemption from such impositions. This irreconcilable opposition of a Vermont peasant to the Eton aris- tocracy shows the misconceptions of some respecting this school. " Surely," they say, " you cannot complain that Eton is aristo- cratic, when noblemen, as well as others, are subjected, in their
WINDSOR. 573
turn, to the same servitude." Most certainly ; it is the quintes« sence of aristocracy ; and nowhere but in an aristocratic coun- try could such an institution be maintained. It is true, the hereditary aristocrat for a time submits to it. But it is on the same principle that the pope sometimes washes and kisses the dirty feet of the devotees at the Hospital of the Pilgrims — it is a part of the system, and the pope must do a little at it, in due form, to set an example for others. Our countryman, Irving (I quote from memory, and do not give his exact words), in describing a rich English gentleman's apparent devotion and loud responses in a country parish church, looking, as he occasionally did, upon the poor parishioners around him, as if he should say, " Look at me, and follow my example," compares him to a magistrate, who sups down the broth prepared for the parish paupersy smacks his lips, and commends the soup, saying, " See how I eat it — it is good enough for the poor." This is the principle at Eton. The boys of the nobility will/ag- a few terms at school, that they may set the example to that part of the nation who must fag all their lives for them. " See how I submit to it — it is good enough for the poor."
There always will be poor and rich — those who labour and those who are exempt from it : and far be it from me to excite in the breasts of the former the rankling feelings of envy towards the more fortunate and wealthy. What I complain of in England is, that society is formed and maintained on such an artificial principle, that every layer in the social strata is compelled, in a great measure, to keep its position. The social elements are not free to find their own level, restrained, as they are, by the super- incumbent weight, girded and bound down by the very structure and framework of society.
But enough of this here. Passing Eton a half mile you reach Windsor, an ancient borough, containing about seven thousand inhabitants, situated upon the side of a hill rising up from the bank of the Thames, and upon the top of which towers the mag- nificent castle. It is a residence worthy of a king. It has. a terrace around it, which has been considered one of the noblest walks in Europe. There are numerous towers and apartments ; one is called the Round Tower, situated between the two princi- pal courts, which rises above the rest, and exhibits a splendid
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574 ENGLAND.
panorama. The Royal Park, and the neighbouring grounds and villages, and the meandering river in the vale below, are all mag- nificent. The view, also, is extensive ; it is said, twelve counties are discerned from this tower by the naked eye. This castle has been a royal estate ever since William the Conqueror. Succes- sive monarchs have enlarged and improved it. In the reign of George III. it was greatly improved ; and still more under George IV., who lavished a part of his extravagance here. To him, chiefly, is the castle indebted for its splendid collection of paintings and its princely furniture. We were fortunate in our day — the king was gone to town, which left the apartments free for the gaze of strangers ; and the Wesleyan minister, being ac- quainted with some of the members of the domestic court, pro- cured for us admittance into the various apartments. These I will not attempt to describe in detail ; but the wealth and magnif- icence of a nation are here. We went into the rooms of the gold plate, and such a display of magnificence and wealth I never before beheld. The plates, turrenes, goblets, saucepans, salts, fruit-dishes — in short, every form of dish that the most refined luxury could require, many of them set off with brilliants and precious stones, filled two large-sized rooms. I counted one pile of gold dining-plates, amounting to between four and five hun- dred. The cost of these dining-sets and other dishes was from ten to fifteen millions of dollars. This is one of the methods by which the British national debt has accumulated.
This splendid plate is not used ordinarily, but only on state occasions. Silver answers for common use. And for whom is all this expenditure and profligacy ? For a frail, erring mortal, like ourselves. The poor old king — his present majesty, William IV. — has not vital energy enough, with all his sparkling appara- tus and tempting luxuries around him, to keep awake during his ordinary dinner ; but uniformly, after the cloth is removed, he falls asleep in his chair ; and as it is a part of the court etiquette for none to speak or leave the table while the king sleeps, the household who dine with him are obliged to sit in mute dignity, till his majesty finishes his nap.* Thi* was communicated to one of our party by a member of the domestic court.
Near the castle is the collegiate church of Windsor, called St. * He has since fallen asleep in death — (1837),
ST. GEOXGE'S CHAPEL. 575
George's Chapel. It is an elegant specimen of architecture of the kind — it being of the florid Gothic- — although the style itself had its origin in a corruption of taste. In this edifice are the tombs of several of the kings, and a number of other members of the Brunswick family. In one of the chapels is a most touching and elegant monument to the Princess Charlotte, erected by subscription, from the designs of M. Wyatt, Esq. In design and execution it is, to my eye, a masterly production ; it is pathetic — it is the very eloquence of pathos.
This chapel was erected in honour of the Knights of the Garter, and its ceiling is hung with their banners.
We happened in at the time of service, which is performed here morning and evening, at half past ten and four. The exer- cises were a fac-simile almost of the Catholic service ; all artifi- cial— prayers chanted — responses made by a company of boys, habited for the service with what would have been white canoni- cals if they had been clean, joining in the responses in the most heartless and careless manner conceivable. I believe, from my heart, that such a service is an abomination to the Most High. How much of the trappings, and, I may add, of the spirit of Babylon, still hangs round what is so often called the " venera- ble church establishment" of England.
The two parks adorning the neighbourhood of Windsor Cas- tle cover twenty-three hundred acres ; one of them, fourteen miles in circumference, is traversed by what is called the " long walk" — a most splendid avenue, extending out in front of the magnificent terrace. Near the farther end of this is a royal lodge and sheet of water, called " Virginia water," for Majesty to sport upon. But as I have much to see, and, of course, much to say yet of England, I cannot stop to visit or describe all the interesting objects in and around this royal residence. It is said to be the most splendid palace of the English monarch ; but whether it is or not I cannot judge, for I was inside of no other. Indeed, I had become so weary of visiting palaces while on the continent, I had very little desire to enlarge my observa- tions on this class of subjects. I have seen enough to be con- vinced that his majesty of England is a most wealthy king of a most wealthy kingdom. I di-d not even see the king ; I saw his coach and six, and infe-rred he was in it ; but whether he was or
576 ENGLAND.
not was of little consequence : his coach was, doubtless, a finer sight than he would be. It is said to be a very common thing for our countrymen to be introduced at the queen's levee. Our charge informed a friend of mine that more citizens of the Uni- ted States applied to be introduced to their majesties than of all other countries put together. Our republicans, it seems, have a great desire to see the splendour of majesty and of a royal court ; for myself, I thought it not worth the trouble.
We left London July 19th, for Birmingham, the seat, the pres ent year, of the Wesleyan Annual Conference. The first day brought us to Oxford, where we spent two nights, for the purpose of examining this ancient seat of learning. But as I have spent so much time and paper in describing Cambridge University, I shall say but little of the University of Oxford, especially as the essen- tial features of the two institutions are the same. A few things, however, may be worthy of notice. Oxford is a far more beautiful town than Cambridge — its environs are fine, and the country around fertile — many of the walks are delightful, and the streets are good and very well built.
The state of morals here is thought to be better than at Cam bridge, and they are much greater sticklers for high churchism than at Cambridge. At the latter place the student cannot take his degree without swearing his allegiance to mother church, but in Oxford he must do this before he can enter. Rev. Mr. Hill stands at Oxford in the place of Rev. Mr. Simpson at Cambridge. The Oxford apostle, however, is more decidedly Calvinistic, and more strenuous in his notions of the exclusive claims of "the church." Around him the more pious students gather as their leader, and, of course, they drink into his notions and spirit. It is greatly to be la- mented that these views of doctrine and succession are so prevalent among those who call themselves evangelical in the Church of Eng- land. Indeed, the arrogancy of the church of England in these matters cannot be tolerated. It is subversive of some of those best principles on which Protestants in general depend for the spread of the Gospel, and promotive of the most arrogant and exclusive claims of the Church of Rome. I cannot conceive how the premises of the secessionists in the church can be granted with- out leading directly to the Romish Church, as the one most un- questionably entitled to the character of the true church. I met,
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in Italy, a clerical gentleman from Natchez, United States, who had given up his charge as an Episcopal minister, and, with his wife and two children, had gone on a pilgrimage to Rome to find the true church ; and on Palm-Sunday he formally renounced his Protestantism, and took upon him the Roman yoke. The reasons he assigned to me for this, for I had many long and faithfu1 dialogues with him on the subject, were precisely those which the high church clergy in England and America assign for claim- ing to be the exclusive church of Christ ; if the succession of the priesthood and the line of bishops from the apostles be the only criterion of the true church, then truly the Church of Rome has the strongest claims, and all who dissent from her are schis- matics and heretics. The Church of England is, in fact, a little more exclusive than popery, for although the Episcopacy of the Protestant Episcopal church in the United States was derived from the English, the latter, nevertheless, exclude the former from their pulpits ; even an American bishop is not allowed to preach in the most obscure parish church in England.
Mr, Hill and his coadjutors have engaged in writing and pub- lishing tracts of late, some of which fell into my hands — and what, kind reader, do you think is the object of these zealous tract distributors ? — not to get unbelieving sinners converted — not to teach the important experimental and practical doctrines of the Gospel, but to impress the common people with the danger and heresy of going to the meetings of the dissenters. Whatever may be the character of the parish clergyman, his is the true ministry ; the dissenter is a schismatic, and must not be counten- anced. This is the great work of the evangelical party at Oxford. This is a leading feature in the great reform that is said to be going on among the clergy of the establishment. To this ftiey add a strong spice of Calvinism, bearing in many instances a very close relation to antinomianism. With this spirit and doc- trine, what, after all, can be hoped from such a church for the conversion of the world ?
The university contains twenty colleges and five halls. The halls at this place are on the same footing as to literary advan- tages and university honours, but have not the same charters and funds with the colleges. In this respect they differ from Cam- bridge, where the halls and colleges are the same. In point of 49
578 ENGLAND.
architecture, the college buildings at Oxford do not compare with those of Cambridge. The edifices, for the most part, appeared old and weather-beaten. Some of the buildings are more modern. Among these is the RadclifTe Library, which is very well as a monument, but is anything but a convenient edifice for a library It is a rotunda, with a dome ; above the floor for the library is a circular gallery, under which are the books. The room is too dark and every way inconvenient. There are about 15,000 volumes in this great cenotaph of Dr. Radcliffe, who was the founder of the library. He left forty thousand pounds for its erection, one hundred and fifty pounds per annum for the librarian, one hundred pounds for the purchase of books, and the same sum for repairing the edifice annually. From the dome there is a fine view of the town and adjoining country. Robert Hall was so enchanted with the view, that he called it the " New Jerusalem descending from heaven ;" but his brother, Andrew Fuller, was desirous of hastening down, to go to his lodgings for the purpose of discussing the doctrine of " Justification by faith !" These anecdotes are remembered and repeated, in order to illustrate the characteristics of these two eminent men. Perhaps I did not feel the enthusiasm of the former ; but I felt no haste, I confess, to descend from this commanding observatory to discuss any question in philosophy or theology.
There is a very good collection in natural history called the Ashmolean Museum. It is said to be the first collection for va rieties in art or nature ever established in England. The founda tion was by a donation from Elias Ashmole, in 1677.
In a quadrangle called the Schools, an edifice belonging to the university, and used for examinations and other public purposes, is tHe Bodleian Library, so called after Sir Thomas Bodley, who was the principal founder, and who died in 1612. This is a li- brary worthy of this ancient university. It contains about four hundred thousand volumes. Here are many valuable manu- scripts, European and oriental. No books are allowed to be taken out ; but all graduates of the university, and literary stran- gers who are well recommended, are allowed an entrance and the use of the books. In the same building is a picture-gallery, con taming pictures, busts, and some very fine models of the most celebrated ancient edifices,
OXFORD. 579
In this building, also, are the celebrated " Arundelian marbles," the " Selden marbles," and the " Pomfret statues." The first are among the most ancient monumental records extant, and con- tain some important illustrations of antiquity. They were origi- nally brought from Greece and Asia, and purchased by William Petty, who had been sent to Asia for making such collections, by Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey. Hence their name. The Selden marbles are also antiques ; and the Pomfret statues are a collection of ancient busts and statues presented by the Countess Dowager of Pomfret, in 1755 : there are one hundred and thirty-five of them, some of which are very good.
We saw here, also, a fine model in cork of the ancient amphi- theatre which we visited at Verona.
The university theatre, erected, not for dramatic exhibitions, but for certain public academic exercises, is a splendid edifice. Like many other buildings in Oxford, it is the work of Sir Christopher Wren — that veteran labourer in the field of architecture. The ground plan is from the ancient theatre of Marcellus, which we had visited at Rome. Here, in 1814, degrees were conferred upon the Emperor Alexander, the King of Prussia, Prince Met- ternich, Prince Blucher, and other wondrous savans, whose pro- found scholarship in the work of blood and tyranny entitled them, doubtless, to these literary and scientific honours of the first uni- versity in the world ! ! " Let the potsherds strive with the pot- sherds of the earth ;" but shame on the literary institution that will stoop to crown the victor.
The principle of conferring degrees and awarding university honours is similar to that of Cambridge, save that here the an- cient classics take the prominent place of the mathematics in Cambridge. In the prescribed examinations, moral science and classical literature are required, and the candidate may, if he pleases, add mathematics and natural philosophy.
The stranger's attention is arrested both here and at Cambridge with the costumes of the students and others, members of the univer- sity. All the officers have their peculiar dresses, so also have the graduates in their respective degrees, and the undergraduates. These last again vary according to their rank. In Cambridge, and I suppose it is so here, no undergraduate is allowed to appear out
580 ENGLAND.
without having on his academic gown and cap ; so that, in term- time, the town is full of gownsmen*
In going from Oxford to Birmingham we passed the ancient town of Warwick, where we made a stop of several hours to visit Warwick Castle. The town itself is rather interesting and ven- erable, and the castle is very fine. It is a little to the southeast of the town, on a rock forty feet high, the base of which is washed by the river Avon. Its foundation is too remote to be chronicled. The most ancient part, called Caesar's tower, is one hundred and forty-seven feet high. In the interior is a princely suite of apartments, three hundred and thirty-three feet in a right line, adorned with paintings and curious ancient armour. In the green- house is the celebrated Warwick vase, one of the most beautiful works of art that has come down to us from antiquity. It was dug from the ruins of Adrian's Villa, near Tivoli, and is supposed to be the workmanship of Lysippus, the celebrated statuary of the age of Alexander. Its capacity is one hundred and sixty-three gallons, its material white marble, and its- form, nearly sphericaL Two vines spring out of the sides, and, gracefully curling up to the rim, divide into two branches and form the handles of the: vase ; after this they run round the top, interlace with each other, and form for the upper border of the vase a beautiful garland of tendrils, foliage, and fruit. The sides are embossed with strong relief of antique heads, a panther's skin, and the tliy.rsis* or wand of Bacchus.
The park is venerable with branching oaks. The whole ex- hibition, in short, is one of the finest specimens of feudal remains to be found in England. Guy's tower, one hundred and forty- eight feet high, is so named after Sir Guy of Warwick, one of the chivalrous heroes of the wildest days of romance. Many are the anecdotes related of him,, and many the ballads which set forth his prowess. In one of these he is represented as boasting*
" On Dunmore heath I also slew
A monstrous wild and cruel beast, Called the Dun-cow of Dunmore heath, Which many people had oppress'd."
* We had the curiosity to notice, in Oxford, Lincoln College, where Mr. Wesley was- fellow. In the town, Methodism has taken root,, and I preached a lecture in a neat chapel belonging to the society.
A STAGECOACH CONVERSATION. 581
Whether we saw the armour with which he killed the Dun-cow , I cannot say, but we saw an ancient suit of armour, offensive and defensive, said to be his, which should be wielded by none but giants.
We were gratified in meeting at Warwick our London host,. Rev. Mr. Alder, with whom we proceeded to Birmingham. We met at Warwick, also, some Americans, who turned aside to visit the ruins of Kenilworth Castle, a sight, it is said, well worth see^ ing ; but we have found that it is impossible to see everything.
A gentleman sitting beside me on the stagecoach, in the course of conversation informed me of a Baptist missionary meet^ ing which had been held the night before in Birmingham, in which a dissenting minister by the name of East, and a Quaker by the name of Sturge, had been invited to speak. These gen- tlemen, it appears, had left the object of the meeting, and suc- ceeded in turning it into a noisy and bitter anti-slavery meeting. Dr. Hobey, a Baptist minister of Birmingham, who was the col- league of Dr. Cox in a Christian embassy sent by the English Baptists to their brethren in the United States the year before, was the first object of their attack. The ground was, that he had betrayed his trust in the United States by refusing to appear in public to advocate the cause of abolition in America. From Dr. Hobey they passed to the United States, and from the United States they were led to mention that a Methodist bishop (as they were pleased to term him) was expected at Birmingham in a few days as a delegate to the Wesleyan Conference ; that he was sent by a pro-slavery party in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was himself an advocate for slavery ; and, as my informant understood it, and as one of the public journals afterward reported it, it was also added that this bishop was a slaveholder. The name of the gentleman was called for by some one in the assem- bly, that he might be known and treated accordingly when he should arrive. Bishop Fisk, was the reply. My informant fur- ther intimated that it would be very unpleasant, if not unsafe, for the American bishop to show himself in Birmingham, as he would meet with rough treatment. I told him, although I did not claim to be a bishop, yet as I was the delegate from the Metho- dist Episcopal Church to the Wesleyan Conference about to be held at Birmingham, I supposed I must be the person alluded to • 49
ENGLAND.
that I should not take any pains to hide myself from the good people of Birmingham ; and, therefore, they would have full op- portunity of doing all their pleasure in the case.
It appeared, by what this gentleman informed me, and by what I further learned after reaching town, that they had a most un- pleasant, nay, I might add, a most disgraceful me-eting ; that the attack on Dr. Hobey was most rude and unchristian, and the missionary meeting was productive of anything but good to the cause of Christ. As John Bull often berates Brother Jonathan right lustily for his want of politeness and courtesy, I suppose he wanted to give a specimen of the manner in which he would treat a stranger and a foreigner ; viz., condemn and denounce him, and hold his name up to public odium, unheard and altogether un- known, except through some private channel of communication, which, from the mistakes as to matters-of-fact, showed it to be in this case altogether indefinite and destitute of credit. Far be it from me, however, to charge this feeling and conduct upon the better part of Englishmen. The sequel showed that neither the citizens of Birmingham in general, nor the Wesley an Confer- ence, sanctioned this wild procedure, which, even in the actors themselves, is, to a great extent, to be attributed to a too highly excited and misdirected public feeling ; bating always the dema- gogical agency that fattens upon such excitements. In short, it is but justice, I believe, to give Mr. Sturge himself the principal credit of this whole affair ; to which he had been prompted, it seems, by letters and communications which, he said, he had re- ceived from the United States.
CHAPTER XXIX.
HAVING arrived at the seat of the Wesleyan Methodist Confer- ence, one of the most important purely ecclesiastical bodies in this or any country ; a body, too, to which I had been officially dele- gated by the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States,, it will be expected,, of course, that
METHODISM. 583
a small portion of my journal should be devoted to the official do- ings of this body. To avoid, however, such details as would be at best only interesting to those of the same denomination, I shall touch only upon those points that will serve to show the general constitution and present condition of this very efficient branch of the Christian church ; a subject which, to the philosopher and the politician, the observer of man as a social and a religious being, must, in any event, be one of deep interest. To see one individ- ual start up in the bosom of a civilized and Christian community, and become the founder and leader of a sect which, in all its branches, numbers more than a million of members, and between four and five thousand travelling, and nearly twice as many local ministers and public teachers, and that, too, in less than a century, is a phenomenon in the moral world such as is rarely beheld. To see it spreading out its influences over the world, and carry- ing forward its moral conquests in every continent, and in the isles of the sea, advancing still with all the vigour of fresh manhood, with a surprising uniformity both of doctrine and discipline, and with a marvellous unity of design and of effort in its moral and religious achievements, is an exhibition which may well attract the careful attention and study of every investigating mind.
The most perfect exemplification of this system is in England, for this is the parent stock, and here the system has, in its prac- tical operations, ripened into its greatest maturity and acquired its greatest vigour.
Methodism in the United States has become more extended than the British connexion, including all their missions, in the ratio of two to one. But the peculiarities of our country, con- nected with the fact of the more recent establishment of the cause in America, has prevented that practical perfection of the organi- zation that is exhibited in England. The present is the ninety- third annual conference of the British connexion, whereas the first conference in the United States was held in 1773, only sixty -three years since. At that time there were but ten preachers in the connexion, and for the ten following years, in consequence of the revolutionary war, there was very little increase, comparatively : so that the principal gain of the Methodist cause in the United States has been in a little over half a century.
To understand the present position of the connexion in Eng-
584 ENGLAND.
land, the reader should be informed that a severe attack had been made upon the integrity of the body by some malecontents of the ministry and membership, at the head of whom was Dr. Warren, a minister of some standing and age, who had become disaffected, as many thought, for the same reason that Diotrephes opposed the apostles. The general accusations by these schismatics were, that the ministry had too much power, both in their Conference capacity and as administrators of discipline ; that even the Con- ference itself was under the control of a few individuals, and especially of one, whose power and influence was dreaded and denounced more than all the rest. In short, all the discontent and restlessness of the connexion seemed to be rallied under this leader and in this excitement; not that there was any harmony of feeling among the different malecontents themselves, except in the simple point of being dissatisfied and wishing for a change. The principal ground of direct attack upon the Conference was the establishment in London of a theological seminary for the improvement of the junior preachers. This was denounced as unconstitutional and unmethodistical ; and, in addition to this, claims were set up for changes and popular rights, as they were called, which showed that the whole movement had its origin in that revolutionary spirit of radicalism so rife at the present day in church and state on both sides of the water. To accomplish their objects, Dr. Warren and his party formed " an association" for the factious purpose of effecting a change in the economy of the con- nexion, and finally they adopted the modern process of " agitation" by the press and by popular harangues, for the purpose of stirring up faction and division in the regular societies.
It is not for me to decide, because I am not sufficiently ac- quainted with all the facts in the case to do so, that there was no ground of complaint in any of the matters alleged by the malecon- tents. I could not, however, fail to notice the close sympathy of feeling in this schism with that which prompted the schism in the American connexion in 1828. The principal complaint in both cases was " clerical domination," " ecclesiastical oppression." It undoubtedly originated, in both instances, in that ultra democratic spirit which may be carried, as all must allow, too far in the state, and which is certainly erroneous when it founds its claims in the church on a marked and literal analogy between the government
METHODISM, 585
of the church and of the state. From the nature of the case there always must be a marked distinction between ecclesiastical and civil government ; and the safety of the people, in ecclesiastical government, consists in this, that it is armed by no secular power. The extent of its authority is moral discipline by moral means, with no other power but that of withdrawing fellowship from the incorrigible offender. The association itself is a voluntary one, and the ministry entirely dependant, not only for their influence, but also for their support, upon the affection and confidence of those among whom they exercise the pastoral office. That there is danger of " lording it over God's heritage," however, is evident from experience, from the nature of man, and from the cautions of the New Testament. But one thing is very evident ; the man or party of men that, because of some real or supposed offence of this kind, undertakes to agitate publicly and to divide the church of Christ, to stir up discontent and beget distrust in the minds of the people against their religious pastors, assumes a fearful amount of responsibility. Such a man is doing the work of the accuser of the brethren, and will, without repentance, find, in the day of eternity, the blood of souls in his skirts.
The Warren schism agitated the connexion through a great part of the kingdom. The strenuous efforts of the schismatics-, however, were met by equally vigorous efforts of the ministers and members opposed to them, and the result has been much more favourable than could have been anticipated. I could not ascertain the precise loss, but probably from twelve to fifteen thousand members. During the two years of agitation, however, the connexion, as a whole, has gained in membership some thou- sands ; and are now bound together by stronger sympathies, proba- bly, than at any former period since the death of Mr. Wesley. The ministers and people understand each other and their church rules and privileges better than ever, and especially one point has been settled, which, more than anything else, settles and con- solidates the connexion on a stable basis. I allude to a legal de- cision obtained in the court of chancery on the authority of the Conference and its legalized organs over the chapels and other church property of the Wesleyan connexion. This property is held, as with us, by trustees ; but this is for the specific purposes mentioned in the trust deeds. And among these is the right of
4E
586 ENGLAND.
occupying the pulpits of the chapels by ministers regularly ap» pointed and controlled by the Conference. The object was to discard this control, and still retain the pulpit. On this issue the action was commenced and prosecuted. The interest on the subject was intense, as, in a great measure, the constitution of the Methodist connexion was jeopardized. The subject was ably canvassed in the chancellor's court, and decided in favour of the claims of the Conference.
The basis of the powers of the Conference, in all questions of this nature, is a poll deed, executed by Mr. Wesley, February 28, 1784, and enrolled in the high court of chancery on the 9th of March, 1784 ; by which he gave legal existence to the Metho- dist Conference, which, by that instrument, is always to consist of one hundred, the vacancies being filled annually in the man- ner prescribed by the deed. By this deed, also, the power of ap- pointing preachers and expounders of God's word to occupy the chapels, which before had belonged to Mr. Wesley, was granted and secured to the Conference ; and, in addition, that the Metho- dist chapels might never be perverted from their original design, in the trust deeds of all the chapels a clause is inserted, in which reference is made to this poll deed of Mr. Wesley's, and also to the first four volumes of Mr. Wesley's sermons, and to his notes on the New Testament ; and it is declared that " no person or persons whatsoever shall be permitted to preach or expound God's Holy Word in the said chapel who shall maintain any doc- trine contrary to what is found in these works." By the decision of the chancellor, Mr. Wesley's deed is confirmed and estab lished, and the Conference is recognised as a legal body ; and all their constitutional acts, therefore, are sanctioned by the law of the land. Hence their trust deeds, with all their provisions, are sanctioned ; thus the unity of the body is secured, a uniformity of doctrine is established, and the power to maintain and enforce moral discipline in the church is confirmed to the Conference and their official organs and members. The Wesleyan Methodists, therefore, may claim Mr. Wesley's poll deed as their Magna Charta, and the chancellor's decision as confirming to them all the rights and immunities therein contemplated. This is one among many evidences of the reach of Mr. Wesley's mind, and of his remarkable adaptation to and fitness for the office of a re
METHODIST CONFERENCE. 587
former, and of a founder of a religious society of extraordinary comprehension and efficiency.
It. is true, there have been frequent defections, in a small way, from this body. The most considerable was in 1797, in which from fifteen to twenty preachers and between five and six thou- sand members drew off, and set up a " new connexion," as it is sometimes called ; and at other times they are called Kilhamites, from one Kilham who was the principal leader in the schism. This connexion numbers now two hundred and fifty-five chapels, eighty-two travelling preachers, six hundred and -sixty-seven lo- cal preachers, and nineteen thousand two hundred and nineteen members. Their growth, however, has been comparatively slow, especially when it is considered that they have been the recepta- cle of a great portion of the discontented of the old connexion, until this last schism by Dr. Warren. Some attempts have been made to unite these to the Kilhamites, but the materials which are composed of malecontents of any community are generally possessed of such repulsive influences and forces as to prevent any close and general aggregation either among themselves or to any foreign body. Such is the case in the present instance ; and although they may have succeeded in drawing off between twelve and twenty thousand, yet it is doubtful whether, when the elements come to settle according to their elective affinities, if affinities they have, any considerable number will be found in any one association.
At the meeting of the Conference the present year the storm had passed over ; hardly was the pattering of the lingering drops heard upon the ecclesiastical edifice. With renewed confidence in their cause, and with stronger motives for union among them- selves, they assembled for their annual business at Birmingham — the first session ever held in this town. The most important parts of their business are arranged and prepared in committees that are appointed the year before, and meet several days before the session of the Conference for that purpose. At most of these committees, lay members are invited to be present to take part in the deliberations, and especially to assist in the arrangement of the financial concerns of the church.
As this part of the system is a beautiful feature in the econo- my of Methodism, I will give some of its general features.
588 ENGLAN3,
Although the financial resources are altogether from jthe volun- tary offerings of the people, yet they inculcate the principle that every one ought to do something ; and the least that any one should do who is not absolutely a pauper is reckoned at a pen- ny a week, and in addition one shilling at each quarterly renewal of the ticket of membership. All will do this much, it is calcu- lated, and the money thus collected nearly meets the current ex- penses of the societies. But in addition to this there are several other sources of income, which are called funds ; not that there is any money funded which is made available for the church, but moneys collected for specific objects are called the funds for those objects respectively. Such as the school fund ; the contingent fund; the chapel fund ; the children's fund ; the preachers9 aux- iliary fund ; the missionary fund, &c. A short explanation of some of these will show upon what liberal and evangelical prin- ciples their ecclesiastical affairs are conducted.
School Fund. — There are two schools for the sons of the Meth- odist travelling preachers, viz. : Kingswood School, near Bristol, and Woodhouse Grove School, near Leeds, in Yorkshire. These have each one hundred boys, who are educated by collections made yearly in all the circuits for that specific object, consisting of a public collection in the month of October, and private dona- tions. It costs only about twenty-two pounds sterling per annum to educate a boy at one of these schools, including clothing and books. As the schools will not hold all the boys, and there is no public provision for girls, the parents are allowed a given sum for each child educated at home. The whole amount expended in the school fund this year appeared by the report of the committee to be eight thousand five hundred and seventy-four pounds.*
Children's Fund. — It was found that the itinerant system was embarrassed from the fact that some had large families, while others had smaller, or perhaps none at all. This made it diffi- cult both for circuits and preachers. The preachers with large families could not be supported, where, perhaps, they were really
* The schools have a debt on them of between six and seven thousand pounds ster- ling, to pay which the bookroom appropriates annually one thousand pounds. Th« amount of sales from the bookroom the past year has been forty-four thousand six hundred and fifty-one pounds, three shillings, and ninepence ; nett income appropriated to the different funds from this source is six thousand four hundred and twenty-seven pounds.
METHODIST CONFERENCE. 589
needed, and many large families were rather considered a burden to the circuits where they were appointed. To equalize this expense, and make it more pleasant for both preachers and peo- ple, a calculation is made at the Conference of the number of preachers' children to be supported by the connexion the ensu- ing year ; this ascertained, they are divided out on paper to the different districts according to the members in the societies, and, at the first district meeting after Conference, this number for each district is divided out to the respective circuits! according to their number of members, and each circuit must furnish the sup- port for the number attached to it. Treasurers and other officers are appointed to receive this money when a surplus is raised in one circuit over and above the number of children actually living in it, and to disburse it to other circuits where they have more children than belong to them to support.
Contingent Fund. — It was found that while one circuit whose needs for ministerial labour were as great as those of another might nevertheless be comparatively poor, and, there- fore, not able to support its needed amount of ministerial and pastoral labour, the other circuit was able to do something more than support its own pastors. Hence the following plan was adopted : each district furnishes to the Conference the amount it will want the ensuing year from the contingent fund. The Conference makes an aggregate of these claims. It then ascertains by estimate the probable amount of the available funds which may be collected from all the circuits to make up these deficiencies, and then it divides this amount to the respective dis- tricts in due proportions ; and the districts, at their first district meeting after Conference, divide it out in such proportions as they judge just and equal to the needy circuits. If the Confer- ence cannot meet the full amount of the requests for aid from the different districts, it curtails where, in its judgment, it can be done with the greatest propriety. This contingent fund is raised from a public collection made for that purpose, and from an annual subscription taken up among the members ; to which is added an appropriation from the bookroom. Out of the moneys thus raised a certain portion is reserved to meet miscellaneous ex- penses and special cases which could not be foreseen, of sick- ness, or expensive removals, or necessary changes, and from vari- 50
590 ENGLAND.
ous other sources. This portion is called the appropriation for extraordinaries ; the other is for ordinaries. The whole amount collected for this fund the present year, including an appropriation of a thousand pounds from the bookroom, is eleven thousand three hundred and seventy-nine pounds, nineteen shillings, and three- pence.
The Preachers1 Auxiliary Fund is for the superannuated preachers, preachers' widows and orphans. This is made up of collections, donations, and legacies. Many of the most wealthy every year make liberal donations to this fund. I should judge, however, that the provision for this interesting part of the work is the most uncertain and inadequate of any of the others, not- withstanding I saw in the list of donations to this fund quite a number of fifty pounds each.*
The Preachers' Annuity Fund is for a similar object with the preceding. It is the income of property funded, given by legacies and otherwise, and from an annual payment of five guineas from each member of the annuitant society, and of twenty guineas from each on entering the society ; by which a fund is formed from which those preachers who are worn out in the service, and their wives and families, receive an annuity proportioned to the time they have been contributors to the fund. The object seems to be to lay by something, while in youth and in health, for old age and sickness. Whether the plan is altogether productive of the good that has been proposed by it, is to me doubtful ; per- haps if I understood it better I should think more favourably of it. The collection of that fund seemed to me, in some cases, to produce as much embarrassment as its disbursement was cal culated to relieve.
The Chapel Fund, and Chapel Loan Fund. — I have put these together because they are united in their operations ; and, taken altogether, this is the most interesting feature of Methodist finance. To understand it, the principle of building chapels should be explained. In the first place, the spirit of a national debt appertains also to the church. The English hardly think they can carry on any great public enterprise without a public
* I might have added here the seniors' fund, which is made up of an appropriation from the bookroom and a portion of the auxiliary fund. This is for those who have travelled thirty-five years 5 all such have an annuity of one hundred pounds.
METHODIST CONFERENCE. 591
debt ; so much does the general policy of a nation give character to all the subordinate social relations of its citizens.
The national debt, or, in other words, the ecclesiastical debt of the Methodist connexion in England for chapels amounts, in the opinion of some good judges with whom I conversed, to half the value of the real property of the connexion. In some cases chapels had become extremely embarrassed, and were thrown into the market for sale to meet the debts upon them.
To prevent building with indiscretion, no chapel is to be com- menced until approved, first, by the quarterly meeting in the cir- cuit where the chapel is proposed ; secondly, by the district meeting; and, finally, by a chapel building committee appointed annually by the Conference for the whole connexion. These ap- proving, which they do on certain conditions, one of which is, that a certain portion of the necessary funds for building be first obtained, the building of the chapel is authorized. If the society proposing to build neglect this course they are entitled to no aid from the chapel fund. In general, they are under the patron- age of that fund. To obtain aid, special application is necessary to a committee appointed by the Conference for that purpose, who receive and examine the representations of the state of the chapel, and apportion their disbursements according to their available means to the most distressed cases. Most of the chap- els which are in debt make no such application, for the reason that their seat-rents pay the interest of their debt, and, in many cases, annually sink a portion of the principal; for in all the chapels the larger portion of the seats are rented.
The chapel fund is obtained by an annual collection taken up for that express purpose in all the societies. But this fund, it was found, was not ample enough to meet the pressing wants of many of the chapels ; to supply this lack and relieve the work, the chapel loan fund was got up. A committee appointed for that purpose borrows an amount of money, which it disburses to the most distressed chapels on certain conditions ; one of which is, that the society applying for a grant shall consider this grant as final, and shall hereafter make no application to the chapel fund for such partial and annual relief as they have heretofore re- ceived from that source ; and another is, that the society shall raise a given amount, generally a sum equal to the grant from
592 ENGLAND.
the fund. This, so far as the trustees of that particular chapel are concerned, is a gift, and the committee of the loan fund look to the chapel fund for their pay. The chapel fund being thus relieved from a portion of its annual drafts, can afford now to devote a part of its avails to meet the annual interest of the loan fund, and help sink the principal. The advantage of this complicated ma- chinery appears to be this. It affords immediate and permanent relief to the distressed cases beyond what the chapel fund could do ; and, by holding out the offer of this relief on the above con ditions, it stimulates the societies asking relief to make a vigor ous effort to reduce their debt. This loan fund, moreover, be comes a kind of savings bank, where many, having full confidence in the credit of the connexion, deposite their money which they wish to put out to interest ; whereas they would not so readily loan it to individual societies or boards of chapel trusts. It forms, therefore, if not a church stock, at least a sort of ecclesias- tical bank, and may, as some boast of the national debt, have a great influence in ensuring safety and integrity to the connexion. Their pecuniary interest as well as their spiritual is involved in the prosperity of the church ; and, at the same time, those who deposite money here, in addition to the security of their interest, have the gratification of knowing that their capital is employed to promote the interests of the church.
The committee have loaned since the establishment of the loan fund about thirty-five thousand pounds, and have thereby con- tributed to the sinking of double that amount of debt, an amount of about three hundred and thirty or three hundred and forty thou- sand dollars.
From 181 7 to 1836 the chapel building committee have granted permission for the erection or enlarging of one thousand two hun- dred and thirty-seven chapels, and some have been erected with- out official permission. From this some estimate may be formed of the increase of the denomination, being an average increase or enlargement of more than sixty-five chapels annually.
This system of finance may seem complicated to the stranger, but it operates like clockwork. Every wheel moves in its own place and performs its appropriate functions. A committee, treasurer, secretary, &c., are appointed every year in advance to superintend each department or fund ; the appropriation is gen-
METHODIST CONFERENCE. 593
erally made in advance upon the credit of what is expected ; so that each district and circuit knows what is required, or how much will be bestowed, as the case may be. The collections are made for each fund at a given time in the year, and the preacher who neglects to make the collection will be called to an account as certainly as though he neglected any other ministe- rial duty.
On the annual committees quite a number of laymen are en- listed, by which their business talent is employed to advantage, and their interests and feelings also become enlisted.* Everything is done by system, and, therefore, well done. The minister's sup- port is liberal and certain ; his extra bills for sickness are all met ; his house is furnished with everything necessary for the family use, so that nothing is removed from one circuit to another but his books, clothing, and family. In this way a great portion of the pains and privations of an itinerant life, such as we have it, are avoided.
Missionary Fund. — This is the great fund of the connexion, and gives operation to one of the most efficient subordinate or- gans of moral power now in existence in the Christian church. The number of members under the care of this society is, as re- ported for the present year, sixty-one thousand eight hundred and three. Of these, thirty-eight thousand and twenty-five are in the West Indies, and mostly coloured ; and ten thousand six hundred and eighty-five are in the British colonies of North America, The others are in India, Africa, Continent of Europe, islands of the Pacific, New Holland, &c. In these missionary stations two hundred and eighty-one preachers are employed, besides teachers and other agents.
To meet the expense of this part of the work, above fifty-two thousand pounds have been raised by subscriptions and contribu- tions during the past year, and by legacies and from other sour- ces sufficient to make the income for the year sixty-two thousand one hundred and ninety-six pounds, fourteen shillings. This sum is raised in various ways ; by public contributions at anniversary meetings, by missionary boxes, by annual subscriptions, by do- nations, by collectors who go from house to house to obtain aid for the missions, by missionary teas ; in short, almost every law-
* As a proof of the interest thus excited, quite a number of these laymen, when they left town, gave fifty pounds each for the funds of the connexion.
50 4 F
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ful thing that can be thought of is put in requisition to aid this cause. The great means, however, and that which gives life to all the rest, are the anniversaries that are held in all the societies. These anniversaries are attended by delegates, who are selected from among the preachers at the Conference, to visit each a given portion of the work, to make speeches, state facts, and attract the attention of the people to this great enterprise. In this way not only has the missionary feeling become intense throughout the whole connexion, but it has become a matter of principle and an important and indispensable part of practical godliness to give to the missions.
At the head of this work are the missionary secretaries, four in number, including the assistant, who devote their time entirely to the missions. They are assisted in London by a committee of preachers and laymen, and the Conference also have a missionary committee, which meets, like the other committees, the week pre- ceding the annual session to review the business of the year and prepare all new measures for Conference. The secretaries have all power in the executive department, as well as the principal agency and influence in forming the plans of operation. They se- lect the missionaries out of those who offer themselves for the mis- sionary work, change and remove them, and select their fields of labour. Notwithstanding the preachers of the British connexion suppose the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States have too much power, yet the missionary secreta- ries have more power in their department than our bishops.
Among the other committees that meet on the week preceding Conference, the stationing committee is of the first importance. The preceding committees have the charge of the distribution of the funds of the church ; this of the ministerial gifts of the church. This work is very much lessened, however, by private arrange- ments previously made between the preachers and circuits. It is customary at the first quarterly meeting after Conference for the circuit by its official board to invite their preachers for the next year. If those invited comply with the request, the subject rests until the Conference, when, if nothing special intervene to prevent, the arrangement is confirmed. Those who are not pro- vided for by this arrangement are to be distributed among the va- cancies on the circuits. Although each preacher is permitted to
METHODIST CONFERENCE. 595
be stationed three successive years on the same circuit, yet it must be by reappointment in a formal way, so that every appoint- ment is canvassed, first in the stationing committee, and then re- viewed and revised, and finally acted upon and confirmed, after, I think, the third reading in Conference.
On the subject of stationing the preachers, I saw again how important was Mr. Wesley's poll deed. Make the best of an itin- erant life, there is something in it so unpleasant to flesh and blood that there is a constant tendency to a more permanent system ; and the idea was decidedly expressed by several of the leading preachers, that a longer stay than three years would be, in some cases, important ; but the poll deed will not allow of it. Thus has Mr. Wesley's forethought perpetuated a travelling ministry, which otherwise, by its own friction, would sooner or later have run itself down to a dead locality.
The preachers think they have more voice in their appointments than we have in our method ; but I believe, with the exception of a portion of the more favoured, there is more diiference in name than in reality. In no case was the question of the appointment of a preacher put to vote. The voice of the elders, and especially of the president, prevailed, and the preacher submitted. It is true, he had an opportunity of telling his wishes to the Conference ; of saying, as was often done, that he thought he should do for such a circuit, &c. ; and he also had the opportunity of hearing it said very plainly in the Conference that he would not do for such a circuit, they never would receive him, and the like. This was at first a little amusing to me ; but I found habit had made them familiar with these things, and it was thought little of. It was pleasing, however, to see with what submission they yielded when the voices seemed to be against them.
But I anticipate ; for, heretofore, I have only been speaking of the doings of the committees before Conference. This body com- menced its regular session on the 27th July. Dr. Bunting was chosen unanimously to fill the president's chair. This was done to show the schismatics the confidence they had in the doctor, and in those principles which he had sustained, and for which he had received so much personal abuse. This office, also, he was well qualified to fill. He is perfectly acquainted with the Methodist system ; he knows the men ; he knows the work ; he
596 ENGLAND.
knows the rule ; he has a most extraordinary business tact tnat grasps the whole and inspects the parts. He has a mind for gen- eralization and analysis, and a ready skill to adapt the means to the end ; to do the proper thing in the proper way. Having spoken thus freely of him in his official relations, I might add, that in the chair he exercises more authority than could be ex- ercised in the United States. Indeed, I believe everywhere in England the president or chairman in church and state exercises more authority than with us. At any rate, if I may judge of the authority of the president of the Wesleyan connexion in England by what I saw at the Conference and elsewhere, he has twice the power of the entire board of Methodist bishops in America, if we except the power of stationing the preachers ; and in practice even here the president's power was greater than that of our bishops'. When he said let it be so, the voice of the elders said let it be 30, and so it was. No man, probably, since the days of Mr. Wesley, has had such a control and influence in the connexion as the present president ; and richly does he merit it. If knowledge, if judgment, if integrity, if entire devotion of time and talents ought in any case to secure influence to a man, then is his authority legitimate, and all who know him know that it is also safe.
I was pleased at the deference paid to seniority and to office in the British Wesleyan Conference ; and not only here, but in all the social and domestic relations of this country. Honesty and candour oblige me to say it is the contrast of what we see in America ; and it is but candid to acknowledge that this difference is doubtless owing, in a great measure, to the difference in the in- fluence of the political institutions of each country respectively upon social and domestic habits. We gain nothing in favour of republicanism to claim for it what does not belong to it ; and we are great losers by shutting our eyes to its unfavourable bearings. Everything has its defects, and the height of human perfection is to fix upon that which has the fewest imperfections ; and then, instead of shutting our eyes to the imperfections of our chosen system, it becomes us to know them well, and provide against them. Where everything is carried by vote, and every man's vote, whether young or old, rich or poor, ignorant or learned, is of equal value with that of any other ; and where, too, these votes are courted by flattering the besotted and ignorant, and or-
METHODIST CONFERENCE. 597
ganizing and setting forward the young and inexperienced in the great affairs of the nation, we could expect little else than that the tendency would be to the levelling system, to the prostration of all distinctions, not only the arbitrary and oppressive, but also the natural and salutary ; the guards, therefore, should be on that side. Where men do not come up to the natural mark, there is no danger of their passing beyond. But we have come up, in the constitution of society, to the full point of popular and equal priv- ileges ; and a man must be but half of a philosopher not to be able to infer from the very nature of things, that the press will be onward towards radicalism and agrarianism; to a levelling, in fact, of those distinctions of respect for the aged and the wise which even savage life recognises. For when civilized communities break over their just social bounds, they rush into a worse state than exists in original barbarism ; they have refined upon theory until they have stifled the voice of those gregarious instincts that constitute the rude elements of savage or barbarous clanship. That we have, in our social constitutions, come fully up 10 the line in this direction, shows our courage, if not our wisdom ; and the only way now to sustain ourselves is to know our exposed sides, and guard against them ; here is one point of exposure, and here, we should set our double guard, and this is to be done mainly in the domestic circle. We must cease to flatter our children, and to press them forward into early public notoriety; and in more extended associations we must be cautious how we spoil our youth of promise, who are shooting up from the dust, under the patronage of our genius-fostering institutions, by too much flat- tery, and by giving them a premature pre-eminency. Let them rise ; it is well that we have thrown off those shackles of rising genius which, in Europe, make every case of elevation from the lower grades of society a phenomenon ; but it is not well that we guard so little against any peculiar evils incident to such a state of society. I have said more on this subject than I should have done, but for the conviction that the evil is a growing one ; and for the known fact that, when it is seen and charged upon us by Europeans, we deny it.
The manner of doing business in the Conference was much less in regular parliamentary order than with us. In their mis- cellaneous business several would speak at a time. Whenever
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the subject was one of moment, however, and required grave de- liberation, they spoke successively and in set form ; but very few questions were put to vote. In general, they talked over the subject, and settled down upon what seemed to be the voice of the majority, and especially the majority of the more experienced and the aged.
As I have mentioned the affair of Mr. Sturge and the Baptist missionary meeting, I will add that Mr. Sturge was true to his promise of making my character (as he preferred to understand it) known to the Conference. He procured a printed circular to be sent to every member of the Conference, informing them of the bad man that had come among them, and calling upon them to treat him accordingly. In allusion to this, and in explanation of the slave question in our country, I spoke at some length on the subject when I was officially introduced. The Conference received me with great apparent cordiality and kindness, and the president expressed his disapprobation of the interference of another in their concerns. On hearing our rules and doings on the subject of slavery, it was declared by several that, so far as ecclesiastical action was concerned, the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States had done more than the Wesleyans of England ; that the instructions given to their missionaries sent to the West Indies prohibited them altogether from agitating the question of emancipation ; since they were sent there, not to med- dle with civil relations, but to preach the gospel and bring sinners to repentance. In doing this, they considered they were adopting the apostolical example. To this there seemed to be a general assent ; the president, however, stated that it would have been more gratifying to him if the General Conference of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church in the United States had expressed, at their late session, their official and continued disapprobation of slavery ; but, at the same time, expressed his conviction that it did not become the English to interfere or dictate in this matter, and especially to send agents to the United States to agitate the public mind.
Mr. Sturge afterward sent another circular, expressing, among other things, that "something approaching to indignation had been raised in his mind at seeing it announced in the public pa- pers'* that I had been "most cordially and affectionately re-
METHODIST CONFERENCE. 599
ceived." But this second produced as little effect as the first. I am thus particular on this subject for two reasons : to show the extreme ultraism of a certain portion of the English population, and the rational and honourable course adopted by the Wesleyan Methodists tovyards their brethren in America. The British Methodists are certainly decided emancipationists, but, as a body, they are reasonable men ; whereas, on this question, many in the other dissenting sects of England and Scotland have treated the subject, so far as the United States are concerned, altogether unreasonably. Some of the Baptists were ready to quarrel with Rev. Doctors Cox and Hobey because they did not commence a crusade on abolitionism as soon as they reached America. The Presbyterians treated the Presbyterian delegation from the United States this very season in a way that will, it is presumed, effectually suspend all further interchanges of official messengers of peace and salutation between the two Christian bodies in the respect- ive countries. The Methodists alone stand in that relation to each other which will authorize the continuance of these Christian em- bassies between the two countries ; and it is devoutly to be de- sired that nothing may occur to prevent the friendly relations that exist between these two great divisions of the Methodist family.
Two or three things more, and I must dismiss the subject of the Conference. One interesting change was made this year by the British Conference in their manner of setting apart their young ministers for their work. Before, it was done without the laying on of hands, except in case of those who were ordained for foreign missions. This year that ceremony was adopted. Why it should have been delayed so long is not readily accounted for. It is certain, however, that the Methodists have, from the begin- ning, very reluctantly — too reluctantly, as I think — assumed any attitude that would appear like setting up a separate and a dis- senting church. Even to this day, many of the ministers and people will tell you they are not dissenters, and that they do not like dissent. Although they have all the attributes of a regular and distinct church organization; their doctrinal creed; their church covenant and moral discipline ; their distinct ministry and ordinances ; their places of worship, and their legal recognition as a distinct religious community, yet, strange to tell, even intel- ligent men among them will tell you they are not dissenters ! It
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is difficult to know what they mean by this. I suppose it is, however, that they do not wish to supplant or help destroy the establishment. This step of a formal ordination by the laying on of hands, small as it is, will help widen the division, probably, that separates them from the establishment.
As this was the first Conference held in Birmingham, the citi- zens struck a medal in commemoration of it, and got up a public breakfast, where these medals were presented, with appropriate speeches, on both sides to the president and secretary of the Con- ference, and to the American and Irish delegates ; the thing was executed in a way very creditable to the friends in Birmingham. The breakfast was served in the large new town-hall, which is a fine specimen of Grecian architecture, and a spacious edifice for public meetings. I know not the number that were seated at the breakfast-tables* ladies and gentleman, but I think there could be little, if any, short of a thousand ; and numbers paid a liberal fee for a ticket, just to have the privilege of coming into the gallery to see and hear. The whole scene was peculiarly English, but none the less interesting for that; the topics discussed in the speeches were themes connected with the past and present state of the great Methodist family in Europe and America, and with the general interests of the great Christian cause. Here were pres- ent more than four hundred ministers ; here were representatives of the cause from almost all the British colonies, from Africa, from the United States, and from Ireland, and even one converted In- dian chief from the wilds of Canada. The cheer was good, the tide of feeling strong and pure ; at suitable intervals a most splen- did organ, elegantly played, rolled its deep tones around the echo- ing arches of the spacious edifice. At the close of the breakfast, anu. just before the ceremony of the medals, the favourite air of " God save the king" was struck by the organ. I noticed a movement before I was aware of the cause. " Is that c God save the king ?' " I asked. " Yes," was the reply. " Then," said I, "I must rise also;" at the same time dropping my cup of cof- fee, and rising upon my feet. The remark and rising were no- ticed and applauded in English style by loud cheers and clap- ping, as though they had hardly expected that a plain republican would rise to honour a king ; but my religion, as well as my sense of propriety, teaches me not only to " love the brotherhood," but also to " honour the king."
METHODISM IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. 601
It is often asked what are the points of difference or coinci- dence between English and American Methodists. I answer, that in everything essential they coincide ; in doctrine and moral discipline, perfectly ; in all the ceremonies and general usages they are the same. The English are more systematic than we are ; everything is in order ; everything is done at the time and in the manner the rule proposes. This is a commendable trait, and is in a great measure the secret of their success. In this respect the inconveniences of a new country have contributed to lead us to relax too much from the rules of our great founder, who left on all the institutions of Methodism the stamp of his method ical mind.
The character of their ministry, intellectual and theological, and, indeed, for general pulpit qualifications, does unquestionably, in the great whole, exceed ours. I do not mean that we have not as many of what would be called superior preachers as they have, but the great body sinks below theirs, and that for very good reasons. Many of our most promising men have been com- pelled, or, at any rate, induced, for the want of competent support, to leave us and join others ; or, what is more common, go into the local ranks and engage in some secular calling. To this, in England, there is no temptation. In addition, their ministers in- crease faster than their calls for them. The consequence is, they are not obliged, in order to fill up or enlarge their work, to take any but the best ; the barely passable they pass by, whereas our great call for ministerial labour leads us to take all who offer that are judged barely passable.
Their theological school in London will operate still more to improve their ministry. The students consist of those who have been examined and admitted into the Conference, but whose la- bours are not yet wanted, and they are therefore put on what they call their list of reserve. Some of these, as is judged expe- dient and as their funds will allow, they select and place here, board and instruct them, and pay them their ministerial allowance besides. They are instructed in science, literature, and theology. Reverend John Hannah, known to many in the United States as the associate delegate to the American General Conference in 1824, is the theological professor.
That the Methodists in England are more spiritual and devout 51 4 G
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than they are with us, I could not say. On both sides of the water the free social intercourse of the ministers with each other sometimes borders very close upon a compromise of what some, at least, would think a commendable ministerial gravity. In this respect, however, I think our British brethren rather surpass us, They are the most cheerful class of men I ever saw ; and one would judge that, to look at them. As I sat upon the platform in the Conference room, elevated some seven or eight feet above the great majority of the preachers, I said to myself, you are the best fed and happiest countenanced class of men I ever saw. One would think they had been selected from the nation for some office where corpulency was the qualification for the appointment. As, however, they are not appointed because they are fat, they prob- ably get fat after they are appointed. This, however, is not pecu- liar to the ministry; corpulency is a prevailing physical charac- teristic of the English.* For this I cannot account ; perhaps it is drinking beer ; perhaps it is in the climate. Bilious complaints are certainly much less prevalent than with us. There are few sallow, but many fair, ruddy faces ; although I might say here, as a passing remark, that I saw no evidence that there was greater longevity in Old England than in New England ; indeed, I should think the latter has the advantage in this respect. It might be said, perhaps, that in England they have fewer lingering chronic dis- eases and sickly constitutions, but more acute disorders and sud- den deaths. But I wander.
The preaching of the Methodists in England, and, I may say, that of all others whom I heard, is not so much directed to influ- ence the unregenerate to an immediate decision to dedicate them- selves to a religious life as with us. The consequence is as might be expected ; the marked and sudden changes are far less frequent than in Mr. Wesley's days, and what we in America term revivals are comparatively rare, especially in some parts of the country. There is a difference in this respect. A Wesleyan preacher in England seriously asked me whether I thought revi- vals were, on the whole, advantageous to the church. I could only reply to him that I was astonished to hear a professed dis- ciple of Wesley make that a question.
* Another very prevailing physical characteristic is a bald head. The bald heads ex- c«ed those in America, I should think, five to one, if not ten to one.
BIRMINGHAM. 603
The manner of preaching, or, more properly, the style of elo- cution among the preachers generally, is far from being natural. There is a mouthing of their words ; a drawling or dwelling on certain syllables to make them solemn or emphatic that is the very essence of affectation, and could only be tolerated in a coun- try where the habit has become very general. It is borrowed from mother church. The clergymen of the establishment abound in it. They frequently read the service so outrageously that one unaccustomed to it can hardly endure it. The same habit, I am sorry to say, has gained some countenance in our own country, especially among Episcopal clergymen ; although the greater part do not copy it. But in England, although it is not so preva- lent among the other dissenters, you find it extensively among the Methodists, and it is naturalized to some extent even in parlia- ment. It has taken root in their universities, and therefore it will continue to fill the nation with its fruit. When the Methodists, as a body, have such a sample of natural, unaffected elocution, as is exhibited by their honoured president, and some others, it is surprising to me that they will ever leave it to follow this Gothic sing song, this antiquated, intolerable drawl.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE town of Birmingham has been called the " toyshop of Eu- rope." It contains about one hundred and fifty thousand inhabi- tants, who are devoted chiefly to the manufacture of the smaller articles made of metals, such as buttons, buckles, toys, knives, scissors, pins. Muskets, and other weapons of death, are also manufactured here, together with a great variety of plated ware. The trade of the town is mainly with America; perhaps more than with all other countries put together in the ratio of four to one. The abundance of coal and of metals in the neighbourhood affords the principal materials that feed these manufactories.
There is in the town a delightful variety of hill and dale, and the prospective on the east side especially is vciy fine. At its
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highest level it has a canal basin, from which, in different cuts, it distributes its wares to different parts for the home and foreign markets. Birmingham is almost the centre of the kingdom, and is, therefore, a grand thoroughfare for this populous nation and for strangers, to which its fine branching roads in every direction, and its canals, greatly contribute ; and to all of which, the addi- tional advantage of a railroad extending from Londonto Liverpool, now in progress, will soon be added. The surrounding country is very fertile, and affords an abundant and varied market to the town. The public buildings are not numerous ; but the town- hall, already alluded to, is a fine Corinthian temple, with a peri- style of fluted columns on a lofty base, twelve on the sides and eight at the ends, reckoning the corners twice. There are also a fine market, an elegant edifice for a free grammar-school in the Gothic style, just being finished, and in the old market-place is a statue of Lord Nelson.
Although Birmingham is an old town, yet its principal growth has been since the peace with the United States in 1783 ; showing, as well as Liverpool and other towns> that the trade of a free and an independent nation is abundantly better than that of shackled and dependant colonies ; and that what Great Britain lost in foreign ter- ritory she gained in commerce and wealth at home. Populous as Birmingham is, she never was represented in the national parliament until the passage of the Reform Bill. She now has two members.
A little out of town are the works of Boulton and Watt, sup- posed to be the first of the kind in Europe, in which one thousand workmen are employed. This Watt is the son of the celebrated in- ventor of the steam-engine, whose single invention has conferred a favour upon his country and upon the world beyond all human cal- culation. Imagination herself would grow weary in attempting to follow out the advantages that result from this method of applying steam power to the arts ; and, what is still more wonderful, al- though the engine itself has been considerably improved in many respects, yet all the important principles were conceived and ma- tured in the single mind of the original inventor.
Although Birmingham is in Warwickshire, yet it is close upon the borders of Staffordshire ; so near, in fact, that my own lodg- ings during the session of the Conference were in the latter county, in the town of West Bromwich. We had lodgings with a Mrs.
COAL AND IRON MINES. 605
Hartly, with whom and her kind and interesting family we enjoyed all the kindness and cordiality of Christian hospitality. We had four other ministers lodging with us, with whom we enjoyed sea- sons of delightful intercourse long to be remembered.
Here we were on the very borders of the coal and iron mines ; and, by the politeness of Mr. Bagnall, one of the principal owners of extensive works in the neighbourhood, we were taken over the whole. It would be interesting, perhaps, to describe the various processes and parts of the works, but it would swell my volume too much. Their extent, order, and productiveness surprised us. They were manufacturing railroad bars for Russia, in the north of Europe, and for the United States
That all the materials for making iron, the ore, the coal for roasting and smelting, and the lime for the flux, should be arranged precisely as they were wanted in the same locality, is a wonderful provision of our bountiful Creator. The strata of these different materials lie one above another at different depths, so that, by sink- ing a shaft, they throw out of the same pit all the materials men- tioned. Among their forges and pits canals are cut in every di- rection, by which everything is carried by water almost to the very spot where it is needed. The whole of the natural agents seemed to be used up in these great workshops of England. Many hands are also employed, and at this time they command great wages ; and yet, sad to reflect upon, very few of them lay up anything for the future ; owing chiefly to the great prevalence of intemperance. The hands, in general, can only be made to work about three or four days in the week ; the rest of the time, including Sabbath, is spent in rioting. By means of trades' unions they compel their employers to pay them exorbitant wages, for which they are none the better, but rather the worse. If any of their trade break over the rules and work for less wages, they are persecuted, and punished, and sometimes even murdered, by their fellow-crafts. Business is good ; never better, perhaps, in Eng- land ; orders for manufactures are abundant ; and this gives the manual labourer the control. Times will doubtless change, and then what will become of those who now control the market of wages by combination, and spend those wages in strong drink? But on this they spend no thought. " A short life, and a merry one," is their motto. The villages are full of shops fox strong 51
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drink, and the streets are full of children, growing up to drink and die, as their fathers now drink and die before them ; #and yet, who cares for their souls ? Who steps in to turn aside those streams of molten fire that are overwhelming successive gen- erations and scorching this fair land with its consuming flames ? The neighbourhood of West Bromwich was one of additional inter- est from its having been the birthplace and scene of the early minis- terial labours of the venerated Francis Asbury, who may be called, under God, the principal founder of Methodism in America. We visited the house of his former residence, and the room where his parents lived and died. The only relic I could procure was an earthen cup with two handles, which served as the family drinking- cup, and was common for the parents, and the son, and the itin- erant preacher, who always preached and lodged, when he came round, at old Mr. Asbury 's. I inquired for letters of the people who lived in the same cottage and took care of the old people until they died, supposing, of course, that the many letters which it was known he wrote to his parents might be preserved. " Law me," said the woman, " I didn't know that the papers were good for anything ; it isn't a year since I emptied the old trunk and burnt up the contents." Disappointed here, I went to a Mrs., Mosely at Sneal's Green, whose father was a cousin and corres- pondent of the bishop's. Here, however, I could get but two letters.
My conductor over these scenes was a Mr. John Reeves, a labouring man, but quite an antiquarian in his way, who seemed to know everything connected with the neighbourhood, either in the past or present generation ; among other things, he showed us in the churchyard at Barr the grave and monument of our adopted countryman, Henry Foxall, Esq., who died here while on a visit to his native country and friends in 1823. To him our own denom- ination are under special obligations in Washington City ; and he was also favourably known to the public, and especially to the ordnance department of the government.
As I know whatever appertains to Bishop Asbury will be of special interest to all who know his character, or anything of his history in the United States, I will give the following statement of John Reeves, which, at my request, he reduced to writing, and I believe it will be more interesting to give it in his own words.
BISHOP ASBURY. 607
"The late Mr. Francis Asbury was born on the 20th or 21st of August, 1745, near the foot of Hampstead old bridge (this house has been taken down some years), on the Handsworth side of the water in Staffordshire, three miles from Birmingham. His father's name was Joseph, and his mother's Elizabeth As- bury. Joseph Asbury, about the period Francis was born, and for some years after, was employed under Wyrley Birch, Esq., of Hampstead Hall, as farmer. W. Birch was a magistrate ; appli- cation had at several times been made to him to protect the Methodists from the rioters. He once went to Joseph Asbury (about 1764), and said to him, * Well, Joe, how do they use you ? If anything's the matter, bring them before me, and I will punish them ; and if you have a mind to pray with your 'eels uppermost, I will make them to know better than disturb you.'
"About the period mentioned above, the Rev. Alexander Mather laboured in this round ; Wednesbury* was the principal place ; persecution raged at Wolverhampton and Birmingham. At the latter place some 'prentices and others broke into the preaching- house down an entry in Moor-street, Birmingham (formerly an old playhouse) ; one mounted the pulpit, others threw the books at him, and much damage was done. Mr. Mather took these persons be- fore Sir Wyrley Birch, of Hampstead ; his worship declared he would send them for soldiers ; but turning to Mr. Mather, whose good sense he admired, said, * What do you intend to do ? must I commit them ?' The answer was, * If they will promise not to do the same again, we will forgive them.' The justice sternly re- plied, * Ah, you are always such fools.' After this there was peace at Birmingham.
" While F. Asbury was a child his parents removed to Barr, about a mile and a quarter from where he was born, and from this place he was sent to school to Anther Taylor, at Sneal's Green.f His master, as he says, ' was a great churl, and used to beat me cruelly ; this drove me to prayer, and it appeared to me that God was very near to me.' I am informed that while the other boys were at play Frank would retire into the fields to pray. He sometimes wore a white smock frock, and the lads in derision called him the parson.
* Wednesbury was where Mr. Wesley was assaulted and his life endangered. It is in full view from Barr, perhaps about three miles distant, on a neighbouring hill. t We visited the schoolroom at Sneal's Green ; a school is still kept there
608 ENGLAND.
" At thirteen and a half years of age he was bound an apprentice to John Griffin ; his trade was chape filing '.* (A man of the name of Thorp now lives in the house.t) The Rev. Mr. Ryland, of Sutton (a church clergyman), hearing of his piety, and going about to preach, paid him several visits, lent him books, and gave him Christian advice. When F. A. and his young companions went to the preaching at Wednesbury, it was his usual custom to walk a little distance behind them. It has been known that when he has gone to a distance to preach, he has sat with the people wait- ing for the clock to strike, when one would say to the other, ' I wish the preacher would come ;' when, to their surprise, he would mount the chair, or what else was ready for him, and commence the service.
" About the year 1763 Mr. Asbury met class at West Brom- wich, and met in band at Wednesbury. He began to preach when he was about sixteen years of age ; was about twenty-one when he went out as an itinerant preacher (1766). He landed at Philadelphia on the 27th October, 1771. The first Sabbath- schools ever established in America were organized under the direction of Bishop Asbury for the benefit of the slaves in the south of the Union, A.D. 1786. He died March 31, 1816."
Mr. Reeves further informed me that he was well acquainted with Thomas Ault, who was an intimate companion with Asbury in his boyhood. Ault lived in the house adjoining the first preach- ing-room built at West Bromwich in 1764 ; and Mr. Asbury preached his last sermon there, previous to his departure for America in 1771, from 2 Timothy ii., 20. At that time there were but fifteen or sixteen persons in the society ; now they have a very large chapel, at the opening of which, a year or two since, they took up a collection of, I think, seven or eight hundred pounds sterling. Such are the changes of sixty years ; indeed, all this re- gion abounds with Methodists, and it is a little singular that this neighbourhood should have given two Methodist bishops for the United States ; for at Dorlaston, three miles from Barr, Bishop
* A " chape" is the catch of a buckle ; a small business for so great a man. It is said, however, he was a dull mechanic, and his mind see'med to be too much on other subjects to allow him to excel in his business.
t And a wretched fellow he is ; it seemed a sort of sacrilege to see the house where Asbury used to live converted into a den of thieves.
LABOURING IRISHMEN. 609
Whatcoat, when a boy, was also an apprentice to a trade, which he left for the ministry.
We left Birmingham by a new route on the 13th of August, which was the day after the Conference adjourned, and reached London the same evening. These stagecoaches go at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, and on some of the lines the horses are always upon the run. We met one wreck of a coach upon the way, which is no very uncommon thing ; for, although the roads are remarkably fine, still the coaches are so topheavy, ' and the speed is so great, a trivial obstruction will overset them.
We remarked great droves of the common labouring Irishmen upon the road, all travelling north. These poor fellows come over in harvest to get a little money to pay their rents ; and, as the harvest is ripe in the south soonest, they land there and work up until they reap their way through the kingdom. The number surprised us ; we met hundreds on hundreds in addition to those who were in the fields. One would suppose that so many could scarcely find employment ; but the agricultural products of Eng- land are immense, especially the wheat. Indian corn does not grow at all ; there is not sun enough. Indeed, for my part, I hardly see how anything grows. The greater portion of the time during this absence from London I have felt the need of a sur- tout or cloak, and the hours of sun have been few and far be- tween. But this seems to be the better for the wheat, and the crops are fine. One would suppose, on noticing the immense number of manufactories, and, of course, the numerous hands to be sustained which are not employed in agriculture, that it would be impossible to supply the nation with bread-stuffs at home. The fact, however, is, that the nation is supplied, and large ex- ports, especially the present year, are made to the United States. And when we consider the great extent of pleasure-grounds and hunting-grounds that are still unproductive in the necessaries of life, and the possibility of subjecting much that is now waste land to profitable culture, the presumption is, that England might be made to support double its present population.
The landscape views in England are often commended. They are rather beautiful than grand. The frequent hedges of haw- thorn and other shrubs give the whole a very fresh and verdant appearance ; but to me they appeared to have injured rather than
4H
610 ENGLAND.
helped the prospects by too minute divisions. The two most in- teresting features in the country parts of England are the very contrast of each other. The lordly castle or palace, with its ex- tensive parks and pleasure-grounds, and sometimes antique edi- fices ; its porters' lodges ; its magnificent gates and extended ave- nues, arid all the concomitants of wealth and splendour, constitute one of these features ; and the other is the humble rural cottage, it may be, thatched with straw ; it may be small, and, perhaps, an- cient, but it has around it numerous little appendages of taste and comfort. The little patch in front is tastefully adorned with flowers ; a vine runs over the door, and a flower blooms in the window. The charm is in the verdure and in the taste which cultivates it. The climate, however, is so temperate, that it has undoubtedly begotten and fostered this taste for verdure. There are very few countries where there is so little biting frost in the winter and scorching sun in the summer as in England. One luxury they have comparatively little of in England — except at the great expense of a hot-house growth — that is fruit. They have the gooseberry in perfection, such as I have never tasted anywhere else ; but the apple, the pear, the peach, are very indif- ferent ; melons they have none. In short, their supplies of fresh fruit are very limited and generally poor.
We spent another week in London, and then, in company with our excellent hostess, Mrs. Alder, started for Bristol on the 20th of August. There was nothing unusual in the journey. We had the common lot of a ride on the top of an English stagecoach ; hard seat, an iron rod to the back, and frequent showers upon the head, which, thanks to a water-proof coat purchased in London, slid off without penetrating. The ladies had worse fare ; for to hold an umbrella was to shed your rain upon your neighbour, and give him full license to hold one and shed his upon you ; so that there was little gain in that. To go inside is to see nothing and enjoy nothing; yet you are better there than outside in a rain ; but the difficulty is, the morning often promises fair and the treacherous day deceives you.
We stopped to dine, but could get neither seats nor food, and the coachman hurried us away before we had half satisfied our hunger ; and, at the close, the servant had the impudence to come to me to be " remembered," I shall always " remember9
BATH. 611
Kim ; and I told him when I called again, if the hotel could afford waiters enough to give us our dinner, I would pay them. But that is not the policy. As the time is very limited, if embarrass- ments can be thrown in the way of eating for a few minutes, the dinner is saved and the fee is gained. Why will not Madam Trollope travel through her own country, and chastise some of her own countrymen into good manners ?
There was nothing important to notice until we reached Bath, one hundred and six miles from London. This is a beautiful town, situated on the Avon in Somersetshire, and owes its exist- ence and importance chiefly to its medical springs. This town contains nearly forty thousand inhabitants, and is built chiefly of a beautiful white stone called the Bath stone, from its being found in the town and vicinity. The architecture is imposing, and some of it elegant. The ground rises considerably, and the brows of the eminences are crowned with ranges of architecture, terrace above terrace, which sweep round in the form of a crescent, and make a magnificent appearance Bath is supposed to have had an existence before the Roman conquest. It became a place of celebrity and even of imperial residence under the Romans ; a-nd here they built splendid baths, the ruins of which were found in 1755, in the centre of the town, twenty feet below the surface of the ground. The celebrated Beau Nash, who was king, in his day, of the world of etiquette and fashion, lies buried here. He died in 1762. The temperature of the Bath waters is about one hundred and sixteen degrees.
In thirteen miles more we reached Bristol, and were welcomed to delightful lodgings, according to previous arrangements, at J. Irving's, Esquire, a little out of town. With this truly hospitable family we spent ten days, during which time we visited the envi- rons to some extent, but were principally occupied in attending the " British Association for the promotion of Science," for which purpose we had selected this time to visit Bristol. I had at first designed to give a particular account of this association, but find my limits will only permit a slight sketch.
This association had its origin in a suggestion of Sir David Brewster's, purporting that it was very desirable for scientific men to have an opportunity of associating together, and exchanging views and enjoying each other's commurications on scientific subjects.
612 ENGLAND.
This led to the first meeting at York in 1830. Their subsequent annual meetings have been at Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh, Dublin, and now commencing on 22d August, and ending on the 27th, at Bristol. The object of the meetings is to promote science by bringing together the improvements of all, by discussing scien- tific subjects, by promoting sympathy and concert in and among the lovers of science, and by interesting the public in the process and results of scientific investigation. As the object is to promote science, and not to honour scientific men by admitting them into a select fraternity, the privileges of membership are open to all respectable persons who will pay the accustomed fee, one sover- eign. Twelve or thirteen hundred new members were added at the late session ; and as none are admitted to the meetings but such as are members, there is a great anxiety among the citizens of the place where the meeting is held to become members ; and thus a great accession is made to the society, and, of course, to its funds, every year. Nor is the increase of funds the only ad- vantage. All who attend the meetings become more deeply inter- ested in science and in scientific men ; an impulse is given to the public mind ; the great advantages of philosophy, and its connex- ion with the practical arts, are more clearly seen, and thus the narrow prejudices of popular feeling are removed. Indeed, the advantages are unspeakable; and I have only to hope that our own country will soon avail herself of such an institution. There are, of course, more difficulties with us to prevent success in such an association than exist here. We are more widely scattered ; we have not so many scientific men, and those we have are not so much at leisure as many of the scientific men in Great Britain and Ireland. But all these considerations only go to show the more need we have of some general association to operate as a convex lens to converge to a common focus our sympathies, our discoveries, and our efforts. As a high intellectual feast of a most uncommon character, to say nothing of other advantages, I should think our men of science would make great efforts and sacrifices to establish and sustain such an institution. Never did I before so fully realize what was meant by " the feast of reason and the flow of soul" as during my attendance upon these meet- ings of the British Association. I never expect again to enjoy the like ; but if we could have a distant approximation to it in some-
THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 613
thing of the kind in the United States, it would be in some re- spects more gratifying, as it would promise so much good to our rising country. Nor can I doubt, from the known enterprise and perseverance of our men of science, that, should they engage in an association of this kind, they would make it interesting and profitable ; especially when I see, as I have seen here, one of our own countrymen, Professor Hare, of Philadelphia, contributing to the chymical department of the British Association as great or a greater portion of important and interesting matter as perhaps any other individual member.
For the better division of labour, the association is divided into seven departments, called sections, viz., mathematics and physics, chymistry and mineralogy, geology and geography, zoology and botany, medical science, statistics, and mechanical science. These all meet at different rooms during the day, and have each its pres- ident, two vice-presidents, and three secretaries, and a committee consisting in the different departments of members varying from eight to eighteen. Besides these, there were a president, vice- presidents, treasurer, secretaries, and a general committee for the association. Before each section respectively papers were read, communications made, and discussions carried on upon subjects relating to that department ; each important paper having first been presented to the committee for its approval, that nothing un- suitable or unprofitable should occupy the time of the section. The sectional committees also took into consideration all proposi- tions for important investigations and experiments which required particular attention and expense. These propositions were ex- amined ; and such as were approved of were referred to the gen- eral committe, when, if approved of by them, committees were appointed, and appropriations of money were made to carry on the investigations during the year, the results of which were to be re- ported at the next annual meeting. Besides these there was a local committee for the town of Bristol, to make all necessary ar- rangements for the accommodation and the proper conducting of the meetings and the entertainment of the members. This was done in a way highly creditable to the citizens of Bristol. Rooms were nicely fitted up ; all the public rooms, and institutions, and gardens, and collections of the arts, &c., were thrown open for the free access of the members ; an ordinary was provided, where 52
614 ENGLAND.
all might meet together and dine at a common table, and the the- atre was fitted up for the general meetings of the society three evenings in the week, where the doings of each section were re- ported in a condensed form for the general information of the members. At these meetings each member, by applying before- hand and obtaining a ticket, was permitted to introduce a lady, and I, as a foreigner, was favoured with two ladies' tickets. They also favoured foreigners in other respects, by giving them a (red) ticket, which gave them admission to the committee rooms and to the platforms at the general meetings, which was no small fa- vour in the immense crowd which thronged the theatre on these occasions. One of the greatest drawbacks upon the gratifications of these meetings was, that the house was too small for the as- sembly. This occasioned a great rush as soon as the doors were opened by the multitude that had assembled at an early hour to secure seats, by which the ladies were exposed to such crushing as threw some, I believe, into hysterics ; tore off shawls, Vandykes, and headdresses from numbers, and greatly incommoded many others. I had known something of John Bull's character for pushing with his head and horns during Passion Week at Rome, and I now discovered that what he was abroad he was also at home. One of them declared he would break my arm, because I persisted in interposing it between him and Mrs. F., on whom he was rushing with such violence as made her cry out for relief, to which he paid no regard ; having, however, come to a passage where I could clinch the moulding with my hand, I held him at bay until the ladies could be relieved.
These general meetings were of great service, as they gave to all the members a comprehensive view of what was done in each section. This was an inadequate compensation for one's not being able to attend all the sections. For myself, I would have been glad to be in several places at once, so interesting were the do- ings of each section. At a common room, however, called the Inquiry Room, the papers to be read each day were advertised in the morning ; and we had an opportunity, in this way, of se- lecting those sections where the subject promised the most in- terest.
The president of the mathematical and physical section was Rev. W. Whewell, of Cambridge University, and one of the wri-
THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 615
ters of the celebrated Bridgewater Treatises. He is a most talented man, and in his reports of his section showed a most comprehen- sive view and penetrating mind. Here, also, were Sir David Brewster and Sir W. R. Hamilton the astronomer, Mr. Babbage the author of the Calculating Machine, Rev. G. Peacock, who has written on the hieroglyphics, and a host of others.
In the section of chymistry and mineralogy were several veter- ans in science. Dr. Dalton, of Manchester, who is the author of the " Atomic theory." He is a physician by profession, a Quaker in his religion. Doctors Henry* and Thompson, the authors re- spectively of the works in chymistry which bear their names. Our countryman, Professor Hare, of Philadelphia, was also pres- ent, and took a very active part in the business of the section, and was, in fact, a member of the sectional committee.
The paper in this section which excited the greatest attention, was read on the second day by Thomas Exley, Esquire, the au- thor of a treatise in which he endeavours to reduce all the phe- nomena of matter to the two grand laws of attraction and repul- sion, Mr. Exley is a teacher of mathematics in the city of Bris- tol, a local preacher of the Methodist church, and a brother-in-law of the late Doctor Clark. His paper was on " the reduction of chymistry to mathematical principles." This paper was highly complimented by the first chymists present, and may possibly lead to a new era in the science of chymistry ; a science which has already passed from era to era with such rapidity as almost makes one's head giddy to follow its history with the eye, to say nothing of the experiments and the science itself.
By far the most attracting section of the association was that of geology and geography. This was owing, in part, to the character of the subjects discussed, and, in part, to the popular eloquence of some of the gentlemen belonging to this section ; especially of Professor Sedgewick and Professor Phillips. The former, more particularly, was one of the most fluent speakers, abounding in rich and spontaneous tropes and imagery, that I ever heard. I listened to him repeatedly, not only with great pleasure, but with great astonishment. The most happy and masterly effort of all was the first that I attended. It was a description of a geologi-
* A few weeks after this Doctor Henry committed suicide. He was in bad health and spirits at the time of the meeting.
616 ENGLAND.
cal section in the county of Devonshire. Mr. Murchinson, the ge- ologist who has made himself so favourably known to the scien- tific world by his description and classification of a system 6-f rocks, which he calls the " Silurian system," began the discus- sion, for he and Professor Sedgewick had examined it together. After Mr. Murchinson had given a very beautiful and scientific analysis and description of the section, Professor Sedgewick arose. He complained, at first, that his friend Mr. Murchinson, having gone over the field first, had left him very little to say. "How- ever, gentlemen," said he, pointing to a fine drawing of the section that had been stretched across the lecture-room, " here is a fine haunch of Nature's game ; and although you have been feasting upon it from the carving of my friend Mr. Murchinson, it will not, perhaps, be offensive to your geological tastes to take another slice." He then began to carve for us in fine style, basting it •with tropes, seasoning it with the most happy and illustrative im- agery, and spicing it with wit and (eloquence. It was a masterly production.
But it would be too tedious to follow out the different sections. I will just add, however, that, in the section of mechanical science, over which that veteran philosopher, for a long time president of the Philosophical Society, Gilbert Davis, presided, the time was mostly taken up in discussing the science of steam, and its va- rious applications. Doctor Lardner (author of the Cyclopedia) gave us a very long lecture to prove the impossibility of naviga- ting with steam from the British Isles to the United States with- out an intermediate stopping-place to take in fuel. He recom- mended the Azores or St. John's in Nova Scotia. Mr. Brunei, the architect, who is concerned in the new steamer now building in Bristol to try the experiment, opposed him. It was to me a very interesting discussion, and resulted in a stronger impression of the practicability of the project.
The last evening in the theatre was very crowded, and would have been more interesting if Doctor Buckland (the author of the last Bridgewater Treatise) had not attempted to bring his philos- ophy down to what he conceived to be the comprehension of the ladies ; in doing which he became not only boyish, but indelicate. The American ladies, perhaps, are fastidious upon some points; S0j at least, Mrs. Trollope thinks ; and I am very sure that no as-
BRISTOL. 617
sembly of American ladies would have listened to Doctor Buck- land's remarks ; and I am very happy in believing that no philos- opher educated in our country would have attempted to entertain them with such remarks as characterized a great part of his speech. Doctor Buckland paid a poor compliment, withal, to the intellects of his countrywomen, if he supposed it necessary to lower him- self to such a position to make himself intelligible and entertain- ing. I know well that many of them were as disgusted with him as we were ; and yet Doctor Buckland is a man of science. His late work is very valuable.
On Saturday the general committee met to finish up their busi- ness, and adjourned to meet next year in Liverpool.
Bristol was for a long time second only to London in popula- tion and commercial importance ; but other towns have now gone far before it. Its population, including the out-parishes, is about one hundred thousand, more than half of which, however, belong to the city proper. One cause of its not keeping pace with Liv- erpool, Glasgow, &c., is the great inequality in the height of the water at high and low tides. The highest tides rise about forty- two feet. The town, however, keeps up a foreign trade with most parts of the commercial world.
The situation of the town is most delightful, and the surround- ing scenery very fine. It is on the Avon, about ten miles from its junction with the Severn. Just below the town are heights, through which the Avon has cut a channel that is extremely pic- turesque and bordering upon the sublime. Here a suspension bridge is about to be erected, under the direction of Mr. Brunell, the first chain of which was stretched across during our stay at Bristol. This bridge will be higher than the one at Friburg, in Switzerland, although not so long. Its proposed length is seven hundred feet, height two hundred and thirty, and width thirty- four. This, when completed, will be the third wonder of the kind, that of Menai, in Wales, being the first ; which, however, falls behind both the others, being but five hundred and fifty feet in length, and one hundred feet above high water. The one at Bristol connects Clifton, a beautiful town one mile from Bristol, and known to the American reader as the late residence of Miss Hannah More, with the opposite bank of the Avon.
The association of illustrious names with Bristol renders it in-? 52 41
618 ENGLAND.
teresting to the traveller. Here, in an ancient cathedral founded in 1140, is the tomb of Bishop Butler, the author of the "Analo- gy ;" and at a more modern Baptist chapel is the grave, covered by a simple slab, of the no less celebrated Robert Hall. This is the chapel where he exercised his ministerial office. At the Portland-street Methodist chapel lies the dust of Captain Webb, the first Methodist preacher in America, who, in his military dress, used to preach the gospel to a handful in a sailloft in New- York. Sebastian Cabot, the navigator, who first discovered the Continent of America, was born here, and sailed from this port in 1497 on his voyage of discovery to America. The poet Chat- terton, Hannah More, Southey, Coleridge, and numerous others of note, were also natives of this metropolis of the west of Eng- land. One would think it must produce poets, for the scenes are inspiring in almost every direction. I think for a residence I should prefer the neighbourhood of Bristol to any other part of England which I visited.
The Wesleys were much in Bristol, and Methodism had an early growth in this city. I visited the first preaching-place built •here by Mr. Wesley. The construction is singular ; on the same level with the gallery of the chapel were several rooms fitted up for the accommodation of the preacher. Here are still shown Mr. Wesley's study and parlour. He passed from his rooms directly into the gallery, and thence to the desk of the chapel. This in- teresting chapel, to the discredit of the society in this place, has been suffered to pass into the hands of another religious sect.
Near my lodgings is a rural lane called " Charles Wesley's Lane," where Mr. Charles Wesley used to walk and meditate ; and here, it is said, he composed many of his inimitable hymns.
A few miles from Bristol is Kingswood, which is a settlement of colliers. Here the gospel, under Mr. Wesley, took great effect among these outcasts of society, which so endeared the place to him that he built a school here. Its first destination was for gen- eral and public use, but it has now come to be used exclusively for the sons of the travelling preachers, a hundred of whom are kept here constantly. The arrangements in general seemed ap- propriate, with the exception that the boys, in their hours of re- cess, had no appropriate home. They must either be in their public schoolroom or out in the public yard. They had no place
KINGSWOOD. 619
of retirement for reflection, writing, or study; and no place of de- posite to which they could have free access for any such toys or tools as boys are fond of. This struck me as a grand defect.
At Kingswood we were shown Mr. Wesley's gown, now al- most hanging in shreds, which I had the curiosity to put on ; the association was almost inspiring, but I fear no permanent in- spiration resulted from the temporary investiture. Who of his numerous sons has been able to receive and wear his official man- tle ? Not one. In the history of Methodism Wesley stands, and will for ever stand, alone.
Here, too, is a beautiful walk, shaded and perfumed with flow- ers, faint emblem of the savour of his memory, called " Wesley's Walk." His library is here, many of the books containing notes by his own hand ; and here are still preserved his chair and other articles of furniture ; and in the yard is the tree under which he used to preach to the colliers, until the tears, coursing down the rough black cheeks of these sons of the pit, washed a stripe that gleamed with the light of penitence in the dark background, not only of a polluted face, but of a still more polluted heart. This tree, however, is dead ; its verdure has departed, and it is going rapidly to decay. Not so the gospel that was preached under its shade ; that still blooms and bears fruit all around these regions. What an illustration of the words of St. Peter : " The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away : but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."
We left Bristol on the 30th of August in a steamer for Dublin, and had a wretched voyage ; but, as I have already said enough about sea-sickness, I will pass this over. Suffice it to say, that from seven o'clock in the morning until four in the afternoon the next day, neither Mrs. F. nor myself took any nourishment, and were, for a good part of the way, in a miserable state of suffering. To add poignancy to all these transient seasons of suffering, the voyage home is lived over and over again in painful anticipation.
620 IRELAND.
CHAPTER XXXL
THE approach to Dublin is fine ; the perspective is bounded by an amphitheatre of hills covered with verdure, and beautifully spotted with country-seats and other edifices ; islands and rocky eminences skirt you on the right and left. Several villages also at- tract the stranger's attention, and especially that of Kingston, which bids fair ultimately to become the principal harbour for Dublin, as it is more accessible and convenient than the one nearer the city ; it has a pier two thousand eight hundred feet in length, around the head of which, at low tide, there is twenty-four feet of water. A railroad connects this village with the city ; passen- gers frequently land here, but we kept on, as the tide was favour- able, up to town.
On landing we were saluted by a number of obsequious por- ters with " Your honour," " Your worship," " Your excellency," " Will you go to our hotel ?" " We will give you a room almost for nothing at all, and good enough for his majesty." As the "jaunting cars" were all taken up, we made the nearest port* but, alas ! " for his majesty," if he had to lodge here. We made a stay of it for one night ; and the next morning, according to an arrangement made by the Wesleyan superintendent of the Dublin Circuit, we were hospitably lodged with a Mr. Owen, from whom and his family, as well as from many others in Dublin, we received much kind attention.
Before we left our lodgings in the morning we had an oppor- tunity of seeing a specimen of Irish justice. A poor fellow was carried by on a rail, followed by a multitude, and ever and anon tossed up and shaken, to make his seat more " unaisy" " What is that for ?" said I to a bystander " Och ! sir, and he refuses to pay his socket money." It seems he had just got mar- ried, and refused to pay the usual treat ; for this offence he was carried down the public quay in broad daylight, no one saying "Why do ye so?"
We visited most of the public places in Dublin, and were much
DUBLIN, 621
pleased with this beautiful city ; although in the midst of princely splendour there was much of beggary and wretchedness. The contrast of poverty and wealth is more strongly marked, and more constantly noticed, perhaps, in Dublin, than in any other city we have visited. I cannot attempt a description of Dublin, for I find I am swelling my journal already beyond what many will think a readable extent ; indeed, we came to Dublin with a view of de- voting but little time, and therefore of getting but a smattering of personal knowledge of this interesting island.
Dublin is divided into nearly two equal parts by the almost straight channel of the river Anna Liffey running through it from west to east. Over this river are seven beautiful bridges, the low- est of which is Carlisle Bridge ; from this bridge you have a fine view of the most elegant part of Dublin. To the north is Sack- ville-street, a spacious avenue constituting the main artery of the city ; .in the centre of this street is Nelson's column, surmounted by a statue of this naval hero, the whole elevated one hundred and thirty-four feet ; it is a Doric shaft of fine workmanship. This street is finely built ; in the opposite direction is Westmore- land-street, leading through between the old parliament house, now the bank, and Trinity College ; up the river the beautiful bridges are stretching their arches across the LifTey, and below are the fine quays, custom-house, public stores, &c. It is a charming view. There are numerous public squares in Dublin, and a great number of fine buildings, which I cannot describe.
The only church which I will stop to notice is the Cathedral of St. Patrick ; it occupies the site where the patron-saint of Ire- land is supposed to have had a chapel in the middle of the fifth century ; this is a fine old building, with numerous monuments and much architectural taste. It was in this cathedral that Jona- than Swift was dean, and here he was buried ; he wrote his own epitaph, which is inscribed upon his monument in Latin, the pur- port of which is, that "Jonathan Swift is buried here, where cruel insult can no longer lacerate his heart. Go, stranger, and imitate, if you can, this strenuous advocate for liberty. He died the 19th of October, 1745, aged seventy-eight." His " Stella" has a monument in the same church, and his servant also, with an epitaph by the dean. By the politeness of Mr. M'Guire, who waited upon us, we were permitted to inspect some of the old
622 IRELAND.
records, and he gave me also an autograph signature of the dean's ; by these records we saw the strong and rough character of Swift delineated in some of the records he made. A deed, for instance, which he appears to have believed was executed in fraud, was endorsed as the work of " that rascal Jones, and the knaves or fools, his chapter." Swift knew very well that deans might be rascals.
Mr. M'Guire showed us the dean's scull, the conformation and developments of which were a positive contradiction of all the principles of phrenology. Of its being the identical head of the dean there can be no doubt; first, because it was found in his tomb ; and, secondly, because it was found sawed in two ; an oper- ation which was known to have been performed on his head after his death. This cranium was shown to some of the phrenologists who attended the British Association the year before, and was at first so strong an argument against the supposed science as to be extremely perplexing to them ; but they finally accounted for it by supposing that the cranium must have changed its size and form during the three years of his insanity and idiocy, the last of his life ! That he was insane no more than three years is evi- dent from the fact that I saw a signature of his in a regular busi- ness transaction, requiring the use of his reason, in the year 1742.
From the cathedral we went to the residence of the present dean, where we saw a most splendid collection of ancient Irish curiosities, all collected by the dean within the last six years.
Queen Elizabeth, under whom the most important statutes of the English universities were enacted, was the sovereign who founded and chartered Trinity College. The first students were admitted in 1593. Thirty years ago, it is said, there were but about five hundred students, but now they reckon about two thou- sand. But it is not much to be a member of Trinity College, for residence is not required. If the student is present to answer to eight examinations, held at the commencement of the term, he may be anywhere the rest of the time without detriment to his degree ; but the course of study and of examination for a degree is much more extended than in the English universities.
Doctor Sadleir, regius professor in Greek, was kind enough to take us over the university. The entire suite of buildings con- sists of three successive quadrangles, containing the public rooms
EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 623
and the rooms for the pupils. The library is a fine room, contain- ing about one hundred and thirty thousand volumes. It is two hundred and sixty-five feet long by two hundred and fourteen broad. The books are well arranged. At the extremity of this room is another library, consisting of twenty thousand volumes ; besides which there is another room of manuscripts. Books that are brought here are never allowed to be carried out. The offi- cers are obliged to take an oath to this effect. So scrupulous are they in observing this oath, that, when they found that a number of pernicious books had, by some means, been introduced, they held a consultation, and finally concluded to cut a hole in the wall and do them up with masonry, and thus purify the library and save the law and the oath.
The cause of education appears to be on the advance in Ire- land, although an unhappy division has taken place on the subject of the national schools which government is establishing in dif- ferent parts of the kingdom. These schools were planned with a design to exclude religious sectarianism of every kind, and to that end it was found necessary to exclude the Bible, except such por- tions as have been selected with care, so as to have nothing that shall give offence to Catholic, Protestant, or infidel. This gar- bling of the Scriptures has given offence to many good men, who think the plan of national education devised for Ireland is an un- holy compromise of principle and of Protestantism. The plan, however, continues to be prosecuted under a board of commission- ers, consisting of a Catholic and a Protestant archbishop, a Pres- byterian clergyman, and others. They have established thirteen or fourteen hundred schools in different parts of the kingdom, in which more than one hundred and fifty thousand children are ed- ucated, and the work is advancing. At this time they are getting up some fine buildings in Dublin for a normal and other schools, which promise something very creditable to the city. This sys- tem, however objectionable it may be in some respects, will do good, I think. It will be a great thing to get Ireland enlightened. One of the most unfavourable considerations for Ireland is the extreme jealousy of the respective parties, political and religious, of each other. They have, by mutual collision and provocation, become extremely sensitive, irritable, and intolerant, and there appears little hope of mitigation or reconciliation. The Catholics
524 IRELAND*
especially are extremely sore on the subject of tithes ; constitu- ting, as they do, the great majority of the population, they deem it a hardship that they have been obliged to pay tithes, and support a religion which they verily believe is heretical. And the Protestant clergy have, in general, been anything but faithful pastors ; instead of going after their flock and faithfully instructing them, they have lorded it over their spiritual heritage, and urged their claim for the fleece, while they have paid but little attention to the flock. This is the view which even the established clergy take of the subject; and some of them say they consider the present situation of the clergy in Ireland a just visitation for their criminal neglects and covetousness. Now many of them cannot get their tithes ; the man in the parish who will pay is made an outlaw by the com- munity, and the officer who shall undertake to enforce a collec- tion is the same.
The position of England to Ireland seems to me very much like that of a man who has seized a cur by the ears and throat, because he thought he deserved chastisement for some offence, and has rubbed his ears and choked him until he has become mad- dened with irritation. The man, weary of struggling with the cur, wishes himself well out of the scrape ; but he dare not now relin- quish his grip upon the dog's throat, lest, as soon as he is at lib- erty, he should turn and bite him ; the cur continually shows his teeth and snarles at his master, which only leads the latter, through fear, to pinch him the tighter. O'Connel and his party demand the same laws for Ireland that have been enacted for England ; that the close boroughs and corporations should be thrown open to the suffrages of the people, &c. But England says no ; as you are the majority, so soon as we give you permission, you will annihilate us ; and the question simply is, whether the Protest- ants or Catholics shall be masters in Ireland. We have got you now, and we mean to hold you. This only makes the Irish the more enraged, and that, on the other hand, only makes the Eng- lish the more afraid to let go their hold. Where will this state of things end ? Shall the poor cur be choked to death ? or shall the master let go and be severely bitten ? for bitten he most surely will be the moment he lets go. This is certainly a question in govern- ment of exceedingly difficult solution. Some, perhaps, would say, " Do right, without regard to consequences." Ay ! but there are
POLITICAL STATE OF IRELAND. 625
some questions, the right of which can only be ascertained by re- ferring to consequences ; and nowhere do questions of this kind come up more frequently than in those relations which exist in. civil society. All who know anything of the Irish character know it is factious r.nd ungovernable ; and all who know anything of the Catholic policy know that it always, where it is possible, aims at political supremacy. The contest between the two par- ties then is, not simply whether Ireland shall have equal rights with England, but whether there shall be a Catholic or a Protestant supremacy. The parliament reform bill, coming upon the back of the Catholic emancipation bill, has already given great power to the Catholics ; so that the O'Connel party have the casting vote in all cases where there is a division on any important question. If to this were added such municipal regulations as would give the Catholics all the power in the local magistracy, the conse- quences, it is feared, might be disastrous. What, then, can be done ? Grant that the polity of England with Ireland has been bad ; allow that it has been oppressive ; still that does not help the matter now. The existing relations and feelings are what they are ; the question is as to the remedy. The improvement in education promises something ; the more ignorant people are, the more they may be made the tools of designing priests and demagogues. What though the education is not all or precisely such as might be desired ? still give the people knowledge ; dif- fuse it abroad ; it will show its advantages in the end. I confess I was not able to see the full force of all the opposition which many of the good people of England and Ireland make to the national schools. There has been one argument urged on this subject, however, that is worthy of attention, and by noticing which some light will be thrown on the affairs of Ireland.
There was a society incorporated in 1730 for the purpose of instructing the poor children of Ireland. This society used to re- ceive parliamentary aid, by which it supported forty schools ; since the national system has been adopted this aid is withdrawn, and they now support but eight schools. Here, it is said, is a great loss to the Protestant cause, since in all these schools, though Catholic children were admitted, yet it was with the understand- ing that they should be taught Protestantism. There is also an- other consideration urged, which will apply to this and other 53 4K
626 IRELAND.
charity schools in Ireland, namely, that although where there is no other school accessible to the children, many of the Catholics would send their children to these decidedly Protestant schools, yet, as soon as a school less objectionable in its religious charac- ter is established in the neighbourhood, all these Catholic children are withdrawn and sent to the latter schools. Here, they say, the measures of government have actually interfered with Protestant ef- forts ; they take the children away from Protestant influence. This is plead by the Methodists, who employ twenty-six schoolmasters, and instruct in their mission schools in Ireland six thousand poor children, " a considerable number" of whom, it is stated in their last missionary report, " are of Romish parentage." Grant all this, still it must seem that very few Catholics are educated in all these charity schools put together. What are the few Catholic children in the fifty or sixty, or even in several hundred, if there were so many of these Protestant charity schools, compared with the en- lightening of the whole mass, as the rTational system promises to do ? At best, they can get but few of these Catholic children into Protestant schools ; fewer in Ireland than almost anywhere else. The priests are opposed to it ; and, as they see the design, they are constantly on the watch ; the people are irritated and suspicious. Catholic Ireland is neither to be caught with guile nor converted by force. Let the schools go on, and that will do something.*
Another thing England might do for Ireland ; she might abate her tithe system altogether ; at least in those districts where the people are almost wholly Catholics. Wise men cannot well be guilty of greater folly at the present day than to attempt to crowd a religion down the throats of an opposing community. There are cases, I am told, where the whole congregation of the Protest- ant clergyman consists of only the household of the parson, and yet the entire, parish are compelled, by the odious tithe system, to support him. If it were designed to disgust the people with Prot- estantism, this is the way to do it ; and if it is intended to per- petuate this disgust, let this policy be perpetuated. The only way to convert Ireland is, doubtless, to take off all legal disabilities and restraints.
* It is made a still further ground of complaint against the government, that they have become a propaganda for the Catholic church, for at Maynooth, in Kildare county, twelve miles from Dublin, government actually supports a college for the education of Catholic priests ; for this I can form no excuse.
METHODISTS IN IRELAND. 627
And since I have struck upon this subject, I will just express an opinion ; whether it be correct or not, time will determine. The opinion is this, that the questions at issue between the English and the Irish will never be set at rest until Ireland is admitted to equal privileges with England, and until the Irish church is left entirely free from Protestant domination and taxation. To return to my former figure, the Protestant grip must be loosed from the animal's throat, bite or no bite. Give him fair play, and fight it out with him on moral grounds, for here is where the question is ultimately to be decided, and then the Irishmen will be aisy, but never before.
The Methodists have probably done more towards spreading Protestantism in the wildest parts of Ireland than any other class of men. In addition to the schoolmasters already mentioned, they have eight Scripture readers, and about twenty-five missionaries employed on the island. Among the latter is the celebrated Gid- eon Ousely, whom I had the good fortune to meet in Dublin. He is an original character, prepared alike to talk Latin to the Catholic priests and confound them by quoting their own author- ities, and to preach to the wild Irish in Gaelic. He has spent al- most the whole of a long life in ministering to the reformation of the most ignorant portion of his countrymen. He holds public debates with the priests ; he publishes books and tracts, and visits the common people in their cabins. He has been often exposed and threatened, but has hitherto escaped. He was cotemporary with the latter years of Mr. Wesley, and still holds the field against Romanism and sin. He gave me, when I parted with him, a large book and a great roll of tracts, of which he was the author, on the subject of the Catholic controversy.
The Methodist connexion in Ireland have a conference of their own, separate from the British Conference, to which, however, the latter appoints the president. The support of their ministry and the executive part of their administration are all independent of the parent conference, as also are most of their funds. They have been much in debt, and have laboured under great disad- vantages ; but their debt is now nearly liquidated, and the con- nexion is rising. One great difficulty, however, is, that they cling too close to the establishment. They seem to prefer having their children enter the church than be Methodists, and especially
628 IRELAND.
Methodist ministers. This spirit is apparent to a considerable ex- tent in England, but it appeared still stronger in Ireland. By this means the children of the /most wealthy and respectable in the Methodist societies entirely forsake, in many instances, the reli- gion of their fathers, and with the approbation, and often with the high gratification of their parents, enter the establishment as cler- gymen ; or, if in other professions, they withdraw altogether from the Wesleyans. This is done, too, it appears to me, in most cases, from worldly motives and with the hope of wordly promotion. I believe this to be inconsistent, not to say sinful. If Methodism has done the parents good, it is valuable for the children ; and if it is not important for the latter, the former ought to give it up al- together for themselves and for the world. If Methodism needs not to be sustained for the sake of the children of Methodist pa- rents, it is not worth sustaining at all. Who will carry it forward if the children of those who have been supporters of the cause forsake it ? I can scarcely account for the too prevailing course of the Methodists of Great Britain and Ireland on this subject. They act as though they thought it of some consequence to them- selves and the world to keep up the institutions of Methodism ; but it pleases many of them rather the most to have their children adhere closely, and perhaps professionally, to the established church. They may think it right, but, for myself, I cannot un- derstand it ; and certain I am, it greatly weakens the cause both in England and Ireland. I would say, however, in connexion with these remarks, this feeling and practice are by no means uni- versal.*
The members in the Irish Wesleyan Conference are, the present year, reported at twenty-three thousand two hundred and seventy- eight, besides three thousand one hundred and fifty-six in the mis- sions. The number of travelling preachers belonging to the Irish Conference, exclusive of the missionaries, is one hundred and thiry-four, of whom only ninety-four are efficient. The encour- agement for their pious young men to enter the field is small ; and as they are entirely destitute of academic or higher schools of learning, most of the influence thrown over the best educated of
* Notwithstanding all this cringing to the church, many of its ministers are among the strongest opposers of the Methodists ; in Ireland especially they persecute and reproach them, and, in some cases, exclude their children from their schools.
JAUNTING CARS. 629
Methodist youth is likely to be such as will alienate them from the Methodist church. Under these circumstances, as might be expected, those who do enter the work are a self-denying, labori- ous, and, in many instances, a suffering class of men. The good they have already done to Ireland is incalculable ; and, but for their embarrassments by debts and by divisions among themselves, they would have done much more. From these embarrassments they have, of late, been greatly relieved, and the connexion is in a more prosperous state than at any former period ; but, unfortu- nately, this comes too late. Much less can be done for the igno- rant Catholics of Ireland now than could have been done a half century since. The same remark will hold with respect to the established church. Among them now are more pious men than formerly, and more genuine Christian effort is made for the good of Ireland ; but it comes too late. Goaded to madness, irritated with tithes and political disabilities, Catholic Ireland is deaf to the voice of instruction, and firmly fixed against reform ; perhaps, however, when the present paroxysms of political and religious opposition and prejudice have subsided, the result may be more favourable. Already some think they see the dawning of light. Some Catholic priests and people have lately renounced the su- perstitions of the Roman church. Among them is the Rev. Mr, Crotty, of Birr, who, with his cousin, also a clergyman, and two thousand of his congregation, have recently come out against al^ most all the peculiar and offensive features of the Roman church. They have not left the church, but openly and publicly protest against her errors.
But I am reminded that my journal in Ireland will be longer than my stay, unless I hasten on with my pen. I must remark, however, for it has something to do with our mode of travelling in this country, that in Dublin, and, in fact, all over Ireland where I vis-, ited, they have a peculiar kind of carriage called a "jaunting car." These are divided into inside and outside cars. The construction of both is similar ; but in one the feet of the passengers are turn* ed outward on two parallel seats running lengthwise, and bringing their sides, of course, towards the horse, and the parties on the two seats back to back. In the other the feet are turned inward, and the parties sit face to face. The former is more common. In both the wheels are low, and the seats are built out over them * 53
630 IRELAND.
and in the outside cars a wing hangs down, within perhaps eigh- teen inches of the ground, to which is attached a footstool or step, on which the feet rest. The seat is, in fact, a hanging settee, built over the wheel, and furnished with a footstool. This footstool is so constructed, that when you are oijt it can be turned up, and forms a covering to the settee. When it is turned down you can step upon it and seat yourself with the greatest ease. It is the handi- est carriage to get into and out of that I ever saw ; and, withal, it seems to be constructed as a showcase for the rider ; for the whole form, from head to foot, is exposed. If it turns over, which seems to be almost impossible, it cannot hurt you, for it is a very easy thing just to step off and free yourself from danger. The stranger, however, especially in the city, rides in continual fear lest his lower extremities should come in contact with a post or some other object or vehicle, and the more so because these bat- winged settees and footstools spread out much wider than other carriages. By the politeness, however, of John Barrett, Esquire, whose car was much at our service while in Dublin, and to whose special attentions we were particularly obligated during our stay, we had the privilege of sailing round this beautiful city whenever the weather would permit.
They have public cars of a similar construction with the above, except that they are much larger and more coarsely made, which are used for carrying passengers over the island. As we failed in getting into the stagecoach, we prepared ta take our chance in one of these Irish o?nnibuses. It is a very cheap mode of con- veyance, and, therefore, frequently crowded by very undesirable associates. Luckily for us, a heavy shower, just as we were about to embark, drove us from our purpose, and gave the decis- ion in favour of a postcoach. Posting in Ireland is much cheaper than in England. Our postcoach was one shilling per Irish mile, exclusive of tolls, and threepence per mile to the postillion. We arrived at Drogheda, where I had an appointment for a lecture in the evening, and where I was warmly greeted by Christian friends, especially by the Reverend F. Tackerbury, the Wesleyan superin- tendent of the circuit.
Drogheda has about twenty thousand inhabitants, of whom only about fifteen hundred are Protestants ; and of these a portion under the pastoral care of Reverend Mr. M'Ghee, son of the author of
4- V»x* *•».*
IRISH BEGGARS. 631
the treatise on the Atonement, are, as I was informed, decided Antinomians. The liltle Wesleyan band, therefore, seem to bo the only representatives of the true gospel light in this dark town, and they are few and feeble.
When we left Drogheda the next morning we saw the fruits of Romanism in the full and abundant harvest ; a harvest of degra- dation and want. Our coach was surrounded with beggars, from whose importunities it seemed almost impossible to escape. Beg- gars, indeed, annoyed us almost the whole route. Whenever we stopped we were assailed, and never was there a race better skilled in the beggar's dialect than the poor Irish. At one place a blind man accosted us, who called himself " Poor Jack," and whose sight seemed to have been destroyed by a burn, which left his en- tire face scarred, shrivelled, and deformed. The language of his supplication was as follows : " Have compassion upon Poor Jack, and God will reward you !" It was uttered in a low, plaintive undertone, which sounded as if the poor wretch had spoken from the depths of a dark prison-house. Such, indeed, was the gloomy habitation of his soul, for the windows of his house were curtained over in perpetual darkness. I shall never, I think, forget the sound of that voice in my ear. I hear it still. Poor Jack ! who can doubt but that compassion for thee will meet the reward of Heaven ? Another was the case of a miserable-looking, decrepit old lady, bending under the weight of threescore and ten. Her story was soon told, and, as it was more simple, so it was more expressive and touching even than that of Poor Jack. Her voice was dis- tinct, though tremulous ; and as she reached out her skinny, with- ered hand, she said, " I am a poor widow ; I can do nothing for myself" Oh, merciful Heaven ! what a world is this ! There is almost enough in such an appeal to break one's heart. A poor widow, stretching out her withered, helpless hand for charity, and her whole appearance speaking more forcibly than her tremulous voice, " I can do nothing for myself /" Alas ! how many widowed hearts there are in this world who can do nothing for themselves. That is not true, however, of all the wretched poor we saw on this route. Even the healthy and the young were ragged and dirty, and their cabins were the most wretched dwellings I ever saw. I thought I saw the most cheerless dwellings in Italy that mortals could well inhabit, but they did not compare with those
632 IRELAND.
of Ireland. These cabins are built of turf, the walls are low, and the floor is of earth. The pig lives much of the time in the same mud-cell ; the donkey also enters in here ; and sometimes, when he wishes to hold possession of both the interior and exterior do- main, he stands with his head and fore feet out, while his hinder parts are housed ; in this case he nearly fills up the hole of en- trance. There is evidently a good deal of indolence among the peasantry. Many of them had potato patches attached to their cabins, and in these, for the most part, the weeds had attained a rank growth, and run up to seed. It is thus that thousands of the Irish peasantry live in idleness, poverty, and filth. Whose fault is it ? What can we think but that their religion and their priesthood are in a great measure responsible for this state of things, and this the more especially when we see such a sensible change as we approach the north of Ireland, which is, for the greater part, settled by Protestants ? Here the squalidness and poverty mostly disappear, and the comfort and prosperity of the people make the traveller almost imagine he is in another country.
The country was much of the way fertile, but part of the dis- tance was through the region of bogs. These bogs are a very re- markable feature of this country ; the amount of bog in Ireland is three millions of* acres, of which more than half is the flat red bog, and the remainder is mountain bog. This latter is quite frequent in England and Scotland, but the low ground bog is most abun- dant in Ireland. The depth of this substance varies from twelve to forty feet, but the average is about twenty-five feet. The top stratum is fibrous and loose, and the surface is covered with heath, bog-myrtle, or sedgy grass, and sometimes with common grass. There are some instances, I think, in which they will bear cul- tivation ; but this is not common. A little below the surface it becomes more compact ; but the fibre, like fine roots of grass or moss, is still visible ; lower still the fibre disappears entirely, and the substance is of a very dark colour, and this is still better for fuel than where the fibre is visible ; and lowest of all, it becomes a black compact mass, which, when dry, somewhat resembles bituminous coal, and is capable of receiving a very good polish. This is very good fuel ; indeed, this peat is the principal fuel of the island, and seems to be a merciful provision to the inhabitants to supply them with this necessary of life; for, although time
BOGS. 633
was when Ireland was thickly wooded, yet now there are very few trees upon the island. The presumption is, that these very bogs were once a forest; and even now large trunks and frag- ments of trees, in a perfect state of preservation, are found many feet below the surface. We saw numerous instances of this in the bogs we passed ; and yet these trees must have lain there many centuries, for the bogs are rather slow of growth. They accumulate by the growth, apparently, of moss and other vegeta- bles, which root in the soil, and form a vegetable stratum of such a nature that, by the peculiar humidity of the atmosphere Acting upon it, gives rise to another stratum over the former, which be- comes, in its turn, the substratum for another, and so on. The bog may be removed from the surface and planted in another place, and then and there begin to accumulate and grow. When all the old bog is entirely removed from any locality, they call it a spank bog, and then, it is said, another series of accumulations does not readily commence unless replanted. In the bog dis tricts the cutting out into small pieces, and piling them up in a loose form, like new-struck brick, to dry, is a principal business. Some are called floating bogs. In a wet time they will swell up in the centre, and afterward fall again. This is occasioned by water gathering underneath ; and, in some instances, it swells so high as to bear off acres upon the surface of a swollen subter ranean lake. We passed one place where, but the year before, an extensive bog was in this manner carried across the highway into an opposite field, which was before free from peat, and there it was deposited, and is carrying on in this new locality its pro- cess of self-propagation.
We had become acquainted at Birmingham with the excellent superintendent of the Belfast circuit, the Rev. Thomas Waugh. After arriving in town, therefore, and taking lodgings, I went to inquire him out, and found him at his chapel in the midst of his people, just closing the exercises of a " missionary tea." I had the pleasure of addressing them on the subject of missions ; and, having engaged to return to them and spend the next Sab- bath, I hastened on the next day to the place of our farthest des- tination in the north of Ireland, Coleraine and the Giant's Cause- way. We had already travelled eighty miles from Dublin to this northern capital of Ireland, and now we were to go about thirty
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634 IRELAND.
I
more to Coleraine. The day was unpleasant, and we had an Englishman in the coach, who would neither suffer the coach window to be closed so as to keep the rain from driving in upon me, nor yet change seats with me and take the storm himself. This an English traveller in America would call a spe- cimen of Yankee politeness, and would consider it one of those malign influences of our political institutions upon our social and domestic manners. As it was, I considered it a proof that not every man in the garb of a gentleman is one in reality ; many in- stances of which can be met with in every country, whether a monarchy or a republic. I hung up my cloak to defend myself as well as I could, and tried to be contented to pass through the country without seeing it. We arrived in Coleraine in lime to deliver our letters of introduction, among which was one to Lieu- tenant Nichols of the royal navy, whom I found to be a great temperance man. We also visited the same evening, one mile up the river Bonn, on which the city is situated, a beautiful salmon fishery. This, like many of the other natural advantages of Ire- land, is a monopoly, and belongs to an absentee landlord, who farms it out for his own advantage. It was a beautiful evening's ride.* . The next morning our friends made out a party, and we started off in jaunting-cars to the Causeway, about nine or ten miles dis- tant. We took the ruins of Dunluce Castle in our way, which were certainly well worth visiting. The coast all along is bleak and bold. The winds set in fresh from the sea, and with such blighting effect that vegetation quails before it. A few thorn hedges and other shrubs have been planted here, but they cannot live long. The sheltered side alone was green, and even here the sickly branches reached out their arms like streamers to the leeward, as if stretching to escape from the wind. The entire island also seemed perfectly soaked with water. I could compare Ireland to nothing so expressive of my views of it as a huge sponge imbedded in the ocean and perfectly saturated with water. When- ever we stepped upon it the pressure caused the water to bubble out around our feet. And why should it not ? for it had rained almost perpetually since our arrival upon the island.
Dunluce Castle was formerly the seat of the earls of Antrim.
* It was near Coleraine that Dr. Adam Clarke was born ; and here his father used to teach a school.
635
It is situated upon a high insulated rock overhanging the sea. Under this rock is a cave extending from the side next the water quite through to the land side. In the time of its prosperity it must have been a place of great strength ; but, like most ancient fortresses, altogether insufficient for defence against the modes and weapons of attack in modern warfare. Near this castle, on the top of a rising ground, is a well-defined exhibition of the ba- saltic columns, similar to those at the Causeway, and shooting up in fine form many feet above the surrounding base. This is called Craig-a-huller.
On arriving at the vicinity of the Causeway, wet, almost as a matter of course, from occasional showers which had fallen on us at the castle and by the way, we found no comfortable inn where we might rest and refresh ourselves, or dry our clothes. How- ever, we pressed on to the great object of our curiosity, having al- ready learned by experience, what I think every traveller will learn, that the system even of feeble persons will endure much more fatigue and exposure to damps and chills when the mind is intensely excited than at other times.
The Causeway is at the foot of a cliff four hundred feet hfgh, and extends partly under water. Our way to it, therefore, was a winding course of tolerably rapid descent down, to the sea. We approached at the south, and near the southern extremity we came to a spring of fresh water, over which a woman stood sentinel, as it at first appeared ; but afterward we discovered it was only over a bottle of whiskey which she kept in the spring, with which to tempt the stranger, who, of course, must always stop and drink of the " Giant's Well." As the water, however, was good enough for us without the poison, we contented ourselves with the giant's unadulterated beverage ; and were not a little edified withal at the occasion this gave to our friend of the royal navy to give a tem- perance lecture and circulate some of his tracts, of which he al ways seemed to have a supply. He did not fail to give his whole- some counsel to all the guides we met with, many of whom were most officiously obtruding their services upon us. The appearance of many, however, indicated that such counsel was lost upon them.
These guides were numerous and very troublesome, each one wishing to force his services upon us and obtain a fee. One of them, however, who appeared to be a veteran in the service, was
I
636 IRELAND.
very musical, and filled up the interludes with accounts of con- versations he had had with the great characters that had visited the Causeway, and who, it seems, on account of his wit, had en- couraged him to say what he pleased to his superiors ; some of whom, if we may believe his own account of the matter, had some pretty shrewd and cutting retorts from this Irish wit. It was not, however, until the wonders of the scene around us had been ex- amined and re-examined, and the novelty and wonder had consid- erably abated, that we could stop to listen to the low humour of the guide. When Nature makes an exhibition of her wondrous skill and power like this of the Giant's Causeway, all'pr eductions of man in words or works seem tame and uninteresting. The astonished mind is preoccupied and lost in pondering upon the process, the time, and the reason of the marvellous work. As to the two former, the process and the time, little can be conjectured with anything like a show of consistency. This record of Nature upon her own tablet was made, if not before the epoch of man's creation, at least before the pen of the historian or the eye of the naturalist could note the event. On the process, the advo- cates of the two schools of geology, the Plutonian and Neptunian, have each adduced their reasons to show, the one that it must be by the action of, fire, and the other by water. The more modern conjecture, however, is the more plausible, that it was the joint product of both agents. Although the advocates of these two geological theories have looked respectively upon the opposite theories with disapprobation, and a shuddering that indicated a disease, in the one case of hydrophobia, and in the other of py- rophobia,* further experiments will probably satisfy all parties that each has the truth, but neither exclusively.
With respect to the reason oijinal cause of this formation, we may, at any rate, whatever other purposes have been or may be subserved by it, safely consider this one of the strangest instances of those natural phenomena which indicate the supervision and productive energy of an infinite mind. The agency and character of God are stamped upon phenomena like these with a depth of
* This word and its application are borrowed from Professor Sedgewick, who, in his address before alluded to in the British Association, speaking of his conversion to the Plutonian theory, called his former abhorrence of this theory a pyrophobia; a horror of fire, of which disease he was then cured.
THE GIANT S CAUSEWAY. 637
impression that the blind fool who hath said in his heart there is no GW cannot but see andfeeL
This remarkable formation halh been so often described, that I might almost presume most of my readers are acquainted with its character. It may not be amiss, however, to mention its princi- pal features.
The Giant's Causeway consists of three divisions, like separate piers, of different lengths, however, and all losing themselves in the bed of the sea ; the longest is visible out of the water for about three hundred yards. The entire mass consists of regularly- formed basaltic pillars or columns, arranged in such close order in a vertical position that you cannot insert a knife-blade in the joints between them. The columns vary somewhat in size, but they average, in general, I should judge, eleven or twelve inches in diameter. The form of the columns is that of a polygon of un- equal sides, varying in number from three to nine, but the hexag- onal form is the most prevalent. Although these sides are of dif- ferent lengths and of different angles, yet they so exactly face a corresponding side in the adjoining pillar, that there is not an interstice either in the principal seams or at the corners that will admit water. It is true, at the Giant's Spring or well al- ready noticed, the water bubbles up between the columns; yet even here, as it spreads out over the heads of the adjacent col- umns, it stands on the surface without penetrating. If the reader would conceive of a molten mass of basaltic matter cooling and settling down together in a compact form, and, as it cools, crack- ing into crystallized prisms of the forms above described, so as to form distinct columns without any separation of the parts, he would then have a tolerable conception of the close joints and compact character of this stupendous specimen of Nature's ma- sonry. Thus far, however, I have noticed but a part of the divis- ions ; each column is also divided into distinct parts of unequal lengths ; these separate joints vary from six inches to several times that length. Nor are the seams a straight horizontal cut across the prism, but are, for the most part, the ball and socket joint, a concave matched to a convex surface, and that so exactly, that the numerous inequalities in the different parts of the interior planes of the surfaces exactly correspond to each other, indica- ting that these horizontal seams were also formed by the cracking 54
638 IRELAND.
of each columnar mass into distinct joints, without any local sep- aration of the parts. There is no uniformity as to whether the top or the bottom of each joint shall be convex or concave ; some- limes it is one way, and sometimes the other; sometimes one joint will have both its ends convex, and in other cases both will be concave, but in every case each is perfectly matched by his fellow.
Beginning at one extremity or corner of this mass, and remo- ving the surrounding earth and rocks, joint after joint might be removed with the strength of one man, until the whole of this gi- gantic structure should be demolished. The entire length of the columns, judging from the length of what is supposed to be the same range in other parts of the coast, is forty-five feet. The surface is uneven, owing, doubtless, to the action of the water and other external causes, by which the upper joints of some of the columns have been overthrown ; some of them still lie there dis- jointed and prostrate, and others have been carried away. Near the centre a large cluster of columns shoot up above the rest, and have obtained the expressive name of the honeycomb, from their resemblance to that formation. At the time we were there the waves were rolling their white crests upon the Causeway, as though to show their triumph over the works of the giant ; who, it seems, in attempting, according to the tradition of the natives, to erect a causeway across the sea to Scotland, has not only failed to scale old ocean's bed, but the billows themselves have made his foundations their playground, and dance in triumph over his broken columns. The bold stratified cliffs rising up three hun- dred feet in height to the east of the Causeway present similar formations of basaltic columns, which, in one place, from their resemblance to the pipes of that instrument, are called the or- gan ; another place is called the Giant's Loom, and another his chair ; everything here belongs to the giant, and, in the opinion of the natives, an enchantment still lingers around these localities. Some of Ossian's ghosts still shriek here in the wind, and these basaltic columns, wedged in as they are in their respective local- ities, nevertheless break loose at particular seasons, and dance to the hoarse music of the winds and the waves.
This entire region is basaltic, and the formation is mostly col- umnar* It extends, as some conjecture, across under the bed of
PORT COON CAVE. 639
the ocean to Staffa, one of the Hebrides, off the coast of Scotland, where the same phenomena appears on a magnificent scale, the columns being much larger than those of the Irish coast. The same formation also continues to the south, and shows itself at Lough Neagh, passing through that lake in a diagonal direction.
In leaving the Causeway we mounted the cliff and passed over to Pleaskin and Bengore headlands, that rise in bold precipitous cliffs above the ocean to the height of three hundred and fifty-four feet, one hundred and fifty-four of which is perpendicular, pre- s-enting, one above the other, two strata of columnar basaltes, the one sixty and the other forty-five feet in depth, separated by a coarse rock of fifty or sixty feet in depth. The view from these cliffs is fine ; but, with weary limbs, wet feet, and a body chilled by the fresh winds from the sea, curiosity flags, and we were in- duced to give over with but a partial survey. On returning, how- ever, we could not be persuaded to forego the pleasure of visiting, in the other direction, Port Coon Cave. This is a deep cave, with an entrance from the sea and another from the land side. The land side entrance is occasioned by a deep natural cut in the cliff, down which you descend almost to a level with the water, and then, turning to the right, you find an opening into the side of the cliff, down a part of which you have descended, and, passing into this, you strike the side of a grotto, which, running under the superincumbent mountain of amorphous basalt, mixed in with other stones, finally opens into the sea. This long cave is like the arched nave of a Gothic church, except that its flooring is, for the most of the way, the rolling waves. These waves enter at the mouth, and, swelling up as they become compressed in the inte- rior of the cavern, they lash the sides, and almost leap to the top of the vaulted arch, roaring and foaming in these echoing caverns until almost the entire mass of liquid brine is worked up into foam, and there it rolls, approaching and receding, in ceaseless uproar and revelry. Creeping into the noisy hall, and climbing along the side gallery as far as I dared — for the spray, acting upon the whinstone, gave it a greasy and extremely slippery character — I seated myself, and gave up the reins to fancy, until I found my own mind growing as wild and frantic almost as the noisy elements around me. The genius of the cavern cast a spell over me and bound me to the spot. It seemed almost impossible to break
640 IRELAND.
away from the scene. If I raised my voice, it was noiseless even to my own ear amid the roar of the waters. The noise, the fear- ful rush and reflux of the foaming billows, and the gloomy char- acter of the cavern, all conspired to make this a scene unlike what I had ever before beheld. Nurtured here, methought I might have been a poet, and have rhapsodized in these noisy halls in wild and frantic verse. Breaking away, however, from the wizard spell, we hastened back to the company we had left, and returned, highly gratified with our excursion, to Coleraine in time to attend a temperance meeting which the lieutenant had got up for me to address in the evening.
The next morning, after engaging a man to send me five joints of the Giant's Causeway to Liverpool,* we started in a small jaunting-car, which we hired expressly for the purpose, on our return to Belfast.
This riding in an Irish car, in pleasant weather, is not without its interest. You have nothing to obstruct your vision in this open vehicle, only, as you ride with your side to the horse, your back is on half the scenery, and you want to come back the same way to see the other side. We passed a number of interesting towns, such as Ballymony, Ballymena, and Antrim. At Bal- lymena it was market-day, and the streets were perfectly crowded with men, women, and children, wading in the mud over shoe. We had to walk at a slow pace through the town, on account of the crowd, to pass which was more difficult, because of the many who were intoxicated, and who therefore took up more room than they otherwise would, and were more negligent in getting out of the way. I think I never saw so much drunkenness in one day and at one place as I saw here.
These market-days are fairs. Everybody comes that has any- thing to buy or sell ; vegetables, meats, live-stock, wares, or mer- chandise. The great articles in trade here are linen cloth and linen yarn. The country abounds in these articles. We often passed extensive yards and fields that were covered with the cloth spread out to bleach.
The hotel where we stopped was converted into a market-house, so that it was with difficulty we could find a resting-place for an
* These came according to agreement, and are now in the museum of the Wesleyaa University.
BELFAST. 641
hour. We were obliged to stop here, for our Irish postillion re- fused to go any farther ; he had got to the end of his acquaintance, and was too homesick to proceed. I could get no other convey- ance ; and finally, by refusing to pay him for what he had done, and by threatening to write back to Coleraine and report him there, I overcame his obstinacy and kept him through. We called at another public house on the road, where we found an earth floor, a turf fire without a chimney, and a poor woman spinning flax, who told us she could earn two or three pence per day !
We passed Loch Neagh, a beautiful sheet of fresh water, and the largest in Europe, with the exception of Ladoga, Onega, and Geneva lakes, extending over about ninety-seven thousand acres. This lake often inundates thousands of acres on its shores, and its extent and depth, it is said, are annually increasing. The natives suppose the waters are medicinal, and they also have petrifying properties. Antrim, a village of about two thousand five hundred inhabitants, stands on its banks.
We were glad to find an Irish welcome by our excellent Rev- erend Mr. Waugh and his estimable lady some time after dark on Saturday evening. With these friends and their devout congre- gation we enjoyed a most delightful and refreshing Sabbath.
Belfast may be styled the northern capital of Ireland. It is a fine, flourishing town, with wide streets, a growing commerce, and a population of about sixty thousand. Protestantism prevails here, as it does, indeed, in all these northern counties ; and town and country seem' comparatively flourishing. The prevailing re- ligion is Presbyterianism of the Scottish stamp, this part of the island being mostly settled by the descendants of Scotch emigrants. Religion has been at a low ebb in these churches, and Unitarian- ism has prevailed to a great extent. Lately, efforts have been made to correct the errors of the church, and draw up the reins of dis- cipline. • It was found that many of the clergy were not only lax in doctrine, but in morals ; and quite a proportion, it is said, were fond of strong drink ; many were tipplers. The first blow in favour of temperance was by Professor Edgar of Belfast, who published Doctor Beecher's sermons on that subject. Professor Edgar is still a bold champion for the cause, and is doing much to reform his country, and has now many in the ministry, in his own and other churches, to assist him.
54 4 M
642 IRELAND.
Government now pays the Presbyterian clergy an annuity, called regium bonum, so that they may be considered as a portion of the religious establishment of the country. Perhaps, in this way, if the government was disposed, it might bring over to its interests the Catholic clergy of Ireland ; and, in truth, if a reli- gious establishment must be kept up, why should not the public support such religious teachers as the great mass of the people desire ? This, I think, would be the only way to free the country from an undue foreign ecclesiastical influence. Certain it is, that so long as* the British government, either directly or indirectly, makes war upon the religious feelings of the people, or, what is the same thing, subjects them to taxation and civil disabilities be- cause of their religion, and contrary to their wishes, there will be an irritation of feeling and a spirit of insubordination among the people. If the Irish are ever proud to be called West Britons, as the Scotch are to be called North Britons, it will be the result of according to them, as to Scotland, equal rights and privileges with the English themselves.
We left Ireland much gratified, on the whole, with our short visit ; only regretting that we had no more time to spend in it. We embarked on board a steamer for Glasgow, which we reached the next morning, after a voyage as delightfully calm and smooth as our passage from Bristol to Dublin had been rough and un- pleasant.
The principal object of interest on the passage was Ailsa Craig. This is a stupendous insulated rock in the Frith of Clyde, two miles in circumference, and rising in abrupt cliffs, one above an- other, in a pyramidal series, nine hundred feet above the water. On or near the top, it is said, is a spring of fresh water. It is lit- erally covered with seafowls, and is represented also as abound- ing with rabbits. These fowls, as it had become nearly dark when we passed the craig, had retired to their roosts ; but a gun fired from the ship, as we skimmed along the south side- of this tremendous pier, called them out, and, to appearance, hundreds of thousands brushed over us like the rush of a tempest. This rock is so white that it can be seen at some distance at all times of night.
GLASGOW, 643
CHAPTER XXXII.
IN sailing up the Clyde to Glasgow we passed, among other places, Greenock and Port Glasgow. These are four miles from each other. Greenock has a population of twenty-five or thirty thousand, and may be considered but an appendage of Glasgow, because here, or rather at the port above, all the heavy vessels in the Glasgow trade stop, and their freights are conveyed up and down the Clyde by lighters.
Glasgow is twenty-four miles from Greenock, up the Clyde, the navigation of which has been so improved of late years that it seems almost like an artificial channel ; smoothed, deepened, and straightened, it affords a delightful channel for the numerous steamers and other craft that ply upon it. Steam navigation has been, in fact, the making of Glasgow. A century since, the pop- ulation was about seventeen thousand; in 1801, eighty-four thou- sand ; in 1821, one hundred and forty-seven thousand; and, at present, about two hundred and forty thousand. It is now only second to Liverpool in commercial importance and population, and almost equals Leeds or Manchester in manufacturing impor- tance. It is claimed that the first attempt to apply steam power to navigation was made here, although not at first successful. The first successful effort was by Mr. Henry Bell, who constructed a boat of three horse power, which made its first trip from Glasgow to Greenock on the 18th of January, 1812. The Scotch, in fact, entirely overlook our countryman, Fulton, in this application of steam to navigation, and take all the credit to themselves. Some of them say even that Fulton got his models and principles from Scotland.*
Glasgow possesses great advantages in uniting, as it does, all the
* Patrick Miller first devised the plan, and Bell took his leading principles from Mil- ler. Bell says, moreover, that Fulton received from him, in 1799, descriptions and draw- ings of Miller's plans, by which, in 1801, he constructed the first steamboat. The truth seems to be, however, that John Fitch, a native of Connecticut, constructed the first steamboat in 1787, and Mr. Fulton had the advantage of his plans.
644 SCOTLAND.
facilities of commerce and manufactures. The latter are sup- ported chiefly by the great ease with which the building material is procured, which is a beautiful light sandstone that is inexhaust- ibly abundant in the neighbourhood, and of which the whole city is built ; and especially by the abundance and cheapness of coal, which can be procured in any quantity at the rate of from six to seven shillings per ton. This is the wealth of Glasgow. This freights their ships, propels their steamers, swings their looms, and throws their shuttles. They have in operation between three and four hundred steam-engines ; of these about sixty are em- ployed in collieries, eight or ten in stone quarries, and the remainder in steamboats and manufactories, the former bearing to the latter a proportion of about one to three. There are in and near Glas- gow seventy-four cotton-mills ; also extensive chymical-works for the manufacture of sulphuric acid, chloride of lime, soda, &c. These works cover ten acres of ground, and consume six hundred tons of coal weekly. There are also iron-foundries, glasshouses, sugar-refineries, &c., &c.
The architecture of Glasgow is, in general, of the Grecian style, and there are very many fine public and private edifices, and some very good monuments. There are four principal streets, inter- secting each other at right angles, and dividing the town into four quarters.
The churches of Glasgow are only sufficient to accommodate about seventy-five thousand of the inhabitants. Reckoning that two thirds of the population possess suitable age and health to at tend public worship, it would appear that there were not " sittings"* enough for half the population. This is another striking instance to show how tardily governments meet the religious wants of a growing community. Here, as in London, they have been obliged to resort to the voluntary system to make up the deficiencies of government. A society has been formed for " erecting additional parochial churches in Glasgow and its suburbs," which, in two years, has raised upward of twenty-four thousand pounds, and has built or is building six additional churches.
The operatives that have rushed into Glasgow since the great increase of business are, to a great extent, Irish Catholics ; so
* A sitting is the common phrase in England and Scotland to indicate a seat in the church for one individual.
JOHN KNOXfS MONUMENT. 645
that, at present, not much short of fifty thousand of the population are Catholics. The morals of the town, it is generally declared, have also greatly deteriorated. Instead of that sober, Sabbath- keeping, regular character that used to distinguish Scottish towns, there is much of profanity, Sabbath-breaking, and irreli- gion. Still, however, the old Scotch character is very prominent ; and I think there is in Glasgow a good share of genuine piety. There is an increasing zeal for the mission cause and other soci- eties ; and I was particularly struck with one method they have of concentrating, in the same building, most of the offices for the Christian charities of the various religious sects. This edifice we visited, and noticed in one room charity-boxes for about thirty different societies ; all in their character and tendency " ONE CON CERN," and spoke a language of union and efficiency at which the god of this world and" his infidel and earthly auxiliaries might well tremble. These charity-boxes, arranged in beautiful order, looked to me like the heavy ordnance of the church ; and although each piece was manned and charged by different companies, yet they were all of the same army, and were fighting the same common foe. With such a union of design and of action, the battle will ultimately be won. The different congregations also are in the practice of supporting missionaries and teachers for particular fields of labour, such as one in the West Indies, one in the Highlands, &c. In this way much is done for the cause of Christianity.
The old Cathedral, built in the eleventh century, is an interesting object, as is also the cemetery connected with it, especially a new part that has been laid out on an opposite hill over a deep ravine, across which an elegant bridge has been recently thrown. Here are some fine sepulchral monuments ; among others, one to the great Scotch reformer, John Knox. The inscriptions on it, in ad- dition to those descriptive of Knox's personal character, death, &c., detail a number of events connected with the reformation in Scot- land. The monument was erected 1825 by subscription ; and is a fluted Doric column, crowned with a noble statue of the reformer, with a Bible in his hand, the Protestant text-book.
A little to the south of this is another monument to the more- modern Protestant champion, William M'Gavin. He is the au- thor of " The Protestant," a work that has been republished and
646 SCOTLAND.
extensively circulated in the United States. This work, it seems, has, in the opinion of the citizens of Glasgow, who erected this monument, entitled him to a place second only to Knox, who la- boured in the same cause at an earlier date. His statue has one hand supporting the Bible, and the other resting upon the book, as if he was saying to the Romanist, " To the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not according to this rule, it is because there is no truth in them." M'Gavin was a merchant of Glas- gow, and died in 1832.
This hill is well calculated for tombs, as the base is of the free- stone formation already spoken of, and is so soft it can as readily be cut into catacombs as the Tufa strata of St. Sebastian, near Rome. The top of the hill, however, presents a formation of coarse black granite lying directly over this freestone ; so true is it that granite is the product of almost every age in the geological history of the world, although not quite so recent, perhaps, as some alluded to by one of the philosophers at Bristol, who humorously remarked, that in one place it was so recently made it had not yet got cold !
The Glasgow University deserves more than a passing notice, yet this is all I can give it.
This is one of four universities of Scotland, which, with a popu- lation of a little over two millions, nevertheless affords a liberal patronage to all these universities. In this at Glasgow they have twelve or fourteen hundred students. It has departments of law, theology, medicine, and the arts, employing in the whole eighteen professors. It has a public library of about sixty thousand volumes besides libraries for all the classes in the different departments The Hunterian Museum is a fine collection in natural history, in almost all the departments of that science, the work of a single life, that of Doctor William Hunter, who left the collection to the university, together with eight or ten thousand volumes of most rare or remarkable books, a great many coins, and some splendid pictures and prints, and various other curiosities. The whole of this splendid donation, especially the museum of natural history, shows to bad advantage for want of a convenient room. In the university is a sitting marble statue of Watt, by Chantrey, afac-simile of which, although colossal in its proportions, is seen in bronze in St. George's Square, in the centre of the city. Well
EDUCATION. 647
may Glasgow honour Watt ; to his science they owe the prosper- ity and wealth of their city.
In the examination-room we saw the " black-stone" which the student sits upon for examination. Formerly it was, by itself, the seat of the patient undergoing an examination ; but for a long time it has been handsomely set in a fine covered chair ; a five- minute sand-glass hangs behind, which the beadle turns and watches, and, as soon as the glass runs out, he cries out to the examiner to let him know it is time to let the patient off. This, perhaps, is upon the same principle as that of the physician who stands by in cases of judicial torture, to give notice when, to pre- vent fatal consequences, the sufferer must be released. He must be but a poor fellow, however, who cannot endure more than five minutes on the rack of a college-examination ; and this, which, by way of distinction, is called the Black-stone examination, can be considered little else than a mere form.
The cause of education is receiving great attention in Glasgow. Mr. David Stow, author of the " Training System for Schools," has bestowed much time and care on the subject of schools, and made great improvements in this department ; and the " Glas- gow Educational Society" is making very promising efforts in this important work.
I visited the School for the Blind, the Lunatic Asylum, the Magdalen Asylum, and various other institutions, which I cannot stop to describe. They are generally flourishing, however, and appear to have a good share of public patronage.
By the politeness of Dr. T. of New- York I had an introduction to Sir William J. Hooker, the first botanist of Great Britain, if not of Europe. We shared largely in the courtesy and kind at- tentions of Sir William and his lady, and Sir William's father, resident with him. At his house we met at dinner several gentle- men, clergymen and others, together with Dr. Magill, professor of theology and acting head in the university, with whom we spent a delightful evening. Sir William's collection of plants is immense, and his library, I believe, fills all the rooms of his house ; at any rate, his dining-room was completely lined with bookcases. We also spent a part of another day in examining the Botanical Garden. This was a splendid treat; the garden itself is supported by the citizens of Glasgow, the university hav-
648 SCOTLAND.
ing subscribed two thousand pounds towards it in the first instance, on condition that a lecture-room should be erected for the use of the botanical professor, and that the use of the garden should be secured for the professor and his classes. The conservatories are extensive, and the collection of plants amounts to about twelve thousand. The garden was opened in 1819. It does great credit to the citizens of Glasgow, to the professor, and to Mr. Murray, the curator. The garden and the residence of Sir William Hooker, who is professor, and who lives near the garden, are two miles from the university, and the classes walk out in the morning to receive their lecture before breakfast.
We were charmed with our visit to Glasgow ; but we were only transient visiters, and had time only to form a short acquaintance, admire, bid farewell, and depart.
Our object was to visit the Highlands in as expeditious a tour as possible, and, at the same time, cross the country to Edinburgh. To this end we sent on our heavy baggage to this latter city by the public conveyance direct, that we might traverse the lakes and Highlands unencumbered.
Our route was down the Clyde to Dumbarton, fourteen miles from Glasgow. This is the Balclutha of Ossian, and is a place of much interest. The ancient castle was on a twin-headed rock, rising up abruptly from the harbour five hundred and sixty feet, about a mile in circumference at the base, and deeply cleft at the top, so as to appear like a mountain with two heads. It com- mands the Clyde and the Leven, which here enters the Clyde, and may be considered the key to the western Highlands. We started next morning in a coach for Loch Lomond. The ride up the Leven was delightful, and the day proved remarkably fine ; we passed a number of interesting seats, and, among others, the birthplace of Tobias Smollett, the historian and novelist, and an obelisk erected to his memory. But the Leven itself is his best snonument, which seems to echo back, as it glides down its soft channels, his own sweet song.
" On Leven's banks, while free to rove, And tune the rural pipe to love, I envied not the happiest swain That ever trod the Arcadian plain . Pure stream ! in whose transparent wave My youthful limba I wont to lave."
ENTRANCE TO THE HIGHLANDS. 649
At the outlet of Loch Lomond the steamer waited our arrival. We embarked, and were soon gliding up this beautiful lake, which extends into the very region of romance thirty miles, varying in width from seven miles to a quarter of a mile. The southern part is the widest, and here are a great number of islands, amount- ing, in the whole, to above thirty ; some of these are very beauti- ful, covered with wood, and rising to different heights ; others are more rocky, with a mixture of verdure. One of them, Inch Mur- rin, is occupied as a deer-park by the Duke of Montrose, and is the largest in the lake. Here the scenery is fine, both in the lake and on the shore. The valley of the Endrick opens up before you ; the minarets of the Ross priory, where Sir Waller Scott made his headquarters when he was traversing these regions to catch the inspiration for his muse, are pointed out to the stranger ; as also an obelisk to the memory of George Buchanan, and the residence of Lord Napier, the inventer of logarithms. These objects blend together most delightfully the association of the utile and the dulce, and all are heightened by the bold and the beautiful in the pencillings and colourings of Nature. This, too, is the gate into the Highlands, and now all the magic influences of the mountain scenery begin to entrance the soul. I speak not for others, I can only say what was the effect upon myself ; an effect which, al- though I have felt the like before, yet never to the same extent. It was not because I was now in the region consecrated by the genius and enriched by the creations of the great magician of the north ; it was not because I was in the domain of the M'Gregors and the Colquhouns ; the land of chivalry, of tragedy, of romance, and of song. All this might have operated to heighten the feel- ings of that moment, but it was chiefly the witchery of the mount- ain scenery that cast its spell over my soul, and at first electrified, and then sickened my heart ; sickened me, because all the in- stinctive feeling that could be brought to act on such a subject revolted at the idea of ever dwelling longer in the tame regions of plains and moderate hills. I had been nurtured among the mountains, and all my local affinities are for the mountains still. I felt as though I was impelled almost irresistibly to return home, break off my connexions with the lower country, and fly back to the mountains. It was not the voice of warning, but it was the mysterious voice of taste, of instinct, which rung in my heart, 55 4 N
650 SCOTLAND.
" Tarry not in all the plain, but flee to the mountains." Who that has felt this spell would prefer that he had never felt it ? or, having felt it, would wish to leave the congenial regions that had given it existence ?
These were the feelings with which I entered the Highlands of Scotland. Ben Lomond rose up on our right three thousand two hundred and sixty-two feet above the surface of the lake, and on whose placid waters it seemed to rest for its liquid base. Other mountains skirt the lake or tower in the distance, while occasional villages on the shore give an air of softness to the more rugged features of the back-ground. All this region belonged to Rob Roy McGregor. Many places bear his name or are associated with his history. One is called Rob Roy's Rock. It rises up about thirty feet above the water, where is a flat platform overtopped in the rear by another elevation still higher. Here this cruel chief- tain was accustomed to let down, by a rope tied around the waist, those who refused to comply with his demands. Above this the mountains are more grand and imposing, presenting new and ever- varying features. Here we passed a lively cascade, which turns the mill of Inversnaid, on the water of the Arkill, where, it is said, Wordsworth penned his " Sweet Highland Girl." Near this is Rob Roy's Cave, the hiding-place of this Highland chief and rob- ber. We passed the mouth of the Arkill, and sailed up to the head of the lake merely for the purpose of seeing the entire loch, a route which the boat makes daily, in the same manner and for the same purposes with the steamer on Lake Como, to which this water has been compared. Lake Como, however, presents bolder scenery than Loch Lomond. As the boat returned we landed at Inversnaid, to cross over to Loch Katrin or Ketturin. Here we found the advantage of being free from baggage. The road is impassable for carriages, except a sort of rough cart which they roll, I know not how, over the rocks of this rough mountain pass. The travellers, of whom there were quite a number in our com- pany, had to trust to their feet or mount ponies. Mrs. Fisk and myself, together, in fact, with most of our company, chose the lat- ter. The distance over the mountain to Loch Katrin is five miles, and the pass is wild and romantic. On the right rises Ben Lo- mond, piercing the clouds. On the left is a high range of barren eminences, mostly without wood. This, in fact, is the general
LOCH KETTURIN. 65X
character of the Highlands, so that the highest eminences are bleak and bald, which, with their dark colour, gives them a most deso- late character. Along the pass we traversed, however, there was some vegetation and some Highland cottages. We passed one cottage where they were making hay, engaged in which was an old Highlander, who said he had lived a century. Just beyond we stopped to see Rob Roy's fowling-piece. It was a long, sin- gularly-proportioned musket, kept for show by a woman who claimed to be one of his family connexions. In the same neigh- bourhood was the house where his wife was born. She, it seems, was a woman of some talent, although her birthplace was an humble one, since it was " Rob Roy's Lament," composed by her, that gave him such a " touch of the heartbreak" as finally drove him into the life and profession of a freebooter. He was born a gentleman, and owned all this region east of Loch Lomond; but was dispossessed of it, by some legal process, by the Duke of Montrose, whose agent, in the absence of M'Gregor, harshly treated his wife. This drove him to desperation ; and he turned his back upon law and civilized society, and lived by robbery and levelling black mail upon the borderers ; that is, they paid him a tax to purchase exemption from depredations upon their prop- erty.
Near this are the ruins of the fortress of Inversnaid, built to protect the district against the incursions of Rob Roy. On the rieht we passed the small water called Loch Arklet, from which
O -f
the aforementioned Arkill takes its rise. And now we approached the descent to Loch Ketturin.
One burnish'd sheet of living gold Loch Ketturin beneath its roll'd, In all her length far winding lay \Vrth promontory, creek, and bay, And islands that, impurpled bright, Floated amid the livelier light.
High on the south huge Ben Venue Down on the lake in masses threw Crags, knolls, and mounds, confus'dly hurl'd The fragments of an earlier world.
While on the north, through middle air, Ben Ann heaved high his forehead bare."
652 SCOTLAND.
This beautiful mirror, so deeply set in the bold framework ol the mountains, is about ten miles in length by one and a half in breadth. It is in itself a most interesting object of sublimity and beauty, such as Nature has not often constructed, and it is rendered still more interesting by the witchery which the Scotch magician has thrown around it in the poetic creations of his Highland muse, especially in the " Lady of the Lake," the principal scene of which was here. We found upon the bank a large company, some of whom had just arrived in the passage-boat which, in its return, was to take us down to the lower end of the lake. This boat was propelled by the power of Highland muscles, and plies daily on the lake for the conveyance of passengers. The two compa- nies, the boatmen, and a number of Highlanders of both sexes were here assembled around a miserable hut, which passed, I suppose, for a tavern. If one were disposed to turn from the romantic and the poetic to the coarser associations of common and real life, in- stead of quoting from Scott, he might, in view of the objects around him, strike in with the satirist.
" Bleak are thy hills, oh Scotia,
And barren are thy plains ; Barefooted are thy nymphs, And barer still thy swains."*
We were enabled, however, for the most part, to keep the mind elevated above grovelling and commonplace associations, and that the more readily because, after we embarked, our head boatman, who was himself a Highlander, when he was not chatting in Gaelic with his companions, repeated page after page from the " Lady of the Lake," and pointed out to us all the interesting localities of that poem. This man was so enthusiastic in his veneration of Scott, that he said, if they would erect a monument to his memory on the promontory which is supposed to be the " Watch Tower" where Roderic Dhu kept his vigils when Fitz James fell in with him, he, poor as he was, would give six months* labour towards the object.
Before we approached the landing the sun went down, just in time to give a heightened interest to this mountain scenery. We passed the island of the " Lady of the Lake." We did not land, for " Ellen's Bower" has unfortunately been consumed by fire, and
* For decency's sake I have altered the last liue
HIGHLAND SCENERY. 653
this has robbed the island of much of its interest. A boat shot off from the island, however, just as we passed, with a lady in it, which, for aught we knew, might have been Ellen herself, espe- cially as the " pine of Clan Alpine" was standing up in the prow of the boat in all the freshness of its former glory. Beyond the island, on the northern shore, was the spot where Fitz James came down to the bank and wound that blast upon his horn which brought Ellen in her skiff from " the Rocky Isle." There is now, probably, less of wood about the shore and the mountain side than formerly. Still, however,
" Boon nature scatters free and wild Each plant or flower, the mountain's child ; Here eglantine embalms the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingle there ; The primrose pale and violet flower Find in each cliff a narrow bower."
But the finest, the rudest, the wildest scene of all is where we landed. The place is called The Trosachs, the meaning of which is "The rough or bristled territory." It seems to have been formed by some convulsion of nature, which resulted in casting up, in the wildest possible confusion, the varied materials of the mountains and the vales ; and then, over this wild scene, vegeta- tion sprang up, covering the whole
" With wild rose, eglantine, and broom, Which waste around their rich perfume ; While birch-trees weep in fragrant balm, And aspens sleep beneath the calm."
The dusk of the evening was settling down upon the valleys, although the tops of Ben Ann and Ben Venue were still lighted by the reflected rays of the departed sun ; the lake was still, the air was fragrant and mild, and all seemed to combine to make the impression of the scene most vivid ; all but the cackling boat- men contending for their pay, and the porters vexing the company about their baggage ; and then there was the haste to get to the inn at a mile's distance, which we had to walk, and the fear that the beds would all be engaged before we could arrive. It is thtfB that the vulgar concerns of life break in upon our imaginative and poetic reveries, profaning these, as well as our religion, with earth- born inquiries, " What shall I eat ? or what shall I drink ? or wherewithal shall I be clothed?" Make the best you can of 55
654 SCOTLAND.
man, there is much of gross matter about him still. Rhapsodize as you may, you cannot thus check the gnawings of hunger, nor sooth to rest the weary limb. Not all the calls of hunger, or the obstructions of fatigue, or the noise of tasteless boatmen and por- ters, however, could wholly break the spell of that hour and of that scene. Nature may have many such exhibitions, but I have not seen them. The Trosachs stand alone, in my mind, among all the reminiscences of the past; and fancy still calls up the image of that scene as fresh almost as when we set foot upon the shore, and walked the
" Dark ravine,
Where twined the path in shadow hid Round many a rocky pyramid, Shooting abruptly from the dell Its thunder-splinter'd pinnacle. Round many an insulated mass The native bulwarks of the pass, Huge as the tower which builders vain Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain. Here rocky summits, split and rent, Form'd turret, dome, and battlement ; Or seem'd fantastically set With cupola or minaret ; Wild crests as pagod ever deck'd, Or mosque of eastern architect."
We passed the dell where the " gallant gray" of Fitz James fell in the chase. The scene which had been so wild gradually melted away into a verdant vale, and the rural pathway brought us out to a fine and commodious hotel, fitted up in a taste corre- sponding with the natural scenery around, and affording us excel- lent refreshment and rest.
The next day a company of us rode post to Stirling. The whole way was enchanting. We passed down the glen which Clan Alpine's chief and Fitz James had travelled before us, and carrte to " Coilantogle Ford," where they fought, and where the former fell. Ben Ledi and the Grampian Hills receded as we rolled down the valley of the Vennachar. We passed the ancient castle of Doune, whose tower still stands to the height of some eighty feet. We next passed the town of Calendar, celebrated for its muslin manufactory, and reached Stirling in time to visit all that is particularly interesting in this ancient Scottish fortress, which so long commanded the pass to the eastern Highlands..
STIRLING. — EDINBURGH. 655
Stirling is seated on a hill that rises from the plain of the valley of Forth, the top of which is an abrupt basaltic rock, on the high- est elevation of which is situated the castle. This castle was for a long time considered impregnable. It had connected with it a royal palace. All are still standing, although in a state of dilapi- dation. This castle has been a bloody place ; the room is still shown where William the Eighth, Earl of Douglas, was stabbed by James II., even while under the royal safe-conduct. The truth is, these northern chieftains, from royalty downward, cold as their country is, were a hot-blooded race. The terrace around the cas- tle is one of the most splendid observatories to be found in any country : the distant ranges of the Grampian and other mountains ; the melting down of their rude outlines into the mellower lineaments of the bordering hills ; and, finally, the vale itself, the meandering river, the villages, and the meadows, all spread out beneath and around, form a grand panorama rarely equalled. Near by is the place where the Knights of the Round Table used to hold their tour- naments, and the " ladies' hill," where the fair sex sat to behold these martial sports. No fewer than twelve battle-fields may be seen from this terrace ; among which, about two miles to the southeast, is the field of Bannockburn.
After dining we took the public coach for Edinburgh. Before leaving the county of Stirling we crossed the ancient Roman wall built about A.D. 140, by Antoninus, to check the irruptions of the northern barbarians. The ploughshare now passes over this ancient bulwark ; and instead of a wall extending from the Clyde to the Forth, quite across the island, a canal connects the waters of the western and eastern seas, on which a great commercial business is carried on. A striking mark of distinction between the two periods. Where we crossed the wall recent excavations had uncovered two or three stone coffins, in which human bones were found.
We did not arrive until evening; and, on entering the city, the contrast from an open unsettled country to a beautiful and bustling city was very striking ; the more so because it was sudden ; there was none of that sprinkling of neighbouring villages and suburban country-seats so common in the neighbourhood of most cities, and of this, indeed, in other directions.
We passed Prince's-street, which is the great thoroughfare of
€56 SCOTLAND.
the city, having the new town on our left and the old town on our right. Immediately bordering upon our right, however, for a part of the distance, was a deep ravine called North Loch. This loch, as it is called, was formerly a morass, and formed the northern boundary of the city. It has been drained, and the west end has been filled up to the length of seven hundred and sixty feet, so as to form an eligible connexion between the old and new towns. The breadth here is one hundred and sixty feet, and the depth of the earth thrown in is eighty feet ; making, it is said, a mound of earth consisting of one and a half millions of cartloads. Beyond this loch towered the castle ; and there, too, were the fourteen-storied houses of the old town, of which everybody almost has heard. On the left were some of the finest edifices, public and private, in the city ; and the whole was finely illuminated with gaslights.* At the lower end of this street we found fine accommodations, where we rested on Saturday night from the labours of a busy and an inter- esting week ; a week which had been the more grateful because, exposed as we had been, we had been favoured throughout with most delightful weather ; a circumstance so rare in our experience on these islands, that we prized it the more, occurring as it did at a time when we most needed it.
A Sabbath in Scotland, and especially in Edinburgh, reminded me of one of those New-England Sabbaths (that are now less common, I am sorry to say) of the days of my childhood, and more frequent now in New-England than in any other country I have visited, Scotland excepted. Indeed, Edinburgh seemed pe- culiar in this respect, insomuch that the rumbling of the wheels of a carriage was rarely heard through the day ; the people seem to regard the letter of the law : " In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy cattle."
On Monday we commenced visiting this beautiful city, and forming some acquaintance with this interesting people. We had introductions to some of the professors of the university ; and al- though the greater portion were absent, as it was vacation, still we found several who treated us with great politeness, and with a frankness, too, that I could not but admire. Indeed, I find this almost uniformly among gentlemen of science and literature. There is a nobleness of mind, a frankness of manner, a discard-
* Gaslights are very much used in private houses in Edinburgh.
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS. 657
ing of the trammelling forms of etiquette, which cannot be said of any other class of men. These are the souls that seem worthy the high destinies of rational, and the high enjoyments of social beings. I cannot describe the pleasure I took in the society of these gentlemen the little time I had to spend with them, nor the reluctance with which I tore myself from them ; and now, when I look back upon that elegant city of the north, and recall with great pleasure her architecture and her splendid institutions, her squares, her crescents, and her monuments, nothing so delights me in the retrospect as that noble courtesy with which I was re- ceived and entertained by these gentlemen. Who would not be pleased with a residence in Edinburgh, the seat of science and of manly intellect? Among the first objects of interest was the university. Perhaps my readers will be weary of so many notices of universities ; but I will promise, on this subject, to be short, and only notice a few points.
First, as to the edifices. These are, principally, a noble quad- rangle on the south side of the great gulf; that is, in the old town,
and have been built anew within a fow years. Government gave
ten thousand pounds per annum for a number of years, until the whole was rebuilt in a style of architecture and with such accom- modations as do great credit to the university and all concerned in its erection. The large library-room is a most splendid hall, and contains one hundred thousand volumes. One arrangement struck me as very convenient. The more common books, and such as were for every-day use, were selected out, and constituted the "working library." These books might be drawn out; the others were reserved for consultation, but not for circulation. There are a number of other libraries in Edinburgh, the largest of which, that belonging to the society of Writers to the Signet,* is said to contain one hundred and fifty thousand volumes.
The university museum is the work principally of one man, Professor Jameson, who still holds the chair in the department of natural science. It is beautifully arranged in two large rooms, each twenty feet long by thirty wide, besides smaller side rooms. The lower room is mostly devoted to quadrupeds. In the upper room is a collection of birds, amounting to about three thousand ;
* This is a law corporation, and here a course of instruction is given in civil law, the Scotch law, and in conveyancing.
40
658 SCOTLAND.
here also, and in other apartments, are shells, insects, minerals, preparations in comparative anatomy, &c., all extensive, beauti- ^ fully arranged, and kept in the nicest order.
The Scotch universities differ from the English in many respects. The Senatus Academicus, or the executive authority, is vested, where it should be, in the principal and professors of the univer- sity. These are divided into four faculties, viz., of arts, law, medicine, and theology. The classes in the different faculties are conducted, in a great measure, independent of each other. The students choose their own mode of living, their own dress, and the amount and kind of studies they pursue, save that, to enter the Christian ministry, they must go through a given course ; as also to graduate in the department of medicine. In the constitution of the faculties, it is a singular feature in the university of Edin- burgh, that the magistrates of the city possess the right to nomi- nate to all the vacant chairs except six, which belong to the crown, and two others, in which they have joint patronage with the crown.
This is rather an anomaly ; and it is to be feared, although they
have had and Still have many able mon in their chairs, that, in the
same proportion as the city magistracy comes under the influence of party politics and popular elections, they will find such a con- trol in the appointment of the professors by a city magistracy a most unfortunate business to the university. One thing, however, may save them. As there are no funds for the professors, and nothing but their merit will either support their institution or se- cure bread to the incumbents, there will be little inducement for novices to aspire to the office, or for the magistrates to appoint them. Their poverty may be their security ; and that they might be in no danger of lacking this protection, about sixteen thousand pounds which belonged to the university, and which was in the hands of the town council, has been lost by the town council be- coming bankrupt !
The first botanic garden in Scotland, it is said, was formed by Sir Andrew Balfour, in 1670 ; this was changed from time to time, and enlarged, until, finally, it has obtained, probably, a permanent location a little out of town, to the north of the village of Canon- mills, where a tract of twelve acres has been secured and enclosed. The garden was opened in this place in 1824, and is now a splen- did collection of plants from all parts of the world. It has been
MONUMENTS IN EDINBURGH. 6.59
lately enriched with numerous American plants, especially from California and the more northern shores of the Pacific. The glazed houses are extensive and fine, and in them I saw the most luxuriant vegetation of the tropical plants that I ever beheld. It is said, indeed, that rarely in the tropics themselves is such a vegetation seen. Doctor Graham, the professor of botany, has charge of this garden, and receives from government annually for its support one thousand pounds.
For the ornamental part of Edinburgh, as well as for a fine view of the town and surrounding country, the stranger is attracted to the Gallon Hill, which is situated at the southeast part of the new town. It should be called Monumental Hill. Here is the new observatory, which was erected and is sustained by an asso- ciation called the " Astronomical Institution." This is fitted up with the necessary instruments. Here also are some beautiful monuments : one to the memory of Nelson ; to Dugald Stewart; to David Hume ; to the poet Burns ; and to Professor Playfair. But the most remarkable is one which has been designed and commenced on the model of the ancient Parthenon of Athens, and called a " national monument." It is to be a Christian tem- ple of worship and a place of sepulture. The foundation was laid in the presence and under the patronage of the king, George IV., in 1822. The portion finished has cost thirteen thousand five hundred pounds, and the edifice seems but just commenced. The columns that have been reared, however, are indescribably beau- tiful, formed of entire blocks of white freestone from the Craig- leith quarry, one and a half miles west of the city ; the same ma- terial as that with which the principal part of the new town is con- structed.
Another splendid monument is that erected to the memory of the late Lord Melville, in St. Andrew's Square. This is built after the model of Trajan's column at Rome, with the exception that the shaft is fluted instead of being ornamented with sculpture. The height is one hundred and thirty-six feet, and is surmounted by a statue of Lord Melville fourteen feet in height. This was erected by the officers and seamen in the naval service, on the ground of his " unwearied and successful exertions to promote the interests of the British navy."
Another prominent point of Edinburgh is the castle. This is
660 SCOTLAND.
on the west end of the old town, on the top of a rugged rock, covering an area of about seven acres, and separated from the houses of the city by a space of about one hundred yards in width* It is a prominent and an imposing object, and was once a place of great strength. Here we saw the Scottish regalia. These had been a long time concealed, but were discovered by commis- sioners appointed for that purpose in 1818, in a large oaken chest. They are now kept in great state in the " crown-room," an apart- ment which has been fitted up for the purpose, under a crimson canopy, and guarded by two wardens, who wait there to attend upon strangers that call to view these relics. They consist of a crown, sceptre, and sword of state, and the lord-treasurer's rod of office.
We were expecting, when we visited the castle, to be enter- tained with the bagpipes as we went in at the regular review of the regiments stationed there. They played but little, however. This music, so celebrated in Scotland, is only interesting, I think, from its being national. It may sound well among the wild craigs of the Highlands, but it can hardly be called civilized music.
This castle has endured several sieges ; was the birthplace of James VI. of Scotland or James I. of England; and was the last fortress to yield to the regent after the imprisonment of Queen Mary. It is now, however, only used as barracks for sol- diers.
The Holyrood house is one of the most interesting ancient ed- ifices of Edinburgh. It is at the eastern extremity, and in quite the lowest part of this city of hills and valleys. It is a beautiful building, in a quadrangular form, built round a court of ninety-four feet square. It has castellated towers, and also circular and point- ed turrets, a cupola, &c. It is kept in a very good state of repair, but seems to be of little use at present, being rather kept, like the regalia of Scotland, for show, and as a remembrancer of the past. It affords a retreat for exiled royalty occasionally ; for here the Count d'Artois, afterward Charles X. of France, with the Dukes d'Angouleme and Berri, resided during their exile, and here the same royal family lodged a while after their second exile in 1831.
We were led to Queen Mary's apartments, and saw in one of the rooms her bed, and other furniture, and trinkets still remaining
EDINBURGH. 661
The curtains are of crimson damask, with green silk fringes and tassels ; it is, however, so decayed that it can hardly support its own weight. Into this room is a private passage, through which Darnley and his accomplices entered on the 9th of March, 1566, to murder Rizzio, Queen Mary's favourite. We were shown the little chamber- or closet, about twelve feet square, where the queen, and Rizzio, and a few domestics were at supper when the mur- derers rushed into the room. Rizzio took shelter behind the queen, but all to no purpose ; they dragged him out, and in the next apartment they murdered him, piercing his body with fifty- six wounds. They pretend still to show the stain in the floor made by his blood. Connected with the palace are the ruins of the ancient abbey, originally built in 11^8 by David I., as a mon- ument of his being miraculously delivered from a hart while hunt- ing here, which had turned upon him and endangered his life. The deliverance was by means of a miraculous cross put into his hands. Hence the name of Holyrood ; for rood signifies a pole or a rod, and sometimes a cross.
Time would fail me to speak of the many modern buildings which are specially worthy of notice ; they are numerous and very fine. Edinburgh boasts of a resemblance to the ancient seat of the arts, the classic Athens, and not without some propriety. Her classic architecture, her noble institutions, her philosophers, and her schools, place her high among the cities of modern times ; and, in the opinion of some, she is most elegant. It is difficult making just comparisons between cities, because their features are so unlike. Edinburgh is certainly, in many respects, peculiar. The two parts, old and new, have the appearance of being built on two parallel swells, running east and west, with the deep gulf already mentioned running between them ; but, on further exam- ination, we find the old town especially divided into still smaller eminences, with deep cuts between, so that, while you are passing over a bridge on a level with the street, you look off and see an- other street far below and directly under you, running in the other direction. This it is that gives rise to the high houses so often spoken of. At the base of a hill, by the side of a street in the valley, they begin to build, and, after running up several stories to- wards the top of the hill and against its side, the edifice changes fronts, and opens on the opposite side upon another street. This 56
662 SCOTLAND.
becomes the ground-floor to those high-street gentlemen, and of the poor fellows that live below they know nothing. They belong to another section of the city. The old town has interest in it, but. the new has elegance and beauty.
The literary and benevolent institutions and associations of Edinburgh are numerous. It has a great number of hospitals well endowed and well conducted. As in many other cities of the United Kingdom, the different trades are all incorporated, and none can do business in those trades without being regularly ad- mitted by the respective fraternities. Of these there are fourteen ; one of which, however, is the college of surgeons, who are put down among the trades, because formerly here, as in many other places in Europe, the barbers were imbodied with the surgeons, and shaving was, in fact, considered a part of a surgeon's profes- sion and business, as>though the same person must cut hair who amputated limbs. They are now separate, however. These trades formerly had the privilege of choosing each a deacon or delegate to the town council. The Merchant Company, which also was incorporated, chose the remainder, the whole amounting to thirty-three. In 1833, however, this close-borough system, which extended, in some form of limitation, to all the royal burghs, was broken up by an act of parliament, so that now all have an equal right to vote for town magistrates who can vote for mem- bers of parliament.
The magistracy of Edinburgh consists of these thirty-three counsellors, who choose a lord provost and four bailies from their number.
Edinburgh is not immediately accessible by ships ; its port is Leith, two miles distant. There is a fine street extending from the city to Leith, and now mostly built the entire distance. The population of Leith in 1831 was twenty^five thousand eight hun- dred and fifty-five, and of Edinburgh one hundred and sixty-two thousand one hundred and fifty-six.
There is much in and about Edinburgh to be visited, and which it might be interesting to describe, but I must hasten.
We left Edinburgh September twenty-first for the north of England. Our ride, for the most part, was without any special in- terest. We occasionally found some battle-fields and some old
602
beet the
noii^
.eh, however, is tiie coiier; ttown among the trades, because former! v places in Europe, the barbers .were imbodied_ with th< and shaving was, in fact, coi a part of a surgeon's f
r who
bs. They are now \ the pr;
,v-n council. The Me* oorated, chose
Th- coun- number.
Edii Leiii- ^the city I population of / dred and fift} thousand one hundred and fifty- •
There is much in an- it might be interesting to^describe, b
We left Edinburgh September tv. i for the
md. Our ride, for the most part, was without any , We occasion^: ule-fieldi
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. 663
castles ; among others, at a little distance from us, Abbotsford Abbey, the residence of Sir Walter Scott.
i The moors are a desolate region on the borders between Eng- land and Scotland, mountainous, and covered with peat and heath- er, forming a natural boundary between the two countries. These moors contain an abundance of fine game, and are let out for sporting at a yearly or monthly rent.
Our first day's ride was one hundred and four miles, to New- castle-upon-Tyne. Here we found ourselves in the midst of the coal region ; and it is to their coal, in fact, that this section owes its wealth and importance. To the different coalbeds railroads are constructed ; and so numerous are these in some neighbour- hoods, that they appeared more frequent than the cart-paths in a common farming country.
Newcastle, as its name imports, is situated on the river Tyne, which is navigable here for vessels of three or four hundred tons. The larger vessels stop at Shields, at the mouth of the river, twelve miles from Newcastle. This town is rather crowded, and many of the streets are very steep, as it is built upon a very hilly site. We had an opportunity, however, of seeing very little of it, as we hastened on to Yorkshire to fulfil engagements previously made. The town is situated in quite the south part of the county of Nor- thumberland, the most northern county of England, and contains about forty-three thousand inhabitants. It exports six hundred thousand chaldrons of coal in a year ; and, in addition to this, it exports lead, salt, salmon, grindstones, and some of her ships are engaged in the Greenland fisheries. It manufactures iron, and steel, and woollen cloth, and glass. It is matter of history, that coal was dug here, under the patronage of royal charter, as early as the thirteenth century, although, about a century afterward, it was forbidden, by royal proclamation, to use coal for fuel in London, because it prevented the sale of wood, which abounded in the neighbourhood of the city. How strangely have times altered ! I have not seen a wood fire in England, Ireland, or Scotland. The very bowels of the earth seem to be in a progress of being dug out; the very rivers are undermined,. and whole districts of coun- try in some places are settling down to fill up the excavations.
Our route from Newcastle was to York, seventy miles, through, for the most part, a beautiful and rich country. We passed
664 ENGLAND.
through the town and county of Durham. Durham is situated on a rocky eminence, in a bend of the river Wear, which flows al- most round it. The ancient and imposing castle is now the palace of the Bishop of Durham. Here are also the remains of an old abbey, which is quite an interesting ruin ; and a newly-founded college or university ; population ten or eleven thousand. The Cathedral is a noble pile, rising up from an eminence eighty feet above the level of the river, four hundred feet in length, and with a principal tower two hundred and fourteen feet in height. The see of Durham is said to be the richest in England.
The coachman and many of the passengers could talk of little else but the Doncaster races. These are annual, about the last of September, and continue four days. The English excel all others, I believe, in their fondness for strife to obtain mastery in all pos- sible forms. In some of these, such as boxing, cock-fighting, &c., they retain savage customs for the gratification of this de- praved principle; and then they have their races, their running and walking matches, their boatraces, their steeple-chases, and the like, among all ranks, and to the great gratification of all grades of society. In Bristol it appeared to me that almost the whole city, men, women, and children, were out at a boatrace. Often you will see in the private parlours of the principal hotels a print of some celebrated pugilist, as he appeared when he was fighting so and so, with an account of all his celebrated fights where he had whipped and been whipped ! One would think that such exhibitions would shock a refined and a Christian nation ; but here they are exhibited as very desirable ornaments to gentlemen's and ladies' parlours ! Some of the noblemen and great characters of the nation encourage these races and fights. They say it keeps up the spirit of the na- tion ; ay, truly, if the spirit of the nation is the spirit of Satan. But the fact is, the entire course of education in England, and especially at their higher seminaries, their public schools and universities, is on the principle of rivalry and ambition. A spirit in its nature the very opposite of the gospel, and well calculated to gender strifes, oppositions, and efforts of rivalry through life.
We spent two nights in the ancient city of York, where we were kindly received by friends to whom we had introductions, and were much entertained by the interesting objects of the city, and espe- cially by the York Minster or Cathedral, which is the great lion
YORK MINSTER. 665
of the place. This cathedral is one of the finest and largest Gothic structures in the world. It is in the form of a cross, and both the nave and the transept have each two aisles. It has a lan- tern in the centre, and a beautiful choir. This latter, however, was mostly consumed by fire in 1829, together with the splendid screen that separated it from the nave and the organ. This fire was the work of a fanatical incendiary by the name of Jonathan Martin, who got the impression that he was commissioned from on high to oppose the established church especially, and do what he could towards humbling its pride. And how could he do this better than to burn this magnificent temple ? He was acquitted before a judicial tribunal on the ground of insanity ; and was committed as a lunatic to St. Luke's Hospital in London. The part destroyed, however, has been beautifully restored. The greatest length of this edifice is five hundred and twenty-four feet and a half ; that of the transept two hundred and twenty-two feet ; the choir is one hundred and thirty-one ; the nave two hun- dred and sixty-four in length, one hundred in breadth, and ninety- nine in height. Its towers are two hundred and thirty-four feet high. Some of its windows are very fine, with rich painted glass. " The east window" says one, " is the wonder of the world for masonry and glazing." It is divided into two hundred compart- ments, and the subjects of the paintings are chiefly selected from the Bible. The glazing was a three years' work. The window is seventy-five feet high and thirty-two broad. The new organ is a splendid affair ; it has four thousand five hundred pipes, some of which are twenty inches in diameter. The screen is of the florid Gothic, but so completely is the stone cut up by the re- markable sculpture, that the solidity is destroyed, and the airy screen stands forth in all the open tracery of a reticulated gossa- mer's web ; more heavy, certainly, but copied as far as great things can imitate small. The columns are clustered, and support arches of surprising height and span. There are also in the church many sepulchral monuments, but I cannot stop to describe either these or the house itself minutely. I had heard much of this wonderful edifice, but it quite equalled my expectations. A book might be written in describing it.
York was once a residence for Roman emperors, and was long called the capital of the north of England. When it is known, 56 4P
666 ENGLAND.
however, that its population is only about twenty-eight thousand it will hardly be supposed to be entitled now to that appellation , Its situation on the river Ouse is not favourable for commerce, as only vessels of small burden can come up to the city. As it is the capital and seat of justice for the largest county in England, and also the seat of a bishop's see, it derives from these circum- stances considerable importance.
Yorkshire, of which York is the capital, is in length, from east to west, one hundred and fifteen miles, and in breadth eighty, and contains three millions, eight hundred and forty-seven thou- sand, four hundred and twenty acres ; larger, in fact, than several of our small states. This county is not the most important in agricultural products; some parts are comparatively barren, and not a little portion broken and mountainous. Yorkshire, however, is a most important section of England in point of manufactures.
In our route from York to Leeds, twenty -four miles, we crossed a bold bleak mountain covered with peat and heather. Through this mountain, three miles, a canal passes ; but, as we were in a stagecoach, we had to mount it, and upon the top we had plenty of rain and tempest ; but, descending, we had something worse, an ac- cident which was, apparently, in a hair's breadth of proving fatal. The crossbar to which the whiffletrees are attached broke, and let the traces upon the horses ; this frightened them into a run, and threw them mostly out of the control of the coachman. He succeeded, however, as we approached a team, to turn them a little one side, in doing which the wheel struck a stone, and the coach ran for some feet on a poise, leaving us for the moment in suspense whether we should settle down right or wrong side up. Fortunately, we came down, as they say in England, " all right," and the horses kept their speed to the foot of the mountain, when, passing the tavern where they were kept, they gradually abated their pace until they were stopped. Thus narrowly, through a kind Providence, did we escape a general wreck. These stage- coach wrecks are not uncommon in this country ; several have come under our notice since we have been here. Their horses are high-mettled, their loads large and very topheavy, so as to be easily capsized, and their speed great ; so that, with the best and smoothest roads in the world, they nevertheless often get wrecked.
Our lodging while at Leeds, as in most other cases when we
LEEDS. 667
were entertained by private hospitality, was a little out of town. In this case it was at a little earthly paradise called Roundhey, three miles from Leeds, in the hospitable mansion of Thomas Burton, Esq., a gentleman of noble feeling and cheerful tempera- ment, well calculated to enjoy life himself, and make everybody happy around him ; and, in this respect, seemed happily connected with an amiable wife, and blessed with pleasant children. Nor was the pleasure of our lodging limited to the family. Here was a little neighbourhood of piety, courtesy, and intelligence ; a lovely specimen of the appropriate blending of refinement and de- votion. With such a family and in such a circle we could not but enjoy much during the brief period of our stay, which was about one week. Our intercourse, too, with the town was consid- erable, and our acquaintance pleasant. With every facility for visiting the town, we had no occasion to regret that we did not lodge in it ; nor do I wonder that almost all who are able prefer a residence out of the smoky manufacturing towns of England. They are constantly enveloped in a dense cloud of smoke, and, foi much of the time, very dirty.
Leeds, with its liberty, contains one hundred and twenty-four thousand inhabitants. The principal business is the manufacture of broadcloth. It has also manufactories of linen, thread, sack- ing, canvass, kerseymeres, carpets, and cotton. It has water con- nexion with both seas ; with the North Sea by the river Aire, on which it is situated, and the Humber ; with the Irish Sea by the Liverpool canal.
Among the edifices there is little worthy of special notice. Like most of the principal towns of England, however, it has a philosophical and literary hall, and a very good museum, particu- larly rich in vegetable and animal fossils taken from the coal- mines. Here also we saw a mummy, which, according to the hieroglyphics, was named Natsif Amon, and lived in the reign of Rameses V.
The greater portion of cloth manufactured in and about Leeds is in a domestic way ; and we were informed that these small private manufactories were doing better than the large establish- ments. These small manufacturers only make the white cloth; it is purchased, dressed, and finished by the merchants. The quantities sold are immense, considering the time spent in trans-
668 ENGLAND.
acting the business. They have vast buildings called cloth halls, one for white cloth and one for coloured. These halls are very extensive, and have the appearance of a quadrangular range of buildings round one of the squares of the city. Here, on Tues- days and Saturdays, the cloth markets are held. The doors are thrown open at the ringing of the bell. The merchants go along by two rows of tables, arranged for the purpose, and covered with cloth ; few words are spoken ; the price is registered on a book, and the purchaser moves on to the next ; no bantering or extrava- gant recommendations ; each is his own judge, and decides im- mediately ; and the whole is finished in about an hour.
We visited some of the large factories, and were astonished at the immense business done here. The many strong representa- tions of children's being overworked, and put too young to service too severe for their age, appears not to be without good founda- tion, although they may have been overcoloured in some instan- ces. We saw many young children, pale and thin, who seemed to be poisoned by the warm and foetid atmosphere which they continually breathed, and worn down with too much labour. Many of these, doubtless, are put to this service by unfeeling pa- rents, who riot upon the lifeblood of their children, by working them, at this tender age, beyond due bounds, that they may have the more to consume on their licentious appetites. It seems to be the natural operation of business that products are reduced to the least possible productive price. This reduces the oper- ative to a bare livelihood ; and if to his necessities he adds ex- cesses, suffering must follow ; and if he is allowed to press his children into the work, his unfeeling, sensualized soul will be like- ly to avail itself of this means for his increased gratification. This excessive labour from early childhood prevents mental cultivation, and the rising generation become little else than mechanical au- tomatons in the performance of their task, and sensualists in their desires and indulgences. It is thus that the selfishness of man, no matter what shape it comes in, leads to the oppression of one part of our race by the other. Many good men see it and re- gret it, but they cannot turn the scale ; and seem obliged, for the time, if they do business in the world, to adopt the current features and habfts of the business community.
In no part of the kingdom, probably, has Methodism taken sucb
PROVINCIALISMS. 669
strong hold of the population as in Yorkshire ; and the character of the people gives their religion a peculiar cast. They are an ardent people ; the commonalty very simple in their manners, but apparently remarkably sincere in their piety. Their dialect is very strong and expressive, at the same time that it is very odd ; this gives their religious communications a peculiar cast, and all their conversation, in fact, a remarkable interest. One of them, in a lovefeast, who had been very wicked, was saying he was the greatest sinner in the world. Another, sitting behind him, pulled his coat, and, in a suppressed voice, said, "John ! John ! yo? for- gets Tm here /" One is tempted to ask them questions just to hear their answers. Their prepositions and conjunctions are mixed up and interchanged for each other in such grotesque order, and their vowels are sounded so queerly, that every sentence is amusing. The following answer to the question "when will your master return ?" put to a woman who kept the gate at a porter's lodge, is quite tolerable compared with many : " If he don't come for the end of the week, he will be here as Thursday next !" The dialects of the different sections of the country vary much from each other, and all very much from good English. I speak, of course, of the lower classes. Between them and the common peo- ple in the United States there is no comparison ; the latter are al- together before them in speaking the English language. Many parts they speak so badly, I find it almost impossible to under- stand them. Mrs. Trollope, among other things, has undertaken to give specimens of our provincialisms. These, however, are almost all evident fabrications, for she has given those of her own country, and none of ours. The truth is, the English are sur- prised that any persons from America should speak the language with grammatical propriety. It was often remarked to us, that they thought it singular we should speak the English language so well. One gentleman, a respectable banker, concluded I must have come from one of the West India Islands, where I had had good opportunities of associating with the English from home. Others supposed we were English born, and had emigrated to the United States, from which we had returned on a visit. Some per- sons of respectability gravely inquired whether the English lan- guage was generally spoken in the United States; and others, whether our citizens were generally white. One young lady, in
670 . ENGLAND.
a very respectable dining-party, remarked that she could not beal to hear of the United States, they were such savages there. On being told by one of the ladies that Mrs. Fisk was from that country, she replied, she supposed, of course, she was not born there !
• The truth is, the English, as a whole, know much less of us than we do of them. Of course I do not speak of all. There are many who know us well ; many who have travelled in the United States ; many others who do business with us ; others, again, who, as statesmen or as scholars, know us because they know all the world ; but these are few in comparison with the many who know little of us. And it seems to be the object of many of the tory newspapers to perpetuate this ignorance, or, rather, what is worse, to magnify our vices and follies, and conceal our virtues. Every little mob or local outrage, of which we certainly have too many, enough to make us blush and be ashamed, is magnified, and the whole represented as the legitimate result of republicanism ; and as being not exceptions to the general state of things, but the pre- vailing characteristics of the nation. Even the " Watchman," a paper in London devoted to the interests of the Methodists, con- descends sometimes to give currency to such representations. I mention this not by way of censure or complaint, but to show how extremely prevalent such sentiments are ; sentiments which, while they tend to alienate the affections of the two nations from each other, do immense mischief to the cause of humanity and Christianity. The truth is, our mobs are fewer and much less violent than they are in the United Kingdom, and for most we have we are indebted to the recent emigrants from some of the British isles. If his majesty would keep all such of his subjects at home as are disposed to be factious, we should have very lit- tle trouble in all our maturely organized states in maintaining the authority of the laws. It is greatly to be hoped that this country may soon know us better, and then she will do us bet- ter justice.
But I had commenced speaking of the Methodism of Yorkshire when I struck off into the preceding episode. As Yorkshire is the Goshen of Methodism, so Leeds is the capital. The chapels here are large and well built ; of several belonging to the town, three will hold two thousand five hundred each, Near one of
DISSENTERS.— QUAKERS. 671
these is still standing an old chapel where Mr. Wesley first called for volunteers for the United States ; and the spot is pointed out in which Messrs. Boardman and Pilmore rose up and said, " We will go" This was the beginning of the cause in America. " How great a fire a little matter kindleth." The circuits belong- ing to Leeds give six thousand nine hundred and fifty-four* mem- bers ; add to these the members of the Manchester circuits, five thousand two hundred and fifty-four,! and of Sheffield four thousand five hundred and seventy-nine, and we have for these three towns, two of Yorkshire and one on its very borders, and their immediate villages, a membership of sixteen thousand seven hundred and eighty-six.
The dissenters also flourish well in these towns. The first Sabbath we spent in Leeds was the time of the annual effort for the missionary cause among the dissenters. We went to hear Rev. Mr. Parsons, who was represented as one of their most cel- ebrated speakers. He had a very offensive impediment in his speech, and appeared, withal, to have memorized his sermon, so that the performance was, in that respect, too much like a re- hearsal. It had, however, some force, and native fire, and brilliancy in it. I must confess that most of the dissenting preaching I heard there had too much of the artificial about it ; a straining after the brilliant in style. This detracts very much from the pleasure, and still more from the profit of listening to their discourses. Rev. Mr. Binney, of London, however, was an exception to this remark.
There are quite a number of Quakers also in Yorkshire. With a very intelligent member of this society I commenced an acquaint- ance at Bristol, and resumed it while in Leeds. From him I learned more of the existing controversy among the Friends in England than I had before known. It appears that the same doctrinal questions which have divided those societies in the United States are deeply agitated here ; and are in great danger of dividing the English societies also. A Mr. Crewdson, of Manchester, who has been a very active member in the Bible cause, perceiving that the leven of Elias Hicks was working in England, wrote a small book,
* At Leeds, a few years since, there was quite a schism in the society on account cf the introduction of an organ into the chapel. Their numbers have increased more rap- idly since than before, and so have organs here and elsewhere. Most of the principal •Chapels in the large towns have organs.
f Manchester has lost more than two thousand by the late schism.
672 ENGLAND.
called the " Beacon," in which he pointed out the errors of Hicks, and ably refuted them, warning the Friends of England to be on their guard against those dangerous heresies. For this book he was arrested by the society ; and, finally, his authority as a public teacher taken from him, and they are still labouring with him. He has published a " defence" of his " Beacon." The ground ob- jected to is, that he has departed from the original doctrine of the Friends, especially in the doctrine of the operations of the spirit. He has, as they think, attributed too much to the letter and too little to the spirit. He acknowledges that he differs from Barclay, Fox, Penn, and others, but claims he is right according to the Scriptures. In this he seems to have mistaken the question ; for the question is not whether the Quakers are right, but whether Isaac Crewdson is a Quaker. If the Quakers are wrong, as he maintains, it does not follow that, as a member of the society, he has made up the right issue. If he can convince them, very well ; if not, he cannot complain that, true to their own rules, they discard him. The truth is, as I think, he is in the main right; and if he can convince the whole society that they are wrong, it will be a great achievement. Many are convinced, and the result, be the issue of his trial as it may, will be disastrous to the integ- rity of the body. The Quakers are much less numerous than one would think who has noticed the prominency of this sect in sci- ence and in benevolent institutions, public subscriptions, &c., and who has noticed the frequency of the well-known dress in the pub- lic streets. Twenty thousand is the utmost limit that I have heard them estimated at in the United Kingdom.
The Woodhouse Grove School, belonging to the Wesleyan Conference, is in this neighbourhood. We rode out to it, and were much pleased with our excursion. Its location is as fine as that of Kingswood is dull. The hills were covered with verdure, and the scenery was picturesque. I addressed the boys, visited all the grounds and apartments, and was pleased with everything I saw connected with the establishment, except the fact noticed here and at Kingswood, that the poor boys seem homeless for the want of some spot they might call their own, where to deposite their toys, to write a letter, to read, or to think. This keeping boys always in a flock is not, in my opinion, the best way. There is, in this way, a set of feelings, an important class of mental
673
states, that are never cultivated, to say nothing of the irksomeness of such a situation.
The wisdom of the Conference is exhibited, both here and at Kingswood, in the selection they have made for governors to the schools. They are the patriarchs of their respective establish- ments, and their wives are an honour to their station and to their sex, The value of these schools to the nation and to the Methodist cause may be. inferred from the fact, that there are now in the Methodist ministry about fifty who were sons of Methodist minis- ters, and most of whom were educated in these schools.
In going and returning on this excursion we passed the beauti- ful ruin of Kirkstall Abbey, founded in 1157 for monks of the Cistercian order. It is in a picturesque vale, through which passes the river Aire. The crumbling turrets and splendid Gothic windows are hung round with the mantling ivy, and the courts are overgrown with trees, through which the whispering winds seem still to preserve, in undying echoes, the low muttered prayers, the vespers, and the matins of the long-since-departed brotherhood.
With more than usual regret we parted with our friends in Leeds, where, notwithstanding a severe cold caught on the top of a stagecoach in coming from Scotland had greatly curtailed my social and public pleasures and duties, we had, nevertheless, en- joyed a week of uncommon interest. But we were only ex- changing one scene of hospitality and fellowship, of interesting observation and remark, for another ; one company of most at- tentive and courteous friends for another. The English improve upon acquaintance ; and, in addition, when once the stranger is fairly introduced and becomes generally known, their natural re- serve and coldness towards him is thrown off. On these accounts we found the longer we stayed in the country, the more pleasant our stay ; save that home, a departure for which was drawing near, naturally occupied more of our attention, and exerted over our feelings a constantly-increasing attraction. At night, when we retired, we thought and talked of home ; in the morning, when we awoke, the sound of " home, sweet home" rung in our ears like the distant music of an ^Eolian harp inviting us away. The com- pany, and the numerous objects and occupations of the day, how- ever, broke the spell, and kept our minds in active interest. After a ride of forty-six miles we entered Manchester, and were 57 4Q
674 ENGLAND.
surprised to see, as we entered the town, my own name, in pro* digious capitals, stuck up in every place of public bills. The first associations were not very pleasant. In our country we put up these public bills for playactors and harlequins, and for thieves. I was not a performer on the stage. Could it be that " a hue and cry" was out after me for some crime ? The associated thought, however, was very transient, since I had before seen the like in England for holier purposes. Besides, I saw on the same bill the name of Doctor Bunting, in whose company no one need be afraid to be found under any circumstances. The doctor and myself were to preach the next day, and take up a collection for that poor unfortunate chapel which had been the bone of contention in the late chancery suit, and which was deeply involved in debt, at the same time that it had been stripped of its congregation by the secession**
This mode of advertising special public efforts in the cause of the church appears to me not only laudable, but very beneficial. Why should we, in this respect, suffer the children of this world to be wiser in their generation than the children of light ?
Another glaring and immense bill still hung from the public places in Manchester, announcing a public entertainment which had just passed, and one that has become very common in Eng- land, called a Musical Festival. These are got up at a great ex- pense, professedly with a view of aiding some public charities by the sale of the tickets ; but a great portion of the income is ab- sorbed by the expenditures. It is a strange mixture of worldly pleasure and religion, charity and profligacy. It is the spending of one pound for a good cause, for the purchase of an indulgence to spend five for questionable and decidedly sinful purposes. It is, in short, an attempt to sanctify worldly merriment, feasting, and rioting, by the sanctity of approved names and an intermixture of religious performances. With many the bait takes ; but most of the pious have discovered the snare, and have guarded them- selves against it. At this festival one celebrated Italian singer fell a martyr to her ambition — Madame Malibran. She was in- terred in the old Collegiate church, where, but a day or two before, she had charmed admiring thousands by the magic of her voice.
* This effort was to some good purpose. The collection was above four hundred pounds sterling, or about two thousand dollars, It is thus they do things in England.
COTTON-TRADE OF MANCHESTER. 675
When we arrived at the hotel we were met by friends to con- duct us to the residence of Percival Bunting, Esquire, son of the president of the Conference, where we lodged during our stay in Manchester. From this gentleman and his estimable lady, and their respective family connexions, we received such marks of at- tention and kindness as will always embalm their memory in our affection. Our stay, on the whole, in Manchester, was about two weeks. Our intercourse with many there, ministers and laymen, was of the most gratifying kind ; and the numerous manufacturing establishments which we visited, the different meetings we attend- ed, the various edifices and institutions we examined, were all sources of great interest. Upon these I cannot dwell in detail.
Manchester is the great cotton mart. All over the town and all around it, and in the neighbouring towns and villages, cotton- factories abound. Manchester seems, from a very early date, to have been a manufacturing town ; but its principal growth, and the growth of its manufactures and trade, have been mostly since the commencement of the seventeenth century. From the close of the seventeenth to about the middle of the eighteenth century the cotton-trade had nearly doubled ; but this was still small ; and it was not until after 1769 that those improvements in machinery which have been the making of the cotton-trade were introduced, one after another, by Arkwright, Hargreaves, Crampton, and oth- ers. Crampton invented the mule-jenny in 1779. He, like most of inventers, died in poverty, but the world has been enriched by his genius. These and other improvements, some of which have been introduced from America, have had a tendency to change the entire character of the manufacture. Instead of spinning and weaving in families, in a domestic way, the factory -system was introduced. Large establishments and concentrated operations under one roof were the result. The gain, in point of political economy, has been immense ; the advantage to morals, to personal independence and happiness, is more questionable.
Some idea may be formed of the great increase of this trade by the following statements.
In 1829, seven millions of spindles were in operation. In 1835, eleven millions, one hundred and fifty-two thousand, nine hundred and ninety. In 1800, fifty-six millions of pounds of cotton were imported into England. In 1834, two hundred and ninety-five
675 ENGLAND.
millions, six hundred and eighty-four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven pounds. In 1835, three hundred and thirty millions, eight hundred and twenty-nine thousand, eight hundred and thirty- four pounds.
It is thought that such arrangements are now preparing as will increase the number of hands in the cotton-trade to forty-five thousand eight hundred and fifty more than the present number ; and the business is supposed already to give support to one mil- lion five hundred thousand persons.*
We went into one factory where were six or seven hundred looms in one room. It was magnificent to see and deafening to hear. It was lighted by a succession of roofs in the following form /l/l/l, the perpendicular parts of which were all glass windows. Thus, by standing on one side of the vast room, you see a profusion of light, but no windows ; but, by standing on the other side, you see a continual succession of windows.
In addition to cotton cloth, there are factories for small cotton- wares, such as bobbins, tapes, &c., with very curious machinery ; a factory for the Mackintosh or water-proof cloth ; for the India- rubber webbings, &c., &c. ; and also very extensive silk manu- factories. These, however, are on the decline. They hardly found themselves able to compete with the Continent in this trade, notwithstanding their machinery is far superior to that of the French or Italians ; owing, I suppose, to the difference in the price of labour and to the difference in the climate.
Manchester contains about one hundred and fifty thousand in- habitants ; or, if you include Salford, which joins it, and does, in fact, form a part of it, as much as Southwark is a part of London, you have about two hundred thousand; or, if you include the whole of what is called Manchester parish, which contains a num- ber of neighbouring villages, you have nearly or quite three hun- dred thousand. I make these different statements to show how many different and seemingly contradictory accounts may be given of the population of many of the English towns, growing out of the difference in the extent comprehended in the estimate.
In our way to Sheffield we stopped one night at Stockport, with our excellent friend Reverend F. A. West, who was a fel-
* The late disastrous change in affairs will undoubtedly put a great check upon these arrangements.
DERBYSHIRE PEAK. 677
low-lodger with us at Birmingham. Stockport is another appen- dage of the Manchester trade, six miles distant, containing about sixty thousand inhabitants, and an abundance of factories, some of which are very large. One of them has in one room, or shed, as they call them, twelve hundred looms. As soon as one is outside of Manchester, where he can look off at a distance, his first im- pression is, that the entire environs and neighbouring villages are filled with monumental towers, running up towards the clouds from one to three hundred feet ; but, as a black column of smoke is rolling from the top of them, he soon perceives they are con- nected with the manufactories. They are built thus high, partly and chiefly, I believe, because they secure in this way a better draught and a more perfect combustion, and also because the smoke is carried off better and with less annoyance in the higher regions of the atmosphere. There is also some pride and ambi- tion in building to a height that will equal or outcap their neigh- bours.
The distance to Sheffield from Manchester is thirty-eight or forty miles. Our route was over what is called Derbyshire Peak, and through the town of Castleton. In this route we had some of the finest scenery that England can boast of. The mountains, like all other mountains of Great Britain, are without trees, and covered with heather and peat. Over their bald heads the road winds its course, while at every turn the romantic vales, and scattered villages, and winding streams below, present new and charming aspects. At the top of the peak we passed Mam Tor, or the shivering mountain, which receives its name from its trem- bling occasionally. The secret of this is, the mountain is com- posed of shale and gritstone. The shale is decomposed by the frost and rain, and, as the mountain is nearly perpendicular, it falls off and rolls into the valley below, producing a great noise, which is often heard at some distance. Here are strong indica- tions of violent convulsions and extraordinary geological changes. Marine exuvia are found here. Mines under the foot of the mountain, at the depth of one hundred feet from the surface, ex- hibit the phenomenon of trees found entire ; and the whole shows that a part of the mountain has fallen off and covered the valley below. We passed through a chasm called the Winnets, a con- traction, as is supposed, of Windgates, because, from its elevation 57
678 ENGEAND.
and the peculiar conformation of the mountains, the wind presses through with great force.
As you descend, the vale of Castleton lies before you ; and near the bottom is the lead mine called Odin (so named by the ancient Saxons, who also wrought this mine). It is a rare perpendicular vein, the top of which is in the shale, but the ore is principally in the limestone. It is worked horizontally more than a mile. This entire region is peculiarly rich in rare minerals. Here, and here only, in a mountain called Win Hill, is found the beautiful fluor spar called blue John. We found at a shop in Castleton, oppo- site to the inn where we stopped, numerous superb ornaments made of this spar. It occurs in massy crystallizations, and ex- hibits the most beautiful and rich colours, and in veins that seem wreathed into festoons by Nature in her most sportive mood.
Castleton takes its name from Peveril Castle, which stands on a hill near by. These hills and mountains are also full of caverns, some of which are very remarkable ; the most so is that called Peak's Hole. We did not enter it, as our stay would not permit. The description of it is, that the entrance is by a lofty arch sev- enty feet in height and one hundred and twenty feet span, and the length of the first hall is one hundred and eighty feet. After passing a narrow aperture, part of the way by water, another hall is reached, two hundred and fifty feet in length, two hundred in width, and one hundred and twenty in height, and then another, and so on, to the distance, in the whole, of two thousand two hun- dred and fifty feet from the entrance. The whole is through a limestone formation, with frequent specimens of calcareous spar. There is another cavern, called the DeviVs Hall> which conducts you six hundred feet below the surface. Our time and circum- stances, however, forbade our spending time to examine these won- derful curiosities.
Our ride through the vale and along the Derwent Water was delightful ; again we mounted a high range of hills and another bleak aspect of moors. We passed the region, too, where Mary Queen of Scots was for a long time confined, and a part of the do- mains of the Duke of Devonshire, whose almost unbounded wealth cannot sustain his boundless profligacy ; and, arriving at Sheffield in the afternoon, we took lodgings, according to previous arrange- ment, with Mr. Henry Longden, son of him of the same name
THE POET MONTGOMERY. 679
whose memoirs are so favourably known in the United States. With this kind and hospitable family we spent several days, and through their introduction we made many agreeable acquaintances in this interesting town; among others, Mr. John Holland, the author of the life of Rev. John Summerfield, and the poet James Montgomery, Esq. With Mr. Montgomery we were much pleased. We spent an evening with him, and had his company also from Sheffield to Manchester. Mr. Montgomery's age is about sixty- three or sixty-five ; under the common size ; his hair white and head bald on the top ; a most beautifully turned and symmetrical forehead, large nose, short chin, small face, and a large, floating blue eye, worthy, certainly, of his poetic fame. He was very so- ciable, and expressed himself on a variety of topics with much ease. He said, in writing poetry, he knew of no inspiration but what was gained by close thought and hard study. His " Pelican Island," he said, was continually floating in his mind, in dim and undefined outlines, for two or three years ; but he could get no satisfactory view of it, until, from a view of a natural landscape, the whole burst upon him at once almost, so that he went to his desk " arid poured the contents of liis inkstand upon the paper"
Mr. Montgomery also remarked that this was not the age of poetry ; that poets and poetry were at a great discount. The age was too political, too commercial, too business-like, and too pros- perous for poetry.* He seems, however, to write still, at least some short and fugitive pieces, in proof that neither age nor the spirit of the times can check the poetic emotions of his own heart His poems have lately been collected and published in three vol- umes, a copy of which he presented to our university. He also presented Mrs. Fisk with a little volume of poems, accompanied by a manuscript copy of an original poem by himself.
Mr. Montgomery stands very high in Sheffield, and deservedly so. He is much interested in the missionary cause, in schools, and in various benevolent institutions. He is a Moravian in liis church relationship ; but, as there is no Moravian society in Shef- field, his usual practice is to attend the established church once a day, and once at the Methodist chapel. For many years Mr.
* Speaking of American poets, Mr. Montgomery said he thought they succeeded best when they wrote American poetry ; whea it was inspired by the scenes and events of their own country.
680 ENGLAND*
Montgomery was editor of the Sheffield Iris, a paper that was de- voted to the cause of liberty ; and so free was the editor in ex- pressing his sentiments of the ruling powers and their measures, that he was twice imprisoned at York, and fined fifty pounds. These were such political offences as, at the present, are as current as the periodicals of the day. This fact, more than anything else, shows the change that has passed over the British nation within the present century. The Iris has been out of Mr. Montgomery's hands for a number of years, and has degenerated into a low rad- ical paper ; a grade of politics with which the former editor has, I believe, no sympathy. Sheffield, however, as well as Manches- ter and Birmingham, and most of the new manufacturing towns, is decidedly whig in its politics.
The great business of Sheffield, as the world knows, is cutlery. Plating, also, and the best, perhaps, in the world, is carried on here, as also the casting of stoves, grates, and hollow-ware. SteeJ making is also a great branch of business here. We went through various establishments in these different departments of business.
In the manufacture of steel there are three processes by which the different kinds are produced. When iron is baked, blistered steel is the result ; by repeated casting, cast steel ; and by re- peated and thorough weldings or kneadings, shear steel. Steel is beginning to be made in the United States, as also many other of the Sheffield products ; and, by means of the tariff, we are sup- planting many of these products, so far as our own consumption is concerned. This was a subject of complaint among the produ- cers there, and one gentleman undertook to convince me that our protecting duties were all wrong; and, if they must be perpetual, so doubtless they are, except in such peculiar products as may be necessary for a nation's defence and support, and which are li- able to be cut off by international wars ; but as the protection of our iron products, as well as some others, is proposed only to give an opportunity to call out and make fair proof of the resources of our country, I did not feel all the force of his arguments, espe- cially as I could not but think they all had in them a large mix- ture of self-interest.
Mr. Rodgers's knife, razor, &c., manufactory was one of the greatest interest that I visited. It was the name I used to read
SHEFFIELD MANUFACTURES. 681
Upon my penknife in my boyhood, and this was the establishment where it was made. The reputation of the house is sustained, I believe, and their trade is great. In their showroom is a most splendid display of wares and toys. Among the latter is a fac- simile of a knife presented to the king, having two hundred blades and instruments of various kinds attached to one handle. Another knife, not bigger than a pheasant's egg, had seventy-five blades. There are a great many Lilliputian toys, one of which, a pair of scissors, Mrs. Fisk had presented to her, about half an inch in length. In short, if any one wishes to see the perfection of art, let him visit this shop. We followed through the various rooms, from the first rude block to the polished knife ; the changes are numerous.
Many of the workmen in the Sheffield business are very dis- solute in these times of prosperity ; they work only about half of the time, and, by means of the " trades' unions" and combina- tions, they control their masters and fix their own wages. This warfare between the employers and the employed is a most un- happy one to all parties. If the master does not submit, he is forsaken by his hands, and his contracts must fail. If the labour- ers do not submit, they are punished by their fellows with perse- cution and personal violence ; and all this, in most cases, that they may have the more time and the more money for idleness and rioting. The present is their harvest; a change of times will leave them at the mercy of their masters, and the result may be readily foreseen.
The grinders are a rough as well as a short-lived race, rarely exceeding the age of thirty-five years. This was stated especially of a class of grinders who occupy successively positions on a stream of water a little out of town. An invention has been made to protect them against inhaling the grit that is supposed to shorten their days ; but they said among themselves, in this way the bu- siness will be overstocked with hands, and will, of course, com- mand less wages ; with the motto, therefore, " a short life and a merry one," they discarded the aid, work on, and die prematurely to keep the business good !
Sheffield is situated in a valley, and the site itself is quite un- even ; this inequality, however, adds greatly to the interest of the
4R
682 ENGLAND.
town, and the scenery around is very fine. It has a population of about sixty thousand.
In Sheffield I found many warm-hearted and devout Christians ; indeed, I think I met with a greater number of truly fervent and deeply devoted Christians here than in any other place I visited in England. No Methodist in Sheffield asked me whether I thought religious revivals advantageous to the cause of Christianity. With these they are very familiar, and to them the church owes much of her prosperity.
In addition to the regular societies of the old connexion, the Kilhamites, or " New Connexion," have several chapels, and so also have the " Primitive Methodists," so called ; so that, taking the whole, there is probably a greater influence in favour of the general doctrines and principles of the Wesleyans in Sheffield, according to the population, than in most towns of the kingdom.
A proprietory school is about to be established here of a high character, under the patronage of the Methodists, for the purposes of general education ; the first of the kind in the connexion, with the exception of those for the ministers' children already noticed. Should these schools become common in Great Britain, and should they add to these a grand central collegiate institution, it would do more towards establishing their societies and keeping up their characteristic influence as a denomination than any other step they can now take.
We were nearly a weeK in Sheffield, and saw much that I can- not describe ; for I find I am swelling my volume beyond the limits of modern journals ; and, as there is a fashion in all things, if I am unfashionably long, I shall be counted dull and uninter- esting for this if for no other cause.
We returned to Manchester by a new route, over another sec- tion of the heights and moors, which was quite interesting, although not equal to the " Peak." During a few more days of delay at Manchester, I had an opportunity of attending several missionary meetings, this being the time for their annual visitation by the deputations appointed by Conference. These missionary efforts are generally introduced by a sermon ; then, in the week following, a platform meeting is got up, with a number of addresses, and fre- quently this is followed up by a missionary tea. In this way the public feeling is inspired in behalf of the cause, the fruits of which
ROUTE FROM MANCHESTER Tp LIVERPOOL. 683
are received, not merely in the public collections at the time, but in the silent streams that are flowing in through the year by means of the collectors, who go about and call on the individuals from whom they expect to receive aid, and by means of private dona tions, yearly subscriptions, &c.
On the nineteenth of October we bade farewell to our friends at Manchester, and started for Liverpool, which we reached in two hours ; passed in our way a natural curiosity in the form of a large bog, the largest we had seen, called Chat Moss. It is five miles wide and six long, and it is said to be thirty feet deep, and is very wet and spongy. The railroad passes through the centre of it.
We passed also on the route the little borough of Newton, which, before the Reform Bill, sent two members to parliament, although there did not appear to be half a dozen houses in the place, while the large town of Manchester had none. With such facts respecting the old representation, is it not strange that there should have been a single opposer to the Reform Bill ?
We found the tunnel of the railroad, as we enter Liverpool, completed ; by which we were conducted into the very heart of the town by passing two miles underneath the surface. In this way all annoyance to the town is avoided ; and, what is of more consequence in the present case, a hill is perforated. A most beautiful architectural front has been erected at the termination of the railroad, and convenient depots prepared.
We took lodgings at our old friend's, Thomas Sands, Esq. Here we spent a few days in preparing for our departure, during which a Sabbath intervened, and I preached my last sermon in Eng- land. And it may be in place here to remark, that, for the same length of time, I have never preached with so little satisfaction to myself as during my stay in England. This I attribute ma'inly to two causes. My health in England has been generally bad ; the climate, however healthy it may be to others, is wretchedly bad for me. The humidity of the atmosphere, combined with the abundant smoke, seems to be anything but salutary for weak lungs. Another cause is the almost entire want of ventilation in their chapels. They are very much afraid of the air, even in the warmest of the weather. Many of the chapels are so constructed, in fact, that they cannot be ventilated except by a contrivance ihey have of raising one> or, at the farthest, two squares in a win-
684 ENGLAND.
dow , and where they might ventilate they take no pains to do it. The consequence is, as might be expected, with crowded congregrations a man with weak lungs can do but little. The physical effort to speak so as to be heard reacts upon the mind, and language and ideas fail with the voice.
The construction of their houses, also, is a violation of all the approved principles of acoustics. The pulpit is a sentry-box, just about big enough to bury one in a perpendicular posture up to the middle ; and is elevated high in air, with the altar, and frequently some " free sittings" in the rear ; so that it is in advance from the end of the chapel about one fourth of the distance towards the op- posite end. This position, with a high ceiling to help on the em- barrassment, makes the whole an awkward and a heavy business. The truth is, they have been so accustomed on the eastern conti- nent to houses of worship constructed for anything rather than public speaking, that even when they build for public speaking their old habits and acquired tastes perpetuate the error. Happily for us in the United States, we have broken away from this error, however many new ones we may have acquired.
The Methodist chapels are, in the great whole, rented in slips to families, contrary to the practice in the greater portion of the Methodist churches in the United States ; all have, however, more or less of free sittings, and, in some instances, these free sittings are fenced out by a low partition from the other parts of the house, so that the occupants do not go in and out at the same door with the others ; nor can they approach the altar without passing out and coming in another way ; yet the English have no prejudice of caste ! All this sin lies at the door of Americans ! and some in England are schooling us most stoutly for our wicked distinc- tions ! If we have sins, we are certainly none the less guilty be- cause our neighbours have sins also ; but still there might be some advantage in having reprovers to whom the sentiment," Physician, heal thyself;" or that other, " First cast the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother's eye," did not apply with so much emphasis.
The church service is read in a great many of the Methodist chapels in the principal places of England and Ireland. It every- where> however, seems to be an appendage that does not belong to the system, and sits awkwardly upon it ; it is David in Saul's
REV. MR. M'NEAL. 685
armour. By saying this I mean nothing disrespectful of the church service. This is undoubtedly good, although the stereo- typed praises that are heaped upon it, which seem to forbid any complaint of any part of this venerable liturgy, is no part of my creed. It undoubtedly might be improved in many parts, and the Wesleyans do abridge it ; but a greater improvement, after all, would be for them to omit it altogether. There is not an agree- ment among them in reference to it; and I noticed, in those churches where the service was read, the attendance was limited compared with the congregation that got in by the time the extem- pore services commenced. It seems to be an attempt to incorpo- rate partially upon a system something redundant and foreign.
The last Sabbath evening before leaving Liverpool I called at the church of Rev. Mr. M'Neal, a church clergyman, whose zeal, evangelical sentiments, and reputed popular talents as a preacher had given him much celebrity. We found the house thronged, and could only get a standing position within the doors, where we stayed long enough to ascertain that, whatever merit may be at- tached to some of Mr. M'NeaPs performances, his discourse of that evening had nothing either of eloquence or logic to entitle him to the character of a great preacher. But no man should be judged by one discourse. It appears, however, that it takes much less tal- ents to make a man a popular preacher in the established church, if he only adopt a warm and an evangelical mode of preaching, than it does out of the establishment. This shows the strong feeling in favour of the national church.
Mr. M'Neal more than hinted at a sentiment that is getting quite common among a portion of those clergymen who are styled evangelical, viz., the doctrine of Chrisfs personal reign upon the earth. This is supposed to be connected with very extraordinary judgments, that will destroy a great portion of the inhabitants of the earth ; so that the triumphs of Christ's kingdom are not to be the triumphs of grace so much as the victories achieved by the ex- ertion of a destructive power, which shall purify the earth by de- populating it ; and then the Saviour is to erect his temporal and secular throne in the midst of the few in whom the Son of man, when he cometh, shall find faith on the earth.
This period is thought to be very near. Many expect to live to see it ; and one clergyman in Bedfordshire, I was told whea 58
686 ENGLAND.
there, had said he expected to walk arm in arm with the Lord Jesus Christ. This sentiment gives a peculiar cast to the religious character and preaching of those who embrace it. One of the bad effects is, that, to a great extent, it cuts off missionary efforts on the part of its advocates. Why should they engage in an enter- prise to convert the world when they never expect the world to be converted ?
Our host of Manchester, with his honoured father, the president of the Conference, came down to Liverpool, and spent the last night with us previous to our embarking for America. The lat- ter, with our hostess of Liverpool and other members of the fam- ily, accompanied us to the ship, and showed us all the kind atten- tion we could desire at our departure. A mournful pleasure made up the feelings of that morning. It was a matter of joy that we were about to embark for our much-loved country and home, but it was painful to part from friends whose faces we expected to see no more ; but they will live in our memory and in our affections.
England has disappointed me in some respects, and yet I can hardly tell why. Not a single feature had I imagined which I have not found, except, perhaps, she is more cold, more selfish, and more conceited than I had imagined ; and yet she is warm, and liberal, and of great moral worth. If these statements are paradoxical, I cannot help it. I draw the character as it appears. If you want to excite a whole nation for some real or imaginary wrong, a better subject than England cannot be found ; and yet, if she is invited to take the stranger by the hand, the motion is re- luctant, and the touch is cold and feeble. She has heat, but it re- quires strong friction to call it out; besides, it is more of a social than individual heat ; her combustibility is less like her own bitu- minous coal, and more like our anthracite. She burns best in masses and in a strong draught; but, when once ignited, the heat is intense.
I speak of selfishness and liberality, because these seem to me to be strangely mixed in the English character. Jf the inconve- nience and labour be indirect, and the proper occasion presents the English are liberal, they are munificent ; but if the labour and sacrifice be direct and immediate, they will not be bothered. They do noble things in a noble way. Of course I speak of general character and national tendencies. There are individual excep-
PASSAGE HOME. 687
tions ; and vital godliness, with other influences, greatly modify these national tendencies.*
The foreigner would not hesitate to accord to England a high rank ; possibly some might be willing to say, taking her all in all, the highest rank of moral and physical worth ; but he would choose to do it voluntarily, without prompting or demand on the part of her who is to be commended. It vexes him that she claims it ; that she has found out, at least, all her own excellences, and prizes them quite up to their real value, and demands of every stranger, as her right, that he should sign the verdict. And it vexes him more that, while she blazons her own excellences upon her crest, and publicly advertises them both at home and abroad, she will not own her faults ; and it vexes him most of all, that, not content with her own fame, she tries on all occasions to make him feel his inferiority.
But, " England, with all thy faults, I love" and honour " thee still." Shores of Albion, farewell ! Friends of England, farewell ! We meet no more till we meet above.
It was our good fortune to take passage in our old and tried sea- boat, the Roscoe, with our old and tried commander, Captain De- lano. We had also a kind, and, on the whole, very pleasant com- pany of cabin passengers. Our voyage, as the return voyages generally are, was some days longer than our passage out, extend- ing, from wharf to wharf, to twenty-nine days. Our seasickness, however, was not so excessive ; not that either Mrs. Fisk or my- self got over the disease ; I was as sick the last day but one as I had been at any period of the voyage ; but there were intervals of comfortable days, and the system was not so deranged and pros trated as in our outward-bound voyage. I will not, however, dwell on this subject' ; it is over, and it must be a strong call to induce me to try it again.
As my journal has been swelled beyond my original design, I will take up no more time or paper with reflections and comments, although much might be said that, perhaps, under other circum-
* I have reason to acknowledge English and Irish liberality, as they gave me about two thousand dollars for our university, including a donation of valuable books from the Conference worth one hundred pounds sterling. To this I ought to add a beautiful collection of plants and minerals by Rev. H. Fish, sent since I left, and worth, perhaps, one hundred pounds sterling.
688 CONCLUDING REMARKS.
stances, would not be without its interest. I cannot close, how ever, without recording our acknowledgments to that watchful and protecting Providence which has guarded us, in the most per- fect safety and exemption from injury, or insult, or pecuniary loss during a tour of about sixteen thousand miles, performed in the course of fifteen months, through some fifteen or twenty different sovereignties, whose inhabitants speak a great variety of different languages and dialects, and of whose laws and customs we were in many instances ignorant. Scarcely a casualty has befallen us worth recording ; little or no property stolen ; nothing of one dol- lar's value left by forgetfulness. In short, with the exception of the cases of sickness already mentioned, our entire journey has been prosperous. Wearied we have often been, from the reason, chiefly, that we had too much to accomplish in a given time , perplexed we have often been, as who would expect exemption from little vexations under such circumstances. Happily, how- ever, for man, the fatigue and the vexations pass away almost with the occasion, or are but dimly seen in the retrospective distance, while the prominent objects of observation and interest brighten in the sunshine of memory, and glow in increased beauty in the kindlings of an untiredand vivid imagination. With us, the wea- riness is gone, the perplexities are over, but the scenes are not faded, the events have not lost their interest. The welcome of friends, their kind inquiries, the oft-repeated question and answer, the sweets of home, the kindlings of patriotism which one expe- riences when, returning from foreign travel, he contrasts the cher- ished institutions of his own country with many he has visited abroad, all serve to prolong the vision and heighten the interest. One only drawback in this regard has fallen to my lot, and that is the preparation of this volume for the press. But this, too, is now finished, and its fate is committed to the judgment of the pub- lic. If that judgment prove favourable, the toil and the perplexity of the composition will also be forgotten.
THE END.
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